Service interruption

We're off on our holidays today.

Since we'll be on a boat in the middle of the Red Sea, it's unlikely I will be posting here for a week.

Delivery Ninjas

The delivery ninjas are out in force today.

No one knows where they come from. No one knows when they will arrive. But come they will. With stealth and guile and patience. When you least expect it. When you've popped down to the shops or gone out in the garden. And faster than light, they will knock on your door and let loose their weapon - "We called. You were out". Anguish, heartache, rage. What did they bring? Why wasn't I in?

Yes, they have beaten me once. But they have vouched to return. And I shall be ready for them. Their speed, no match for my intellect, their patience, no match for my determination. And I shall relieve them of their booty and shall call it my own.

So come, Ninjas, come. Fear me, for I am wise in your ways and I shall empty your vans of their treasure.

What a difference a day makes

So, the August bank holiday has come and gone.

Traditionally it’s a time to head of for a long weekend break which consists mostly of sitting in traffic jams on the country’s laughable motorway system and then staunchly squatting on the beach at some dismal seaside town, despite the fact it’s 8C, blowing a force 6 gale and pouring with rain.

But, I gave all this malarkey up many years ago. Instead we had quite a busy weekend doing a variety of different things.

It started well. On Friday I spent most of the day (when I should have been working) dashing around on various dive-kit related chores. My replacement dive computer came in, and with our diving holiday but a week away the whole dive kit issue was brought to the fore again. After much searching (both soul and internet), I decided we should get an underwater camera – a proper, diving one, not just one of those “take it in the pool” things. So much research ensued and grinding of teeth and banging of heads. Eventually I decided upon getting a cheap camera and housing rather than risking my own camera. We also needed some torches because there was a real prospect of some good night diving. My need for spangly new kit was finally being fulfilled.

So I toddled off to the dive shop, stopping only to have my ears washed out by a very friendly nurse – well, it was herself really.

Managed to get the dive computer – despite a mix up with the price they’d quoted – it was 60 quid less than the real price, but in the end he gave it to me for the lower price, we fixed the requisite new bits onto my dive kit and there we were. I enquired about cameras, and Carl in the shop told me what I already knew, so I bought the camera he recommended. And a filter. And I got him to knock some money off that too. So I was feeling rather smug and satisfied with myself.

Bit annoying when I got home though. My new dive computer has an IrDA interface for plonking dive logs onto your computer. Since there’s an IR port on my Mac, I’d kinda assumed that I’d be able to use that, but alas no. It’s only a receiver for the remote control, so I had a tough time searching for a Mac compatible IrDA dongle – the cheapest I could find were about 40 quid. Not good. Decided I’d have to think about this.

Went and got all my dive gear down from the loft. We were doing a practice on Sunday. Now it really felt like I was going diving.

Saturday morning consisted of chores and grocery shopping and things like that. After lunch I started to sort all my dive gear sorted out and decided that we needed a dive manual so we could read up about Enriched air (I’ll tell you another time). Off I toddled to the dive shop.

On the way to the dive shop, I decided to go and look for an IrDA interface and some more rechargeable batteries for the dive torches I’d just ordered. I’d resolved to give up on the Mac compatible ones, since they all seemed to cost 40 quid whereas I could get a PC one for a fiver. But, when I got to Maplin – behold, a Mac compatible IrDA dongle for 15 quid – not quite a fiver, but it would do nicely.

Stopped off at the dive shop and got my manual and then home. The IrDA interface didn’t work straight away, but a quick reboot of the Mac and the dive computer application suddenly sprang to life and talked to my new computer. Excellent.

Sunday saw us get up very early for the 90 minute drive to Stoney Cove. It’s not really a cove at all, but an old mining pit which has been flooded in order to provide a diving environment. It’s always packed with all manner of divers – both novices and old hands – trying out new skills or new bits of kit and today would be no exception. We parked up and then had the difficulty of carting dive kit back and forth from the hire shop, the car and the water’s edge, but we got there in the end. Both of us set all the kit up without drama and we ventured into the water, which turned out to be jolly cold and rather murky

The dives were unremarkable, but just reminded us of how things worked, what it felt like and generally what to expect when we go diving again – in considerably warmer and clearer waters – in a week’s time.

