Pads

I’ve seen a number of pad computers being launched recently. I’m not sure about the pad. I prefer to have a proper keyboard. I don’t see the death of the mouse anytime soon but I know some have predicted it. On the other hand, I enjoy playing with gadgets: so if the price point is affordable I might be encouraged to splash out on one. At the moment though, it is too early to tell whether they will be useful enough.

Labour Leader

I have seen some of the Labour conference in Manchester and in particular the new leader Ed Miliband. I am not very impressed really, I haven’t been interested in politics for a long time and I don’t see that changing. I don’t see any great charisma in this young leader.

Place of my own

Birthday Monday

Another Monday but my son’s birthday today. Hope he enjoys the gifts we’ve bought – I’m sure he will. Birthdays during the school week aren’t quite as much fun as during weekends. But I’m sure he’ll enjoy the day.

We had quite a quiet weekend really, the children had homework to complete and I had some work to do for the judo club. So we did some shopping. The weather wasn’t too great for cycling, so we gave it a miss this weekend.

I began watching the Book of Eli film last night but haven’t yet finished it. Gary Oldman always seems to play baddies.

Changes

There are several changes happening at the moment for me. The mornings and evenings are getting dark much quicker. The week so far has been mild and relatively sunny however today seems to be dark and wet.

Aside from the weather, my work routine is starting to change. I’m travelling to a different office one day a week, it breaks up the week a bit which is okay but I haven’t settled into a pattern yet.

My youngest is starting to get regular homework and it feels like schoolwork is beginning to get serious now. We’re reading at home and I will try to encourage reading and writing for pleasure at home – balancing that with TV and the Wii will be a bit tricky.

My oldest is choosing her big school (secondary/high school) and has to take an exam, she is one of the youngest in her class. I worry what will happen because the schools vary so much in their quality. Some schools are selective so they cream the most academic children, it seems so unfair. It seems too young at 10 to take exams and for such an important thing. The exam is meant to measure ability, so isn’t focused on things you can revise, despite some parents putting extra pressure on their kids. It might seem hypocritical but we have been paying for a private tutor once a week too, that is really just helps a bit with confidence though. I have to confess I am not an academic and didn’t do that well at exams, I have a vocational mind rather than a purely academic one. Probably one of the reasons I haven’t gone back into education during my adult life.

A quiet day

Last night I didn’t feel well at all; streaming nose and headache. This morning I had jippy guts and felt like death warmed up, so I took the decision that it was better I rest at home than try and work. So today I did just that, had quite a nice chilled out day. Did a bit of this, a bit of that, had a little nap and felt better afterwards. I don’t think this cold is going away anytime soon but it was good to have the day off sick and not have to compete with the rest of the world at work.

Tomorrow is probably going to be a different story. I will still have the cold but I won’t get any sympathy and I’ll be expected to catch up. Oh well, at least I’ve had one chilled day this week.

Monday update

The weekend was quite busy for me, we attended another Judo competition on Saturday and my daughter came away with a winners trophy for her weight group. She’s got quite a good collection of them now, bless her tough little cotton socks.

I’m creating a relational database for another local club, so that is forcing me to re-acquaint myself with database design – something I’ve not done for a few years.

We went for a cycle ride as a family on Sunday morning, it was good to be out in the fresh air.

Today, I felt de-motivated at work because of the way a senior manager communicated. You’d think these people in high paid positions would know how to handle people wouldn’t you? Maybe I’m being super-sensitive? I’d like to just say what I think but I know it’s not worth it. 

A song about a bike

I’ve always liked the strangeness of early Pink Floyd, this tune is one of the more accessible ones…

A Strange Occurrence

A couple of times a week I have to catch a particular train for work. In order to do that I have to drive through a village that is apparently one of the most haunted in the county. I’ve never really paid a lot of attention to that before but something happened yesterday that has never happened before to me in quite the same manner.

I was driving along, through the village and was nearly out of it. There is an old cottage with a thatched roof that one year was memorable because it had a thatched spider on top of it. It was a cold but sunny morning and there was condensation on my car when I first started it. But just at the point going through the village near the old cottage the temperature must have dived really suddenly because in a matter of seconds my windows and wing mirrors went from crystal clear to opaque with condensation. It was so sudden I almost began to panic until I realised it was external and I could use my wipers. My wing mirrors took several minutes to clear.

