The Not So Interesting Life Of An I.T Professional and Fishing Blanker!

Moved site....

2018-05-25T21:41:00.001+01:00

Hi visitor, I moved my blog to my own web server

http://blog.stratplayer.org

Back For Business

2015-02-22T21:32:00.001+00:00

Hello people!

It's been ages since I updated this blog, and I know people think blogs are outdated now!

Not sure what has happened to all my picture links from last few posts, very odd indeed.

Will try and keep this updated (famous last words and all that!!)

Lyme Regis - The boys are back

2015-02-20T12:00:00.000+00:00

Time we headed out on the road again for some sea fishing, its been some months since we went to Chesil Cove in September (where we caught pretty much feck all!).

As usual, we decided to go for the easy option of Lyme Regis, always catch fish there and easy on the feet with great amenities. Myself and Neil headed down via the Golden Arches, arriving there at around 11.30am. We opted to be lazy and pay £7 to park on Monmouth Beach car park instead of the long stay at the top of the massively big hill, even if it was £1.50 up there.

Neil setting up his gear

To our surprise there was dredging work being carried out on the beach so we had to be escorted across the beach to go onto the harbour wall, the tide was further out than I had ever seen before so there was no chance of any fishing to be done just yet!

Selfie Time

No water to fish in just yet

Dredgers are in full swing

The dredgers were quite interesting to watch as they pulled loads of mud away, they were partially submerged and how they didn't get stuck was quite impressive.

Ready to roll... no water still

Me, Neil and Dave were all set up and ready to go, but the tide was still too low and the dredgers were still in action.... typical eh!!

Dave arrived and happy

Dredgers are still going

Still waiting.....

Neil is ready for the off

Neil has a swig of vodka (well water)

Dave is keeping an eye on his rods

It was getting a little cold selfie

Dave relaxing

Panoramic shot

Neil invented a water bottle warmer from his socks

Pensive thoughts....

Charmouth and Seatown looking nice

Sunset looks nice over the Cobb

Lovely sunset

Fishing boat returns with scallops

Get chilly now... fishing suits are on

We had a great day, it was pretty damn cold in the night session, we stayed until 11pm.

Food was provided by Lyme's Fish Bar on the harbour front. It was bloody lovely and hot when we were freezing cold.

Dave had at least 16 fish (rockling,whiting,pouting,eel), whilst myself and Neil settled for two a piece! At least we didn't blank.

Next post will have some videos from the day/night to view... but for now.. good night

InfiniApps CD Slyde Car Mount

2014-04-26T18:21:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone I just thought I'd let you know about a fantastic car phone/small tablet holder I come across recently whilst doing some research for such a device on the Internet.

The device is called and InfiniApps CD Slyde and it fits into most cars with a slot CD mechanism by pushing out some rubber tongues to hold it in place. It holds the device with a magnet, it's a very small item looks amazingly neat and tidy in the car, much better than ratchet or clamp devices.

Here is a shot of the device fitted in my BMW 3 series

Are you can see it fits in quite nicely it doesn't really interfere too much with the existing controls and displays in the car, I can live without seeing a little bit of the fan and temperature display there, and the quick buttons on the BMW are still easily accessible.

Underneath the InfiniApps round rubber disc are four very strong magnets, they are designed to hold your device in place on the mount. They are very strong! I did take off the rubber disc to look underneath and it took me about 15 minutes to get them all back in the correct place again and put the rubber cover on. So I strongly suggest don't take it off because they're so strong that when you take them out put them back in again is a complete nightmare.

Devices are held to the round disc using one of the two metal plates, one is adhesive and the other not. You can fit the plate directly inside your case for a smartphone, or use the other adhevise plate to stick inside a case, outside a case or directly to the device if you are mad enough!

So I added the plate into my existing case, without adhesive and here are the shots.

First impressions are good, potholes are no problem, the device doesn't get in the way.

The main drawback of course is if you don't use your phone for music and use the CD player for music, then obviously with this device fitted you can't use the CD any more!

