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Monday, August 4th, 2008
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9:38 pm - That was the weekend that was.
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So there we have it. The end of my twenties. For those who don't already know, I've just turned thirty. This was celebrated with a nice trip to the pub with lots of my lovely friends, and it made me realise quite what a disparate group of people I spend my time with. There were a wide range of goths, geeks and excersise addicts in the pub and everyone got along swimmingly. Then over the weekend I had a nice trip to Wales to ride my bike up and down some real mountains. Apart from Charlotte spanging herself rather badly, a good time was had by all (how can I drive 350 miles to another country and then bump into someone from the next town in the car park?).
Otherwise, I've been far too busy to get much interesting done recently, which has actually been rather good, I've got my geek-fu back and been voluntarily working 16hour stretches on things because I feel like getting on with something interesting. It's been rather stressful, but I'm quite pleased to have done it. It also looks like I'm about to do it all over again, as I've been pitching for a web-based project that is on an exceedingly tight timescale which will require drinking rather a lot of coffee over the coming weeks.
Also I have recently aquired a new camera, a Canon EOS 450D no less. I am most pleased with it and having spent a couple of weeks faffing with getting to grips with it (mostly through not having time to go out and take photos due to the aforementioned work), I am by now taking quite a few pictures that I'm reasonably pleased with. Here's a sample to tempt you to go and look at my Flickr photostream.
Caution, contains pictures of fallen mountain bikers.
Other than that, I'm doing pretty well. Pleased that I can jump in my car and drive for 5 hours with only a 10 minute pee break and not suffer, pretty pleased with where my life is as I enter my thirties, even if I haven't paid off my mortgage and bought a Ferrari just yet.
Comments on things always most welcome, especially photography, it's hard to tell what just appeals to me and what other people find pleasing. Also constructive tips are gladly listened to.
Right. Bed, getting home at half three is starting to take it's toll.
current mood:  content
current music: The Long Black Veil - Johnny Cash
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| Sunday, July 27th, 2008
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12:18 pm - Folk Stones.
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| Tuesday, June 24th, 2008
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1:34 am - Weekend
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What a cool weekend, Friday night was a quiet one, popping next door for food and ale and happily sitting up, singing Flanders and Swan numbers, getting pleasantly sozzled and talking rubbish, a fine way to relax. Saturday was then my mum's birthday and after spending a little time wandering round town trying to locate a book which turned out to be something of a wild goose chase, I headed over to see the parentals and had a nice relaxed lunch and afternoon, although I must confess to a wee nap during the course of the afternoon. Into the evening I headed round to my good friend Mel's for her solstice barbecue, which was a most pleasant affair. A good combination of drinking, making new friends and catching up with some old ones. Karl was most chuffed in that he'd been to go and pick up a jetski during the day, more of which later. Sunday then followed with an unexpected visit from Tree who felt like a bit more catch up having failed to talk much the night before, I then headed into town to geek with and search for free wireless with Bruce, before heading over to Canterbury for a screening of Taking Liberties, while I was already aware of most of the issues, it's a rather startling film to say the least, and to have the various things put forth in such a concise form is rather alarming. Oh and the Orange Street Music Club is an excellent venue, with a magnificent main hall. Having failed to catch up with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) hackenpaste at the film, though, I ended up going looking for him, and after being slightly vexed by the door of The Hob, managed to join him and his drinking buddies for further amusement.
Which brings us to this afternoon and back to Karl's new jetski. Having offered to tow it to the beach with him, an offer that was eagerly accepted, I ended up doing something I've not done in far too long, bumming about on a beach. The usual story, though, I took some photos, I've put some up on Flikr so clicky this sample for more, then give some comments.
current mood: content
current music: Still got Covenant stuck in my head.
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| Sunday, June 15th, 2008
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10:26 pm - It's not often I give in to posting memes...
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But this one seems to be doing the rounds and I quite like it...
If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want -- good or bad. When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.
[Comments screened - please mention if you have strong feelings on me unscreening your comment].
Thanks.
current mood:  curious
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8:03 pm - A long night.
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Having once again agreed to help my friend Ed move some PA gear round for a show, I have had a rather tiring, but fun weekend. He was suppling amplification to the launch party of the Folkestone Triennial Festival launch party on Friday night and then a harbour-side gig during the day on Saturday. Initial testing of the lighting took place on Wednesday night, and proved a great success, the setting up for the launch took most of Thursday and then Friday morning, before the party started at 8pm. Setting up was relatively simple, there was just an awful lot of power to supply and lighting to set up. At the peak, there was something like 100 amps being drawn accross the three phases of the supply!
