We are approaching the time of new year resolutions. Gill has gone and made hers all public, so I suppose I'd better go and do the same. I started doing these 3 years ago, and they have included such fun things as "Run a half-marathon", "get in shape", and "buy a house".
However, before heading off on what I'll be attempting next year, I'll just remind myself of some of the achievements from 2008.
1) Achieved a sub 1h30 half-marathon
2) Achieved a sub 40min 10k run
3) Learnt to swim
4) Swam over a mile non-stop
..and some non-exercise based ones...
5) Found myself a lovely girlfriend (who will probably complain that shes not no.1 on the list)
6) Sorted out garden and bathroom (just...)
7) Finished the year with more savings than I started with (ropey, but I'll count it)
Not bad...un-shockingly all rather exercise based (to be expected, in line with the "attainable and sustainable" one from 3 years ago...). So onto this year...
1) Regain running fitness after injury. Target is to achieve 1h30 in the Reading Half (end of March)
2) Start cycling to work. Target is early spring (like I'm going to start in winter...)
3) Do a triathlon. OK, not overly sure on this one, as there is equipment considerations. There seems to be a good beginner one in Henley in summer.
4) Sort out the porch...replace the flat roof with a tiled one, re-plaster, and new suite fitted.
5) Eat healthier. I've re-acquired my snack-habit, and it needs to be beaten back into submission.
6) Be a little less paranoid. I should probably have this as a standing one every year. Apparently not everyone is out to do me in (unless I'm on a motorbike, in which case I have a big bonus point sign floating over my head...)
That should keep me busy...
Monday, 29 December 2008
Monday, 22 December 2008
A Constructive Exercise
You can spot a bachelor house by the games room. I have one...it leads a schizophrenic life as a table football room, a library, and a board gaming den. For the boardgames I have some large pieces of MDF, covered in felt, that are tied to the top of the Foosball table. It's good in that it is 5 foot square, and can cope with any game...even one of fantasy Flights big-box specials. On the downside it's a little flexible, and does have a habit of bowing under a hardcore lean.
So over the Christmas break I intend to re-design it. I was originally going to completely re-build it using a less flexible surface, however after an hour wandering round B&Q with Gill patiently in tow I decided that it probably wasn't going to work feasibly...the wood was too thick, and too expensive.
So Plan B is to re-surface and re-enforce the existing panels. Fish has most generously supplied some new material (lots of it actually), and I've picked up 4 panels of furniture board. These will be screwed to the underside of the existing boards, and rather than the current hinges I have a collection of clips and deadbolts. I wasn't able to find any d-loops for the webbing, which is a little disappointing, however they can be affixed at a later date. I also need to add on some edging to hold it in position on the Foosball table, however again this is not vital, and I may be able to come up with some better mounting mechanism if I look around a bit...
So over the Christmas break I intend to re-design it. I was originally going to completely re-build it using a less flexible surface, however after an hour wandering round B&Q with Gill patiently in tow I decided that it probably wasn't going to work feasibly...the wood was too thick, and too expensive.
So Plan B is to re-surface and re-enforce the existing panels. Fish has most generously supplied some new material (lots of it actually), and I've picked up 4 panels of furniture board. These will be screwed to the underside of the existing boards, and rather than the current hinges I have a collection of clips and deadbolts. I wasn't able to find any d-loops for the webbing, which is a little disappointing, however they can be affixed at a later date. I also need to add on some edging to hold it in position on the Foosball table, however again this is not vital, and I may be able to come up with some better mounting mechanism if I look around a bit...
Thursday, 27 November 2008
On the downside?
It's been a funny few weeks... lots of things are happening, and I think I just need to step back a bit and work out whats best for me.
First off, the knee has not sorted itself out. I went for a run last Monday, and at 6 miles it started to seize again. This is the longest-lasting injury I've had, so I've taken drastic measures (for me) and sought out medical advice. well, to be more specific, I have registered with my GP and coerced him into a referral to a Sports Physio, which my medical insurance are happy to pay for. I have the first consultation on Tuesday. As of right now I'm not sure I will be running the Grim, which is going to really frustrate me, however, I have to be careful to make sure I am fully fit for the Tough Guy and Reading Half next year.
So instead of running I've been pushing forward with the swimming. I have now finished my course of lessons, and now have targeted myself to get up to swimming 1km non-stop. My current record is 500m, which is up a fair step from 8 weeks ago, when 2 lengths would destroy me. More and more I'm realising it's as much about being comfortable in the water and technique as strength and power.
The big thing floating about right now, however, is my job, or more precisely, the potential loss of it. My company announced a series of redundancies about a month ago, and as of today we were advised of some of the specifics. My team of 18 is losing 4, and as of today I am officially "At Risk". I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this...it's all very new and very strange, and quite apart from myself it does rather kill off the office atmosphere. I've been at the company for 11 years, and my understanding is that a redundancy package would be fairly impressive... I have to be honest, there is a part of me willing to take it and move on. Quite aside from the mercenary temptation, there is a fair argument that the place is turning into a career dead-end. Six months ago I was in a good position to push for promotion, however now that is simply not a realistic possibility...redundancies and promotions do not easily share a bed in business.
I have a couple of weeks to think about it...as I have officially been told I'm under threat I will automatically get a quote about the redundancy package, and I suspect my next move will very much be dictated by how large it is. I have to be impressively selfish, and determine the best course of action for me. Take the money, or stay in the box?
First off, the knee has not sorted itself out. I went for a run last Monday, and at 6 miles it started to seize again. This is the longest-lasting injury I've had, so I've taken drastic measures (for me) and sought out medical advice. well, to be more specific, I have registered with my GP and coerced him into a referral to a Sports Physio, which my medical insurance are happy to pay for. I have the first consultation on Tuesday. As of right now I'm not sure I will be running the Grim, which is going to really frustrate me, however, I have to be careful to make sure I am fully fit for the Tough Guy and Reading Half next year.
So instead of running I've been pushing forward with the swimming. I have now finished my course of lessons, and now have targeted myself to get up to swimming 1km non-stop. My current record is 500m, which is up a fair step from 8 weeks ago, when 2 lengths would destroy me. More and more I'm realising it's as much about being comfortable in the water and technique as strength and power.
The big thing floating about right now, however, is my job, or more precisely, the potential loss of it. My company announced a series of redundancies about a month ago, and as of today we were advised of some of the specifics. My team of 18 is losing 4, and as of today I am officially "At Risk". I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this...it's all very new and very strange, and quite apart from myself it does rather kill off the office atmosphere. I've been at the company for 11 years, and my understanding is that a redundancy package would be fairly impressive... I have to be honest, there is a part of me willing to take it and move on. Quite aside from the mercenary temptation, there is a fair argument that the place is turning into a career dead-end. Six months ago I was in a good position to push for promotion, however now that is simply not a realistic possibility...redundancies and promotions do not easily share a bed in business.
I have a couple of weeks to think about it...as I have officially been told I'm under threat I will automatically get a quote about the redundancy package, and I suspect my next move will very much be dictated by how large it is. I have to be impressively selfish, and determine the best course of action for me. Take the money, or stay in the box?
Thursday, 6 November 2008
Falling to Pieces
After almost a year of getting away with being injury-free I've managed to go through a series of issues in the last couple of weeks...
First off, I came down with a cold for 3 days, the first time I've taken time off work for illness since 2005! I spent the time playing Fable 2, and generally being frustrated at not being able to train. I felt ready to get back into training on the Friday, and went out for a run (I'm missed my Monday long run, as well as Wednesday's track-training session). I sorted out a 12 mile route, and polished it off with what felt like ease...however the next morning there was a sharp pain on the side of my right foot, stabbing every time I put my heel down. I did a little bit of research into this (I have a huge pile of running magazines which have health and injury advice), and quickly determined it was an issue called Plantar Fasciitis, where the muscle that links the heel to the forefoot becomes strained, ripped or swollen. The end result is that for the next 2 weeks at least I'm not running...indeed, just walking normally has been painful, and I've been limping and favouring my left leg, despite having plentiful strapping around the arch of my right foot...
...and of course the strain on the left leg has led to a knee issue. I'm a little more used to these, as I had similar issues a couple of years ago. That knee now has a support, and fingers crossed that's keeping the issue at bay.
So while my various aches and pains sort themselves out I'm limited to cycling and swimming (and I still suck at swimming...). While it's frustrating not to be able to do road training, I have Grim Challenge in 4 weeks time, and I have to be injury-free by then. I suspect I'll be heartily sick of spinning bikes by then...I've already spent over 3 hours on one this week, and while I have a couple of rest days ahead, with just a swimming lanes session before Sunday I'd far rather be outside doing my proper training...
Fortunately I don't have many races planned at the moment. There is the Grim Challenge at the beginning of December, and then a gap until Tough Guy at the end of January. I may do one of the Hampshire Cross-Countries at the beginning of January to give me a bit of off-road practice, and to keep some short-term targets around. After Tough-Guy it's distance-training all the way to the Reading Half, where I plan to break my PB (fingers crossed)...of course, I need to make sure I'm injury-free to do something like that...
First off, I came down with a cold for 3 days, the first time I've taken time off work for illness since 2005! I spent the time playing Fable 2, and generally being frustrated at not being able to train. I felt ready to get back into training on the Friday, and went out for a run (I'm missed my Monday long run, as well as Wednesday's track-training session). I sorted out a 12 mile route, and polished it off with what felt like ease...however the next morning there was a sharp pain on the side of my right foot, stabbing every time I put my heel down. I did a little bit of research into this (I have a huge pile of running magazines which have health and injury advice), and quickly determined it was an issue called Plantar Fasciitis, where the muscle that links the heel to the forefoot becomes strained, ripped or swollen. The end result is that for the next 2 weeks at least I'm not running...indeed, just walking normally has been painful, and I've been limping and favouring my left leg, despite having plentiful strapping around the arch of my right foot...
...and of course the strain on the left leg has led to a knee issue. I'm a little more used to these, as I had similar issues a couple of years ago. That knee now has a support, and fingers crossed that's keeping the issue at bay.
So while my various aches and pains sort themselves out I'm limited to cycling and swimming (and I still suck at swimming...). While it's frustrating not to be able to do road training, I have Grim Challenge in 4 weeks time, and I have to be injury-free by then. I suspect I'll be heartily sick of spinning bikes by then...I've already spent over 3 hours on one this week, and while I have a couple of rest days ahead, with just a swimming lanes session before Sunday I'd far rather be outside doing my proper training...
Fortunately I don't have many races planned at the moment. There is the Grim Challenge at the beginning of December, and then a gap until Tough Guy at the end of January. I may do one of the Hampshire Cross-Countries at the beginning of January to give me a bit of off-road practice, and to keep some short-term targets around. After Tough-Guy it's distance-training all the way to the Reading Half, where I plan to break my PB (fingers crossed)...of course, I need to make sure I'm injury-free to do something like that...
Saturday, 18 October 2008
Getting things done
It's been a busy few weeks. As I mentioned last time I've been arranging to get my bathroom done. I got in the same chaps who did the garden, and arranged that they would start while I was off on holiday with Gill to Devon. She has already done a rather good write-up on the week, though I should probably mention the Commando Challenge, which I did last Sunday. This was a 7 mile jaunt around the Royal Marine Endurance course in Exeter. It consisted of a 2 mile road run (quite hilly), followed by 3 miles off-road, taking in a number of crawl tunnels, water obstacles, bogs and mud. I ran with Harry (a lad from work, who also does Road Runners), and his mate Nick. You can see some of the photos on Picasa...as you can see it's fairly muddy stuff. We came in 8th around the course, which is all fairly awesome.
The bathroom is currently half-done...lots of stuff needed to be done with the entire infrastructure of the room (plumbing, electrics, walls, ceiling and floor)...now the bath, some tiles, the lights and some of the plumbing is in, as well as a fairly hilarious window at the moment...again, there are photos of work in progress. Hopefully it should be finished by Tuesday/Wednesday this week. Alongside this, I've put up some display cabinets in the games room, of an Ikea ilk. I'm quite proud of the lighting system I've managed to squeeze into them :-)
Swimming-wise, I've had 2 lessons so far, and have backed this up with a handful of lanes sessions. My technique has improved on the front crawl, and I have the basics of a breathing pattern, though my stamina is still atrocious (after 2 lengths I'm utterly blown). That's going to take practice, and getting more comfortable in the water...
