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This route was closed because of the Kaikoura earthquake, but has now recently reopened. Park up at the end of Ure Road. Earthquake damage means the Upper Ure road is permanently closed. Now the route starts 3km lower, meaning an extra hour in the river. This is an impromptu trip where I am cadging a lift with a friend who is passing through, so I can't offer any transport. Therefore you must make your own way to the end of Ure Rd and the new start of the track, then your own way back out. I'll be dropped off in Kaikoura where I plan to do a bit of whale watching/hire a sea kayak if the weather is suitable, then plan to get a bus up to Picton 7 or 8 Feb. You are very welcome to join me in Kaikoura. Sat tramp road end through Sawcut Gorge to Isolation hut for the night. Spectacular scenery, wet feet. Sun to Brian Boru hut for lunch, then Zoo Hut overnight. This day involves a very steep climb behind Isolation hut, then a steep shingle descent to Brian Boru. 6 - 7 hours slow and steady Mon return same way to Isolation hut. Slow shingle climb up, and steep descent to Isolation hut. Tues back to the road end and our vehicles. This trip is suited to a party of four. I will add people manually when I am reassured you have your own transportation as I can't not provide any. Do your own research, know where you are going, be properly equipped. You are responsible for your own safety.

**Important time note:** Please plan on arriving between 5:30 and 6:00 as the elevators lock after 6 and you'll need to message us and we'll need to come get you. The building address is 4450 Bridge Park The entrance is 6620 Mooney St, Suite 400 **Abstract** TBD **YouTube Link** TBA

**Important time note:** Please plan on arriving between 5:30 and 6:00 as the elevators lock after 6 and you'll need to message us and we'll need to come get you. The building address is 4450 Bridge Park The entrance is 6620 Mooney St, Suite 400 **Abstract** TBD **YouTube Link** TBA

Come out to Improving for our monthly iOS and Mac meetings. This Month's Presentation: Nothing yet. (You should volunteer). What is Cocoaheads (http://cocoaheads.org/)? CocoaHeads is a group devoted to discussion of Apple Computer's Cocoa Framework for programming on MacOS X and iOS (including the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch). During monthly meetings, members present on their projects and offer tutorials on various programming topics. What is BuckeyeCocoa (http://buckeyecocoa.org/)? BuckeyeCocoa is a group of Objective-C/Swift developers/enthusiasts. We host monthly Cocoaheads and near-weekly NSCoder meetings in Columbus, Ohio. The meetings are free to attend. Presentations! Presenters welcome! We are always in need of people willing to present material. Any Swift and/or Objective-C related topic is welcome. Times can be 5 minutes (i.e. lightning talks) to a maximum of 2 hours. Interested? Contact info is on the BuckeyeCocoa website. To volunteer for a presentation contact us at @BuckeyeCocoa on Twitter. Follow us on Twitter! @BuckeyeCocoa (https://twitter.com/#!/Buckeyecocoa/) For more information: http://buckeyecocoa.org/

**Chaos Monkeys, Open Telemetry, and .NET Aspire: Taming Complexity in Modern Apps** .NET Aspire is far more than just a sleek dashboard for wowing your boss and co-workers. It's also a gateway to increased observability with open telemetry, better fault tolerance to fend off chaos monkeys, and a drastically improved onboarding experience for new developers. This session will explore Microsoft's latest guidance for building distributed, cloud-first applications, with practical strategies for enhancing simpler existing apps. You'll discover the inner workings of Aspire, from installation to customization, and learn how it streamlines integration with performance boosters like Redis. Most importantly, you'll see why scalable microservices architectures can be challenging—and how Aspire helps simplify the journey. **Presenter:** Lee Richardson, Microsoft MVP **Pizza starts at 6. Presentation starts around 6:30.**

### Tools in your AI's Toolbox : An introduction to MCP Servers The generative AI revolution has unlocked unprecedented capabilities, but the next frontier is agency: empowering models to interact with, query, and act upon the world. The current challenge is the “N x M integration problem,” where every AI model requires a custom, brittle integration for each external tool or data source. This approach simply doesn’t scale. How can we give an AI access to our sales leads, code repositories, or IoT devices in a standardized, secure, and reusable way? This session introduces Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol (MCP), the open-source framework designed to solve this challenge and become the universal connector—the USB-C port—for AI. MCP standardizes how AI models discover and use external tools, moving beyond simple function-calling to a robust, client-server architecture. We will dive into how this open protocol is creating a new ecosystem for building powerful, context-aware AI agents. Join this session for a developer-focused introduction where you will learn how to: Understand the core concepts of the open-source Model Context Protocol and its architecture. Utilize pre-built, open-source MCP servers to instantly connect AI to tools like Git, Slack, and databases. Build a custom MCP server to securely expose your own proprietary data and APIs as tools for any compliant AI. Move beyond bespoke integrations and contribute to a standardized, collaborative, and open ecosystem. Stop building one-off connectors and start building intelligent agents. This session will give you the practical knowledge to leverage MCP and create the next generation of AI that doesn’t just talk, but does. Want to be a speaker? submit your talk to our Call for Presenters!!! [https://sessionize.com/azure-cbus-2026/](https://sessionize.com/azure-cbus-2026/)

Our monthly PHP meetup. A virtual shindig courtesy of Zoom. Check back here for the details around 6:15 pm