This bugged me for a bit. Hopefully this will help somebody save the half hour it cost me.
I wanted to add a few new attributes calculated from other attributes. I added the attribute under settings -> Attrib and indicator management -> attribute definition. I set up my automatic calculation and saved the attribute. I even went back in to verify everything saved correctly. B)
But when I added the new attribute to my dashboard, I only got a bunch of 'NA's when viewing the dashboard. meh, ok, eventually I realize I forgot to associate it. But once i associated, now they were all blank. awesome.
Long story short, the new attributes don't seem to be calculated until you load the project. Even just selecting 'edit' on a project and going back to the dash board was enough to trigger a recalc of the fields.
Update: Even just viewing the project will calculate the attributes.
Once everything is associated and you get your initial calculation, it seems to be more automatic. If I update my formulas, the updated values show up when I reload the dashboard. ie, I don't have to open the projects again.
on a side note. I would have really preferred some basic attributes to be defined. There must be a common set that most companies would use. I am thinking about optomizer attributes for budget and resource usage, for example. The tools seem pretty powerful but an option to load a basic configuration (or even the config defined in the docs, workflow, I am looking in your direction) would have been a big plus. I will get around to a real wish list someday.
Friday, April 03, 2009
Thursday, April 02, 2009
100 characters for a project scope?
Apparently Microsoft Portfolio Server 2007 thinks you only need 100 characters to enter your Projects Objectives, business need, in scope, out of scope, etc...
I know we are living in a world of outrageous disk costs and even 100 characters of text should be a luxury. Err wait, that was 1980, when was this thing designed? Do I really want my project managers trying to plan in txt speak? "PJT gr8 OMG bnfts"
Given the small size of the portfolio server database, I am maxing these fields out. According to a post on the project server newsgroup (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.project.server&tid=f1e4971d-7390-4aba-bf1e-701de1f87df1&cat=&lang=&cr=&sloc=&p=1), we max out at 3950. I see that the application objective field is set to 3900 by default so I am going with that.
To implement, navigate to - settings -> Attribute and Indicator Management -> Attributes Definition. Click the Show Default Attributes button. Now search for your fields. Check the attribute in question and click edit. Update Maximum Text Length from 100 to what ever you want it to be. I didn't test w/ values larger than 3900.
I had to change:
PORTFOLIO_OBJECTIVES
OBJECTIVE
PROGRAM_OBJECTIVES
PROGRAM_IN_SCOPE
INSCOPE
PROGRAM_OUT_OF_SCOPE
OUT_OF_SCOPE
PROGRAM_BUSINESS_NEED
BUSINESS_NEED
PORTFOLIO_ASSUMPTIONS
PROGRAM_ASSUMPTIONS
ASSUMPTIONS
DEPENDENCIES
PROGRAM_DEPENDENCIES
With, as far as I could see, absolutely no rhyme nor reason, these were already set to 3900.
APPLICATION_OBJECTIVE
PORTFOLIO_IN_SCOPE
PORTFOLIO_OUT_OF_SCOPE
PORTFOLIO_BUSINESS_NEED
PORTFOLIO_DEPENDENCIES
I would guess there will be more. I will update this post with further details if I find them.
I know we are living in a world of outrageous disk costs and even 100 characters of text should be a luxury. Err wait, that was 1980, when was this thing designed? Do I really want my project managers trying to plan in txt speak? "PJT gr8 OMG bnfts"
Given the small size of the portfolio server database, I am maxing these fields out. According to a post on the project server newsgroup (http://www.microsoft.com/communities/newsgroups/list/en-us/default.aspx?dg=microsoft.public.project.server&tid=f1e4971d-7390-4aba-bf1e-701de1f87df1&cat=&lang=&cr=&sloc=&p=1), we max out at 3950. I see that the application objective field is set to 3900 by default so I am going with that.
To implement, navigate to - settings -> Attribute and Indicator Management -> Attributes Definition. Click the Show Default Attributes button. Now search for your fields. Check the attribute in question and click edit. Update Maximum Text Length from 100 to what ever you want it to be. I didn't test w/ values larger than 3900.
I had to change:
PORTFOLIO_OBJECTIVES
OBJECTIVE
PROGRAM_OBJECTIVES
PROGRAM_IN_SCOPE
INSCOPE
PROGRAM_OUT_OF_SCOPE
OUT_OF_SCOPE
PROGRAM_BUSINESS_NEED
BUSINESS_NEED
PORTFOLIO_ASSUMPTIONS
PROGRAM_ASSUMPTIONS
ASSUMPTIONS
DEPENDENCIES
PROGRAM_DEPENDENCIES
With, as far as I could see, absolutely no rhyme nor reason, these were already set to 3900.
