TimsterC

Well I’m here in Orlando at Lotusphere 2009, a few beers last night helped me sleep a bit longer. Two laps of the hotel walkway helped me burn off some of the beer from last night. Jogging that early in the morning is really good fun, the steam rising from the swimming pools and the mist along the river are great mood setters. Listening to Lilly Allen on the iPhone seemed to work this morning, some nice rhythms to run too. Not too fast and nothing slow that has you walking.

I’ve decided not turn on the mobile phone reception on the iPhone this week.  I don’t want lots of charges for calls to me at 09:00 GMT arriving at 04:00 EST, and then more charges when they leave you a message. I still don’t get how the mobile phone companies get away with that roaming charges stuff. It’s pure criminal from a customers point of view.

Looking forward to the rest of the day, I have 45 laptops to check and make sure they are working and then lab staff to assist with whatever problems they find if they come in to check their labs. After that is the mandatory staff briefing for all our lab staff at 6pm followed by the Beach Party by the poolside of the Swan and Dolphin hotels. We’ll probably follow that with a little karaoke in Kimonos before heading back to the hotel for another fitful nights sleep.

That is of course if all 45 laptops work. If they don’t it’s a case of keep going until they do work…… RedBull and ProPlus anyone?

Drove up to Orrell tonight. Writing this from our friends iPod touch. Nice bit of kit and not too bad to type on. Trying to get used to this so I when/if I get an iPhone.

I had to go to the fracture clinic today to find out why my wrist still hurts 4 months after breaking it in a rugby match.
I happened to be in the right place at the right time on a rugby pitch for once, and caught the ball after the first kick-off of the game. Catching the ball I managed to break a bone in my hand/writst and I did the only thing that was sensible to do at the time, I played on for the rest of the match.
Well I wasn’t about to leave my team down to 14 men after only 30 seconds of an 80 minute game. Where’s the glory in that? I iced it at half time and it took me ages to change and shower after the game. I got some food and then drove some of the team mates back to the club house, drove home and explained to the long suffering Mrs C.
A discussion then ensued about going to the hospital that night or waiting till the morning. Needless to say that Mrs C. quite rightly won and off we went to the hospital. 1 1/2 hours later I was walking home with my arm in plaster. 3 weeks until the rugby tour to Barcelona. To say I was down, was a bit mild.
It’s been hurting again since I started playing pre-season rugby again. So I booked myself into the fracture clinic at Frimley Park Hospital as I want to know why it’s still painful and I’ve lost a bunch of range in all movement axis.
The reason this article is titled “Well it’s we on holiday” is that it is. Wet that is. I’m camping with a bunch of buddies and I didn’t sleep well last night. Too hot (Mrs C has bought the thick duvet with us), too much rain and too much on my mind to be able to sleep. And to top it all I woke up at 5am with a bitching hangover. Self inflicted injury, but none the less, definitely not feeling at my best. So I’m awake at 5am and the rain drumming on the tent roof is nagging at that little part of your brain that controls your bladder. I’m going to have to get up and got to the toilet, in the rain, across a field and at 5am.
When I get to hospital at 9:40am they tell me it’s not still broken, (why did I think that?) and it’s probably tendons that have not healed properly, so they are sending me for emergency physiotherapy sessions. They will see me again in 8 weeks time to make sure the physiotherapists have not totally destroyed my wrist and that they don’t need to operate.
Argh.
So I have to wait for a physio appointment now. I know this is going to hurt. A lot. So I’ll keep you all posted so that you can all laugh along as I take it in good humor. Yeah right.

