Happy Christmas!!

Happy Christmas!!! :-)

Rediculous Error Message

I'm getting a bit sick with writing posts on the train and then copy 'n' pasting them into the web interface on blogger and then having to faff around with the formatting, so I thought I would download Windows Live Writer and see how that pans out. I've heard some good things and I've heard some bad things, but I'm willing to give it a go.

However, when I was downloading the installer and trying to install the thing it runs through the download routine and then checks for other Live programs running ... I don't know why, but it does ... if it goes on for a long time and the progress bar gets to the end and starts again the error message changes into something rediculous ...


Also, I've managed to write this post and upload the image in the time its taken to fill up that progress bar ...

... just checked it ... its started again! I give up!

I guess I'm staying with the web interface for now :-(

Exercise Week #8 & #9

The past few weeks have been very manic at work and I have not been able to find time to update this as often as I usually do. This is partially down to Christmas parties, but also due to the increased pressure at work to get a certain project through the UAT criteria which is pretty tight. I didn't have to go in at the weekend (20/21) but a lot of the chaps did and worked really hard. I think we're all looking forward to some time off over Christmas to see the families and recover ... ready for the new year.

Bad time for the beer ratio, really need to try harder over the festive period and on into next year :-)

Week #8
Monday - 1 gym visit
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - Working late
Thursday - rest
Friday - Work Christmas Party
Saturday - Recovery
Sunday - rest

Week #9
Monday - 1 gym visit
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - Feeling rough
Thursday - Off work ill
Friday - Lau's Work Christmas Party
Saturday - resting (recovery and due to lack of sleep due to Lau's coughing keeping me awake)
Sunday - 1 gym visit + 10 lengths swim (b,2f,b)


Week #8 Beers
Wednesday - 1 beer
Friday - 6 beers (Christmas Party)

Week #9 Beers
Thursday - 2 beers (Medicine wasn't working)
Friday - 6 beers (Burger Friday & Christmas Party)
Sunday - 2 beers (Parents after Carol service)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 131
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 19
Gym visits: 16
Lengths : 40 (week: 10; total: 400)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Exercise Week #7

Weights week #2 - I didn't get to the gym as much as I'd have liked to this week due to a few reasons. It's been an unusual week at work (can't say anymore) and then there was the epic thank you and Christmas card writing epic on the Saturday.

Exercise
Monday - 1 gym visit (workout)
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 1 gym visit (workout)
Thursday - rest
Friday - rest
Saturday - stuck indoors doing wedding thank you and Christmas cards
Sunday - 1 round dg with Nige

Beer
Tuesday - 1
Wednesday - 1 (with lunch)
Thursday - 2 evening
Friday - 1 (burger friday)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 114
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 19
Gym visits: 13
Lengths : 39 (week: 10; total: 390)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Visual Studio Solution Structure

I've been playing about with Visual Studio 2008 and the new features of c#3 on and off for a couple of weeks and lining up to get a couple of small projects up and running. One of them is my own website, one is a survey for next season for TDs and participants in national tour events.

I wanted to get the solution construction right for my website solution so that I can add a lot of stuff in over time and not have to re-work it to fit more things in. After setting up a subversion source control server for personal usage I decided that this was the time to mess about and I can always roll back bits if something goes wrong.

I wanted to keep the structure so that it was separated and also unit testable (yes I'm a unit test geek). This lead to having separate projects in the solution into different areas ... Data access, Model classes, Services and UI (using Solution folders works wonders for this ... more later).

*Top tip* To get your namespaces as you'd like them start by naming the projects as you'd like the namespaces to be. A good starting point is . as all the files in the projects will start with that namespace as standard unless you change them.

The data access project is self explanatory. I've decided to start using/playing with the Microsoft Entity Framework for this. I'm still learning how the EF works and best practices and I'm sure I'm still not using this properly but ah well; we live and learn! I've been reading about the Linq2Sql vs EF madness which has been going on over the past month since PDC, but I don't think it'll affect a little single "out of hours" home coder.

The model project is where all the domain model classes go. I'm still trying to work out how this goes with the EF in the data project so if any one can point out how these should operate together *properly* then some pointers would be much appreciated.

The service project is there for a wcf service project. I've put this in place so that I can access the data asynchronously via javascript in the future for an ajax look and feel with responsive UI and to avoid unnecessary postbacks.

UI is made up of a couple project types. The main one is a MS MVC project template which will serve as the main "website" in a traditional sense. It is made up of pages or views which will display different images / inputs / data and will also serve as host pages for the second UI project type; a silverlight 2 project. I've added this in as I want to start playing about with silverlight, and the eventual plan is to do my own site in both postback/views way, responsive UI javascript/async calls way and to have a RIA with silverlight.

To enable the solution to be grouped into logical I have used Solution folders to group the project and associated test project together. Solution folders are not related to the file structure they are purely there for organisational purposes. They also have more functions which can be found my reading the above link.

In addition to the grouped projects I have also added in a separate class projects for extension methods and global definitions. These projects will be referenced by one or more projects and will not reference any other project (as circular references are bad!).

Another tip I would use if you are going to go down the Unit test route would be add a file structure folder in a logical place in the solution and add in your mocking / helper dlls in this folder. You can then add in single references into each unit test project to one set of dlls. If you are putting your code into a source control system then add them into your solution and file them away into a "External" solution folder so that you can hide them away but still have them "under control".

Well this is the structure I am going to work with for a while and see how it gets on. You have any thoughts on the matter or pointers to improve this structure then please let me know.

This is the first post I've done of a technical nature so any comments about that would also be appreciated :-)

100th Post

When I started this I didn't think I'd actually get to the 100th post. I know there is a very limited audience to this blog but this has become a good place for me to just note things down and keep track of stuff - keeps me happy.

It's not quite turned out as I'd originally thought it would, having not posted any technical/coding related posts since starting this madness, but I think it will get there eventually especially as I start playing around with new technologies (yes I'm starting to find time for this ... kinda) and doing some other stuff and mainly catching up with everyone else in the world :-)

Well the week has started and the month is a new one (where the hell has 2008 gone?!?!?!) so will crack on with work and try and get as much done as possible before having some time off over Christmas.

Laters :-)

Exercise Week #6

01Week 6 of exercising was Weights Week #1. I've decided that I am going to workout, reasonably hard, for the next few weeks and then get back into the swing of swimming regularly over the Christmas period when I'm off work for a week or so. Once we get past Christmas and New Years it will be back into training / practicing quite hard ready for the return leg of the Hyzer cup and also ready for Frostbreaker on the 7th/8th Feb '09.