After the show kicked out at 1am, there was an awful lot of gear to collect with the proviso that everyone should be off-site by 5am. Hurried coiling of wire and packing away ensued. The last load of equipment was moved to the next day's site by 4:30am, at which point I headed off for a few hours sleep to return and clear away the things not needed before the show started late morning. The Bands were great, it's been a while since I've been to a good Ska gig, but Los Albertos were upbeat and funky. After that it was another rushed case of breaking down equipment and packing it back to the workshop. (Taking the marquee away while we're trying to empty it seemed a little unecessary, and meant that someone had to guard the remaining equipment while runs were made to the workshop.
One of the perks of the weekend was that I got to experiment with a DSLR (a Nikon D40) and managed to take some pictures I'm proud of. Some of the better ones I've uploaded to my Flikr account, so go have a look. Feedback, as always gratefully appreciated.
current music: Janis Joplin - (Oh lord, won't you buy me a) Mercades Benz
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| Saturday, May 31st, 2008
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7:35 pm - Photo Organisation
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Right then people, I've finally decided to start using my Flickr account. I'm tobestool on there, so feel free to add me to your contacts who-ha if the desire so strikes you. I shall have to go through my photos and find some of my better ones to upload, but for the moment, I've put some up that I took this afternoon. Clicky the pic for more.
It's still rather a work in progress, so keep an eye out for improvements, however constructive criticism is always welcome.
Also following a rather late night last night (having people round for a bonfire is great fun, but when they leave you still have to keep an eye on it for at least another two hours after you've finished with the fun bit), I have rediscovered the joys of an afternoon nap. Huzzah!
current mood:  accomplished
current music: Blue Oyster Cult - Born to be Wild
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| Thursday, May 29th, 2008
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10:37 am
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Right before I forget, following the debauchary that was Onion Dave's leaving do (yay for cheesy rock and seeing everyone), I promised synthclarion that I'd put a note to the following effect somewhere where he can see it. I'd also be interested in the opinion of anyone else who's got some input. (pointyhairedone, any thoughts?)
What Mid-range camera would you reccomend? I'm looking for a pretty basic DSLR, I'd like to spend about £350, which probably means I'll end up sending £500 ;-). I've played with a Nikon D40, which I got on with and seemed to take some nice pictures.
Things what matter to me:
- Reasonably quick start up time, and little shutter lag.
- Reusability of any of my existing kit - Syn, let me know when's a good time to come and see if my flash talks to Cannons - Also anything that I can fit Tamron adaptall2 lenses onto would be a plus.
- Low light quality.
- Decent manual focus abilities would be good too, so that I can focus on the log that someone's about to ride over.
- Coming in the box with a reasonably long lens would be a big plus.
I'm not too worried about overall pixel count, I'm not going to be printing out posters or anything.
So far the shortlist is the D40, the Sony A400, or the Canon EOS 400D / 450D. (The latter I think pushing the price range).
Thoughts?
On a lighter note, I give you yet another example of engineers with too much free time playing with very expensive things.
current mood: excited
current music: Fragments - VNV
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
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1:03 pm
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I've realised that I've not been doing very well at keeping people updated with my flat progress, and a couple of people have been asking to see some photos of what I've told them about. Seeing as I've managed to get over a couple of significant hurdles lately, I figured that it's about time for some pictures...
( A few pictures )
ION, a cool weekend, Saturday saw the kitchen ceiling go up, then sorting out including wiring up lights until about midnight with the help of my friend Nina. Sunday involved sorting out quite a lot of the mess that the work had created along with general housekeeping and then yesterday I spent in London, catching up with some good friends, wandering round The Tate Modern and then relaxing in a very nice pub and chatting.
Big thanks to Ed, Nina and my Dad for help with the flat recently.
current mood: accomplished
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| Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
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6:04 pm - Quick Holiday
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Having been invited to serve co-pilot duties by a friend making a run to his old house to get some stuff, I've ummed and ahhed about it for a few days and finally accepted. So anyway at 6am I was stood outside my front door and have spend most of the day doing 100mph across France. We're at his house and chilling out. Everything has the slightly-bleak-yet-exciting air of empty houses. It's clearly rained a lot in the week since he left and everything is wet. His farmhouse now has the acrid air of hot, wet soot hanging in the air. Still it should be nice for the next few days, so it should all dry out.