The bathroom is currently half-done...lots of stuff needed to be done with the entire infrastructure of the room (plumbing, electrics, walls, ceiling and floor)...now the bath, some tiles, the lights and some of the plumbing is in, as well as a fairly hilarious window at the moment...again, there are photos of work in progress. Hopefully it should be finished by Tuesday/Wednesday this week. Alongside this, I've put up some display cabinets in the games room, of an Ikea ilk. I'm quite proud of the lighting system I've managed to squeeze into them :-)
Swimming-wise, I've had 2 lessons so far, and have backed this up with a handful of lanes sessions. My technique has improved on the front crawl, and I have the basics of a breathing pattern, though my stamina is still atrocious (after 2 lengths I'm utterly blown). That's going to take practice, and getting more comfortable in the water...
Thursday, 25 September 2008
Vast Expense
The next phase in doing up the house, and probably the most expensive one, is the bathroom. Over summer I went round a couple of places, and was given quotes in the ballpark of £6,000 to refit the place (which , given that the room is 4 square metres, can be considered a lot of money).
I've now gotten the money together, and I've spent the last couple of weeks going through various shops and brochures looking for my idea bathroom within that space (of course, ideally my bathroom would require a supply station halfway across, and the design would take into account the curvature of the earth). Tomorrow the builders (the same guys who did the garden, cracking chaps) are coming over to quote the work... The big question is how much am I going to be hit for. A brief list of the work can be found here.
There are a couple of big bits in there...resizing the window, and underfloor heating are bound to be big. I've had a rough quote on the electrics already, and that's about £1000! The suite is going to cost about £1000 as well (those curved glass screens are very expensive), and the tiling is not exactly discount either. I've gone for a natural slate floor, which should give it a very posh feel (especially given it will probably burn your feet!).
It's one of the areas that I don't dare risk myself. Plumbing and electrics are bad enough by themselves...combine them and you're pretty much assured of death if you don't know what you are doing...
I've now gotten the money together, and I've spent the last couple of weeks going through various shops and brochures looking for my idea bathroom within that space (of course, ideally my bathroom would require a supply station halfway across, and the design would take into account the curvature of the earth). Tomorrow the builders (the same guys who did the garden, cracking chaps) are coming over to quote the work... The big question is how much am I going to be hit for. A brief list of the work can be found here.
There are a couple of big bits in there...resizing the window, and underfloor heating are bound to be big. I've had a rough quote on the electrics already, and that's about £1000! The suite is going to cost about £1000 as well (those curved glass screens are very expensive), and the tiling is not exactly discount either. I've gone for a natural slate floor, which should give it a very posh feel (especially given it will probably burn your feet!).
It's one of the areas that I don't dare risk myself. Plumbing and electrics are bad enough by themselves...combine them and you're pretty much assured of death if you don't know what you are doing...
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Branching out...
OK, not quite running, but its all linked I suppose.
As you probably know, I blagged a long weekend in Spain a fortnight ago. A good amount of that was spent by the pool at the resort, and splashing about. It made me realise 2 things;
I would swim a length (not even a proper one, as it was a shaped pool), and I'd be out of breath. I can only do a front crawl, and even then I'm keeping my face out of the water as I don't know how you're supposed to breathe. It's all a bit of a train-crash really...
I was taught to swim when I was fairly young, as I suspect most people are. I was a pretty weak swimmer back then, and I have recollections of doing 1000m doggy paddle, taking approximately 2 hours to do so! It was very much the case that you were taught enough to not drown in the local river, but not much more. I never really went back in the pool after that, and at uni did scuba diving, which teaches you to use the fins and your legs (which is utterly against the concepts of swimming). Add onto that a fairly unfit young lad and you have the ultimate model in swimming mediocrity.
Fast forward to now, and I'd like to think I'm in a better shape. While I'm not bulked up, I'm mainly lean mass, and have a bit of endurance to me...of course this doesn't help one whit in the water, as I'm still splashing lots, and moving little. There is one important change though...I'm not above taking lessons now, and I reckon mentally I'm in a better shape to take on board what I'm being shown...after all, I've been taking running training on-board for a while, as well as general fitness advice.
There doesn't seem to be a market for "adults who can slowly drown" swimming classes. Plenty for non-swimmers, but no improver classes (I suspect a lot of this is pride...most people have a paradigm that swimming lessons are for youngsters), so I contacted a local leisure centre (handily only half a mile from my house), and asked their opinion on my best route. They recommended a course of 1-to-1 lessons with an instructor, and the price was a lot less than I thought it was going to be! So I start in 2 weeks time... I did the paperwork last night, and met the instructor, giving me a chance to cover off where I was, what I'd like to be able to do and where I feel I'm weak (breathing and technique...basically the 2 aspects of swimming). She was very pleasant, and seemed confident that I could be gotten up to a much better standard.
I'm quite looking forward to it. I love the idea of being able to nip round to the pool, swim for 30-40 minutes, then get on with my life, and it will be a good accompaniment to the running training, as well as the general fitness training!
As you probably know, I blagged a long weekend in Spain a fortnight ago. A good amount of that was spent by the pool at the resort, and splashing about. It made me realise 2 things;
- I quite enjoy swimming
- I'm shockingly bad at it
I would swim a length (not even a proper one, as it was a shaped pool), and I'd be out of breath. I can only do a front crawl, and even then I'm keeping my face out of the water as I don't know how you're supposed to breathe. It's all a bit of a train-crash really...
I was taught to swim when I was fairly young, as I suspect most people are. I was a pretty weak swimmer back then, and I have recollections of doing 1000m doggy paddle, taking approximately 2 hours to do so! It was very much the case that you were taught enough to not drown in the local river, but not much more. I never really went back in the pool after that, and at uni did scuba diving, which teaches you to use the fins and your legs (which is utterly against the concepts of swimming). Add onto that a fairly unfit young lad and you have the ultimate model in swimming mediocrity.
Fast forward to now, and I'd like to think I'm in a better shape. While I'm not bulked up, I'm mainly lean mass, and have a bit of endurance to me...of course this doesn't help one whit in the water, as I'm still splashing lots, and moving little. There is one important change though...I'm not above taking lessons now, and I reckon mentally I'm in a better shape to take on board what I'm being shown...after all, I've been taking running training on-board for a while, as well as general fitness advice.
There doesn't seem to be a market for "adults who can slowly drown" swimming classes. Plenty for non-swimmers, but no improver classes (I suspect a lot of this is pride...most people have a paradigm that swimming lessons are for youngsters), so I contacted a local leisure centre (handily only half a mile from my house), and asked their opinion on my best route. They recommended a course of 1-to-1 lessons with an instructor, and the price was a lot less than I thought it was going to be! So I start in 2 weeks time... I did the paperwork last night, and met the instructor, giving me a chance to cover off where I was, what I'd like to be able to do and where I feel I'm weak (breathing and technique...basically the 2 aspects of swimming). She was very pleasant, and seemed confident that I could be gotten up to a much better standard.
I'm quite looking forward to it. I love the idea of being able to nip round to the pool, swim for 30-40 minutes, then get on with my life, and it will be a good accompaniment to the running training, as well as the general fitness training!
Monday, 15 September 2008
A bit of a catch-up
Things have been occurring, and I've not really been keeping track of them. This will be a bit of an attempt to cover the majority of them...it will probably fail.
First off, La Manga. As my previous post pointed out the weather was fantastic. The whole weekend went rather well really, and I fully recommend all-expenses paid holidays to everyone! Some highlights;
Great weekend, and really enjoyed it. Just the right mix of relaxing, and doing stuff for me. I also found out that one of our senior managers (board room level) like a bit of foosball, and he's keen to get some in the new office we are having built. I, apparently, am already banned :-(
Work has been a mixed bag, and while projects sit in the "what are we going to do" phase, I've been doing some tech support work with XML formats and Schema's. Not really my area, but I'm picking it up fairly well, and no-one has blatantly labelled me as a fraud as yet. We've moved office, and while the new place has more space, there are less good facilities (no kitchen, and we are back to sub-standard drinks machines). I've blagged myself a window seat, though the view is less than stellar.
The running training continues. Roadrunners is brutal at the moment, and we are in the middle of a 6-week distance training improver series. It must be helping though, as I did Dorney Lake on Saturday (same race as I did in April), and I set a new PB over 10k of 39.32...my first time under 40 minutes, which has me really chuffed! I've signed up for Reading Half again, and this puts me about a minute faster over 10k than I was at the same point last year. I've set myself a training target of 40 miles a week by the new of the year.
Cricket is faring less well. A combination of bad weather, and holidays has meant that I've played very little in the last couple of months. This really showed in the game yesterday, with huge strides backwards, and a developing bruise on the right thigh (yeah, it's me that smells of Deep Heat...you can probably smell it from there...). The season is over soon, which means that at least I get my Sundays back for a while. It will probably mean more time dedicated to running, and getting stuff sorted in the house.
Ah, yes...the house. The garden is all done now, and has had its inaugural barbecue. There is still stuff to do (put up some arches over the stairs, some more painting, and I'd like to get some light systems out there to make it more evening friendly), however that can wait until next year, and spring. The next area of focus will be the bathrooms. I have cashed in some under-performing share-options, and should be contacting some workmen soon to try and sort out a window. I need to do some measurements and plans first, as I'm a little concerned that the door is going to get in the way quite royally for some stuff I want.
So there you have it...my life in a small, bite-sized capsule. Don't chew, and take with food!
First off, La Manga. As my previous post pointed out the weather was fantastic. The whole weekend went rather well really, and I fully recommend all-expenses paid holidays to everyone! Some highlights;
- Breaking the jet ski's - We blame the Spanish bloke. There were 6 of us out, and pretty much the only instruction we got during the Spanglish safety briefing was "follow the speedboat". One of the guys at the back had to swerve to avoid the wake of a large boat, and went over a reef, sucking a load of stones into the engine. The speedboat turns to get him sorted (basically turn off the engine, and get towed back in) and we all dutifully follow him...back over the reef. 4 dead jet ski's later, and one very stressed Spanish guy hating us for laughing in the boat back.
- Spa - Spent about 4 hours here...firstly got my sweat on in the gym, then a massage, followed by a prolonged jacuzzi session and generally vegging around. Lovely.
- Sugababes no-show - The shitty no-pro's that they are the decided that they couldn't be arsed to turn up, so instead the MD gave us all a £1000. So far I have heard from no-one who would have preferred it the other way!
Great weekend, and really enjoyed it. Just the right mix of relaxing, and doing stuff for me. I also found out that one of our senior managers (board room level) like a bit of foosball, and he's keen to get some in the new office we are having built. I, apparently, am already banned :-(
Work has been a mixed bag, and while projects sit in the "what are we going to do" phase, I've been doing some tech support work with XML formats and Schema's. Not really my area, but I'm picking it up fairly well, and no-one has blatantly labelled me as a fraud as yet. We've moved office, and while the new place has more space, there are less good facilities (no kitchen, and we are back to sub-standard drinks machines). I've blagged myself a window seat, though the view is less than stellar.
The running training continues. Roadrunners is brutal at the moment, and we are in the middle of a 6-week distance training improver series. It must be helping though, as I did Dorney Lake on Saturday (same race as I did in April), and I set a new PB over 10k of 39.32...my first time under 40 minutes, which has me really chuffed! I've signed up for Reading Half again, and this puts me about a minute faster over 10k than I was at the same point last year. I've set myself a training target of 40 miles a week by the new of the year.
Cricket is faring less well. A combination of bad weather, and holidays has meant that I've played very little in the last couple of months. This really showed in the game yesterday, with huge strides backwards, and a developing bruise on the right thigh (yeah, it's me that smells of Deep Heat...you can probably smell it from there...). The season is over soon, which means that at least I get my Sundays back for a while. It will probably mean more time dedicated to running, and getting stuff sorted in the house.
