I'm trying very nobly not to hate American Airlines right now. My &^%%$(+&& flight was cancelled and the next one wasn't until 9.00 p.m. Now even that one is forty-five minutes, and if it doesn't get off the ground by 10.10 p.m. it won't be allowed to go at all due to a local flight curfew. Since my flight down here was also delayed - by over two hours, I've spent a total of something like eight hours in the two airports for this piddling one-hour each way flight.

I woke up far too early this morning. It was a grey day - very grey, with the clouds doubling up on the horizon.

I'll save you from recounting my usual pattern of falling asleep in class. There was, however, some excitement today. The class has been teaching out software development methodology. As an ongoing exercise, we had to use the methodology to build, in teams of four, an egg-protection device from the materials we were given. One of the requirements was that the box (and egg) had to survive an eight-foot drop. I lucked out - one of the people on my team was the kind of guy who loves to tinker with things. He came up with this amazing design (given the materials we had to work with), which included a helix egg-cradle, suspended in mid-air from the sides of the cardboard box by rubber bands.

The patented Double Helix Egg-Cradling System

By mid-afternoon, it was time to test the devices built by all four teams. Our egg didn't break - it survived the eight-foot fall! Mind, so did those of the two of the other three teams, but ours was deemed the most creative solution.

Ready to conduct the drop-test

Oops - gotta run. Just been told our flight probably won't beat the curfew, so I've been rebooked to San Jose! God, what a night!