Running on Rails

And so to London. As to prove conclusively that it does exist early in the morning, the universe treated me to a fantastic sunrise, viewed through the train carriage all the way from Hull to Peterborough. Wisps of cloud lit golden by the rising sun were like streaks of fire across the dark blue of the sky, whilst on the ground the trees that rushed past were swathed in rolling mist.

Unfortunately I'm having to use inadequate words here because I couldn't get a photograph, darnit.

London was, well, London. "Full of Sound and Fury, signifying nothing" (I think I took the lyrical pill this morning).

David and I gave a conference paper which seemed to go down OK. However, you would think that with all my years of marriage I would have learnt to keep my big mouth shut. But no such luck. Someone said something about how horrible programming is, and how unpleasant it is to learn it. They even went as far as saying they gave a "Welcome to Hell" speech at the start of their programming courses. Wah! As someone who puts programming in a category of self expression alongside writing poetry and drawing pictures, I take strong issue with this. And done properly and with commitment from the person being taught, learning to program is actually quite fun. I said as much and was in the process of being shot down for saying this when someone called time out. Just as well I suppose.

The trip back was made slightly more interesting by a points failure just outside Selby which meant an extra half hour on the train. Ho hum.

(extra note: The Blogger spell checker is wonderful. It suggested "featherbrained" for Peterborough)

(extra extra note: The quote above is from Macbeth. Just to prove I have a literary side too...)

Heading for the Big City

Going to London tomorrow. Capital city. Seat of government. Place of residence of the monarch. And I'm pretty sure that there is a Starbucks there somewhere too. I now know that the streets are not actually paved with gold, so I won't be taking the shovel this time. Or the smelter. But I will be taking the train. At 6:18.

This is not a nice time to be rising. Or indeed doing anything else. As far as I'm concerned (and I am quite concerned) the universe doesn't actually have a need to exist at that hour of the day, since I'm not usually around at the time. But then again, I hope it does. Actually, thinking about it, the world doesn't actually have to be there when my eyes are closed. BLINK. Hmm. Anyone else spot that?

A Watched Pot...

As she was leaving the house this morning my wife pointed at the duvet and said "You know Rob, those bedclothes won't change themselves". I think she might be right. I've been watching them for the last hour and nothing has moved. It has just dawned on me that I'm wasting my time here. I've set up a webcam and time lapse photography stuff so that I can make absolutely sure. If anything happens I'll post pictures.

Pain in the Third Degree

Three degree ceremonies in one day. Now that is what I call hard work. The good news is that Andrew was along to take the strain at the last one. But even so it is a long time in a suit and academic gown + silly wobbly hat. I still like doing the job though. The graduands really enjoy the day. One chap had flown in from Bahrain for to get his degree and was flying out again at lunch time. We had to move him into an early ceremony so that he could have his moment of glory with the Chancellor and then catch his flight back. Great fun.

Then I went to see a movie. Meet the Fokkers. My advice: It's too late for me. But you can save yourselves.

Don't Give Up Without a Fight

People, I'm not going to be beaten by someone just because they are funnier and more witty than me. It is not like me to give up without a fight. I'm more likely to not bother in the first place, or perhaps be somewhere else at the time. So here we go.

I rang someone up on my mobile phone but I didn't hear anything. I think I may have it set to "silent". The person I called was shouting "You've got it set to silent you idiot". On the other hand I suppose I could have just asked them to pass the salt. Then it dawned on me that I don't particulary like salt anyway. It reminds me of the sea. I had a bad experience there one day when I forgot the boat. Do you know that sharks have to keep swimming, otherwise they drown? I wonder how they know? After all, no sharks are going to come back and tell them. Perhaps there is a shark school somewhere. Or is that Wales. Only been once. I thought I'd find out what "the size of Wales" really means. Apparently it depends on the scale of the map that you use. On mine it was the size of a beermat, or a compact disk cut to the size of a beermat. I tried this and ruined my copy of "Brothers in Arms". The follow up "Sisters in Legs" didn't do anything like as well. But that's the music business. And you know, I feel a lot better now.

I Hate This Person

You know how it is when you work at something, think you might be getting somewhere and then you come across somebody else who just does it far better than you, and with far less apparent effort. Well...take a look at the blog here:

http://topicdrift.blogspot.com/

Effortlessly funny. All of the time. And so much of it. I feel like the Wright Brothers would have felt at Kittyhawk if, after their maiden flight, they were buzzed by Concorde. I don't know who this person is. I'm hoping they are a crack team of scriptwriters with too much time on their hands. But anyway, read, enjoy and thank me later.

