Merry? Christmas
Well, its pushing 3am on Christmas day 2003, and I can't say I'm feeling particularly "christmassy", been a bit of a strange week, getting used to being at home again, and I don't really feel like I fit in as I used to , things have changed quite a bit.
Laptop battery died on saturday, swiftly followed by the screen just displaying nothing but white (it seems OK on an external monitor) and I am assured that this is just a problem with either the Inverter or a loose connection somewhere. Scouring ebay for a new battery, it's a shame i never took up those ones i saw for £30 brand new :| Got a reccomendation off a friend of this person who fixed a similar problem on his laptop, so I shall give them a ring on thursday and see if they can get it fixed for me before i go back to uni.
Got loads of revision to do, and i am only 10% of the way through my operating systems book, eep.
Still not decided on what I am going to do about a change of degree scheme, I would like something higher than just a BSc but I don't really want to do ANOTHER year in industry.
Considering going back to aber early to look at houses and things.
Friday, December 20, 2002
Noticed that blog isn't archiving properly on sunday and started fiddling around, now there is no archiving at all :|
Was really tired all weekend as a result of doing an all nighter last week for the group project, and then went out on saturday night, meaning I didn't sleep from 9am on Thursday until 3am on Saturday :S
This week I worked monday - wednesday, was the usual fayre of radio 2 and mince pies, but i managed to finish some tasks that were in need of completion.
I'm finally back at home now for christmas, and am writing this sat in front of the TV... Decided that home needs broadband and might set up a local campaign website there might be more pre-registrations, then at least BT might even look at the exchange.
Just watching bravo, and a bit of a strange quote from come guy who picks up long needles with his eyelids.. "I do it all for god" Where do they find these people?
Was really tired all weekend as a result of doing an all nighter last week for the group project, and then went out on saturday night, meaning I didn't sleep from 9am on Thursday until 3am on Saturday :S
This week I worked monday - wednesday, was the usual fayre of radio 2 and mince pies, but i managed to finish some tasks that were in need of completion.
I'm finally back at home now for christmas, and am writing this sat in front of the TV... Decided that home needs broadband and might set up a local campaign website there might be more pre-registrations, then at least BT might even look at the exchange.
Just watching bravo, and a bit of a strange quote from come guy who picks up long needles with his eyelids.. "I do it all for god" Where do they find these people?
Saturday, December 14, 2002
All finished at last
After working throught the night on thursday (the quality of the work done at 3am is unknown) I finally finished the personal project at 8am on Friday, and exhausted I walked up the hill to hand it in at 9.30, when I returned after saying my goodbyes to a few people on my course, I made the mistake of taking a half-hour "power-nap" before I had to go to work (1PM), however, this made me feel worse :|
Friday night, we went to scholars then up to the union, was generally an alright night, apart from getting quite drunk, as usual, but then again, it was the union. Today I ended up sleeping in until 6pm - eep! Tonight I shall have to fix the MP3 player ready for the journey home on wednesday night, hope it isn't too difficult.
Learned:
Don't take naps during the day :|
After working throught the night on thursday (the quality of the work done at 3am is unknown) I finally finished the personal project at 8am on Friday, and exhausted I walked up the hill to hand it in at 9.30, when I returned after saying my goodbyes to a few people on my course, I made the mistake of taking a half-hour "power-nap" before I had to go to work (1PM), however, this made me feel worse :|
Friday night, we went to scholars then up to the union, was generally an alright night, apart from getting quite drunk, as usual, but then again, it was the union. Today I ended up sleeping in until 6pm - eep! Tonight I shall have to fix the MP3 player ready for the journey home on wednesday night, hope it isn't too difficult.
Learned:
Don't take naps during the day :|
This post was actually written on Thursday the 5th of December, but I never got around to sumitting it
Projects
Today and yesterday have quite possibly been the strangest of the last few days. Yesterday I had intentions of doing lots of work, however it turned out that I didn’t… While group project is almost complete, I have done next to nothing on the personal project apart from a class diagram, and learned a bit about the Model View Controller architecture that we are supposed to use (I must have been asleep in the lecture), speaking of being asleep in lectures, I am actually writing this is in a lecture on data structures, suppose really I should listen, but since all the shit that’s happening at the moment, I can’t really be bothered, so I shall do personal project instead.
I spent almost all of yesterday moping around doing nothing, and went to bed quite late having faffed for almost an entire day (minus going to work), however I did one useful thing :- fixed my housemates computer, which for some reason would not access the network. It was a windows ME machine, and I have had problems with network cards before, so I decided after around two hours of uneventful driver updates and reinstalls, I was finally about at my whit’s end, so unplugged the machine from the wall… surprisingly it worked after that !! must have been a fault with the hardware or something. Bizarre.
This morning I woke up late having missed another hardware lecture – joy. But it seems that I got a few jobs around the house sorted and bug will finally clean the bathroom later : )
Learned:
Advent computers sometimes have random hardware faults
Current MP3:
Robert Miles - Children
Projects
Today and yesterday have quite possibly been the strangest of the last few days. Yesterday I had intentions of doing lots of work, however it turned out that I didn’t… While group project is almost complete, I have done next to nothing on the personal project apart from a class diagram, and learned a bit about the Model View Controller architecture that we are supposed to use (I must have been asleep in the lecture), speaking of being asleep in lectures, I am actually writing this is in a lecture on data structures, suppose really I should listen, but since all the shit that’s happening at the moment, I can’t really be bothered, so I shall do personal project instead.
I spent almost all of yesterday moping around doing nothing, and went to bed quite late having faffed for almost an entire day (minus going to work), however I did one useful thing :- fixed my housemates computer, which for some reason would not access the network. It was a windows ME machine, and I have had problems with network cards before, so I decided after around two hours of uneventful driver updates and reinstalls, I was finally about at my whit’s end, so unplugged the machine from the wall… surprisingly it worked after that !! must have been a fault with the hardware or something. Bizarre.
This morning I woke up late having missed another hardware lecture – joy. But it seems that I got a few jobs around the house sorted and bug will finally clean the bathroom later : )
Learned:
Advent computers sometimes have random hardware faults
Current MP3:
Robert Miles - Children
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
Organisation
Well, social last night was a bit of a failure, at this late stage in the term I am going to put it down to the stress of projects that all years are under at this moment, maybe that's a good excuse.
Today has been a day of sorting out odds and ends.. I now have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow about my knee, which has annoyed me every winter solid for about the last two years. Also the group project hand in was technically today, and we did indeed have a CD of all the needed files, however, the one that had been burned to CD was the wrong one, due to some sort of general fuckup with versions, and it also turns out that the design spec wasn't to, err, spec, so that all has to be sorted out by Thursday... Unfortunately, I lost my rag in the meeting today and ended up raising my voice to the design team, not something I usually do very often, but I just about think I had good reason. More stress than I can possibly cope with at the moment.
Also today I had a meeting with Lynda, one of the tutors in the department who I was recommended to talk to about my issues with deciding on a course/route to take. She was very helpful, and after explaining my situation (I had not spoken to her of it before), she said it seemed that I had already made up my mind to stick with the BSc and not to an Industrial Year, in a way that was kind of true, all I really was waiting for was a member of staff to agree with me :)
After all the other things today, I phoned work, and sorted out going to see them all on the 20th for a chat about next summer, and going for a meal afterwards, now I have to email people and get them to come :)
Feeling a bit strange again, probably because I have quite a lot of things to sort out, like a house for next year, now I know I am staying in aber next year, but I suppose more importantly, I have to decide who I am living with.
Going home on the 19th, and looking forward to that, surprisingly, but as a back up I am going to spend a tenner or so on getting a GPRS bundle for the “festive” period.
Learned:
Deadlines are something that needs to be enforced with a large gun
Current MP3:
DJ Sammy - Heaven
Well, social last night was a bit of a failure, at this late stage in the term I am going to put it down to the stress of projects that all years are under at this moment, maybe that's a good excuse.
Today has been a day of sorting out odds and ends.. I now have a doctor's appointment for tomorrow about my knee, which has annoyed me every winter solid for about the last two years. Also the group project hand in was technically today, and we did indeed have a CD of all the needed files, however, the one that had been burned to CD was the wrong one, due to some sort of general fuckup with versions, and it also turns out that the design spec wasn't to, err, spec, so that all has to be sorted out by Thursday... Unfortunately, I lost my rag in the meeting today and ended up raising my voice to the design team, not something I usually do very often, but I just about think I had good reason. More stress than I can possibly cope with at the moment.
Also today I had a meeting with Lynda, one of the tutors in the department who I was recommended to talk to about my issues with deciding on a course/route to take. She was very helpful, and after explaining my situation (I had not spoken to her of it before), she said it seemed that I had already made up my mind to stick with the BSc and not to an Industrial Year, in a way that was kind of true, all I really was waiting for was a member of staff to agree with me :)
After all the other things today, I phoned work, and sorted out going to see them all on the 20th for a chat about next summer, and going for a meal afterwards, now I have to email people and get them to come :)
Feeling a bit strange again, probably because I have quite a lot of things to sort out, like a house for next year, now I know I am staying in aber next year, but I suppose more importantly, I have to decide who I am living with.
Going home on the 19th, and looking forward to that, surprisingly, but as a back up I am going to spend a tenner or so on getting a GPRS bundle for the “festive” period.
Learned:
Deadlines are something that needs to be enforced with a large gun
Current MP3:
DJ Sammy - Heaven
Monday, December 02, 2002
What happened to this term then?
Well, I seem to have just spent an entire weekend faffing and doing nothing useful at all, so when i finally got to bed tonight, I felt that I should at least blog!
It was again, a busy week, but it was one of getting a few things sorted out, and also one of bringing up more questions that don't really have simple answers. The group project phase I is almost complete, my project plan was completed on tuesday after being too tired to do anything constructive after returning from Durham, it luckily passed QA first time, which was a relief... that shows those many hours of writing reports to company standards have had some positive effect on me. This weekend I intended to get the personal project underway too, but unfortunately that did not happen... On saturday I woke up to reports of the washing machine being broken, which was sort of impled as if it was my fault, hey, I only brought the thing here after repainting the front :) It turned out that me and si got it working again after draining it out, and tightening a few screws... It then seemed to work until today when it broke again... Upon a bit more investigation, it seems that the vibration of the washer shakes it apart, causing the door interlock to shut off the machine... Bring on the duck tape! Bloody hardware!
The big question whirring about my head at the moment is the question of what course I carry on with at Aber, it's vastly complicated and I shan't go into it all here (if you know me, i've probably mentioned it), but if i convert to a course that has a compulsory industrial year, I think that I would be wasting my time doing another year of work (at lower than the rate if i graduate a year earlier)... Until this time last week i was certain that i was going to convert to Meng and do the industrial year... but now i am not so sure... until friday I had more or less decided on sticking with the Bsc, but I don't know... going to speak to some more tutors and things tommorrow, so hopefully they can provide me with some inspiration.
The whole course uncertainty isn't good because I have to sort out accomodation for next year - and SOON!
Current MP3:
Badly Drawn Boy - You Were Right
Learned this week:
Life isn't really all that bad, maybe.
Well, I seem to have just spent an entire weekend faffing and doing nothing useful at all, so when i finally got to bed tonight, I felt that I should at least blog!
It was again, a busy week, but it was one of getting a few things sorted out, and also one of bringing up more questions that don't really have simple answers. The group project phase I is almost complete, my project plan was completed on tuesday after being too tired to do anything constructive after returning from Durham, it luckily passed QA first time, which was a relief... that shows those many hours of writing reports to company standards have had some positive effect on me. This weekend I intended to get the personal project underway too, but unfortunately that did not happen... On saturday I woke up to reports of the washing machine being broken, which was sort of impled as if it was my fault, hey, I only brought the thing here after repainting the front :) It turned out that me and si got it working again after draining it out, and tightening a few screws... It then seemed to work until today when it broke again... Upon a bit more investigation, it seems that the vibration of the washer shakes it apart, causing the door interlock to shut off the machine... Bring on the duck tape! Bloody hardware!
The big question whirring about my head at the moment is the question of what course I carry on with at Aber, it's vastly complicated and I shan't go into it all here (if you know me, i've probably mentioned it), but if i convert to a course that has a compulsory industrial year, I think that I would be wasting my time doing another year of work (at lower than the rate if i graduate a year earlier)... Until this time last week i was certain that i was going to convert to Meng and do the industrial year... but now i am not so sure... until friday I had more or less decided on sticking with the Bsc, but I don't know... going to speak to some more tutors and things tommorrow, so hopefully they can provide me with some inspiration.
The whole course uncertainty isn't good because I have to sort out accomodation for next year - and SOON!
Current MP3:
Badly Drawn Boy - You Were Right
Learned this week:
Life isn't really all that bad, maybe.
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Durham
Just returned from my visit to Durham for the weekend for Richard’s 21st, all in all an excellent weekend, but I am totally knackered now :/ It all started on Thursday when Russ came up from Cardiff, Thursday is CompSoc night so we started the pub-crawl after hanging around for a while. Was a good night, but got quite drunk in the end after drinking several bottles of “Java” a cheap alcopop we were buying purely for the ironic name…
Friday morning set off for Durham around lunchtime, got there at 6pm, met Richards housemates, and managed to walk into their outside light (breaking it) while going out to unload the car, erk. That evening, we all went to their college* bar for a few drinks, then made our way to the union, which was really good actually, good music, apart from the club-type room was white walled, which was a bit strange, one of Richard’s housemates also asked if I was taking something as I was dancing hyperactively, suppose I shouldn’t be quite so energetic. Another thing I noticed is there were a lot of girls about that tended to flutter eyelids and giggle a lot, something that really annoys me, an entire army of arts graduates in the making. Great. Thinking about it I suppose it’s because Durham is more of a traditional uni that I find some of the differences a bit odd.
