News/General

From Bottleneck.org

Steve's Laws of Burgers

1. A burger comprises, at the minimum, meat and bun.
2. Other toppings are optional.
3. There is freedom in bread choice.
4. A burger should be able to be hand-held.
5. It should be possible for a normal person to take a bite clean through the buns and the contents.
6. A burger must not require use of a knife and fork, and must stand upright without the assistance of a skewer.
7. Content spillage is acceptable, but only in limited amounts.
8. The burger and bun must retain their structural integrity whilst being eaten.
9. A burger does not require you to answer the question of how you would like it cooked. It is not a steak.

I hope that clears the matter up.

Honeymoon (part II)

Hi,

Just a quick map of the places we visited on our honeymoon. I'll probably add some tracks of the various drives we did at some point too.

spEak You're bRanes

"A collection of ignorance, narcissism, stupidity, hypocrisy and bad grammar.

All the comments quoted were found on the BBC "Have Your Say" site. Yes, people really have written them. On purpose as far as I can tell."

http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/

Album Covers

This stolen from Iain Tatch who also stole it from AndyC.

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How to design your own album cover

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random

The first article title on the page is the name of your band. You can remove bits in brackets - eg. "(Seinfeld epsode)" - if you like, or you can leave them in.

2. http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3

The last four words of the very last quotation is the title of your album. You can use the last three or five words if it sounds better.

3. http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/

The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. If it won't let you save the pic (if this is the case, it will call the file "spaceball.gif"), press shift and print screen to take a screenshot, then paste it into the program.

4.Use your graphics programme of choice to throw them together, and post the result. You can get fonts from www.dafont.com.

5. Write a blurb about your album's musical content (optional).

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Inspired!

Let it Snow

Good morning!

Well, it's been a little while since I've done much in the way of updating my site, so it seemed it was about time.

First of all, I've finally got around to booking my Christmas skiing holiday, which marks the welcome return of the super skiing countdown banner

(no longer available)

Well worth the cost of a ski holiday just to be able to use that at the top of the page again, I'm sure you'll agree.

So as you can see, I'll be off to Serre Chevalier, in particular to Villneuve, for a week in a catered chalet over Christmas with a couple of my friends. We just need to watch the snow reports now!

So, Christmas is coming along and I'm happy to say I've already pretty much finished my Christmas shopping. I've one more gift to buy, plus wrapping paper and cards, and then I'm all done! That also means that fairly shortly I'll also be able to pull out my dusty bottleneck.org Brick Testament Advent Calendar, my personal Christmas countdown with images from the utterly fantastic Brick Testament, an enaging rendition of the bible in Lego. I'll be plugging them extensively, including adding their link over in my links section. For those who've not seen it before and simply can't wait until December 1st, here's a sneak preview of the first day, click on the image to see it full size, or read the full nativity story at The Brick Testament:

(no longer available)

As much to pad out the banner space on the home page, I've popped the details of my engagement back up there, this time with a link to more details about the wedding, though I must admit I've not added an awful lot of detail just yet!

Not many more changes on the site at the moment - I've added a few more things to the Recipe Collection but that's about it. Life's going pretty well for me at the moment, though I'm swamped with work and don't seem to be getting through it very quickly. I hope you're all well, and a quick mention to Richard and Sarah, who should be having their first child any moment now, to Peter and Katherine and to Mark and Sarah, who will be having their second over the next couple of weeks, and to Lynne and Matt, who're just recently pregnant with their first! Good luck to all of you ... sincerely!

Pea Soup

I was driving in to work the other day in what can be described as a light fog. The headlights of oncoming vehicles passing the street furniture made some rather pretty patterns on the mist, and it crossed my mind that it would be a lovely, but nigh-on impossible, thing to photograph.

So, we reach the motorway, and my passenger Ruth comments on the number of people who are showing their rear fog lights. Having recently passed her driving test, Ruth is quite familiar with the highway code, and pointed out that foglights should be shown when visibility is less than 100m. Since visibility today was getting on for half a mile, she was naturally perplexed as to why so many people had their rear foglight turned on, particularly as she found it quite distracting and dazzling.

The answer is, of course, that they're idiots. Now this doesn't wind me up particularly, I've got used to keeping the bright light out of my direct line of vision, and I've accepted the fact that, at the first hint of a bit of mist, some people will turn on the fog light - because that's what it's for, surely? I've even accepted that fact that, as recently, when visibility is reduced to about 50 meters by a torrential downpour, some people won't turn on their fog light - after all, that's for use in fog, right?

What did get my goat, though, was the car I saw with its front fog lamps turned on. I mean really - were you struggling to see the road?

Now, this morning I was awoken to the sound of foghorns on Southampton Water. Note the subtlety with which that is phrased - I was not awoken by the sound of foghorns, merely to the sound of foghorns - they're not invasive to the extent that they keep you awake, and in fact they're rather a nice, mellow sound, and is one of the reasons I like living here. So it was with no surprise that when I peeled back the curtains this morning I found I could barely see the other side of the street (it seems that the captains of ocean-going container vessels know exactly when it's appropriate to use their fog 'lights'!) As I sipped my morning coffee, content in the knowledge that I had a day off work, and no need to leave the house today, I smiled at the thought of all the happy motorists who will get in their car this morning and punch the fog light button on with great satisfaction - finally, unbeknownst to them, appropriately.

