#BeThankfulForWhatYouHave There are times...

When at the end of a long day at the end of a long week in the middle of a long year when you can feel knackered, hard done by, and somewhat defeated by life.

Then 2 brothers sit down near to you in the cafe and one is deaf and blind. His brother talks to him constantly by holding his hand and signing.

He signed the whole menu - it took ages!

Then you realise your cards weren't that bad after all eh?

WSUS on Windows 2008 R2

If you are doing a fresh build on this platform, a couple of gotchas (1 well published, the other not so…)

Firstly on this platform you’ll need to use the SP2 version of WSUS 3 (KB 972455 refers).  However, if you install the pre-requisite role of IIS by default and then try the WSUS 3.0 SP2 install, it will still fail reporting that IIS is required and not installed!

This is because the default IIS role services are not the full set for WSUS.  So, go into Server Manager, and select the following role services and switch them on too.

Also, it is worth at this point grabbing and installing the report viewer 2008 redistributable as well.

Then your WSUS SP2 install will proceed and you should see this next!

#BBBR13 the Hero Ride (day 6)

I'm in a red (army!!) shirt. This was a really nice pootle through the city from Blackheath.  All but 1 traffic light set could be completely ignored, cheering crowds all the way.

What a way to finish the week!

#BBBR13 Day 1 - Paris to Compiegne

We left bright and ready from the basement car park up a ridiculously steep ramp (I walked!) into a drizzly Paris morning.  The morning traffic was, ahem, entertaining; and the pavé even more so, but after a few miles we arrived at our departure point (!).

Then followed the usual (for me) first day experience of a Big Battlefield Bike Ride - a bit of hanging around.  Because of the likely dignitaries who would be coming, the riders need to be there in plenty of time.  But to keep us jolly us we had a French military band who kept us entertained - their choice of tunes was certainly geared to their audience!

 A few shots from around L'Hotel

 The dignitaries arrived and the speeches start

at this point there is a large gap in the photo record - about 50-60 miles worth!  That's because it was mainly cold and wet during the day, and the focus was on getting the miles done!  So here is the memorial and clearing at Compiegne at which we arrived very much later in the day after (for me) a slashed tyre and inner tube, and a few assists at other punctures.

It was now only a few more miles to the hotel, and finally I arrived.  To find I had travelled 7 miles further than I needed and was at the wrong hotel!  A lift back from the DA support crew and straight into dinner.
Unfortunately time was short and I was rushed to the table and spent the next hour or two dining in some very wet cycling gear. It seemed nothing at the time, but that was going to come back and bite me later on...

#BBBR13 - the official videos

I'm publishing a few videos of my own here, but Help For Heroes have the official ones on youtube, so - here they are!

Day 1 - Paris to Compiegne

Day 2 - Compiegne to Amiens (fancy dress day!)

Day 3 - Amiens to Le Touquet

Day 4 - Le Touquet to Calais

I'm hoping day 5 (Calais to Chatham) and the Hero Ride will be up soon 

#BBBR13 Day 0 - London to Paris

Rising rather early for a bank holiday, it was into the car and down to the station; hoping all the while that FCC and National Rail would not conspire against us and put a replacement bus service (no bikes!) at the last minute.
Hurrah! No!
So on board, and soon exchanging texts with friends to see how their journeys were going - all well.  A good sign (along with the bright sunny weather).

Arriving in Kings Cross just under two hours later it was a short walk round the corner to the meet up point where upon our first surprise awaited us - our bags were to travel with us. Damn!  Wish I had brought the back pack straps for the main bag - it would have made life a bit easier.

Not surprisingly, the meeting point seemed to be the Champagne Bar at St Pancras.  So, there I headed where in short order I bumped into loads of fellow riders from last year, and of course my team mate, Keith

Within 20 minutes of entering France we (all of us - not Keith and me!) had drunk the train dry :-)

A coach transfer, a briefing, a shopping trip to the WoundedWarriors.CA cycle store (an impromptu popup store from kit bags outside the bar!) and dinner.

The plan was for an early call and then on the bikes after breakfast to head down to the L'Hôtel national des Invalides for the official start.  However the diggers on the site outside the hotel window (see below) decided to do that for us a few times in the night. Damn!