Sorry I haven’t written a post for ages! I thought I had better keep you up to date with Blog Friends - we have (finally!) released version 1 beta ( Blog Friends v1 Beta), which is (according to subversion) revision 816 of Blog Friends! We have had a lot of positive feedback on the new release, but also a lot of confusion over the new features and the perceived “lack of control” (you can find lots of the options, such as how many posts to put in each section of your profile box, on the settings page). After reading all of the comments from our users we found that a common complaint was that of finding “strangers” in their Facebook profile boxes. We quickly made some simple changes to get these strangers out, and are currently working on doing a much improved profile box, incorporating a lot of the ideas we have gained from users feedback. You can see a preview of this new profile box here, and we would appreciate your comments on it - we read every piece of Blog Friends feedback we can get our hands on!
On a finishing note, you can read a great post by Allan Cockerill on Blog Friends and the Blog Friends Blog here. It is worth noting that we intend to use the Blog Friends Blog as a place to keep our users updated with changes, and also a place for feedback, so if you have opinions on the posts there, please tell us through the comments! (Even if someone has already said what you were going to say, there is no harm reiterating it!)
[Pic:1560, Lulworth Cove]
On the second day of camp, once we had completed a full kit inspection
(which took almost 3 hours due to the Scout’s laziness!), we headed down
to Lulworth Cove for a bit of time on the “beach” and some ice creams.
It is a beautiful area with some amazing natural features, such arches
and blowholes.
[Pic:1565, arches and blowhole]
[1566, tanks on route]
The next day we went for a walk out over the Lulworth Range Walks – this
is in the midst of MOD land where they frequently practice with tanks to
train the troops. They open the area to the public for a couple of weeks
each summer – but warn us to stick to paths as there may be unexploded
shells off of them.
[1570, sign with warnings]
[Pic:1569,view from carpark]
[Pic:1584, view out over miliary beach]
[1589, view of white cliffs and beach during descent]
We walked down an extremely steep hill (there was small foot sized steps
cut into the hill to aid descent) down to a beach that is normally
inaccessible to the public. The descent was so steep that us leaders’
knees were shaking badly by the time we got to the bottom! Good job
there was a beach for us to relax on, and have our lunch.
[Pic:1592, panorama of beach on which we had lunch]
We then walked around an old deserted village which Jem and my Dad found
very interesting. I don’t remember being more bored… I am more of a
“new” person than an “old” - I like to look to the future rather than
the past. I enjoy new technologies, old ones hold little interest to me
(unless they are radically different, in which case I can get quite
intrigued). Anyway enough about me…
[1600, me courting an old army gal]
[1603, Jem with a gun]
On Tuesday we went to the tank museum – not really my cup of tea, but
almost everyone else enjoyed it (man, I am such a misery-guys…) It was
on this day that I was ripped off massively by an ice cream van who did
not display the prices of the ice creams – they just told you once you
had placed your order. I was charged £2 for a broken, tiny, imported.
cheap, poorly manufactured strawberry split. Still it did serve to cool
me down. Grrr.
[Pic:1643, the sun finally rises!]
To celebrate this anniversary, we decided to take part in the “Sunrise
Ceremony” (something that did not officially happen until 8am, but we
decided to get the Scouts up at 3:30 and walk them up a hill for the
actual sunrise at around 5:34am…) where Scouts across the world would
renew their promise. Worldwide Scouting has a common theme - “One world,
one promise” - something Jem and I would be reminded of many times
whilst on the Jamboree a week later.
[1681 – the cubs and me (green t-shirt, yellow gloves) on “the web”]
Many people joked that I would not be able to survive for a whole week
without the internet. As it was, I barely missed it (only a few times
when I was phoned up about possible problems with
[1718, the red knight losing a lance to the evil black knight from the depths of hell, Lord Odeous…]
We went round the corner to Lulworth Castle where we watched the
jousting (by “Horses Impossible”) - it was really amazing to watch,
though the rain during the first half was a real pain… We were all
soaked through, but it was well worth it.
[1733, Picture of sheepies, for Jem]
Just outside the castle were fields of sheep. The sheep were so noisy at
times that we could hear them from our camp site!
.