Notice

Mouth ulcers suck.

That is all.

Up to Date

Well, I've finally got all of my recent photographs online and up to date, the latest addition being pictures from the Renault World Series at Donington Park recently. Unfortunately, I'm bound to take more pictures some time soon!

Since my write-up of my trial flying lesson has dropped off the bottom of the blog now, and as I'd quite like to keep a diary as I learn to fly (assuming I ever do learn!), I've also linked it from Learning to Fly - entry 0 - I'll put a contents page on the front of it and add entries as I learn.

Personally, things are settling down a little at the moment. We'll be getting a new garage door fitted on 2^nd October, which will be welcome after the vandalism it suffered. Ruth and I will probably start looking for a honeymoon in earnest pretty soon (what is the flying time to earnest anyway...? ho ho ho!) which will be the last of the major elements of the wedding sorted out at least to some degree - that's not to say I expect it all to be easy from now on!

Events-wise, things are quieting down there too - I've got a trip home to my parents' place coming up, a weekend away caving in Wales, and then I'm pretty much free for the rest of the year until Christmas - to be honest, that's welcome, I'm starting to feel like I've been doing too much living lately! It's also good practice for if I ever do learn to fly, and I'm too poor to do anything else ;)

Anyway, that's about it for now!

Renault World Series

Just a note to say I spent the weekend at the Renault World Series race at Donington Park this weekend, and saw plenty of excellent racing - unfortunately that means I have still more photographs to put up online soon! I think I may have to spend some evenings this week working though them all. Watch this space!

Come Fly With Me

Well, on Saturday morning I had my trial flying lesson, and I'm pleased to say that, while it was less exciting, in an adrenaline-pumping way, than I'd expected, it was certainly a lot of fun.

The day started at 8am on Saturday morning with a quick ground briefing about how aeroplanes work, after which we piled Ruth into the back seat, me into the left seat and the instructor into the right of a Piper Warrior II PA28 161. We took off from HMS Daedalus (now called Lee-on-the-Solent Airfield) on an "Explorer" trial flight from Carill Aviation at about 8:30am on Saturday morning. It was a beautifully clear and sunny day, blue skies without a cloud in sight, and no wind to speak of. The takeoff from Daedalus takes you out directly over the beach and into the Solent, so it's a beautiful spot for it.

The instructor took us up to between 1600 and 2000 ft, then demonstrated the controls and overflew us around Portsmouth for a while, a great place to do this sort of thing, as you get the scenic view of the coastline, Isle of Wight and the Solent, as well as getting a good from-the-air look at the Naval Dockyard.

After this it was over to me to take the controls for a little while. I must admit, I struggled to get the feel of them at this point, and was quite jerky on the controls - this I think was partly due to trying to be a bit too clever and perform nice, coordinated turns (a coordinated turn is when you apply sufficient rudder in a banked turn to keep the nose of the plane pointing in the direction of the turn, thus avoiding slip - it's not too easy for a novice!) I also got told by the instructor to stop looking at the instruments and look out of the window more - both to enjoy the view, and get my visual cues about what the plane was doing. I guess that habit came from playing Microsoft Flight Simulator a bit too much, where the view out of the "window" gives you no sensible information at all!

After bimbling about over the Solent and the Isle of Wight for a little while, the instructor took the controls and bought us in for a landing at Bembridge Airport, Isle of Wight. We sat and had a cup of coffee and a chat. I explained how surprised I was that there was so little need to continually re-trim the plane, but the instructor did say that it was a particularly calm day. He also told me not to worry about performing coordinated turns, and instead to just throw the plane about a bit and enjoy it.

By 9:35am we were taking off from Bembridge again. The instructor put the plane in a climb, gave me control, and told me to take it up to about 2000 ft, level out, and trim for level flight. I was quite surprised how easily that came, getting the trim correct in particular. That's quite difficult on a flight simulator, because the joystick always pushes back with a constant force for a given deflection - so the process becomes iterative - trim a bit, ease the joystick back towards the centre, see how the plane responds, trim again... In a real plane, it's so simple - you're maintaining pressure on the controls to keep level flight, and as you trim the plane you feel that back-pressure decrease until the controls feel light again - at which point, you're trimmed. It took me about a second to re-trim the plane for it's new level attitude, it was so natural.

So, I played around a bit more with the plane, and both enjoyed it more and felt smoother at the controls once I'd stopped worrying about the technicalities. After that the instructor popped us in to controlled airspace to look at my home in Hamble (most interesting listening to all the radio chatter from Southampton) and then it was back to Lee-on-the-Solent.