We tried out the camera too, and have some amusing pics.

After a stress-free trip home, we hooked up both the camera and the dive computer and both worked fine. It was quite enlightening to see my dives shown in great detail on the computer including depths and tank pressures and all manner of things (if you’re a diver you’re interested in all that stuff).

Monday was a day of odds and ends. I sorted out our holiday details and dive kit also read up on how to use the whizzy features on my dive computer. Herself sprayed the fence with wood preserver – despite being a bit too windy really – as we were to find out.

Later on in the evening there was a ring at the bell and our next door neighbour asked me to go around to their house. He showed me his van and their car (both white) and they were splodged all over with little spots of browny-orange wood preserver – obviously from where herself had sprayed the fence. We then spent 40 minutes helping him (with the help of his 4 boys) clean all the little splodges off the cars. It was tough work as it took lots of rubbing to get the stain off, but they did come off in the end. We rather sheepishly left with promises of being more careful and letting them know to move their cars in the future. Whoops.

And that was the weekend. Seems I’ve managed to pick up a touch of a cold or something as I’ve been feeling rather off. It’d better be cleared up by the weekend, or there’ll be hell to pay.

Hasta la vista, baby

I got a Wii Zapper today.

Don't tell herself because I'm not supposed to be buying things like that, especially with our (expensive) dive holiday coming up and the need to buy spangly new kit.

But it was in Tesco, it was cheaper than I'd seen it anywhere else, and I just fancied shooting things.

The game that comes with it seems OK, in fact better than I expected, but I shall have to consider which proper game to get. I'm definitely going to be in trouble now.

Oxford Rock

We had friends to visit this weekend.

Had an excellent time with walking and drinking and chatting and eating far too much, but the highlight had to be Guitar Hero.

It really is rather jolly to play - much better than I expected, having seen kids playing it in HMV. We didn't spend a huge amount of time on it, but enough to start getting the hang of it (and get very sore fingers).

I do feel it's a bit of a social game, rather than one I'd want to go away and play for hours, but the sheer concentration it takes and the utter humiliation when you miss the button on a long note and have to stand there for about ten minutes in complete silence is so much fun. Herself didn't get on with it, so I don't think I'll be getting it - at least not yet - but maybe it's worth it for the party season.

I ROCK
(but only on easy level and only on about 1 song which I can almost play all the way through)

Masters of the Universe

I feel the end of an era in my life is soon to occur.

I am very close to finishing Super Mario Galaxy. I mean, really finishing it, not just doing the main bit, but the really annoying Purple Comet bits too.

I've been stuck for ages on Luigi and his wretched purple coins, but having finally completed that (by the skin of my teeth) this morning, I've now been through 2 more, pretty easy levels and am within 2 stars of victory.

My Star total is 119. 1 more Star unlocks the end game and then that's it (so, I've heard). It's been a long time since I've been so engaged by a game over 2 months, but that's what it's been. Frustrating at times, fun at others, but always addictive. The only time I didn't want to go back to it was this stupid Luigi level (where you have to not only persuade the software to do the right jumps in the right direction, but also remember the pattern you have to use to be able to get back to the start).

I feel an immense sense of satisfaction because I've only used 2 hints in the entire game. One to find a hidden star, where I'd done all the right things but not in the right ways, and one to find the pattern you need to finish that Luigi purple coin level (because it was taking FAR too long to work out on my own - although I eventually used a bit of a hybrid).

I shall now have to find another suitable game to fill this void in my life in order to avoid having to do things like get a life, talk to my wife and go outside the house.

The time has now come, I feel, for a gratuitous quote:

I HAVE THE POWER!

[13:00]
Couldn't resist. The last star was a bit tricky but it was a good level and I managed to complete it. Was rather disappointed to be then taken to the same end level that finished the first part of the game - so contrary to my expectations, there were only 120 stars, the final level was a duplicate. A bit of a shame, it would have been nice to have some kind of fun level at the end, but it can't detract from what is simply a stunning, thoroughly enjoyable game. I feel such a sense of achievement that I just want to celebrate.

