TIKI HURRICANE!

Bad news and good news folks...

Bad first - the TIKI bar has been hit by its first tropical storm - with wind speeds approaching 100mph and driving rain. This flash weather caused havoc in TIKI-land throwing the bar some two metres to the other side of the bar area. Luckily - LUCKILY - no one was hurt as the bar was miraculously empty at the time. The surrounding area was also hit hard with one tree left tilting at an awkward angle.

The good news - the bar has been repaired and is open for business again. Management would like to thank the courageous acts of the staff who helped right the fallen bar! May the TIKI Gods smile fortune upon you!

Canon lenses

I have been looking at lenses long and hard the last few nights. I am keen to replace the kit lens on my 400D with something a little more capable. I also want to replace my Tamron 70-300 with something that remains sharp through to the 300 end and with stabilisation. It seems that these two lenses off what I am after.

Canon EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM
Canon EF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM

However - UK prices are around £1,100 for the two. Luckily all is not lost - going to the USA soon where the price is much nearer £800. Now, that leaves some money for a flash doesn't it......

I can see that this photography hobby may be a little on the expensive side! Although a LOT chepaer than my last one (helicopters).

Police CCR visit

As part of my on-going KNW activities we were given the chance to visit the country Police HQ and the various 999 call centres and incident rooms etc. Quite informative and remakrably small an operation. I was surprised to hear that the county only receives 1,500 calls a day from all of Hertfordshire.

Flickr updated....

Am suffering from terrible insomnia at the moment - been up past 02:30 most nights since New Year which is leaving me exhausted in the mornings. The culprit is learning of course - I spend the days reading up on several new technologies for work and although mentally stimulating it leaves my mind racing at night. Had the same thing at Uni!

Still, it has given me time in the evenings to play with my camera and organise a few things. Tonight I figured I'd reorganise my flickr account and put *only* my favourite shots up instead of the usual mix - try to make it look more pro...

Whaddya think - http://www.flickr.com/photos/rakh1/

Oops...

Question - what happens when you leave R alone with:

a) his new camera
b) the diagram below
c) this website http://www.electricstuff.co.uk/extube.html#focus
d) a smal spec of dirt on his focusing screen he cannot quite reach

Well, it is very simple, involves most of R's smaller tools and looses him an hour of his life. However, after several tries (the 400D is quite different to the 300D mentioned in the article) I managed to get it all back together again - and luckily the spot of dirt has gone.

Phew!

I've left the IET

It is a sad day but after 10 years I decided to resign my membership. Why? Well, they do nothing for me quite frankly. I even went to a membership day a couple of months ago armed with all sorts of leading questions only to be told that it would probably not help me a lot to stay a member!!!! So, with the rise in fees from £40ish to nearly £100 I handed in my notice. I no longer have MIET after my name :(

Vista DEP problems

As you know I have been playing with Vista since it RTM'd a while back. Vista has some great new security features which in the long term will be great. However, until manufacturers start shipping programs designed to deal with them you may find these get in the way. A major one of these is the DEP (Data Execution Protection) that is on by default. This has stopped several of my programs running. Luckily there is a way to turn this off for now:

1. Click Start
2. Click All Programs
3. Click Accessories
4. Right Click on Command Prompt
5. Left click on Run as Administrator
6. Click the Allow button if it asks you for permission
7. Type or copy and paste this into the command prompt window:
bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff
8. Hit enter and you should see the confirmation: Operation Completed Successfully
9. Reboot and DEP should be off

Seems to work a treat....

Happy New Year!

It's been a very busy year throughout 2006 and as such has gone very quickly. We have gained a nephew, made new friends and finished our garden. K started to work for herself, I got my SQL2005 exam. Both of us have had a great year and look forward to another exciting one ahead - one in which we both turn 30! To all our friends and family - HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! xx

New Year Party

Following Dinner we went accross the road to party at S&S's... The party was fancy dress in the style of "S". I went as Saun Connery's Stunt Stand-in (lots of S's) and K went as a Silver Sophisticated Swede. Amongst other guests were Satna, a Surgeon, a Swash-Buckling Scoundral, School-girls/boys, etc etc... Party went on till the early hours - fantastic!

New Year Dinner

Every New Year we have a meal with friends and this year was no exception. K made mushroom soup to start, followed by beef fillet and ending with a New Year's Bomb. By the time the cheese board surfaced we were all stuffed!

Manfrotto 785B

Finally got a tripod for my camera - a nice black Manfrotto 785B (aquired after a good review in digital photography magazine). Seems very good - nice and stable and a gread ball-head.

Merry Xmas!

Got around to looking at my webcam log today and found this little xmas present from R nextdoor! Took me 5 mins to get back up from the floor and stop laughing....

Ouch my head.....

It was R's birthday yesterday - need I say more? The evening for me started around midnight and went on until....well, I'm not entirely sure.... ughhh....

Xmas tree is up!

We put our tree up today and decorated the rest of the house. I took the chance to try a long exposure using my new tripod - this shot was over 30s using an aperture of 3.5 and ISO 100. Bit overexposed, but I like it!

St. Lucia

K and I went to celebrate St. Lucia at Westminster Cathedral on Friday - hosted by the Swedish Church. The Swedish choir was unbelievable, the acoustics in the cathedral are just amazing. The whole thing lasted for nearly 2 hours by which point I was nearly frozen - should have worn my warm coat instead of my trendy one!

Mom's

Went to Mom's today for an early birthday for her and an even earlier xmas for my Brother (only time we'll see him over xmas). Had a great time and even got Mom's computer working :)

Xmas tree

K and I went to get our xmas tree today - found a nice Spruce, about 8 foot high (which we managed to fit in the MINI!!). It is currently outside 'spreading'...will come in and get decorated tomorrow...

New South Park Rich

A friend asked for the 'South Park Character' link last night which got me thinking - http://www.sp-studio.de/. My old South Park Me no longer looks like me (I am now sans beard) and as such I think it is time for a new one???? Voila!

The end in sight...

A dynamic start to my last working week of the year before I holiday for xmas. Monday was a dash to Hull and back and today was a similar dash to Grimsby and back - that's more than 800 miles in 2 days. With the torrential rain and dark evenings I have spent around 14 hours in the car in 2 days - OUCH! Add that to my 130 mile round trip to the office in a few days and I'll have done ~1,000 miles this week bringing the MINI to over 32,000 miles in a year and a quater! A such I am looking forward to two things - a lie in tomorrow morning and Fri evening when xmas starts for me :) :) :)

Weird photos...

A and F came to stay last night - had a great time and ended up at the Brocket, a fantastic 14th Centuary pub. Took these photos on the way home - weird!

Xmas presents....I'm done!

Ah - fantastic. I went out at lunchtime today and got he last of my xmas presents. I am waiting for one more to come through the post and then I am all ready for xmas. I even wrapped them all up allready :)

Denzil's retirement

Had a great night in London on Tuesday congratulating one of my very first bosses on his retirement. We spent several years at Unisys together and he did a truely wonderful job of guiding an inexperienced kid in his first few years of his career. It was great to see Tom, Matt, Hazel and USA-Chris too - almost like the old team was back together again :) So - congratulations Denzil - I hope we can all meet up once in a while for a beer and a catch-up.

Xmas time

K loves xmas - I mean REALLY loves xmas. She has spent all day making gingerbread and putting up advent stuff. Our house looks like Santa's workshop ;)

New T-shirt

Blogger's image upload has been out of action for the last few days - but now it is up again so I can show you my funky birthday present from my brother :)

Flikr account

I finally opened a flikr account - have a look here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rakh1