In order to totally protect the Smart from the rain and the ievitible small leaks that occur we got a shower cap for it. It takes only 2 or 3 mins to fit and provides protection against rain, frost and sunlight. Quite why we didn't buy one ages ago I am not sure...
K and I both caught colds in Sweden. K is worse than I but we are both pretty sorry for ourselves... Just hope it clears up for new year!
Am currently enjoying being very relaxed in Sweden. My nephew is now a walking (nearly talking) 1-year old who seems very advanced for his age. He likes his food - a LOT :) I arrived mid-afternoon a couple of days back to be immediately whisked off to a local Tiki-Bar - huzzah! Several cocktails later we made it into town to carry on festivities. Celebration was due as M has received the job offer he was gunning for - a good xmas present to himself. C is happy there will be two incomes for the first time in several years :) K has found an open internet connection allowing me to check email and write my blog and as such I currently write to you from the comfort of the living room having just had a fantastic breakfast with lots of coffee - perfect!
I finally got round to switching to OpenDNS today after making a note to do it some months back. It does indeed feel snappier and I am already enjoying the benefits of URL typo correction and ad-blocking :)
Was sent this today by M - funiest thing ever. Click this link to see it in action - I am, of course, the second Elf from the left.
It is starting to get a bit cold here. Last night it was well into the minus numbers. K picked a good day to get her soft-top back from the garage!!
Found a nice little hack here to enable TimeMachine on a network share - seems to be working so far.
In what has now become somewhat of a tradition, we went round to L's for fajitas night :) As always the food was excellent and the chillis hot (VERY HOT). For the first time ever neither K or I were driving so we could both enjoy some cold beers with our spicy food - awesome!
I went on one of my now rare trips to the office today for a morning technical meeting. I was greeted with this on my desk - very festive! Note the expertly made bubble-wrap bows :)
Apple's Time Machine appears to have a few bugs. I am not alone in finding a perfectly working TM drive suddenly become corrupt when you try and mount it leaving you with no option but to re-partition and start from scratch. Has happened twice now, the second time after 48 hours and several good backups.... Would not be so bad but an initial snap-shot takes over two hours!
One of the new features in OSX Leopard is 'Time Machine' - a way of incrementally taking backups of files on your Mac. I had a spare 60GB laptop drive hanging around so I ordered an enclosure for it and am now in the process of the initial snapshot process. Hopefully this will mean K will not have to worry about manually backing anything up ever :)
A few weeks ago I bought K a MacBook as a surprise. It was not meant to be delivered until tomorow (Mon). However, whilst in Aberdeen last week they attempted early delivery. This would have been fine except that they wrote on the note 'Apple'. K twigged and the surprise was lost :( However, this did allow me to get my hands on it before xmas and as such I have been playing around with it over the weekend. First impressions are good - I'd not change my Vista machine for it but as a laptop for K it is perfect.
Last time I was in Aberdeen it was bright, sunny and most importantly - warm. This time it is the opposite.... It was raining all day yesterday and everything is cold and grey. K would feel cold just looking at the pictures of this place :)
I logged into the University website today to check my mail, etc to find a new item concerning a stabbing outside the Uni. Two guys both got injured, one in the leg, the other in the back. Apparently neither are related to the Uni but even so they are holding two Q&A sessions for students and staff. It happened in the middle of the night so one wonders what they were doing there and what the argument was about!!!
What a busy weekend! Friday we went to T's place north of Ely. Had a great homemade Malaysian cury and some even nicer whisky :) Sat was A's 'village people' 30th celebration at the Wellington. Have to say, it was one of the nicest meals I've had there. Sunday was spent at Uni working on coursework. After a week of 'holiday' I am exhausted!
Yes - that *is* a candle in his meal. I was only joking when I asked the waiter to put one in :)
Have had quite a shock to the system this week - I had to start my MSc courwsework for one of my modules. This is a 3,000 word report into organisational culture and structure with respect ot the successful delivery of projects. I think I have rewritten it about 3 times now. However, as of 5 mins ago I have a version that I am, at last, happy with. Need a beer me thinks!
K and I travelled to Southampton for Curran's 30th birthday meal with his friends and family. Fantastic food, great company - a brilliant night. Pics on flickr
It may look messy but at last (new Dell dock arrived this morning) I have all my screens up and running. From left to right - my Uni area, home area and then work area. Two screens each of course :)
Snapped this last night - kitten had decided that K's face was the most comfortable spot to sleep!!! If this was me then kitten would be told off and moved - K, however, thinks that he is small and cute and is allowed!!! We have *another* spoilt cat!
We put a collar on Rasmus for the first time today :) He has spent most of the morning walking backwards trying to figure out what he has on him...
Now that I have a good tripod I can try one of the things I have been looking forward to with the 40D - remote shooting. With a simple USB cable I connect the 40D to my machine. I start the EOS Utility and select liveview. Now I have a real-time image on my machine of what the camera sees and can control ALL the functions via the computer - AWESOME!
I just picked up my new tripod and head for my 40D. I went for a Manfrotto Magfibre set of legs in the end and the excellent 322RC2 trigger head. Should do nicely...
We were invited to S&S's FANTASIC new house - a converted barn in a gorgeous village not far from us. What a cool party - good food, fireworks, apple bobbing and the best toffee ever! Loads more pics on flickr (see link in title). Such a good night. I tok along my 40D and a tripod (thanks Al) and tried to capture some of the fireworks - I did better than I thought I would which made me even happier!