Not a problem for me as all my music is on my phone or in the cloud, so for me it's a good solution but for you maybe not. I think it's the neatest car Holder that I've ever used in all my time too. It looks good as well, no messy cables, no big plastic grippy arms, built with the highest quality.

For some reason you can't buy this in the UK directly, you have to get it via EBay for which I will provide the link. It cost me around £23 with shipping but I think it is worth it for its neatness and practicality.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/331172640414

Overall Score: 9/10

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Easter 2014

2014-04-20T15:16:00.001+01:00

Lots of Easter eggs hidden in the garden this year. As you can see from the pictures Emma got lots!!

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The New Car

2013-10-13T16:26:00.001+01:00

Here she is the car I went with in the end.
320d Msport with red leather seats.

She drives life a dream, so smooth and comfortable. So much nicer than the Audi.

The Next Company Car

2013-04-14T17:09:00.001+01:00

I started this blog several years ago now, mainly to deal with the issues I had with my then current Ford Mondeo company car. I've moved on several cars since then, and of late the blog has been severely ignored.

Anyway, the time has come to choose my next company car (to be replaced by September 2013).

So I've had the paperwork to order the car a week or two, but haven't as arranging a test drive takes some time. These are the cars I had on my list prior to culling

Mercedes A220 AMG Sport Plus
Mazda 6 2.2d sport auto
BMW 520d Msport Auto
BMW 330d Msport Auto
Toyota RAV4
Toyota GT86
C class Mercedes AMG Sport

There is the list to start..

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Nearly in the lagoon!

2012-12-30T15:00:00.000+00:00

At Future4x4 recently, myself and Zunaid got into a bit of pickle when trying to reverse backwards when it became obvious there was no way forward!

Anyway checkout the video which contains very strong language.

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The SG3 has gone..... Hell freezes over!

2012-09-22T08:48:00.000+01:00

So yesterday I finally relinquished my hold on my Samsung Galaxy S3. I'd been running with an iPhone 4s for 2 weeks and thought that it was time to finally let go of my beloved phone.

I just loved the enormous crystal clear screen, and compared to the iPhone, which has a minuscule screen!

So it was collected yesterday and is off to a loving new home.. Bye Sg3

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Pasta & Meatballs a la Bazza

2012-09-12T13:15:00.000+01:00

Because the restaurant is so bad at work Bazza decided that on a Wednesday we would go out, or bring in.

So we have had curry where we all brought some part of the meal in, today was meatballs!!

The 2 packets of meatballs were heated in the microwave, although the staff microwaves are far from brilliant and don't rotate. The pasta was cooked in a way I'd never seen before, boiling water from the tea urn and then in microwave! It was fresh pasta, and after what seemed like no time at all it was cooked.

The one thing that didn't cook so well was the garlic bread Neil brought in, never less it was hot and garlicky and got eaten!

We took it all down to the canteen and ate it like kings, I provided the hard Italian cheese.... A feast for kings.

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A trip to Zooparc Beauval

2012-08-24T21:45:00.000+01:00

Yesterday saw some cloud cover at last! It was still in the late 20's though.

So we decided to goto Beauval Zooparc near St.Aignan in France. The sun was out but it was quite breezy, which was nice given the last week of relentless heat. So it was 2 against 1 on the roof going down, as I owned the car I decided to veto the other votes and put it down. In hindsight an error of judgement.

Catherine did nothing but moan the entire way, so in the end I relented and put the roof up. Of course to counter this I whacked the air con to its lowest and on full blast.

A toll free 90 minutes later we were heading into the zoo car park, I had to cruise in with roof down as it was sunny and bloody hot, so it went down to park.

In went to pay, 66€ to get in. Now I'm all for charging a fair price, but 66€ is a bit strong. Never less I paid and went in, oh my lord we had the chosen the one day when 6000 oiks were there on some sort of mass organised day out. It was chocca with people, and everyone had the same destination in mind, the giant pandas enclosure.

Well we headed that way as Catherine wouldn't shut up about going there, well what can I say.... Boring! One of them was asleep, the other just sat there chomping bamboo.. Am I missing something, what's so exciting about this?

