Return of the Son

Number one son came back today. Just when we thought it was safe. Unfortunately he arrived before I'd set up the recording studio in "his" room. Nothing says "welcome back" like a pile of stuff on top of your stuff. Anyhoo, it was nice to see him. He was tempted back on the promise of a trip to see one of the stars of his all time favourite movie, which he hasn't seen yet.

Pig Lodger

Got a new (albeit temporary) member of the family. It s a guniea pig we are looking after for a friend of number one daugher. It has the somewhat ambiguous name of "Io". Very handsome beast (for a pig), I'll post a picture when we can get it to keep still long enough to be photographed. We are not sure if it is a boy pig or a girl pig. Apparently you can spot a boy pig because they poo everywhere, whereas girl pigs just poo in one corner and keep the hutch tidy. And they iron. Number one wife and number one daughter are unanamous on these "facts".

At the moment Io has not pooed enough to allow a definitive judgement on gender. And I've not seen him/her ironing either.

Ebay Madness?

My ebay thingy arrived today, bang on time. Very well packed. Not new, but in perfect working condition with all the bits there. I've been thinking about this. I could have bought a new one from a company somewhere for a bit less money. My order would have been very small beer as far as they were concerned, and so if they make a mistake, send the wrong thing, or it arrives broken, I would have a "fun time" taking on their complaints/returns division and all that entails.

But this thing was a very important transaction as far as my seller is concerned. I know them directly, and if anything is wrong I will have someone to talk to who has a real stake in the sale. If it all goes pear shaped they have something considerable to lose, in the form of their hithertoo spotless rating. I got to wonder if this was actually a better way to make sure of customer satisfaction from the buyers point of view? Or am I just rationalising my stupid bidding habits?

- either way, at least I got another point for a good transation - 31 points now!

Wheely Brain

We got our new blue recycling bin today. Pop quiz. We have our bin emptied on Tuesday. So when do we leave our blue bin out?

Ebay Bidding Tips

Since I am now a seasoned Ebay player (got 30 points!) I thought I'd give you all a few tips about how to succeed on ebay.

1. Choose auctions that finish at strange times. Some things, like for example memory cards, are "auctioned" at regular intervals throughout the day. By setting your alarm and bidding in your pajamas at seven thirty on a Sunday morning you can shave two pounds fifty off that closing price.
2. Bid late. Don't show your hand by bidding early. Bid as late as possible, preferrably within a minute of the auction closing. Don't worry about your browser/network connection locking up at this point, this will hardly ever happen to you.
3. Bid a couple of quid more than the current bid. This means that you will hopefully "leapfrog" the other person who presently has the highest bid. If they have done the same, at least you are going to make someone else (the seller) a happy person.
4. Add a strange number to the pence part. Rather than bidding 10 pounds exactly, bid ten pounds and thirty seven pence. This also makes your paypal account numbers more interesting.
5. Watch the bids climb as the auction closes. If you have the winning bid at the moment you can watch as the other people (or their sniping software) ramp up to your value. If you need to, you can whack in another, slightly higher, bid to keep you in the running. Even if the thing isn't actually worth it.
6. Ignore words like "win" and "lost". This is not a game or competition. It is simply a way of getting stuff cheaper than any other. If the item is not worth having at the price, walk away. You can be sure that another, better, one will be available later anyway. Unless of course it becomes a matter of honour.
7. Look at the price of previously closed items, make sure that you are not paying over the odds. Check on Google and pricerunner, because these always have the lowest price. Except sometimes.

By cunning application of all these rules, today I managed to buy a second hand item at only twelve pounds more than the brand new price. Ho hum.

[ebay]
[bidding]

Dropping off the net

Dropped off number one son in his new abode in Durham. Lovely little house in a nice area but no internet. NO INTERNET!! I fully expect to find him camped outside Starbuks with a Pringle can and a notebook trying to hook onto their network so that he can read Slashdot. I wonder how fast they can get broadband put in?