APPLICATION_OBJECTIVE
PORTFOLIO_IN_SCOPE
PORTFOLIO_OUT_OF_SCOPE
PORTFOLIO_BUSINESS_NEED
PORTFOLIO_DEPENDENCIES
I would guess there will be more. I will update this post with further details if I find them.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Portfolio server and Groups
Another thing I ran into when I started w/ Project Portfolio Server 2007 was that I couldn't populate the 'Project Initiators', Contributors and 'project Managers' groups. The answer is actually pretty obnoxious. You have to create very specifically named groups that contain the users you want to be available in these boxes. There is a similar issue with applications and portoflios. To see the 'magic' group name that will allow these to be populated, you need to dig into the aspx. Open WWWROOT\default\project.aspx. About 30 lines down you will see the following 3 lines:
cell position="1" usergroup="GRP_INITIATORS" label="Project Initiators....
cell position="2" usergroup="GRP_PROJECT_MANAGER" label="Project Manage....
cell position="1" usergroup="GRP_CONTRIBUTORS" label="Contributors" ....
I have snipped the end of the lines for display purposes. Drop the GRP_ from the name and that is your necessary group name. In this case, "Initiators", "Project Manager", "Contributors".
You have 2 options. Create a group called Initiators and populate it or you can rename the usergroup attribute to be whatever your group is called. For projects I created the groups. For applications, my application initators were the same as my projects 'Initiators'. So I changed the line:
cell position="1" usergroup="GRP_APPLICATION_INITIATOR" label="....
to:
cell position="1" usergroup="GRP_INITIATORS" label="....
This allowed my users that were considered project Initiators, to be selected as application Initiators.
This is only necessary due to the, IMHO, serious oversight of allowing users to belong to only one group.
Note that I tried to just set all 3 groups to GRP_CONTRIBUTERS but there seems to be internal logic preventing this.
A corollary issue I ran into was that some of my users would be project initators on one project buy project managers on another. Or contributors on one and project managers on another. Since I can't have users belong to more than one group, This presents a problem. A work around I found, but that I am not really satisfied with, was to assign people to different groups at different levels of the org.
Our organization structure has three levels
- Corp
-- Local Business Unit
--- IT Operations
--- QA, etc
I can assign users to be Project managers at one level and contributors at another. They then show up in the project bubbles for each type. Note that this gets into sticky issues with permissions, hence why i don't like the solution.
I am also likely going to need to narrow the number of groups. I have a small enough team that some of the portfolio managers are going to be Project managers and contributors. I can use the org trick a bit but not if I have to manage 9 different groups.
Cant wait for office 14, probably the first place that will be fixed.
cell position="1" usergroup="GRP_INITIATORS" label="Project Initiators....
cell position="2" usergroup="GRP_PROJECT_MANAGER" label="Project Manage....
cell position="1" usergroup="GRP_CONTRIBUTORS" label="Contributors" ....
I have snipped the end of the lines for display purposes. Drop the GRP_ from the name and that is your necessary group name. In this case, "Initiators", "Project Manager", "Contributors".
You have 2 options. Create a group called Initiators and populate it or you can rename the usergroup attribute to be whatever your group is called. For projects I created the groups. For applications, my application initators were the same as my projects 'Initiators'. So I changed the line:
cell position="1" usergroup="GRP_APPLICATION_INITIATOR" label="....
to:
cell position="1" usergroup="GRP_INITIATORS" label="....
This allowed my users that were considered project Initiators, to be selected as application Initiators.
This is only necessary due to the, IMHO, serious oversight of allowing users to belong to only one group.
Note that I tried to just set all 3 groups to GRP_CONTRIBUTERS but there seems to be internal logic preventing this.
A corollary issue I ran into was that some of my users would be project initators on one project buy project managers on another. Or contributors on one and project managers on another. Since I can't have users belong to more than one group, This presents a problem. A work around I found, but that I am not really satisfied with, was to assign people to different groups at different levels of the org.
Our organization structure has three levels
- Corp
-- Local Business Unit
--- IT Operations
--- QA, etc
I can assign users to be Project managers at one level and contributors at another. They then show up in the project bubbles for each type. Note that this gets into sticky issues with permissions, hence why i don't like the solution.
I am also likely going to need to narrow the number of groups. I have a small enough team that some of the portfolio managers are going to be Project managers and contributors. I can use the org trick a bit but not if I have to manage 9 different groups.
Cant wait for office 14, probably the first place that will be fixed.
Portfolio server project classes
OK, i have been having a heck of a time working w/ Project Portfolio Server 2007. There really isn't a lot out there in terms of discussion. I have run into a few things that I will start posting here for others benefit. There are plenty of items I don't know about so if anybody knows good resources, don't hesitate to point them out.
Anyway, one thing I ran into, was how to rename the project classes. When you are creating a project, you define a class for that project. The class defines which workflow the project will follow. They default to CLASS 1, CLASS 2 and CLASS 3. That isn't very helpful for my users. I saw how to link workflows to classes (under workflow management) but the naming of the CLASS es was annoying me.
I eventually found this under Settings->Attribute and Indicator Management -> Attributes defintion. Select to see default attributes. The Attribute is called Project Class.
I renamed mine to '>6 month projects', '2-6 month projects', and '<2>
Anyway, one thing I ran into, was how to rename the project classes. When you are creating a project, you define a class for that project. The class defines which workflow the project will follow. They default to CLASS 1, CLASS 2 and CLASS 3. That isn't very helpful for my users. I saw how to link workflows to classes (under workflow management) but the naming of the CLASS es was annoying me.