I must confess I feel a lot better for getting away, albeit briefly. I should still be doing some work while I'm out here, but I'm missing v15u4l_3rr0r. Still I get to use a ride on lawnmower soon, so that makes up for that. *expects a smack when I get home* ;-)
Anyhow, return may be Friday or Sunday depending on how things go here. There's no cooker working, so we'll be living off barbecues though.
current mood: calm
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| Monday, March 10th, 2008
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3:10 pm - Storm
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I'm sure you've all heard the news, they think that the South Coast is currently experiencing the worst storm of the winter. Thinking I'd brave the weather and get some photos, I went for a walk round the harbour, and found that the place was crawling with phtographers. Anyhow, I've uploaded some of the better ones to Facebook (which I think you lot should be able to see). Clicky for a few more...
Incidentally, taking film pictures and having to a) pay and b) wait to see how my pictures have come out has joined the list of things in my head I vaguely remember, but can't believe people lived their life coping with, rather like not being able to speak to someone as they weren't at their house / office and having to wait for literature to be posted rather than downloading it...
current mood: pleased
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| Tuesday, March 4th, 2008
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12:09 am
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I recently read The Hour by Michael Hutchinson, a book about his attempt to break the world record for cycling in an hour. Not a particularly taxing concept, one would have thought ( But you'd be surprised... )
current mood:  tired
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, February 4th, 2008
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8:32 pm - More bad news.
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As if it wasn't already a bad week, I've just found out that Sheldon Brown has died :-(.
For those not into the technical side of bikes, he and his website were great sources of information, with an awful lot of facts, engineering concepts explained and a good dash of downright sillyness thrown in.
current mood:  sad
current music: all is quiet
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| Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
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11:54 am - Something a little bit silly...
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OK, so I'm not usually one to forward random funnies too much, but this made me giggle somewhat.
( Tee hee )
current mood: amused
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, December 5th, 2007
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5:32 pm - Wireless Debit Card - Advice sought.
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I recently got a new bank card. It seems to boast of the fact that it's a paypass contactless one that can be read remotely. Does anyone have any information on theses? It gives me a vaguely uneasy feeling, however without a little more information about range / forgability etc, I don't have a lot to go on.
How much of a tin-foil-hat reaction should I have to this thing?
current mood: pensive
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| Thursday, November 29th, 2007
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10:41 pm - Random Meme.
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Well this caught my attention when maid_ov_metal posted it, so I felt it was about time I did something silly...
DLA= Dream Life Alternative.
1) Current job: General geek. Programmer come web-developer, come networking janitor.
DLA: Much the same, probably moving back into working in Industrial Robotics, and generally playing with cool pieces of hardware more.
2)Current home: One bedroom flat being converted to two in Folkestone.
DLA: The large farmhouse in the Hebrides that I saw this summer and couldn't quite afford to buy. Possibly my parents house. Ideally with the back up of a narrowboat moored on a canal near to an interesting city - probably Manchester. Maybe Stockholm.
3)Current other half: The ever lovely v15u4l_3rr0r
DLA: As above. There's not many people who's company I enjoy as much, and certainly few who seem so capable of putting up with me, least of all living on a building site.
4) Current health, age and looks: Health is generally good, apart from feeling generally run down and as if I'm fighting something this week. I'm 29, and I don't think I look too bad, could do with shaving a bit more, though. Probably. I'm also probably the strongest I've ever been from building work, although lacking in fitness thanks to a lack of biking.
DLA: I quite like this age, although I don't think I've really objected to any age since about 23 when life sorted itself out. Looks and fitness wise, I'd like to get out on the bike more, loose a bit of weight and get myself fitter again, plus of course get my legs looking good ;-).
5)Lifestyle: Pretty mixed. Work, Flat building, random time spent with friends.
DLA: As above, probably a bit more free time to sit down and read a book.
6) Use of available brain cells: Pretty good. The building work keeps me learning new things, and having quit the menial work, I'm hoping to get back to attacking some more intellectual work.
DLA: Bit more hardcore problem solving would be good, preferably with some more time to think things through, rather than doing everything once it's late.
6) Random 'I wants'!: Worktops in the kitchen, carpet in the bedroom. Petrol to be free. More time. A cyclocross bike.
7) Random 'I have it good's!: Flo, friends, Dog, cat, my own space, best bike in the world. Heating. Cars.
current mood: lethargic
current music: Tumble drier
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, November 26th, 2007
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9:05 pm
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Things were going remarkably well today, they'd picked up an awful lot since last night, I was a little bored so I tried joining Facebook. Had a quick search through my friends, and ended up looking up people from my old school.
What a lot of memories can be brought back by a simple list of names. And old wounds can re-open very quickly.
I don't think I want to play anymore.
current mood: Hurt
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| Sunday, November 25th, 2007
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7:10 pm - Feeling Meh...