Bin Philosophy

It has finally happened. After years of waiting we now have "wheely bins". These are bins on, surprise, wheels, which replace our old style, non-wheeled dustbins. The idea is that we wheel them to the kerb on the day the dustmen call, whereupon a cunning device empties them into the lorry, saving 17.5 seconds per house and allowing for for efficient refuse collection and better service all round. Hurrah.

I've been dreading them. For a start you only have the one bin. The colour leaflet is quite specific about what to do if you have too much rubbish to fit in it. The official advice is "keep the excess until next week". This advice, whilst workable in the short term, does have the potential for long term rubbish accumulation if you throw away as much as we do. Then there is the question of the path down the side of the house, which is not quite wide enough to support the bin at some points and has a sheer drop of at least three and a half inches down one side, which could lead to bin disasters that I'm not keen to contemplate.

But the final problem is the actual realisation of a philosophical question that has bothered me for years. We now have two perfectly serviceable dustbins to get rid of. But how do you throw away a used dustin? We could leave it outside for the bin men, but nothing will happen to it. It might get emptied, but that is not what we want. I think I might paint, in large friendly letters, "I am not a bin" on each of them and then leave them outside for collection. We shall see.

The Truth is Told

At the airport last week, in the duty free, I noticed that the fragrance division now has "mens perfume" and "ladies perfume" sections. No more of this "After Shave" rubbish, now the secret is out and us blokes are wearing stuff which is made in the factory next to the one which produces Chanel number 5. Perhaps this is part of a campaign to make bearded men smell nicer. I'm not convinced.

Evil Thoughts

Earlier this week I was surprised by the way that a whole bunch of speed bumps have vanished from the roads that I take to work. I was carefully slowing down and steering round things that weren't there any more. Very strange. Now some of the road around the missing speed bumps has been annotated in white spray paint with little lines and things like "3.5/4.2 x". I'm tempted to get a spray can and change some of the numbers, if they are replacing the speed bumps it might be fun to get one six feet high.

Then again, maybe not.

Great Cow Pictures Of The World

Here's mine:

A World First?

If you are wondering what is with all the tests and pictures (which are of my office and LA) then you are actually seeing history in the making here. I reckon that these are the first ever picture messages which have been sent to Flickr from an Imate Jasjar via the Orange phone network.

I spent little bursts of yesterday afternoon trying something, getting on with some work, having another idea, trying it again, and so on, until I found a combination of settings which let me both send messages and surf the interweb via the device.

I'm not sure if you would call it an accomplishment, but I would.

Although I might not mention it on my CV.

Final test for today

Final test for today
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

another test

another test
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

hotel view

hotel view
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

Plumbing with Jetlag

Got home from the PDC last night after a 20 hour journey from the states. As I had the ten minute shower I'd promised myself for the previous 10 hours I noticed that the shower unit would not turn off properly. It seems that the tap has worn out. This afternoon we went off for a drive and discovered that the local DIY store was having a 10% sale. Buoyed by my success repairing a drawer in the kitchen I decided to buy a replacement unit to fit. The old one was, well, very old, and I figured that a new one I could fit myself might even be cheaper than getting a plumber in to repair the fault.

Now with me jetlag is a bit like alcohol. It removes my inhibitions about doing something, whilst at the same time removing my ability to actually do it. So of course as soon as I got home it was into the bathroom and out with the big spanners. I had figured on a 20 minute job. Remove the old shower and drop in the new one. They were both the same brand and model. What could be simpler? Turns out that almost anything could be simpler. The old one would not come off the pipes. They use a powerful one way fitting which is very determinedly one way. After half an hour of heaving and pulling I had achieved nothing more than a bunch of skimmed knuckles, some outbursts that shocked number one son and a pile of dirt in the bath.

