russ-blog

Simple Minds @ Thetford Forest

2011-09-30T00:17:00.001+01:00

Simple Minds @ Thetford Forest, a photo by rjcb23 on Flickr.

Simple Minds @ Thetford Forest

Well it's been a year, it doesn't surprise me...

2011-04-03T22:43:00.000+01:00

There I am getting all annoyed when people don't update their blogs with decent regularity and look what goes and happens; I forget for almost 15 months about my own one.

Oh well, apology accepted, let's get on with things.

A lot has changed since I last updated.

I now no longer work in IT.
I now no longer live on the south coast.
I now no longer commute 2 hours per day.
I am now no longer employed by an employer.

I now work in the automotive business
I now live in East Anglia
I now don't really commute to work as my work place varies from day to day
I am now self-employed

I won't bore you with all the details now, but might, from time to time, explain a little about what I do, why I do it, and how I came about doing it.

Family update time: the kids are great. Daughter is at school now and doing really well. She has become a lot more confident since starting and can now read and even speak French!

Son is a right little cheeky one. Is definitely his own boy and doesn't take being told what to do particularly well! He is very cute though, so that makes up for it!

TTFN

"Is it snowing.....

2010-01-13T20:28:00.000Z

..... I hadn't noticed."

( I make no apologies for any similarity to a crappily said line by a very bad actress)

-- iPosted this --

It's also been a while since I've had a good moan...

2009-12-09T14:16:00.002Z

... and today's subjects are "Stupid Satnav Users" and "Beyonce Knowles"

[inspired by iSimon's mini-rant!]

Stupid SatNav Users
As it is that time of year where driving home from work is in darkness, it's pretty easy to see other drivers who are using a Satnav unit to help them get home.
Now, I am pretty sure that half the drivers you see using SatNav are on their regular commute home but know their journeys like the back of their hands, they just like to show off and stick their little clever piece of GPS technology to their dash and pretend they are better than everyone else.
But I digress. It's not these muppets that are getting on my wick; it's those SatNav users who are too dumb to realise that they can switch the damn unit to "night mode" so as not to blind them whilst driving in the dark.
Whilst having the bright light of a TomTom or Navman shining in a drivers eyes whilst he/she is bombing down the M23 at 85 is surely a distraction. I hope that before to long that it will be an offence to have such a distraction in a car.
Sometimes I feel like pulling up alongside them in the traffic, and telling them to RTFM. It's not that hard to switch to night mode.
M23/A23 users be warned. I am on your case.

Beyonce Knowles
Apart from having a truly ridiculous name that wouldn't look out of place in a Vicki Pollard sketch, the one thing that is really, really annoying me is an advert that she is on currently.
It's for Emporio Armani and its the way she sings the last word.
Instead of "...diamonds are a girl's best friend!" she sings "...diamonds are a girl's best fer-wend!" - and it infuriates the hell out of me!!!
See here to be suitable annoyed too: fer-wend

I have a good mind to complain to her dad Nick about this. (or maybe her Uncle Eric....!)

Yuletide Jog

2009-10-20T17:08:00.000+01:00

It seems slightly odd.

The thought of donning a red and white suit, a red and white hat and a bushy white beard.

Very odd.

Combine that with running round a park in Tunbridge Wells and you have a strange image.

Very, very odd indeed.

Now picture hundreds of people doing the very same thing on the very same day.

Well that's just plain crazy.

Well it maybe crazy, but it for charity and that makes it all OK.

Late November I will be jogging/running in the British Heart Foundation Tunbridge Wells Santa Jog

Feel free to join me if you like.
If not, to ease the guilt, a simple sponsorship will suffice

* artists impression

So, now it's up to me to get myself in a reasonable shape for this. Should be easy, I ho-ho-hope!!

[Sponsorship link]

Poorly Boy and lovely visits

2009-09-24T12:46:00.002+01:00

My six week old son is a bit poorly.