Ah, yes...the house. The garden is all done now, and has had its inaugural barbecue. There is still stuff to do (put up some arches over the stairs, some more painting, and I'd like to get some light systems out there to make it more evening friendly), however that can wait until next year, and spring. The next area of focus will be the bathrooms. I have cashed in some under-performing share-options, and should be contacting some workmen soon to try and sort out a window. I need to do some measurements and plans first, as I'm a little concerned that the door is going to get in the way quite royally for some stuff I want.
So there you have it...my life in a small, bite-sized capsule. Don't chew, and take with food!
Wednesday, 3 September 2008
Warmer Climates
It was announced yesterday that August was basically a bit of a shitty month overall...frankly we were lucky to get the barbecue in there at all. Summer in general this year has been a bit of a let down, and now we are in Autumn its only going to get worse!
So lets have a quick look at the forecast for the next 5 days...
So, its going to shit it down here, while I'll be mucking about in the south of Spain on jet-ski's and quad bikes. Damn :-( Yes, it's finally time for me and Gill to bugger off down to La Manga, and enjoy ourselves at someone else's expense. Expect photos of sand, sea, sun and (depressingly) me in a tux...sigh... Well, it can't all be perfect, can it?
I have a couple of days off either side, and tomorrow I'll be busying myself putting a TV up in the bedroom, playing furniture chess, and probably doing a set down the gym (though that depends on how vicious Roadrunners is tonight). I somehow doubt cricket is going to occur this weekend. Monday will be sorting myself out, getting supplies into the house, and generally keeping the relaxing feeling going for one more day...
Have fun y'all!
So lets have a quick look at the forecast for the next 5 days...
So, its going to shit it down here, while I'll be mucking about in the south of Spain on jet-ski's and quad bikes. Damn :-( Yes, it's finally time for me and Gill to bugger off down to La Manga, and enjoy ourselves at someone else's expense. Expect photos of sand, sea, sun and (depressingly) me in a tux...sigh... Well, it can't all be perfect, can it?
I have a couple of days off either side, and tomorrow I'll be busying myself putting a TV up in the bedroom, playing furniture chess, and probably doing a set down the gym (though that depends on how vicious Roadrunners is tonight). I somehow doubt cricket is going to occur this weekend. Monday will be sorting myself out, getting supplies into the house, and generally keeping the relaxing feeling going for one more day...
Have fun y'all!
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Aching Legs
Roadrunners has turned a bit brutal in the last couple of weeks... As we move into autumn the distance we are doing is going up, as apparently races over the winter months tend to be longer. We've been handed into the care of a new trainer, who apparently does over 100 miles running a week! At the moment I'm impressed if I clock up over 20 by comparison...
We have 6 weeks of his routines, followed by another 6 weeks of cross-country training. Last nights session was vicious;
I managed 3 and a half of the reps...I could have probably finished the fourth one, however I would have been the only guy left at the track. It's a bad sign when your track session is longer than your long run, and it's a big eye-opener that I need to start upping my mileage. I'm currently doing about 7-8 miles on a Monday, and about 5 on Friday. I think I need to start adding to both of these, with a final aim of 14-15 on Monday and 7-8 on Friday...at least! Add that to the equivalent of 9-10 at Roadrunner, and I'll be over 30 miles a week at least...still short of the 40 that most people recommend, but far better than currently.
The big issue is that the Friday run is probably going to have to be before work, and I'm not exactly the best morning person in the world. I'm trying to get into the habit of doing a 1 hour workout on Friday morning before work, however I'm moving buildings next week, and won't have a gym in the office anymore, which means getting my arse to Rivers, and working out there instead. On the plus side the changing rooms are better there!
If I can manage to fit in Fridays morning session it gives me the potential to add in other morning sessions, and hopefully start breaking me out of my early-doors lethargy...
We have 6 weeks of his routines, followed by another 6 weeks of cross-country training. Last nights session was vicious;
- Do a 2 mile run at a good pace (6.40min miles for me)
- Do 3-4 sets of 8 laps of track (2 miles), and 3 minute rest at 10k pace (about 1.36min laps)
- Die
I managed 3 and a half of the reps...I could have probably finished the fourth one, however I would have been the only guy left at the track. It's a bad sign when your track session is longer than your long run, and it's a big eye-opener that I need to start upping my mileage. I'm currently doing about 7-8 miles on a Monday, and about 5 on Friday. I think I need to start adding to both of these, with a final aim of 14-15 on Monday and 7-8 on Friday...at least! Add that to the equivalent of 9-10 at Roadrunner, and I'll be over 30 miles a week at least...still short of the 40 that most people recommend, but far better than currently.
The big issue is that the Friday run is probably going to have to be before work, and I'm not exactly the best morning person in the world. I'm trying to get into the habit of doing a 1 hour workout on Friday morning before work, however I'm moving buildings next week, and won't have a gym in the office anymore, which means getting my arse to Rivers, and working out there instead. On the plus side the changing rooms are better there!
If I can manage to fit in Fridays morning session it gives me the potential to add in other morning sessions, and hopefully start breaking me out of my early-doors lethargy...
Thursday, 21 August 2008
Horse-based Hilarity
OK, the modern Paentathlon is possibly the most inspired event at the olympics!.
Lets take a bunch of people who have probably never even seen a horse before, pair them up randomly with a feisty equine, and then make them showjump. the end result...?
Carnage!
Lets take a bunch of people who have probably never even seen a horse before, pair them up randomly with a feisty equine, and then make them showjump. the end result...?
Carnage!
Thursday, 14 August 2008
Times Change...
Someone has just forwarded me an email conversation from 2006, just before I started going to the gym...
By comparison, I've trained for the last 5 days straight, with plans to train tonight and tomorrow as well. I now feel bad if I don't train for more than a couple of days!
The gym thing is actually a plan to give me more time, as I've sort of hit a critical threshold of un-healthiness where I feel tired all the time.
Look on the bright side...tomorrow I'll be doing my first formal exercise in about 20 years...I'll probably start bleeding from the eyes or something...
You wouldn't believe how much that sort of thing scares me...I was shown round the place on Monday, and half the equipment looks like torture equipment. The treadmills seemed to be going way too quickly for my liking.
I've picked a gym out of town and everything just to make sure I don't bump into anyone I know...
My (tentative) plan is to go straight after work 2 nights a week, then once at the weekend. I imagine each visit will last 5-10 minutes before I collapse, and get a free trip in an ambulance...
By comparison, I've trained for the last 5 days straight, with plans to train tonight and tomorrow as well. I now feel bad if I don't train for more than a couple of days!
Monday, 11 August 2008
Obscure Sports Quarterly...
I love the Olympics. You'll never see archery televised anywhere else, outside of films about men in green tights. I also love the BBC, who'se iPlayer allows me to watch it live on a laptop right now, at work. As I type this, serious men in big sunglasses are showing that target who's boss (It's Korea vs China).
I can't wait for London 2012... realistically I'll never get another chance to see the olympics, and to have it on my doorstep, and give me the chance to pick and choose what I want to go and see is amazing. I'll get to wave a union jack and cheer like a loon for a few weeks!
Ooh...its getting tense, China are coming back on Korea! There's also some (rather mainstream) rowing on, however I think that the UK teams are already through on that one, so may have to hold with the Team Archery!
I can't wait for London 2012... realistically I'll never get another chance to see the olympics, and to have it on my doorstep, and give me the chance to pick and choose what I want to go and see is amazing. I'll get to wave a union jack and cheer like a loon for a few weeks!
Ooh...its getting tense, China are coming back on Korea! There's also some (rather mainstream) rowing on, however I think that the UK teams are already through on that one, so may have to hold with the Team Archery!
Monday, 4 August 2008
Finishing touches
The rest of the bonus was spent this weekend pretty much. On Saturday we went round the various garden centres in and about Reading, and managed to hunt down some decent garden furniture. I've ended up with a large wooden table, 4 armchairs and a large blue parasol. Alongside that there is a blue charcoal barbecue (gas is cheating!), and covers for winter/bad weather. We also picked up a lawnmower, some lighting for the parasol, and a couple of nick-knacks (including the biggest drill bit you've ever seen, so that I could put some drainage holes in). We had the added bonus that the DIY centres scanner didn't seem to work properly, so some items were not picked up...ooh!
Saturday evening we had friends round for dinner, so I spent a couple of hours constructing everything, before doing a Nigella chicken (bacon and brandy, though I don't really think the brandy added much). The weather held off, so we were able to enjoy "drinks on the deck" before eating inside, and subjecting them to Carcassonne :-D Gill whipped up a dessert of yogurts, fruit and crunchie which went down a treat as well!
Sunday was a trip to Ikea...the weather on the way was miserable (I was on the bike, as we'd worked out that once we'd bought the bookcases Gill wanted there would be no space left for me in the car). Once there a short recharge on Swedish meatballs (which are delicious!), and then a wander round the show floor. I had only planned on getting a whiteboard, and maybe something for the bathroom, but also ended up getting some draws for my shelves, a counter-top lighting system for the kitchen, as well as some new cups, a couple of bins, and lots of ideas for another visit...oh dear.
Sunday evening was installing the lighting system. It's almost done, just need to drill a hole in a wall to put the power cable through, and its done. Looks great when its on, well chuffed with it!
Saturday evening we had friends round for dinner, so I spent a couple of hours constructing everything, before doing a Nigella chicken (bacon and brandy, though I don't really think the brandy added much). The weather held off, so we were able to enjoy "drinks on the deck" before eating inside, and subjecting them to Carcassonne :-D Gill whipped up a dessert of yogurts, fruit and crunchie which went down a treat as well!
Sunday was a trip to Ikea...the weather on the way was miserable (I was on the bike, as we'd worked out that once we'd bought the bookcases Gill wanted there would be no space left for me in the car). Once there a short recharge on Swedish meatballs (which are delicious!), and then a wander round the show floor. I had only planned on getting a whiteboard, and maybe something for the bathroom, but also ended up getting some draws for my shelves, a counter-top lighting system for the kitchen, as well as some new cups, a couple of bins, and lots of ideas for another visit...oh dear.
Sunday evening was installing the lighting system. It's almost done, just need to drill a hole in a wall to put the power cable through, and its done. Looks great when its on, well chuffed with it!
Wednesday, 30 July 2008
Fiddling with IJY
There are lots of little tweaks I'd like to do to IJY, however it's rapidly turning out that it would probably involve a fairly hefty re-write, and some things also seem to be set against me.
1) I'd like to change the Picasa and YouTube feeds to just show the picture, and when you hover-over them an info box appears with the text. This would give me back a lot of screen space. the problem is that I went down the "absolute positioning" way of doing things, and this doesn't play nicely with DHTML boxes...
2) I'd like to change the logic of the page over to use jQuery, however it looks like their documentation is out of work at the moment...I haven't been able to access it from any of my machines.
3) Yahoo Pipes do this funky little badge things, that accept an RSS stream and output image slide shows. I'd like to feed in an "all my pictures" feed from Picasa, however it looks like their feed for all photos from a user is broken, with the sort image coming out very strange. For me it starts with my Cornwall pictures taken a few years ago, and then randomly skips around. It's been acknowledged as an issue, but not fix has been developed as yet.
4) Bring the blog more onto the page, which would mean less sizing issues, and no need for such small text. This is mainly dependant on (1) though...
5) Integrate the Twitter feed into the header. I can probably do that without too much hassle
6) RSS caching. For this I need to split out the feed retrieval logic and change it to storage, and then point the current scripts at the stored versions. This would also mean letting rip with cron jobs. Again its all doable, but I need to sort out the layout issues first, before I start playing with that as well...
1) I'd like to change the Picasa and YouTube feeds to just show the picture, and when you hover-over them an info box appears with the text. This would give me back a lot of screen space. the problem is that I went down the "absolute positioning" way of doing things, and this doesn't play nicely with DHTML boxes...