Exercise
Monday - 1 gym visit (workout) + 10 lengths (b,f,b(2))
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 1 gym visit (workout)
Thursday - rest
Friday - rest
Saturday - 1 gym visit (workout)
Sunday - rest


Beer
Tuesday - 2
Friday - 1 (burger friday)
Saturday - 1 beer (with dinner)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 109
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 18
Gym visits: 11
Lengths : 39 (week: 10; total: 390)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Spam Update - Nov

Well after the shut down of one of the largest spam networks in the world this month my spam folder has decreased in size ... yes I said decreased ... to a whopping ... 19,361. Which is over 15k drop in the last 30 days. That's incredible!!!

Tank of doom challenge ...

... so far so good. The red light hasn't come on yet, but the needle is getting very close to the empty stage. So with a week to go we'll see if I manage to make it through November without filling the car up. At this rate a tank of petrol will last 2 months ... LOL!

I don't think my car will be so economical as the cars in the Top Gear race on Sunday's show :-)

Exercise Week #5 & Hyzer Cup

Another week has passed so its time for another blog post to document the exercise vs beer ratio! :-)

It's been a busy week both at work and home with a few ups and downs so I've not managed to get to the gym as much as I'd like to have this week; however this has worked out quite well as I didn't want to over do it before the Hyzer Cup at the weekend, so all is good.

It was the inaugural Hyzer cup meeting between Quarry Park DGC and Croydon DGC at QP. The format was doubles match play in the morning and singles match play in the afternoon. It was a great day, the weather was good (for the time of the year - sunny but feecking cold!), the banter was good, the golf was good! I won both my matches, the first with my team mate Rich Hatton; the other half of team "Double Impact".

Qp went on to win the event by 11.5 points to 9.5.

Bring on the return leg down in Croydon in January!!!

Exercise
Monday - 40 lengths (b,f,b,fly,b,f,b,back,f,b)
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 30 lengths (b,f,b,fly,b,back, b(6))
Thursday - rest
Friday - 10 lengths (b,f,fly(1), b(1))
Saturday - 2 rounds disc golf - Hyzer cup QP vs Croydon
Sunday - rest


Beers
Thursday - 1 beer
Friday - 1 beer (burger friday)
Saturday - 1 beer (dinner)
Sunday - 1 beer (lunch)



Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 105
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 18
Gym visits: 8
Lengths : 38 (week: 80; total: 380)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Strength != Power

Something I was reading yesterday made me realise something which I already knew but didn't overly think about much ... strength does not equal power! You can be as strong as a weight lifter but if you haven't got the muscles working in fluid, relaxed motion together with the bone structure of the body then you won't achieve your true potential.

Something to think about :-)

Exercise week #4

Another week on, another week of exercise!

Exercise
Monday - 40 lengths (b,f,b,back,b,fly,b(8),f,b) - fly is usuall setup, next week I'll try doing 4 full lengths :-)
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 1 gym (body combat on a school night, what was I thinking?)
Thursday - rest
Friday - rest
Saturday - 1 round dg
Sunday - 1 gym visit - 8 lengths (f(8))

Beers
Tuesday - 5 (Dev social)
Thursday - 2 (with dinner)
Friday - 1 (burger friday)

The round of disc golf on Saturday morning was pretty reasonable even though the round score doesn't reflect it. I shot a round of 64 which is about my average at the moment. However, looking at the positives I shot ... 3,3,3,3,3,OB 5, 3,3,4,3,Double OB 7,3,4,3,4,3,4,3 ... so 12 pars and only 4 4's. So in 16 holes I was only 4 over par, so if I can cut down the silly OB on 6 (stupid wind!) and work out how to play 11 without loosing discs in the river I hopefully can start shooting sub 60 regularly! hope! LOL!!

Another mile stone this week; I've clocked up the 100th beer since I started this madness ... only 900 (well 899) beers to go!!

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 101
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 16
Gym visits: 8
Lengths : 30 (week: 48; total: 300)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Exercise Week #3

Another week goes by and I've continued with the exercise more than I thought I would. I didn't manage to get a full100 lengths in this week as I'm feeling pretty shattered and I've not been sleeping well, but still managed over 50, a couple of gym visits and a round of disc golf. It wasn't a great round but first one after not throwing a disc properly for over a month (I think) so it could have been a lot worse.

Monday - 40 lengths (b,f,b,fly(4),b(8), f, b(12)) - fly was 2 lengths single arm, 2 lengths full
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - 1 gym visit (workout) + 12 lengths (b,fly(4),b) - usual fly setup
Thursday - rest
Friday - rest
Saturday - 1 gym visit (body combat class and weights)
Sunday - 1 round disc golf


Beers
Wednesday - 1
Thursday - 2
Friday - 2 (burger friday)
Sunday - 1

So in total ... 6 beers, and 8 exercises ... not a great week, but not a bad one. At least the exercise out did the beers ... that constitutes quite a good week for me ;-)

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 93
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 15
Gym visits: 6
Lengths : 25 (week: 52; total: 252)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Server / computer naming conventions

I've worked in a few places which have cool (in a geeky way) names for naming computers and servers on their corporate network and I didn't quite realise the extent that people go to when doing this until reading a question / answer on StackOverflow which was Coolest Server Names.

At the first IT job I had the servers and computers where named after characters from the Muppetts. Our main server was called Gonzo and then when the mail server got its own box it was piggy (after Miss Piggy). Our workstations were the usual Kermit, Fozzie and Beaker. After I had left and they had moved office they started again with Simpsons characters. At my current job we use to only have elements on the periodic table. I started with Paladium and then Iodine. The dev servers are technetium, tellurium and tantalum.

Why am I posting this? Well On the answers on StackOverflow the top rated answer I thought was great so thought I'd post it here ...

The funniest server name story I have is from when I worked at the Kennedy Space Center. On our particular project, our main server was named snowwhite, and the 7 client workstations were named after the Seven Dwarves. The kicker is, one day one of our engineers ran into a Disney Imagineer who worked at Walt Disney World, and they started talking about server names. The Disney Imagineer said "that's funny, we have a group of servers named columbia, challenger, atlantis, and discovery."

It's taken over 3 years, but I'm 1337!

Time for some geekiness, but today I became 1337 on the BDGA forum!!

Congratulations Obama

Well, it finally happened, the event which many around the world were talking about occured last night (UK time) and Obama won by a convincing landslide!

With Missouri and North Carolina still left to sort their lives out Obama has 349 electoral college votes, and McCain has 162. Being that the magic number is 270, it was pretty convincing even if the remaining states go to McCain. With almost 120 million votes cast with over 62 million going to Obama he wins with over 50% of the vote ... impressive!!

Now the hard part starts, what is he going to do in his first term in office? What is he going to achieve? Is he going to come through on all his promises about change? Time will tell.