Saturday, Antony and Louise arrived, and then there was a bit of a house party, then we started on a college bar crawl (all of the 12(?) colleges have a bar) which was a little hard work, but we all got there in the end without any major casualties.
Saw the following quote above one of the bars, and it kind of stuck:
“Work like you don’t need the money,
Love like you have never been hurt,
Dance like no one is watching”
Later that evening, Antony convinced himself that an onion tasted exactly like an apple if you held your nose, so he was offered an onion, which he attempted to eat (complete with skin) with his nose held… Within 30 seconds he learned that onions don’t taste of apples : )
Drove back tonight, got a lot of project work to do, but I’m bloody knackered!
* Colleges at Durham are something that I have yet to fathom out, it’s like a hall, but it also is like your “house”, for sports competitions and things. I suppose it brings the house together, but wether it is a good thing to have that much competition within the uni is a good thing or not, I don’t know (they all seem to take it seriously). Also, one of the colleges is an old castle, which just rocks.
Current MP3:
Ian Van Dahl - Reason
Learned:
Onions don't taste of apples
Just returned from my visit to Durham for the weekend for Richard’s 21st, all in all an excellent weekend, but I am totally knackered now :/ It all started on Thursday when Russ came up from Cardiff, Thursday is CompSoc night so we started the pub-crawl after hanging around for a while. Was a good night, but got quite drunk in the end after drinking several bottles of “Java” a cheap alcopop we were buying purely for the ironic name…
Friday morning set off for Durham around lunchtime, got there at 6pm, met Richards housemates, and managed to walk into their outside light (breaking it) while going out to unload the car, erk. That evening, we all went to their college* bar for a few drinks, then made our way to the union, which was really good actually, good music, apart from the club-type room was white walled, which was a bit strange, one of Richard’s housemates also asked if I was taking something as I was dancing hyperactively, suppose I shouldn’t be quite so energetic. Another thing I noticed is there were a lot of girls about that tended to flutter eyelids and giggle a lot, something that really annoys me, an entire army of arts graduates in the making. Great. Thinking about it I suppose it’s because Durham is more of a traditional uni that I find some of the differences a bit odd.
Saturday, Antony and Louise arrived, and then there was a bit of a house party, then we started on a college bar crawl (all of the 12(?) colleges have a bar) which was a little hard work, but we all got there in the end without any major casualties.
Saw the following quote above one of the bars, and it kind of stuck:
“Work like you don’t need the money,
Love like you have never been hurt,
Dance like no one is watching”
Later that evening, Antony convinced himself that an onion tasted exactly like an apple if you held your nose, so he was offered an onion, which he attempted to eat (complete with skin) with his nose held… Within 30 seconds he learned that onions don’t taste of apples : )
Drove back tonight, got a lot of project work to do, but I’m bloody knackered!
* Colleges at Durham are something that I have yet to fathom out, it’s like a hall, but it also is like your “house”, for sports competitions and things. I suppose it brings the house together, but wether it is a good thing to have that much competition within the uni is a good thing or not, I don’t know (they all seem to take it seriously). Also, one of the colleges is an old castle, which just rocks.
Current MP3:
Ian Van Dahl - Reason
Learned:
Onions don't taste of apples
Thursday, November 21, 2002
Life still chaotic...
Thursday today, project coming along, but i have to finish the project plan ASAP so it can be QA'd doesn't look like it's going to be anything like completed before this weekend's epic voyage to durham.
Went out last night as pete came over from surrey for matt's birthday, had a great night out, but got very drunk, and ended up not doing to my 11am - oops, but i keep missing a lot of lectures lately, must do lots of revision over christmas!
Went out tonight too after an afternoon of working with a semi-hangover, had another good night, this time it was Jaz' birthday, seemed like a good time had by all, had a nice meal at the calvery.
Anyway, no time to be blogging these days
Learned:
First year compsci was a bloody holiday
Aftershock and lager don't mix - hmm may have learned this one before
Start project plans earlier
Thursday today, project coming along, but i have to finish the project plan ASAP so it can be QA'd doesn't look like it's going to be anything like completed before this weekend's epic voyage to durham.
Went out last night as pete came over from surrey for matt's birthday, had a great night out, but got very drunk, and ended up not doing to my 11am - oops, but i keep missing a lot of lectures lately, must do lots of revision over christmas!
Went out tonight too after an afternoon of working with a semi-hangover, had another good night, this time it was Jaz' birthday, seemed like a good time had by all, had a nice meal at the calvery.
Anyway, no time to be blogging these days
Learned:
First year compsci was a bloody holiday
Aftershock and lager don't mix - hmm may have learned this one before
Start project plans earlier
Monday, November 18, 2002
It's funny because it's true
This is probably going to be one of a few short random posts over the next two weeks..
I had a dream a few nights ago that I thought I would post, as it is strangely true sometimes.. I drempt that everyone in aber lived in one massively overcrouded house, and whenever you wanted to go anywhere you were struggling through corridoors filled with people trying to get places, falling over people everywhere.
Quite bizarre, but in a way it's true, its amazing how "inbred" this place can feel at times
This is probably going to be one of a few short random posts over the next two weeks..
I had a dream a few nights ago that I thought I would post, as it is strangely true sometimes.. I drempt that everyone in aber lived in one massively overcrouded house, and whenever you wanted to go anywhere you were struggling through corridoors filled with people trying to get places, falling over people everywhere.
Quite bizarre, but in a way it's true, its amazing how "inbred" this place can feel at times
Sunday, November 17, 2002
Wednesday, November 13, 2002
Still mad rush
Tuesday. Bit of a mad weekend, went to the union Friday and saturday night - Saturday was Orange Enjoymusic v.3, an excellent night out, proper DJ, superior sound system, and lots of toys like a photomessaging machine which replayed your picture and a message on a large plasma screen behind the DJ. All in all a good night, aside from (false) fire alarm, which must have delighted those waiting without tickets, which meant that they let everyone waiting outside back in automatically. I was lucky, hadn't had chance to get rid of my coat, and stayed warm!
Group project carrying on, had a productive meeting today, but have a lot to do before the end of term. Also personal project was released, seems an interesting task, to build an equation parser type thing.
Must go, lots to do.
Tuesday. Bit of a mad weekend, went to the union Friday and saturday night - Saturday was Orange Enjoymusic v.3, an excellent night out, proper DJ, superior sound system, and lots of toys like a photomessaging machine which replayed your picture and a message on a large plasma screen behind the DJ. All in all a good night, aside from (false) fire alarm, which must have delighted those waiting without tickets, which meant that they let everyone waiting outside back in automatically. I was lucky, hadn't had chance to get rid of my coat, and stayed warm!
Group project carrying on, had a productive meeting today, but have a lot to do before the end of term. Also personal project was released, seems an interesting task, to build an equation parser type thing.
Must go, lots to do.
Thursday, November 07, 2002
I'm not an alcoholic, honest
Thursday. This week has been OK, life still seems very full. On tuesday morning rang up Felinfoel brewery, and ordered a couple of crates of Double Dragon, one to take to Durham (friend's 21st birthday soon), and the other to drink generally, feel a bit guilty about having two crates of beer in my room... behold:
Today was a bit of a shit day all in all, but an eventful one, managed to blag getting signed off for a worksheet, however grappled on the current worksheet ALL DAY with the most unpleasant development tool in the world - Together 6.0.
While talking to the current computer society president today I asked her what was happening about the socials, and it seems that she has been having all sorts of trouble getting socials in place, and when I seemed keen to get things sorted, she was so fed up she offered me her position! I accepted, but now there are lots of beurocratic crap that the union seem to love, for one, I suppose it is undemocratic that I have just been given the position, however, if I can get things going, I think the fact we are having regular events should outweigh that... we shall see.
Car failed it's mot today too, going to be about £150, so thats £800 on the car in 4 weeks :/ Shouldn't be too much more expense this year... BUT the clutch does seem a bit dody, we shall see.
Current MP3:
Lou Reed - Perfect Day (How ironic, it was far from it)
Learned:
Life can only get more busy
Thursday. This week has been OK, life still seems very full. On tuesday morning rang up Felinfoel brewery, and ordered a couple of crates of Double Dragon, one to take to Durham (friend's 21st birthday soon), and the other to drink generally, feel a bit guilty about having two crates of beer in my room... behold:
Today was a bit of a shit day all in all, but an eventful one, managed to blag getting signed off for a worksheet, however grappled on the current worksheet ALL DAY with the most unpleasant development tool in the world - Together 6.0.
While talking to the current computer society president today I asked her what was happening about the socials, and it seems that she has been having all sorts of trouble getting socials in place, and when I seemed keen to get things sorted, she was so fed up she offered me her position! I accepted, but now there are lots of beurocratic crap that the union seem to love, for one, I suppose it is undemocratic that I have just been given the position, however, if I can get things going, I think the fact we are having regular events should outweigh that... we shall see.
Car failed it's mot today too, going to be about £150, so thats £800 on the car in 4 weeks :/ Shouldn't be too much more expense this year... BUT the clutch does seem a bit dody, we shall see.
Current MP3:
Lou Reed - Perfect Day (How ironic, it was far from it)
Learned:
Life can only get more busy
Tuesday, November 05, 2002
Monday
An expensive day, yet a not particularly interesting day. Bought that car insurance policy, and have confirmed it will cover me on any vehicle with 3rd party cover - hmm dad's car - *rub hands*
Group project meeting tommorrow morning as usual, got some things cleared up with tutor today, must sleep.
Current MP3:
Ben E King - Stand By Me
Learned today:
Need to get into a proper sleep pattern
An expensive day, yet a not particularly interesting day. Bought that car insurance policy, and have confirmed it will cover me on any vehicle with 3rd party cover - hmm dad's car - *rub hands*
Group project meeting tommorrow morning as usual, got some things cleared up with tutor today, must sleep.
Current MP3:
Ben E King - Stand By Me
Learned today:
Need to get into a proper sleep pattern
Monday, November 04, 2002
Got to be having a laugh
It's been quite an eventful week, still feel really busy, thing is I never seem to get the motivation to clear my todo list these days. Car insurance due for renewal next week, so I have been phoning around, after about 25 calls, the cheapest I am down to is £480 Still seems a bit steep, but i stuppose it is the cheapest I have ever paid, roll on next time, when I'll be 21 - erk.
Went out on friday night, and met up with some of the people on #aber that I haven't met before, felt a bit strange really, but had a reasonable night, ending up in the pier suitably inebriated. On the way back, ended up calling the police as I saw there was a fight breaking out involving a woman and two blokes (strangely Dyfed-powys police were not out in force as they usually are), I remember quite drunkenly phoning directory enquiries and getting put through, then explaining the location and what was going on to the operator, shortly afterwards I realised that I had done an impression of the woman involved in the fight to the police, impersonating her saying "get owwf 'im", the operator was probably amused by this as she asked me if I could do the impression again :) Ah well such is life, suppose I made that operator's evening more interesting! As I stuck to alcopops, managed to wake up on saturday without any hangover - except when I realised it was 6.30am and I was on a weird caffeine high!
Saturday afternoon me and Chris started working on our plans to go over to the states to go and see James, should be fun, free accomodation - as long as we don't get turfed out of his halls that is! It's annoying though, if I were just three months older, I wouldn't have any trouble hiring a car over there, so busses it is. What would be good is if we could get a trip to NYC in, I have always wanted to go since 9/11/01 and if we could fit it in/get reasonable flights it would be cool.
Tonight I have been attempting to get the group project done, and start writing up the project plan, but I seem to always find something else to do! Hopefully will meet with tutor tommorrow about some details I want to clear up on before the next group meeting.
Have been trying to get my hands on some "double dragon" ale in cans of late, not entirely sure what shops sell it around here, am going to try safeway tommorrow. Excellent stuff, was about the first thing to ween me off terrible gassy european lager shit.
Anyway, much to do that isn't blogging.
Things learned this week:
Cars are expensive
Keeping local police phone number programmed into phone is a good idea
It's been quite an eventful week, still feel really busy, thing is I never seem to get the motivation to clear my todo list these days. Car insurance due for renewal next week, so I have been phoning around, after about 25 calls, the cheapest I am down to is £480 Still seems a bit steep, but i stuppose it is the cheapest I have ever paid, roll on next time, when I'll be 21 - erk.
Went out on friday night, and met up with some of the people on #aber that I haven't met before, felt a bit strange really, but had a reasonable night, ending up in the pier suitably inebriated. On the way back, ended up calling the police as I saw there was a fight breaking out involving a woman and two blokes (strangely Dyfed-powys police were not out in force as they usually are), I remember quite drunkenly phoning directory enquiries and getting put through, then explaining the location and what was going on to the operator, shortly afterwards I realised that I had done an impression of the woman involved in the fight to the police, impersonating her saying "get owwf 'im", the operator was probably amused by this as she asked me if I could do the impression again :) Ah well such is life, suppose I made that operator's evening more interesting! As I stuck to alcopops, managed to wake up on saturday without any hangover - except when I realised it was 6.30am and I was on a weird caffeine high!