2) I'd like to change the logic of the page over to use jQuery, however it looks like their documentation is out of work at the moment...I haven't been able to access it from any of my machines.
3) Yahoo Pipes do this funky little badge things, that accept an RSS stream and output image slide shows. I'd like to feed in an "all my pictures" feed from Picasa, however it looks like their feed for all photos from a user is broken, with the sort image coming out very strange. For me it starts with my Cornwall pictures taken a few years ago, and then randomly skips around. It's been acknowledged as an issue, but not fix has been developed as yet.
4) Bring the blog more onto the page, which would mean less sizing issues, and no need for such small text. This is mainly dependant on (1) though...
5) Integrate the Twitter feed into the header. I can probably do that without too much hassle
6) RSS caching. For this I need to split out the feed retrieval logic and change it to storage, and then point the current scripts at the stored versions. This would also mean letting rip with cron jobs. Again its all doable, but I need to sort out the layout issues first, before I start playing with that as well...
Monday, 28 July 2008
Sunburn and blisters
Well, I've had my "best part of" a week off, and for once the weather decided to work with me...so what did I achieve?
Tuesday - Replaced the flat roof at the front of the house. This was hard work, far more so than I initially realised. As always it was the prep work that killed me...ripping off the old one by hand took all morning in the boiling sun. The new stuff, by comparison, went on fairly easily. Now I'm just waiting for a bit of rain to see how it holds up!
Wednesday - Built my newly arrived garden chest up and placed it in my garden, and then took delivery of 25 square metres of turf. This was put down on the back garden, and cut/stamped into place. It changed the look of the garden immediately from a mud-pit to something quasi-respectable!
Thursday - Cleaning and staining the decking. This took longer than expected, mainly as I had to wait around for stuff to dry a lot. Also, the stain I was using came with a pad-type thingy, which should have made doing everything really fast, however in reality it was no good on the grooves of the decking, and I ended up using a brush. End result was fantastic however, and really cleaned the garden up loads. On the downside I was doing all the work barefoot, and I ended up getting sunburn on my toes!
Friday - Painting the wall. I was running out of steam by now, and some extra work I had planned (putting up some arches, a bit of weeding etc etc) fell by the wayside. I think I fell asleep in the afternoon.
So in the last 3 weeks the garden has changed out of sight...you can either check out the Picasa gallery, or there is a funky slide show below to track the transformation. There is still more to go, however its less industrial, and smaller work packages...
Tuesday - Replaced the flat roof at the front of the house. This was hard work, far more so than I initially realised. As always it was the prep work that killed me...ripping off the old one by hand took all morning in the boiling sun. The new stuff, by comparison, went on fairly easily. Now I'm just waiting for a bit of rain to see how it holds up!
Wednesday - Built my newly arrived garden chest up and placed it in my garden, and then took delivery of 25 square metres of turf. This was put down on the back garden, and cut/stamped into place. It changed the look of the garden immediately from a mud-pit to something quasi-respectable!
Thursday - Cleaning and staining the decking. This took longer than expected, mainly as I had to wait around for stuff to dry a lot. Also, the stain I was using came with a pad-type thingy, which should have made doing everything really fast, however in reality it was no good on the grooves of the decking, and I ended up using a brush. End result was fantastic however, and really cleaned the garden up loads. On the downside I was doing all the work barefoot, and I ended up getting sunburn on my toes!
Friday - Painting the wall. I was running out of steam by now, and some extra work I had planned (putting up some arches, a bit of weeding etc etc) fell by the wayside. I think I fell asleep in the afternoon.
So in the last 3 weeks the garden has changed out of sight...you can either check out the Picasa gallery, or there is a funky slide show below to track the transformation. There is still more to go, however its less industrial, and smaller work packages...
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Coming together...
Fingers crossed the garden should be completed tonight. I'll be out of work at 4pm sharp, and dashing home to see what the final result is! Once that's done, there is still a fair chunk of work that needs doing, and as all my weekends seem to vanish into the ether, I've taken some time off next week to try and get everything done.
1) Flat roof. Really need to get this done. All the kit is sitting there ready to go, but whenever I have the chance it rains! This is currently scheduled for this Saturday but (shocker) there is rain expected, so it may have to move to Wednesday
2) Prepare the lawn. This will consist of killing the remains of the plant life there, raking it level and watering it, preparing it to take the grass. This is scheduled for Wednesday, but may swap with the flat roof repair.
3) Lay the lawn. The turf should be arriving some time on Wednesday, and the plan is to get this down Thursday morning. It's not a huge area to do, though I'll need to make sure I have a nice big knife for the edging.
4) Clean the decking. the building work and general lack of attention means the current decking looks a bit ropey. I have some cleaning chemicals already, just need to get the hose and scrubbing brush out... This is booked in for Thursday afternoon.
5) Treat the decking. Part 2 to cleaning it is sealing it so that its easier to look after. A few options here, including a rather funky spray system, that should speed the entire process up no end. That's a Friday morning job.
6) Paint the wall. The wall to the patio should be unpainted, and I'll need to crack out a brush and give it a couple of coats. This can be done in an evening if needed, but officially its down for Friday afternoon at the moment.
There is a bit of leeway, and weather permitting I can go on into the evening if needed. The biggest issue is that some stuff can only be done in dry weather (the flat roof, painting, treating the decking etc etc), so I could end up staring at the sky, waiting for a dry spell...
1) Flat roof. Really need to get this done. All the kit is sitting there ready to go, but whenever I have the chance it rains! This is currently scheduled for this Saturday but (shocker) there is rain expected, so it may have to move to Wednesday
2) Prepare the lawn. This will consist of killing the remains of the plant life there, raking it level and watering it, preparing it to take the grass. This is scheduled for Wednesday, but may swap with the flat roof repair.
3) Lay the lawn. The turf should be arriving some time on Wednesday, and the plan is to get this down Thursday morning. It's not a huge area to do, though I'll need to make sure I have a nice big knife for the edging.
4) Clean the decking. the building work and general lack of attention means the current decking looks a bit ropey. I have some cleaning chemicals already, just need to get the hose and scrubbing brush out... This is booked in for Thursday afternoon.
5) Treat the decking. Part 2 to cleaning it is sealing it so that its easier to look after. A few options here, including a rather funky spray system, that should speed the entire process up no end. That's a Friday morning job.
6) Paint the wall. The wall to the patio should be unpainted, and I'll need to crack out a brush and give it a couple of coats. This can be done in an evening if needed, but officially its down for Friday afternoon at the moment.
There is a bit of leeway, and weather permitting I can go on into the evening if needed. The biggest issue is that some stuff can only be done in dry weather (the flat roof, painting, treating the decking etc etc), so I could end up staring at the sky, waiting for a dry spell...
Tuesday, 8 July 2008
Gardening?
I was going to get a new bathroom, but you wouldn't believe how much they charge for those things. MFI gave a finger-in-the-air quote of £6,000! Even with my larger-than-expected bonus that's not really in my reach right now. So instead I've turned my attention to the garden, and plan to get that sorted out instead.
First on the agenda was the fence, which was crap to begin with, and took a battering in the horrendous weather we've been having. After asking round I got a couple of guys in to rip out the old one, and replace it with a new one, as well as re-doing the posts and sorting out a particularly shitty corner. that was finished today, and I've planned in with them to next sort out the old pool site.
Before I moved in here there was a 6,000 litre pool in the back garden. Earlier in the spring I drained it, and removed the skin and insulation, thus leaving a 3m square hole in one corner. This is now going to have a wall placed around the inside, and a patio floor placed in, with steps leading down. It's the corner that catches all the sun, so should be a nice seating area once done. Also, once that is done all I really have to do is lay some turf on the dead area, and clean/treat the decking, and it will all be done!
It will be nice to have it as usable space again...hopefully before the weather turns bad again. I may even be able to pull off a barbecue!
First on the agenda was the fence, which was crap to begin with, and took a battering in the horrendous weather we've been having. After asking round I got a couple of guys in to rip out the old one, and replace it with a new one, as well as re-doing the posts and sorting out a particularly shitty corner. that was finished today, and I've planned in with them to next sort out the old pool site.
Before I moved in here there was a 6,000 litre pool in the back garden. Earlier in the spring I drained it, and removed the skin and insulation, thus leaving a 3m square hole in one corner. This is now going to have a wall placed around the inside, and a patio floor placed in, with steps leading down. It's the corner that catches all the sun, so should be a nice seating area once done. Also, once that is done all I really have to do is lay some turf on the dead area, and clean/treat the decking, and it will all be done!
It will be nice to have it as usable space again...hopefully before the weather turns bad again. I may even be able to pull off a barbecue!
Monday, 7 July 2008
Long Day...
yesterday was a long day indeed. A long time ago I signed up to do the British London 10K. At the time I didn't consider what a 9.30 race time start meant...it turns out that it means getting up at 5am, being on a train at 20 past 6, and being in an immense throng of people for a couple of hours...
That said it was a really good race. There was no official timing, and as I knew there were going to be a lot of people I wasn't pushing myself for a fast time...instead I took a camera with me, and attempted in vain to take some shots of the sights. I ended up coming in at about 41 minutes and 20 seconds, which is pretty good, and I enjoyed the race more as I wasn't constantly worrying about how fast I should be going.
Of course, what you really want to do after an early start is plan a nice long day, full of things to do. So I did. First off I dragged Gill to Camden, and we wandered round for a couple of hours, without ever really finding anything we were looking for. Then we headed down to Covent Garden, took shelter against the elements in Starbucks for a bit, before heading to a restaurant I'd booked (Surprise!!). The food was delicious, and we took our time going through it, before heading off to the Ambassadors Theatre to see Stomp (Surprise!!), which is a stage show on there. its hard to describe as its not really a play, or a musical. It consists of 8, probably superhuman, people spending a couple of hours creating rhythms and beats out of lots of everyday items. It was extremely loud, and fantastically good. Not only that, it was done with a great blend of slapstick humour, and even some audience participation (mainly coupled with embarrassment that we couldn't clap out a simple pattern).
So a busy day...we were pretty lucky with the trains coming back, and just managed to catch Nadal beating Federer in the tennis, before collapsing asleep!
That said it was a really good race. There was no official timing, and as I knew there were going to be a lot of people I wasn't pushing myself for a fast time...instead I took a camera with me, and attempted in vain to take some shots of the sights. I ended up coming in at about 41 minutes and 20 seconds, which is pretty good, and I enjoyed the race more as I wasn't constantly worrying about how fast I should be going.
Of course, what you really want to do after an early start is plan a nice long day, full of things to do. So I did. First off I dragged Gill to Camden, and we wandered round for a couple of hours, without ever really finding anything we were looking for. Then we headed down to Covent Garden, took shelter against the elements in Starbucks for a bit, before heading to a restaurant I'd booked (Surprise!!). The food was delicious, and we took our time going through it, before heading off to the Ambassadors Theatre to see Stomp (Surprise!!), which is a stage show on there. its hard to describe as its not really a play, or a musical. It consists of 8, probably superhuman, people spending a couple of hours creating rhythms and beats out of lots of everyday items. It was extremely loud, and fantastically good. Not only that, it was done with a great blend of slapstick humour, and even some audience participation (mainly coupled with embarrassment that we couldn't clap out a simple pattern).
So a busy day...we were pretty lucky with the trains coming back, and just managed to catch Nadal beating Federer in the tennis, before collapsing asleep!
Tuesday, 1 July 2008
To Do Lists
Mine is fucking enormous, and they are all big things as well, typically with a big price tag attached to it.
Fix the Flat roof - The stuff is sitting in the back garden ready to go, however its going to take a full day to do it. This weekend would be good, only on Sunday I'm doing the...
London 10K - which starts at an ungodly hour in the morning, meaning I'll need to be up super-early and get myself on the train. On the plus side afterwards we'll have a chance to trawl round London, and go a bit tourist. So instead of the roof I'll probably be...