I just it was very odd to experience that sudden drop. Although it could be explained scientifically I’ve no doubt, part of me is susceptible to the notion of the supernatural having some kind of effect. Especially in old villages with probably some unsavoury history.

Final Day of the Holidays

Tomorrow represents the final day of the school holidays for my family. I have taken the day off and my wife has to work. So I have the children to do exciting things with. I haven’t really got a plan of what to do with them yet. It’s a little sad when it gets to this time of year but then again it’s progress – onwards and upwards as they say. Now I have to think about what to do tomorrow.

eBooks

I recently downloaded a couple of eBook reader applications for my netbook. I figured my netbook is similar in size and weight to a hardback book. I downloaded a small app that rotates the display, so I can read eBooks using the Netbook on its side, open like a book. Amazon’s Kindle is available to buy in the UK and is at a pretty good price point, it also has good online connectivity and looks like a good value package. Somehow though, I’m still not totally impressed by eBooks. Or the range of choice of books available. I’d heard that some libraries are loaning eBooks on memory sticks. I do have an uneasy feeling about eBooks, in the same way that I had uneasy feelings about internet search engines. Are these contributing to a decline in libraries and library services or just part of a technology shift? I’m not sure. Reading off a screen isn’t like reading off paper and holding a book in your hand. I don’t know about Kindle, maybe that would be an improvement over a backlit screen.

Oh Sherrie

I loved the album Street Talk by Steve Perry when it first came out, so many great songs. I re-acquainted myself with the album through iTunes this weekend. I love this track but have never seen the video until today.

Cycling again

This weekend I was back on my bike following my unfortunate accident last weekend. I bought a cycle computer that gives me information like speed, distance, average speed, time, stopwatch, calories burned and a few bits of other information.

We cycled 13 miles today, to a nearby village and back. The weather was just right. I’m glad I had this extra day for the weekend to enjoy with my family.

A Bank Holiday Beckons

I find it hard to believe that September is almost upon us. Seems like it was only yesterday that we were into summer. I traditionally like the run to December, I like looking forward to Christmas. I like the trees as their leaves change colour and the bright but cold morning sun. I like less the rain, the damp, the cold and the frosts and fogs. I'm glad we have seasons though, it would be too boring if the weather was the same all year round.
On Monday, we have a Bank Holiday in the UK - a non-working Monday. I like these, weekends of 3 days length should be the norm in my opinion. I also have wednesday off next week. So that means I will work only 3 days, which can't be bad.
This weekend I hope to be able to get back on my bike. I won't be overdoing the speed though.
I've been playing a lot of the game Professor Layton and the Curious Village videogame on my Nintendo DS Lite; if you enjoy puzzles and brainteasers I heartily recommend it.

Crash, Bang, Wallop!

I knew it couldn’t last! I was enjoying cycling too much to be true. On Saturday, while enjoying a short cycling trip with my family I decided to impress my son with a burst of speed and left the path. I accelerated on the grass verge and my plan was to rejoin the path. Unfortunately, I didn’t account for a rut between the grass and the concrete path. My bike hit the rut and went one way while I went the other and crashed down hard on the floor. Fortunately, I was wearing a helmet. Even so, I found myself dizzily standing up not knowing what had hit me. The reaction of my wife and kids was instant and very caring. So, I’ve damaged a pair of glasses and have plenty of grazes including on my face and a black eye. I guess these things happen and I should feel grateful that I walked away relatively alright instead of having to go to an Accident and Emergency Department. It does go to show that speed can be a dangerous thing. It hasn’t deterred me from cycling but I will be taking it easy from now on. Lesson learned.

A Short Weekend

It feels like it has been a short weekend, my first since returning to work after the holidays. Two days rest just doesn’t feel long enough.

We did cram a lot in though. I had a boys day with my son on Saturday as my wife and daughter had to leave early for a judo competition. My daughter is getting on really well with the sport, she beat her opponents to win a gold medal, a testament to her skill is that she had to fight in a weight category above her and the girl she fought in the final was 6 kilos heavier and head and shoulders taller. She was taller than my daughter even when standing on the podium. It’s not always size that matters though, as my daughter proved.

I took my son swimming and to the library. We bought the ingredients for a boys burger lunch and cooked them at home. We played with Lego, watched a DVD and played some videogames. Just chilling out.