Slow Turnover

The engine in Ye Olde Car is getting slower to start. That is, it usually fires up quite quickly, but rather than going ur-ur-ur it goes ur----ur----ur before going vroom. I'm starting to wonder if there will come a time where it goes ur. And nothing else. I should probably consider buying a new battery.

Only in my car the battery is in with you (in fact I sit on it - but with a chair in between to make it more comfortable and less potentially painful). And it is not full of water, but instead uses jelly. Although I've no idea what flavour. This makes the battery very expensive and special order only. And so up until now the expense and the fact that when I disconnect the old battery and plug in the new one it will probably break the central locking and stuff has put me off.

But then again after over seven years I'm probably due a new one. But I will resist the temptation to open the old one and find out what flavour it really is.

Crisp Strategies

Here are the facts, ladies and gentlemen:

• I take a packed lunch, including crisps, to work every day of the week.
• There are five days in a week.
• There are four packs of barbecue flavoured crisps in the 24 pack Walkers Variety bag that we buy each week.
• I like barbecue flavoured crisps best of all.

This means that I have to endure a day without my favourite crisps (and for someone with a life like mine this is a big deal, believe me). So, given the above facts do I:

• Take Cheese and Onion on Monday (deferred gratification)
• Throw a dice - if I can find a five sided one- to decide which day I take the BBQ crisps(hand of fate)
• Take Cheese and Onion on Friday (suffering on the happiest day of the week)
• Take all four packs to work on Monday - since other family members have been known to eat them (forward planning)

Turns out that the last solution is the best. The only problem is that I might eat all of the crisps on a Monday......

Long Distance Photography and Evil Squirrels

I've just got some lenses for my new camera. I got them (like just about everything else I seem to buy these days) from eBay. The plan was to buy some second hand, older style, lenses as part of a job lot of camera and lenses, and then pop them on the new beast.

As a plan it has worked very well. I can now zoom in on things from a reasonable distance and get good quality output. I was framing up some nice pictures of the squirrels in our garden when I remembered that:

• squirrels are vermin (basically rats with good PR)
• squirrels are evil (if you don't believe me - just type evil squirrels into Google)

Derek is not happy with squirrels either. They have taken up residence in his loft and he can hear them munching through his infrastructure during the night. We have discussed different ways of disposing of the unwanted guests. I'm for the General Norriega approach on this one, where you play things like Barney the dinosaur loudly through special speakers in the loft. Then again, perhaps this might not go down well in his neighbourhood.

(By the way, just found out that the word Google is not in the spell checker here. Who'd have thought....)

And This Wire Goes Where?

Went out home entertainment shopping with Dad today. If there's one thing I like more than spending my money it is spending other peoples'. Dad is buying a big plasma telly and so we reckoned he should get a new DVD player sound thingy to go with it. I think they caught as at a weak moment because they also persuaded us to buy a special video cable to deliver the super quality video signal to the big screen, which cost an amount I'm kind of embarrased to relate. They must have a big, high security, vault they keep them in. I can imagine scenes as new forms of heist are planned:

Fingers: "Now, you and Nobby distract the guard whilst I go in for the SCARTs"
Nobby: "Are you gonna get the Amstrad composite ones too Boss?"
(SLAP)
Fingers: "Have you learnt nothing...."

Then we went back to his place to wire it up. In the bad old days you got a big thick manual with ten pages of english and then the rest in every language known to man, plus a few I'm sure they made up when they were bored. Nowadays though things are much more flash. Everything was immaculatly presented, with a big thick book all in our mother tongue. We spent an hour or so assembling speakers and pushing wires into holes and then we let it fly. Nice sound. Good thing his place is detached. And if it wasn't, with this thing it probably soon would be....

Mystic Pizza Delivery

Because we are cash poor and also time poor we get our shopping delivered from Tesco. Each week on Friday a little van tuns up with all our vittals for the week. Except that this time the frozen stuff didn't arrive. I rang the support number and, while I waited, they rang the van and found out what had happened. Apparently their had been a "complete Horlicks" ((c) HM Government) at the store and no frozen stuff made it out onto the road.