Anyway, back out into the sunshine rain. AGAIN

I was recently alerted to that fact that Rockstar Games are soon to be releasing to the world Grand Theft Auto IV. This massive game genre has generated good and bad press probably in equal numbers. I love it for the game technology alone. The ability to go through the environment and roam around and do nothing but drive, ride or fly about without any limits is amazing.
To my delight I have found that Rockstar in their infinite wisdom have deemed it suitable to give away three classic games from their website.
GTA, GTA2 and Wild Metal. All for the PC and all for free. I know these games are now classics, based on modern technology and gaming stuff, but download and play GTA if you do nothing else before you die. It’s the single game that turned the gaming world on it’s head. Even before “id” and all that had a clue what they doing in Wolfenstein and Doom and the 3D world. These guys stayed 2D and went free form and blew the gaming world apart.

http://www.rockstargames.com/classics

Still no confectionary and/or junk between meals. Yipeee. Still the same weight though. Boooooo!
Drinking lots of water instead of snacking. I’m sure it’s going to help soon, but at the moment is just makes me wee like a race horse. ;o)

New car arrived yesterday. Pics on webshots. http://community.webshots.com/user/tcsoft
Also went to the gym to sweat a few pounds off before dinner.

Rugby tomorrow is in Wandsworth against BEC Old Boys so that should be a laugh. I don’t know what possition they might want me to play, but I hope it’s blind side flanker.

Working from home today on writing up a project. Very dull but needs to be done.

I’m still waiting to see if the job I have been waiting for gets approved, but I heard something good on this today so it seems to be moving along at last. I’m so ready for a new challenge at the moment. The current job seems to be dull and dragging a bit. Still it pays the mortgage. “I wonder if we’ll see the interest rate cut that was announced yesterday by the Bank of England? I bet not.”

A major flood hit on Monday evening .

Epicentre: Rotherham, England.

News of the disaster was swiftly carried abroad by the town’s 35,000 racing pigeons, as victims were seen wandering around aimlessly muttering ‘fookinhell’ and ‘chuffinnorah’.

The flood decimated the town, causing £30 worth of damage. Several priceless collections of mementos from the Balearic Isles and the Spanish Costa’s were damaged beyond repair. Three areas of historical burnt out cars were disturbed.

Many locals were woken well before their Giro arrived. Radio station RotherFM reported that hundreds of residents were confused and bewildered, still trying to come to terms with the fact that something interesting had happened in Rotherham. One resident, 15 year old mother of 3, Tracy Sharon Braithwaite said: ‘It was such a shock, my little Chardonnay-Madonna came running into my bedroom crying. The twins, Tyler-Morgan and Megan-Storm slept through it all. I was still shaking when I was watching Kilroy the next morning’. Locals were determined not to be bowed, as looting, muggings and car crime carried on as normal.

So far, whilst the British Red Cross has managed to ship 4000 crates of Sunny Delight to the area to relieve the suffering of stricken locals, rescue workers searching through the rubble have found large quantities of personal belongings including, benefit books, jewellery from Elizabeth Duke at Argos, and bone China from Pound-stretcher.

Can You Help?

Please respond generously to our appeal for food and clothing for the victims of this disaster.

Clothing is needed most of all, especially:
· Fila or Burberry baseball caps
· Kappa tracksuit tops (his or hers)
· Shell suits (female)
· White sports socks
· Rockfort boots or any other product sold in Primark

Culturally sensitive food parcels are harder to put together, but your efforts will make a difference.

Microwave meals, tinned baked beans, ice-cream and cans of Colt 45 or Special Brew are ideal.

Please do not give anything that requires peeling.

Remember:
· 22p buys a biro for filling in compensation claims
· £2 buys chips, crisps and a blue fizzy drink for a family of 9
· £5 will pay for a packet of B&H and a lighter to calm a child’s nerves

Urgently required: Tinned whippet food. Bones for Jack Russells

Please do not send tents for shelter. The sight of such posh housing will cause residents to believe they have been forcebly relocated to Sheffield.

Marissa and I have just returned from Colin and Ange’s wedding in Scotland. What a great weekend and fantastic weather. We had a great time catching up with old friends and making some new ones.
The pictures will be online soon and I’ll post a link to them here.