Saturday afternoon me and Chris started working on our plans to go over to the states to go and see James, should be fun, free accomodation - as long as we don't get turfed out of his halls that is! It's annoying though, if I were just three months older, I wouldn't have any trouble hiring a car over there, so busses it is. What would be good is if we could get a trip to NYC in, I have always wanted to go since 9/11/01 and if we could fit it in/get reasonable flights it would be cool.
Tonight I have been attempting to get the group project done, and start writing up the project plan, but I seem to always find something else to do! Hopefully will meet with tutor tommorrow about some details I want to clear up on before the next group meeting.
Have been trying to get my hands on some "double dragon" ale in cans of late, not entirely sure what shops sell it around here, am going to try safeway tommorrow. Excellent stuff, was about the first thing to ween me off terrible gassy european lager shit.
Anyway, much to do that isn't blogging.
Things learned this week:
Cars are expensive
Keeping local police phone number programmed into phone is a good idea
Monday, October 28, 2002
Excess Wind?
Sunday. Nice lazy day today, however the weather has been a bit crap, storms brewing all last night, even blew the old fridge over in the yard outside! I think the next few pictures sum up the events quite well:
The Natural History museum, london
Aberystwyth, as shown by the Ceredigion County Council webcam around lunchtime
Went for a walk around the seafront around lunchtime, quite funny to see the effects of the storm, foam everywhere, took some photos of waves crashing and stuff, watched seagulls failing with very high speed winds.
Yes, last night was good, went for a few drinks with housemates, and had quite a good time, had Schmirnoff ice black for the first time, it's not black at all.. just clear... weird.. Also made the pints with aftersock mistake again.
Also going to add a new diary feature, "What I learned this week", we'll see if i can think of creative ideas for long enough.
Leaned this week:
Landlords are bastards
Aftershock bad
Sunday. Nice lazy day today, however the weather has been a bit crap, storms brewing all last night, even blew the old fridge over in the yard outside! I think the next few pictures sum up the events quite well:
The Natural History museum, london
Aberystwyth, as shown by the Ceredigion County Council webcam around lunchtime
Went for a walk around the seafront around lunchtime, quite funny to see the effects of the storm, foam everywhere, took some photos of waves crashing and stuff, watched seagulls failing with very high speed winds.
Yes, last night was good, went for a few drinks with housemates, and had quite a good time, had Schmirnoff ice black for the first time, it's not black at all.. just clear... weird.. Also made the pints with aftersock mistake again.
Also going to add a new diary feature, "What I learned this week", we'll see if i can think of creative ideas for long enough.
Leaned this week:
Landlords are bastards
Aftershock bad
Friday, October 25, 2002
Fridge Farce
Thursday. Not to busy since blog, been a fairly quiet week, group project meeting on tuesday went well, and we also assigned a meeting for thursdays, so we had one this afternoon. I really think that we can get things going well, but I think some people in the group would like their actual tasks to be more defined, so tonight I started putting the whole thing into project so I can tighten up on it.
Went to work on wednesday afternoon after not being bothered to get up for my lecture that morning, not quite sure why, but there is something _Really_ boring about AI that I can't quite explain. Got a meeting tommorrow morning (friday) with a tutor about a possible change of course, so I hope that I will be able to change to web development, I just can't stand it.
Sent the lanlord an email this morning about the fact that the new fridges that he had promised us had not arrived, and got an almost instant reply saying that they were being loaded into the van that moment, and would arrive this afternoon. I returned today after lectures to a scene of enraged housemates staring at our "new" fridge upstairs. It seems the one downstairs is almost new, however, the one they have provided upstairs seemed to be full of hay, and had quite possibly been in a barn! Not to mention the fact that is is OLDER and SMALLER than the one it was replacing! I tell you I really do hate living in private accomodation sometimes, I think I am definately going back into university accomodation next year. Maybe somewhere I can get ADSL installed instead of relying on "information services".
That reminds me the uni microwave link is down today for the first noticeable time since the start of this year, and it is quite strange to compare it to last year when I was myself using the university link. Last year when the link was down, I had access to my filestore and lecture notes, but no Internet access. however this year, when the microwave link is down, I still have internet access, but no access to my filestore or lecture notes, annoying! Thinking about it, the situation I am in this year is better, as if i am desperate I can always go up to the uni and get any files I need, and my web browsing at home is not affected by random MLL outages.
Must get some sleep, 9.15 meeting and work in the afternoon.
Thursday. Not to busy since blog, been a fairly quiet week, group project meeting on tuesday went well, and we also assigned a meeting for thursdays, so we had one this afternoon. I really think that we can get things going well, but I think some people in the group would like their actual tasks to be more defined, so tonight I started putting the whole thing into project so I can tighten up on it.
Went to work on wednesday afternoon after not being bothered to get up for my lecture that morning, not quite sure why, but there is something _Really_ boring about AI that I can't quite explain. Got a meeting tommorrow morning (friday) with a tutor about a possible change of course, so I hope that I will be able to change to web development, I just can't stand it.
Sent the lanlord an email this morning about the fact that the new fridges that he had promised us had not arrived, and got an almost instant reply saying that they were being loaded into the van that moment, and would arrive this afternoon. I returned today after lectures to a scene of enraged housemates staring at our "new" fridge upstairs. It seems the one downstairs is almost new, however, the one they have provided upstairs seemed to be full of hay, and had quite possibly been in a barn! Not to mention the fact that is is OLDER and SMALLER than the one it was replacing! I tell you I really do hate living in private accomodation sometimes, I think I am definately going back into university accomodation next year. Maybe somewhere I can get ADSL installed instead of relying on "information services".
That reminds me the uni microwave link is down today for the first noticeable time since the start of this year, and it is quite strange to compare it to last year when I was myself using the university link. Last year when the link was down, I had access to my filestore and lecture notes, but no Internet access. however this year, when the microwave link is down, I still have internet access, but no access to my filestore or lecture notes, annoying! Thinking about it, the situation I am in this year is better, as if i am desperate I can always go up to the uni and get any files I need, and my web browsing at home is not affected by random MLL outages.
Must get some sleep, 9.15 meeting and work in the afternoon.
Tuesday, October 22, 2002
Hire and Fire
Monday. Went home for the weekend, had a good time, gave mum her birthday present - a tower candle holder and she really seemed to like it. Got just a tad stressed when we went shopping in town, after being told that parents wanted a "Short" shopping trip, it turned into a complete farce lasting half the day, and I really hate clothes shopping. Drive back to aber went well, managed to get someone in front and someone behind who both knew the road and wanted to get on as quickly as possible/safe, this ment that we could kind of overtake in convoy, and generally seemed to be good. Gave me a chance to brush up on some of my advanced driving too, made a real effort to stick to the "system" and I thought I might be getting on for doing it in record time... Until we came up behind this long convoy behind a motorhome - those things should be banned!
Well, it seems that the firefighters are going to strike, looks like another example of peoples stupidity in this country to me, firstly people don't seem to realise that if they don't like a job, tough, if you want, you are more than welcome to hand in your notice and leave. Also, it seems that the "replacement" service is going to be woefully inadequate, as they are going to use some ex-cold war trucks that can't do more than 50 mph. What I want to know is why the army cannot drive the shiny new trucks that are going to be shut up in the stations when the strike is on? Surely this is entirely sensible? And what is this fixation with picket lines, did I miss something about them not being born in the 70s? Sometimes the stupidity in the world really does annoy me. Oh yes, and the train drivers union are considering wether it is safe for them to run without fire cover.. So this country is going to be f*cked over again, by some beurocratic nonsense. IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY WITH YOUR JOB LEAVE.
I also have a possible solution to the strikes
1) Tell firefighters if they do not perform their job, they will lose it, along with any pension entitlements. Plain and simple. As it would be with pretty much any job that isn't run by union pricks still stuck in the 70s
- or, perhaps more radically:
2) burn down one fire chief's house per hour of strike - this should end it within, say, an hour.
As an aside, went to the library for about the first time ever today, and decided to get a copy of Stephen Hawking - A brief history of time, so far quite a good read, really gives some good answers to some complex questions. I especially liked the line about the hunt for a universal equation for the universe, Hawking suggests that a universal equation will in fact have to account for the discovery of itself!
Anyway ... time for me to go and do some preparation for group project meeting tommorrow
Monday. Went home for the weekend, had a good time, gave mum her birthday present - a tower candle holder and she really seemed to like it. Got just a tad stressed when we went shopping in town, after being told that parents wanted a "Short" shopping trip, it turned into a complete farce lasting half the day, and I really hate clothes shopping. Drive back to aber went well, managed to get someone in front and someone behind who both knew the road and wanted to get on as quickly as possible/safe, this ment that we could kind of overtake in convoy, and generally seemed to be good. Gave me a chance to brush up on some of my advanced driving too, made a real effort to stick to the "system" and I thought I might be getting on for doing it in record time... Until we came up behind this long convoy behind a motorhome - those things should be banned!
Well, it seems that the firefighters are going to strike, looks like another example of peoples stupidity in this country to me, firstly people don't seem to realise that if they don't like a job, tough, if you want, you are more than welcome to hand in your notice and leave. Also, it seems that the "replacement" service is going to be woefully inadequate, as they are going to use some ex-cold war trucks that can't do more than 50 mph. What I want to know is why the army cannot drive the shiny new trucks that are going to be shut up in the stations when the strike is on? Surely this is entirely sensible? And what is this fixation with picket lines, did I miss something about them not being born in the 70s? Sometimes the stupidity in the world really does annoy me. Oh yes, and the train drivers union are considering wether it is safe for them to run without fire cover.. So this country is going to be f*cked over again, by some beurocratic nonsense. IF YOU ARE NOT HAPPY WITH YOUR JOB LEAVE.
I also have a possible solution to the strikes
1) Tell firefighters if they do not perform their job, they will lose it, along with any pension entitlements. Plain and simple. As it would be with pretty much any job that isn't run by union pricks still stuck in the 70s
- or, perhaps more radically:
2) burn down one fire chief's house per hour of strike - this should end it within, say, an hour.
As an aside, went to the library for about the first time ever today, and decided to get a copy of Stephen Hawking - A brief history of time, so far quite a good read, really gives some good answers to some complex questions. I especially liked the line about the hunt for a universal equation for the universe, Hawking suggests that a universal equation will in fact have to account for the discovery of itself!
Anyway ... time for me to go and do some preparation for group project meeting tommorrow
Tuesday, October 15, 2002
Crash Machine
Bit of a quiet day today. In my last blog I didn't really explain the title, what I did mean to mention was the fact that there was no phone sinal at Gregynog for pretty much any network, so once I returned I reported this to Orange (OK, I was a bit bored and avoiding work), as it is quite a busy conference centre, and the lack of coverage is probably losing them custom.... In my case, my phone was reduced to a rather expensive alarm clock :| Anyway, this morning at 09:05 I received a call from a very helpful customer services woman who suggested that the area around gregynog has been looked at, and there should be service provision within 12 months, to be honest I was impressed. You can't say fairer than 12 months either, as the local militant treehuggers will probably complain about it being an act of terror on the landscape or something.
Earlier this evening I got a phone call from andy saying that a cash machine had crashed, so I went to go and have a look, when I first herd, I presumed it was one of the graphical ones, but to my surprise, the standard text-based natwest ones also seem to run Windows NT (!) Is this why Microsoft have so much money? we will never know.
Anyway, group project meeting in the morning, got to read some documentation. Nite.
Bit of a quiet day today. In my last blog I didn't really explain the title, what I did mean to mention was the fact that there was no phone sinal at Gregynog for pretty much any network, so once I returned I reported this to Orange (OK, I was a bit bored and avoiding work), as it is quite a busy conference centre, and the lack of coverage is probably losing them custom.... In my case, my phone was reduced to a rather expensive alarm clock :| Anyway, this morning at 09:05 I received a call from a very helpful customer services woman who suggested that the area around gregynog has been looked at, and there should be service provision within 12 months, to be honest I was impressed. You can't say fairer than 12 months either, as the local militant treehuggers will probably complain about it being an act of terror on the landscape or something.
Earlier this evening I got a phone call from andy saying that a cash machine had crashed, so I went to go and have a look, when I first herd, I presumed it was one of the graphical ones, but to my surprise, the standard text-based natwest ones also seem to run Windows NT (!) Is this why Microsoft have so much money? we will never know.
Anyway, group project meeting in the morning, got to read some documentation. Nite.
Monday, October 14, 2002
Expensive Alarm Clock
Another week where I haven' blogged, ah well some people haven't either, so I suppose that is ok :P
Right, here goes.... Tuesday was the first meeting for our group project, and I have taken on the role of project leader, which I am told is alright by friends who have done the group project before, quite looking forward to getting into it as I enjoy a challenge.
This weekend we had a trip to Gregynog (a conference centre) with the department where we had a weekend of interview skills, teambuilding exercises (pointless things involving bamboo canes and string that take 10 times as long with a group than on your own) It was fun, and the food was OK too, apart from the manky fish pie on saturday :| Did have the upside of getting to know the names of a few more people on my course.