All in all, I think I'd rather like to learn properly - as the instructor pointed out, the total cost would be of the order of £6500, which is similar to the cost of a second hand car - it's also something I could save for reasonably easily if I wanted to. I also like the idea of one day being able to drop my career and just do something like flight instruction to bring in enough cash to get by - who knows? Either way, though, it'll have to wait until after the wedding!

Photographs from the day are here!

Expelliarmus!

Good morning,

Well, as you can probably tell, I've been a bit Harry Potter obsessed over the last week or so. I did, of course, read the final book on Saturday and (don't worry, no spoilers here) suffice it to say I thought the book itself a little dull, with the exception of the last few chapters of action, which wound up the series very well, I thought. I think I'd have preferred it not to have the last three words of the book, though...

Also this weekend we arranged a date for our wedding, having choosen a reception venue and spoken to the church, so it looks like being 26th July 2008. It's nice that things are finally moving.

Sunday was a trip to Longleat, which was my first ever trip to a safari park. It was all rather fun, and photographs will be online shortly.

Hope you're all well,

Mud, mud, mud

Well, the BTCC weekend at Donington was all good fun, pictures are available here. We did have to curtail the weekend a little, as the rain on Sunday simply got too heavy around lunch time. Despite the mud bath that constituted a camp site, however, we did have a good time - the barbeque worked well! All that remains is to organise a trip to Snetterton for a couple of weekends' time. With any luck the weather will improve.

Wedding arrangements are going along - we're viewing a number of venues over the next few days, so hopefully by the end of the weekend we can make some decisions about what we're doing and where we're going.

Anyway, that's all for now!

Holiday

Hello,

Well, since I last wrote I've been away on my holiday to France - photos here - where it was pretty much universally rainy and grey. That being said, it was still a nice relaxing week off work, so I didn't really mind too much. Now I'm back, we're going to get on with booking another holiday for the end of August - probably Kefalonia or Crete for a week.

Touring Car events are coming along. Myself and two friends are off to Donington to camp for the weekend next weekend - hopefully the weather will improve a little over the next week. I've got hold of a £8 Tesco round barbeque, which will be good for almost disposable cooking goodness. Should be fun whatever happens - and hopefully I'll be doing it all again a fortnight later at Snetterton, with a few other people.

The big hassle at the moment is weddings. We were hoping to get married in the church local to where Ruth lived, however they have been very difficult to pin down, as they were expecting some building work to be taking place at some ill-defined point in future time. They have now decided that this is likely to be over the month we wish to get married, so it's looking like we need a plan B. We did consider doing the whole thing abroad, but the cost becomes prohibitive if you want to bring any reasonable number of guests out with you. So the current plan is to try to do it in our local parish church, with the reception at a nearby country hotel. That could well be feasible - I'll keep you up to date!

Getting on a bit

Good day,

Well, much has happened since I last wrote anything of substance here. Perhaps most notably, I recently turned 30, which is not really the drama people seem to think it is. I didn't do much with the day itself other than chill out and relax, and have a meal out in the evening, but there was much revelry the day before!

The previous day had been the stag "do" of a friend of mine. The format of the day was to spend a few hours racking karts around at ~60mph on the Thruxton Karting Circuit, followed by a curry and a few beers.

The karting took the form of an 8 minute practice session straight out from the pits, followed by two 8 lap heats with grid starts, and a 12 lap final with grid start. That might not sound a vast amount, but believe me, it feels like plenty of action! I didn't make a fool of myself overall, despite getting well out of shape in the first heat and ending up in last position, two laps down! I started the final in 11th place, and finished in 6th overall, so I'm reasonably pleased with that, for a complete novice at these things.

I can't recommend this karting lark enough, it was an absolutely fantastic afternoon's entertainment!

The evening was spent have a beer or two, a curry at Kuti's, and then on to the classic Frog and Frigate for much dancing on tables! I think I got back into my house at 3:30am, so a good night all round!

Also, for my 30th birthday, I was bought a trial flying lesson at Carill Aviation. The lesson will take the format of a 30 minute ground briefing, a 30 minute flight to the Isle of Wight, a touch-and-go, 30 minutes at the controls, a landing on the Island for a coffee and slice of cake, then the flight back to Lee-on-the-Solent. So pretty comprehensive an experience! Suffice it to say, I'm looking forward to it significantly, and hope to actually have the lesson August 11th.

I'm off on holiday for a week from Wednesday, which will be a welcome break from work and period of relaxation. I'll also be going to Wimbledon on the following Thursday, all being well. After that, there are the usual numerous BTCC events coming along, so still a busy time for me. With any luck I'll get another summer holiday in around the end of August too.

Finally, there have been a couple of changes to this website. A lot of the changes have been behind-the-scenes tidying up and rationalising of things. I've got rid of a load of work content too, I just didn't care about it enough. I've also removed the ability for visitors to use the Comments tabs, as they only ever seemed to be getting used by spammers anyway. Finally, I've (at last!) added the necessary code and structure to support my Photo Gallery which is now linked from the sidebar on the left. I'll be populating this as we go along.

Cheers!