Archives
January 31, 2004
Jack Black
Cool. It's Jack Black day on MTV2. Well, Jack Black morning anyway. And it's chucking it down outside, so that's my day sorted, sat on the sofa with my nice warm laptop, importing some new CDs into iTunes.
I may drag my arse out to the gym this afternoon. Kim's suggesting all sorts of horror-shopping scenarios that I need to get out of. That's what the internet's for. Except Jack needs new shoes...
January 30, 2004
Yeti
This penguin is pissing me off:
I can't send him past 600m! 594.5 is my best so far.
Teething
Jack's got lots of teeth coming through, including his first molar. Check out those red cheeks!
January 29, 2004
Exploding Whale
Here's my favourite news story of the day:
"Decomposing Whale Explodes on Street
TAIPEI (Reuters) - The decomposing remains of a 60-ton sperm whale exploded on a busy Taiwan street, showering nearby cars and shops with blood and organs and stopping traffic for hours, local newspapers said."
Pack it up
Ilyas packing up a shipment of the good stuff. He used 3 rolls of tape on this.
Cold
It was so cold last night that my bike froze in my shed. I couldn't change gear until I'd almost got to work. The Taff Trail was gorgeous. The deep puddles were frozen so hard that they supported my weight when I cycled across them.
Sorry, too cold to stop and take a photo.
January 28, 2004
Well Again
Jack's feeling a lot better today. His appetite is back, he's smiling and happy, and he was boogieing (sp?) to Radio 1 when I was dressing him after his bath. We might get a full night's sleep tonight...
Snow
The promised snow has finally started to fall. Arse. I've got to cycle home in it.
BBC cardifftri.net link
Hey, check us out as the premiere South East Wales triathlon club! The BBC have written a web page about triathlon using Jeff and me.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/wales/southeast/sport/community/pages/triathlon.shtml
I took those photos! They're from last year's Cosmeston triathlon, if you wondered.
Nice eh?
January 27, 2004
Busy, busy, busy
Short note: I finished that 3Ghz system. It's running sweet. Should have taken a photo! Max Payne 2 was running beautifully.
January 26, 2004
iBook Hack
Heh heh. I hacked my iBook to allow me to use dual displays and higher res monitors :)
The Shuttle to the left isn't attached to the display.
January 25, 2004
Jack's Party
Here's the video from Jack's 1st birthday party. Poor guy. He's still feeling ropey today :(
January 24, 2004
Jack' Birthday Party
Jack's birthday cake, skillfully made by his Mum! He was still ill today, but was at least able to go to his own party at a softplay place. Everyone else had a great time, but poor old Jack spent the afternoon cuddling his Dad. He brightened up several times, but just didn't have enough energy to stay happy. I've got a video clip I'll add soon.
Swansea job
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I've accepted the job. It will be superb!
January 23, 2004
Overindulgence?
Tired this morning. Yaaaawn. Poor little Jack was up most of last night puking. I thought he wouldn't start doing that after birthdays until he was at least 15.
It might have been his birthday cake (too much sugar!), but it may be a bug. Party tomorrow, so we're hoping he'll be feeling better by then.
January 22, 2004
Jack's 1st Birthday
It's Jack's 1st birthday today! He's had lots of presents and cards (a very popular little boy) and has had a very busy morning. He's kipping at the moment so I have 5 minutes to upload this photo:
That's a card from Aunty Ele in Oz!
January 21, 2004
Swansea
Working across the road from the beach?
As mentioned below, I had an interview today at the Swansea Clinical School (at Swansea University) after being asked to apply just before Christmas. The job is teaching anatomy to students of a fast-track, 4 year medicine scheme for graduates. The interview was a bit of a grilling, but I can't have done terribly badly because they offered me the post shortly afterwards. I haven't accepted yet.
The job looks superb: preparing and teaching a clinical anatomy course (my first degree and favourite subject!) to mature students that actually want to be taught. Research will have to take a break for about a year, but looks good for the future.
I have a few things to weigh up, and will make a decision soon. I'd hate leaving Cardiff, but it's such a top opportunity how could I pass it up?
I should be basking in the luxury of choice, but instead I feel terribly torn.
BPI and CD-WOW
From CD-WOW (my favourite online CD retailer):
"The UK Major record companies through their mouth piece the BPI* have unfortunately restricted the UK and Irish consumers right to enjoy the freedom of the World Wide Web.
