Smart - Destination Brooklands

On Sat K and I went to 'Smart - Destination Brooklands', a replacement for the old London to Brighton run. We met at the local dealers for breakfast and to see the new For2 for the first time. We then convoyed along the M25 to Brooklands with 30 or so other Smarts. Once there we joined around 1,000 other Smart cars. The actual event itself was not great - the queues for driving the new car were over an hour long and there was not an aweful lot to do. Anyway, we had a nice lunch in the Gull-Wing restaurant, wandered around some static displays and eventually left after 3 hours or so. Still, it was fun to be a part of it.

BTW - we should have won the competition for dirtiest Smart. We must have been the *only* car that was not clean - the shame!

HUSBAND-BEATER!

Last night, presumably as I was bad or something, my wife beat me...with my own car! Yes, it is true - the MINI was used as a weapon to infict maximum damage on me. She waited until I was standing underneath the boot, arms full of shopping, before she *JUMPED* with all her weight and *SLAMMED* the bootlid onto my shoulder. Luckily I didn't drop the wine. Needless to say I had a sleepless night - both through the agony of the bruising and the FEAR of a repeat attack!

'k ok - the image above is not *actually* me. I don't visably bruise much so I had to resort to someone else's injuries to emphasise my own...

Parish Council

The last two nights have been my first official meetings as a Councillor. Tue was a Planning Committeee and last night a Village Hall one followed by a General Finance and Planning. I have to admitt they were fairly interesting - although I am shocked at the procedures and cost of putting up xmas lights in the village. I have been asked to choose which committies to affiliate with and am going to chose the Planning and F&GPC - they appear to be the most interesting and the ones in which I feel I can contribute. Councillor Haigh is enjoying this...

Grand Prix

As I am working this weekend I figured I wouldn't be able to watch the Grand Prix so set up the Sky+ to record it. However, it turns out that the building I am working in has a full on projector - see below. Awesome! Not only that but I got the hear Murry Walker saying "go go go" once mroe time thanks to 5Live. And what a Grand Prix too......

Exhausted - Go Live

I am shattered! Those of you that know me well know that mornings and I do not mix. At the moment I am in Nottingham where I have been since Wed. Last night we went live on a new system which meant I was in from midday until 03:00 this morning. After 3 hours sleep I was up again at 07:30 for another full day....ug! Red Bull appears to only be giving me the jitters and not actually staving off tiredness......maybe Starbucks will work???

Movie: Right At Your Door

I just finished watching a very cool film. If you enjoyed the futility and horror of "Children of Men" then you may well like "Right At Your Door". Low budget but a hard hitter. The reviews are mixed but for £5.99 delivered (link above) I don't think you can go far wrong. Note - not for those who suffer from nightmares!

Router Upgrade

I upgraded my WiFi today to the latest firmware - link in title. Always hassle with these Netgear units as you have to reset to factory afterwards and then re-programme. Annoying as I use a 10.0.0.x network in place of the default 192.168.1.x which means I have to physically connect to it to reconfigure

Parish Council

I received a pack this morning from the Parish Council saying that they have accepted my application for Parish Councillor and have co-opted me in. It's official - you may call me Cllr Haigh :)

Camping

K and I bought a tent yesterday. The reasons were two-fold. Firstly, it was a nice(ish) day and sleeping beneath the stars appealed. Secondly we need one for CheapFest later this year (A's 4x4 weekend thingy). So - we went and bought a very nice 2-man tent as pictured below. It is an exoskeleton design and even has indoor lighting :) Last night was interesting - comfortable enough but the light at 06:00 forced us back inside so we could carry on snoozing.

3-Year Wedding Anniversary

K and I have been married for 3 years today and have just got back from an interesting weekend in Lincoln where we ate, drank and were VERY merry. I think the photo below summs up exactly why I love this intelligent, beatiful woman so much and why 3 years has gone by so very quickly. Happy anniversary ekling! xx

TeamWrangler day out

A invited J and I to come with him on a Jeep 4x4 day. We set off early and spent the entire day hooning around a disused quarry in A's new Wrangler. Had a great time alhough J nearly killed the car through hydrolocking it - a VERY lucky escape and one that I am emphasising constantly in the hope that it will overshadow all my past driving errors. More pic on my flickr account...