On Sunday, we all went out for a family bike ride. It was great. The weather turned out really nice and we rode to another village and back after stopping in a park that my kids love to play in. Funny how you notice other riders when you’re out yourself, I don’t notice cyclists so much when I’m driving out and about unless they’re directly infront of me on the road. I’m not going to be buying a Lycra suit any time soon though, I’m riding for pleasure not for racing. There was some story in the BBC website about MAMILS (Middle Age Men in Lycra – a story about middle aged men who buy road racing bikes instead of cheap Japanese sports cars). My son found some of the journey hard though because his bike is a youngsters one and doesn’t have gears. If we can afford it, we’re going to see if we can buy him one with gears sometime soon so that he’ll find the going a bit easier and we can go further. I did feel for him but to his credit he kept going despite complaining a bit. We cycled probably about 10 miles, nothing too heavy but due to the weather we had a great time and got some exercise.

I hope you all had a good weekend too.

Netbook Disaster Recovery

Just before going away I was running some checks on my Netbook when I found it had an infection – my suspicions were raised because Google results always took me to shopping sites or other search engines rather than the pages I was selecting and it would not let me go to the Windows Update site, this prompted my scans using the Microsoft website and I was unlucky enough to find out I had some kind of mallware infection. No thanks to my security software though, which continued to report no issues affecting my machine throughout the whole episode. Advice on various websites suggested the best removal practice was to wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. After backing up my data, I did this.

The reinstall went OK, although there were a lot of updates to install again for Windows and it took several days to download and install the applications I use regularly. I’m still sometimes looking for something that I’ve either got to reinstall or pull off a back up disk but at least I’m operational again.

With reinstalling Windows my big fear is usually about whether I have a recovery disk. With a Netbook there is no optical disk. Fortunately the good people of the Internet provided a solution and I actually found I had a recovery partition on my hard disk that handled it for me. It’s usually an unsettling period though when wiping a disk and starting again. Now I’ve done it though, there are some benefits in terms of speed and also clearing of clutter. I like a fresh install, reminds me of the thrill of starting to work with a new PC. Is it nerdy to admit that?

Back from hols and back to work

Last week we were on our holidays at the seaside. It was good to be some place we hadn’t been before. The beach was lovely and we walked a long distance every day. As a birthday present for my wife recently my daughter asked me to buy Walk With Me for the Nintendo DS Lite. It comes with two pedometers that you wear everyday and at night can compare your activity rhythms with your partner. There are some games you can play – one is called Illuminate and it shows your Mii’s on a walking machine and the Mii’s walk while the time goes by over their heads and when you both maintain an activity level at the same time they shout “Synchro!” and eventually you can illuminate a town. It’s good fun and we walked A LOT while on holiday – my left leg ached so I don’t know how our children managed it – except that they are really fit and I’m not!

On Sunday morning my daughter and I went out on our bikes for a really satisfying ride. The weather was lovely.We rode along some of the cycle routes that have been created in and around the town. We rode to my kid’s village school and back. It took 40 minutes to get there, taking our time and just leisurely cycling. It was good to be out getting the exercise.

I was back at work today. The fear of being away always seems to overpower the actual experience. I hate coming back to work after a break though.

Bike Crank

My family and I went cycling this afternoon. But unfortunately my son’s pedal crank had worked loose without my noticing and it came off. So without tools to repair, we had to cut short our ride. Shame, I had been looking forward to riding my new bike a bit longer. We were all quite tired though, after not getting back from London until after midnight (my wife and I) and the kids stay up later during the holidays than they would at school.

Holiday Beckons

We travel down to the coast on Monday. I’m looking forward to being away somewhere new for a while. I have to think tomorrow what I want to take with me. I’ve a couple of books I could take and my PSP. I have a drawing pad and some pencils. And not to mention the video camera and the stills camera. I also need to think about the journey and what snack food we’ll be needing. Motorway food can be ridiculously expensive, so I think is best avoided spending lots of money on food if we can.

I hope the sea air recharges all of our human body batteries. My back is slowly regaining its strength, I’ve been applying Ralgex for the last couple of days to ease the pain a bit – I don’t know if it’s helping or I’m just getting better on my own accord. Oh well, the end result is the same.