But until then, congratulations again to the Obama camp! :-)

Spam Update - Oct

So I've had a few busy months with a wedding, house stuff, getting use to living with a woman etc. so October Spam -> 34,617 spam!

So an increase of 3k since August! That's insane!!

I wonder when I'll hit the 40k spam in a 30 day period mark?!?!?

Green Challenge - the tank of doom!

Driving home from the gym I decided that I would try and do a challenge to try and help the environment, my bank balance etc. so I'm going to see if I can get my tank of petrol through the whole month of November with driving conservatively etc. etc.

I filled it up the week before my trip, which never happened *sad face*, up to Burnlaw in September. I've only driven to Quarry Park and the gym since the fill up and my mum used it the last week to go to Rugby and painting so I've now got just over a 1/3rd of a tank left ... lets see if this works :-)

Exercise Week #2

Another week has gone by and another week of exercise ... I've actually carried on going this week. Woo! Go me!!

Monday - Gym visit + 12 lengths (f,f,f)
Tuesday - rest
Wednesday - Gym visit + 16 lengths (b(8),b(8))
Thursday - 28 lengths (b,f,b(8),fly(4),b(8)) - fly was 2 lengths single arm, 2 lengths full
Friday - rest
Saturday - Body Combat + 4 lengths (f) (too busy with kids)
Sunday - 40 lengths (b,f,b(8), fly(4), back(4), b(8), b(8)) - fly was 2 lengths single arm, 2 lengths full.

Total: 100 lengths + 3 gym visits

Beers this week ... 1 beer thursday night, 2 friday (burger friday), 3 saturday night in with the mrs.


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 87
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 14
Gym visits: 4
Lengths : 20 (week: 100; total: 200)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Exercise week #1

This week was a week of exercise for me and a good start to getting fit. I'm planning on getting into a routine which isn't so heavily based on swimming, but swimming is a good way of getting a baseline fitness level before kicking off big style with the training!

So this week in brief goes something like this ...

Monday - joined gym
Tuesday - 16 lengths (b,f,b,f)
Wednesday - 20 lengths (b,f,b,f,b)
Thursday - 24 lengths (b,f,b,f,b(8))
Friday - rest
Saturday - Gym Induction, CV part of workout and 28 lengths (b,f,b(8),f,b(8))
Sunday - Gentle swim - 12 lengths (f(12))


Key
b = breaststroke
f = freestyle (frontcrawl)

So in total, that is one gym visit and 100 lengths!!!

How does this get incorporated into the First Thousand Beers ratio? Well I thought it would go like this ... if I counted every length that would be silly! So for every 10 lengths I do I get a positive point to the ratio. Also, if I do a gym workout or a class then that will also give me a positive point to the ratio. However, (are u following this?!) if I only go swimming it doesn't count as a gym visit, but I can have a gym visit and swim (I'm tired this might not make sense!).

So *looks back at last few posts* ... update ... I had a beer a week last friday at burger friday and another at dinner with the takeaway. Again this was the case for last friday so thats another 4 for the bad ratio.

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 81
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 14
Gym visits: 1
Lengths : 10 (100 swam)

Key
Good => Exercise > Beers
Level => Exercise == Beers
Bad => Exercise < Beers

Final Race

The F1 race at the weekend was awesome and was a top notice drive from Hamilton to take the win, especially as he had a clean sweep (pole, win, fastest lap) ... if I remember correctly ;-)

So the maths say, Massa can come anywhere he likes, but as long as Lewis comes 5th or better in Brazil he will win the Championship. It's looking more likely, and I really want him to do it, but something still doesn't quite seem right.

2 weeks time we'll see!!

F1 final 2 races ...

Why do I get the impression that Lewis Hamilton is going to throw it away again and come second to Felipe Massa???

Maybe I'm wrong, but that's just how it seems at the moment. I really want him to win it this year, but something just seems to just put a little bit of doubt in my mind.

We'll see how it goes at the weekend ... if things go right he could win it at the weekend!

More beer, no exercise

I've not updated in a while and if I remember right I've got 1 can left from a 4 pack so thats another 3 beers to clock up on the ratio scoreboard.

Other than that nothing much to report. Work is a bit mad ... as usual and it's all go with lots going on and stuff. Busy is good :-)

Exercise in the pipeline ... well I've got a club match play tournament between Quarry Park and Croydon on the 22nd November. I'm also looking to join Cannons in Warwick so I can get back to training again and hopefully get rid of my shin splints ... they're painful :-(

Once I get back to training I'm going to re-think the beer to exercise ratio, as to whether it will equal one trip to the gym or x km on the rower/runner/cycle etc. Any ideas then please let me know :-)

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 77
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 14

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Crazy at work == BBR

Seems to me I've not updated the log for a week or so and that is bad as it needs to be ... :-/

I'll start on a high note ... last weekend I met up with Nige again at Quarry Park and had a couple rounds of disc golf. Played rubbishly, but had some fun, some good banter and tried out a few new shots ... some which worked and some which didn't ;-)

Saturday evening we went out, that's when the beer consumption increased quite a bit for the week. I had 5 bottles of Carlsberg Export before leaving the house, then 2 Stella's at the bar ... following that was girly drinks which don't count (woo!). The rest of last week was a bit on a manic one at work and ended up pulling 33+ hrs between Monday and Wednesday working and also ended up having another 5 beers over the 3 nights.

It's not looking good so far is it ;-)

Then it was my team conference Thursday and Friday at a little Hilton in Wokingham and of course this involved drinking on the Thursday night, so after some pre dinner G&Ts and some wine with dinner the beer was free. Another night was had with my other woman, Stella, and consumed 4 of her ... eeeek!

This isn't looking good ... I'm thinking going to look around Cannons at the weekend will be a good idea for my health, fitness and sanity :-)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 74
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 14

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

You know when ...

... it's going to be a bad day when reboot o'clock is before 10am!

Gave in ... drank beer!

After a pretty rubbish week at work I decided to give in a drink beer for the night out into Leamington on Saturday. I played 2 rounds of dg with Nige of DiscZoo.com fame during the day and then had 5 bottles of Carlsberg Export before going out, 2 stellas at the pub then some girly drinks in the club. I then busted some shapes for 2+ hours and went home via Hally K's!

So all in all I did a reasonable amount of exercise, but also drank quite a few beers ... ah well. Weekly weigh in is tomorrow and I'm bound to have on weight this week. I really should stop snacking on pitta bread!!!


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 58
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 12

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

How is this September ... ??

How is this the weather for England towards the end of September after such a rubbish summer!

So glad I was in Egypt for 2 weeks over the summer so I saw the sun when not at work!! :-)

Another 2 miles

Went for another run last night, and my shins really hurt 3 quarters round so walked the last part, but clocked up another 2 miles which is always helpful towards the ratio.