I eventually found this under Settings->Attribute and Indicator Management -> Attributes defintion. Select to see default attributes. The Attribute is called Project Class.
I renamed mine to '>6 month projects', '2-6 month projects', and '<2>
Monday, August 20, 2007
Dublin, again
Not even back a week before I shipped off again. This time to Dublin for an install. The install was on Monday so I headed out Sunday to get a bit of Dublin sight seeing in. Last time I was here I saw the temple bar and the Guinness brewery. Turns out, I am not sure what else to see in Dublin. By the time I got in and settled it was too late to do the bus tour. It was a nice day though so I just wandered Dublin for a couple of hours in the sun. Even Dublin gives me more sun than London. I went to see the Book of Kells, which is some old manuscript. Seems a bit dull but it was a really old, ornate manuscript. Saw some book making techniques of olden days. There was a ‘long hall’ at the end with lots of very old books. That in itself wasn’t that interesting but in there they had a bunch of recruitment posters from WWI. One of the most interesting was a dialog about how this was the generation would be defined by what you did during the war, be a man and have a good answer.
Got the install done the next day but didn’t have any time to do anything fun. Having a Guinness in the airport and finally catching up on my blogging (I wrote a bunch last night too).
Got the install done the next day but didn’t have any time to do anything fun. Having a Guinness in the airport and finally catching up on my blogging (I wrote a bunch last night too).
Vibing: Sophomore Year
We headed out to Vibes in a pair of matching Zip Cars. Apparently, this is a much better deal than renting from Avis or similar. Noted for next time. Vibes this year was in a large park on the ocean in Bridgeport, Connecticut. Much different than my first vibes in Mariasville which was in a very rural setting, this one was basically in the projects. The park itself was very nice but it wasn’t the nicest neighborhood around it. It’s ok, we didn’t ever leave the grounds and there were no problems that I heard of. The locals must have thought us quite crazy, especially Friday. They could sit there in their warm apartments and watch all these idiots (us) huddle in the cold rain. It did cross my mind to go knocking on doors at one point on Friday and see if I could watch some tv and get a warm shower.
Thursday was nice, lines to get in weren’t too bad and we caught a bit of good music. The thing didn’t really start until Friday. Friday, as I mentioned, was rough. It was cold and rainy. We tried to brave the weather and watch some music for a bit but it was pretty brutal. Even our shelter wasn’t keeping us dry. We ended up retreating to Marks large tent and playing risk for most of the day. As Matt put it, “if I didn’t have it on good authority that it would be nicer tomorrow, I would have to pack it in.” The weather did have it as clearing up on Saturday and it was right. It actually cleared up just as Karena showed up on Friday night. Just in time for PFunk.
Well, almost in time for P Funk. We got to the field, set up our area and I headed into the crowd to start dancing. I think George saw me coming b/c as I went out there, he stopped playing. Doh! Luckily, the next band, deep banana blackout was very funkified as well. They were also doing a James Brown tribute show so they played a bunch of JB covers. Sweet. The weekend has turned around.
Saturday started off exactly opposite Friday. Just as Friday was cold and dreary, Saturday was beautiful. Sunday too. I spent the rest of the weekend dancing, hacking and throwing a Frisbee around. Carmel brought her hoops again so their was always a party of people hoping around our group. Really made for a great weekend.
Driving back, Matt and I got into the wine (Carmel was driving). Then when we got back, Carmel could join and it got to be a bit messy. I caught a cab to my Newark hotel around 1am and was out again at 6 for my flight. All this made my flight a bit less productive than I hoped but it was still a winning weekend.
London weather held true as usual. This is the third trip in a row I have returned from Beautiful sunny weather to London only to find I need a jacket and umbrella for days. Ugh, this is killing me.
Thursday was nice, lines to get in weren’t too bad and we caught a bit of good music. The thing didn’t really start until Friday. Friday, as I mentioned, was rough. It was cold and rainy. We tried to brave the weather and watch some music for a bit but it was pretty brutal. Even our shelter wasn’t keeping us dry. We ended up retreating to Marks large tent and playing risk for most of the day. As Matt put it, “if I didn’t have it on good authority that it would be nicer tomorrow, I would have to pack it in.” The weather did have it as clearing up on Saturday and it was right. It actually cleared up just as Karena showed up on Friday night. Just in time for PFunk.
Well, almost in time for P Funk. We got to the field, set up our area and I headed into the crowd to start dancing. I think George saw me coming b/c as I went out there, he stopped playing. Doh! Luckily, the next band, deep banana blackout was very funkified as well. They were also doing a James Brown tribute show so they played a bunch of JB covers. Sweet. The weekend has turned around.
Saturday started off exactly opposite Friday. Just as Friday was cold and dreary, Saturday was beautiful. Sunday too. I spent the rest of the weekend dancing, hacking and throwing a Frisbee around. Carmel brought her hoops again so their was always a party of people hoping around our group. Really made for a great weekend.
Driving back, Matt and I got into the wine (Carmel was driving). Then when we got back, Carmel could join and it got to be a bit messy. I caught a cab to my Newark hotel around 1am and was out again at 6 for my flight. All this made my flight a bit less productive than I hoped but it was still a winning weekend.