Sto-Fen Omnibounce

I bought a Sto-Fen today to see if my direct flash images can be made to look any better. It creates a bounced light effect when you have nothing to bounce off (like when you are outside). Using it indoors as a fill flash is quite effective (it is not dark enough to test low-light usefullness yet). However, at £15 I don't think I can go far wrong...

HTC Touch - new toy?

OOOoooOOOooo - check this out. I think I want one...well, maybe if it also had a slide-out keyboard I would.

BASH of the day

#772595 +(2241)- [X]
a bad workman blames his fools
*tools
damn keyboard

Taste Fest and Village Fete

K and I had an interesting weekend. The Knebworth village fete kicked off on Fri night with an 'invitation only' sneak-peak at the flower festival. K and I went as I run the Neighbourhood Watch. It was nice but we had to leave early as we were expecting L to come over. On Sat we went into London for the Taste Festival. This was a fantastic event with food and drink from all over the place. It was however, somewhat marred by both K and I being pretty ill on Sun and even still today. It just goes to show that even swanky food can still be bad :(

Weather - very English!

Having typical English weather today - one minute glorious sunshine - the next appauling rain - so heavy you can see it in the screenshot!

TyTN flashed to Radio 1.43.00

I just flashed my TyTN to Radio 1.43.00 which promisses better reception and lower power use (especially when using GPRS). The flash took about 10 mins after installing HardSPL to be safe. The only thing that didn't go to plan was the autodetect on the first screen of the RadioUpgrade. I had to manually select 2.10 and HardSPL. A soft-reset happens at the end but you loose no info (like a hard reboot).

Radio Roms

HardSPL

Party party party...

Two celebrations this weekend - V turned 25 and L turned 30. Had a great meal on Fri night for V and a party in Hertford on Sat for L. Needless to say I have drunk far too much on the course of two days and am looking forward to a week of work in order to relax and recover - personally I blame my step-brother N (pictured here encouraing me!);)

*LOTS* of rain...

Was working at home yesterday when a massive storm hit. My study is up in our attic and the rain was so loud I could hardly hear the phone!

Tiki God Metamorphosed

When I first got my Tiki God it was black - very black, with dark hair. Fast forward a year to now and he has done a 'Michael Jackson' and totally changed... I guess we should have used sun screen :)

MINI windscreen cracked

Arrgghhhh - it happened again. My windscreens seem to last only around 20k miles in between getting broken. This time a small stone caused a 4" split that then continued to grow the more I drove. Last year's saga involved two companies, 3 screens and a lot of hassle. Hopefully this time I will skip that by going directy to MINI to fit the screen. Should be back with me tomorrow afternoon after the glue has dried :)

Promotion and Fraud

Two items of recent news. Firstly I received a promotion at work (allbeit in name only). I am now an Implementation Manager (instead of Systems Engineer). My actual job doesn't change but the title more accurately reflects my actual day-to-day job. As far as I am concerned the most important thing is to show my career is progressing. Secondly I had my 3rd (yes THIRD) account of credit card fraud with my barclaycard. This time a holiday to Asia! Even more strange is that I have not really used my CC for 4 months now - wonder where they got the numbers from this time?

Forza Motorsport

Since last Friday I have been playing Forza2 (my new Xbox360 game) and I have to say I am very impressed. The game is very good but I most like the simulated damage that affects not only the handling but also aero and geartrain etc. Here's a pic of me having just hit a Golf - oops...

Pirates - arrrggghhh!!!

K and I went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie last night. It was actually very good and the 3 (yes - three) hours wizzed by. If you go to see it remember to stay for the credits - there's more film after them - so many people had not heard and walked out, v funny :)

Computer games...

It is not usual for me to play computer games. I mean, sure, I have the occasional fling when something good like GSR3 came out - but as my friends know I tend to buy a consol for a game, play it and that's it.

And so, it has been an unusual week. To start I bought a PSP (for the F1 game) but then also bought Myst and Ace Combat X too. Things got weirder when I got a Wii over the weekend. The final straw is that Forza2 comes out tomorrow for the Xbox360 (my pre-order from months ago turned up this morning).

It appears that I find myself surrounded by entertainment, and have an unusual dilema. There is not enough time to give each new game its due attention. Luckily I have tomorrow off in lieu - I think I might have square eyes by the end of the day :)