Break out the toys !

Currently hoping for an easy trip to London tomorrow. We're testing some stuff that will see some heavy use over the next couple of months, so we're kinda counting on it working well. The testing lasts for a couple of weeks but I'm only there for the next two. It helps to have fresh people for this testing, so we don't go sleepy and miss bugs. So we spread the load around the techies in the office. I enjoy it, it's a day or so out of the office and we get to see almost-real kit. And to a toy addict like me, that's priceless.

Will be playing with two of my best toys tomorrow. Before I start the drive, I'll be taking the aerial off the top of my Puma. Commercial radio jams a mini-FM transmitter I use to get my iPod music into the car speakers, removing the aerial stops the jamming. That's kinda two toys but I'm counting it as one. Makes you wonder whether we get affected by all the stray EM Radiation out there if commercial radio on all the bands they use can jam a transmitter that's supposed to have a 30 ft range. And then there's all the other transmissions plus the mobile phones in people's pockets that need a 3-5km range to the surrounding cell sites. We probably get more radiation watching a telly though ... (not necessarily from a TFT flat screen)

Toy number two is one I've had a little longer, it's a PDA running satellite navigation software. Not mentioning any manufacturer/software names there because although the software works well, neither PDA or software is as reliable as it should be. It gets me where I'm going though - and although I know the route 100% now, it gives me the ability to react instantly to roadblocks forcing a course change without getting lost.

So - hoping for some good driving tomorrow morning to some chilly out music and a really boring couple of days of testing. If the testing is boring, that means it's going to plan and we have good software. If it's interesting ... well there's an Asian curse that goes "May you live in Interesting Times."