Also I might be getting a part time job for during term time, going in on monday to see them about it. Going home for the weekend as it is mums birthday this week, so a nice cross country drive for me on friday :)
Another week where I haven' blogged, ah well some people haven't either, so I suppose that is ok :P
Right, here goes.... Tuesday was the first meeting for our group project, and I have taken on the role of project leader, which I am told is alright by friends who have done the group project before, quite looking forward to getting into it as I enjoy a challenge.
This weekend we had a trip to Gregynog (a conference centre) with the department where we had a weekend of interview skills, teambuilding exercises (pointless things involving bamboo canes and string that take 10 times as long with a group than on your own) It was fun, and the food was OK too, apart from the manky fish pie on saturday :| Did have the upside of getting to know the names of a few more people on my course.
Also I might be getting a part time job for during term time, going in on monday to see them about it. Going home for the weekend as it is mums birthday this week, so a nice cross country drive for me on friday :)
Saturday, October 05, 2002
The logical way of doing things
Not blogged for a while, it's been a bit of an uneventful 12 days, but at the same time I have been quite busy. Went to get the oil changed on the car on the saturday after previous blog, and was told that my shock absorbers were buggered, I get the feeling that they were kind of exaggerating, so I am going to investigate further, no real rush as I am just using the car to potter around at the moment.
Almost every day this week I have been woken up by roadworks outside - arrgh! What is it about builders? they start at 7.30am and then at 9am when they have successfully woken up everyone in the vicinity they decide to have a four and a half hour tea break. Great. If they wake me up in the morning I have decided that I am going to open the window and shout something about saturday being a sabbath and mutter something about the holy wrath of the JIHAD falling upon them.
Lectures have started well and truely, it's quite depressing how the workload is noticeably more than last year, however, what I do like is that things are getting a little more taxing and I won't just be sat there bored in lectures again :o) I've attempted to make a concious effort to acutally make proper notes and be a good student, this weekend I am going to acutally run through my notes and check them against the lecture slides filling in any bits I may have missed and stuff - you never know next I will acutually be revising for exams or such things!
Details of the group projects have been released, and the project will run for 2 semesters, eep, should be interesting... I've been advised by friends to completely avoid any of the "managerial" type group roles if at all cots, I can see where there coming from, but I think that might be a bit of a challenge to get a whole teams of semi-randoms (the groups are tutorial groups) to acutally do some work :)
Last friday night when pete came down, had a good night, was quite good to have another one of "those" nights ending up in the pier, and they played some good tracks, in one mix they did they played a song that I have been trying to identify for ages, and the name was given to me - Scooter - The logical song, and I have been playing it quite a lot myself this week, which has lead to it becoming another one of the flat/house songs of choice and it can be herd all over the house (the ghostbusters theme was had a similar status last year) , think I might get sick of it soon, but I have just obtained the video!
Well, got a quiet weekend coming up, but last real quiet one for a bit, got a weekend away with my course coming up, so won't have many spare weekends to clean up odd ends. Tommorrow also brings food shopping *fun*.
Not blogged for a while, it's been a bit of an uneventful 12 days, but at the same time I have been quite busy. Went to get the oil changed on the car on the saturday after previous blog, and was told that my shock absorbers were buggered, I get the feeling that they were kind of exaggerating, so I am going to investigate further, no real rush as I am just using the car to potter around at the moment.
Almost every day this week I have been woken up by roadworks outside - arrgh! What is it about builders? they start at 7.30am and then at 9am when they have successfully woken up everyone in the vicinity they decide to have a four and a half hour tea break. Great. If they wake me up in the morning I have decided that I am going to open the window and shout something about saturday being a sabbath and mutter something about the holy wrath of the JIHAD falling upon them.
Lectures have started well and truely, it's quite depressing how the workload is noticeably more than last year, however, what I do like is that things are getting a little more taxing and I won't just be sat there bored in lectures again :o) I've attempted to make a concious effort to acutally make proper notes and be a good student, this weekend I am going to acutally run through my notes and check them against the lecture slides filling in any bits I may have missed and stuff - you never know next I will acutually be revising for exams or such things!
Details of the group projects have been released, and the project will run for 2 semesters, eep, should be interesting... I've been advised by friends to completely avoid any of the "managerial" type group roles if at all cots, I can see where there coming from, but I think that might be a bit of a challenge to get a whole teams of semi-randoms (the groups are tutorial groups) to acutally do some work :)
Last friday night when pete came down, had a good night, was quite good to have another one of "those" nights ending up in the pier, and they played some good tracks, in one mix they did they played a song that I have been trying to identify for ages, and the name was given to me - Scooter - The logical song, and I have been playing it quite a lot myself this week, which has lead to it becoming another one of the flat/house songs of choice and it can be herd all over the house (the ghostbusters theme was had a similar status last year) , think I might get sick of it soon, but I have just obtained the video!
Well, got a quiet weekend coming up, but last real quiet one for a bit, got a weekend away with my course coming up, so won't have many spare weekends to clean up odd ends. Tommorrow also brings food shopping *fun*.
Monday, September 23, 2002
Yep, it's just been confirmed, right now I am really going to bed, GLOBAL TERROR or not.....
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2275195.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/2275195.stm
Aber - your friendly alternative to sanity
I've just had about the wierdest 48 hours in quite a long time. It all started yesterday (saturday) went out for a drink with some friends, went to a couple of pubs, but people I was with were not all that interested on carrying on, gave matt a ring, and ended going up the hill with him and a few others. Got to the union, and it was really bizarre to realise that I knew so many people, ended up trying pints with blue aftershock in - had about 4, learned that things that taste nice at the time usually have implications in the morning :| I think we randomly ended up in someones house in the early hours, no idea who they were, and I also have vague memories of us sitting in our kitchen with some random girls from town.
After a fairly quiet day, just about managing to get a bit of food from the shops, the randomness continued today as Bug, si and I were stood in si's room and somehow we managed to get onto the topic of nuclear war, and things like civil defence and stuff, just as we were talking about if we would want to survive or not, there was a shaking and a clatter noise as bug fell onto a table, the house was shaking! Cor, I just experienced my first earthquake, yes, an earthquake, in good old britain too! After a couple of seconds, I realised what was happening, and simply said "earthquake", after it had finished, we just stood there and looked at each other, quite, quite bizarre. We then went outside to see what was going on, (and to get out of what we thought was a nice secure, stable building) and started having a chat with matt accrross the road about what had just happened. I then came back in the house and went into protect and survive mode, grabbed coat, torch and then logged on to #aber to see if anyone else had experienced it and others had too, all over the country.
I then went back outside, only to find bug chatting to some random guys who seemed a little "under the influence" then to my horror noticed that one of them was carrying a gun! I wasn't quite sure what to do, and this guy was pointing it everywhere so it took me a few seconds to realise that it was in fact a BB gun - phew, but I did notice the guys who were leaning out of the window over the road dissapeared back inside very quickly! I now really can see why the police have to treat every situation as if it does involve real firearms, because in lots of situations, it is very hard to tell exactly what is and what isn't real, especially in less than ideal conditions.
I must say it took a good half hour before it had any mention of the quake on the radio, or indeed BBCi or even BBC news 24, initial reports off radio five said a while ago that it was 4.8 magnitude, and epicentre somewhere near Birmingham, freaky.
There is just an uncomfirmed report now of a bomb going off near US embassy in indonesia, fucking madness unfolding on the world, and I have to remove a pile of clothes from the bed before I can sleep. Who ever said that nothing ever happens in aber eh?
I've just had about the wierdest 48 hours in quite a long time. It all started yesterday (saturday) went out for a drink with some friends, went to a couple of pubs, but people I was with were not all that interested on carrying on, gave matt a ring, and ended going up the hill with him and a few others. Got to the union, and it was really bizarre to realise that I knew so many people, ended up trying pints with blue aftershock in - had about 4, learned that things that taste nice at the time usually have implications in the morning :| I think we randomly ended up in someones house in the early hours, no idea who they were, and I also have vague memories of us sitting in our kitchen with some random girls from town.
After a fairly quiet day, just about managing to get a bit of food from the shops, the randomness continued today as Bug, si and I were stood in si's room and somehow we managed to get onto the topic of nuclear war, and things like civil defence and stuff, just as we were talking about if we would want to survive or not, there was a shaking and a clatter noise as bug fell onto a table, the house was shaking! Cor, I just experienced my first earthquake, yes, an earthquake, in good old britain too! After a couple of seconds, I realised what was happening, and simply said "earthquake", after it had finished, we just stood there and looked at each other, quite, quite bizarre. We then went outside to see what was going on, (and to get out of what we thought was a nice secure, stable building) and started having a chat with matt accrross the road about what had just happened. I then came back in the house and went into protect and survive mode, grabbed coat, torch and then logged on to #aber to see if anyone else had experienced it and others had too, all over the country.
I then went back outside, only to find bug chatting to some random guys who seemed a little "under the influence" then to my horror noticed that one of them was carrying a gun! I wasn't quite sure what to do, and this guy was pointing it everywhere so it took me a few seconds to realise that it was in fact a BB gun - phew, but I did notice the guys who were leaning out of the window over the road dissapeared back inside very quickly! I now really can see why the police have to treat every situation as if it does involve real firearms, because in lots of situations, it is very hard to tell exactly what is and what isn't real, especially in less than ideal conditions.
I must say it took a good half hour before it had any mention of the quake on the radio, or indeed BBCi or even BBC news 24, initial reports off radio five said a while ago that it was 4.8 magnitude, and epicentre somewhere near Birmingham, freaky.
There is just an uncomfirmed report now of a bomb going off near US embassy in indonesia, fucking madness unfolding on the world, and I have to remove a pile of clothes from the bed before I can sleep. Who ever said that nothing ever happens in aber eh?
Saturday, September 21, 2002
Web Site
Finally got around to starting on the massive amount of stuff that I would like to add to my website, ended up just adding some photos, ones of my visits to some ROC bunkers in derbyshire, and ones of my in car mp3 player (see pictures section, surprisingly).
It's been quite a quiet week, not really done much of note apart from settling in, really glad that I came down early to give me chance to settle back into my "hectic" student lifestlye of, er, doing nothing at all really! Looking forward to lectures starting, and this year in general really, hope that I can come out of it with some decent grades as long as I acutally being assignments when I get them a lesson that I really should have learned long ago.
After going to bed at 4.30am after a random late night drive somewhere random with bug, ended up getting woken up at 9am by the plummer - who fitted a new tap washer while i was attempting to be asleep in the same room. grr!
Spent a lot of this evening looking at other civil defence related stuff on the net, and the whole day seems to have evaporated, ah well, only a few days left before registration.
Tommorrow brings hair cut and possible night out, but who knows what will or won't happen.
Finally got around to starting on the massive amount of stuff that I would like to add to my website, ended up just adding some photos, ones of my visits to some ROC bunkers in derbyshire, and ones of my in car mp3 player (see pictures section, surprisingly).
It's been quite a quiet week, not really done much of note apart from settling in, really glad that I came down early to give me chance to settle back into my "hectic" student lifestlye of, er, doing nothing at all really! Looking forward to lectures starting, and this year in general really, hope that I can come out of it with some decent grades as long as I acutally being assignments when I get them a lesson that I really should have learned long ago.
After going to bed at 4.30am after a random late night drive somewhere random with bug, ended up getting woken up at 9am by the plummer - who fitted a new tap washer while i was attempting to be asleep in the same room. grr!
Spent a lot of this evening looking at other civil defence related stuff on the net, and the whole day seems to have evaporated, ah well, only a few days left before registration.
Tommorrow brings hair cut and possible night out, but who knows what will or won't happen.
Tuesday, September 17, 2002
Moving Stuff
Well, wow, I'm finally here. After lots of box lugging and a lot of arraging my room, I'm kind of moved in - cor! Room is a bit on the small side, but big enough for the bed and two desks, so I can have a dedicated one for the laptop =) Managed to get a cheap £20 computer workstation from argos, not bad for the money really, although it is a bit wobbly, but for that money i'm not going to complain, and it means my posture is better than with a standard desk. The house network is really taking shape now, there are now two switches, and I suppose we technically have a house backbone - how 31337!
On friday spent some time cleaning the bathroom ready for kat arriving on saturday, seemed a lot better, but she scrubbed it this morning and got every last bit of dirt off the shower, I'm quite impressed how well this place is shaping up! Now I am on broadband I really don't have any excuse and I am going to finish the site off tommorrow, so I suppose I should get some sleep. Might even set up a webcam.
Well, wow, I'm finally here. After lots of box lugging and a lot of arraging my room, I'm kind of moved in - cor! Room is a bit on the small side, but big enough for the bed and two desks, so I can have a dedicated one for the laptop =) Managed to get a cheap £20 computer workstation from argos, not bad for the money really, although it is a bit wobbly, but for that money i'm not going to complain, and it means my posture is better than with a standard desk. The house network is really taking shape now, there are now two switches, and I suppose we technically have a house backbone - how 31337!
On friday spent some time cleaning the bathroom ready for kat arriving on saturday, seemed a lot better, but she scrubbed it this morning and got every last bit of dirt off the shower, I'm quite impressed how well this place is shaping up! Now I am on broadband I really don't have any excuse and I am going to finish the site off tommorrow, so I suppose I should get some sleep. Might even set up a webcam.
Wednesday, September 11, 2002
Monitoring the Situation
Aber-eve
Well, off to aber in the morning, and as I sort of predicted, I am nowhere near finished packing, still got to sort out all my clothes, and I'm meeting up with someone from work tonight for a drink, it's all stress, not much time left.
