rainy days & mondays...
Actually, it's just 'overcast & saturday', but the Carpenters' song title sounded a lot better for the blog title...
What a busy wee time eh? Well, you wouldn't really know would you, because I ain't really been blogging recently, have I!
As it all stands, I have just about, finally, got the major components of one job sorted out and am now just in the 'tidy & wrap it up' phase of it. Meanwhile, I'm left with an absolute tonne of other jobs / contracts that now just 'have' to be sorted out... most of which I've been tactically fending & parrying off for the last couple of months.
Importantly, on top of all this, there is one other key factor relevant to all this present & imminent activity...
A flock of birds captured it all for me the other day, which, in a moment of frantic photography, I managed to capture a record of.
The birds never did actually make it to the right position that I wanted them in (backdropped against the Mediaval skyline). So, in a manic last minute SAS-type roll & dive manoeuvre to the floor, I managed to fire off this one burst, capturing this remarkable picture ('remarkable' meaning 'crap', in this case).
So, the end result of what you see (or don't see, as the case may be) is a picture of 1/8 of the birds who were flying past in 3 huge 'V-wing' formations, now handsomely contrasted against my cheap plastic guttering.
Anyhoose, the reason for the picture and general inspiration therein, was that on this chilly October day, 100's & 100's of birds were making their way south for the winter. When I initially spotted them in the sky I thought to myself "what a jolly good idea" (yes, my subconscious mind may very well babble to itself using such literary fossils as 'jolly').
The point being that, in 2 months time, I need to be doing the same thing myself. Yup, time to climb on a jetplane for the Antipodes for a 3-5 month trip (business & pleasure). I haven't booked anything yet, but I plan to this month. From past experience, I know I need to get out of the UK by the end of the first week in December, since flight prices go through the roof after that - as folk clamber home for Xmas, or to catch the Antipididdlin summer.
So, there is a hell of a lot that I need to do between now & then. Naturally, i'm quite looking forward to it - living in Europe is great, especially when you can bugger off to the other side of the planet for the winter part of it. Having said that, Winters in Europe are great if you're in the right situation - I tried to drive to Kitzbuhel (Austria) once, to become a barman at the home of what is probably the most dangerous FIS Downhill ski racing slope in the world (Hahnenkamm, they say racers accelerate to 100km/h faster than a Porsche). That would have been a good winter, sadly the combi never made it past Munich (from Berlin)... but that is a story for another day!
A number of things have been happening in preparation for the trip already. After 2 years of being eligible for an upgrade and now waiting 11 months while Sony Ericsson fluffed around launching this flagship model, I finally got myself a new phone.
It is the new Sony Ericsson P990i and is, currently, rocking my world.
It is effectively a laptop in a phone (in fact it has about 2/3 of the processing power of my first ever laptop, called 'Larry'... as in 'Larry the Laptop', which I bought a very distant 8 years ago) and the key reason why I've waited and now bought the new phone, was for its wireless capability. It can not only log 'itself' onto and use the Internet (via WiFi or 3G/GPRS i.e. via Hotspot or a cellular phone network), but can also share that connection with a laptop (or PC/Mac) which, therefore, effectively use it as a modem (via Bluetooth or WLan), allowing 'them' to gain access the Internet. The speed is not fantastic (384 KB/sec), but it's good enough.
Naturally (he says, ever so casually) apart from being able to surf the 'net, it is also a camera, video camera, mobile office (Word, Excel, PDF's & others), media player (music, podcasts, videos etc), radio player, but it has other hot items like handwriting technology and updateable software (I've already installed a German dictionary and am looking at turning it into a GPS platform, where I can use map facilities like an in-car SatNav system). Oh and it makes phone calls too (radical).
I've had dreadful problems in the past on trips to Aus / NZ with their miserable Broadband network and the typical problems associated with borrowing people's connection i.e. "sure you can use it, but my... mouse, phone, keyboard, harddrive, scanner, printer, monitor, camera, USB port, brain don't work... could you fix it for me?".
