Unusual Saturday

We went down to Brighton yesterday to have a chat with Dan and Ben about work and to watch Ben play football for Southwick FC against Whitehawk FC.

The journey down was OK a little traffic slowed our progress a bit but we made reasonable time anyway and the journey took one and a half hours so we got to Dans place at just about 11am.

After a late breakfast / early lunch I popped into Cancom (local Mac dealer) to get some extra memory and a couple of other bits (cleaning cloth and fluid, neoprene case and an additional Airport Express).

We then left Dans to pick up Elika from Bens house, Ben had already gone to football as he had to be at Southwick for 1pm so that they all travelled together into Brighton for the away match.

we were a bit late and didn't get to the match until about 20 past 3.

Ben was on his good form making a few good saves but letting in one. Then just before half time this happened:


Yep, it's another goal but what's worse it's a Broken Ankle too.
Ben was in so much pain. Wendy Cried, I took pictures!








Now ben has to spend 12 weeks in Plaster so that the broken bones and ruptured ligaments can heal.

Poor Ben.
Get well soon

Where did that six inches come from?

Looking at an old photo we have on our bedroom shelf I noticed how thin I was 33 years ago. I had a 32 inch waist. All those years have taken their toll as I now have a comfortable 38 inch waist.

Oh woe is me. I must eat less and have less alcohol.

Fat Chance!

I remember this as if it was yesterday so at least the brain is still OK

Never trust the Revenue

Once again I've been contacted by Her Majestys Revenue and Customer (formerly Inland Revenue) telling me that I haven't sent in a "self assessment" return for 2004/2005 tax year.

I had a problem with this early this year and thought I'd sorted it out having had about 5 phone conversations with a woman at the tax office and sending in a duplicate return and getting verbal confirmation from them that they'd got it.

Luckily my Accountant has a copy of the return so I'll need to have them send it again. Registered Post this time I think!

Train Journey

As it's been so hot and I can't sleep I have been investigating a Train Journey from Sydney to Perth.
It sounds pretty good if you go for the "Gold Kangaroo" class with EnSuite, double bed and all meals paid for. The ticket cost of this will be about the same as a flight from London to Melbourne! It takes longer too. 3 days in all with a couple of stops where you can get out and have a tour.
One stop boasts a Population of 2, can't remember wher it is though.

I'm not really sure how to fit this into a 3 week holiday. I had thought that we'd fly into Sydney then go straight onto the train but on reflection we're never feeling that good after a 24 hour flight from the UK so looks like we'll have to go for a mid holiday journey. I think we could get the train from Melbourne to perth and then a Virgin Blue back to Melbourne.

We also need to fit in a trip to Newcastle to make contact with some distant relatives. Busy, Busy, Busy!

Whats so good about RapidWeaver Blogging then?

I moved to RapidWeaver blogging for a number of reasons. These are:
1 - My son Dan owns Realmac Software, the makers of RapidWeaver.

2 - Offline Blogging - Ever had something to blog and no internet connection? I can blog away to my hearts content without even the slightest hint of a net connection and then publish when I get home.

3 - Categories - Splitting out Work, personal and such is a great idea. I didn't realise this until I recently started a project management blog on blogger in addition to my personal blog. With RW I've got as many categories as I want all in one place.

4 - My blog now fits with the rest of my peronal website.

5 - Adding pictures is really easy now with the media browser. No more export choose and upload palarva.

Could this be the end?

I've decided to give Rapid Weaver a go for blogging so I'll be blogging elsewhere from now on.
You can find me new blog at:
My New Blog Place

See you there ;-)

Moving to RapidWeaver

Since Dan and Ben have released these new theme packs aimed at bloggers I've decided to give it a try in place of my old blog on blogger.com.

Thai Wine and Beer

Yesterday evening we decided we should go out for dinner and chose the local Thai restaurant.
While I swas choosing the wine we should have Wendy ordered a bottle of the Thai House Wine. The waiter was so pleased he rushed off and brought back a bottle for us in double quick time.

I agreed that the label looked nice so we should try it. Not the best way to choose wine!


Anyway we started on the wine but I didn't really like it so I ordered a beer


Unfortunately the beer tasted like disinfectant:


After these rather dissaponting beverages I ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio which turned out to be very nice!



I was a bit sad when we'd finished the bottle all too quickly.



All in all a very enjoyable evening out. Just in case you're wondering we did order food as well and that was all absolutely gorgeous:
Crispy Duck & some sort of veggie dish for starters
Chilli Beef and some sort of veggie dish for main course
We both had egg fried rice.

Champagne Cocktails

tonight seemed an ideal opportunity to have some Champagne cocktails. Little did I know that after these there would be the Champagne of Lagers.
Kasteeel Cru

It is really good.
try it if you can

Assasination

I found out today that people have been trying to assasinate me!