Anyway, the zoo is fantastic if you have never visited before. I highly recommend it.

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Its a Dogs Life!

2012-08-17T15:06:00.001+01:00

This is Carly, she is fed up of the heat in France, there is a fan out of sight on the left hand side, she obviously liked trying to keep cool.

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21.5" iMac 2010 - SSD Replacing Superdrive Upgrade Part 1

2012-08-12T20:40:00.000+01:00

Ok, so its been on the cards for sometime now. The iMac I got back in April just had to have the SSD treatment, it couldn't be held back any longer.

The challenge of putting the drive in is not for the faint of heart, and I saw this as a personal challenge to ignore those who worry and to just get on with it.

Now for those of you who know nothing about iMac disassembly then I can tell you it is quite unwieldy to review Youtube videos explaining how to do it, each one just that little bit different from the other!

Tools are required for the job, here are my tool choices.

SSD

SSD Bracket (as I am replacing my Superdrive with an SSD, leaving the internal SATA HDD in place) i bought this from Amazon

T10 Torx screwdriver

Philips Screwdriver

Suction cups

Air duster

Disposable gloves to keep marks off screen and glass

Microfibre cloth

Tweezers of some kind

Ok so the first thing you need to do is remove the front glass panel, its a piece of cake and you really don't need to buy a set of suckers if you have lets say a sat nag window sucker for your car. I bought the above set for £7 from www.screwfix.co.uk as they were available over the counter, they did the job but were really way to powerful for the job. Like cracking a hazelnut with a sledgehammer, never less it worked!

The screen is only held on with magnets, and once you have pulled it away a bit you can easily remove the glass panel.

Make sure you put the glass panel down somewhere safe, and protected from being scratched.

There are 4 T10 torx screws each side to undo, a total of 8. They are very obvious so I haven't detailed them in the picture here. There are millions of guides if you are too blind to see the 8 screws in front of your very eyes ;-)

Ok when you remove the panel there are several cables to detach, make a note of where they are (again this is all covered in a million other guides).

Ok now we can see the internals of the iMac, as you can see it is very easy to replace the internal HDD with another model if needed at this point, but I am just installing an SSD in place of the Superdrive on the left.

To remove the SuperDrive you will need to lift up the metal foil along its front edge first.

Carefully detach the thermal sensor pad from rear of the SuperDrive.

Remove the 4 screws holding SuperDrive in place.

Lift it out and detach the Slim ATA connector… this is where my problem arose originally as I hadn't purchased the SSD caddy at this point. A standard SSD will have a SATA connector on it that is 21 pins, and the iMac uses slim SATA which is 15 pins! So you need a caddy or a fancy cable convertor (which are very hard to source without waiting for something from the US of A!).

Below you can see the slim SATA connector in all its glory, and then pictured with my SSD, as you can see no fit!!!

So this is where Part 1 finishes, as I have to do this all again now I have the caddy.

Putting the iMac back together is no more tricky than taking it apart, the most important thing is to make sure you use the air spray and micro fibre cloth to keep dust off the screen etc. I had no issues doing mine at all, and there is no dust under the glass.

Part 2 coming very soon…..

New Blog software on iPad

2012-04-22T14:47:00.001+01:00

Today I am trying out some new software called Blogsy on the iPad platform.

Adding photos is its biggest attraction but it couldn't be any less friendly.

Why can't I just drag and drop a photo in without having to upload it? Good old Windows Live Writer let's you do it so why can't this app. You have to put them on Flickr or Picassa first, so writing an offline article with picture is pretty hard!

In fact uploading is no mean feat either!

Closure for 2011 League

2012-02-18T20:31:00.002+00:00

Hats off to David for winning yet again on the fish count for the year. We certainly didn't go fishing as much during the last 12 months, but when we did Dave put it more effort than me and Neilboy combined.

So hats off to Dave for winning again!!

No doubt he will retain his title again this year!

Dave wins the league with a total of 23 fish caught! Well done once again.