London weather held true as usual. This is the third trip in a row I have returned from Beautiful sunny weather to London only to find I need a jacket and umbrella for days. Ugh, this is killing me.
NY in August: The interim weekend
Having been freed from work by various fuckups and incompetence, I had a free weekend. For Saturday, I headed up to the catskills. We took the dog swimming in some beaver pond which was hugely refreshing. It made me realize how much I miss the wilderness.
The next day was skydiving. A work colleague was having a bachelor party that involved jumping out of a plane. This was something I was very keen on doing for years but had largely forgotten about. This seemed like a good opportunity but I was still unsure. The tipping point was when Mason, another work colleague and veteran of 1000s of jumps, said, “if you do this, you will smile about it for a week”. Ok, how can I resist.
The whole episode took maybe 20 minutes in the plane and 10 minutes in the air. It was great fun but not a new hobby. The most amazing part, for me, was that initial feeling of leaving the airplane. You are high enough that it isn’t so much a heights thing but watching the plane, your lifeline, speeding away from you was curious. The freefall lasted about 20 or so seconds and then we floated down for another 10 minutes or so. Slide on your ass in for the landing and you are done.
And since we had to drive out to East Stroudsburg, PA for it, we even got cheese steaks (or pizza steaks in my case).
The next day was skydiving. A work colleague was having a bachelor party that involved jumping out of a plane. This was something I was very keen on doing for years but had largely forgotten about. This seemed like a good opportunity but I was still unsure. The tipping point was when Mason, another work colleague and veteran of 1000s of jumps, said, “if you do this, you will smile about it for a week”. Ok, how can I resist.
The whole episode took maybe 20 minutes in the plane and 10 minutes in the air. It was great fun but not a new hobby. The most amazing part, for me, was that initial feeling of leaving the airplane. You are high enough that it isn’t so much a heights thing but watching the plane, your lifeline, speeding away from you was curious. The freefall lasted about 20 or so seconds and then we floated down for another 10 minutes or so. Slide on your ass in for the landing and you are done.
And since we had to drive out to East Stroudsburg, PA for it, we even got cheese steaks (or pizza steaks in my case).
Meet the Andrasiks
Just some quick ones now.
Headed up to Seneca falls NY to see two great people get married. I drove up and got stuck in terrible traffic so I missed the initial boat cruise. This driving stuff is for the birds. On the way up, I decided I had to find another way back.
I beat the boat party coming back by only about 1 hour. Another big plus to the weekend is that J was going to be there. We met up briefly that night but none of us had a lot of energy, and Jeremy and Michele were pretty lit by this point.
One amusing anecdote of the evening came when Michele’s brother and friends ran into some ignorant hick who started mouthing off. It eventually degenerated into the hick saying take your ‘dominican bitch’ and get out of here. The, I think amusing, rejoinder was “hey, we’re niggers, at least get your racial slurs right”. The guy didn’t really know what to make of that and the confrontation was broken off shortly thereafter.
The wedding was great. Hot but close enough to the water not to be too bad. Sunny, no rain. Fun party through the night and everything I saw was great. It didn’t surprise me that the Andrasiks have some cool friends. At some point, somebody gave me a hat.
Stayed up all night and wasn’t feeling great after my 2 hours of sleep. The day before I had purchased a plane ticket back from Syracuse. I could have done train but I thought I would be going on the wine tour and wanted to leave later. I arrived at the airport hoping to catch an earlier flight. Turning the car back in, I got a nasty surprise. They doubled the rate on me b/c I wasn’t returning to the same location. So much for Avis being flexible. Since I had already bought the plane tix, there wasn’t much I could say. I returned the car and went to the air line. No way to get me on another flight. Slumming. I checked my bags for my flight and headed to the gate anyway. Pulled up a piece of floor and got some sleep.
I was awoken a few hours later to the news that my flight was cancelled. Apparently it rained a bit and cancelled all flights. Sweet. After talking to the airline about options (we can get you out on Tuesday), I headed back to avis to see if I could get a car. I met up with a couple guys and they had just rented a car and were driving back to the city. Long story short, I ended up paying an extra $200 to drive my same car back to ny. At least the other guy drove.
The wedding was still worth it.
Headed up to Seneca falls NY to see two great people get married. I drove up and got stuck in terrible traffic so I missed the initial boat cruise. This driving stuff is for the birds. On the way up, I decided I had to find another way back.
I beat the boat party coming back by only about 1 hour. Another big plus to the weekend is that J was going to be there. We met up briefly that night but none of us had a lot of energy, and Jeremy and Michele were pretty lit by this point.
One amusing anecdote of the evening came when Michele’s brother and friends ran into some ignorant hick who started mouthing off. It eventually degenerated into the hick saying take your ‘dominican bitch’ and get out of here. The, I think amusing, rejoinder was “hey, we’re niggers, at least get your racial slurs right”. The guy didn’t really know what to make of that and the confrontation was broken off shortly thereafter.
The wedding was great. Hot but close enough to the water not to be too bad. Sunny, no rain. Fun party through the night and everything I saw was great. It didn’t surprise me that the Andrasiks have some cool friends. At some point, somebody gave me a hat.
