My Residency in Banff, Alberta, Canada

Ended the evening last night feeling really frustrated and with the sense that I really wasn’t getting anywhere. Various options are being proposed but nothing concrete is happening. This development of my project is really very new to me technically, so when I research various components, I really don’t know what I’m looking at and if they will work. It doesn’t help that I haven’t really seen Robert and Kenny together. They have both talked about different things that don’t always coincide. We need to have a conversation together and to lay our cards on the table to figure out a viable way forward.
In desperation I emailed them in the early hours to request this and copied to peer advisors and other staff. I don’t want to get annoyed because everyone has been very helpful, and I still feel very privileged to be here, but the technical staff are spread out very thinly amongst us and so have a lot to deal with. It’s not their fault, and they are very good, but they don’t really have the level of expertise in relation to my particular project. Meanwhile time is ticking on…
It was still very cold today (about -17), but very much brighter and sunny. I was determined to try and get a run in. But what with trying to make progress and another scheduled discussion forum bang in the middle of the afternoon, it wasn’t going to happen. The good news is that Kate took on board my email plea and was very proactive in getting this meeting going with Kenny and Robert in her presence (although Robert wasn't around). She was very good in trying to pin down a means of moving forward and how we were going to do that. I feel a lot happier, but I’m still having to wait for various bit and pieces. The way forward is to do a rig that is as simple as possible and to test it in the locality. This will mean only using a single rather than a dual eye-view in the first instance, but at least I’ll be able to see if something works (soon I hope!). I had been all ready to do another recorded run, but this meeting was too important to miss. I will catch up with Kenny again in the morning so that we can proactively sort out what I need to buy/order. I may need to forgo my own bullet cameras in favour of some small web-cams as these will directly stream to the internet without the need for a converter. It looks like either way, I’ll end up carrying a lot more than I had anticipated (they are talking of me carrying a computer!), which is a little worrying, considering the distance I hope to run. Initial tests will be on campus, both indoors and out, to see immediately if the system works. I really hope we can have something going by the weekend.