As from this weekend, any CD ordered for delivery to the UK and Ireland will incur a surcharge as we are only able to deliver CDs manufactured within the EU (more expensive)."
Dumb, dumb, dumb BPI. Yes, I understand the letter of the law dictates this, but it confounds me as to why they'd follow it through. Buying cheap, legal CDs for which the artists get paid is surely a step in the right direction away from illegal file sharing. Oh no, let's force the British consumer (with internet access) to pay more for his CDs. yeah, that'll solve, er, something.
Job
I have been offered a position at Swansea University as lecturer in human anatomy. Decision soon.
Comments?
January 19, 2004
Tape
We stuck some tape on the hifi cabinet doors to stop Jack getting in. Oh dear. He seems to have adapted.
January 18, 2004
Robin Brew
The Cardiff Triathletes' had a swim coaching day from Robin Brew today. We had a couple of seminar sessions and a couple of sessions in the pool, and a breakdown of our strokes by video analysis. It was a long day from 11am to 7pm, and I'm knackered, but I learnt a lot about swimming, and have plenty of tips to work on which will make my freestyle more efficient.
Roll those hips, press don't pull, recovery arm catching up, head down, breathe at the end of the underwater stroke, recovery hand closer to the water, don't stretch so far...
January 17, 2004
Editing Video
Look at me! I'm editing Jack's video on my iBook in my pyjamas!
3Ghz
I've just designed a 3Ghz system with an ATI 9800 Pro. Not for me though! I should be building it up next weekend.
January 16, 2004
Requiem For A Dream
Oh Jesus f**k f**k Jesus. I need a stiff drink after watching Requiem For a Dream. Fantastic. It makes Trainspotting look a little weak.
I was looking after Jack while Kim went to see The Return of the King with some mates. Apparently the Ster cinema screwed up the film, with the first segment out of focus and the rest of the film had a scratch. The sound got worse as the film went on. They're supposed to be competing with the UGC in the centre of Cardiff. With screwing up one of the best films ever and the supervisor's poor attitude they're not doing very well are they? And they put their prices up in February.
TC
Hey, here's some more of my workplace! It's Rhiannon in tissue culture!
Yeah, yeah, I know: you want more photos of Jack. Fine.
January 15, 2004
Jack's Walking
Jack's walking is getting better by the day. He's doing 4 or 5 steps at a time, and standing unaided quite happily.
Spain vs France
We've just booked a holiday to Spain with my Mum et al. and just found out that a Fontainbleau climbing trip we're supposed to be going on starts the day we get back. Typical!
The Spain holiday is about 2 hours from El Chorro too (massive bolted canyon climber's paradise), but I won't get to go. It will be a nice relaxing holiday by the sea instead. Best of all my Mum paid for the flights for my 30th birthday. Thanks Mum!
I'll try and set up photoblogging from my mobile phone while away, as I bet I won't have internet access either.
January 14, 2004
iMovie
I have begun editing together all the footage from Jack's first year, as kind of a first birthday present to his Grandparents, Aunts and Uncles. I've been trying out Apple's iMovie on my iBook, mostly for convenience sake. I have tried Adobe Premiere in the past, but it's more than I need (although it gives excellent results), and of course very expensive.
iMovie has been superb so far. Importing clips is child's play, and it recognised my Canon camcorder with zero configuration required. It's got a good selection of transitions, titles, and effects, all of which are simple to add, and iTunes and iPhoto are linked in, so you can add music and pictures from those collections too.
It has been really nice looking back to when Jack was born, and it's always amazing to see how much babies develop in their first year. The clips don't tell a story yet, and I'm rapidly running out of disk space, so I'm not sure how it will turn out. With the right background music I'm sure relatives will be happy just being reminded by how small he was and watching him give his parents more and more hassle as he grows.
Hmmm. The new iMovie and other iLife stuff is £29 with educational discount. Maybe I should buy..
January 13, 2004
The Spark
Oh man. That sucks. I used to visit thespark.com ages ago, for genius content like the "date my sister project". Back then it was full of novel pseudoscience stuff, and was a fun site with minimal advertising. I checked it today and it's pretty much full of the same old stuff, but it throws tons of popups at you and forces down your throat those poxy software installers that aim to get you to install spyware and useless crap that takes over your PC.