Sorting out the front garden - which involves weeding, spraying areas with liquid death, and then piling about a metric tonne of sand and stone on it to quasi-patio it, and gravel the top bed. There is also a bit of brickwork that needs doing. Talking about gardens there is the...
Back garden - Which is currently a shit-hole. We spent this weekend clearing it out (and the loft), and managed to move 2 transit vans of crap to the tip. It needs something brutal doing to the lawn/dirt to get rid of the tree-weeds, and get it ready for turf. The ex-pond is now a large hole, and needs to be walled (probably blocks), rendered and patio-ed, as well as having some steps constructed down to it. The decking all needs to be cleaned and treated as well. The other big job is the...
Side Fence - Which is currently held up with rope after suffering a bit in the wind. It probably needs replacing, which will cost a bit, however first on the agenda is the...
Bathroom - Which basically needs ripping out and starting again. I've got some basic quotes, and its above my budget, so I'm going to need to take on some of the work myself...probably the tiling. I'll need professionals for the plumbing and electrics, however I can tile, help fit etc etc.
Not enough spare time!!!
Fix the Flat roof - The stuff is sitting in the back garden ready to go, however its going to take a full day to do it. This weekend would be good, only on Sunday I'm doing the...
London 10K - which starts at an ungodly hour in the morning, meaning I'll need to be up super-early and get myself on the train. On the plus side afterwards we'll have a chance to trawl round London, and go a bit tourist. So instead of the roof I'll probably be...
Sorting out the front garden - which involves weeding, spraying areas with liquid death, and then piling about a metric tonne of sand and stone on it to quasi-patio it, and gravel the top bed. There is also a bit of brickwork that needs doing. Talking about gardens there is the...
Back garden - Which is currently a shit-hole. We spent this weekend clearing it out (and the loft), and managed to move 2 transit vans of crap to the tip. It needs something brutal doing to the lawn/dirt to get rid of the tree-weeds, and get it ready for turf. The ex-pond is now a large hole, and needs to be walled (probably blocks), rendered and patio-ed, as well as having some steps constructed down to it. The decking all needs to be cleaned and treated as well. The other big job is the...
Side Fence - Which is currently held up with rope after suffering a bit in the wind. It probably needs replacing, which will cost a bit, however first on the agenda is the...
Bathroom - Which basically needs ripping out and starting again. I've got some basic quotes, and its above my budget, so I'm going to need to take on some of the work myself...probably the tiling. I'll need professionals for the plumbing and electrics, however I can tile, help fit etc etc.
Not enough spare time!!!
Monday, 23 June 2008
No more the wicket virgin...
I've been persevering with the cricket, battling my utter lack of co-ordination, and inability to catch, throw or hit the ball. My results so far have been less than stellar, with a grand total of 1 run in 4 innings, and handing over about 15 runs an over when I bowl (including a metric shitload of wides). Occasionally I show moments of competence, however I'm not really getting the feel for it, as I only get to practice/play once a week.
This Sunday we played Sonning (and we play them again next week). They fielded a fairly young team, compared to our usual suspects (which includes some extremely good batsmen/bowlers). We batted first, and a couple of our lads took it on themselves to rack up immense scores (one guy got 92, and the other retired "hurt" on 105). I was in for all of 1 over, and managed to scrape together 2 runs, including a nick that sent the ball into the stratosphere, before being dropped. We had a final total to defend of 256, which in a 40-over game is fairly excessive. It did lead to general good moods at the tea break (well, that and the cakes...)
Fielding was a quieter affair. We didn't put forward our best bowlers (which would probably have turned the game into a rout), and as a result I had a spell in. I've really struggled with the bowling side of things...there are a lot of things to do at the same time, and I tend to forget one or the other, and end up putting it very wide. While Waseem and Sami were in the process of losing 4 cricket balls in the trees surrounding the ground I'd been doing a lot of practice in the nets, focusing on getting my technique vaguely bowling-like. The result was that I put in 3 overs with very few wides (as an added bonus one of the young lads I was bowling to chased everything, and managed to touch 3 or 4 wides with the bat, instantly negating the free run...). He then did me a bigger favour and skied one straight to our best fielder for my first wicket! In retrospect I still don't feel bad in any way about cheering myself wildly as the catch went home!
I had a good chance to make it 2, as the last man put one straight back to me, but he had the indecency to put it to my weaker side, and I dropped the catch (he was even younger as well...). I have no doubts that a better batsman would have been smashing me everywhere, however I'm still new to all this, and I'm happy that I managed to bowl a short spell without bowling too much complete crap. It was a good day, and probably the first one where I didn't just feel like dead weight on the team. It will be interesting to see what team Sonning put back against us next week...Englefield is a much smaller ground, and it's much easier to convert bad bowling into boundaries...
This Sunday we played Sonning (and we play them again next week). They fielded a fairly young team, compared to our usual suspects (which includes some extremely good batsmen/bowlers). We batted first, and a couple of our lads took it on themselves to rack up immense scores (one guy got 92, and the other retired "hurt" on 105). I was in for all of 1 over, and managed to scrape together 2 runs, including a nick that sent the ball into the stratosphere, before being dropped. We had a final total to defend of 256, which in a 40-over game is fairly excessive. It did lead to general good moods at the tea break (well, that and the cakes...)
Fielding was a quieter affair. We didn't put forward our best bowlers (which would probably have turned the game into a rout), and as a result I had a spell in. I've really struggled with the bowling side of things...there are a lot of things to do at the same time, and I tend to forget one or the other, and end up putting it very wide. While Waseem and Sami were in the process of losing 4 cricket balls in the trees surrounding the ground I'd been doing a lot of practice in the nets, focusing on getting my technique vaguely bowling-like. The result was that I put in 3 overs with very few wides (as an added bonus one of the young lads I was bowling to chased everything, and managed to touch 3 or 4 wides with the bat, instantly negating the free run...). He then did me a bigger favour and skied one straight to our best fielder for my first wicket! In retrospect I still don't feel bad in any way about cheering myself wildly as the catch went home!
I had a good chance to make it 2, as the last man put one straight back to me, but he had the indecency to put it to my weaker side, and I dropped the catch (he was even younger as well...). I have no doubts that a better batsman would have been smashing me everywhere, however I'm still new to all this, and I'm happy that I managed to bowl a short spell without bowling too much complete crap. It was a good day, and probably the first one where I didn't just feel like dead weight on the team. It will be interesting to see what team Sonning put back against us next week...Englefield is a much smaller ground, and it's much easier to convert bad bowling into boundaries...
Tuesday, 10 June 2008
The Death of Dune
I'm setting myself up for abuse simply by writing this, but I've just finished reading the Dune series of books, and I found the ending to be a real let-down.
I suspect a good number of people have read the original book by Frank Herbert, which typically gets universal acclaim, and indeed made it onto the 100 Greatest Novels by the BBC. Its a great book, that takes on and deals with vast subjects...not only the story of the people it involved, but of their families, the politics, religion and nature of the universe, as well as a huge amount of detail on the world itself.
Frank Herbert went on to write a long series carrying on after Dune, and its here that he lost a lot of readers. While Dune itself was focused on the planet, future books in the series become more and more about people with strange powers, and huge upheaval of the human race. I personally enjoyed them...they had an epic feel to them, and while the subject matter was sometimes a bit cranky (and it gets really strange once you reach God-Emporer of Dune) it painted the world very well. Even later in the series there is a shift in focus to the Bene Gesserit (which is effectively a military knitting circle). The series covers thousands of years in total, though it carries through certain characters and themes, and focuses on certain time periods very heavily. As with many old-school sci-fi authors, the underlying themes are very much based on society, and how it copes with situations.
Frank Herbert had the indecency to die in 1986, leaving the series incomplete (the last book he wrote being the 6th, Chapterhouse:Dune). It's very much a cliffhanger, with an ongoing theme of a huge, unknown threat being levelled against the entire human species. He had always planned a 7th, and final, book to complete the series, and had completed notes on the book, but just hadn't gotten round to writing it.
At this point in steps Brian Herbert, his son. Together with Kevin J. Anderson (who is probably best known for being a co-writer of the X-Files) he has spent the last 9 years visiting the universe his father created and expanding it/raping the corpse (delete as you feel appropriate). He started by writing a series called the "Prelude to Dune", which covers the history immediately before the original book. With the best will in the world he is not the writer his father was, and the guidance he got from Mr Anderson is obviously less cerebral than Frank Herbert. The end result is a writing style with a bit less delicacy, and less refined. It does read a bit like a screenplay. That said, it dealt with the subject matter fairly well, and for the most part avoided doing a Star Wars Episode 1 by introducing glaring continuity errors ("I don't remember owning any droids"). As someone who has read the original series, it was great to see old characters back, and to revisit the world. I will admit to a small amount of pink-vision. Even at this point, however, the shift from social commentary to character-based plot was already showing through.
Next up came another series, which covered a part of the Dune history with was often referred to, but never fully explained...the Butlerian jihad. Without wishing to spoil the story too much in the Dune universe there are no computers/robots etc, and it is explained several times that "thinking machines" are banned due to a slight Terminator-style issue at some point in the past where they took over. Over the course of three books Brian and Kevin depict this key part in the history of Dune, I suspect without too much attention to his fathers notes. There is some mention in Dune of key families, and their alliegence during this time, however I suspect it didn't include giving the AI Overmind that much personality, or giving him a sidekick. Again, while it didn't do too much in the way of continuity errors, and did meet all the requirements it felt a little over-hammed. Fine in separation to the Dune series, but other than that it didn't blend too well, either stylistically, or content-wise.
So then we come to the most recent two books..."Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune". It should have been a giveaway that a story-arc that Frank Herbert planned for one book was eventually published as two. These books represent the culmination of the Dune series, and are allegedly based on Frank Herberts notes for Dune 7. The first one was passable, however the second was bloody awful (and I've really, really been trying to give this leniency upto now). It's full of contrived situations, awful dialog, and horrendous continuity. One of the main issues is that it re-introduces many concepts and characters from the Butlerian Jihad series, and this finally breaks the continuity. There is information suddenly made available that quite literally magics up from nowhere. Several people develop insane abilities from thin air, and it reads in places like badly-produced fan-fiction. Its a crime against the entire series. Its even got a "happily ever after" ending to it where everyone hugs and is best friends, which is never what Dune was about...I mean, God-Emperor was all about how shit a situation like that was for everyone involved! The story covers 14 books in total, over the course of 43 years, and right at the end its screwed up fatally...
I'm quite depressed after finishing it...I can't unread it, and to some extent it's soured Dune for me...perhaps I was better off always wondering what the big threat was, rather than have Brian Herberts sledgehammer of crass pour it into my ear like so much hot tar. He's already announced plans for a new book, a sequel to Dune no less (that fits into the time gap between Dune and Dune Messiah). There is no way that this can be good, as it deals with more core times in the Dune timeline, and will undoubtedly contain huge signposts of contrived plot to link to the later books he's written. There is also a new film in the offing, which they hope to turn into a series. Brian and Kevin are involved, so my hopes are very low...
There is another series of books I've had on the go for a long time ( The Wheel of Time ), where the author has also recently died just before writing the final one. Another author (friend of the family) has picked up the baton, and is currently in the process of completing it, with input from several other sources, and the notes of the author. I desperately want this book to be good, and to do justice to the series (which is massive...11 books of huge weight, and an overarching plot and storyline with insane levels of detail). Robert Jordan was part of a community of authors, and always worked closely with his family and friends, so I'm holding out hope that the spirit and integrity of the series can be maintained to the end.
I suspect a good number of people have read the original book by Frank Herbert, which typically gets universal acclaim, and indeed made it onto the 100 Greatest Novels by the BBC. Its a great book, that takes on and deals with vast subjects...not only the story of the people it involved, but of their families, the politics, religion and nature of the universe, as well as a huge amount of detail on the world itself.