So I went and calmed down for a while, then fetched the hammer.... The new shower is in place now, and the bonus is that it is way better. I now have to get myself into a happy place regarding the possiblity of leaks (none at the moment but I'm a worrier). And now I'm off for a shower.

Preston Foster Lives!

When I came to the PDC in 2003 I noticed a star on the Hollywood Boulevard for a certain Preston Foster. I had no idea who he was and so I mentioned this in my blog. A (perhaps the) kind reader told me that he was an actgor in the 40's and 50's and also very active in the US Coastguard. I liked his style, and his name, so our pub nights back in Hull were consequently retitled Preston Foster Appreciation Society Meetings. It was therefore quite an emotional moment when I was able to return to the star on the pavement last night. (thanks to David for finding it).

I'm getting some T shirts made for the fan club, if you want to be an affiliated member let me know and I'll send you a shirt (at cost price of course). You can find the original post here.

Living with guilt, and an Imate

I've been playing more with my Imate Jasjar device. It really is nice. I've also been feeling rather guilty. All around me there are folks muttering that I'm lucky to have one and there are more deserving people etc etc.

I'm trying not to care.  I'm going to work off my guilt by writing a bunch of bits and bobs for the jasjar and putting them out there for everyone else. And what's wrong with nice things happening to me anyway. The only problem now is getting it (and the ten or so T shirts I seem to have aquired) home.

Universal Fun

Went out last night to Universal Studios. It was the PDC05 party and we had the place to ourselves (although there were quite a few of ourselves there). We went on a number of rides. The Terminator one was even better than I remembered, I reckon that they must have jazzed it up a bit recently. However, the scariest part of the evening was hearing the Windows startup sound from all the speakers around the park. It was really strange to suddenly hear a very familiar sound in a totally different context. Who would have thought that the theme park ran windows?

I promised Andy that I'd put this picture in the blog. I took a couple of other photographs which kind of came out ok:

The boardwork at universal.

Artistic Fountains.

 

The Best Gadget yet?

My chum from Microsoft, Andy, has just pulled off what I thought was impossible and found a way to get me one of the Imate devices. What a dude! The device itself is lovely to behold. I've been too busy doing things like going to sessions and writing blog posts to do much with it yet, but first impressions are very good. The machine is actually the first Microsoft based 3G phone. Of course it works as a 2G phone as well. The big screen is well pretty and the overall finish of the device is lovely. Not particularly shiny as such, but I can live with that. It alslo runs the latest Windows 5 moble operating system (it is the first device ever with that as well) and I'm really looking forward to writing code for it.

I'll have a more detailed review, with pictures, when I can get around to having a proper play. I popped the SIM from my UK Orange phone into the device and it found a mobile network, but I'm too mean to make any calls. The only slight problem is that I managed to use my well developed stupidity skills to stop Outlook from synching with my new toy. This means that I can't make it my main mobile phone just yet, as I can't get my address book into it.

Burgers for Tea

Went to an authentic burger joint for tea. You'll probably guess the name from the below..

They even had the jukebox things on each table

I had a plain (!) burger. This was around two inches thick and packed with beef and lots of other stuff, a large amount of which ended up down my shirt. Paul ate his burger with complete elegance and in record time. Mine ended up looking as if it had been savagely beaten. Tasted nice though.

A Day at the Beach

Another day out today. (I'm feeling a bit guilty about this, but the conference, and thus the work, start tomorrow - and we have been talking about Slide 6 and a number of other work related things, honest. Anyhoo, we thought we would go and dip our toes into the Pacific, an ocean I've never seen before. So we did. After a taxi ride through Beverley Hills we made it to Santa Monica pier.

I love taking pictures through cab windows. When we got to the pier we saw a sign which basically made the whole day worthwhile there and then....

I wish I'd been around to see him in his prime. The view from the pier was superb, but we decided not to dip our toes in the water.

On the pier they had an amusement arcade, where we were able to continue the pinball thread that we started earlier.