I think its getting to the point that I need to re-join the gym so will look into that over the next couple of weeks and look to get back to working out properly and going to Body Combat regularly to get fit ready for next years national tour!

Still no beers, and I'm not craving beer either which is a bit bizzare!

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 51
Miles: 33
DG Rounds: 10

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Last week was a bit rubbish

Last week was a bit rubbish!

Well actually that was a bit of an understatement ...

1) Work was pretty stressful
2) Rosie had to be put down :-(
3) Cracking Migraine headache (and going to A&E)
4) Not going to play DG at Burnlaw (due to (3))

On the upside I did go for a run at the weekend to try and unwind a bit, went on a longish run which involved running around, what seemed like, most of Leamington. Started off going through Victoria Park, ended up past Lockwoods near Trinity School and then across the top of the Parade and down Holly Walk home. It was 4 miles and did it in about 45 (ish) mins which wasn't too bad. I also went for a run on Sunday and did 2 miles in 20mins so was happy with that.

Going out again tonight, need to make sure I get in as much as possible due to getting to the point it will be too dark to run in the evenings ... and at that point its time to join the gym :-)

Only 10 miles/rounds behind the beer now!! :-)

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 51
Miles: 31
DG Rounds: 10

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Beer update

Well a week or so has past since the last beer update and in that time the Dev Social has come and gone. It was a good time enjoyed by all with a cracking turn out with over half the dev team attending (there were 13 of us at the pub).

I had a night off from the diet / beer free (which has been going well) and had a evening with my other woman (yes Lau knows!). In the end I had 5 pints of my lovely Stella. They went down slowly, yet well. Then Russ decided we should have some Sambuka ... yuck yuck yuck!!

Anyway, the beer ratio is back to being more rubbish again. I've had an issue with my toe for a few days so I've not been able to go for a run which I am going to try and remedy either tonight or tomorrow night. Also I'm going up to Burnlaw at the weekend for the final BDGA tour event of the year so should nail another 3 rounds of dg to add to the total.

Every little helps!!


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 51
Miles: 25
DG Rounds: 10

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Rebuilding a mac for the first time

After having a little mac mini for over 18 months this evening it's come down to being rebuilt for the first time!

Before getting my mini I'd not used a mac since year 10 work experience when I went to a graphic design company and back then all good graphics software and design was done on the mac os. Back then I think it was version 6 so very much in the PowerPC range of computers. But since then in the past couple of years the PowerPC strangle hold on the mac has relaxed and Intel broke in.

The main reason why I got a mac mini in the first place wasn't because of the new Mac OSX operating system and it wasn't because I was overly looking for stability (although it's nice) ... the reason why I got it was because it was incredibly small, very very quiet and still pretty powerful for what I needed.

I'm not into gaming that much so never needed a beast of a machine with awesome graphics to play the latest games. All I wanted was a machine which I could program on, watch dvds, download stuff and surf the net on. Not much of asking I thought. With the advent of Intel duel core chip being inside it also opened up the possibility of running windows on the machine as well.

I played around with Boot Camp when it came out and installed Vista. Vista performance rating gave it a 3.4 (I think) which was ok; but then looking at the break down of performance it was only that low because of the integrated graphics. The duel core 1.8 Ghz cpu scored 4.5 - 4.7, the 2GB of ram scored highly ... even the speed and performance of the hdd was good. So I was happy!

Anyway, once this is done I'll have the latest build of boot camp to play with and windows will be going back on. The reason ... purely for remote access from work so I can make sure my downloads are good and I can access visual studio 2008 (as we've not upgrade yet ... still waiting!).

But so far so good the install has gone well :-)

How do you know you're having a bad day?

After saving an existing word document as a new version ready for updating, and trying to change the version number from 0.4 to 0.5 on the front page and word does this ...



:-(

DoC Update - '09 Tour

I've decided to start posting thoughts about what is going on with being the DoC and what changes if/when I'm trying to put into place and generally help people understand what goes on in the world of the BDGA DoC.

For a start some people new to the sport might not know what the DoC is and what they are responsible for, so I'll start there :-)

What is DoC?

DoC stands for Director of Competitions for the British Disc Golf Association. As DoC I am responsible for organising and scheduling the national tour and nationals events for each year. As well as this I am on the board of directors for the BDGA which involves being part of discussion and decision making process. We as a board are always looking for ways to increase the coverage and exposure of the sport to more people in the UK.

I also found out today that I am responsible for organising trophies for the National Championships ... wish I had been told earlier! ;-)

What Am I Currently Doing?

At the moment I have started the ball rolling with contacting people about running national tour events for '09 and waiting for their responses. I've put together the bidding forms which I will email out soon and will also look to post them for everyone/anyone to get hold of and bid for an event for '09 :-)

Whats Next?

Well, I am going to look to post semi regularly so you can all keep up with what is going on in the word of West and being DoC. Along with this I also post random stuff along the lines of running, beer and techy stuff (when I get round to it).

If you have any comments or ideas about anything disc golf related please leave a comment.

6 mile week ... so far!

2 more miles were ran this evening. A little slower than the last 2 days (really should have taken a rest day) but still only in 22mins. Still not too bad, and it makes 6 miles this week so far. Rest day tomorrow and then we'll see what happens towards the weekend.

Ratio is getting better :-)

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 46
Miles: 25
DG Rounds: 10

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

US Presidential Candidates - Who has the most cash?

Its the Republican convention at the moment and as I'm a little interested in US politics (especially around the presidency) after being a fan of the West Wing for a long long time I thought I check out their coverage.

Oh my word was I dissappointed. I wonder if the Democrates just have more spare cash kicking about. The DNC last week was covered online with top quality HD tv footage which you could watch very easily. The first video I looked at for the republican coverage was poor quality and hosted on You Tube!

I'll have a bit more of a look around later, but is this seriously all they can come up with?!?!

Lunch time running

As I had to stay at home this morning for the plumbers to come and fit a shower I thought I'd take the opportunity to go for a run in the middle of the day. I did the same route as last night and though it was a little trickier due to people shopping down the Parade I went round them without too much effort so was ok. I started off at a slower pace than I did last night, but had less stops (only stopping to walk twice) so when I got back and found I had done it in 20mins again I was happy.

Still building the base remember! ... oh and helping out the ratio! ... oh and helping with the diet challenge I've got going with my wife. The target is to get down to 11 stone by Christmas. At the weigh in yesterday morning I was 12 stone 1 1/2 lbs. So hence why Sept (except Dev social) will be beer free! :-)

Wish me luck!


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 46
Miles: 23
DG Rounds: 10

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Running, no beer!