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Hmm, I seem to be feeling distinctly melancholy, dear reader. I have quit my work, as I've probably told most of you in person. I'd got to the point that working a full week every other week on site meant that very little else was getting done at all.
So, what have I done in my week since leaving? Depressingly little. I've had a persistent fault with the red car, where it has been cutting out randomly but briefly. I've substituted some of the most likely components to have failed. However to no avail. Today I found another likely candidate (a faulty immobilizer type thing) hopefully this will cure my problems, but given that I've been able to get an hour away from home before having trouble before, I'm sill a little cautious.
I've managed to sort out my mail server to do something useful, which is cool. I think it's fully restored to doing duties with my email and also is now back up and running as a web testing / development / backup server. It's still a highly respectable bit of kit, and I'm getting more and more impressed with it.
Thursday night, I went along to Back To The Futurepunk which was quite fun. Unfortunately due to extensive faffage and car troubles, we ended up arriving an hour late, which meant that we missed Deathboy. Xycogen and History of Guns I rather enjoyed, however it wasn't until the end of the night that I realized that we'd missed the highlight. (Honestly, who puts the main act on first?)
Friday night was a bit of a disaster, having agreed to help my friend sort out transport for a gig, I ended up arriving with minimal sleep to assist with an all-nighter. My patience was wearing rather thin after too little sleep, and a series of minor organizational errors served to put me in a particularly foul mood by the time we eventually arrived at the event. Being a roadie is rather less fun than one might imagine. For a start, having absolutely nothing to do from 6pm until 6am is really rather a long time. To my shame I ended up bickering with v15u4l_3rr0r over trivial things, for which I appologise, and hope the massage and foods go some way to making amends for. Having little warning of the type of event I was to be going to I was rather woefully under-dressed. Also the extremely packed venue and the lack of anywhere to escape to conspired to see me feeling uncomfortably claustrophobic. Running into some familiar faces was good, but did not serve to salvage the night. I crashed out in the back of the van around 2am and awoke around 5 convulsing with shivers, contemplating the symptoms of Hypothermia and rather urgently requiring the loo which served to tempt me back to the venue.
If you thought it was grim in a club by the time you get round to the end of the night, you should try arriving there at the end. with everyone looking tired, drunk or generally sweaty, the place had not improved. And with an hour still to kill, there wasn't a lot to do but brave it out until eventually it was closing time, and back to work packing up equipment, never fun when sleep deprivation has turned your hands into useless bunches of thumbs, doubly unpleasant trying to work in a hurry as you're the only one with an appointment in the morning while everyone else is breathing a sigh of relief. (are you seeing a pattern here, yet?) The van was packed in record time and we hit the motorway. Unfortunately time was against us, and I missed the opportunity to go out on my bike that had been sustaining me all night :'-(. Despondently, the van was unloaded and returned to the hire company. v15u4l_3rr0r and I finally made it to bed around 11am.
Since then, life has mostly involved around sleeping and trivial mindless jobs that can be contemplated while in no fit state for intelligent work.
It now turns out that I'm expected back in work for a full day tomorrow, when I was expecting to pop in for a chat. Ho hum. Life will sort itself out, I expect.
There, I've actually made a proper whiny LJ post! I feel like a proper geek.
current mood: tired
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| Wednesday, November 21st, 2007
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9:24 pm - More on the new toy...
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Right, I got round to taking some photos...
Right, so this is the beast:
( More for those interested... )
So there we have it. It's downloading, scanning and storing email by now, I think it might have its first commercial application sending some email for a customer and it's even a lot less noisy now that I've installed a driver for the fan controller.
Oh and I found out in the documentation that you can even hot-swap the ram... I'm impressed.
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| Tuesday, November 20th, 2007
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10:41 pm - New Toy...
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OK, so I might have got a bit carried away on eBay...
I needed a mail server, and I kept thinking how nice the rackmount Compaqs are... So I bid on one... and I won...
I've just picked it up, and fired it up.
It's got 6 10k rpm discs in it.
It's got hot swap Power supplies(2) / PCI cards(3) / Fans (about 12, each with little health LED - so cute!) / Discs.
It's got 4 gig of ECC ram.
It's built like a tank, and is clearly designed to keep running through an awful lot.
It may be overkill for a mailserver, but Ooooh baby!
current music: A REALLY LOUD SERVER!
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, October 23rd, 2007
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6:05 pm - History Meme
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Well, I've been meaning to make a rather grand State-of-the-Universe post for some time, and this meme gives me a rather neat way to encapsulate things...
( Historical things... )
current mood: tired
current music: Franz Ferdinand - You're the Reason I'm Leaving (apparently - it's on shuffle)
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