Got a text today from si saying that they have dug up the road, so I hope I can acutally get access to the front of the house to drop off all my stuff! I'm not carrying it all down the road. Also just this second remembered I have to sort out contents insurance - Arse.
Got to go now, uberStress mode almost entered.
Aber-eve
Well, off to aber in the morning, and as I sort of predicted, I am nowhere near finished packing, still got to sort out all my clothes, and I'm meeting up with someone from work tonight for a drink, it's all stress, not much time left.
Got a text today from si saying that they have dug up the road, so I hope I can acutally get access to the front of the house to drop off all my stuff! I'm not carrying it all down the road. Also just this second remembered I have to sort out contents insurance - Arse.
Got to go now, uberStress mode almost entered.
Tuesday, September 10, 2002
Indicating Failure
2 Days Until Aber - :-D
Well, I finally finished work on friday, seemed weird to be finishing for the 3rd time! Managed to make a suitable nuisance of myself when I left, asked for photocopies of everything that I had signed, don't think they were too impressed. Was a fairly quiet weekend, went shopping again, and yet again failed to find some shoes to go back to uni with, no-one seems to have anything acceptable in size 11 for some reason, I mean it's not like 11 is an usual size or anything, in fact quite common isn't it?
Went to aber for the day with mum to drop off the free washing machine, was an OK journey apart from being totally knackered from driving there and back in one day. Finally picked myself up some keys for the house, which means I don't feel quite so bad about paying rent on a house that I don't even have keys for! mental note: mum's car handles like an antique bus with a washer in the back.
Now, on to my rant for the day. Why is it that people are INCAPABLE of indicating properly on roundabouts? I am sick of tired of the following:
1) The dreamy people turning left, who decide that sufficient information is for them to flash the indicator bulb ONCE when they have already started leaving the roundabout
2) The inconsiderate prats who decided when turning right that they dont actually need to indicate more than once, and just indicate right, even as they are leaving the roundabout.
.
3) The brainless people who are simply incabable of using that stick thing attached to the steering weel.
What is this about? I guess that roundabouts were not covered until a certain date in the DSA sylabus, so another thing indicating that 5 year retests would be a very good idea. And if your not sure what an INDICATOR or a ROUNDABOUT is, I suggest you read here and fcuking learn it, look it even has a picture. *rage*
2 Days Until Aber - :-D
Well, I finally finished work on friday, seemed weird to be finishing for the 3rd time! Managed to make a suitable nuisance of myself when I left, asked for photocopies of everything that I had signed, don't think they were too impressed. Was a fairly quiet weekend, went shopping again, and yet again failed to find some shoes to go back to uni with, no-one seems to have anything acceptable in size 11 for some reason, I mean it's not like 11 is an usual size or anything, in fact quite common isn't it?
Went to aber for the day with mum to drop off the free washing machine, was an OK journey apart from being totally knackered from driving there and back in one day. Finally picked myself up some keys for the house, which means I don't feel quite so bad about paying rent on a house that I don't even have keys for! mental note: mum's car handles like an antique bus with a washer in the back.
Now, on to my rant for the day. Why is it that people are INCAPABLE of indicating properly on roundabouts? I am sick of tired of the following:
1) The dreamy people turning left, who decide that sufficient information is for them to flash the indicator bulb ONCE when they have already started leaving the roundabout
2) The inconsiderate prats who decided when turning right that they dont actually need to indicate more than once, and just indicate right, even as they are leaving the roundabout.
.
3) The brainless people who are simply incabable of using that stick thing attached to the steering weel.
What is this about? I guess that roundabouts were not covered until a certain date in the DSA sylabus, so another thing indicating that 5 year retests would be a very good idea. And if your not sure what an INDICATOR or a ROUNDABOUT is, I suggest you read here and fcuking learn it, look it even has a picture. *rage*
Wednesday, September 04, 2002
Gray Imports
9 Days Until Aber
Hmm wednesday, typical middle of the week day really, iIm now very tired after staying up till about 2.30am for many nights in a row, last night due to calling the states from my mobile, which I was quite impressed with acutally. Direct dial, no noticeable voice delay (I take it that this means landline as apposed to satellite?) and what is most annnoying, is it was cheaper to phone the states than it was to phone a mobile on another network in the UK!
Monday was the start of my last week at work, and to be honest it is dragging so far, spent a lot of time reading newsgroups, and just getting things finished off before I go. One thing i'm starting to consider again is converting the car to run off vegetable oil, aside from the technical side of getting a heated fuel filter and some othe things it seems there is a lot of red tape, for one you can't just take waste oil and put it in your car, you have to pay duty on it, and in order to do that, you have to technically be registered as an oil distributor! When I phoned Customs and Excise, they were very helpful, however he didnt seem to know if there was any mechanism for catching people who don't pay tax on their waste chip fat, so I really don't know what to think/do, think I'll put it off until next summer.... For the next project, the car needs a service, needs the shocks changing, and needs a new radiator that started leaking this week :
As usual I have not acutally bothered to put up any pictures, but for more info on Diesel-Veg oil conversions see : Goat industries
9 Days Until Aber
Hmm wednesday, typical middle of the week day really, iIm now very tired after staying up till about 2.30am for many nights in a row, last night due to calling the states from my mobile, which I was quite impressed with acutally. Direct dial, no noticeable voice delay (I take it that this means landline as apposed to satellite?) and what is most annnoying, is it was cheaper to phone the states than it was to phone a mobile on another network in the UK!
Monday was the start of my last week at work, and to be honest it is dragging so far, spent a lot of time reading newsgroups, and just getting things finished off before I go. One thing i'm starting to consider again is converting the car to run off vegetable oil, aside from the technical side of getting a heated fuel filter and some othe things it seems there is a lot of red tape, for one you can't just take waste oil and put it in your car, you have to pay duty on it, and in order to do that, you have to technically be registered as an oil distributor! When I phoned Customs and Excise, they were very helpful, however he didnt seem to know if there was any mechanism for catching people who don't pay tax on their waste chip fat, so I really don't know what to think/do, think I'll put it off until next summer.... For the next project, the car needs a service, needs the shocks changing, and needs a new radiator that started leaking this week :
As usual I have not acutally bothered to put up any pictures, but for more info on Diesel-Veg oil conversions see : Goat industries
Sunday, September 01, 2002
Off-White Goods
13 Days Until Aber
Firstly, I'm going to apologise for the last post, it was crap, I think somewhere the email acutally apologises/explains why it was nonsense, but even I am having difficulty making sense of it :o) Well, picked up the washing machine, it was in working order, but apparently leaks a bit, and it seemed a bit rusty, brought it home in mums car and on saturday night I started to try and remove some of the rust. Dismantled it, and had a go at it with some rust stabiliser I had, didn't try too hard as it only has to last a year longer, if that!
This morning went to a computer fair, it was a bit crap really, not many stalls, but picked up a new soldering iron, and my 4th computer, another P200, which I intend to convert to another linux server (i'm thinking Mandrake this time), maybe even some sort of cluster with dafad... dunno yet... Finished off the washing machine this afternoon, resprayed the front panel white (the whole thing was originally beige/brown/rust), as it was rusting loads anyway it acutally works! cor!
Tommorrow brings the start of my last week at work - cor :O then not long until aber :O Ive just been thinking its now over 2 years since I started my Year In Industry.. life seems to be passing so fast! Must remember to get cakes in the office before I leave, that always goes down well :)
13 Days Until Aber
Firstly, I'm going to apologise for the last post, it was crap, I think somewhere the email acutally apologises/explains why it was nonsense, but even I am having difficulty making sense of it :o) Well, picked up the washing machine, it was in working order, but apparently leaks a bit, and it seemed a bit rusty, brought it home in mums car and on saturday night I started to try and remove some of the rust. Dismantled it, and had a go at it with some rust stabiliser I had, didn't try too hard as it only has to last a year longer, if that!
This morning went to a computer fair, it was a bit crap really, not many stalls, but picked up a new soldering iron, and my 4th computer, another P200, which I intend to convert to another linux server (i'm thinking Mandrake this time), maybe even some sort of cluster with dafad... dunno yet... Finished off the washing machine this afternoon, resprayed the front panel white (the whole thing was originally beige/brown/rust), as it was rusting loads anyway it acutally works! cor!
Tommorrow brings the start of my last week at work - cor :O then not long until aber :O Ive just been thinking its now over 2 years since I started my Year In Industry.. life seems to be passing so fast! Must remember to get cakes in the office before I leave, that always goes down well :)
Saturday, August 31, 2002
This Title Is Intentionally Missing
14 Days Until Aber
Still not sure why I am tired, I've decided to put it down to the fact that I always get a bit strange around times when stuff is going to change/is changing, but in this case I know I definately am looking forward to this change. Can't wait to get back into the land of studenty slackerness, copious alcohol, and extreme madness, that is probably a statement potential/current/past employers wouldn't want to hear, so for them, here is the alternative version: "I can't wait back to university and apply myself wholly and fully to my course once more".
I've been moping around all week really, spent most days at work staring at the screen for inspiriation doing work in fits and starts, not as efficient as I was last year, but I'm going to put it down that I'm working pretty much under my own steam at the moment, not many people around to ask/tell me what to do, strange that. Car has been de-rusted, and as my mum put it, she looks like new again. To be honest, there was never really all that much wrong with her apart from the bits of rust on the front skirt, but now it's gone it makes a whole lot of difference, been contemplating getting a chrome exhaust cover thing, which I think would look good, but does that mean I am a boy-racer wannabe? If it does, can one be a boy racer in a normally-aspirated Diesel car?
Met up with kath last night, was good to see her, she seems to be in pretty much the same situation as me, she basically wants to be back at uni, and not stuck with parental units! James has arrived in the states in one piece, and pretty much seems to be getting on OK so far minus the jet lag!
Randomly looked on the newsgroups at work today, and as of tommorrow morning I will be the proud owner of a free washing machine for the house in aber, providing I can get it in mum's car! I'm starting to feel like i've done a lot more about the house than you should have to do when you move into a rented house, and I don't really think that's on, but I suppose it will be good to be in a fairly big house, in quite a nice location, even if the carpets are a bit iffy, and jaz' room smells like someone was running the weed equivelent of a tupperware party in there or something.
Ok, I know this blog isnt making much sense, and I know the maths doesn't add up with the "days until aber" either, but I don't care, It is 2am and my eyes are all blurry. Deal.
TTFN
14 Days Until Aber
Still not sure why I am tired, I've decided to put it down to the fact that I always get a bit strange around times when stuff is going to change/is changing, but in this case I know I definately am looking forward to this change. Can't wait to get back into the land of studenty slackerness, copious alcohol, and extreme madness, that is probably a statement potential/current/past employers wouldn't want to hear, so for them, here is the alternative version: "I can't wait back to university and apply myself wholly and fully to my course once more".
I've been moping around all week really, spent most days at work staring at the screen for inspiriation doing work in fits and starts, not as efficient as I was last year, but I'm going to put it down that I'm working pretty much under my own steam at the moment, not many people around to ask/tell me what to do, strange that. Car has been de-rusted, and as my mum put it, she looks like new again. To be honest, there was never really all that much wrong with her apart from the bits of rust on the front skirt, but now it's gone it makes a whole lot of difference, been contemplating getting a chrome exhaust cover thing, which I think would look good, but does that mean I am a boy-racer wannabe? If it does, can one be a boy racer in a normally-aspirated Diesel car?
Met up with kath last night, was good to see her, she seems to be in pretty much the same situation as me, she basically wants to be back at uni, and not stuck with parental units! James has arrived in the states in one piece, and pretty much seems to be getting on OK so far minus the jet lag!
Randomly looked on the newsgroups at work today, and as of tommorrow morning I will be the proud owner of a free washing machine for the house in aber, providing I can get it in mum's car! I'm starting to feel like i've done a lot more about the house than you should have to do when you move into a rented house, and I don't really think that's on, but I suppose it will be good to be in a fairly big house, in quite a nice location, even if the carpets are a bit iffy, and jaz' room smells like someone was running the weed equivelent of a tupperware party in there or something.
Ok, I know this blog isnt making much sense, and I know the maths doesn't add up with the "days until aber" either, but I don't care, It is 2am and my eyes are all blurry. Deal.
TTFN
Tuesday, August 27, 2002
Flying By
18 Days Until Aber
Hmm still knackered and got to decide about a lot of things at the moment :( Family all went manchester for the bank holiday weekend on sunday, saw all the relatives probably for the last time until xmas :| It was actually quite wierd to all go up at once as a family, not done it for ages.
On saturday I changed the firewall config so that it doesn't flood with messages, then reloaded and scanned for open ports, to my horror there were 5 open! arrgh! so spend the rest of the evening in a bit of a panic as to why this had happened, initially I thought it was a bug in my script causing wierd behaviour. In the end I decided to try and reset the firewall all together so flushed all the rules with me accessing from the outside and a default policy of drop, so I ended up without any means of connecting to the outside world. Great. Phoned bug and he reset the firewall for me while in a drunken state and I could get in the next morning and get all the services running agian. Until today [tuesday] I didn't realise what was causing me to think that the ports were open, it was Internet Connection Firewall for Windows XP on my parents machine i use as an internet gateway at home, according to a document I came to by chance, ICF uses proxies to allow connections to things like FTP and Netmeeting, so this was making my machine think that the port was open on my server when I scanned it. Great! In this document MS tells us that the Internet Connection Firewall is not a firewall, oh no, it's a "Security Experience" how noddy can you get? One of my colleagues said "An experience, yeah, like a roller coaster ride, ups, downs, and it makes you want to vomit" -hehe :) To their credit though, Securityfocus did some testing and it seems quite resilliant and suited to home users.