Then we went for a walk along the front. Some of the hotels looked really neat.

Then the lure of the shops overcame us and we spent a happy couple of hours bending plastic. My favourite place in all the world is probably now Circuit City....

Then it was onto the bus for the trip home. An LA tip, use the public transport. The trip back from the beach took a little longer, but cost a huge amount less. And the slice of LA that you see is amazing. My favourite bit was when a huge bunch of schoolkids got on and packed us out, one of them clutching a huge book marked "Geometry". I'm sure the bus nearly fell over as it went round the corner. You get to see all the sites, and do a quiz on the in-flight mass transit TV. Great fun and amazing value. YOu can get a weekly pass which lets you do this all round LA LA, for 16 dollars. A snip.

Hollywood Bowling

Just next to the hotel is an underground bowling alley. We were invited there tonight. Free beer and food. Count me in. Now, I'm no great bowler (perhaps I shouldn't do it left handed). John, who heads up the Visual Studio team at Microsoft, is though. Very impressive. The ball goes where he sends it. Whereas when I bowled it seemed to have a strange affinity with the gutters. Never mind.

The beer bottles were shaped like bowling pins, which I thought was well cool. And the food was ace, I had the best hotdogs I've ever tasted..

Down these mean lanes a man must bowl. Note that they were not actually at an angle like this, but for me they might as well have been....

The balls came in different flavours. I tried blackcurrent and melon, but neither worked for me... The place also had a very old pinball table. Andy and I gave it a bit of a thrashing.

If only I was a pinball wizard. I particularly liked the way that the zeros on the score displays were just fixed in place so that the lowest score was always ten. This indicates a degree of pinball score inflation over the years....

I thought the signs for the bowling alley were cool.

I wasn't, and I didn't. But it didn't matter. I was having too much of a good time to care. Thank you Mr. Microsoft for a great night out.

The Odd Tour

We went on the "Odd Tour" of LA today. This eschewed the touristy places for something a lot more interesting. First stop was the Bradbury Building. This was built on a "money no object" basis for a rich bloke around the end of the 1800s. It is famous for many things, amongst them being featured in the film "Blade Runner".

The interior is lit by a huge skylight and features elaborate decoration and some water powered lifts. Very impressive.

Then, for lunch, we went on the Chinatown for some Dim Son (no jokes about number one offpsring here..). They work on an "bring it all along, all you can eat, basis and all the food was interesting, with some of it delicious. They also had tanks in the wall from which you could select whatever took your fancy.

After that it was on to the Watts Towers. These were built by one man out of bits and bobs over a thirty three year period. The artist, Simon Rodia, just put them there beceause it seemed a good idea at the time.

He used no scafolding, and bent and glued the items together with plaster. Something must have worked though, since they have survived a number of earthquakes. The towers are decorated with broken glass from bottles, crockery, and all sorts.

Then, with nary a pause to catch our breath, we moved on to the "Museum of Jurassic Technology". This is a strange place. A strangely odd slice of out and out weirdness all on its own. It is as if art and science met up, art gave science a serious kicking and then threw it out of the window. Where science landed, they built this museum. Inside this unassuming front you can find things that will make you wonder. Big time.

I have no idea what this is. And I don't care. If you go to LA you must go to this museum. It is as simple, or as complicated, as that. So good I bought the T shirt. Then, after brief trip to try and get closer to the Hollywood sign, we headed back to the hotel. Whowever dreamed up this take on the place has my thanks and admiration.

First Day in LA

Because of time zone fun and games today is going to be very long. We gained 8 hours when we did our journey, so after 20 hours of travel we have arrived at our destination in mid afternoon. Because it is LA the weather is lovely, and so we went out to take some pictures.





The Kodak theatre.

Nip-Tuck season premier.

The sign...

On the Flight

Because I am tall the very nice people in charge of the flight let me in to the front where the bigger seats are.

This is the view from my bigger seat. Bonus points for telling me what the film is..