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White Vans

2012-02-15T20:37:00.000+00:00

OK, first of all I don't want everyone who drives a commercial van to be tainted by my comments on here, but there really are some dicks who drive vans on the M4.
But seriously the idiots that tear down the M4 on the outside lane at 90mph is beyond belief. Firstly they don't have the ability to stop like a car! So they shouldnt be speeding to start with, then let's not forgot to add any load they may have (be it human or goods) which adds to thr minimum braking distance required.
So that aside, the biggest thing is the fact they are driving quite often a vehicle that is plastered with logos and phone numbers of the company they work for!
Well if you drive like that I can tell you now that the motorists on the M4 are going to start naming and shaming, along with contacting your company too.
Some of the regular offenders are
Tytherington
McBain
Blaze
You have been warned, next time you are tailgating a motorist in your mobile death traps think will they report me, but more importantly can I stop in time?
Only last Wednesday 2 vans collided behind me, I thought the first would hit my car but he swerved into the central reservation instead after which the next van hit him! Tailgating, just deserts!
Here's a shot off the motorway traffic cameras after they had moved to the hard shoulder!

JEFF LIKES CHOCOLATE SAUSAGE

2011-11-28T13:01:00.001+00:00

Today had the best laugh in ages as a fellow friend and colleague made the ultimate snafu…

Let me set the scenario…

It’s lunchtime and the queue for the canteen (can’t really say restaurant as there is little resemblance in food and/or service!).

Anyway it was sausage and mash today, choice of 3 sausages (Pork & Apple/Pork & Leek/Cumberland). You can have one of each of whatever you want, point to remember here is NEVER have the Cumberland's as they taste like Harpic cleaner!

Jeffers went for the non-cumberlands medley with mustard mash and peas, topped off by the very tasty onion gravy. No hang on, he’s picked up the wrong gravy boat… it’s chocolate sauce!

Brilliant, laughed my arse off! The miserable sod removed the evidence before I had a chance to take a shot, and for the record it didn’t go!

Jeff Loses The Plot

2011-11-19T11:40:00.001+00:00

Friday is always pie day at Atlas House, chicken and mushroom this week. In an act of foolishness Jeffers decided to opt out and partake in a salad! His Welsh kindred turning in their graves!

So off he trotted to get said salad, whilst I continued with the pie quest. The pie God's were favourable this week giving me a middle bit! So here it is, and it was nice apart from being hotter than a McDonald's apple pie!

Then Jeffers rocks up with what I can only describe as the bit you scrape off the top of a kebab on a drunken night out.

Poxy Chesil Beach, A Ridiculous Venue That Does Not Live Upto Its Reputation

2011-09-30T22:20:00.000+01:00

It had been a long time coming, but it was time to head off fishing for a full day again, and yet again Chesil Beach was the venue of choice.

We had discussed going down to the Chesil Cove end of the beach, but recent reports suggested otherwise. So we headed down to Chesil Beach Bait & Tackle, a new shop that has opened since the demise of Dennings.

To be fair he had a ton of stuff for sale in the shop, much more than Dennings. The bait was excellent, great quantity and size. So we got £24 quids worth of ragworm, and 3lb in unwashed squid and headed off to poxy Ferrybridges.

Now I friggin hate Ferrybridges and its ridiculous overpriced car park of £6.50 for more than 12 hours. Its a dusty shit pit in the middle of nowhere, how they can justify the cost is beyond me! It has toilets, but you hardly need to leave a tip when departing there for a splash of cologne! Infact it’s pretty lucky that you are wearing boots and fishing to save you from wading through all the piss.

The other thing I hate, is the stupid shingle beach! It is just a complete pain in the arse to trudge across this stuff to get to the fishing areas! Especially when you know the prospect of catching fuck all or 1 fish is the expected outcome.

With all that said we trudged across the bloody stones laden with rods/chairs/food and so forth to get to the top of the shingle bank, only to be greeted with something we hadn’t expected. A massive sea swell!

It was roasting hot, there was no wind… how could there be a massive swell!