On monday the server crashed which was really annoying, possibly faulty ram, got to investigate. Car going in tommorrow to have the rust removed - that'll be another £130 gone :/
PS. Pictures are coming, honest, I've sorted them out, just not got around to resizing them, laptop battery died on the way home after showing relatives pictures on it.
18 Days Until Aber
Hmm still knackered and got to decide about a lot of things at the moment :( Family all went manchester for the bank holiday weekend on sunday, saw all the relatives probably for the last time until xmas :| It was actually quite wierd to all go up at once as a family, not done it for ages.
On saturday I changed the firewall config so that it doesn't flood with messages, then reloaded and scanned for open ports, to my horror there were 5 open! arrgh! so spend the rest of the evening in a bit of a panic as to why this had happened, initially I thought it was a bug in my script causing wierd behaviour. In the end I decided to try and reset the firewall all together so flushed all the rules with me accessing from the outside and a default policy of drop, so I ended up without any means of connecting to the outside world. Great. Phoned bug and he reset the firewall for me while in a drunken state and I could get in the next morning and get all the services running agian. Until today [tuesday] I didn't realise what was causing me to think that the ports were open, it was Internet Connection Firewall for Windows XP on my parents machine i use as an internet gateway at home, according to a document I came to by chance, ICF uses proxies to allow connections to things like FTP and Netmeeting, so this was making my machine think that the port was open on my server when I scanned it. Great! In this document MS tells us that the Internet Connection Firewall is not a firewall, oh no, it's a "Security Experience" how noddy can you get? One of my colleagues said "An experience, yeah, like a roller coaster ride, ups, downs, and it makes you want to vomit" -hehe :) To their credit though, Securityfocus did some testing and it seems quite resilliant and suited to home users.
On monday the server crashed which was really annoying, possibly faulty ram, got to investigate. Car going in tommorrow to have the rust removed - that'll be another £130 gone :/
PS. Pictures are coming, honest, I've sorted them out, just not got around to resizing them, laptop battery died on the way home after showing relatives pictures on it.
Wednesday, August 21, 2002
Knackered
I'm bloody knackered at the moment, been running around like a blue arsed fly for the last couple of weeks... Went to petes, which was ok, minus the general stress, but we won't go into that here, went to the science museum in london, and got some really nice pictures of central london. ..I will get around to posting some pictures... honest! Had a big presentation on the monday where I was giving a demo, all went well, but I couldn't help but think that they wern't all that interested in what I had to say, ah well, it's all good experience I suppose isn't it! Spent the rest of the week recovering from all the preparation work I did, and then got my teeth back into what I should have been doing when i was preparing.
Last weekend I went to aber, the house is really taking shape now, new kitchen floor and two new fridges going in (the old ones have a permanant pack of ice in them that I warned the landlord would probably ruin the new laminate floor!). Took my mum's friend's steam cleaner and went around de-skanking the worst bits, even managed to get _all_ the paint off the hall floor, it's all looking like a different house to that we looked at a few months ago in horror!. Also sorted out the ram issue on the server and changed it to simms rather than dimms, which means that i can finally run online updates!
This coming weekend sees visit to family up in manchester - should be, er, fun, but a nessessary evil before I go back to uni....
Pictures will happen next week - I promise,
I'm bloody knackered at the moment, been running around like a blue arsed fly for the last couple of weeks... Went to petes, which was ok, minus the general stress, but we won't go into that here, went to the science museum in london, and got some really nice pictures of central london. ..I will get around to posting some pictures... honest! Had a big presentation on the monday where I was giving a demo, all went well, but I couldn't help but think that they wern't all that interested in what I had to say, ah well, it's all good experience I suppose isn't it! Spent the rest of the week recovering from all the preparation work I did, and then got my teeth back into what I should have been doing when i was preparing.
Last weekend I went to aber, the house is really taking shape now, new kitchen floor and two new fridges going in (the old ones have a permanant pack of ice in them that I warned the landlord would probably ruin the new laminate floor!). Took my mum's friend's steam cleaner and went around de-skanking the worst bits, even managed to get _all_ the paint off the hall floor, it's all looking like a different house to that we looked at a few months ago in horror!. Also sorted out the ram issue on the server and changed it to simms rather than dimms, which means that i can finally run online updates!
This coming weekend sees visit to family up in manchester - should be, er, fun, but a nessessary evil before I go back to uni....
Pictures will happen next week - I promise,
Friday, August 09, 2002
Interesting News:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2175870.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2175870.stm
Can you believe that people don't realise Groenig is taking the piss with the flanders family?
http://security.tombom.co.uk/shatter.html
Hmm, looks like the Windows have been broken again, fun fun fun - now wait for a massively wide-ranging explot!
Thursday, August 08, 2002
Rage
This week has seen the mad rush at work to prepare for a big presentation, complete panick today when I realised how much I had to do, but lots of people helped me, and it got pretty much sorted in the end :o) Been fairly quiet otherwise, wrote an email to the uni the other night, quite long for me too, but the power went off *just* before I clicked send, VERY annoying. Also, the guy who won my second auction of my Palm III has not sent me any money 13 days later, herd nothing except a perplexing email asking me to tell him the difference between the product and another, I've emailed him with warnings of bad feedback if I don't hear anything by monday - RAGE! Phoned si at the house, apparently the little things with the house are not sorted yet - like no carpet in the kitchen! so im gonna go to aber next weekend and get a few bits sorted with the server, get a proper list of the things that are wrong, then talk to the landlord myself. Going to surrey this weekend to see pete, should be good =)
This week has seen the mad rush at work to prepare for a big presentation, complete panick today when I realised how much I had to do, but lots of people helped me, and it got pretty much sorted in the end :o) Been fairly quiet otherwise, wrote an email to the uni the other night, quite long for me too, but the power went off *just* before I clicked send, VERY annoying. Also, the guy who won my second auction of my Palm III has not sent me any money 13 days later, herd nothing except a perplexing email asking me to tell him the difference between the product and another, I've emailed him with warnings of bad feedback if I don't hear anything by monday - RAGE! Phoned si at the house, apparently the little things with the house are not sorted yet - like no carpet in the kitchen! so im gonna go to aber next weekend and get a few bits sorted with the server, get a proper list of the things that are wrong, then talk to the landlord myself. Going to surrey this weekend to see pete, should be good =)
Thursday, August 01, 2002
Pay Day
It was payday yesterday :)) Finally, I'm in the black! Had a bit of a quiet week or two as usual, main events were as follows. Got landed with the fact that I am going to be involved in a big presentation soon, yes, me as a lowly student, to a lot of people who have more years experience than I have been out of nappies, seems like I am going to have to do shitloads of practice making sure everything runs smoothly, I think this is a chance for me to show what I can do :) The roof in my room started leaking on wednesday during a heavy shower, fuck, it filled a coke glass in that shower, but the next day at work managed to get 4 litres in a bucket (luckily I was awake enough the next morning to think that it might overflow the glass) parents said that it should be sorted out soon :/
It was payday yesterday :)) Finally, I'm in the black! Had a bit of a quiet week or two as usual, main events were as follows. Got landed with the fact that I am going to be involved in a big presentation soon, yes, me as a lowly student, to a lot of people who have more years experience than I have been out of nappies, seems like I am going to have to do shitloads of practice making sure everything runs smoothly, I think this is a chance for me to show what I can do :) The roof in my room started leaking on wednesday during a heavy shower, fuck, it filled a coke glass in that shower, but the next day at work managed to get 4 litres in a bucket (luckily I was awake enough the next morning to think that it might overflow the glass) parents said that it should be sorted out soon :/
Sunday, July 21, 2002
Weak End
Sunday. The cold did develop, into quite a bad one at that :/ to the extent that I was sent home by my colleagues on friday morning. Have done very little this weekend apart from sit around and recover, will have to try and make more of an effort to do interesting things next week! Did some more work on the firewall this weekend, got DHCP and a forwarding nameserver working :) Also gave it a new name - dafad - which is Welsh for sheep if you didn't know ;) Need to go shopping next weekend - need shoes and more work friendly T shirts.
Sunday. The cold did develop, into quite a bad one at that :/ to the extent that I was sent home by my colleagues on friday morning. Have done very little this weekend apart from sit around and recover, will have to try and make more of an effort to do interesting things next week! Did some more work on the firewall this weekend, got DHCP and a forwarding nameserver working :) Also gave it a new name - dafad - which is Welsh for sheep if you didn't know ;) Need to go shopping next weekend - need shoes and more work friendly T shirts.
Wednesday, July 17, 2002
Cold Sweat
Weather has been really nice ever since the weekend, been a good week so far, but way too hot at times... randomly woke up naturally before 7am on tuesday, so got into work at 7.45 - w00t for me! Got some cool coffee syrup that you put into your coffee and makes it taste of caramel, a bit of a dissapointment, maybe one of the more exoitic flavours would be more interesting next time, I did attempt to play it safe by getting the caramel. Went for a drink with a couple of friends tonight, was nice to catch up. I also am developing a cold :|
Weather has been really nice ever since the weekend, been a good week so far, but way too hot at times... randomly woke up naturally before 7am on tuesday, so got into work at 7.45 - w00t for me! Got some cool coffee syrup that you put into your coffee and makes it taste of caramel, a bit of a dissapointment, maybe one of the more exoitic flavours would be more interesting next time, I did attempt to play it safe by getting the caramel. Went for a drink with a couple of friends tonight, was nice to catch up. I also am developing a cold :|
Sunday, July 14, 2002
Yay DSL
I really need to update more than weekly at the moment, but it does have to be said that not much is happening outside the weekends :) This week went pretty much as usual, working 9-5 yada yada yada. Received phone call from demon, ADSL was enabled on the line on monday - yay. Went to the house on friday night to install the server, arrived very tired after a long drive and a long days work, only to walk towards the house to find James (who came down to give me a hand with the wiring etc) walking from the other direction at the exact same time, freaky.
Tested the ADSL modem with laptop, all worked perfectly straight away, connected at 576kbps - excellent. Then later on that evening attempted to get it all working on the server... after about 4 hours of obscure error messages and trying all sorts of different things, I realised I was specifying the wrong username - I'm going to blame the fact that I was very tired, but the entries in /var/log/messages were so verbose that nothing to do with authentication was actually mentioned! Shifted around some of the excess furnature on saturday night and getting a 3 seater sofa stuck in the doorway! On sunday morning, finished off the wiring up, tidied up a few things, then started my way back in the afternoon, the weather was good, and yet again, thought how I'm going to miss Wales, got stuck behind a massive convoy of caravans at one stage, and had plenty of time to admire the view!
I really need to update more than weekly at the moment, but it does have to be said that not much is happening outside the weekends :) This week went pretty much as usual, working 9-5 yada yada yada. Received phone call from demon, ADSL was enabled on the line on monday - yay. Went to the house on friday night to install the server, arrived very tired after a long drive and a long days work, only to walk towards the house to find James (who came down to give me a hand with the wiring etc) walking from the other direction at the exact same time, freaky.
Tested the ADSL modem with laptop, all worked perfectly straight away, connected at 576kbps - excellent. Then later on that evening attempted to get it all working on the server... after about 4 hours of obscure error messages and trying all sorts of different things, I realised I was specifying the wrong username - I'm going to blame the fact that I was very tired, but the entries in /var/log/messages were so verbose that nothing to do with authentication was actually mentioned! Shifted around some of the excess furnature on saturday night and getting a 3 seater sofa stuck in the doorway! On sunday morning, finished off the wiring up, tidied up a few things, then started my way back in the afternoon, the weather was good, and yet again, thought how I'm going to miss Wales, got stuck behind a massive convoy of caravans at one stage, and had plenty of time to admire the view!
Monday, July 08, 2002
5th of a century old
This week started with the usual work cycle. Not much happened during the week that is notable, except worked an extra hour every day so that I could take the afternoon off on friday to prepare for my birthday night out. Friday lunchtime went for a pub lunch with everyone, then I finished for the day, people started to arrive after about 4 ish, ended up with everyone in the kitchen drinking from around 8pm. Later on we made our way to the club, only to have Antony refused entry due to THROWING A CAN AT THE BIN, which was less than ideal. The Neanderthol doorman was completely unreasonable, and also claimed to "speak for the manager" when we asked if we could discuss the matter with him. In the end I gave up negotiating and went in with everyone else, Antony made his own way back :| When we acutally were inside they did supply all 12 of us with "bubbly" for my birthday (I got special promo tickets) to be honest, it was dire, but it was free :) I was especially annoyed by the fact that the bouncers would not let me go to the toilet when I didn't agree with the "special" whiskey drink that oli bought me, instead they made me stand outside in the patio area "for some fresh air" while I had to do my very best not to acutally be sick (I knew they were looking for a good excuse to chuck me out or something) FUCKING TWATS. Also I managed to really hurt my wrist at some stage (I think i fell over), and I am only just being able to type this. I won't be going there again in a hurry, in fact, I won't ever, but overall it was an good night, really nice to see everyone again. Saturday was recovery, and finding that I really couldn't really do all that much with my left hand - had to drive mum's car with PAS. Today saw my acutal birthday - got some cool things, didn't really do very much but I'm starting to feel old :| I mean, sheesh, 20, that's halfway to 40!