Went for a run last night with the new trainers. It was raining and had a strong head wind all the way down the parade but still did it in about 20mins. So just over 2 miles in 20 mins ... I'm not as un fit as I thought I was :-)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 46
Miles: 21
DG Rounds: 10

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Beer, Diet and running

Another beer update is needed due to it being after a weekend and obviously I drank some beer over the weekend ... also played some disc golf!!

1 beer -> burger friday
1 beer -> disc golf lunch
3 beers -> Sunday evening

2 rounds of disc golf ... so helps the ratio a bit.

On the plus side, got some new trainers yesterday so will be back to pounding the streets this evening to try and get back to building my base and training properly again. Also the diet started today (so I'm told by the wife), so no beer (except dev social) for at least a month.


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 46
Miles: 19
DG Rounds: 10

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Spam Update - Aug

Well I missed July's update due to being a bit busy but here is the August one ...

At the end of Aug currently at 31,753!! Had a few slip through this month but nothing in large volume. But still, over 31.5k in a month is crazy!!!

Democrat Presidential Nomination

Last night the Democrats officially accepted Barak Obama as the Democratic Presidential nominee ... and after Hillary Clinton basically threw out the rule book (nominate by acclamation) a choir starting singing "People of the world, join hands, start a love train, love train" ... is it me or is that a bit sureal?!?!?!

Thursday evening beer ... wife recommended

Got home last night and as I walked in the door the wife was serving up my dinner (she's the best) and then asked me if I wanted a beer (she's amazing!) ... what more could I want :-)

Anyway, should get a couple of rounds under my belt at the weekend and organise some new trainers so I can go running again. Can't wait till Lau's contract at LA Fitness expires in November so we can both go and join Cannons and I can get back to working out, swimming and going to Body Combat regularly!

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 41
Miles: 19
DG Rounds: 8

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Welcome to the world ... US Style

I was listening to the keynote speech Democratic Vice President nominee Joe Biden made last night at the DNC and it made me laugh.

At one point he goes on about how every day people are asking questions about standard of living which he claims hasn't improved under Bush and won't under McCain. One of the questions he talks about is the regular people asking "how can we afford $60 to $70 to fill up the tank?" and I was thinking "hang on a minute ... "

*goes to xe.com*

That works out at £32.73 to £38.19 to fill up your car. It initially struck me ... Welcome to the Real World!!

I'm going to guess that they were talking about a big people mover not the small fiesta I drive and that costs me £35 to fill up!

So I think they should count themselves lucky its taken them this long to have to pay a stupid amount of money to fill up the car!!

Disclaimer: I know we have high fuel tax in the UK, and I don't know about it in the USA, but thats not the point of the rant :-)

Quick update ... not so good!

Quick update as not got much time ...

Since the last update which was before the weekend I've not done any running, played 2 rounds of disc golf (65 and 72(?)) and drank 5 beers ... this isn't going well is it ;-)

Also when tidying up the kitchen last night Lau found some more beer, so we've put that in the fridge and I've decided that I'm going to continue to drink till the dev social on the 11th Sept and then go totally beer free.

On the upside, pay day has come and gone and will look to buy some new trainers so I can get back to running, and will also do a couple of rounds of golf at the weekend with Jon and Nige :-)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 40
Miles: 19
DG Rounds: 8

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Beer Update

Right, the challenge has been thrown down to me with regards to getting healthier and looking better and getting it done before Lau. haha! So I have decided that I will only be drinking beer at the weekends untill after the Dev team social in second week of Sept, then I will be going beer free for a month like I did last year. In addition to this I am going to start counting beers which I drink outside of the house as well, so dev social, burger fridays etc will count towards "The Ratio!".

So quick update on what has happened since getting back which effects the ratio ...

2 beers in the house thursday night (last week)
1 round of disc golf thursday afternoon (I shot 67, Jon shot 69 ... so not bad considering we've not played for a while)
1 beer burger friday

7 coronas at Will and Kate's wedding reception at the weekend

I'm in serious negative now, although I did run 2 miles Monday night so not as bad as it could have been!

And had a beer last night ... grr, stupid ratio!!

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 35
Miles: 19
DG Rounds: 6

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

The last Month ...

The last month has been a bit crazy and life changing ... and that statement is probably a large over exageration! So here are the highlights of the past few weeks ...

End of July Lau and I tied the knot to become hustband and wife! Woo! It was a great day. We couldn't have asked for better weather and it really shows in the photos of the day.

clicky for photos

The following few weeks were spent on honeymoon in the south of Egypt on the coast of the Red sea. It was great. 40 - 42 degrees c every day!! It took a couple of days to get use to the heat, but after that is was great! We also went on a day trip to Chiro. This was a long, strange day which involved going to see the pyramids, sphinx, musium, perfume factory and a paparus factory.

The pyramids are a bit odd, the whole experience is strange and not quite as awe inspiring as I thought it would be. We had a tour guide and bus to the two of us so we could choose how long we spent at each thing. We started off going to the panoramic view place to take some photos and it would have been great if it wasn't for the locals hastling u to sell stuff, to take photos of you and charge you for you camera etc. it really started to get me down.

We then went down to the largest pyramid and walked round it, we took some photos and it was good. Lau had to stop me from getting annoyed at the stupid locals who piss off tourists. Seriously people, if they banned them more people would want to go!!!

Anyway, the rest of the day was fun. The perfume factory was good, although ended up walking out smelling like one of the female counters in Boots. They kept wiping different oils and mixes on the skin to test. The Museium after was good though. We got to see Tutankarmoons (spl?!) head dress (the famous one) and his coffins etc. but after the tour guide left and we had seen some other stuff on our own, one tomb started looking like another and each statue starting looking familier.

Over the time I was away I drank way too much beer, so I was on holiday and was all inclusive so decided I wouldn't count it towards my beer tally, this also meant that running I did in the first week didn't count either (which summed up to about just under 10km).

But anyway more to come with that in the next post.

As for married life, its pretty awesome. Its great coming home to Lau and chatting and living with her and stuff. Its brilliant! :-)

Another beer came and went

A night off from running, a beer at home, a walk and beer at the pub (which doesn't count!) was the name of the game last night; nice and relaxing with the mrs!

After running a couple of times in a short period recently I've noticed that my shins have become a little tender from the consistent pounding of the streets. I've decided that I'm going to take a few days off from running so that I can be on my feet all day on Saturday and not moan (wouldn't go down to well and be the best start to married life). I also need to get a new pair of trainers when I get back off honeymoon to crank up the training another level.

Anyway, a few days to go and still not overly nervous. Got the mrs' wedding present at lunch time so one less thing on the todo list :-)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 24
Miles: 17
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Exercise & Table Seating Plan == BBR

The bad beer ratio continues after an evening which included sorting out the seating plan for our wedding.