In all honesty, in over 3/4 of the houses that I went into belonging to friends/relatives on my last trip 'Downunder', within 5 minutes of getting in the door I was on my hands and knees round the back of their computer, crawling through the dust and debris of their lives ('detritus' is probably more accurate) - fixing their farkin' machines. This time, I'm bringing the Internet with me - hence the requirement for the Star Trek phone!
As mentioned briefly, I went to a wedding on Thursday which was a great day shared with a number of friends that I've known for over 10 years. It was a really good day, finally wrapping up at 0615 at my flat with peppermint teas (the damage was well & truly done by that stage).
I've picked one picture to include since it shows the view from the restaurant
where we had the reception. As you can see, it is quite a dramatic setting and affords one of the best views of the castle that I've ever seen.
So, finally, I've achieved a bit of a longer blog. On some personal notes (what's all this crap been about, if we're now getting to the personal bit?) congratulations to all the folk who've had babies recently (it's been the season for it, was there a bad night on telly back in January?) and those who've got married. Additionally, great to have caught up with some good friends recently from all around the globe, some of whom who I have not seen for a very long time.
An hour later and in hindsight, I realise that the title of this blog bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to the actual content of it. Excellent, I can go away and relax in the knowledge of another job well done!
Meanwhile, I'm gonna go and cheer Michael Schumacher along for the F1 Japanese qualifying, since he's only got a couple of weeks left to go in his magnificent career. I've always been a fan of his, not just because we were born in the same decade, about 6 months apart (wait until you get a bit older, you'll find yourself starting to support 'any' older sportsperson still active in their sport), or because I once lived in Aachen & he comes from just up the road (about 40km away in Kerpen - you pass it on the Autobahn to Cologne), nor because he is German.
Well, actually, they might all be the reasons - but , he is also one of the most dedicated, effective and successful sportsmen that I have ever seen in my lifetime (to my mind only Michael Jordan & Wayne Gretzky are in the same league).
What a busy wee time eh? Well, you wouldn't really know would you, because I ain't really been blogging recently, have I!
As it all stands, I have just about, finally, got the major components of one job sorted out and am now just in the 'tidy & wrap it up' phase of it. Meanwhile, I'm left with an absolute tonne of other jobs / contracts that now just 'have' to be sorted out... most of which I've been tactically fending & parrying off for the last couple of months.
Importantly, on top of all this, there is one other key factor relevant to all this present & imminent activity...
A flock of birds captured it all for me the other day, which, in a moment of frantic photography, I managed to capture a record of.
The birds never did actually make it to the right position that I wanted them in (backdropped against the Mediaval skyline). So, in a manic last minute SAS-type roll & dive manoeuvre to the floor, I managed to fire off this one burst, capturing this remarkable picture ('remarkable' meaning 'crap', in this case).So, the end result of what you see (or don't see, as the case may be) is a picture of 1/8 of the birds who were flying past in 3 huge 'V-wing' formations, now handsomely contrasted against my cheap plastic guttering.
Anyhoose, the reason for the picture and general inspiration therein, was that on this chilly October day, 100's & 100's of birds were making their way south for the winter. When I initially spotted them in the sky I thought to myself "what a jolly good idea" (yes, my subconscious mind may very well babble to itself using such literary fossils as 'jolly').
The point being that, in 2 months time, I need to be doing the same thing myself. Yup, time to climb on a jetplane for the Antipodes for a 3-5 month trip (business & pleasure). I haven't booked anything yet, but I plan to this month. From past experience, I know I need to get out of the UK by the end of the first week in December, since flight prices go through the roof after that - as folk clamber home for Xmas, or to catch the Antipididdlin summer.