We think its only a cold but it seems to have gone on for about 2 weeks. The problemn with children under the age of 3 months is that you can't use any fricking medicine on them at all. So when he is all "snuffly" there's nothing you can do about it.

When he wakes at 4 in the morning (having already woken at 2 and 3) and sounds like the elephant man breathing, you really really want to do somethning to help him.

Anyway, he's putting up with it and is starting to do a few "coos" and smiles for us, so he's not suffering too much.

Working from home tomorrow (Fri), which is good as it saves me 2 hours of driving. I like to do that when I have a journey to make in the evening (we are off to my sisters)

It will be the first time we have been to my sister's new house since she split up with my brother-in-law. Yes, it's very sad especially after 18 years of marriage, but she and my three nieces seem to be bearing up. My brother-in-law is also doing OK. He's a good man and it's a shame they have split, but nothing I can do about that!

Kinda pointless iPhone apps

2009-09-22T21:41:00.001+01:00

I must admit that I am a little bit addicted to downloading iPhone apps.

I currently have about 70 installed but probably have had as many that do not make the grade and get removed pretty quickly.

My latest ones of note are DoodleJump - a pretty addictive game - and ColorSplash which is a fairly cool app that can make ordinary photos stand out with a bit of colour manipulation (or black-and-whiting most but not all of it) Please see below for 2 examples of my handiwork.

Pretty effective I reckon. But also pretty pointless!!!

-- iPosted this --

Tired

2009-09-13T23:17:00.001+01:00

Went to a friend's wedding yesterday and took Alby (the newest member of the family) but not Amelie (as children weren't invited.)

Even tho he is only a month old, it felt very odd having home there but not Amelie. She would have got bored very quickly so maybe it was best that way.

Alby was very good all day and got lots of coos and ahhs.
Lots of people (including "strangers") commented on how much he looks like me. Others said how gorgeous he is. The 2 go hand-in-hand surely!!!

The broken nights (feeds) are seemingly catching up with me. Today I was well knackered and so had a "power-nap" this afternoon. Let's hope Alby gets into a routine soon and does a bit less feeding and more sleeping at night.

Work tomorrow. Boo.

[thanks to Si M for the recommendation of an iPhone app. It posted this.]

Lovely

2009-09-11T16:45:00.002+01:00

1 month ago, my lovely wife gave birth to a lovely baby boy.
He is lovely.
He thinks milk is lovely.
Amelie thinks he is lovely.
Lovely.

Quintessential Work Colleague Conversation

2009-08-05T13:51:00.003+01:00

Me: I might not be in next week, my wife is heavily pregnant
Him: Getting big is she?
Me: She has a very large bump but she's only visibly fat from the front.
Him: [having a dig at my porkiness] Shame you don't have the same genetic make-up.
Me: We're not actually related that way! She's not my sister!
Him: I thought she might have been. Otherwise, who else would shag you?
Me: Your mum!

Game, set and match to me.

Twittered

2009-01-19T00:05:00.003Z

Yes, as you can see from the section nr the top right of this page, I am up and running on Twitter.

Not really knowing what it had all been about and only really hearing about it sporadically, I thought I would give it a go when the BBC had an article on the guy who took "that" photo of the plane in the Hudson.

Having played with it for a day now, it strikes me that Twitter is really just a "status" thing and for someone who takes about 10 minutes to come up with a status for MSN/Live Messenger or Facebook, I think I may have just given myself more "creative thinking" to do...

Time will tell.

(Any twitterers(?) on here, please feel free to "follow" me)

Knackered

2008-12-23T09:28:00.002Z

Was up 'til 2am last night wrapping presents. It's my own fault, I offered to do them.

Until Sunday we had been concentrating on Amelie's birthday, but now the focus is very much on Christmas. I did the Christmas food shop last night (can recommend going between 10pm and 11pm, v quiet, just have to dodge the shelf-stackers), then started wrapping at 11.30pm.

