Trip To Karlsruhe

Taxi to airport and met up with Phil, Adrian and Dave. Looking forward to flying, it's been a long time since my last take-off. Straight up through the low cloud and into bright sunshine. Restarted Ballards Millenium People. Smooth connection from Frankfurt airport onto the train system. The ICE train was fast and smooth. At 195km/h it was so quiet that Phil and I were practically whispering our conversation. Out of the station at Karlsruhe and onto the tram and more examples of efficient public transport. Got the S3 tram to Mendelssohnplatz and checked into our hotel. We had some time to kill so we had a walk around a bit of Karlsruhe town centre and picked up a couple of pressies for the kids. IN the evening we met up with some of our European colleagues for a 'Welcome Beer'. The beer was tasty and free and it flowed and flowed. Not much self-control exercised but just about got away with not drinking too much. Don't want a hangover on the first day of the conference.

Germany Here I Come

It's been a busy old weekend but I must post a summary prior to tomorows trip to Germany. Saw Liars and Celebration last night at the Flapper with Paul. Good to be out. Gig was good. Really liked Celebration. The singer decided to come into the crowd and stand next to me and sing. Best seats in the house!

This morning we went to see the new Potter movie. Good stuff. Enjoyed it. Tried to do my packing in the afternoon then went out to see a canal boat parade in town. Met up with Mom and Dad there. Seems from Steves Flickr stream that Mary and co were there too.

There's other stuff I'm missing here but I need to get to bed. End of post. Germany here I come.

See What I Did There?

Hey guess what? I DID buy a lawnmower on Sunday AND I got the grass cut too! See what I did there? I was using some reverse psychology on the situation. Feel pretty good about the whole deal.

Since the weekend, the days have flown by. I'm not really getting enough sleep so I'm going straight up after this post.

Caught up with Phil yesterday and agreed plans for next weeks trip. Jacq picked up some Euros for me. I picked up a travel adapter. Now I've just got to learn German on the flight over!

Work Desktop

Loving my dual-screen setup at work. This is a grab of the desktop from last Thursday where I was checking out some basic PCS7 functionality using the mighty VMware while at the same time monitoring my email and listening to a tune. With VMware I'm nicely setup now to develop and test my PCS7 stuff for my current project without being tied to a bunch of IL40 PCs back at the office. Hence this weekend being spent testing out some SCL ideas for standard blocks.

Can I Get A Lawnmower?

A few weeks ago, alright, probably months now, my lawnmower packed in and I've been meaning to get a new one to do the 'last cut' of the year. Well, after weekends of kids parties, today seemed like a good day for it. Sun shining autumn-style and a free afternoon ahead, I popped into the local DIY store. But could I get a lawnmower? Could I buggery! Seems that I'm in the wrong season now. The store just wanted to flog me a range of tacky christmas lights to nail around my house. I'll be trying another store tomorrow, but even if I get one it'll probably be raining and then next weekend it'll be kids parties again and before you know it, it'll be christmas and... and... oh well, just let the grass grow. I'll sort it out next year.

Interesting Author

I'm a bit behind in discovering this guy, but anyway, Cory Doctorow seems like an interesting author. Among many things, he's published a few novels of a sci-fi/tech/geek nature which look interesting. What's cool is that he makes them all available for download in loads of different formats. Really loads, like even iPod notes format. I've saved off a few in pdf stylee and I'll give them a go, nowt to lose.

Code Design Is Good For The Soul

WFH today which meant I could go to the Year 2 assembly and watch Dylan. He had a couple of lines to say which he spoke beautifully, really loud and clear. He was the best. I'm not biased.

The works tasks in hand today are thankfully design related. It's been so very long since I was involved in any sort of code design and it's really enjoyable to be doing a bit again. Wether the blocks I'm designing are used in my current project or not doesn't really matter to me right now. I'll be using them probably in my next project for sure. It feels almost like a creative act and that's good for the soul.

Going Deaf For A Fortnight

I had this thought a couple of months ago that I'd like to get out and see more local gigs. I haven't been out to many as yet, but someone who most definitely has, is Pete Ashton. He's currently in the middle of a project called Going Deaf For A Fortnight in which sees he's going out to a local gig every night for 14 days. It's an interesting snapshot of the Birmingham gig scene. Some of the gigs he reviews seem at first glance to be unappealing prospects but it transpires that there's something of interest at most of them. Makes me want to get out to some more gigs. There's a few events on my Upcoming list at the moment and hopefully I make it out to some of them.

Snippets

Snippets of catchup...

Thursday, Steve picked up one of our old sofas so now we have a bit more room in the room. Still got one left but we might keep it.

Friday morning, Year 5 assembly. Harriet and Amanda did an audience survey of crisp favourites and presented a bar chart. Cute.

Working from home. Dull documents for my current project. Very hard to motivate. Would have been even harder in the office. More distractions there, people to have a moan with, and a couple of hours on the motorway for the pleasure.

Carols 40th birthday party went off well. It was a complete suprise to her. She loved the present Jacq got her. Dylan had great fun running around with Mitchell at top speed and doing the classic knee-slide across the dancefloor.

Saturday morning, Jacq and Carol talking about the party. Both the kids doing great swimming. Chilled at home before going over to Marys for the traditional bonfire party. The bonfire took off, despite early battles with some rain, thanks to wood brought over by Theresa. The fireworks were good but as always there were just too many. Didn't even open the box that we brought over, left them with Steve to set off , he'll probably get more fun out of them than we would.

Sunday morning now. Up early and I don't know why. I should probably go back to bed and resume my lie-in. Raining. Not doing much today. Domestic stuff. The new week will soon be here.

Codename V

Mike came over Monday night and it was good to see him in fine spirits so soon after his second op. We listened to a few things but no creative stuff. But soon, oh yes, soon. I'm quite stoked by a sample challenge thrown down by Mike to get some stuff out of a piece of Bladerunner soundtrack.

Chatted a bit about 'V For Vendetta' which he has lent me. We checked out the movie trailer and it looked pretty good to me, although Mike warns that they've fucked up the ending so I won't get my hopes up. There doesn't seem to be must publicity around at the moment for the movie yet the site states a Nov 05 release but the latest news item is from July. Strange. I finished the book this evening. I fancy reading some more graphic novels.

We Got New Sofas

Yes it's true, we got new sofas. Two leather two-seaters plus two big pouffes for some feet-up action. Now we've just got to get rid of the old sofas blocking up the front room.