Stayed up all night and wasn’t feeling great after my 2 hours of sleep. The day before I had purchased a plane ticket back from Syracuse. I could have done train but I thought I would be going on the wine tour and wanted to leave later. I arrived at the airport hoping to catch an earlier flight. Turning the car back in, I got a nasty surprise. They doubled the rate on me b/c I wasn’t returning to the same location. So much for Avis being flexible. Since I had already bought the plane tix, there wasn’t much I could say. I returned the car and went to the air line. No way to get me on another flight. Slumming. I checked my bags for my flight and headed to the gate anyway. Pulled up a piece of floor and got some sleep.
I was awoken a few hours later to the news that my flight was cancelled. Apparently it rained a bit and cancelled all flights. Sweet. After talking to the airline about options (we can get you out on Tuesday), I headed back to avis to see if I could get a car. I met up with a couple guys and they had just rented a car and were driving back to the city. Long story short, I ended up paying an extra $200 to drive my same car back to ny. At least the other guy drove.
The wedding was still worth it.
Exit... Stage serbia (part deux)
Got up the next day for our tour with our landlord Alexandra. Her friend couldn’t make it but she came to show us around. I was still a bit suspicious as to what we were really doing but it turns out, she was just really nice. She mentioned going to France by herself and how it was hard to meet people. In order to spare us that feeling, she took it upon herself to show us around.
We toured around Novi Sad and Alexandra pointed out the major sites. Most interesting though, was talking to her. I couldn’t determine whether she was having trouble with her English or she was just uninterested in what we had to say. We would try to respond to her and at least half the time she would cut in and start talking about something else. She was involved in the artist scene in Novi Sad but it sounded like she was more of an organizer than an artist. We did get an interesting view of the rest of Europe from her. She thought that the locals were unfriendly compared to the rest of Europe. Well, compared to western EU. She mentioned that the Croatians were ‘evil’ with an unsettlingly casual racism. She didn’t like ‘hippies’ as she called most of the festival goers but she was into tarot and seemed to appreciate the hippy ideals if not the hippies themselves. Despite these odd points, she was nice enough to take us on a locals tour of the area, showed us the outside of here house and her dogs and spent the afternoon hanging out. That definitely seems friendlier than most of the other Europeans I have met. We parted ways to go to the festival and she mentioned that her friend would want to meet us so we set up to meet the next day.
We headed back for a nap before the show and then headed in for the night.
Lauryn Hill was first up on the main stage. In what was apparently her modus operandi this summer, she fucked up the whole stage. She didn’t come on until nearly 2 hours too late. As I hear it, she wasn’t even there. I hear rumors of her in other shows this summer refusing to play because some of the backstage staff had the audacity to talk to her and other such nonsense. When do you cross that line as a performer and become completely divorced from reality?
Basement Jaxx apologized for coming on so late with something like “.. we would like to apologize, the previous performer held up, nah, the reason we are on is b/c we have been waiting 2 hours for Lauryn Hill. We are sorry and here we go.”
Basement Jaxx had a good show. I didn’t realize he had become a band. He used to be a DJ. The first half of his show was a full on show with him basically being drums and keyboard (from the dj booth). The show lost some momentum in the middle when he switched over to his classic DJ stuff.
We wandered a bit and saw some other shows before heading back to see Snoop Dogg. The main stage was way to small to hold the crowd and we were forever away. Ever since he split with Dre, Snoop just ain’t Snoop so we didn’t even stay for the whole show.
Spent the next day in the park throwing a Frisbee around and reading. Met up with Alexandra and her friend Marianne. We chatted a bit, her friend was more interested in the ‘mainstream’ culture and seemed a bit more open minded. Alexandra told our fortunes with playing cards but she didn’t have her books so she couldn’t read all the cards. I think she got mine backwards and told my past instead.
We made our way into the concert to see WuTang. The sound wasn’t so good and by this time we were pretty low energy. 4 days of this was beginning to get to us. Sunday night was the night for the locals though, complete with fireworks.. Most of the foreigners had left so the mix was much different on this night. We finished off our drink tokens and wandered. Found a cool café at the Happy Novi Sad stage.
We headed back around 2 to try to get some sleep before our early departure the next day. It was a bit tough, the locals were really partying. We had two competing brass bands on either side of us with the locals hooting and hollering. In a way the hooting reminded me of a Mexican fiesta.
We roused ourselves around 7 am to find a cab. The locals were just starting to leave, they do know how to party. We were getting a cab to the bus station but we had some extra dirhams and decided to have the guy take us all the way to Belgrade. Nice countryside. One more adventure on the books.
We toured around Novi Sad and Alexandra pointed out the major sites. Most interesting though, was talking to her. I couldn’t determine whether she was having trouble with her English or she was just uninterested in what we had to say. We would try to respond to her and at least half the time she would cut in and start talking about something else. She was involved in the artist scene in Novi Sad but it sounded like she was more of an organizer than an artist. We did get an interesting view of the rest of Europe from her. She thought that the locals were unfriendly compared to the rest of Europe. Well, compared to western EU. She mentioned that the Croatians were ‘evil’ with an unsettlingly casual racism. She didn’t like ‘hippies’ as she called most of the festival goers but she was into tarot and seemed to appreciate the hippy ideals if not the hippies themselves. Despite these odd points, she was nice enough to take us on a locals tour of the area, showed us the outside of here house and her dogs and spent the afternoon hanging out. That definitely seems friendlier than most of the other Europeans I have met. We parted ways to go to the festival and she mentioned that her friend would want to meet us so we set up to meet the next day.