Anyway the day commenced and Dave was the first to catch a dogfish, check out the video below.

Caught a doggie

Now Neilboy and DT always beat me to getting a rod in the water, but today he decided to do a bit of sun worshiping as seen below.

DT managed to catch a nice few fish, like the above specimen.

The sun began to settle, and DT and Neilboy were chewing the fat down at the waters edge.

Then the unthinkable, I caught a nice whiting! You can see my fish butler Neilboy holding it for me as I took the picture.

Then even more unbelievably Neilboy caught a fish and broke his fishing drought, look how happy he is to have caught the fish below.

The sea was very odd that day, massive waves and such. Certainly at night only a fool would have gone down to the waters edge! Infact one wave was so big it crashed in out of nowhere and then thundered in up the 20ft shingle bank in seconds, a stark reminder of how dangerous it can be on the Chesil Beach coastline.

So we wound up the night just after high tide with 1 a piece for me and Neilboy, and we believe 6 for DT (1 doggie and I think 5 whiting).

We headed back to the car park where the car had been valeted as part of the £6.50 fee only to realise that the car park was not accessible anymore without crossing a wide piece of seawater behind the shingle bank!

Dave waded straight in, but there was no chance me or Neilboy where doing the same as no bugger was sitting in my new Audi with wet clothes. So we had little choice but to remove the boots, the socks and the trousers to cross barefoot!

Well I followed Neilboy across the freezing and rocky sea bed only to veer off course and go up past the old nether regions, by god it was icy cold!

So now we are on the car park side with wet legs and feet, and dripping boxer shorts in my case also. I had no choice but to remove them.

Well just my luck as I did this a car drove in the car park (boy racers I think), with me and Neilboy behind a bush, one half naked, the other in boxer shorts! I couldn’t get my legs in my jogging bottoms as my feet were wet still. The harder I tried the worse it got, hopping around on the spot. Eventually I got them on and we headed away from that godforsaken shithole.

THIS WAS THE LAST VISIT TO FERRYBRIDGES THAT I WILL DO!

Audi A3–1900 Miles Later

2011-09-22T14:57:00.001+01:00

Ok so now I have driven 1900 miles and a few more (in two weeks) I thought it was time to post my views on the old girl on my blog site as promised.

So as a car it is fantastic, it drives beautifully. It feels like it is glued to the road, out handling my old ‘08 plate Ford Mondeo by miles. Also as a bonus the dashboard hasn’t gone bonkers like the Mondeo did. But that said, the size difference between the two is instantly noticeable, the Mondeo was cavernous in comparison to the A3. I didn’t order the Audi for its size though, it was for the fun!

Everyone is interested in fuel economy these days and I left it a little too close to the bone on Friday to drive from Reading to Bristol on the tanks contents. So I had to drive more like the majority of people on the inside lane of the M4 Friday, with the occasional foray into the middle and outside lane. With an average cruising speed for 60 – 70mph I managed to get to the M4 junction for Bristol (J19) with an average MPG of 59.8 (see picture below for evidence).

Now that is impressive in my opinion!!

Ok so that’s the good points so far, now how about the negative…. well to be honest there aren’t that many, and at best they are just inconvenient more than massive issues.

The centre armrest that comes with the SLine stops you from putting the handbrake on and off easily. You have to lift it up in the air to get to the handbrake. Also underneath said armrest is a drinks holder, not for two, just for one. Again if you dare to put something in the receptacle you cant put the arm rest down.

You may have gathered by now my armrest is probably sky bound for the majority of the time!

The doors are very big on the car, making parking in a car park like Russian roulette, will it be dented or not when I return!

So I find myself going out of my way to park miles away from any other cars, so what is it that attracts other cars to mine when I do so, its so bloody annoying!

The iPod dock in the glove box is crap, I have had to stick a “wedge” under it to stop my iPod Touch from falling out. Even that doesn't stop the randomness of the “no audio” syndrome! For no apparent reason the audio disappears but the device is still playing and can see the iPod (see video below). So I have opted for MP3’s on CD instead, at least I get full track information that way (as you don't on the iPod dock connector!)