That sucks big style. Even the good guys are f**king up the net.
Travelling
My Mum is visiting us in Cardiff today, my brother is driving to Turin, delivering shoes back to Cheltenham, and my sister is somewhere in Southern Australia. Everybody's travelling!
I had my second weights session of the gym this year tonight. It felt much better than last week's, thank God. And Mum and Kim cooked me a steak dinner to come home to. How about that?
January 12, 2004
Microscopes
Wow! It gets more and more interesting! Today I spent most of the afternoon moving several of our microscopes into a new room. Exciting, eh?
January 11, 2004
Kim and Jack Climbing
We all went climbing at the Welsh International Climbing Centre today. Although I'm still a regular(ish), Kim doesn't climb much since becoming pregnant with Jack.
I'm trying to climb every Sunday and hoping to drag Kim and Jack out too. It's hard work with the boy though, because he wants to crawl off and explore, which he can't do - it's too dangerous. So you need at least 3 adults to be able to climb, and you're limited to about 2 hours. Plus, it's hard work on your back holding on to him for all that time. It might be a little easier outdoors in the summer (I'm thinking weekend picnics).
January 10, 2004
Jack's first steps
Jack has been taking his first few steps! See this video from last night.
January 09, 2004
BIOSI2
A pic of the building in which I work at Cardiff University. The 60's concrete block internally known as BIOSI2.
Gene Park
Part 3 of the tour: a bunch of thermal cyclers (including a qPCR cycler) in the BIOSI Gene Park. I know. Dullsville. I'm just enhancing my geek status.
Webserver fixed
Freaky. It was the Network Associates (Mcafee) virus scanner that I installed to the webserver that was causing the problems with the webserver. I removed it and all seems well again. Wierd.
January 07, 2004
My Bench
Continuing the tour of my workplace, here's my lab bench. Exciting, eh?
A very productive area. Mostly. Sometimes.
Downtime
Sorry about the downtime. My cable modem hung and screwed up the DHCP renew timings for it and the router. I've reset both, so hopefully that's fixed now.
January 06, 2004
The Lab
Here's a tour of my workplace (day by day). Not very productive in the lab today, eh?
I'm off to the doctors to get some drugs and sort out my cough. I'm very impressed that they booked me in the same day. My last surgery had a wait of a week!
January 05, 2004
Hits
I see from my counter that you lot are back to work too but not particularly inclined to do any...
Back to Work
I'm back in work after a 2 week Christmas break. I hated leaving Jack (and Kim, of course), but I love my job, so I was also looking forward to getting back to the lab.
I got absolutely soaked cycling in. I hope getting pissed on isn't an indicator of how my 2004 is going to go...
January 04, 2004
Server Updated
Woohoo! Everything seems to have gone well, evidenced by the fact that you can read this post. Here's a picture of the ugly thing FYI:
VNC means I can now work on the server in the attic from another PC on the network, and not have to climb the ladder everytime I want to change something. It's working great, with no hassle to set up at all. Right now I'm watching it scan for viruses in a window on my main machine.
The server had been up for almost 10 weeks without a reboot: a new record. This seems to be because I had taken all the internet routing duties from it and added a hardware router to the network. Microsoft internet connection sharing on Windows 2000 is not very solid.
There was only one patch to download from Windows Update.
The extra memory should speed things up. It had been sitting under my desk for a couple of months, but only took a few minutes to install.
Fingers remain crossed...
Server update
I'm off up to the attic to patch my server (that is running this website), install VNC, update the virus scanner and install some more RAM. Scary time. I'd better do it now. It's 2004 and I'm back to work tomorrow.
Fingers crossed that this website will reappear on the web in an hour or so.
January 03, 2004
Jack's Room
I haven't posted for a couple of days, so here's a random, recent pic of Jack playing in his room.
I've been holding off a(nother) cold all week, and when I went to visit a mate who has a couple of cats, the allergic reaction seems to have let the cold through. I feel rubbish today. I'm supposed to be back at work on Monday, and I've got loads to do this weekend!
Mohican
I think the boy is overdue his first haircut.
January 01, 2004
CardiffTri Poll
I've integrated the new poll into the Cardiff Tri news page. Thanks to Fusion PHP!