We headed back for a nap before the show and then headed in for the night.
Lauryn Hill was first up on the main stage. In what was apparently her modus operandi this summer, she fucked up the whole stage. She didn’t come on until nearly 2 hours too late. As I hear it, she wasn’t even there. I hear rumors of her in other shows this summer refusing to play because some of the backstage staff had the audacity to talk to her and other such nonsense. When do you cross that line as a performer and become completely divorced from reality?
Basement Jaxx apologized for coming on so late with something like “.. we would like to apologize, the previous performer held up, nah, the reason we are on is b/c we have been waiting 2 hours for Lauryn Hill. We are sorry and here we go.”
Basement Jaxx had a good show. I didn’t realize he had become a band. He used to be a DJ. The first half of his show was a full on show with him basically being drums and keyboard (from the dj booth). The show lost some momentum in the middle when he switched over to his classic DJ stuff.
We wandered a bit and saw some other shows before heading back to see Snoop Dogg. The main stage was way to small to hold the crowd and we were forever away. Ever since he split with Dre, Snoop just ain’t Snoop so we didn’t even stay for the whole show.
Spent the next day in the park throwing a Frisbee around and reading. Met up with Alexandra and her friend Marianne. We chatted a bit, her friend was more interested in the ‘mainstream’ culture and seemed a bit more open minded. Alexandra told our fortunes with playing cards but she didn’t have her books so she couldn’t read all the cards. I think she got mine backwards and told my past instead.
We made our way into the concert to see WuTang. The sound wasn’t so good and by this time we were pretty low energy. 4 days of this was beginning to get to us. Sunday night was the night for the locals though, complete with fireworks.. Most of the foreigners had left so the mix was much different on this night. We finished off our drink tokens and wandered. Found a cool café at the Happy Novi Sad stage.
We headed back around 2 to try to get some sleep before our early departure the next day. It was a bit tough, the locals were really partying. We had two competing brass bands on either side of us with the locals hooting and hollering. In a way the hooting reminded me of a Mexican fiesta.
We roused ourselves around 7 am to find a cab. The locals were just starting to leave, they do know how to party. We were getting a cab to the bus station but we had some extra dirhams and decided to have the guy take us all the way to Belgrade. Nice countryside. One more adventure on the books.
Friday, July 27, 2007
Exit... Stage serbia
When we heard the Beastie Boys were touring Europe this year, Dan, a buddy from work, and I had to go see them. Where was a question. It was narrowed down to Denmark or Serbia. Dan was sold on Serbia after his research so we decided on the Exit Festival. Started 7 years ago as a student protest against Slobodan Milosevic. The first few years each had a real themes and messages. MTV took it over a few years ago and now there is no longer a specific message. But in any case, a fortress on the Danube doesn’t sound like a bad place to watch a show. I had no idea, how great of a venue it would be.
The flight from London got us to Belgrade just before midnight. We caught a cab to the Hotel Royal. A bit run down but it had a 24 hour restaurant, bar, and shop. We stopped at the bar for a beer. 100 dinars, about 1.75 each. It also had a hot line in the bathroom. There was a bright red phone in the bathroom. Just in case I needed to call in a nuclear strike from the toilet.
Next morning we headed over to the train station. There were plenty of other Exit Fest types. Enough that when the train pulled into the station people started jumping on before it even stopped. They needn’t have bothered, there was plenty of room. It was the first time I had to jump on a moving train though.
When we finally got to Novi Sad, we encountered a huge unorganized queue to get into the campgrounds. It was all Brits too, I thought they were supposed to be good at queuing. It is one of their national prides but I guess when in Serbia all that goes to hell. Other than having to muscle your way through crowd to get close enough to be in the 10 people they let in at a time. All told the line took about an hour to get through the camping line. Unlike other festivals I have been to, well, THE other festival I have been to, there was no organization in the camping area. Just a large field and tents 15 and 20 deep.
We eventually found a spot a little off the beaten path and set up. I recently bought a new tent, backpack, sleeping bag, etc. I ended up getting some all in one kit. It is pretty decent, on the lower end of the quality gear.
Once we were set up, we headed to the beach. They had a DJ set up and all the brits were out sunning. One annoying thing was that they had some funny money setup for the drinks. You had to buy tokens to get beer, different ones for water, others for wine, energy drinks, sodas, etc. Ugh, annoying especially since later in the camp they weren’t accepting the tokens (despite all the signs that said you couldn’t use cash). In the festival, they only ever took tokens. After having a beer on the beach though, it was really starting to feel like vacation.
We decided to head over to the festival to get our tickets squared away. The fortress was straight across the Danube, not far as the crow flies. As I walk, however, it is a bit far to be going over to the bridge and back. We started hatching a plan to find a room closer to the festival.