Listen to my iPod audio dont it sound good? Oops sorry you cant hear it because my car has an issue!

Mrs.Miggins Pie Shop

2011-09-15T13:15:00.001+01:00

This lunchtime Jeffers and I partook in a light luncheon at the pie shop in Reading. Named Sweeney & Todd and located in Castle Street in Reading we whipped down the town on the free bus from TVP.

A shandy for me and a Becks for Jeffers, ordering a steak and ale for new and a Sweeneys Special for Jeffers, both with cauliflower cheese.

Here is Jeffers enjoying his fine fayre….

My pie (Steak and Ale) was equally as nice…

They were handsome! £6 for the pie, £2 for the cauliflower cheese.

EDIT: I forgot to mention these pies were insanely hot, and I mean hot! I have no skin left on my tongue at all, that’ll teach me to be so greedy eh!!

Test from Blogaway for Android

2011-09-06T20:48:00.001+01:00

Just testing some new software on the Android device called Blogaway.

Today The Audi Arrived!

2011-09-06T19:40:00.001+01:00

Today was the day the Audi A3 finally arrived, I’ve been waiting really since December to sort out the car. The order with Audi took since March this year, so in total about 6 months.

Here are a couple of pictures for anyone interested, its a real shame that today was the worst days weather this week so it was a bit of a damp squib getting a cabriolet on a day like today!

I will post my initial findings on the car in a few days, as I only have completed 90 miles in it today.

Operation Blighty

2011-08-27T15:48:00.001+01:00

Now here is a story to warm the hearts and minds for the Anglo-Francais relations, you could argue that this was my own doing but I beg to differ….

Before departing in France I had a cursory glance at my front tyres to check the tread depth on them, and in my opinion they looked ok to me. Well by the time I had driven halfway across France to avoid paying tolls on the Autoroute, the situation was a different story!

So luckily I had brought my FJ phone with me and used www.saynoto0870.com to find a real number for the leasing company. On speaking to them it transpired that there was infact a Leaseplan throughout Europe and that getting the tyres should not be an issue. I was given the number for Leaseplan in France and told to give it to the person in Speedy Tyres (Kwik Fit).

So I rocked upto the tyre centre with the number and was met with instant hostility! The manager was being a prick to be honest, he refused to even look at the number I had let alone ring it, saying “Je mon fou” which means quite rudely I dont care.

Now it shouldn’t come as a shock that you need every frigging bit of paperwork for the car under the sun to change tyres in France, but it did! The prick was still going on about this Carte Gris, I kept saying it don’t bloody exist in England and you dont need any paperwork to change two bloody tyres!

This is when it descending into a lot of hand waving and head shaking from both of us! Then I remembered my Vehicle On Hire Certificate back in the flat, I returned to get it.

The man was over the moon at some form of paperwork being returned, almost dancing around in excitement! All this was short lived as he had already explained he didn’t know English at all, and guess what the form was in English.

So after several face saving taps on the keyboard trying random values off the form he telephoned Speedy HQ in Paris, not Leaseplan as he should have done. Speedy’s response was to order the tyres and charge me for them!

I explained that I would do nothing of the sort, and that I would return to get the tyres fitted without a single euro leaving my pocket!

The garage manager did not share my belief…. we shall see I thought! Anyway it was going to take two bloody days to get the tyres in the first place.

During those two days I made many calls back to the UK, and finally to Francois in Leaseplan France '(well Catherines Mum did!), and finally I returned to the garage to get two lovely Pirelli 235/40/R18 95Y tyres fitted @ 178 Euros a piece!

Matey in the garage was well and truly eating that dish best served cold, humble pie!

Big thanks to Emma Croft at Leaseplan for helping to sort this out.

Emma’s New Haircut

2011-08-26T13:04:00.001+01:00

Emma had a new haircut today, and looks pretty snazzy with it! Her hair was about 6 inches longer than this before the photo was taken.

Here she is just about to go out to meet one of Catherine’s friends and her little boy.