Saturday 15th March 2008 at 1pm, Bridge Chapel, Garston.
David and Jos were finally getting married.
Dave and Jean put on their best, grabbed a taxi and headed down. The taxi driver had no idea where he was going. Luckily, good old Tom Tom was on hand to point them in the right direction. It would get them to the right area, then all they had to do was look for a chapel.
"Nope, not that one..."
"Not that one either..."
"Lets try down this way..."
Suddenly Jean called out to stop the taxi. "There it is!"
"Thats cheating..."
Bridge Chapel, should anyone ever wish to find it, does not look like a Chapel. It looks more like a school. Had Jean not have spotted it's name, they could have been driving around for days.
The service was lovely. Alot of smartly dressed guys and pretty looking girls scattered around and pleanty of gorgous flowers to keep Jean and her camera entertained. David looked incredibly happy and Jos looked stuning, so both very much as expected.
Hymns, talks and praise, then on with the ceremony.
"You may now kiss the bride."
David went in, Jos pulled back, everyone laughed. So much for the obedient bride.
That was the start of a wonderfully happy life time of love together.
Leasowe Castle, Wirral, 8pm. Reception time. Food, drink and pleanty of dancing and joy. The perfect end to the perfect day.
All Dave and Jean had to do was get the taxi there...
"I think it's this way..."
Saturday, March 29, 2008
YSM
The Young Statisticians Meeting (YSM) 2008 was held in Newport, Wales, near Cardiff. Dave had been sent there to give a talk. The same talk he had given in Exeter a few weeks prior, though he would have to shorten it's length from an hour to 15 minutes. Easy.
On arrival he was surprised to discover a very small proportion of the people there were students. In fact, almost everyone there was working for the office of national statitics (ONS), with the majority of the remainder also working for various stats places. He was also surprised to see some people who had been to the meeting the previous year giving exactly the same talk a year later. One project in particular had been dated 2002 and had seemingly made no progress since.
The fact that there were very few students around changed matters. For a start, the standard student greetings of "So, what/where are you studying?" were met with confusement and shock. More worryingly for Dave, the real world had very little use for the type of statistics he was doing and non-students would have a much smaller chance of understanding any of it. On speaking around, Dave quickly found this assumption to be confirmed.
Onwards to the talk. Knowing his audience, Dave decided he would have to explain a bit about the background info first. Unfortuantely, 15 minutes is a rather short amount of time. He was still explaining the background when the 5 minute warning sign was held up. That gave him 5 minutes to explain 3 years of research. Easy.
5 minutes later, he summed up.
"...In conclusion, old method bad, new method good."
A few giggles and smiles and looks of relief confirming that last sentence to be the only one of the talk any of them would remember.
Still, good job.
On arrival he was surprised to discover a very small proportion of the people there were students. In fact, almost everyone there was working for the office of national statitics (ONS), with the majority of the remainder also working for various stats places. He was also surprised to see some people who had been to the meeting the previous year giving exactly the same talk a year later. One project in particular had been dated 2002 and had seemingly made no progress since.
The fact that there were very few students around changed matters. For a start, the standard student greetings of "So, what/where are you studying?" were met with confusement and shock. More worryingly for Dave, the real world had very little use for the type of statistics he was doing and non-students would have a much smaller chance of understanding any of it. On speaking around, Dave quickly found this assumption to be confirmed.
Onwards to the talk. Knowing his audience, Dave decided he would have to explain a bit about the background info first. Unfortuantely, 15 minutes is a rather short amount of time. He was still explaining the background when the 5 minute warning sign was held up. That gave him 5 minutes to explain 3 years of research. Easy.
5 minutes later, he summed up.
"...In conclusion, old method bad, new method good."
A few giggles and smiles and looks of relief confirming that last sentence to be the only one of the talk any of them would remember.
Still, good job.
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