Archives
January 30, 2005
More Kim & Jack
There are plus points to being stuck at home sick.
Sicko
Ugh. I'm 5 days without eating properly now, and though I must feel better than day 1, I still feel rough. My small intestine remains inflammed. (Sorry to put it like that).
Oh well. I'm at least 2 days behind already, so I'd better get my arse back to work tomorrow. I won't cycle. I'll take the train from Danescourt and the bus at the other end. I'm not teaching tomorrow, thank crap. I'll just try not to spread this virus around. Maybe a mask, gloves and a white coat will help.
I'm going to the park with Jack now. Fresh air should help, right?
January 29, 2005
January 27, 2005
Sick
I'm ill. I'm off work with what people probably call gastric flu. I've picked up a bug or a virus that's given me a belly ache (the Greek word for belly is gaster, so that fits) plus the usual side orders. I'm not too bad with these things normally; I have a "strong stomach". Instead I feel rough, like I'm hungover but weaker, & tired. I hope this passes. I'm too busy to be sick.
Ironically, you can be sure I caught this off a medical student ;)
January 26, 2005
7am
I had a lie in this morning. Until 7am. Whoop-bloody-pee. I've had to catch the 7am train for the last couple of days to get to work in time to set up clinicians teaching at 9. Couple that with late finishes & I'm feeling a bit ropey. Mind you, there's a lot of illness about (universities are breeding grounds accelerating bacterial & viral evolution IMO) so I might have picked something up.
The students in the Swansea Graduate Entry Medicine course get terribly behind if they're off sick. Frankly, I can't afford the time either.
January 25, 2005
January 24, 2005
Koi
Jack in a Cantonese restaurant with his grandad and koi carp. No, they
weren't serving the carp.
Box Fresh
Jack's birthday present from my little sister: box fresh Nikes!
January 22, 2005
Drive?
A conversation with Jack on his birthday:
Jack - Drive?
Me - No, you can't drive now. We're doing 80mph & you can't reach the pedals.
Kim - Have you got a driving license?
Jack - Yes
Kim - Oh really? Where did you get from?
Jack - Asda.
The power of advertising.
January 21, 2005
Jack's Party
Jack will be 2 tomorrow. He had a small party with his mates in Cardiff today.
It's gonna be crap
Phil believes. He believes it'll be great.
January 20, 2005
X-Box Time
To Dad, Happy Christmas, from Dad. Thanks, me!
Halo 2 is great. It'd be even better if I could get the hang of the bloody
controller. The Dolby Digital sound through my home cinema setup makes up
for my temporary clumsiness, enjoyment-wise.
January 19, 2005
January 17, 2005
Tax Return
Woohoo! I finally submitted my tax return for last year! That took a while. The Inland Revenue online submission tools are actually very good though. I hope I got it right...
January 15, 2005
Hi, my name is Sam, and I'm an infoholic
OK, I admit it. I have a problem. I think I've had this problem for some years now. I'm a geek and I am addicted to information.
Right now I've got 6 tabs open in my browser, each working with quite different subjects. But that's not the thing. The thing is that I just saw an ad for a technology I didn't know existed. Clicking to the site I had a feeling of panic - Why don't I know about this? What is it? What is it good for? I rushed around the site sucking up information, terrified of not understanding what this was. It doesn't matter what it was, it was my reaction that I noticed.
Sheesh. I've known about this for a while, and as I'm getting older I've realised that I have less time than I used to to keep on top of everything that's new. It's not something I can quit. Is it?
January 13, 2005
Off
It was just one of those times when, in all the universe, a car door wanted to be in exactly the same space as me at exactly the same time. What are the odds of that?
I'm writing this on the train. I got knocked off about an hour ago, and had to walk to the train station from the marina with a bike over one shoulder and a bag over the other. You always feel OK (even if you're bleeding) after getting knocked off, unless you break a bone or mash your face. Then about an hour later you start to stiffen up. My shoulders and neck are starting to tighten, my right arse cheek is sore, my right shin seems to have taken a whack, and my back is not feeling too good. It'll be worse this evening, and then worse tomorrow morning. Oh well. Cycling's good for you until you get hit by something bigger.
The front wheel is folded, which means the forks are probably bent too, so I'm screwed for cycling to work. Not only am I not going to get home until about 8pm, but when I get there I'm going to have to try and sort out a bike for tomorrow from all my bits in the shed. My handlebars maybe bent, and my left brake lever has been pushed right over. I hope it's OK - it's a vintage Dura-Ace pre-STI lever. It must either be bloody expensive or irreplaceable by now. I'll find out what's busted up when I get home, and my new dealer (triandbikestore.co.uk) is popping round to drop off some stuff, so he can take a look at it. More business for him (thanks, Dave!)
The powerbook got bent. It still works, but I'd better check the hard disk tomorrow and ring Apple. I backed up today. My PDA seems OK, and so does my iPod. This Crumpler bike bag isn't even scratched. Pretty good!
The lady that knocked me off picked me up and was very apologetic. It looks like she's going to have to claim on her car insurance for all this.
My arse is really starting to hurt now.
January 12, 2005
Headphones
I'm on the train, listening to Coldplay on my iPod. With in-ear headphones. Which are very good at cutting out valley chatter. And yet I can still hear the leaking noise from someone else's headphones. Holy crap. Get some consideration/decent earphones. There can't be much sound left to actually go to his ears. Dick.
Mac mini media centre
This is what Kim was wanting to do. I've already got a very nice mini-ITX PC that does the job though. Mind you, the Mac software is a lot better than what my media centre PC uses...