I got home a bit later than usual and managed to get in a short circuit before dinner. So with the additional 1.5 miles it made my ratio positive for the first time in a while. But over the course of the evening Lau and I put the table seating plan together for the wedding. It didn't take as long as I had expected it would, but it took the expected amount of beer, so the ratio went back in the red ...

... D'oh!!

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 23
Miles: 17
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Sunday Running Fun

Went for a run this afternoon, just before dinner, with the future mrs. Was good, was fun running with my future wife and this time next week I can get rid of the "future" bit, but I digress ...

We ran/walked the short circuit that I do then Lau headed home and I went off for another circuit from Vialli's corner, up to the old library and round the short route again. I did from Vialli's corner to Vialli's corner none stop, so was pretty happy with my running.

Total distance was 2.27 miles but as only full 1/2 miles get counted for the ratio I'm still 1/2 mile down to getting level. That should be remedied this week as I need to gain some beer points ready for Friday.

6 nights to go till I'm married!!!!!!


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 21
Miles: 15.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Twenty Nine Minutes

Aakash emailed out a training plan today to a few of us who are going to do the Reading half marathon relay to have something to plan some training. Along with talking to him more it seems to be about increasing the time that you are out training. Today I was out for approx 29mins over a distance of 2.6 miles (only 2.5 count to the ratio).

This works out to about 11min / mile which seems a little slow, but as I'm still relatively close to this whole training thing I think its pretty good. Its also over an increased distance so I'm happy with it. Towards the end of the run I was getting into a good stride and was feeling pretty good.

So on the whole the ratio starts to get better a bit. I've offered to pick Lau up if she needs it from her work summer do, so I can't have any beers just in case I'm called into action. This does help my ratio, so its all good!


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 21
Miles: 13.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Woo with the running ...

... however not for me. I'd like to congratulate my future wife on her Race for Life performance last night. A group consisting of herself and some of her collegues from Trinity School in Warwick went for the 5km run last night. The wife to be finished in 37mins beating last years time!

I'm very proud of her! Our next challenge together is the two castles 10km run between Warwick Castle and Kenilworth Castle next June (I think). So my schedule of runs is filling up so really need to plan my training program properly.

Current races for '09:
- Reading Marathon Relay (March) (3.25 miles / 5.2km)
- Two Castles Run (June ?) (6.2 miles / 10km)

With the training which will need to be done for the two castles run next year I challenge Lau to do Race for Life next year and do it under 30mins ... that is the challenge!! Will she take it up, will let you know :-)

As for me last night; I got home, was incredibly shattered so while my pizza cooked I had a beer and unwrapped our 3 seater sofa which was delivered on Tuesday! :-)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 21
Miles: 11
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

20th Beer

Last night after some disc golf in the lovely sun shine the 20th beer was consumed. On the downside, it makes my ratio even worse due to not playing enough dg to constitute an entire round. Ah well ...

The plan is to go for another run tonight so the mrs doesn't beat me with exercise today.

This evening Lau is doing the Race for Life with a group of people from her school. Good luck baby!!! :-)

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 20
Miles: 11
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

None stop!

On Monday night I decided I would go for a run, but would see how far I could go without stopping. Up till now I've walked a part of the route to recover slightly to enable further running.

I started off by heading off slower than usual and just took things gently. As I crossed over the river and got to the point where I either go the short route or the longer one I was feeling pretty good. At that point I decided that I'd go the short route but not stop all the way home.

Other than a couple of seconds waiting for the traffic lights to change (no point in getting killed) I got all the way home without stopping.

1.5 miles in about 14mins ... the base is slowly becomming established!

... ratio still not great tho ;-)

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 19
Miles: 11
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Sunday evening ...

... 3 more beers!

I need a run!


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 19
Miles: 9.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Speedy Stuff!!

I have finally had time to move some stuff about the house now the carpets have been installed. Lau has gone out to the gym so I thought after putting together the bed I'd setup my mac mini and see if it remembered how to work after being cooped up in its little box for a month. Once plugged in and attached to the wireless router it was time to test the speed ...

... speedddyyyyyy!!!

8000+ kbps download!! So literally just short of 1MB / sec!! :-o

We've gone for sky top broadband package mainly so we get unlimited downloads and theoretically we can get up to 16mb speed, but a solid 8mb will do for me!! :-)

Had beer last night ... d'oh!

Ratio going down again ... so tired, so sleepy and not run for a few days. Really need to remedy this over the weekend!!

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 16
Miles: 9.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Speed / Recovery

I didn't have time to post this yesterday, so here is the update from the running on Tuesday!

---

I got home and the dinner was on (woo go future wife!) so that limited the time in which I could go out. So I decided that I'd go the short route (1.5 miles) and do faster running than normal, and recovery. So in the end ran about 1 mile and walked the remaining .5. It was good. It was split up into 3 running sections with intervals of walking.

When I got home decided I'd have a beer with dinner as I'd earned it, but then my dad came round to help saw/bash/pull/bend/remove the side of the bath before the new flooring was laid so he had a beer and I joined him ...

... ratio back to bad ... it was so close, and felt good about being positive. Ah well, it'll come back. Need to start training properly for the first race ... its not for a while and more details to come!

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 15
Miles: 9.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Knight Rider Sat Nav

Its finally been confirmed that the Knight Rider style sat nav is being released ... altho in the US :-(

Details (well the limited info thats been released) can be found on the Register
with more details to follow hopefully. This will however mean that everyones childhood fantasy about having KITT as their own is coming closer to reality.

New route - 2miles a different way

Just went for another quick run after getting back from work, it was a bit faster at points, but walked a bit too so still worked out at about 11 mins / mile. Not bad for a day off training.

First time in this whole thing I've got a good ratio!! Woo!! It almost makes me want to have a beer to celebrate, but its only a small margin and I don't want to ruin it!!

Current Status : Good!

Beers: 13
Miles: 8.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

2 miles & 2 beers

I changed my route on Sunday to include running up Dale Street / Clarendon Place and down the Parade which up'ed my distance to just over 2 miles (click). It wasn't too bad and then to celebrate I had two beers with dinner ... d'oh!

Other highlights of the weekend was a concert at Warwick Castle on Friday night (the Mrs dragged me to it, but actually had a good laugh), went out for a friends birthday dinner Saturday evening and then watched the British Gran Prix and most of the Wimbledon Mens final on Sunday. All in all a tiring, but good weekend :-)

Ratio is still a bit screwed though :-(

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 13
Miles: 6.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Becoming a regular ... well kinda

I'm starting to like the whole running around the streets of Leamington. I've done the same route now a few times and its getting a bit easier, or i'm getting faster and not noticing the dying so much. I decided last night that I'm going to up my distance to 2 or 2.5 miles depending on the route which I find. It will be harder not only in distance, but I've decided to start venturing up the Parade (which is the main shopping street in Leamington and its on a hill) and the surroundings (which are on the same hill).