After sitting through another queue, we went into the festival grounds. Nothing was going on yet so we just wandered around and got the lay of the land. The main stage area was a bit small but other than that, the grounds were great. 13 large stages with 29 discreet areas. The 3D effect was great. There were places you could be at one stage and see one or two others in the background. For the sound all they did was turn it up really loud. If you were at any of the stages, the sound was all encompassing.
After a tour of the grounds, we went back into town to look for a room. I asked a cop that was standing on the side if the sign behind him said room for rent. He was super nice and ended up going out of his way to ask around for a room for us. He made some calls and comes back and tells us somebody will be there in 20 minutes. Well, since we are at the bar, we might as well celebrate. Tequila shots are only 80 cents you say? Well serve em up. While we drank we met some of the locals, All told the locals were extremely nice.
Eventually our cop friend had to leave but he came up to us and told us that the guy would be there in 10 minutes. His English wasn’t great but he conveyed that the guy ‘looks like Jesus, long brown hair, blue eyes’. Had an awkward moment when I tried to go to the bathroom. Somebody pointed me towards an archway and told me to go downstairs. I went down and found a small underground bar. I was waiting in line for the bathroom when an older Serbian woman comes up and starts berating me for bringing my beer in there. “We don’t serve beer in plastic glasses”. Now, I see her point but I had to go to the bathroom and I was close to the front of the line so I couldn’t leave either. Her English wasn’t great so I had a time trying to talk her down, offering to buy a drink (but after I went to the bathroom) etc. She seemed to calm down and all was ok. Randomly, a girl came up later and mentioned she had seen the whole thing and complemented me on how I handled it. All of this did mean that I had to buy another shot of tequila after I went to the bathroom. This day is getting messy.
Eventually Jesus showed up, I was waiting to pay for a round of drinks so Dan went off to deal with it. We ended up paying 12000 dinar (about 25/per person/per night) to be about 100 feet from the entrance to the festival. The room was private but the bathroom was down the hall. The Ritz, it ain’t. There was a constant leak in the bathroom so it was always covered in water. The beds were basically just little foam futon things. All that said, it was a private room and bathroom 100 feet from the festival. Score.
Since we were running out of time, we decided not to go back to the camp. We headed back to the festival. They gave us crap about coming in saying we had already been there that day (earlier when we took a look around) but we argued it through. That would have sucked. But it didn’t so we headed over to see Robert Plant. His show was sweet. The lack of dinner is starting to get to me. After his show, we went wandering around the show. Of course we completely forgot that we wanted to see Prodigy and Groove Armada. Ahh well, we bounced around and eventually made it back to our room.
I was feeling the love in the morning. Gotta stay away from that tequila. We eventually made it out for some breakfast and then over to the camp to get our stuff. After we moved, it was time for food again. We asked one of the vendors just outside our door where to get a real meal. He mentioned a few places in town but nothing close. We resigned ourselves to heading back over the bridge but decided to check the place on the water on the off chance that they had food. Turns out to be a great meal, no idea why the guy didn’t mention it.
After dinner it was nap time. We were just getting ready to head out to the show that evening when there was a knock on the door. The owner of the room, an attractive Serbian girl, came in and gave us a 15 minute history of Serbia. She set up to meet the next day for a more in depth tour. Odd, at this point I am still worrying about ulterior motives. Ahh well, problem for tomorrow, back to the show.
We were much more ready for the show tonight. We started with a cool Serbian ska band on the Fusion stage. The next band on that stage was also good, Defence, a Bosnian reggae band. Not looking at him, you would think he sounds like an old rasta with dreads. Looking at him you see a balding white accountant guy. Odd, but the sound was good.
More wandering, we he headed over and caught CSS, a brazilian band that we saw in the 02 festival in LDN. They are good with a fun presence. Next was the Beasties. This is why we came. We had worked our way up pretty close by the time they started. This was a bit of a problem b/c there were a bunch of big as Serbians basically moshing. I am getting to old for this shit. We moved back a bit and had a much better show.
We wrapped it up around 3am, feeling much better for having played teetotaler. I added another mattress that was leaning against the wall to my bed and made it much more comfortable. Feeling nice and human again.
The flight from London got us to Belgrade just before midnight. We caught a cab to the Hotel Royal. A bit run down but it had a 24 hour restaurant, bar, and shop. We stopped at the bar for a beer. 100 dinars, about 1.75 each. It also had a hot line in the bathroom. There was a bright red phone in the bathroom. Just in case I needed to call in a nuclear strike from the toilet.
Next morning we headed over to the train station. There were plenty of other Exit Fest types. Enough that when the train pulled into the station people started jumping on before it even stopped. They needn’t have bothered, there was plenty of room. It was the first time I had to jump on a moving train though.
When we finally got to Novi Sad, we encountered a huge unorganized queue to get into the campgrounds. It was all Brits too, I thought they were supposed to be good at queuing. It is one of their national prides but I guess when in Serbia all that goes to hell. Other than having to muscle your way through crowd to get close enough to be in the 10 people they let in at a time. All told the line took about an hour to get through the camping line. Unlike other festivals I have been to, well, THE other festival I have been to, there was no organization in the camping area. Just a large field and tents 15 and 20 deep.