January 11, 2005
New Apple products
Holy crap. Some of the products people have been guessing at have just gone on show at the Apple website.
Firstly, check out the new Mac mini, a tiny PC measuring 5cm x 16.5cm x 16.5cm. Now you can buy a Mac and use your existing monitor, keyboard and mouse. It starts at only £339, and Kim has already tagged it for the living room of our new house. It looks perfect for my mum too. A cheap, headless, tiny Mac. Brilliant.
Next is the iPod Shuffle; a beautiful iPod for just £69. It's a 512MB (or 1GB) USB stick digital music player, but its ingenuity comes in the software. Plug it in and it syncs with your iTunes music library to transfer a random series of tracks to the player. Pick it up for your run or bike ride and always have a different selection of music. Genius. If you have a small MP3 player then maybe like me you find the most annoying thing is remembering to change the music on it (although you can still drag and drop what you need). No problem with the Shuffle. Yeah, Kim wants one of those too.
There's an update to the iLife suite, which is now at version 5. But Apple are now selling their own "office" suite of tools. Check out iWork. Right now it's just the latest version of the Keynote presentation software and a Word processor, but is this a sign of things to come?
There's also a new version of Final Cut Express that allows you to work with high definition video.
I'm not getting my wallet out yet. I'll keep an eye on Spymac as stuff gets playtested, and see how it works. It's nice to see such a catalogue of new toys to start off the New Year with though.
iTunes Visualiser
Jack's favourite thing post-bath at the moment is to listen to tunes and watch the iTunes visualiser.
Windy
Crap, and I thought it was windy down in Wales. It's hard on the bike in this wind, but look at Scotland!
January 10, 2005
Sand and Wind
The beach is trying to reclaim Swansea. This is/was the path.
January 09, 2005
A Core Curriculum in Anatomy
"Setting a benchmark for anatomical knowledge and its assessment. (A core curriculum for the teaching of anatomy to medical students)" by The Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
Read what the Anatomical Society believe medical students/junior doctors should know about human anatomy. If you're interested.
"In the past students were, arguably, overloaded with facts but were not adequately prepared for effective communication with patients... common sense dictates that there must be a necessary minimum of factual knowledge in basic medical disciplines, to allow a medical practitioner to examine a patient effectively and to undertake straightforward procedures. Whilst recognising that it may be hard to obtain universal agreement on the details of the core knowledge required, we have attempted to establish the necessary minimum of anatomical knowledge for all medical practitioners. All doctors (and medical students at the stage appropriate to the course they are following) should have the expertise outlined below. Without such a level of knowledge, it is our view that no one should be allowed to work independently with patients."
Link.
We have used these guidelines to help the development of the medicine course at Swansea. And yes, I am working this evening.
January 06, 2005
Swansea University plans super computer
"Plans to build what is described as one of the world's most powerful computers will be unveiled on Thursday."
That's us that is. I guess I won't need that G5 then?
Horoscopes
The beginning of the new year is a bloody strange time. The shops have big new displays of fitness gear, diet books pop up everywhere, gyms offer discounted membership packages, and the major newspapers in the UK use half of their front pages advertising their horoscopes for the coming 12 months.
They promise to predict your health, your wealth, your love life & anything else they think you need to hear (like how long you'll actually use your expensive new gym membership for maybe?) What the hell? Are we in the 21st century yet?
Slowly over the last century people in Britain at least, but not just here, have changed their views of the supernatural in general. Much of this has been put down to science providing evidence to explain natural phenomena. A poignant example is a comparison of the effects of the Krakatoa explosion in the 1800s & the recent devastating Asian tsunamis. It has been said that Krakatoa was seen by the Islamics of the region to be a sign from Allah, and to have led to the uprising against & expulsion of the Dutch there. No-one could explain how or why Krakatoa exploded. It was taken as an act of God by most, as there was no other explanation. Today, instead, we see a worldwide reaction of sympathy and aid, & no-one questions the cause of the disaster as anything but a natural, horrific slipping of two tectonic plates that have been crushing one another, building pressure for centuries.
Our understanding of the world has changed. Why not of the stars? How the hell can people sell "newspapers" by prophesising what will happen to different twelths of the population based on the predictable movements of stars & other planets? Hey, wait a minute, if newspapers were portals for prophets, wouldn't they be telling us what will happen, not what has?
Astrologers in national newspapers are a sign of our reluctance to leave the dark ages, of our hopes that the future "will turn out all right" & the need for reassurance. Which is what all our paranormal beliefs tend to do for us. Astrology is a sign of our weakness, just like the new year fitness gear, diet books & gym membership.
January 05, 2005
Come To Swansea
This is one of the big advertising boards we're using this year. The photo
at the bottom is one of mine :)
January 04, 2005
Cardiff Central
So, back to it then. There are gale force winds & rain about all this week,
& rail ticket prices have gone up again. It feels cold cycling, but I know
it won't get truly cold until it snows later this month.
There is a beautiful sunrise this morning, though.
January 03, 2005
Work Tomorrow
Happy New Year everybody, if I haven't said it to you already.
I've really enjoyed the holiday, but it's back to work tomorrow. Jack doesn't want me to go back, so he must have had a good time too! :) For once I'm not really looking forward to going back. Usually I do. Maybe it's Jack, or my sore throat (ironically we're teaching the anatomy of the pharynx & larynx tomorrow), or that I don't enjoy this job as much as being a research post-doc. I couldn't say. I'm sure that when we're back into the usual routine all will be good. Is this the price we pay for becoming a grown-up?
I'll be very happy when I've sold my house & moved to Swansea.