2 episodes of "The IT Crowd", 2 "Gavin and Stacey"s and the end of a crap film later and I was done.

Slept like a log and didn't want to get up for work at all today.

Oh well, only today and tomorrow to go and then I am off until Jan 5th.

New look...

2008-12-19T12:01:00.002Z

Yes, I thought it was about time I refreshed the look of my little long-forgotten blog.

It now blue, the title is in lower case and the subtitle has changed to reflect the title.

Also, I can now take photos on my phone, attached them to an email and sent the photo and the "message" directly to the blog for quick and easy blogging.

Maybe now, I will have a blog that not 6 months out of date.

Spiders...

2008-12-19T10:49:00.001Z

In response to Simon’s post about spiders, I would just like to say that I quite like spiders... as long as they are no bigger than a 5p coin that is.

Any bigger and it’s the glass and local curry-house menu treatment for a humane escape to the great outdoors.

I found one on our lounge curtain the other day that was pretty big its legs didnt quite fit inside the glass I was using. Obviously I took of photo of it and am displaying it now for all to see…

An Update!!!

2008-07-09T14:00:00.004+01:00

Its not that I don’t like to keep this blog updated, it’s just that I can’t think of much to write – not the ideal criteria for blogging, but it’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Having said that, I guess I have a few things to update so will soldier on.

Had a mini-break in the New Forest with the wife and daughter. Lovely it was too. We were staying at a great B&B that had a smaller room above the larger room, so Amelie got to sleep in peace without my snoring!!
Visited a few things and hired some bikes and did 12 mile ride through the forest in the afternoon heat – exhausting but great.

Since then I have not done a great deal. I visited my Dad - well, to sort his TV/Sky/DVD setup and get his Digisender working – followed by a curry. Last week I was off for 3 days with a kidney infection. I finish my antibiotics course tonight (wonder if I get some sort of certificate for that!)

This weekend we are visiting my Mum and Stepdad, Chris, just over the Severn Bridge in Wales. I haven’t seen them since my Chris’s dad’s funeral in May, but we (as a family) haven’t seen them since early April. Should be nice and a good distraction for Chris too.

Bought myself a Rubiks Cube a few weeks ago and have remembered almost all the “moves” to enable me to do it. My record recently is 1m 34sec, from a position randomly messed up by the wife!

2008-06-20T09:59:00.004+01:00

I know, I know, I've let it slip.

My concentration seems to be on other things... like trying to beat my mate at fantasy Euro 2008 (a football competition here in Europe - that's football played with the foot and a ball, not the hand and an egg like our American cousins!!)

On the topic of football competitions, I was thinking that I ought to resurrect the CPL (Chinese Prediction League) - a couple of my "regular" readers will know exactly what this is (SM and GP). Basically we predict the results/scores of certain football games throughout the season and score points based on how we do.
At the end of the season we all go out for a Chinese meal where the winner's meal is paid for by all the non-winners (losers sounds a bit harsh here!)
In the past it has been played by about 5 or 6 of us, but in these days where family life seems to take over and restrict our times of meeting up socially, it would be a good way of everyone definitely seeing each other at least once a year!

Anyway, better get on with some work - hope everyone is fine and dandy...

Long time, no see....

2008-04-28T15:57:00.004+01:00

Sorry for the delay in postings. I am writing this on a 5 min break from pure developing hell. We (the website I work for) are re-launching our site tomorrow (4am BST) and we have dot-netted up to the hilt, so its quite a major release. We're even gonna have a new logo!! Very exciting (but mentally draining) stuff.

Anyway, onto more fun stuff! I built this for Amelie this weekend.

Don't get too impressed - it was from a kit from our local garden centre. I use the word "kit" in its loosest sense. To me, a kit is a load of pieces with directions that can be assembled in a few hours. This, therefore, was not a "kit", it was a load of pieces that took all bloody Saturday to assemble!! And that was after I axed down a buddlea bush that had almost taken over the end of the garden and laid some paving down as a base. No wonder I ache like hell at the moment!!