Congratulations to Angela and Colin for a great weekend and a fantastic wedding. We love you both and wish you all the best.

A friend of mine has recently passed his motorbike test, so he called me to ask for some advice on which bike he should get. I asked him what he wanted to do with the bike and where and when he thought he would ride it. His answer was interesting.
"I want it to ride to and from work (Paddington in London) and I’m not having a Japanese bike."

Hmmm, That’s going to be interesting then.

"Oh, and I really like the look of the BMWs."

Ah, well there we have a problem then. Personally I think that buying a BMW bike as a first bike would be a mistake. They are nice bikes, if you like that sort of thing, and very capable. But not the sort of bike I would want to ride into London every day. They are big, heavy and expensive to buy and fix when/if you drop it. My recommendation would be to buy something like a trailie type bike as they are very maneuverable and light for use in the city. Anything below 600cc would be ideal for this and would not cost a fortune as a first bike and insurance would be reasonable too.
I also point him to the www.bikemagazine.com website to check out the bike selector pages.

So a few days I instant message my friend to ask him how he’s getting on with looking at the bike shops and I get a very coy message back that says something like "The dirty deed is done"

Cool, what have you got? Well….

I know already that the he’s gone a bought a BMW and that the 40-45 minutes I spent on the phone with him was wasted time and effort.

So a BMW R1200GS now sits on his drive and I guess that he has paid in excess of £7000, from a BMW dealer, for it. I have no idea what a brand new rider would have to pay for insurance, but my guess is not much change out of £500 -£750 a year for fully comp insurance. Plus all the riding gear to go with it, and you’re looking a the thick end of £8000.

Phew, not my idea of "easy access" to the biking world.

But the thing that worries me the most, is that I know that everyone drops a bike in their motorcycle career. I just hope that this guy does not drop his bike anytime soon. I have no idea what BMW charge for replacing the cylinder heads, but I bet it’s not cheap. I would also reason that the insurance company are going to be non too impressed with that bill either, so his insurance will go up, and in turn mine will too.

So I guess the moral of this story is, for me at least, don’t offer advice to your friends as they probably won’t use it. Even if you do have 15+ years experience in the subject. 

We have a friend / colleague staying with us at the moment, before he has to go back to Uni in Loughborough. Last night on the way home we talked about coming into work today on the ZX-10R. Nice idea, but it didn’t happen. The only reason we didn’t clad ourselves in cow this morning and hoon down the M3 to Winchester? His BIG head is the problem, I simply don’t have a helmet that will fit him. This is a first for me, but I guess it was bound to happen some time. I was really looking forward to taking him round my favourite set of bends and then blatting down the motorway.

Never mind, maybe in another life. 

Now I have to admit that is a totally sad post.

My wife was at a firends hen party on Saturday night and stayed over so I hot footed it to Blocbkbuster and hired Tomb Raider : Legend on the XBOX for the weekend.

OMG, I started playing at about 19:30 and finally went to bed at 03:30 on Sunday morning. I’ve not played any of the other Tomb Raiders and I have to say that it’s all a bit "samey".

It reminds me of one of the 007 games I played. Go here and solve this, go there and do that. It very linear, but good fun along the way. Some of the puzzles are a bit enfuriating, but the medium level is way too easy. I guess I mighte have to do it all again on the hard level. Finding all the stuff in Croft Manor is a nice little side game, but also very easy once you get into the mindset.

Once I’m all the way through it on "medium" I’ll see if I can find all the tokens in all the levels and see what that gives me.

I know that these games must cost a fortune to produce on PC, PS2, PSP, X-BOX and X-BOX 360 but can’t they spend a bit more time making the game longer. 8 levels is not enough and if it wasn’t for the tokens to find, I’d only want to play this for about 2-3 days.

All in all, I’m glad I rented it and didn’t buy it. In my opinion it’s not worth the £30 ish that they are asking for it.

But I still have to finish it, so I’ll you know how I get on.