This week started with the usual work cycle. Not much happened during the week that is notable, except worked an extra hour every day so that I could take the afternoon off on friday to prepare for my birthday night out. Friday lunchtime went for a pub lunch with everyone, then I finished for the day, people started to arrive after about 4 ish, ended up with everyone in the kitchen drinking from around 8pm. Later on we made our way to the club, only to have Antony refused entry due to THROWING A CAN AT THE BIN, which was less than ideal. The Neanderthol doorman was completely unreasonable, and also claimed to "speak for the manager" when we asked if we could discuss the matter with him. In the end I gave up negotiating and went in with everyone else, Antony made his own way back :| When we acutally were inside they did supply all 12 of us with "bubbly" for my birthday (I got special promo tickets) to be honest, it was dire, but it was free :) I was especially annoyed by the fact that the bouncers would not let me go to the toilet when I didn't agree with the "special" whiskey drink that oli bought me, instead they made me stand outside in the patio area "for some fresh air" while I had to do my very best not to acutally be sick (I knew they were looking for a good excuse to chuck me out or something) FUCKING TWATS. Also I managed to really hurt my wrist at some stage (I think i fell over), and I am only just being able to type this. I won't be going there again in a hurry, in fact, I won't ever, but overall it was an good night, really nice to see everyone again. Saturday was recovery, and finding that I really couldn't really do all that much with my left hand - had to drive mum's car with PAS. Today saw my acutal birthday - got some cool things, didn't really do very much but I'm starting to feel old :| I mean, sheesh, 20, that's halfway to 40!
Monday, July 01, 2002
What a load of Bunker
I've been quite bad in not blogging for about 12 days... _slaps wrist_ the first reason I suppose was that not very much at all happened until the weekend just gone, then everything happened at once. First of all weekend before last just bimbled around before the parents got back (it would seem that they had a good time), spent some time sorting things out and generally tiding up on the saturday and sunday, went to worcester intending to buy shoes and a few clothes, but it ended up not happening, sometimes when I get to the shops I just can't be arsed to clothes shop, its one of my least favourite activities. Then worked for the week, started to finally get some work done, which is always good :) Then this weekend a friend CYCLED down from derby - took 10 hours!!! I was impressed, yet also worried... why on earth? ;) I ended going back to derbyshire with him, and then we had a look around a couple of small UKWMO nuclear bunkers (more to follow tomorrow) - took a few pictures. As with all the nuclear bunkers I find it impressive how much effort was put into preparing for a war that never happened. As per usual, brother wants the phone GET SOME MOBILE CREDIT, so thats all for today.
I've been quite bad in not blogging for about 12 days... _slaps wrist_ the first reason I suppose was that not very much at all happened until the weekend just gone, then everything happened at once. First of all weekend before last just bimbled around before the parents got back (it would seem that they had a good time), spent some time sorting things out and generally tiding up on the saturday and sunday, went to worcester intending to buy shoes and a few clothes, but it ended up not happening, sometimes when I get to the shops I just can't be arsed to clothes shop, its one of my least favourite activities. Then worked for the week, started to finally get some work done, which is always good :) Then this weekend a friend CYCLED down from derby - took 10 hours!!! I was impressed, yet also worried... why on earth? ;) I ended going back to derbyshire with him, and then we had a look around a couple of small UKWMO nuclear bunkers (more to follow tomorrow) - took a few pictures. As with all the nuclear bunkers I find it impressive how much effort was put into preparing for a war that never happened. As per usual, brother wants the phone GET SOME MOBILE CREDIT, so thats all for today.
Wednesday, June 19, 2002
Relative Boredom
Wednesday. Today was kind of a good day, the pollen has been really high in the last couple of days, for the first time in a couple of years I have acutally suffered from it, so after a couple of piriton which made me feel much better. As the blog title suggests, the last week has been a bit quiet, starting to settle into the work routine, but as far as I know not many friends are around at the moment, ah well, just think of the money :) It seems that my parents are having a good time on holiday, got several cryptic text messages from them which convey they are having a generally good time. As you can see, not much has happened in this last week!
Wednesday. Today was kind of a good day, the pollen has been really high in the last couple of days, for the first time in a couple of years I have acutally suffered from it, so after a couple of piriton which made me feel much better. As the blog title suggests, the last week has been a bit quiet, starting to settle into the work routine, but as far as I know not many friends are around at the moment, ah well, just think of the money :) It seems that my parents are having a good time on holiday, got several cryptic text messages from them which convey they are having a generally good time. As you can see, not much has happened in this last week!
Friday, June 14, 2002
Drakelow Tunnels
I was really tired after work on wednesday, but still went on the trip to the tunnels with dad. They are really impressive, they were originally a "shadow" factory for rover that was designed to be a backup if enemy bombing knocked out an important factory (about 6 miles of tunnels in all). Then in the 60s it was converted to a regional command centre for regional government in case of nuclear war etc, and later updated in the 80s with the newer communications technologies available etc. The site is not a museum, it is just in the condition it was left by the home office when the place shut in 1992/3, so really gives a different perspective than the other visits that I have been on that are more "exhibitioney". What is interesting is that the site was reduced in size at each refit, so there are parts of it that are the original factory, parts that are the 60s command centre, and parts of the 80s site. What i found funny is that the carpets, chairs and tables that remain are exactly the same as the ones I saw at places like Hack Green and Kelvedon Hatch bunkers :)
Well worth a visit if you get the oppertunity (there are only occasional visits run)
I was really tired after work on wednesday, but still went on the trip to the tunnels with dad. They are really impressive, they were originally a "shadow" factory for rover that was designed to be a backup if enemy bombing knocked out an important factory (about 6 miles of tunnels in all). Then in the 60s it was converted to a regional command centre for regional government in case of nuclear war etc, and later updated in the 80s with the newer communications technologies available etc. The site is not a museum, it is just in the condition it was left by the home office when the place shut in 1992/3, so really gives a different perspective than the other visits that I have been on that are more "exhibitioney". What is interesting is that the site was reduced in size at each refit, so there are parts of it that are the original factory, parts that are the 60s command centre, and parts of the 80s site. What i found funny is that the carpets, chairs and tables that remain are exactly the same as the ones I saw at places like Hack Green and Kelvedon Hatch bunkers :)
Well worth a visit if you get the oppertunity (there are only occasional visits run)
The Week of chaos
Friday, well, kinda busy this week to say the least! Trip to aber for the day on tuesday totally wore me out, managed to get a lot of stuff sorted tho, the house has really been cleaned up by the landlord, its looking quite respectable. I have made it my plan to get the tiles in the hall all cleaned up to their original glory to make an impressive sight. Arrived about 15 mins before the BT engineer, turns out there was a line box afterall but in the loft of all places, line was re-activated however had a DACS, after some negotiation, this was removed, so Demon were faxed with the ADSL order :) Journey back was "fun" the A44 was shut for some reason or another so had to go via the "mountain" road.. when some guy in aber says the Mountain road to you, believe him, it was a single track road mostly in the middle of nowhere. What I can say is that some of the scenery I saw was the most impressive I ever saw, at one point I stopped and took some photos, but there are some collapsed houses that I want to photograph next time I am around there.
Wednesday saw the start back at work, so had to get up at 7.30am :| Was good to be back, some really impressive kit around now too :) Wednesday night was a trip to drakelow tunnels north of kidderminster, more to follow on that one :) Well, now its friday evening, and I am bloody knackered, got to get some sleep! Possibly computer fair tommorrow to get some kit for the house network - everyone has given me cheques for the ADSL costs, so I really should be in a position to actually share the connection!
Friday, well, kinda busy this week to say the least! Trip to aber for the day on tuesday totally wore me out, managed to get a lot of stuff sorted tho, the house has really been cleaned up by the landlord, its looking quite respectable. I have made it my plan to get the tiles in the hall all cleaned up to their original glory to make an impressive sight. Arrived about 15 mins before the BT engineer, turns out there was a line box afterall but in the loft of all places, line was re-activated however had a DACS, after some negotiation, this was removed, so Demon were faxed with the ADSL order :) Journey back was "fun" the A44 was shut for some reason or another so had to go via the "mountain" road.. when some guy in aber says the Mountain road to you, believe him, it was a single track road mostly in the middle of nowhere. What I can say is that some of the scenery I saw was the most impressive I ever saw, at one point I stopped and took some photos, but there are some collapsed houses that I want to photograph next time I am around there.
Wednesday saw the start back at work, so had to get up at 7.30am :| Was good to be back, some really impressive kit around now too :) Wednesday night was a trip to drakelow tunnels north of kidderminster, more to follow on that one :) Well, now its friday evening, and I am bloody knackered, got to get some sleep! Possibly computer fair tommorrow to get some kit for the house network - everyone has given me cheques for the ADSL costs, so I really should be in a position to actually share the connection!
Monday, June 10, 2002
After 30 hours at home
Monday, well, here I am at home, last few days have been very chaotic so not had time to complete a blog, got halfway through one, but gave up :) Oakwood on thursday was good, ended up going on pretty much everything bar "bounce" which was one of those things where you go up and down in a seat, and I didnt like the sound of that.. a bit lame considering I have jumped out of a plane! Journey back was good, and managed one or two "colourful" overtaking manouvres :)
Friday consisted of meeting landlord at the house at 9am, I cant see how the current tenants can keep the place in such a mess, its really gross, but the lanlord has got professional cleaners in, apparently they do crime scenes as well, and recently cleaned up skull and brain off the stairs in a house somewhere... how fitting that they should be cleaning out our house.
Finally set off home at about 4pm on saturday after a lot of packing, sorting and shifting, also a lot of goodbyes :| Hopefully I'll get to see a fair amount of people over the summer, got quite a few spare weekends.
Today consisted of shopping, eating and unpacking, its quite interesting, I have a much bigger room at uni, and cramming everything into room at home has proved to be interesting :) Tommorrow is trip back to aber for the day to supervise BT installing line and measure up for stuff like wires etc. Im quite looking forward to being a small network administrator, just hope that it doesnt consume too much of my time.
Monday, well, here I am at home, last few days have been very chaotic so not had time to complete a blog, got halfway through one, but gave up :) Oakwood on thursday was good, ended up going on pretty much everything bar "bounce" which was one of those things where you go up and down in a seat, and I didnt like the sound of that.. a bit lame considering I have jumped out of a plane! Journey back was good, and managed one or two "colourful" overtaking manouvres :)
Friday consisted of meeting landlord at the house at 9am, I cant see how the current tenants can keep the place in such a mess, its really gross, but the lanlord has got professional cleaners in, apparently they do crime scenes as well, and recently cleaned up skull and brain off the stairs in a house somewhere... how fitting that they should be cleaning out our house.
Finally set off home at about 4pm on saturday after a lot of packing, sorting and shifting, also a lot of goodbyes :| Hopefully I'll get to see a fair amount of people over the summer, got quite a few spare weekends.
Today consisted of shopping, eating and unpacking, its quite interesting, I have a much bigger room at uni, and cramming everything into room at home has proved to be interesting :) Tommorrow is trip back to aber for the day to supervise BT installing line and measure up for stuff like wires etc. Im quite looking forward to being a small network administrator, just hope that it doesnt consume too much of my time.
Thursday, June 06, 2002
72 hours left in aber
Well, its 3am, im still awake, which is a bit of a hinderance considering that I have to be on the road to south wales by 8.30am complete with passengers :)
Did not do all that much yesterday, went down to the house and checked to see if there was any post, it turns out that BT had sent me the expected confirmation of their visit next tuesday to "repair" the line... upon investigation there isnt really very much of a line there for them to repair, so lets just hope that once line is rerun complete with line box its ADSL capable. I have a secret plan if they say that it is not ADSL ok, im going to first of all get lucy to phone and cry at them about it, if that fails, I will try the same, and then if that doesn't I am going to hack off a limb and become disabled :) On tuesday next week i am going to come back to aber for the day for BT to install the line, I wont be impressed if they dont turn up!
Arranged with dad that he will visit on friday to pick up the majority of my stuff so I got my cds and other bits of random crap packed away, and told dad to bring a hold-all for all the clothes that I wont need. I have decided that I will keep all the computers here until the bitter end as I dont think I could cope without MP3 collection, and I need my router to connect everything up!
Im kind of looking forward to being at home, It will certainly be nice to be 23 minutes away from birmingham again (yes, it has been done dispite the distance, but not in my car!) and the money ill be earning over summer will certainly be nice. However, next year at uni is going to be very different, Pete and Co. will be going off to work in surrey, James will be in the states and I will be living in town, all very, very different, plus a much bigger workload that counts. I know I sound a bit depressive, but I always tend to be pensive around times when things are changing, like when I was about to come to uni, and I cant say that came out all that badly!