The reasoning ... hopefully I'll improve my ratio quicker, will keep you updated on the route and if I don't post I've killed myself!


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 11
Miles: 4.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Evening before a day off is good and bad

Monday evening I got home from work and decided to go for a run to clear my head and get the madness and frustrations of work from my head. I ran the same route as previously done so, and it was another 1.5 miles in approx 15mins so was quite happy with it ... still building the base :-)

However, came home and had 2 beers with dinner!!

If I was on a Bittorrent sharing site and had this bad ratio I'd be classed as a leacher and probably banned! Really need to get my exercise up and get my ratio better :-)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 11
Miles: 3
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

June Spam

Another month went by yesterday and in a month the spam count went up by 2k emails!!

End of June spam levels are ~ 33,700 ... this is getting rediculous, but quite curious about how this will continue over the next few months.

QP Open weekend

The weekend went and another Quarry Park Open has gone; and as expected I sucked!

Started off well and made a great start. Was placed in the group starting on hole 3 which was good, not usually started that close to the beginning of a round before. My round started off with 4, 2, 3, 2, 4 (OB), 2 ... so after 6 holes i was -1 par! It all went completely to pot after that and scored 3 of my worse rounds in years ... 69, 70 and 74 :-(

Ah well, there is always next year!

So 3 rounds of disc golf, but also 2 beers in the house so beer / exercise ratio is still negative. But soon it'll get better ... hopefully :-)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 9
Miles: 1.5
DG Rounds: 5

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Bad weather == BBR (Bad Beer Ratio)

The weather was lovely all day in Reading yesterday then I got on the train home and as it was pulling into Leamington station it was peeing it down. Due to this motivation to run was pretty much none existant and then the mrs offered me a beer; how could I turn it down?

Ah well, 3 rounds of golf at the weekend should help with the beer credit crunch.


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 7
Miles: 1.5
DG Rounds: 2

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Big Beach Sports - Disc Golf on the Wii

New game released today which has disc golf in it!

Not played it or anything, but at least its getting the sport more coverage and hopefully more people will have a go and then want to have a go in real life :-)

Round of 66, how rubbish am I?!

Last night went over to Quarry Park and played a round with Rich and Scott. Was good fun and played some good shots. Managed to get a couple of birdies on holes 8 and 10, but got to hole 13 and fell apart some what and ended up shooting a 66 which was rubbish! Hopefully I can improve at the weekend.

As for the beer, had dinner at my parents came home and drank a couple of bottles of Stella while eating some left overs and watching some west wing. So the round of golf was good, but then went and completely un-did it with the beer.

Ah well, I'll be playing at least 3 rounds at the weekend and planning on going for a run tonight so should be in positive in my beer / exercise account. Will keep you updated :-)

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 6
Miles: 1.5
DG Rounds: 2

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

First running ness ...

Last night when I got home I went for a run. Yes shocking isn't it that I actually went out and started the first miles for this crazy thing I've decided to do!

The route can be found at click

And I did it in 15mins, so in runners terms it was at a pace of a 10min mile (ish). As Aakash says "just building a base" :-)


Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 4
Miles: 1.5
DG Rounds: 1

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

2 more beers, 1 exercise

Another weekend has gone by and at the mo that means painting for me, but after painting another room and becoming a broken man I gave in, watched a dvd and had a couple of beers. It was good to unwind, but it means I'm more in debt, although not so much as expected. I played some disc golf on friday evening for an hour or so, and had another 1.5 hours of practice yesterday which I think equates to about a round, so I'm going to count it ... I made the rules so I can class that as some exercise :-)

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 4
Miles: 0
DG Rounds: 1

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

First Thousand Beers / Miles / Rounds

Why?

The weekend just gone I finally moved into my new house that Lau and I just bought! Woo! Currently its a bit of a mess with all my stuff filling the living room but that is due to us still painting and getting the upstairs habitable. Once that is done I can move up stairs and put the bed together etc. can't wait!

Anyway, I thought as its a new beginning I thought I would do a new thing which will involve something I enjoy doing and trying to keep fit. The issue is however that I enjoy having a beer, but my belly doesn't get rid of itself, so we have come to a bit of a problem (or a solution starting point as some might say).

What?

Well I am going to ride on my bike and / or run a mile and / or play a round of disc golf for every beer which I consume in my house (practice rounds and tourament rounds count; at quarry park a full round is 1.5 - 2 miles of walking, but will only count to 1 beer). When I say consume a beer in the house I mean a bottle or can of any beer/lager (and when I say beer I mean lager) and will document them on this blog. It doesn't matter how big the bottle is or the percentage volume as that will make the calculation not very easy or fun and thats what it is supposed to be!

First

Well Sunday night after painting for what seemed like forever (but was actually about 6 hours) I had a couple of beers (as I thought I'd deserved them doing all the painting and during dinner). That means I am currently in debt to my beer/exercise ratio and I need to remedy that soon!!

Current Status : Bad!

Beers: 2
Miles: 0
DG Rounds: 0

Key
Good => Miles + DG Rounds > Beers
Level => Miles + DG Rounds == Beers
Bad => Miles + DG Rounds < Beers

Team Foundation Server 2005 - adding files when offline

I've recently been given a laptop at work to be able to work on the commute between my home (Leamington Spa) and work (Reading) and here comes the issue, TFS doesn't like it much when working disconnected.

I've done some research online and found that some of the issues which TFS has in 2005 version are addressed in 2008, but as we won't be uprading for a while I need to live with 2005.

This morning on the way to work I needed to add a new workflow activity to my project so I could carry on with work, obviously right click > add new item > activity, TFS client moans about not being able to connect to the server (no really?!) and VS adds the file with no source control bindings. The file is added and I can edit it, compile etc and work away fine on it. However the issue comes to making sure it gets added to source control for when I check it in it doesn't break the automated build. Due to this issue I decided that if I added / edited a file when offline I'd make a note of which and to add it / check it out when I got into the office.

I got in this morning and connected the wireless, went to source control viewer to add it in and couldn't find the folder where it exists (even though its in an existing folder) ... hmmm strange. So, found the file in solution explorer, right click > ... no "Add to Source Control" which is a bit rubbish. However there is a really simple solution ...

If you right click on the file in question and exclude it from the project, save the project file, click on the "Show all files" button at the top of solution explorer and find the file in the greyed out version, right click and add to project ... it gets added to source control :-)

Ever wondered what could be build out of Meccano?