Frank Herbert went on to write a long series carrying on after Dune, and its here that he lost a lot of readers. While Dune itself was focused on the planet, future books in the series become more and more about people with strange powers, and huge upheaval of the human race. I personally enjoyed them...they had an epic feel to them, and while the subject matter was sometimes a bit cranky (and it gets really strange once you reach God-Emporer of Dune) it painted the world very well. Even later in the series there is a shift in focus to the Bene Gesserit (which is effectively a military knitting circle). The series covers thousands of years in total, though it carries through certain characters and themes, and focuses on certain time periods very heavily. As with many old-school sci-fi authors, the underlying themes are very much based on society, and how it copes with situations.
Frank Herbert had the indecency to die in 1986, leaving the series incomplete (the last book he wrote being the 6th, Chapterhouse:Dune). It's very much a cliffhanger, with an ongoing theme of a huge, unknown threat being levelled against the entire human species. He had always planned a 7th, and final, book to complete the series, and had completed notes on the book, but just hadn't gotten round to writing it.
At this point in steps Brian Herbert, his son. Together with Kevin J. Anderson (who is probably best known for being a co-writer of the X-Files) he has spent the last 9 years visiting the universe his father created and expanding it/raping the corpse (delete as you feel appropriate). He started by writing a series called the "Prelude to Dune", which covers the history immediately before the original book. With the best will in the world he is not the writer his father was, and the guidance he got from Mr Anderson is obviously less cerebral than Frank Herbert. The end result is a writing style with a bit less delicacy, and less refined. It does read a bit like a screenplay. That said, it dealt with the subject matter fairly well, and for the most part avoided doing a Star Wars Episode 1 by introducing glaring continuity errors ("I don't remember owning any droids"). As someone who has read the original series, it was great to see old characters back, and to revisit the world. I will admit to a small amount of pink-vision. Even at this point, however, the shift from social commentary to character-based plot was already showing through.
Next up came another series, which covered a part of the Dune history with was often referred to, but never fully explained...the Butlerian jihad. Without wishing to spoil the story too much in the Dune universe there are no computers/robots etc, and it is explained several times that "thinking machines" are banned due to a slight Terminator-style issue at some point in the past where they took over. Over the course of three books Brian and Kevin depict this key part in the history of Dune, I suspect without too much attention to his fathers notes. There is some mention in Dune of key families, and their alliegence during this time, however I suspect it didn't include giving the AI Overmind that much personality, or giving him a sidekick. Again, while it didn't do too much in the way of continuity errors, and did meet all the requirements it felt a little over-hammed. Fine in separation to the Dune series, but other than that it didn't blend too well, either stylistically, or content-wise.
So then we come to the most recent two books..."Hunters of Dune" and "Sandworms of Dune". It should have been a giveaway that a story-arc that Frank Herbert planned for one book was eventually published as two. These books represent the culmination of the Dune series, and are allegedly based on Frank Herberts notes for Dune 7. The first one was passable, however the second was bloody awful (and I've really, really been trying to give this leniency upto now). It's full of contrived situations, awful dialog, and horrendous continuity. One of the main issues is that it re-introduces many concepts and characters from the Butlerian Jihad series, and this finally breaks the continuity. There is information suddenly made available that quite literally magics up from nowhere. Several people develop insane abilities from thin air, and it reads in places like badly-produced fan-fiction. Its a crime against the entire series. Its even got a "happily ever after" ending to it where everyone hugs and is best friends, which is never what Dune was about...I mean, God-Emperor was all about how shit a situation like that was for everyone involved! The story covers 14 books in total, over the course of 43 years, and right at the end its screwed up fatally...
I'm quite depressed after finishing it...I can't unread it, and to some extent it's soured Dune for me...perhaps I was better off always wondering what the big threat was, rather than have Brian Herberts sledgehammer of crass pour it into my ear like so much hot tar. He's already announced plans for a new book, a sequel to Dune no less (that fits into the time gap between Dune and Dune Messiah). There is no way that this can be good, as it deals with more core times in the Dune timeline, and will undoubtedly contain huge signposts of contrived plot to link to the later books he's written. There is also a new film in the offing, which they hope to turn into a series. Brian and Kevin are involved, so my hopes are very low...
There is another series of books I've had on the go for a long time ( The Wheel of Time ), where the author has also recently died just before writing the final one. Another author (friend of the family) has picked up the baton, and is currently in the process of completing it, with input from several other sources, and the notes of the author. I desperately want this book to be good, and to do justice to the series (which is massive...11 books of huge weight, and an overarching plot and storyline with insane levels of detail). Robert Jordan was part of a community of authors, and always worked closely with his family and friends, so I'm holding out hope that the spirit and integrity of the series can be maintained to the end.
Thursday, 5 June 2008
I'm not scared...
...well, maybe just a little bit...
I'm meeting Gill's parents tomorrow. Unfortunately the only thing that I can think about is that bloody Dr. Pepper advert.
I'm meeting Gill's parents tomorrow. Unfortunately the only thing that I can think about is that bloody Dr. Pepper advert.
Monday, 2 June 2008
Spam and Chips
About a month ago I swapped over to using GMail as my primary email account. I've been very impressed with it, as I've ad bad experiences with web-based email before. I've always had my email infrastructure set so that swapping should not be the hardest mission in the world...I have a number of "public" email addresses that are typically forwarders to a single inbox, so changing over was mainly a technical matter of repointing the forwarders and letting a couple of people know. I'd had the GMail account set up into Thunderbird et al for a couple of years previously, so that was all ready to go.
One additional thing I did was set GMail up to also pick up the old account. That way I could remove it from my updates, and ensure that any replies I did to those emails came from the new main account. All the PC's I use also now have the Notifier installed, to let me know when messages are received (funny when 2 are sitting next to each other, and both bleep at the same time...)
One issue I've always had previously is spam. I get lots of the stuff, mainly due to the fact that I have catch-all's on my domains. Thunderbirds spam filter really struggled to ID and clean it all up, and I often had to can through and flag the various offers of crap I got. GMail has managed to pick up about 95% of everything coming in, and cheerfully assign it to the bin. Its also let me see for the first time exactly how much spam I get..in the last calendar month I've currently had over 11,000 messages flagged as spam! That's getting close to 400 a day. In comparison I've had about 300 valid messages...
Once I got used to the "conversation" display of emails its very intuitive, and save a lot of searching through inboxes. I've also set up a number of rules to flag different types of emails under different categories (based on certain keywords or senders), and this lets me just change the view to emails regarding a certain subject..again very handy!
One additional thing I did was set GMail up to also pick up the old account. That way I could remove it from my updates, and ensure that any replies I did to those emails came from the new main account. All the PC's I use also now have the Notifier installed, to let me know when messages are received (funny when 2 are sitting next to each other, and both bleep at the same time...)
One issue I've always had previously is spam. I get lots of the stuff, mainly due to the fact that I have catch-all's on my domains. Thunderbirds spam filter really struggled to ID and clean it all up, and I often had to can through and flag the various offers of crap I got. GMail has managed to pick up about 95% of everything coming in, and cheerfully assign it to the bin. Its also let me see for the first time exactly how much spam I get..in the last calendar month I've currently had over 11,000 messages flagged as spam! That's getting close to 400 a day. In comparison I've had about 300 valid messages...
Once I got used to the "conversation" display of emails its very intuitive, and save a lot of searching through inboxes. I've also set up a number of rules to flag different types of emails under different categories (based on certain keywords or senders), and this lets me just change the view to emails regarding a certain subject..again very handy!
Thursday, 29 May 2008
The state of the world
Roadrunners again last night, and a fairly brutal set it was too, made all the harder by the wind and rain. We were doing 4 sets of 4 x 600m, with a pace increase in each set. By the end of it my legs were tightening up nicely, and my hobble was coming on a treat. I was supposed to be having a sports massage immedaitely afterwards, but unfortunately it was cancelled at the last minute.I'm really glad I got to finish the set, as many people left early due to the appauling conditions. I really, really need to up my mileage (I keep saying that, don't I?), as my endurance is nowhere near the point it should be at.
I think Mondays are going to get harder, as a new outdoor circuits class has started (Bootcamp), and its at the same time as I normally run, so the plan is to run earlier, and then do Bootcamp immediately afterwards. If that doesn't kill me in short order nothing will. I've been signed up for a multi-terrain race in October called Commando Challenge, which looks like a great laugh, however its a team thing, and I don't want to let the others down, so have to knuckle down and start improving the distance and strength.
Geek wise, I've "invested" in a couple of new board games. Pandemic is a co-op game for 2-5 players, where the objective is to cure 4 diseases ravaging the earth. Its gotten good reviews on BoardGameGeek, and looks like a good alternative to Settlers of Catan for an hour filler slot. The other game is called Agricola, and is comically all in German (the english version is not out yet). In this you have to build up a farm in a set number of turns. I've given it one solo playthrough so far, and there is a lot of depth to it... I need to engage the other lads and give it a proper playthrough to see how good it is in practice.
On the work front, I'm now full time on the new project, and I've been given a few areas to work on. Its all very new, and its going to take a bit of time to get my head round the documentation style and project structure. On the plus side I've been blagged a window seat (views not great, but can't complain). They do have proper kitchen facilities here, which means proper tea for once.
SPeaking of work, I really should start doing some...
I think Mondays are going to get harder, as a new outdoor circuits class has started (Bootcamp), and its at the same time as I normally run, so the plan is to run earlier, and then do Bootcamp immediately afterwards. If that doesn't kill me in short order nothing will. I've been signed up for a multi-terrain race in October called Commando Challenge, which looks like a great laugh, however its a team thing, and I don't want to let the others down, so have to knuckle down and start improving the distance and strength.
Geek wise, I've "invested" in a couple of new board games. Pandemic is a co-op game for 2-5 players, where the objective is to cure 4 diseases ravaging the earth. Its gotten good reviews on BoardGameGeek, and looks like a good alternative to Settlers of Catan for an hour filler slot. The other game is called Agricola, and is comically all in German (the english version is not out yet). In this you have to build up a farm in a set number of turns. I've given it one solo playthrough so far, and there is a lot of depth to it... I need to engage the other lads and give it a proper playthrough to see how good it is in practice.
On the work front, I'm now full time on the new project, and I've been given a few areas to work on. Its all very new, and its going to take a bit of time to get my head round the documentation style and project structure. On the plus side I've been blagged a window seat (views not great, but can't complain). They do have proper kitchen facilities here, which means proper tea for once.
SPeaking of work, I really should start doing some...
Monday, 26 May 2008
Gateway Gaming
In a spectacular example of romantic gestures I've been introducing Gill to non-standard (ie not available in Woolworths) board and card games. She already has some geek crudentials (is a programmer, has completed a version of Final Fantasy, is member of a D&D group), so thought I may as well go about increasing her geek license.
I've started with the better, less violent games at my disposal, and I've been using Fluxx, Settlers of Catan and Carsonnone. Settlers has the added bonus that I'm completely shit at it. Shes taken to them extremely well... Fluxx was broekn out during a powercut, and once the concept was grasped it went down well. Settlers was pcked up even quicker, and has actively been asked for since then, and Carsonnone was played for a couple of hours today, again with a large degree of success.
Its some way from cracking out Starcraft and getting her to butcher the opposition, but its not completely out of the question :-D
I've started with the better, less violent games at my disposal, and I've been using Fluxx, Settlers of Catan and Carsonnone. Settlers has the added bonus that I'm completely shit at it. Shes taken to them extremely well... Fluxx was broekn out during a powercut, and once the concept was grasped it went down well. Settlers was pcked up even quicker, and has actively been asked for since then, and Carsonnone was played for a couple of hours today, again with a large degree of success.
Its some way from cracking out Starcraft and getting her to butcher the opposition, but its not completely out of the question :-D
Thursday, 22 May 2008
Sprinting sessions
Roadrunners last night was a brutal session. After a normal warm up (gentle run for about a kilometre, and some drills) we had to do a flat-out 800m, with a target of beating the time we did 5 weeks ago. I managed 2.21, which is a whole 4 seconds off my time, so pretty chuffed with that.
We went on to do about half an hour of something called "Bus Stops", where teams of 3 run with 2 people on the track at once, with one resting. Our team consisted of 2 similar paced runners, and one slower person...I was unfortunately the lead person when I was on track with the slower guy, and so ended up doing both my laps at full pace, while the others got a rest on one lap...
