I’m Moving:

Following on from my mate Barry's lead, I have set up a Wordpress blog on my own site.  All the posts from my Blogger.com account have been imported, and I am still playing about a lot with the 'Look and Feel' of this new site - http://boffinsblog.redbreva.co.uk

Irene Griffiths

By Violet Bright

I was just under eight years old when Irene was born.

Irene did not have an easy life; she was only 2 years old when our mother was killed in the blackouts at the start of WW II.

She was only 5 years old when dad married again – this was not a happy time for either of us, dealing with three step-sisters along with our own three brothers.

I left home as soon as I turned 16, and stayed away. When I returned home again, Irene was a teenager with a boyfriend. They seemed happy, and were looking at houses, but suddenly – out of nowhere – she had a complete breakdown, was very poorly and split from her boyfriend!

It was quite some time before she returned to work, when she did she found herself with a new best friend: Joyce. The pair of then got on really well, and went on holidays abroad together most years – the warm sunny weather worked wonders on Irene’s Psoriasis and helped her get thro’ the winter months.

In 1967 when my husband walked out on me and our two children, she was a pillar of strength, and during that time I got to really know my sister.

She was living with and looking after our day, till his death in 1979, and when Joyce died suddenly in 1993 she was left feeling rather lonely.

By this time the Psoriasis was getting worse, her mobility gradually reduced over time, she had two hip replacements in ’84 and 86 but she was still struggling with really bad ulceration of her leg, till it was finally amputated in ’97. During all of this, she made no big fuss about things and tried to carry on her life as independently as she could. Life was not easy, but she never showed it, and her sense of humour carried her thro’ even when she had the second leg removed in 2001.

As long as she had her ‘ciggies’ and her TV she was happy – and you were given a very sharp response if you dared to phone her or visit during one of her soaps!!

Over the last year or two, my own mobility has decreased, and I have seen my sister less and less.

I am glad I got to see her at the hospital in the last days before she died, and that she passed away very peacefully.

Good Bye Irene,

All your bad years are behind you, and you are at peace at last... I love you now and forever...

Violet.

Tempus Fugit!

Has it really been almost 3 weeks since the last entry?  Ok time for a catch up (in brief)

Bad:
ManU lost the Champions League final to Barcelona, comprehensively outplayed even…

Bad:
Bike failed MOT, needed front tyre and complete new exhaust, coupled with the annual service - £815

Good:
Amy went to her “Supercar Driving Experience” where she actually drove a Focus ST and a Ferrari (Allegedly a certain David Beckham was the previous owner), and I got a good chance to play with the Nikon SLR.

Routine:
Work is much the same as ever, but with even tighter budgetary constraints, and more people (that you know) than ever leaving the company.

Bad:
New computer failed to wake-up this morning – it had been up and running / sleeping for almost 10 days prior to that.  Spoke to Tech Support at PCSpecialist.co.uk and after disconnecting all peripherals and resetting the BIOS (By removing the battery) it came back up.  Broke again latter once everything was plugged back in, but seems to be related to the Printer.  Bit more digging required there :-(

Mediocre:
Played 18 holes round Halesowen on Monday, in 27 degrees!!  It was one of those round where I actually played quite well, but my score was cr@p! You know, chip shots that almost land on the green and roll towards the hole, but land 1” short and roll back into the bunker!!

Misc:
Finished “Sword of the Shanara” on audio book, just started “King of Torts”

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!