Missing Old Trafford

Moved away from Manchester last summer, and have not been at Old Trafford at all this season. And Im starting to really miss it.



Having attended 100+ matches over the last 15 years, being at OT was a normal part of my life. Week in week out, with 60,000+ others, cheering on United, shouting abuse at scouse, city, cockney opposition and when we got good tickets, which was quite often, this was all within a few yards of the players.



Now watching on TV, is okay. But as the season is hotting up it feels so remote. Not going to loose my voice watching it on TV, last time I did that was after the CL final in 99.



Over here they use long weekends to go over for a game, spend loads of money on flights and hotels and get crap seats. While before Id get a pair of 5th row tickets for £26 each, have quick pint in the Quadrant before kick off, and afterwards be home in half an hour.

Oh well, suppose its not much else I do miss from Manchester, (perhaps Didsbury pubs), and I can use my weekends to get into skiing and sailing again....

Spring

Held recently a presentation on Spring at TietoEnator and NetCom. It was a brief introduction to the Spring Framework and the IOC, MVC, JDBC, Hibernate, Acegi modules.

It was the same presentation , but the first one dragged on for 1.5 hours. At which point the audience was getting quite bored. The second wizzed past in 30 minutes. This time the audience probably did not catch a lot of what I said.

It is definetly not easy. Both times the projectors played up and caused a lot of grief. The first presentation included way too many examples. The second not enough.

If curious, the presentation is here, and all the examples are here.