...and if that wasn't enough, we ended up with about 20 minutes of 200m relay sprints, which very nearly killed me. The problem with those is that there was another team of 3 with _very_ similar pacing to ours. It ended up with us racing them round (quite naturally we won :-) )
I'm really enjoying Roadrunners...its a very different challenge to anything I've done before, and its making me push myself a lot harder. I did the Woodley 10K at the weekend, and by my standards did fairly badly, going off too fast, and burning out halfway round. I was chatting to some of the other runners about how their various races went, and blaming one fairly quick guy I tried to stay with at the start (my fault really...I knew he was way faster than me). I have 6 weeks until my next race, and my focus in that time really has to be stamina and endurance, as that's where I'm really letting myself down at the moment.
Regarding the graphing stuff, I nearly have it working (just need to fine-tune the data ranges, then add in some file selection and image scaling options), at which point I'll be able to add the running data onto these posts. I consider this to be cool in a geeky kind of way...
We went on to do about half an hour of something called "Bus Stops", where teams of 3 run with 2 people on the track at once, with one resting. Our team consisted of 2 similar paced runners, and one slower person...I was unfortunately the lead person when I was on track with the slower guy, and so ended up doing both my laps at full pace, while the others got a rest on one lap...
...and if that wasn't enough, we ended up with about 20 minutes of 200m relay sprints, which very nearly killed me. The problem with those is that there was another team of 3 with _very_ similar pacing to ours. It ended up with us racing them round (quite naturally we won :-) )
I'm really enjoying Roadrunners...its a very different challenge to anything I've done before, and its making me push myself a lot harder. I did the Woodley 10K at the weekend, and by my standards did fairly badly, going off too fast, and burning out halfway round. I was chatting to some of the other runners about how their various races went, and blaming one fairly quick guy I tried to stay with at the start (my fault really...I knew he was way faster than me). I have 6 weeks until my next race, and my focus in that time really has to be stamina and endurance, as that's where I'm really letting myself down at the moment.
Regarding the graphing stuff, I nearly have it working (just need to fine-tune the data ranges, then add in some file selection and image scaling options), at which point I'll be able to add the running data onto these posts. I consider this to be cool in a geeky kind of way...
Friday, 16 May 2008
Busy Day in the Office?
Had a bit of brainwave last night... A couple of days ago I hacked together a basic graph to post up here showing heart rate zones. I also recently posted up a graph that my Polar gear kicks out showing various statistics. I suddently realised that there was nothing really stopping me from taking the raw Polar data and shoe-horning it into Google Graphs to come up with a dynamic online graph!
I've spent the morning studying the Polar file formats, and hacking out the bits I need, and it now looks like I have a prototype script up and running. At the moment there are a couple of assumptions regarding data ranges, however its not the hardest thing in the world to put in some proper validation. Once thats done I'll have a script that can accept any file from my Heart rate Monitor, and output a nice and pretty graph onto a webpage.
Click here to see the script in action...
I've spent the morning studying the Polar file formats, and hacking out the bits I need, and it now looks like I have a prototype script up and running. At the moment there are a couple of assumptions regarding data ranges, however its not the hardest thing in the world to put in some proper validation. Once thats done I'll have a script that can accept any file from my Heart rate Monitor, and output a nice and pretty graph onto a webpage.
Click here to see the script in action...
Twitter Woes
Been doing a little fiddling to ijy.cc last night, and noticed that twitter.com was down...
I've redone ijy.cc so that rather than having to deal with backend security myself, now I use a number of high profile online services, and instead pull in the content from them into a single "digital footprint". The end result is that my page is currently dependant on;
I then grab the RSS feed for each of these sites, do some fairly simple data manipulation, and throw it into a fairly simple XHTML/CSS template. Its very easy for me to maintain, and also to chuck the stuff out to other places (for example, my Blogger blog also posts to MySite on lack-of...
Twitter being down has the effect of killing ijy.cc, as I haven't bothered with any kind of cacheing, and PHP4 (which 34sp is running on) does not support timeouts on the PHP function running in the background capturing the RSS feeds ( file_get-contents, for those who care... ). So I thought I'd do a bit of checking to see if the Twitter downtime was a common occurance, or just bad luck...
Turns out that they have been struggling for about a year, ever since they "went big" in March '07. So much so that a monitoring site made their downtimes public and gave free access to their downtime reports. I know within my company that our targetted uptime for customer facing systems is in the region of 99.8 % over the space of a year (and if we get anywhere near that everyone starts running round like headless chickens), so 98 % average, and dips as low as 92 % is fairly shocking. Of course, I haven't seen the other feeds go down as yet, however they are all backed up by Googles frankly imposing infrastructure, which suffered a whole 7 minutes of downtime in 2007...
...that said, how can Twitter actually make money to fund their horrendous bandwidth and data centre costs? While their page rank is not massive, behind all that you have loads of user-developed apps throwing data too and from them...it must all add up to one fat pipe somewhere. Becase of the nature of the service (small messages, accessible freely from many 3rd party apps) selling advertising is going to be very hard, unless you plan of irritating your entire userbase by doing mass broadcasting. I really see how they are going to struggle to make money, as quite simply people are not visiting their online real-estate, so they aren't getting the eyeballs. It seems that general internet opinion is that like many other big names out there now (google, facebook, skype etc etc) Twitter can plan a business model once they have the userbase...I suppose we'll have to see, but right now I'm a little skeptical.
Of course, all this doesn't help me much... I like the concept of Twitter, and it fits in with the theory of how I've set ijy.cc up. The box will stay for now, and I'll have to live with Twitter's unreliable uptime, however if it stoops too much worse I may have to look at either a technical solution (cronjob-ing and cacheing the feed, which is what happens on lack-of), or looking for a more reliable alternative to fill my top right-hand corner...
I've redone ijy.cc so that rather than having to deal with backend security myself, now I use a number of high profile online services, and instead pull in the content from them into a single "digital footprint". The end result is that my page is currently dependant on;
I then grab the RSS feed for each of these sites, do some fairly simple data manipulation, and throw it into a fairly simple XHTML/CSS template. Its very easy for me to maintain, and also to chuck the stuff out to other places (for example, my Blogger blog also posts to MySite on lack-of...
Twitter being down has the effect of killing ijy.cc, as I haven't bothered with any kind of cacheing, and PHP4 (which 34sp is running on) does not support timeouts on the PHP function running in the background capturing the RSS feeds ( file_get-contents, for those who care... ). So I thought I'd do a bit of checking to see if the Twitter downtime was a common occurance, or just bad luck...
Turns out that they have been struggling for about a year, ever since they "went big" in March '07. So much so that a monitoring site made their downtimes public and gave free access to their downtime reports. I know within my company that our targetted uptime for customer facing systems is in the region of 99.8 % over the space of a year (and if we get anywhere near that everyone starts running round like headless chickens), so 98 % average, and dips as low as 92 % is fairly shocking. Of course, I haven't seen the other feeds go down as yet, however they are all backed up by Googles frankly imposing infrastructure, which suffered a whole 7 minutes of downtime in 2007...
...that said, how can Twitter actually make money to fund their horrendous bandwidth and data centre costs? While their page rank is not massive, behind all that you have loads of user-developed apps throwing data too and from them...it must all add up to one fat pipe somewhere. Becase of the nature of the service (small messages, accessible freely from many 3rd party apps) selling advertising is going to be very hard, unless you plan of irritating your entire userbase by doing mass broadcasting. I really see how they are going to struggle to make money, as quite simply people are not visiting their online real-estate, so they aren't getting the eyeballs. It seems that general internet opinion is that like many other big names out there now (google, facebook, skype etc etc) Twitter can plan a business model once they have the userbase...I suppose we'll have to see, but right now I'm a little skeptical.
Of course, all this doesn't help me much... I like the concept of Twitter, and it fits in with the theory of how I've set ijy.cc up. The box will stay for now, and I'll have to live with Twitter's unreliable uptime, however if it stoops too much worse I may have to look at either a technical solution (cronjob-ing and cacheing the feed, which is what happens on lack-of), or looking for a more reliable alternative to fill my top right-hand corner...
Thursday, 15 May 2008
It can't be good for you...
Roadrunners last night, and another really hard session. It was touted as a "bleep test for endurance running", and it really did work out like that. We had to do 400 metre laps, with a 60 second recovery between each one. You started at your 10k pace (so a 1.38 lap for me) and then each subsequent lap had to be 2 seconds faster... I was running with Harry from work, and we managed to surpass both our expectations, and get down to a lap time of 1.14 before finally failing on the 1.12 attempt.
I reckon that from fresh I could have achieved a faster lap, however as we slowly got faster and faster I could see my heart rate staying high throughout the recovery period, and the last 3 laps we were starting while I was still well over 160-bpm (for reference, my resting heart rate is about 50, and the highest I've ever recorded myself is at 190, while more training is done about 170-175, with race pace at 180'ish...I normally recover pretty quickly down to 120-130). I'm really enjoying the RoadRunner workouts...they are a very different type of training to anything I've done before, and really challenging.
I've got the Woodley 10k this weekend, so after circuits tonight it will be rest and recouperation until Sunday. In theory I'm playing cricket immediately afterwards, which may be an interesting challenge (I use the word "play" in a very loose role...I can't bat, I can't bowl, and whenever I'm in the field my body goes onto autopilot and moves out of the way of highspeed cricket balls...)
Once this weekend is over I really have to step up my distance runs. I reckon 2 runs of 10 miles a week should do for now. One will remain on Monday, and teh other will have to fit in at the weekend, and I suspect that as the temperature rises its either going to be very early morning or stupidly late at night. It will be hard work, however I need to hit the targets...
I reckon that from fresh I could have achieved a faster lap, however as we slowly got faster and faster I could see my heart rate staying high throughout the recovery period, and the last 3 laps we were starting while I was still well over 160-bpm (for reference, my resting heart rate is about 50, and the highest I've ever recorded myself is at 190, while more training is done about 170-175, with race pace at 180'ish...I normally recover pretty quickly down to 120-130). I'm really enjoying the RoadRunner workouts...they are a very different type of training to anything I've done before, and really challenging.
I've got the Woodley 10k this weekend, so after circuits tonight it will be rest and recouperation until Sunday. In theory I'm playing cricket immediately afterwards, which may be an interesting challenge (I use the word "play" in a very loose role...I can't bat, I can't bowl, and whenever I'm in the field my body goes onto autopilot and moves out of the way of highspeed cricket balls...)
Once this weekend is over I really have to step up my distance runs. I reckon 2 runs of 10 miles a week should do for now. One will remain on Monday, and teh other will have to fit in at the weekend, and I suspect that as the temperature rises its either going to be very early morning or stupidly late at night. It will be hard work, however I need to hit the targets...
Monday, 12 May 2008
Summer Running
I've been a bit lax since the half marathon, and my mileage has dropped right off. Joining Reading Roadrunners has made me realise just how much I need to do in order to meet my own targets. My weekly mileage is about half what it needs to be, and my weight is slowly, slowly creeping up.
I've got a 10k run this weekend, and I'm fairly certain I'm going to do badly, as my stamina has taken a real hit in the last couple of months. I'm slowly starting to build the distance back up again, and at some point in the near future I plan to add a second long run into my weekly schedule, probably at the weekend. I think both my weekly long runs need to be at least 10 miles in distance, however I'm not used to running in warm weather, and its a real struggle. On the plus side it does open up the river route in the evenings.
When I do my training runs I wear some Polar gear that measures heart rate, altitude and running speed. This in turn kicks out an interactive graph that lets me see how well I did or didn't do. Here is tonights, and it shows that I covered about 13k in an hour, and kept a fairly steady pace throughout. The heat really made it a struggle, and I've imbibed about 2 litres of liquid since then. Hopefully the pain now will translate into improved performance later on in the year...