I'm not dead you understand but my character has been attacked almost on a daily basis over the past few weeks.

I must be doing a great job of showing that those who would make me look bad are not actually delivering all that is required.

It's a dirty job, but someones gotta do it!

Rose Tyler is officially dead

Tonight's Dr Who episode killed off Rose Tyler (Billie Piper) yet managers to keep her alive.
What a great episode as an end to the current series.

Daleks fight the Cybermen on Earth thanks to the Torchwood Foundation.

Dr Who ends up a little tearful as does Rose who gets trapped in a parallel universe near the sea at "Badwolf Bay" along with her Mum, and old boyfriend. she gains a dad in that univers too. Happy endings all the way!

What a cracker!

Next series starts at Christmas with "Runaway Bride" as a Wedding Dress clad girl arrives on the TARDIS while the Dr. is still musing over the loss of Rose.

What!, What!...

Are the only words the good ol' doc can say.

Next Series. Can't Wait!. I hear tell of a spin off series "Torchwood" as set up by Queen Victoria in this series of Dr. Who.

Saving Data

The scheduled backup competed succefully yesterday at 11:00pm and 11:15pm.

All my perswonal setting sent to iDisk at 11 and the whole home folder sent to my 300GB firewire drive. Now I'm just considering what would happen if both the Firewire drive and my internal drive fried at the same time.

Oh, now I'm even more worried!

We also now have 2 computers and the firewire drive can't be connected to both at the same time so I'm considering a network drive to connect to the ADSL router so that backups can happen over wireless. It's a bit slow but it'll be happening while I'm in bed so time is not really a problem.

I'm also considering burning the ".FullBackup" and ".IncrementalBackup" backup files to DVD weekly and keeping them in the car. That sounds like a good plan I think.

Critical Failure

AAAAAAAAAHHHGGGGGG!!!!

MacBook Pro finder restarted yesterday while I was in the middle of looking for a file. Just rignt out of the blue, yes just like that. I hadn't launched any apps double clicked on any files; nothing, NOTHING!

This is the first time you've used this MAC ! I've set up a user name for you (Stephen Counsell) and now you need to tell me how you connect to the internet. (Oh So Bloody Helpful!)

Bloody CHRIST. I've lost all my setting. All those shortcuts in Safari, My WHOLE iPhot Library 3000 images, 2 purchased albums in iTunes my Aperture Library, all my Address book contacts most of my Library settings.

I'de backed up on 26th May 2006 so iPhoto and Aperture were pretty safe but some of the other stuff I lost is gone for good.

I've now managed to restore most of what was lost (apart from 15 quids woth of music).

That'l teach me the value of daily backups.
Routine backup now scheduled to take place every day at 11PM.
All I need to do is make sure it's switched on, Plugged into the firewire drive before I go to bed.
Should be easy.

Fruit of our labour

Summer Heat

Well, this weekend has been sunny. Saturday was warm but we were able to sit by the river and watch all the boats go by. It was so nice we decided to make a picnic for Sunday and return for a great day out.

All the nice sandwiches made we stowed them in the fridge until we were ready. Wendy went out to walk Jarvis and to check to see if it was not too hot. About 10 minutes later she came back sayng it was far too hot to go out. That was about 2pm and it was a little cloudy but still lots of blue sky.

It's A Heat Wave they say on the news.

It's been so hot today that both of us have had to lounge around all day doing nothing. I've managed to watch "Get Shorty" and "Terminator 3" again. Very enjoyable for a Sunday afternoon.

T3 is quite funny if you can spot the jokes on the way through, adn John Travolta in Get Shorty is excellent. You have to watch Get Shorty and Be Cool in one sitting I recon to get the best from them both.

Scanner Vs Camera

I'm in the process of capturing all those old photo we have around the house and as the scanner has not been set up since we moved house I've been snapping them with my 5D. I've had some reasonable success given that all those I've done so far have been hanging on the wall in frames.

I can't imaging the problems I'd get into if I had to use a flat bed scanner.
The process I've followed with the camera is:
Turn focus on wall mounted picture(s)
Take picture(s)
Plug into computer and download to iPhoto

The process for a flatbed scanner would be:
take down picture(s)
Un-frame and un-mount picture(s)
Set up scanner with computer
Scan image into Photoshop
export as jpeg
import to iPhoto
remount, reframe and hang picture(s)


AND THE WINNER IS:
Canon 5D with polarising Filter to cut down on reflections.

More Old Photos

Guess Who (2)

Paul and Wendy

Alex in baby walker

Dan in a classic pose

Guess Who (1)

Baby is Alex - Man is Steve's dad (Bill)

Pumping Water

At the allotment we have several water pumps that supply water from an underground stream. Here a picture of me pumping the water up so I can water the plants.