Well, it's been a good couple of weeks. Work has been hectic as always but I've been a bit more successful in not letting it get to me as much.
The car is still going fine and has had a couple more things done that have made it needed. The main thing was two new rear tyres as the ones on it were a bit shit. The fronts aren't a great make, but have plenty of tread. It also had a new seal to stop a slight gearbox leak and new transmission fluid.
In other news it was Rob T's birthday meal the weekend before last, which was at a local Italian that is very good. I had got him a book for his birthday about the science of cocktails, which he likes. I'd also got him a random card I found which was a copy of an old map of Montgomeryshire because I know he likes maps. It turned out that it's from the same series that they have framed ones of already so that was a nice coincidence.
My fascination with mechanical keyboards continues. I've been using the Ducky Mini in work to see what it was like, and it is pretty good - I definitely type more accurately on it, although the 60% layout can be a little awkward with systems that use menus or F-keys a lot. I also got hold of an interesting old portable machine called a Dolch Pac 64 which is one of those cool lunchbox style portable computers. It's an old Pentium MMX based system that has network analysis and sniffer software on it. But the main thing is that it has Cherry MX Blue keyswitches. As fun as it was revisiting Windows 98, my plan is to rip out the Baby AT motherboard and swap it out for something more modern and make it into a portable server type thing.
I'm typing this on a HP laptop that my Dad's wife gave me. She replaced it with an iPad and was going to chuck it as the battery had died. But apart from the battery it's fully functional. It has a nice keyboard, nice 11" screen and some sort of AMD CPU. I've put 8gb RAM in it and have decided to try Linux Mint on it. It's pretty nice actually and I might put an SSD in it and use it as a test machine. Not sure if I'll keep Linux on it or try Windows 10 on it which is due out today.
We've had a couple of sessions of DnD recently, which have been good fun. They defeated my creatures infesting the sewer they tried to 'sneak' through and I've got a week to prepare for the next challenge.
I've been trying to sort my eating out with limited success. The positive thing is that I've introduced vegetables into my work and home meals which has worked well, but I'm still struggling with the snacking side of things. My knee has also played up again this past weekend after I squatted down to do something and stood up again. It's not as bad as the last time as it's already getting much better, but it's a bit of a warning sign. Still...small changes are the way to go rather than trying to do it all at once.
I've not been to archery again for a while which is bad so I'm hoping to go this coming Sunday. Between wanting to spent time with special person and Rob and Em being busy, it's just not panned out as I'd hoped really. Oh well.
Tuesday 28 July 2015
Friday 17 July 2015
Misc things
The main thing that happened recently is the Kent BBQ. This is the third one I've been to, and it was another great weekend. We headed down on Friday evening as usual, but had to come back on Sunday as Rob and Em had used all their leave going to New Zealand in January. We took my car due to it being larger and more comfortable.
The theme this time was 'W' and after considering various options (Worf, Wesley Crusher, Weeble), I ended up going as Wales, basically wearing all the worst rugby supporter tat you can imagine. I also took a swearing in Welsh cheat sheet I made up from websites about it, which was quite funny. The night was very good, some of the costumes wer ace, Jake's, Wes as Wolverine and Andy C as a white spaceball with the genuine helmet were great. I didn't get too drunk, fortunately, after the shameful performance a couple of years ago, but still had a good time. The evening did degenerate a bit towards the end and one of the large mirror's in Jake and Laura's bedroom did get smashed, which was a bit much as the house had just gone on the market! The next day we had breakfast as usual and headed back in the minibus to get the car and head home.
Not much else to report really. Work is still proving difficult at the moment but not much I can do about that. The car is going well and happily isn't costing much more than the C3 did in terms of fuel economy. It's had a service and is going in next week to have a bit more work done to make it shipshape. I do need to find some way to get an aux input for the stereo however. It has the functionality but not the cabling required. However it might be possible to sor that out.
The C3 has also been sold to a woman in St Asaph who I hope will be happy with it. I will miss it - what a great little car it was, much to my surprise. I also got a refund of the tax on it pretty quickly too, which is nice.
I've also expanded my mechanical keyboard collection, having got quite addicted to them. As well as the Corsair K65 RGB, I dug out the Cherry G80 I bought last year with Blue switches, and I also discovered another Cherry keyboard in the scrap pile in work. It appears to be a rare G80 variant with a smart-card reader and has Black switches. It is an odd one as it has Windows keys, but also an old 5-pin DIN XT connector with a PS/2 adapter on it. Bizarre. I'd love to get that working. I also got a Ducky Mini as I was intrigued by the 60% layout. It has Brown switches and is really nice - incredibly solid.
We've played a couple of DnD games, which have been good fun. The latest battle has begun and I just sprang a Gelatinous Cube on them - a creature Steve threatened to play several times. It'll be interesting to see how they cope with fighting it off.
It's Rob's bithday meal tomorrow, which wil be fun. Going to the local Italian place which is always good.
Need to sort out my eating again. Now that my knee is 100% better, I find that I'm really struggling again because of the amount of time I spent not really doing much and it became a habit almost. I have been eating badly though, and I'm not quite sure why. My weight has been dead on 95kg for a while now and I don't like it.
The theme this time was 'W' and after considering various options (Worf, Wesley Crusher, Weeble), I ended up going as Wales, basically wearing all the worst rugby supporter tat you can imagine. I also took a swearing in Welsh cheat sheet I made up from websites about it, which was quite funny. The night was very good, some of the costumes wer ace, Jake's, Wes as Wolverine and Andy C as a white spaceball with the genuine helmet were great. I didn't get too drunk, fortunately, after the shameful performance a couple of years ago, but still had a good time. The evening did degenerate a bit towards the end and one of the large mirror's in Jake and Laura's bedroom did get smashed, which was a bit much as the house had just gone on the market! The next day we had breakfast as usual and headed back in the minibus to get the car and head home.
Not much else to report really. Work is still proving difficult at the moment but not much I can do about that. The car is going well and happily isn't costing much more than the C3 did in terms of fuel economy. It's had a service and is going in next week to have a bit more work done to make it shipshape. I do need to find some way to get an aux input for the stereo however. It has the functionality but not the cabling required. However it might be possible to sor that out.
The C3 has also been sold to a woman in St Asaph who I hope will be happy with it. I will miss it - what a great little car it was, much to my surprise. I also got a refund of the tax on it pretty quickly too, which is nice.
I've also expanded my mechanical keyboard collection, having got quite addicted to them. As well as the Corsair K65 RGB, I dug out the Cherry G80 I bought last year with Blue switches, and I also discovered another Cherry keyboard in the scrap pile in work. It appears to be a rare G80 variant with a smart-card reader and has Black switches. It is an odd one as it has Windows keys, but also an old 5-pin DIN XT connector with a PS/2 adapter on it. Bizarre. I'd love to get that working. I also got a Ducky Mini as I was intrigued by the 60% layout. It has Brown switches and is really nice - incredibly solid.
We've played a couple of DnD games, which have been good fun. The latest battle has begun and I just sprang a Gelatinous Cube on them - a creature Steve threatened to play several times. It'll be interesting to see how they cope with fighting it off.
It's Rob's bithday meal tomorrow, which wil be fun. Going to the local Italian place which is always good.
Need to sort out my eating again. Now that my knee is 100% better, I find that I'm really struggling again because of the amount of time I spent not really doing much and it became a habit almost. I have been eating badly though, and I'm not quite sure why. My weight has been dead on 95kg for a while now and I don't like it.
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