Getting to understand things

So after breakfast and a wait at the bus stop:

We found we had missed the bus. Meh, that means a 20 minute wait in the howling gale and lashing wind. I hate the way digital cameras represent weather... But instead the nice lady Customer contractor called us up a minivan bus. And sure enough within five minutes there's a van bus to take us to the IBC. And we get to go the logical way, not the airport way as the mini-van bus can turn left. And also make 180 turns in the road. We're just fortunate the driver kept his hands off the handbrake.

And it was after going through panicky security, hurry up, who's bag, who's bag, and finding I am now one belt short of a pair of trousers, that you understand what the Olympics is all about.

Take this shot of the side of the IBC:

The place is massive, does that explain stuff? No?

Well how about Customer have got 4 studios here? They have Studio 1, 2 and floor 1 [for the Today program, which is not only missing John Humphries but also me*] and floor 2 for Nightly News with Gromit (or someone, Willard White, but I think he was in Diamonds are Forever).

And to go with those studios they have production areas and cameras and racks and sound and all the shinola needed to make TV. And don't forget the graphics areas and tape (yeah!) and monitoring and compliance and continuity. And somewhere in all this is us, 143 deployed settops to see the output of the show.

There are about 3000 Customer folks coming, by the way. More than can attend some events.

But that's not it.

Outside the IBC are literally hundreds of brand new buses all with the Sochi logos on them. And there must be thousands of those mini-vans buses cos there are 20 parked outside my wing of the hotel. And there are 12 wings - which would interest KFC, I'm sure. And 6 hotels.

So it's not about the sport. Really, some bloke sliding down a mountain is nothing compared to the planning and effort of putting the show on in the first place. They should televise the build up, and then mention in the credits who got gold for mixed yodelling.

Any hoo. At lunch I did not have one of these. the C is soft, by the way, like chateau. But that doesn't stop the sniggers...

But to things more important.

Tomorrow we'll start bringing the real settops up, the disk partitioning code is ready and I tested an upgrade to one box that worked so I'm pretty happy there. Mind, playing some of the video they have is proving tricky...

And I leave you with a panorama of the IBC at night...

Yup, it really does change colour...

* cos it should be spelt programme