Around an hour later a chap arrived with nearly all the stuff and, if I'd played my cards right I could have ended up with a bonus pack of Bernard Matthews Turkey Drummers. But, for some reason, I didn't.

Open Day Blues

Had our first Admissions Open Day today. Went OK but I made the mistake of using the wrong slide deck. It was very slightly out of date. I don't think anybody spotted the pictures of Model T Fords and computers full of valves. At least I hope not.

But seriously folks, thanks for coming and I hope you enjoyed the visit. And a special surprise prize for an attendee who lets me know the subject of "the joke that dare not be told..."

Thwarted by the Upper House

I think that I am being victimised by a Lord. Sometimes when I try to use the internet I get the message "..connection reset by peer".

Dragons' Den

They had this program on the telly tonight called "Dragons' Den" or somesuch. A bunch of steely eyed entrepreneurs get given the chance to be rude about pitches from people who want backing for an idea or product. Most interesting. The thing that struck me was that the people presenting didn't seem to be that good at sounding keen. Maybe it is the british reserve coming to the fore hear, but hardly any of them really sounded impressed by their own stuff. Maybe they were distracted by the big piles of money all round the room. I think my pitch would along the lines of "I'm thinking of beginning a lucrative career in theft, starting now". Then I'd grab one of the bundles of cash and make a run for it.

ToDo To Do

Spent today doing stuff. First thing I added a bunch of things to my task list and then over the day I knocked them off one by one. And they were proper tasks too, not "have lunch" or "go to the toilet".

Obsession

I'm playing around with some code for the Smartphone. The idea is to play the "Blackjack" (or Pontoon or 21) game on the phone. I've been given a program to start with and I'm knocking it into my kind of shape. As part of the program I've been given 52 card images. The images have corners which are round. But the "rounded off bits" aren't transparent. This means that when I show them on a non-white background they don't look right 'cos there are little white bits, three pixels in size, on each corner. I don't like this. It offends me.

So today I spent around an hour writing a program which reads in every card image and redraws the corners in a different colour so that I can make them transparent and get rid of the little white dots. This has no effect on the program at all. But I am happier. The question is; Does this make me a sad person? Oh, and please don't send me answers to this...

Wheel Man

Took number one son up to university today. I told him to take plenty of stuff, it seems silly to have equipment in his room which he can't use when he is away.

He took me at my word. The mudguards just about touched the wheels as our little car trundled up the motorway. And the car seemed a lit more lively on the way back.

Now we are back down to three at home.

Bulletin the Head

I got the new issue of the university magazine, "The Bulletin", today. At the bottom of the last page there is the message "We are always interested in ideas for stories"

How about four people and a dog who go round in a van solving mysteries?

Blogging Motivation

My blogging has been a bit sporadic of late. Not quite sure why this is, I think perhaps I've not been getting bored enough over the last few weeks. When I'm at home I can usually find something to occupy myself if I get bored. The last few days at work have been ultra busy (no -honest). But left alone for long enough I get bored and start thinking of stupid stuff. And thence comes a blog entry.

Hmm. Having said that I'm now worried that anyone reading future verbose blog posts might assume that I'm not doing something else which is more important. Why is life so complicated?

To Err is Human

I am very human. Some people are characterised by a mechanical efficiency which makes you think that they might actually be computer controlled. I use computers, but I am definitely not computer controlled. If only. Today I got all ready for my 12:15 lecture only to find out that it really took place at 12:15 yesterday. I managed to read the wrong row on a timetable and incorrectly set all my machinery which reminds me to do stuff. Sorry folks.

Pity I don't have a time machine so I could go back and give the lecture. In fact, thinking about it, I guess making a time machine is one of the few projects which will definitely come in on its deadline.

Through the Pain Barrier

I've done with marking. I've finished the stuff for this year. I've looked at hundreds of programs, exam questions and the like. I've rewarded myself with an M&M for each paper that I've marked. I've tried all kinds of motivational techniques. I've marked with music on and without. And now it is done. Hurrah. I'd be even more happy but for the fact that I've just received the request for the papers for the next round of exams.....

A Bright New Dawn at 5:15 pm

A new term started today. Students driven by an urge to learn descended on us to be given their apportioned pearls of wisdom. Me, I had the short straw and the 5:15 pm lecture slot. It seemed to go OK, with a reasonable turnout. I wrote some code live in the lecture (becuase I am brave/foolish) and it mostly did what I wanted. I think I told a couple of jokes, but the safety mechanism in my brain has blotted them out.

