And even better…

By drawing 0 – 0 with Arsenal this afternoon, Manchester united have been confirmed as Premier League Champions for the third successive season.

Finally some good news

Yesterday afternoon, my new PC was delivered..!

It didn’t take too long to remove the demo crapware that had been pre-installed, install my applications, and copy all my data files over the network.  I even remembered to de-register the old machine in iTunes before trashing it ;-) I decided to leave it on Vista 64bit for now at least, I may upgrade later in the year after it has been released, and I am sure that AV software etc is compatible…

A couple of hours this morning to get Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Outlook etc configured, and tweak all the icons, menu’s etc to match my old machine, and I am now up and running…  there are 8 cores showing in the CPU monitor – Cool!

I will leave my old PC for a day or two to ensure that I forgot nothing, and then wipe it and re-load ready for Amy.

What a long week…

Well, for a start I will have been at work for 7 days on the trot..

Monday AM, eye test etc.
Tuesday to Friday AM in the office,
Monday to Friday 14:00 to 18:00 “Death By Slideshow” from home, the 20 hour Tech Transfer for Nortel’s new Contact Centre 7 system – It was hard work, both in terms of some of the technicalities involved (SIP routing, integrated Predictive Outbound, Real Time Call Blending etc.) and in terms of staying awake for 4 hours!
Saturday 20:00 to Sunday 08:00 Covering a ROTA shift!

Still no glasses

Popped into D&A this morning to collect my new prescription sunglasses, only to find the frames were scratched, and have to be sent back…

Still no bike…

I have now had an entire week of public transport, and still no idea of when the Bandit will be ready to collect!

Ouch! (Updated)

Not just once, but twice!!

Took the Bandit in for it’s annual service and MOT this morning, had call from shop this afternoon – New exhaust and front tyre required to get thro’ MOT. 
Seems a ‘road legal’ Scorpion muffler at £190 is the most ‘Cost Effective’ replacement, add on the £117 for the front tyre, the cost of the service and the MOT… well not expecting any change out of £500 :-(

Update: Once they got the downpipes off today, they found that those too were scrap!!  So on top of everything else I now need a new set of downpipes - £300!!  At least they will be Stainless Steel rather than the originals (Chrome plated Mild Steel)

Between leaving the bike, and getting the bad news, I went for an eye-test.  It’s been almost two years since the last one, and I am finding my current glasses a little “underpowered” now, either the glasses are ‘wearing out’ or my eyes are!
No surprises for guessing, new specs required £230 for bi-focals, but I do get a *FREE* pair of prescription sun glasses!

17 Years and counting…

Yesterday was our 17th Wedding anniversary, and a full day packed with activity it was…

Out early to Merry Hill for Breakfast and Coffee and Amanda brought a new dress, then shopping at Tesco’s – Well I never claimed to be romantic!

Alex had a Golf lesson early afternoon, and then Amanda and I left Amy in charge, and went to the cinema. 

Which Rom-Com or chick flick did I take my wife to see? ….  Star Trek!  It was really good, and we both enjoyed it.  It was then a meal out, followed by attending a 40th Birthday party for one of Amanda’s mates from school.

Finally back home at 23:00.

Just the three holes

It was “Rammed” at the golf club this morning, seems Tuesday AM is the ‘Seniors’ time on the course…  In the end I only played the 5th, 9th and 12th but was quite pleased with my driving, and my putting was spectacular!  If only I could get some consistency with my long irons on up/down hill lies!!  I know what I need to do, I just don’t always manage to.

1 step closer

I received an email today from PCSpecialist, my new machine has been built, and is now entering the testing and quality control phase ;-)

Should be here late this week, early next with a bit of luck.  Still undecided if I should put Win7 RC on there… I have 32 and 64 bit versions, but am a little concerned about anti virus compatibility at the moment.  Looks like most of the major Av vendors are adopting an attitude waiting till final release to confirm what will and won’t work, although interestingly, the forums for Norton 2009 suggest that it is fully working on Win 7 64 bit, and that it’s only the 32 bit version that has issues!