So, there is a hell of a lot that I need to do between now & then. Naturally, i'm quite looking forward to it - living in Europe is great, especially when you can bugger off to the other side of the planet for the winter part of it. Having said that, Winters in Europe are great if you're in the right situation - I tried to drive to Kitzbuhel (Austria) once, to become a barman at the home of what is probably the most dangerous FIS Downhill ski racing slope in the world (Hahnenkamm, they say racers accelerate to 100km/h faster than a Porsche). That would have been a good winter, sadly the combi never made it past Munich (from Berlin)... but that is a story for another day!
A number of things have been happening in preparation for the trip already. After 2 years of being eligible for an upgrade and now waiting 11 months while Sony Ericsson fluffed around launching this flagship model, I finally got myself a new phone.
It is the new Sony Ericsson P990i and is, currently, rocking my world.
It is effectively a laptop in a phone (in fact it has about 2/3 of the processing power of my first ever laptop, called 'Larry'... as in 'Larry the Laptop', which I bought a very distant 8 years ago) and the key reason why I've waited and now bought the new phone, was for its wireless capability. It can not only log 'itself' onto and use the Internet (via WiFi or 3G/GPRS i.e. via Hotspot or a cellular phone network), but can also share that connection with a laptop (or PC/Mac) which, therefore, effectively use it as a modem (via Bluetooth or WLan), allowing 'them' to gain access the Internet. The speed is not fantastic (384 KB/sec), but it's good enough.
Naturally (he says, ever so casually) apart from being able to surf the 'net, it is also a camera, video camera, mobile office (Word, Excel, PDF's & others), media player (music, podcasts, videos etc), radio player, but it has other hot items like handwriting technology and updateable software (I've already installed a German dictionary and am looking at turning it into a GPS platform, where I can use map facilities like an in-car SatNav system). Oh and it makes phone calls too (radical).
I've had dreadful problems in the past on trips to Aus / NZ with their miserable Broadband network and the typical problems associated with borrowing people's connection i.e. "sure you can use it, but my... mouse, phone, keyboard, harddrive, scanner, printer, monitor, camera, USB port, brain don't work... could you fix it for me?".
In all honesty, in over 3/4 of the houses that I went into belonging to friends/relatives on my last trip 'Downunder', within 5 minutes of getting in the door I was on my hands and knees round the back of their computer, crawling through the dust and debris of their lives ('detritus' is probably more accurate) - fixing their farkin' machines. This time, I'm bringing the Internet with me - hence the requirement for the Star Trek phone!
As mentioned briefly, I went to a wedding on Thursday which was a great day shared with a number of friends that I've known for over 10 years. It was a really good day, finally wrapping up at 0615 at my flat with peppermint teas (the damage was well & truly done by that stage).
I've picked one picture to include since it shows the view from the restaurant
where we had the reception. As you can see, it is quite a dramatic setting and affords one of the best views of the castle that I've ever seen.So, finally, I've achieved a bit of a longer blog. On some personal notes (what's all this crap been about, if we're now getting to the personal bit?) congratulations to all the folk who've had babies recently (it's been the season for it, was there a bad night on telly back in January?) and those who've got married. Additionally, great to have caught up with some good friends recently from all around the globe, some of whom who I have not seen for a very long time.
An hour later and in hindsight, I realise that the title of this blog bears absolutely no relation whatsoever to the actual content of it. Excellent, I can go away and relax in the knowledge of another job well done!
Meanwhile, I'm gonna go and cheer Michael Schumacher along for the F1 Japanese qualifying, since he's only got a couple of weeks left to go in his magnificent career. I've always been a fan of his, not just because we were born in the same decade, about 6 months apart (wait until you get a bit older, you'll find yourself starting to support 'any' older sportsperson still active in their sport), or because I once lived in Aachen & he comes from just up the road (about 40km away in Kerpen - you pass it on the Autobahn to Cologne), nor because he is German.
Well, actually, they might all be the reasons - but , he is also one of the most dedicated, effective and successful sportsmen that I have ever seen in my lifetime (to my mind only Michael Jordan & Wayne Gretzky are in the same league).
posted by Captain Fargon at 1:11 pm
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