Plasma Power

Dad wants a plasma telly. He wants one which is big and posh. I've not got a plasma telly myself, can't afford it. Although I tell myself that I've not got one because the technology is still a bit under development the real truth is that I can't afford one yet. Today we went and looked at some. Very pretty and very large. Not many of them were showing pictures that did them justice. How much can you get from Sky golf or perhaps the menu screen of a DVD? But I must admit to quite fancying one now.

All the predictions of the future that I read in the sixties had us wearing one piece jump suits, surrounded by flat TV displays as big as a wall and flying round in hover cars. I guess one out of three isn't too bad. And I think I'd look pretty darned scary in a jump suit anyway....

Club of Science

Another Science Club talk today. I'd have thought that by now they would have got bored with me, but they keep asking me back. The talk I give is different each time, but mainly becuase it is based around the latest gadget that I happen to have brought with me.

This time, of course, I took Digby, my robot dog. This time he did a good turn. Instead of firing him up and demanding that he entertain us, instead I just turned him loose. Apart from a couple of attempts to fling himself off the table top, he behaved rather well. I ran a program that lets you see inside his head (and even what he is looking at) which looked quite good on the big screen. Then we tried the 20Q thing, which managed to guess "octopus" at a second attempt - which was quite impressive. All in all, a good time was had by all. I'm also available for Bar Mitzvahs and parties.

Backups are for Winps

A computer is a really good place to put all your information, indeed your entire life. This means that the very stuff of your existence is now on something moving at amazing speed whilst scant fractions of a millimetre away from total oblivion. Fortunately, we all know that hard disks hardly ever fail. Not even if you do stupid things with them like remove them from one machine and plug them into another. Except that sometimes they do. And then you are left flapping like those fish that you see which have been dragged out of the water and are now somewhat short of breath.

Fortunately I have a sort of backup. That is, I've backed up all the files that I think are important. This unfortunately raises the irritating possibility that files I didn't think are important might turn out to be later, but for now I suppose I'm going to have to live with it. The good news is that I seem to have a lot more free space now....

Down with the Tree

We have now taken down all the christmas decorations. All the trees and lights are safely hidden up in the loft, where we will probably never find them again. Downstairs we just have the crunching under foot of the stray bauble to remind us that it ever happened at all. I must admit that when the tree etc goes down I quite like to see the clean, tidy look of no tinsel draped over everything. We have eaten just about all the chocolates, we just have a huge chunk of christmas cake to get through to see the season off.

Back To Work

Well, it had to happen sooner or later. And it happened today. I had to go back to work. And that means marking. I think I've figured out the answer to making marking bearable though. It is that you mustn't try and do it all in one day. I think I've just tried this. My brain is presently in a puddle on the floor. I've not got to bend down, scoop it up and get it back into my head before it notices this.

No fun.

If you pace yourself and decide to do reasonable number each day you can almost remain sane.

Ho for the Sales

Rather than go back to work today we snuck off to the sales. Felt terrible about this but, since they opened today, you have to do what you have to do. And this time I actually did buy some clothes, including four pairs of trousers. Then on to the Swedish Furniture Shop to see what they had in store. Apparently nobody wants bright orange covers for their sofas. Which makes them very cheap. So we bought two. My little guvvy room is presently all aglow.

We also bought a rug for the living room, which number one son and number one daughter both don't like much. I think they have something against us making changes to their house. However, the fact that we have actually managed to unite them on something gives us hope for the future.

Drowning in Bank Holidays

We seem to be having a lot of bank holidays this year. They are usually in lieu of other bank holidays which should be on other days. Anyhoo, here we are on the 3rd of Jan. and we are on holiday again. This is going to make the run up to easter seem really tough.

Had a bunch of folks around and we played with some toys. The four lane racing car set that I got from dad really pulls its weight when you have a five year old to entertain. And me.

New to the Job

"Quick, throw her a piano!!"

"Is this your first day as a lifeguard Mr. Hodgkins?"

Quiet New Year

By means of cunning and luck we managed to get both children out of the house for new years eve last night. "Oh how sad" you might think. "Just the pair of you on New Year's Eve". Yep. Just us, three bottles of Bailys, numerous chocolates and stuff, and a thriller on the telly. Oh how terrible. How we suffered.

Then a gentle stroll through the fireworks just after the new year came in to fetch number one daughter. 2005 is looking good from here.