I've got a 10k run this weekend, and I'm fairly certain I'm going to do badly, as my stamina has taken a real hit in the last couple of months. I'm slowly starting to build the distance back up again, and at some point in the near future I plan to add a second long run into my weekly schedule, probably at the weekend. I think both my weekly long runs need to be at least 10 miles in distance, however I'm not used to running in warm weather, and its a real struggle. On the plus side it does open up the river route in the evenings.
When I do my training runs I wear some Polar gear that measures heart rate, altitude and running speed. This in turn kicks out an interactive graph that lets me see how well I did or didn't do. Here is tonights, and it shows that I covered about 13k in an hour, and kept a fairly steady pace throughout. The heat really made it a struggle, and I've imbibed about 2 litres of liquid since then. Hopefully the pain now will translate into improved performance later on in the year...
Failure to Sunburn
Just had a great few days away in Jersey. We flew out on Thursday, and failed to die in a burning pool of oil (I'm not the greatest flyer in the world). As luck would have it this weekend was Jerseys "Liberation Day" celebrations, and our hotel was right in front of the square where all the celebrations were taking place. The Hotel (Pomme D'or) is actually featured in many of the photos of the event, and it looks like all the speeches etc. were done from the roof of its lobby.
I knew that the channel islands were occupied, however I didn't know that they had been under occupation for a year after France was liberated, or that they were basically turned into concentration camps, and forced labour ran the place. There was a display at the Hougue Bie (forever known as the Huge Bee), which was very stark and shocking, and really brought home what had been done on the islands during the war.
I won't go into all the stuff we did, the photos cover that far better... We were really lucky wit the weather, with just a small bit of rain on the Thursday evening, but other than that it was glorious sunshine, and it was only generous applications of factor 30 (sunblock by Dulux) that kept me from burning to a crisp. Its a lovely place, with a strange mix of English, French and Mediterranean styles. There are no big roads, and everything goes at a fairly leisurely pace. High points were;
Some letdowns;
Can't really think of any others really...pretty good sign over all!
I knew that the channel islands were occupied, however I didn't know that they had been under occupation for a year after France was liberated, or that they were basically turned into concentration camps, and forced labour ran the place. There was a display at the Hougue Bie (forever known as the Huge Bee), which was very stark and shocking, and really brought home what had been done on the islands during the war.
I won't go into all the stuff we did, the photos cover that far better... We were really lucky wit the weather, with just a small bit of rain on the Thursday evening, but other than that it was glorious sunshine, and it was only generous applications of factor 30 (sunblock by Dulux) that kept me from burning to a crisp. Its a lovely place, with a strange mix of English, French and Mediterranean styles. There are no big roads, and everything goes at a fairly leisurely pace. High points were;
- Mont Orguiel Castle - very well displayed, and a real warren of a place
- Durrell Wildlife Park - AKA the zoo. Gorillas and monkeys all over
- The hotel - really nice place, and got us into a room at 9am, which was much needed
Some letdowns;
- Elizabeth Castle - Compared to the Mont very basic, and not really done to its best
Can't really think of any others really...pretty good sign over all!
Wednesday, 7 May 2008
Early Morning Insanity
We're off to Jersey tomorrow morning...early tomorrow morning. _Very_ early. The taxi is picking us up at 5am, and as far as I can work out we'll be there before 9...
Fingers crossed that I manage to get some sleep, or I'll be a useless liability at the airport, and I'm not the greatest around planes anyway. Once we are there it should be a good laugh however...we are there for 3 nights, and the weather is finally starting to have a summer-theme to it. This will have been the first proper holiday I've had for a long time, and the first one with Gill as well... I'm quite looking forward to just kicking back and relaxing a bit.
In other things, my motorbike Matilda has been sorted out for summer, with a new chain, clutch cable and working rear brake (oops). The last few days have been good, and I've had the chance to just enjoy screaming round on her again. Really need to give her a clean though, shes a dirty little minx right now. I also need to get to work on the house, and finish off the sections I've started. Really need to sort out that leaking roof as well...
...however right now I should be getting back to work. Expect photos over the weekend (yes, I'm sad, and am taking my laptop).
Fingers crossed that I manage to get some sleep, or I'll be a useless liability at the airport, and I'm not the greatest around planes anyway. Once we are there it should be a good laugh however...we are there for 3 nights, and the weather is finally starting to have a summer-theme to it. This will have been the first proper holiday I've had for a long time, and the first one with Gill as well... I'm quite looking forward to just kicking back and relaxing a bit.
In other things, my motorbike Matilda has been sorted out for summer, with a new chain, clutch cable and working rear brake (oops). The last few days have been good, and I've had the chance to just enjoy screaming round on her again. Really need to give her a clean though, shes a dirty little minx right now. I also need to get to work on the house, and finish off the sections I've started. Really need to sort out that leaking roof as well...
...however right now I should be getting back to work. Expect photos over the weekend (yes, I'm sad, and am taking my laptop).
Tuesday, 29 April 2008
Flavours of shattered...
Today's recipe is tired, but feeling good with myself. Did Rivers running club today, which in reality has been Kveta and myself doing medium to long runs for the past 4 months, which has been good as we've pushed each other to keep the miles up. Today, for the first time, we had a new starter, and as a result when we went out got round just about 3 and a half miles in 50 minutes. To her credit she was obviously exhausted, but she kept going, and kept her sense of humour as well.
When we got back I'd not broken a sweat, so decided to go back out for a proper long run. Kveta had to go back on duty, so I ended up doing an 8 mile route, including a section along the Thames (complete with half a tonne of midge like biomass smacking me in the face) before heading up to do a lap of Prospect Park. its the longest run I've done since the half, and it felt pretty good. Now, 4 hours on, my legs don't ache, just a slight feeling of fatigue that lets me know they've worked.
If I want to improve at Roadrunners then I really need to take the initiative, and start doing the mileage again. I've been lax the last couple of months, and there is no excuse for it. The club can help me with speed and technique, but ultimately I need to make sure that I have the engine to support everything else. Long runs aren't hard, they just need the motivational kick in the arse to get out and do them...
When we got back I'd not broken a sweat, so decided to go back out for a proper long run. Kveta had to go back on duty, so I ended up doing an 8 mile route, including a section along the Thames (complete with half a tonne of midge like biomass smacking me in the face) before heading up to do a lap of Prospect Park. its the longest run I've done since the half, and it felt pretty good. Now, 4 hours on, my legs don't ache, just a slight feeling of fatigue that lets me know they've worked.
If I want to improve at Roadrunners then I really need to take the initiative, and start doing the mileage again. I've been lax the last couple of months, and there is no excuse for it. The club can help me with speed and technique, but ultimately I need to make sure that I have the engine to support everything else. Long runs aren't hard, they just need the motivational kick in the arse to get out and do them...
Friday, 25 April 2008
Nearly there
The layout is pretty much done (just got to decide what to add into that top-right corner), and I've added in a little javascript to dynamically load up the CSS files based on screen resolution. I've even wasted 20 minutes creating a "favicon", which is a really pointless gesture, and almost broke XHTML Strict validation (lower case only apparently).
Only other thing left to do is add in a bunch of icons to display when the blog post loads in, based on its tags (if you can be arsed to look at the page code you'l see a word in comments at the end of the blog post...thats the tag I've assigned it). I need to do a bit more mucking around to see how they are displayed when they come in multiples, however I could live with a single icon being dsplayed.
It all looks comfortably generic, however the main advantage it has is the only real content is;
Only other thing left to do is add in a bunch of icons to display when the blog post loads in, based on its tags (if you can be arsed to look at the page code you'l see a word in comments at the end of the blog post...thats the tag I've assigned it). I need to do a bit more mucking around to see how they are displayed when they come in multiples, however I could live with a single icon being dsplayed.
It all looks comfortably generic, however the main advantage it has is the only real content is;
- The header graphic (times 2, one for each resolution)
- the backdrop image
- A single "blue metal" texture
- A default image for the blog posts (a few more of these to be added)
- 6 files (4 PHP ones, and 2 CSS ones)
Work In Progress - The Update
I've managed to get a fair bit done, and its starting to look a bit more like a semi-decent web page. The bare bones are certainly there. I still need to fill in the gaps caused by the huge amount of modularity going on, and it would be nice to add some subtle graphic wankery like rounded corners here and there, but I'm really not sure I can be bothered...after all, this is a site that's supposed to look after itself.
At the moment it only really works in moderately high resolution screens. I'll do some work on sorting out a separate style sheet for mid resolution (1024x768) and shockingly low resolution (800x600 and below) over the weekend. The mid-res one is fairly key, as my laptop works at that res, so rest assured that I'll be making it fully readable. I may have shot myself in the foot a bit using such a small font, but worst case I'll turn up the brutality of the string-length limiters in place.
It was quite a good laugh to find out that I can post directly here from my mobile phone...one of the side benefits to using a large scale site as your back end. Not sure how much I'll be using that, and it did take a couple of hours to appear, however it does give me the option of snapping a picture, and sending it off with a bit of prose for the world to see...
This is the first time I've really done any work specifically concentrating on making a website viewable in both IE and FireFox...previously I've been lazy and done IE only. This was in a large part down to the fact I horrendously abused tables for layout purposes. This site is driven entirely off 'divs' and 'spans', and a healthy shitload of CSS in the background. It's been tricky, and I've had to make a lot of use of HTML validators to ensure that I got all the tricky bits right (my personal favourite being 'divs' within 'a' tags, which puts FireFox in a right tizzy...). Hiding behind the HTML are a handful of PHP scripts doing specific tweaks to the various feeds coming in, and right at the back is a function module by the guy who wrote Boastology, which my old site ran off. That does all the complex stuff with XML and RSS, so I'm just left with some cleanup and layout work, which makes everything nice and simple!
Right...off to bed for me, after all...it's a school night...
At the moment it only really works in moderately high resolution screens. I'll do some work on sorting out a separate style sheet for mid resolution (1024x768) and shockingly low resolution (800x600 and below) over the weekend. The mid-res one is fairly key, as my laptop works at that res, so rest assured that I'll be making it fully readable. I may have shot myself in the foot a bit using such a small font, but worst case I'll turn up the brutality of the string-length limiters in place.
It was quite a good laugh to find out that I can post directly here from my mobile phone...one of the side benefits to using a large scale site as your back end. Not sure how much I'll be using that, and it did take a couple of hours to appear, however it does give me the option of snapping a picture, and sending it off with a bit of prose for the world to see...
This is the first time I've really done any work specifically concentrating on making a website viewable in both IE and FireFox...previously I've been lazy and done IE only. This was in a large part down to the fact I horrendously abused tables for layout purposes. This site is driven entirely off 'divs' and 'spans', and a healthy shitload of CSS in the background. It's been tricky, and I've had to make a lot of use of HTML validators to ensure that I got all the tricky bits right (my personal favourite being 'divs' within 'a' tags, which puts FireFox in a right tizzy...). Hiding behind the HTML are a handful of PHP scripts doing specific tweaks to the various feeds coming in, and right at the back is a function module by the guy who wrote Boastology, which my old site ran off. That does all the complex stuff with XML and RSS, so I'm just left with some cleanup and layout work, which makes everything nice and simple!
Right...off to bed for me, after all...it's a school night...
Thursday, 24 April 2008
The inherent dangers of new toys
The World of Tomorrow...TODAY!
It's a move of home to the IJY blog, after a bit of a sabatical. Basically the old site became the target of hack attacks (due to being old and vunerable code). I'm in the process of building a more robust front-end to IJY, and then using various 3rd party sites as the backend.
I've chosen blogger/blogspot for this part of it as;
I've chosen blogger/blogspot for this part of it as;
- I already have feeds in from other google sites
- I already had an account by defualt
- Its fairly simple and flexible to use
- I'm lazy
- There is no 5
The theory is that from the RSS feed of this I will publish to ijy.cc, and anyone who is actually bothered about the shite I type can come here and read it in full. I suspect most of the posts will relate to;
- running
- work
- computer games
- board games
and I'm hoping to be able to ID that from the RSS feed, and flag them somehow at IJY with pretty icons, or the like. Expect a few test posts to appear here while I try and get everything working.
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