Well wonder no more as to what size you can make stuff and start thinking about what you can make on the grand scale from Meccano!

A new skyscraper has been built in NY, but even though its only 65ft tall its still a break through from artist Chris Burden.


The image above is from the Daily Mail (click) of the artist looking through some of the Meccano pieces.

Some footage can also be seen on the BBC iPlayer ... well worth a look!

Crazy Spam Subjects

With the mass amount of spam I get some crazy subject lines, some I'm not going to post as they are discusting, but some are just hillarious and I thought I'd share some of them; read into them as you will ...

• challenge the dark knight when you are ready
  
• Update you p***s
• Find out incredible hulk's secret
• 15 times the power
• All your buddies will envy you

Why do people think that these would work and make people open the email let alone click on any links inside!!

Stop opening spam and clicking on the links people!!!

Work lappy

UPDATE: Jon said I can't refer to Lau in the future as 'my wife' yet.

After travelling home the other week I enquired about getting a work laptop so that once I moved up to Leamington Spa I would be able to leave on time (if not a little earlier) and work on the train so I could get home to my wife the woman to be at a reasonable hour (also so I could play some disc golf after work in the summer ... woo!!).

Well last week I got given a new machine! Its not the latest from Dell, but its a reasonable machine and I am quite surprised by it!

The machine I have been given is a ...


...Dell Precision M65.

Spec rundown ...
2Ghz Dual Core 2 Pentium
2.5GB ram
NVIDIA Quadro FX 350M

The thing which has surprised me the most about it is the battery life currently at 88% while I write this and it claims it could do another 3 1/2 hours! I worked on the hour train home the other day, and back with a stop over in Leamington station as the train was running late, restored a 4gb database and worked on the train; and still had 25% battery life remaining. Along with the usual typing I also had music playing, 2 instances of Visual Studio 2005, sql server 2005 running , outlook and other stuff and still worked like a dream!

I hope this can continue and I get lots of work done on trains and the wife woman likes it when I get home from work on time :-)

PS. Only just over 7 weeks to go!!! :-)

CRM and Spam!

About the spam situation, I didn't do a post at the beginning of May due to the fact that I was on my stag do which was great!!

Another reason was that it was a lot lower than it had been previously; ~ 28000 mark. This kept up for most of the month and had nothing spectacular going on. I've come back after a weekend of sorting out my new house (more to come in another post) and no internet connection at all to a wh00ping 31,636 spam. An all time high!!

It pretty much reassures my thoughts on what spam is; its just a very bad marketing campaign. Somone behind these plainly stupid blanketing emails have obviously had their CRM software popup with a new campaign.

CRM software is good for business; bad for spammer!

Symantec employee spams friends

DISCLAIMER: I'd just like to start off by saying I'm not going to name names as I don't want to get my friend into trouble with his employer, but I think what I'm about to discuss is not without a sense of irony.

DISCLAIMER #2: If anyone has any legitamate reasons for this post to be removed then please do leave a comment and let me look into it.

Most people in the world know the names 'Symantec' and 'Norton' and know that each area is associated with anti virus software and computer protection; spam filtering and general computer wellness. No one is excluded from being attacked from attack injection and trojan infiltration, even Symantec employees.

Over the past couple of months I've had some spam which hadn't been filtered out by gmail spam filter. After looking at the email I realised it was from one of my friend's email addresses and not picked up. I assumed that it had been used from some sort of phishing attack or he'd not read the small print of a website he had signed up to and they had sold it to a 3rd party and they were spamming me; but no ...

After looking at the other email addresses it had been sent to, yes lots of people in the to: section of the email, it became clear that it had come from his email client or msn client. I recognised some of the addresses of people we know in common and that they could have only come from this address list ...

... had someone hacked his email address?
... had an ex-girlfriend gone up against him? (that was a stupid idea, he's not that much of a ladies man ;-))

... nope, he'd must have downloaded something dodgy and been infected! Someone who works for such a high profile company which supplies a large number of small, medium and enterprise companies with corporate anti spam and anti-virus software and being effected was shocking!!

So just to say to everyone, be careful where you sign up for; be careful which plugins for MSN messager you use; be careful of the small print when signing up for legit reasons, you never know who will be spamming friends in the near future.

March Spam

Yup, another month has gone by and I've hit the magical 30,000 spam mark!

I've got the workings of an idea around the spam total to help with the beer freeness (or smaller amount at least) and will explain further in future posts when I've decided whether to do it or not ;-)

February spam

well it seems to have leveled out a bit and Feb's spam count was approx 23,500. I say approx as it happened over the weekend I was busy playing in the second BDGA National Tour event at Quarry Park in Leamington spa. Was a great weekend, as usual up in Warwickshire, and thanks go to Del, Sue and Ivan! :-)

Right, off to see the mrs and then drive back down to Reading :-)

January Spam ... complete madness

I don't have to go on about how good the gmail spam filter is, like every spam filter some things get through, but it learns very well. So I thought I'd run a test and since Jan 1st 2008 I've not deleted any spam from the folder manually and just let it rack up from zero ...

... in a month I've got 20,913 spam?! How crazy is that?! I know I've had one of my domains for over 8 years and I've got a catch all on it, but thats just mad!

Wonder how Feb will do :-)

Happy Birthday Lego!

Just a quick post, while I'm drinking a nice coffee before heading off to work, to say happy anniversary to lego! and on my birthday too!! :-)



Lego turns 50 and I turn 25 ... what a day!! :-)

Pandora is no more :-(

When you load pandora now you get the following message ...

----

Dear Pandora Visitor,

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

We believe that you are in United Kingdom (your IP address appears to be xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx). If you believe we have made a mistake, we apologize and ask that you please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com

If you are a paid subscriber, please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com and we will issue a pro-rated refund to the credit card you used to sign up. If you have been using Pandora, we will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you.

We will be notifying listeners as licensing agreements are established in individual countries. If you would like to be notified by email when Pandora is available in your country, please enter your email address below. The pace of global licensing is hard to predict, but we have the ultimate goal of being able to offer our service everywhere.

We share your disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

Tim Westergren
Founder

----

This sucks as its one of the only places where we can listen to music at work and its really a sad day when its completely restricted.

Its a sad day, hopefully it will come back to the UK shores ... if only the UK based record industry would pull their finger out and realise that these types of ventures make people go out and buy music!!

Peace!

Died in a blogging accident

Can bloggers die blogging? I feeling its a ploy to see the power KXCD has over people!

I was pointed to the latest XKCD posting this morning and after searching google for the comment the results returned were quite high (because of people posting about XKCD) but also the posts were indexed by google very quickly ...

... so the experiment is, how quickly google will index this? and how many people will read it?

linkage to the comic

Will check in again at lunch time!