You know things are bad when ...

You're offered a fat bribe just for staying with the company.

My visit to the pub ... err, sorry, meeting today all focused around looking after me. This, apparently, invovled promising me the Earth, letting me know in no uncertain terms that everything would be alright and giving me a bribe to not leave.

Admittedly, the bribe was only in shares - which are worthless anyway - but I do get the feeling that things have got one stage worse if my esteemed leaders are now so desperate that they have to try to hang onto me at all costs - even by doshing out some of their hitherto impossible-to-obtain shares.

Perhaps I should be motivated, flattered and enthusiastic about this move, but it just leaves me feeling like things are even worse than I thought, somehow. It serves as a graphic illustration of how incentives can sometimes work against you.

... Or maybe I'm twisted and cynical and nothing's ever good enough for me.

... Naaaaaaaaaa!

Traffic calming

No, I am not at all calm.

Thanks to horrendous traffic in Reading, I just missed my eyesight test. This is a test they should have booked me in for last week when I went for my contact lens check-up, so it's doubly annoying that I had to struggle into the middle of Reading again and that this time it was a nightmare.

I don't know what caused the traffic to be so bad, but at 10:00 it normally seems to at least be manageable, but not today. It might be something to do with the school holidays, I just don't know.

I could have waited an hour and a half for another appointment, but that means being late back to work (maybe not a major problem), having to pay for the car parking (at great expense) and also hanging around Reading for far longer than is healthy.

I have now rebooked my test in Didcot, which is a far more sensible place to get to, on Thursday. Just means I have to hope I don't break or lose my last remaining set of lenses for a little while longer.

[15:55]
Typical. My boss now wants a meeting on Thursday which will make it difficult or impossible to get to Didcot in time. I'm trying to persuade him otherwise.

[12/08/08]
Phew. Meeting rearranged for Wednesday.

It's dark and we're wearing sunglasses

This weekend saw us visiting friends.

First a get-together in Reading, which was great fun. Especially trailing around umpteen shops beforehand to try and find some sour cream – which was a vital ingredient we’d been asked to bring. Stress levels were brilliantly low, even when the dinner did get slightly singed – but it tasted great in the end.

We then had to get up especially early to drive up to Penrith for a 40th birthday party. These were friends I’d not seen in over a year, so even though it was a long way for a pretty short visit, it seemed worth it. The journey up was the usual tedium with lots of traffic and road works, but we did it pretty much right to schedule and arrived at the appointed pub in time to surprise the birthday boy, who knew nothing about his visitors.

Even a pub with a replacement chef, a limited menu (half of which wasn’t actually available) and slow service due to the barmaid having to do basically everything, couldn’t dampen our spirits. We drove back to their cottage and did some chilling out and chatting and the time since we’d last met up just slipped away.

Being 40, he’d been given a Wii by his wife (a fine 40th birthday present if you ask me) – although, I discovered it is referred to as a Wye-eye in Northern climbs. After the obligatory box opening, peering at cables and controllers and eventually the manual and a bit of trial and error, he had the thing up and running and we were soon involved in delights such as 4 player tennis (which I’d never played before and is totally chaotic).

Despite dubious looking weather, the barbeque was lit and we soon had the usual bucket-loads of burgers and sausages. Staunchly sitting outside, even though it was threatening to rain, it was rather pleasant (other than the wasps, who seemed to have come out of hibernation especially for the event). Lots of catching up and chatting about trivial and non-trivial things and doing all the normal stuff that friends do, it was most agreeable.

It did eventually start to rain, but for some reason we got into some kind of competition about who could stay out in the rain for the longest. We got away with this a couple of times when we just had brief showers, but once the rain got more determined, most people gave up and went inside. Except for 3 of us. I soon realised that there was no way the other two were going to give up, and so retired to the garage where I could continue chatting, but not get soaked. They chatted and got soaked. It got dark. We were still out there.