On the way we flew over Greenland. Those little white bits are icebergs.

an alternative method?

an alternative method?
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

On the way to check in I spot a method of transport which might be quicker. But then again perhaps not....

going somewhere slow

going somewhere slow
Originally uploaded by RobMiles.

Today we are going to LA. This involves starting at 4:00 am in the morning. This is what Humberside Airport looks like around that time...

Fountainatious Sunsets

Went out on our travels today. Not very far though, since there is a really interesting place called Whitley Court just down the road. With a fountain they turn on at lunchtime:

There is also a church with a very impressive ceiling:

..and of course another sunset..

Worcester Source

The morning was a bit misty, but there was promise of good things to come.

Misty Morning

Then we went off down to Worcester to do some exploring. We went to the Commandery, a very significant place if you are into the Civil War (this sounds like the soldiers were actually polite to each other – but this is not the case). The Commandery was where King Charles II hung out just before the final battle of the war, when his forces were crushed by Cromwell and his New Model Army.

After lunch we went on to the Pottery Museum. Worcester has been involved in the pottery trade for hundreds of years, with skilled craftsmen turning out high quality porcelain for kings and queens amongst other people. No more. There are a handful of artists producing beautiful, but very exclusive, painted things, but hardly anything else is going on.. Last time we came, a few years ago, there were people glazing, firing, finishing and whatever. Next time we come I expect to find a block of luxury flats and a “pottery experience” where we can marvel at the things that they used to make when we were still in the business of manufacturing things. I couldn’t help but wonder what happened to all the people who worked there.

The good news is that we did get a nice sunset.

Daring and Bravery and Rain

Number one daughter did her brave thing today. She has been gathering sponsors for her abseil from the Humber Bridge and today she had to actually do the deed. I think the worst bit is probably just as you go over the edge, but she managed it and Dove House Hospice is now a few hundred quid better off thanks to her efforts.

Just twenty feet or so to go...

Once we had seen the display of bravery we had to scoot off to our holiday cottage for a few days "Away From It All" (tm). We set off in sunshine, and arrived in a cloudburst. I hope this is not an omen...

Happy Birthday with dogs

Number one wife and I are having a few days away from home. Before that we have number one's birthday to deal with. Having a son who is not only old enough to answer back but starting to become right more often than not is rather disconcerting.

I've started being slightly nicer to him (but only slightly) because, as the saying goes, it is the your kids who get to pick your nursing home....

To start with, we got him a lovely cake:



Just right for a budding twenty year old.... There are some embarrasing pictures involving number one son and rubber gloves too, but I'm saving them for later to make sure that I get a really nice nursing home.....


The day was considerably enlivened by a visit from Jake, the best behaved dog I've ever seen.



Your friend for life, as long as you keep throwing that ball.....

"You can't save everyone Alan"

Been to an exam board today. And getting stuff sorted out for the start of next term.

At the end of the Thunderbirds movie Jeff Tracy turns to his son Alan and, as the music swells up in the background, imparts a very important message:

"You can't save everyone Alan"

I'm trying to get everything ready all at once becuase I'm going to be out of the office for a while. I've come to the conclusion that Jeff is right (as well he might be). I can't get everything done before I go. So I'm just making sure that the most improtant bits are in place and I'll deal with the rest when I get back.

Blreary Eyed, but it was worth it

A bit bleary eyed this morning. Mainly on account of being up until one am last night getting a Playstation Portable on day of release. I wonder if I am getting too old for such exploits, but then again I truly hope not.

The machine is very nice. It fulfills my two major criteria: it is shiny and not that many people in the UK have got one yet. I think that will change in the future though, as the marketing gathers pace and the appeal of the machine itself (which is considerable) starts to shine through.

I've bought some games as well. I'm not usually that good at video games. I play through all the easy, "learning", levels of a game and then give up when they get a bit taxing. At least with the PSP I can put a video on at that point....