Right I am wittering on like a cheap paperback novel now, and my eyes hurt, time to make the most of my 4 hours sleep - if that! :|
Well, its 3am, im still awake, which is a bit of a hinderance considering that I have to be on the road to south wales by 8.30am complete with passengers :)
Did not do all that much yesterday, went down to the house and checked to see if there was any post, it turns out that BT had sent me the expected confirmation of their visit next tuesday to "repair" the line... upon investigation there isnt really very much of a line there for them to repair, so lets just hope that once line is rerun complete with line box its ADSL capable. I have a secret plan if they say that it is not ADSL ok, im going to first of all get lucy to phone and cry at them about it, if that fails, I will try the same, and then if that doesn't I am going to hack off a limb and become disabled :) On tuesday next week i am going to come back to aber for the day for BT to install the line, I wont be impressed if they dont turn up!
Arranged with dad that he will visit on friday to pick up the majority of my stuff so I got my cds and other bits of random crap packed away, and told dad to bring a hold-all for all the clothes that I wont need. I have decided that I will keep all the computers here until the bitter end as I dont think I could cope without MP3 collection, and I need my router to connect everything up!
Im kind of looking forward to being at home, It will certainly be nice to be 23 minutes away from birmingham again (yes, it has been done dispite the distance, but not in my car!) and the money ill be earning over summer will certainly be nice. However, next year at uni is going to be very different, Pete and Co. will be going off to work in surrey, James will be in the states and I will be living in town, all very, very different, plus a much bigger workload that counts. I know I sound a bit depressive, but I always tend to be pensive around times when things are changing, like when I was about to come to uni, and I cant say that came out all that badly!
Right I am wittering on like a cheap paperback novel now, and my eyes hurt, time to make the most of my 4 hours sleep - if that! :|
Tuesday, June 04, 2002
96 hours left in Aber
Another couple of days have passed, not really managed to do very much useful at all :) Done quite a lot of ebaying looking for a hub/switch and an ADSL modem for the house next month, managed to get an alcatel "stingray" modem locally that someone off IRC had going spare, its much bigger than I expected it to be. Have installed the linux drivers and managed to get the lights to flash as they should when the thing isnt plugged into an ADSL line :)).
Might be going off to oakwood theme park down in south Wales on thursday which should be interesting.. I have herd that it is a bit of a "local theme park for local people" type affair but we shall see!
Arranaged for dad to come and collect the majority of my stuff on friday, which should be interesting as hes coming right between two nights out!
Tommorrow will be a day of getting the bandwidth management software (want preference for stuff like SSH), webserver and firewall all sorted on my router so it can be as "plug-and-pray" as possible when I set it up in the house.
Another couple of days have passed, not really managed to do very much useful at all :) Done quite a lot of ebaying looking for a hub/switch and an ADSL modem for the house next month, managed to get an alcatel "stingray" modem locally that someone off IRC had going spare, its much bigger than I expected it to be. Have installed the linux drivers and managed to get the lights to flash as they should when the thing isnt plugged into an ADSL line :)).
Might be going off to oakwood theme park down in south Wales on thursday which should be interesting.. I have herd that it is a bit of a "local theme park for local people" type affair but we shall see!
Arranaged for dad to come and collect the majority of my stuff on friday, which should be interesting as hes coming right between two nights out!
Tommorrow will be a day of getting the bandwidth management software (want preference for stuff like SSH), webserver and firewall all sorted on my router so it can be as "plug-and-pray" as possible when I set it up in the house.
Sunday, June 02, 2002
Sunday morning, ahh :) Spent the day yesterday bimbling around and not doing much, Installed litestep to see how development was going, found it a bit clunkey, so removed it. However, it changed my colour scheme to a really cool steeley blue-grey, so I kept the colour settings [See Photos].
Tried out Winamp 3 beta, its kinda nice, however they seem to have removed the playlist search function, which I kind of depend on with an 1800 track playlist :|
Went to the union last nite for re-load (basically a mix of cheesey stuff from the last 4 decades), It was a generally good nite (no-one fell out) However, I did feel a bit of a tit being the most drunk person two nites in a row :| I am sat here, somehow, totally awake at 8.30am with no hangover to speak of. It seems that my mother's drinking "tip" of sticking to vodka stuff actually works. The inherant problems asociated with taking your mother's drinking tips are totally beyond the scope of this diary, but anyone who has met her will probably understand that my family can in no way be considered "normal", then again, the same is probably true if you have met me!
Well, time for the house meeting soon, worked out how much the ADSL will cost us when I got back last nite, so I had better check out the maths :>
Tried out Winamp 3 beta, its kinda nice, however they seem to have removed the playlist search function, which I kind of depend on with an 1800 track playlist :|
Went to the union last nite for re-load (basically a mix of cheesey stuff from the last 4 decades), It was a generally good nite (no-one fell out) However, I did feel a bit of a tit being the most drunk person two nites in a row :| I am sat here, somehow, totally awake at 8.30am with no hangover to speak of. It seems that my mother's drinking "tip" of sticking to vodka stuff actually works. The inherant problems asociated with taking your mother's drinking tips are totally beyond the scope of this diary, but anyone who has met her will probably understand that my family can in no way be considered "normal", then again, the same is probably true if you have met me!
Well, time for the house meeting soon, worked out how much the ADSL will cost us when I got back last nite, so I had better check out the maths :>
Saturday, June 01, 2002
Well, final exam out of the way, found it quite trickey, most of the questions seemed to be set to catch you out, ah well, most people thought similarly, and im fairly sure I have a pass so a reasonable end to the first year of university. It doesn't seem like 2 minutes since the first day when I arrived here and met everyone, and now, months later, we are off to spend the summer earning money for next year.
Went out last nite, was good until I started on the quad vodka and cokes, then things generally went downhill... Surprisingly no hangover to speak of (yet) which is good considering im going to the union again tonight :) If some sort of delayed hangover sets in im going to have to spend the night sat in a darkened corner with a large glass of water I think.
Sunday morning (will I be concious?) is going to be meeting about the house for next year where we can all get together and sort out stuff like bills for over the summer, should be good to get things sorted as long as it doesnt turn into a brawl ;)
Went out last nite, was good until I started on the quad vodka and cokes, then things generally went downhill... Surprisingly no hangover to speak of (yet) which is good considering im going to the union again tonight :) If some sort of delayed hangover sets in im going to have to spend the night sat in a darkened corner with a large glass of water I think.
Sunday morning (will I be concious?) is going to be meeting about the house for next year where we can all get together and sort out stuff like bills for over the summer, should be good to get things sorted as long as it doesnt turn into a brawl ;)
Thursday, May 30, 2002
Hmm, seems like the get content of burt.me.uk finished idea didnt actually come to fruition, but very few of my plans are acutally completed for good they tend to stay as work in progress like the mp3 player :)
Anyway, had a good night out yesterday, ended up carrying a copy of the daily express around solely for the bad picture of kylie on the front, and ended up coming home with a goldschlager shot glass - yay :) Decided that I really have to make the most of the last 8 days of this university year, so hopefully gonna go on a good few nights out, may even take the camera. Got my last exam tommorrow so I need to go and do at least some revision for it.
Anyway, had a good night out yesterday, ended up carrying a copy of the daily express around solely for the bad picture of kylie on the front, and ended up coming home with a goldschlager shot glass - yay :) Decided that I really have to make the most of the last 8 days of this university year, so hopefully gonna go on a good few nights out, may even take the camera. Got my last exam tommorrow so I need to go and do at least some revision for it.
Tuesday, May 28, 2002
I think this has to be a record for non-blogging, I am genuinely bad at doing stuff regularly :| However, I do really have an excuse, exams, pesky things. Three exams last week and one this week, so I currently have a day or two spare in which I intend to get the majority of the content of burt.me.uk finished. yay! the one on friday was AI, it was half multiple guess, so I am hoping that I have scraped a pass... Until this morning I was not too worried about the one on friday, howver we had a revision lesson on some stuff that seemed totally new to me, so I had better knuckle down!
Went home for the weekend and pete came with me, was kinda good to have some company on the journey :) however I do enjoy the driving side more on my own as I dont have to worry about the other person's ride comfort ;) Managed to have quite an interesting weekend, parents went out on saturday night with their friends down the road and managed to get totally wrecked, which was very amusing => Also tailed my brother on a driving lesson which was funny too, exept he managed to lose us, quite good considering hes a learner! but then again I am not sure that he realised that I was following him :)
Anyway, I think I am going to go and buy GTA3, hope it works on my machine!
Went home for the weekend and pete came with me, was kinda good to have some company on the journey :) however I do enjoy the driving side more on my own as I dont have to worry about the other person's ride comfort ;) Managed to have quite an interesting weekend, parents went out on saturday night with their friends down the road and managed to get totally wrecked, which was very amusing => Also tailed my brother on a driving lesson which was funny too, exept he managed to lose us, quite good considering hes a learner! but then again I am not sure that he realised that I was following him :)
Anyway, I think I am going to go and buy GTA3, hope it works on my machine!
Tuesday, April 30, 2002
Well, as I predicted, I havent blogged in ages, but considering that the website isnt officially launched yet, thats not so bad ;)
For one of my modules I have to demonstrate that I have created a web-page next week so I am gonna make a drive to get this thing looking almost finished before the weekend... We shall see. Chris has suggested that I have an official wine and cheese party to launch the site, but considering the only alcohol I own/can afford at the moment is the free whiskey that dad gave me before I came back to uni it may have to be more of a whiskey and cheese party! Thinking about it, im also allergic to cheese, so its gonna have to be a whiskey and bread party, oh well!
I finally decided that I needed some sort of portable computer last week and plumped for a Latitude LS of ebay (nice little compact one) the bloke I bought it off was very efficient, however he accidentally sent the wrong power supply :( the correct one is in the post now, so I should be able to have more than half an hour of using it this afternoon, yay!
For one of my modules I have to demonstrate that I have created a web-page next week so I am gonna make a drive to get this thing looking almost finished before the weekend... We shall see. Chris has suggested that I have an official wine and cheese party to launch the site, but considering the only alcohol I own/can afford at the moment is the free whiskey that dad gave me before I came back to uni it may have to be more of a whiskey and cheese party! Thinking about it, im also allergic to cheese, so its gonna have to be a whiskey and bread party, oh well!
I finally decided that I needed some sort of portable computer last week and plumped for a Latitude LS of ebay (nice little compact one) the bloke I bought it off was very efficient, however he accidentally sent the wrong power supply :( the correct one is in the post now, so I should be able to have more than half an hour of using it this afternoon, yay!
Wednesday, April 24, 2002
Well, here we are, yet again, i havent blogged, I can tell this is gonna be a bit of a bind for me :) I did actually try and blog the day before yesterday, but when I hit post and publish there was a script error, so I will be copying this text before I submit this time!
Car seems to be sorted out now, helpful person at rapid fit told me straight away when I described the problem that the rubber bushes had just dried out with the recent dry weather, so just needed a few squirts of WD40!! :))
Java project still not started, and I think we have to hand it in in like 10 days, arrgh! New phone has broken, replacement was due to arrive today, but it didnt :( will try tommorrow. Probably not gonna get much chance to go out or anything this weekend, lots and lots to do! However I will make time to take photos of the MP3 player in the car for the site :)
PS. it would seem that the script error occured again, Arrgh, this is second attempt
Car seems to be sorted out now, helpful person at rapid fit told me straight away when I described the problem that the rubber bushes had just dried out with the recent dry weather, so just needed a few squirts of WD40!! :))
Java project still not started, and I think we have to hand it in in like 10 days, arrgh! New phone has broken, replacement was due to arrive today, but it didnt :( will try tommorrow. Probably not gonna get much chance to go out or anything this weekend, lots and lots to do! However I will make time to take photos of the MP3 player in the car for the site :)
PS. it would seem that the script error occured again, Arrgh, this is second attempt
Saturday, April 20, 2002
ello again, this diary isnt going very well, Ie already missed a day, ah well, such is life. Website still not finished yet, got to finish off mp3 player but (take some photos of it!) sort out some dodgy links etc, im hoping official launch will be soon :)
Today was fun, bought myself a new phone 8310 :) VERY nice phone... spent a lecture attempting to get IRDA modem working on James' laptop, it didnt work :( so we browsed WAP porn instead, ( how anyone can possibly find the severely low resolution pictures anything like erotic is beyond me) but after downloading driver later all seems to work well, need an IR port for my PC so I can use data suite. Now i have the fun of telling everyone my new number :/
Today was fun, bought myself a new phone 8310 :) VERY nice phone... spent a lecture attempting to get IRDA modem working on James' laptop, it didnt work :( so we browsed WAP porn instead, ( how anyone can possibly find the severely low resolution pictures anything like erotic is beyond me) but after downloading driver later all seems to work well, need an IR port for my PC so I can use data suite. Now i have the fun of telling everyone my new number :/
Wednesday, April 17, 2002
Well, thats a good start to my new diary, I've just managed to loose my first post, so I am going to have to type it all out again, Arrgh! Never thought that I would actually start an online diary, but then again, I said that I would never go to university in Wales! Were gonna start on our group project today, hopefully actually making a reasonable start to it, I did some UML over easter, so at least that is something. Got to get masquerading up and running on the server so I can use it as my gateway here, want to get it all ready for next year, I'm looking forward to having a server on ADSL much better than the dodgy connection here, if the microwave link hasnt died, then the russian exchange student downstairs wires her coax port into her coffee maker, rendering my connection useless!
Got to take the car in to get the suspension sorted out, its making a worrying noise when I go over speed bumps etc, it started after i came back to uni, mite be expensive :(
Got to take the car in to get the suspension sorted out, its making a worrying noise when I go over speed bumps etc, it started after i came back to uni, mite be expensive :(
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