Anyway, its done now and she loves it. I have even "installed" some solar powered fairy-lights to it.

Also, went swimming with her on Sunday morning and she had a great time.

So now its back to the grind-stone, with a busy but pleasing weekend behind me.

Rubbish Daddy

2008-04-07T12:30:00.003+01:00

My daughter wasn't happy with my Snowman-making skills...

A true classic

2008-04-04T13:05:00.002+01:00

This video (and song) will teach a whole generation how to rap.

Forget your Eminems, your Snoop Doggs, your Dr Dres and your JayZees - these boys will show you how to really rap...

...as I said, a true classic!!!!

Whatever next?

2008-03-29T08:03:00.000Z

Queueing up in Sainsburys to buy my lunch this week, I spotted something on the shelf next to me that made me do a double-take.

I had to get a photo of it as proof so whipped out my phone and, to the bemsument of the others in the queue behind me, took this photo for you all to see.

What it is, is a pack containing 2 plastic wine-glasses. These wine-glasses, however, actually contain wine. You simply peel off the foil top and there you go; instant Pinot Grigio.

So let's get this straight: you can now buy wine by the glass (or 2 rather) from a supermarket.

Unbelieveable!

BBC News blooper

2008-03-26T00:33:00.000Z

Hehehehe - this is funny....

Random fact #1: Toasters are banned in Cuba

2008-03-18T13:41:00.002Z

The collapse of the Soviet Union hit Cuba hard. It deprived Cuba of billions of dollars in subsidies and oil supplies, resulting in an energy crunch and daily blackouts of as long as eighteen hours. In an attempt to tackle these problems, the Cuban authorities prohibited the sale of many electric appliances.

Now, Cubans will be allowed for the first time to own DVD players and computers, according to an internal government memo leaked to Reuters news agency. Curbs may also be lifted on video machines, electric pressure and rice cookers, microwave ovens, electric bicycles and car alarms, as well as 19-inch and 24-inch TV sets. However it is thought air conditioners will not be available until 2009 and toasters until the year after due to limited power supplies.

The change comes about following an improved availability of electricity, due to importing hundreds of fuel-run electricity generators from Venezuela, its new anti-American oil rich ally, in 2006.

Only foreigners and companies can buy computers in Cuba at present, while DVD players were seized at the airport until last year, when customs rules were eased. Now Cubans will be able to buy them freely, paying for them in hard currency CUCs, or convertible pesos, worth twenty-four times more than the Cuban pesos which state wages are paid in.

There still remains some debate around the issue of such electronic communications devices such as mobile phones and the Internet. Many Cubans expect the state to soon allow them to buy mobiles, despite the tight security measures surrounding such communications equipment. However, it is expected that the government will continue to keep a close watch over Internet users, despite the sale of personal computers.

My Desk

2008-03-07T13:20:00.002Z

Following on from Simon's post sharing his workspace with the world, I thought I would also offer my humble desk. It's a bit messy but you will notice a few photos of my daughter, a few Watford FC things and a picture of Gaudi's Casa Mila in the background.
Ho hum.

Burnley

2008-02-28T22:08:00.002Z

I'll tell you now and I'll tell you firmly
I don't never want to go to Burnley
What they do there don't concern me
Why would anybody make the journey?

Courtesy of John Cooper Clark

Random thoughts #1 (illness)

2008-02-27T22:06:00.004Z

1. Lucozade these days doesn't seem as "special" as it did when I was a kid. Back then, it came in a glass bottle with a dimple effect on its neck, and also had a loose transparent yellowy plastic wrapper. Now, its just another 2 litre bottle, but with more calories.

2. As a parent you are more upset when your child is ill, than you are when you are ill.

3. Ibuprofen whips Paracetamol's ass (as far as I am concerned)