Holidays Over

The weekend at Stoke went well, it was nice to see Andy again and a good night was had by all. On Sunday morning Arthur managed to find a 'tap' of the correct size and thread to clear out the roof fixings for the roofbox - no more rattles..!

Monday's trip up the M6 went well, all 7 passengers and a fully loaded roofbox - 190 miles at an average of 52MPG.

The only real problem with the whole holiday was that it was too short :-( A few hours in the spa, a massage, several pints of Guiness, a bottle or two of wine and it was time to go home.

Friday's trip home was via Windamere - very nice views, and quite a demanding drive - especially for a fully loaded scenic!! By the time we got home at about 19:30, we had still managed to average 50MPG.

We have already booked to go back again next August, this time for a full 7 days.

Winding Down...

Today is my last day at work this month!! 

Amanda's mom is having the kids from this evening till Sunday afternoon as Amanda and I are going to Stoke for the weekend.  It's Andy Finikins 40th Birthday, and we are going to celebrate with him - Chinese Meal and a few drinks.

When we get back on Sunday, it will be time to pack for CentreParcs... Ready to leave around 09:00 Monday morning.

Fitted the roof box back on the car last night - that was not without it's complications - the fixing mounts on the car roof have got a little corroded, and I can't lock the box down tight!  There is a good dose of WD40 soaking at the moment, and I am tweaking my nuts at regular intervals - so it should be OK!!

Minesweeper - The Movie

Now that it's a movie, you can use it to procrastinate for a full 90 minutes.

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1770138

hehehe, well worth a look...

24,500 miles

... from the first set of tyres at the front of the scenic. They were replace with a pair of Dunlop SP 300's at a total cost of £138. (0.56pence per mile)

MAG - Are you a member?

The Motorcyclist Action Group are revamping their image

Click on Logo to visit the new web site Click on the Poster for a full size HiRes version

It just keeps growing...

The number of visitors to www.rockbox-themes.org per month...

Jan  43,000 (1397 per day)
Feb  58,000 (2084 per day)
Mar  85,000 (2765 per day)
Apr  91,000 (3062 per day)
May 107,000 (3463 per day)
Jun 128,000 (4282 per day)
Jul 137,664 (4440 per day)
Aug 167,847 (5414 per day)

Are You Secure II?

My subscription to McAfee expired today, but I have not been too happy with that application for a while, it seems to be really eating memory and CPU cycles.

Added to that the latest edition of PC PRO did a group test on security software, McAfee only managed to detect 78% of the test infections!  The winner was Kaspersky Internet Security with 98% - and it's cheaper (£66 for a two year subscription with anytime download) - having just installed it and started it running, it's already found one e-mail virus that McAfee had missed!!

Are you up to date?

Secunia have released a BETA version of their Personal Software Inspector - Find out if you have been keeping up to date with all those little apps you have scattered all over your hard drive.

Tempus Fugit...

Wow!  It's August already...  Soon be Holiday time, we received our welcome pack from CentreParcs today, so only a couple of weeks to go before we head off to Cumbria.

This morning Amanda and I were up early, as we had to be at the local scout hut for 07:15!  Today is the 100th anniversary of the first scout camp on Brownsea Island.  To celebrate, scout troupes all over the world held a special sunrise ceremony today at 08:00 where they all renewed their promises. In addition breakfast sandwiches & tea were provided to anyone who attended.

Alex is very tired, they had a 'sleepover' at the scout hut last night, and it was almost midnight before anyone got any sleep, they were all up and dressed by 07:00 this morning.

I have suggested he gets some sleep this afternoon, as this evening we are going to Old Trafford to watch a pre season friendly (between ManU and Inter-Millan) with Neil, Ryan & Nial - so another late night!