We eventually found a spot a little off the beaten path and set up. I recently bought a new tent, backpack, sleeping bag, etc. I ended up getting some all in one kit. It is pretty decent, on the lower end of the quality gear.
Once we were set up, we headed to the beach. They had a DJ set up and all the brits were out sunning. One annoying thing was that they had some funny money setup for the drinks. You had to buy tokens to get beer, different ones for water, others for wine, energy drinks, sodas, etc. Ugh, annoying especially since later in the camp they weren’t accepting the tokens (despite all the signs that said you couldn’t use cash). In the festival, they only ever took tokens. After having a beer on the beach though, it was really starting to feel like vacation.
We decided to head over to the festival to get our tickets squared away. The fortress was straight across the Danube, not far as the crow flies. As I walk, however, it is a bit far to be going over to the bridge and back. We started hatching a plan to find a room closer to the festival.
After sitting through another queue, we went into the festival grounds. Nothing was going on yet so we just wandered around and got the lay of the land. The main stage area was a bit small but other than that, the grounds were great. 13 large stages with 29 discreet areas. The 3D effect was great. There were places you could be at one stage and see one or two others in the background. For the sound all they did was turn it up really loud. If you were at any of the stages, the sound was all encompassing.
After a tour of the grounds, we went back into town to look for a room. I asked a cop that was standing on the side if the sign behind him said room for rent. He was super nice and ended up going out of his way to ask around for a room for us. He made some calls and comes back and tells us somebody will be there in 20 minutes. Well, since we are at the bar, we might as well celebrate. Tequila shots are only 80 cents you say? Well serve em up. While we drank we met some of the locals, All told the locals were extremely nice.
Eventually our cop friend had to leave but he came up to us and told us that the guy would be there in 10 minutes. His English wasn’t great but he conveyed that the guy ‘looks like Jesus, long brown hair, blue eyes’. Had an awkward moment when I tried to go to the bathroom. Somebody pointed me towards an archway and told me to go downstairs. I went down and found a small underground bar. I was waiting in line for the bathroom when an older Serbian woman comes up and starts berating me for bringing my beer in there. “We don’t serve beer in plastic glasses”. Now, I see her point but I had to go to the bathroom and I was close to the front of the line so I couldn’t leave either. Her English wasn’t great so I had a time trying to talk her down, offering to buy a drink (but after I went to the bathroom) etc. She seemed to calm down and all was ok. Randomly, a girl came up later and mentioned she had seen the whole thing and complemented me on how I handled it. All of this did mean that I had to buy another shot of tequila after I went to the bathroom. This day is getting messy.
Eventually Jesus showed up, I was waiting to pay for a round of drinks so Dan went off to deal with it. We ended up paying 12000 dinar (about 25/per person/per night) to be about 100 feet from the entrance to the festival. The room was private but the bathroom was down the hall. The Ritz, it ain’t. There was a constant leak in the bathroom so it was always covered in water. The beds were basically just little foam futon things. All that said, it was a private room and bathroom 100 feet from the festival. Score.
Since we were running out of time, we decided not to go back to the camp. We headed back to the festival. They gave us crap about coming in saying we had already been there that day (earlier when we took a look around) but we argued it through. That would have sucked. But it didn’t so we headed over to see Robert Plant. His show was sweet. The lack of dinner is starting to get to me. After his show, we went wandering around the show. Of course we completely forgot that we wanted to see Prodigy and Groove Armada. Ahh well, we bounced around and eventually made it back to our room.
I was feeling the love in the morning. Gotta stay away from that tequila. We eventually made it out for some breakfast and then over to the camp to get our stuff. After we moved, it was time for food again. We asked one of the vendors just outside our door where to get a real meal. He mentioned a few places in town but nothing close. We resigned ourselves to heading back over the bridge but decided to check the place on the water on the off chance that they had food. Turns out to be a great meal, no idea why the guy didn’t mention it.
After dinner it was nap time. We were just getting ready to head out to the show that evening when there was a knock on the door. The owner of the room, an attractive Serbian girl, came in and gave us a 15 minute history of Serbia. She set up to meet the next day for a more in depth tour. Odd, at this point I am still worrying about ulterior motives. Ahh well, problem for tomorrow, back to the show.
We were much more ready for the show tonight. We started with a cool Serbian ska band on the Fusion stage. The next band on that stage was also good, Defence, a Bosnian reggae band. Not looking at him, you would think he sounds like an old rasta with dreads. Looking at him you see a balding white accountant guy. Odd, but the sound was good.
More wandering, we he headed over and caught CSS, a brazilian band that we saw in the 02 festival in LDN. They are good with a fun presence. Next was the Beasties. This is why we came. We had worked our way up pretty close by the time they started. This was a bit of a problem b/c there were a bunch of big as Serbians basically moshing. I am getting to old for this shit. We moved back a bit and had a much better show.
We wrapped it up around 3am, feeling much better for having played teetotaler. I added another mattress that was leaning against the wall to my bed and made it much more comfortable. Feeling nice and human again.
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