I don’t know if sanity returned or not, but eventually we gave up and went in. The two guys were wet through. It was just silly, but for some reason it just had to be done.

The next day saw large amounts of rain and so there was lots of playing of the Wye-eye and a very fine pub lunch before braving the M6 to head home. It was generally rather rubbish but pretty much as expected.

All in all a hectic, but excellent, weekend. It's always great to visit really good friends who you can completely relax with and just have fun (and be rather silly). I always think that we must visit more often, but it never seems to quite work like that.

Holidays

I booked our holiday today.

After huge amounts of research and discussion, we finally had little choice because we're so restricted on when we can go. But we've booked on a liveaboard for a week in the Red Sea (poo-pooing this whole credit crunch nonsense and have a cheap holiday in the UK ... it certainly isn't cheap). I'm ridiculously excited about this already, even though it's weeks away because I get to unpack all my dive gear and check its all OK and hopefully even go for a dive or two in a local puddle - just to make sure everything is up to scratch, you understand.

Sometimes I forget just how much I enjoy diving. One of the best times of my life was doing my Divemaster training in Australia. I think it has the ideal combination of activity, technology, shiny bits of kit and water. I love to see the fish, but am rubbish at telling anyone what they are (much to my embarassment when I'm dive-leading).

The most exciting thing about this holiday is that we are stuck on a boat for 6 days with nothing to do but dive. This means doing several dives each day - which really gets your diving up to scratch. The last time I did that was in Australia. Even though we've managed to do some diving on most holidays, herself is not as keen as me and so we have to pace the diving and spend time sitting by the pool or playing table tennis or something. This time there will be little or none of that and I'm hoping that I can, and feel up to, doing the 4 dives a-day which represents the maximum ... although, maybe not every day.

The boat we've selected (see the pic) gets some very good reviews and sounds fantastic. All that remains now is to decide what bits of kit I simply must replace. Having been forced not to replace the main things, I'm sure I can still find a number of bits and bobs which will be absolutely essential to my enjoyment and full participation in the week. We also need to get herself a wetsuit. Oh, I can feel my credit card vibrating at the meer thought of it.

Weather and things airbourne

Time for a weather update.

Today it has been mostly sunny, but with clouds and rain at times. The weather station says it's going to rain, but the weather seems to have given up on this and has been pretty sunny all afternoon, but with the odd dark, black cloud making it look like the heavens are about to open - but they don't.
The wind is almost non-existant and the pressure is 994 millibars. The temperature outside is 27C

Well, I had to do that after all the effort of setting this weather station up.

The Red Arrows have been flighing around this afternoon. Basically a couple of hours of hearing them in the distance with a few very close and very low fly-bys which I totally failed to capture on camera. It was rather exciting. I also saw a helicopter landing this morning (the only link between these being that they were both in the air).

There was a brief panic this afternoon when I couldn't find my passport, but it was soon located in my ski jacket (guess the last time I went abroad).

Other than that, it's been fairly quiet today. Was going to book the holiday, but decided to wait until my credit card statement has been issued - see, I'm such a financial wizard.

Gear crisis

Following my last post about the need for dive gear, this has been a traumatic day.

Having honed my selection of new gear down to a few choices, I decided the time had also come to get a new battery fitted to my dive computer - well, in face the time was about a year ago as I found out when we went away diving and my computer didn't work. So, off I toddled to the local dive shop (toddling being a fine method of travel in my neck of the woods).

I've had said dive computer for many years and it's never needed a battery, so I didn't really know what to expect in terms of price. I do, however, know what I didn't expect and that was the healthy sum of £140 being required. This seems rather excessive, but apparently it's all very complicated and time consuming and you basically don't have any choice (you can't do it yourself because you need to replace the seals to make it water and pressure proof again). Add to this the fact that I needed a new screen protector and was also thinking of getting a nice computer interface for it that I'd seen on eBay and we're rapidly heading in the direction of 200 quid. The worst part of it being it's not new or shiny, just the same old computer I've had for years (albeit in an improved state of actually functioning).

