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!

New PC on the way

Finally conceded and placed an order for a new PC from www.pcspecialist.co.uk and I have gone well over the top with the spec:

Core i7 940 (4 x 2.93 Ghz)
6 GB Corsair DDR3 1600 Mhz RAM
300 GB VelociRaptor 16 MB cache (10,000 RPM)
1 TB HDD
1GB Nvidia Geforce 9800 GT
64 bit Vista Home Pro
all in a Black Trigon Case.

Total Spend £1,500 (inc VAT)

Delivery is about 7 to 10 days ;-)

Grand Day Out

This morning at 08:30, I met Neil Sankey at Halesowen Golf for the first 18 holes of the year.  The weather was fantastic, bright and sunny but not too hot, and the golf was actually not too bad, at least until we started to tire, and from then on it was not very good at all!

The GPS tracker showed that we actually walked 7.8 miles, and the course length is only about 4 miles!!

Link to The SportsTracker Data for the round

Panorama taken on the 5th Fairway, with Neil just leaving the 12th Green

Panorama taken on the 14th Tee

All pictures taken with the Nokia E71 phone

Seriously Cool

This guy makes art from a sheet of A4 paper by “materialization of a flat piece of paper into a 3D form”

You really should check this site out: A4 PAPER CUT

On my bike

Cycled to work and back today – and now, I am totally foobar’d.

http://sportstracker.nokia.com/nts/workoutdetail/index.do?id=836614

had the sports tracker running on the E71 for the journey back home, and the above link should take you to the data.

Even Shorter Week

You know I like my 4 day weeks whenever possible, well thanks to the combined delights of a Rota day and Easter Bank Holiday, coupled with 1 days leave, I get two 3 day weeks on the trot!  Wooooot!

Winner!

Turns out the horse I picked in the office sweepstake for the Grand National - “Mon Mote” actually went and won…

Looks like I will be picking up my £20 winnings in the Morning.

Knackered!

Went to “Rutland Water” today, with Alex and Amanda. Alex and I hired two mountain bikes for the afternoon, and rode approx 11 miles back and forth around the perimeter of the reservoir, by which point I was completely knackered, my “Numb Bum” just edging out the “Screaming Quads” in the discomfort stakes.  It was good fun tho’.  Alex on the other hand was disappointed that we had to stop!

Amanda simply walked the route, and did a pretty commendable 6 miles, but was completely knackered when she finally got back.

The only real downside of the location, is that it is a 2 hour drive there and another 2 hours back!  That makes it a pretty long day!

Audio Book update:

Just finished “Devil May Care” the James Bond book written by Sebastian Faulkes. – Excellent!!

Just started “Sword of the Shanara”, a book I have previously read, but it was some time ago, and I am really enjoying getting it read to me.  This may take some time to complete, it is in excess of 23 hours, and it’s only the 1st book in the trilogy!

Bike

Today I took the plunge and have bought myself a ne push bike.

Nothing spectacular, it’s from Hawk Cycles in Cradley Heath, and it’s a “Hybrid” style road bike: 27” wheels, road tyres, alloy frame, deep rim wheels, Padded Gel saddle, 21 gears and mountain bike type handlebars.  Original list price was £299, reduced in the sale to £190.

I have fitted the bike rack on the car, and will collect it tomorrow.  If the weather is nice, I will cycle back home on it, but as the forecast is for cold and rain, I may just clamp it on the back of the car, and drive home.

The downside is that I have had to spend a couple of very dust, sweaty hours this afternoon, clearing the rubbish in the garage to make room for a second push bike, whilst still being able to get the motor bike in and out.

Well Done Alex

Last night was the AGM and Presentation evening for Alex’s Scout group.  The amount of work being done by the Howley Grange leaders with regard to re-building the scout hut with limited funds is quite extraordinary!

Alex gained 7 new badges last night, including the Chief Scout's Silver Award which is the highest available award in Cubs!  Well done Alex.

I managed to find that I had agreed to help out with the committee, still not quite sure how that happened!

later on that night, I spent about an hour and a half sewing badges onto Alex’s sweatshirt, all according to the strict positioning guide.

Audio Book Update

earlier this week, I finally finished “Cross Bones” by Kathy Reichs (6:10 hours).  Once again, found the amount of technical detail harder to keep on top of with an audio v written book, but enjoyed it anyway!

Just started “Devil May Care” by Sebastian Faulks: writing as Ian Fleming (8:21 hours), about 2 hours in at the moment, and although nothing has really happened yet, it is still a “Must Listen” at lunch time.  So far, so good.