Just as I was pondering all this, Carl in the dive shop informed me that instead of shelling out all this cash, I could, instead, shell out even more and upgrade to a suitably shiny new computer - with whizzy new features like microbubbles and IRDA interface. I did ponder this for several hours before ringing him back and going ahead with the new-for-old option.

So these events have put rather a dent in the budget for new kit - amounting to basically the cost of a new BCD. So I've made the hard decision to keep my existing kit - with all its weighty joy and instead just get a couple of new spangly things to celebrate our forthcoming trip. Bit of a change of tack, but then I didn't expect to be getting a new computer.

We have also agreed to book the hol - even though herself hasn't officially been granted the holiday yet. I shall (hopefully) be doing this in the very near future.

In need of gear

We have been contemplating holidays recently.

Due to a variety of reasons, we find ourselves with only one week to go away and the need to do something engaging, rather than just relaxing. This makes me immediately think of Scuba diving.

As soon as I start contemplating diving, I remember that after last year I vowed to buy some new gear, as the kit I have now is rather heavy and although works well, is difficult to get onto a plane to go anywhere. So I've been forced to search the internet for new and shiny diving equipment whilst working out just how much my current stuff is worth on eBay.

There is, as always, an awful lot of kit out there to be purchased and its not always obvious which is the best choice. I had some very definite goals when I bought my original set and although it does do what I wanted, there are a number of notable flaws - the weight of the whole thing being the most obvious.

It's interesting to note that technology has not really moved on a huge amount in the 5 years since I last researched such things. There are all kinds of technical breakthroughs, but nothing really big has changed at all. Even dive computers have simply been tweaked and enhanced rather than being dramatically overhauled. I think this is probably partly due to the natural conservitism that occurs when equipment is responsible for your life - quite reasonable really.

So, I'm starting to think that I won't get anything better, but it will be considerably lighter. I also want to keep things as simple as I can, since there is a tendancy to just bolt more and more kit on and end up looking like some kind of demented cyberman. I guess in this respect my own goals have changed since I am considerably more experienced now and have learnt (often the hard way) which things are important and which aren't.

It always strikes me as an irony that a sport such as diving, in which the goal is to be close to a whole different form of nature in a relaxing and tranquil environment needs so much stuff to actually achieve that. But then, maybe that's part of what I like about it.

(Son of) Bill Giles

It all started off so simply

We have (had) an indoor/outdoor thermometer in our bedroom. This is very handy when you're the sort of mad fool that gets up early in the morning to go on runs and walks and the like - British weather being what it is, it's often difficult to decide just how many layers you need to wear.

This essential device broke. To be more accurate, the wire that connects the external sensor has been severed by the constant opening and closing of the window - through which the wire was run. So we needed some kind of replacement. Somehow, this all spiralled out of control and we ended up buying a weather station - complete with an anemometer, a wireless thermometer and a rain gauge.

So I spend a jolly Sunday afternoon clambering over rooftops and screwing various posts and polls and bashing nails into cable grips (of course, it started to rain whilst I was doing all this) and we now have a functioning weather monitoring and prediction system which obviously rivals the Met Office for sheer technology and accuracy.

We have found it stragely compelling to continually peer at the pressure, windspeed and temperature - and spent quite a bit of Sunday doing so. This probably indicates a huge degree of sadness on our part, but in my day, that's what Sundays were for - cause there was nowt else to do.

Ref: Bill Giles

Clueless

Despite my resolution at the begining of the week, the past three days have been the normal techno-hell.

The following facts have come to my attention during the last few days:

1. Our IT support sub-contractors are clueless
2. Whoever configured the routers in the office is clueless
3. Whoever cancelled the wrong ADSL line is clueless
4. I am clueless (for leaving my laptop power supply in the office and losing an hour going to get it)
5. Surprisingly, our ISP appears to have support staff with more than one clue to rub together

So, I've had to sort it all out myself and finally have some picture of the things that have been going wrong.

On a positive note, our electronics sub-contractors are now talking to one another and have vowed to sort out the mess they created, I actually found a job worth chasing and it's Friday and I'm off to the pub tonight.