What a hectic month... March 10/11 kicked things off with Paper Tiger state titles held back in the Riverland, which I travelled back for. To throw more things into the job-list for the long-weekend, I took a few extra days leave in order for my road bike to go back for its free check-up as well as a scheduled car service. Squeezed in two rides (one each on Friday and Saturday morning) at 44km each, but then spent the rest of Saturday, all of Sunday, and Monday morning down the yacht club (on a club boat Sat+Mon, up on the balcony hoping for some wind on the Sun).

Hard job

After the presentation over lunch on Monday, was time to drive home again (although seemed like someone didn't want me to leave).

You want something?

The following two weekends were also fairly full, despite nothing overly post-worthy (yet). Mostly cleaning, planning, cooking and cycling (more details on the 'plan' phase might come later, depending how things unfold).

Lastly, April 1 - usually associated with April Fools, but this year also home to BikeSA's Grand Slam #2. Based out of Mount Torrens this time around, the original course was intended to be just shy of 100km circuit through the hills. Unfortunately, roadworks on one of the roads meant a detour had to be put in place which dropped the distance down to 'only' 93km but it was still a fun day.

Pre-departure crowd

It was a fairly crisp start to the day however I've been slowly stockpiling warmer cycling gear, so was pretty comfortable once we got underway at 8am. It also warmed up pretty nicely during our brief rest stop between the two loops (for those interested, here's the final Strava track). Was pleasantly surprised by my performance up one or two of the climbs in the area as well. Next up - 120km around Yankalilla at the end of May :)

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Fun stuff: A pretty large lightning storm went through the Riverland last Monday and my sister managed to capture a few cool photos, including these two.

Time for part two of my summer summary.

Weather this month has been mixed - some cool days, some damp days (including more than 20mm for Feb 29!), back to summer weather again for the second half of the month, and plenty of wind around. Has kept me off the bike a little but I've tried to counteract that with longer rides. Total km for February only reached 424 however distance per ride was a bit higher. On the other hand, today I clocked up my second 100km ride - kinda makes up for the lower km count last month :) I also managed 158km before first puncture (repaired and put back on the bike later that day) - much better than my record on my hybrid (puncture at 5km).

If I had to choose one thing, the highlight of the month would have to be the first of the BikeSA Grand Slam series.

The first of these was some 80km starting from Woodside in the Adelaide Hills. Given I'm used to riding around on flat road, I wasn't sure how I'd go in the hills however turned out I needn't have worried. according to the official report, there were some 572 riders on the road, and it was absolutely incredible to see at the start while everyone was together. The number of bikes also made the first 10km fairly interesting with people changing speed a lot with the terrain - I found I was passing quite a few people on the climbs while others would pass me on the descents. There were a few tougher climbs throughout the circuit (Strava track) however the day was really enjoyable and I'm looking forward to the next one in April. 200km in October still seems a little daunting however still a few months until October to build up to it :P

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Random mundane tidbit for the month:

After three months, my 'hobby' room floor is actually clean again :)

Seriously! I have proof!

(Warning - post content cycling heavy, with a splash of sailing and other stuff thrown in :P )

Hard to believe two months have flown past already! Must be something to do with keeping busy...

January had the 'typical' summer weather: warm sunny days which were great to be outside in - something I was more than willing to do. Mid-month I headed home for another weekend at my parents, while also turning the weekend into a cycling getaway. A ride each on Friday, Saturday and Sunday included three laps of the lake, as well as a stint around the back-blocks. After all the riding around here, the change of scenery was great. Combined with three more rides over the following four days, I covered almost 190km in the single week. Not to say the weather wasn't trying to keep me off the bike.

Cycling weather?

Then up came the Milang-Goolwa yacht race. Somehow I got talked into acting taxi, which involved dropping my sister off at Milang in the morning and picking her up from Goolwa a few hours later. Not to miss another chance for riding in new scenery I also squeezed my bike in the back of the car - if it was windy I wouldn't need to wait long, while if it was calmer I could ride to fill in time.... Or at least that was the theory.

Rigging at Milang

We got down to Milang around 8am - the grass on the foreshore was covered with boats, along with a lot more moored on-water. Wasn't much in the way of breeze and even then the sun was rather fierce. Despite this, the race still started and those of us on beach-crew duties watched the boats slowly drift off before departing for Goolwa.

Sun, sand, sea

Not to miss the opportunity, I grabbed the bike out and rode along the Goolwa-Victor Harbor bike trail. Turns out it's a rather pleasant ride, although I turned around just after Port Elliot as I wasn't sure where the boats were up to. The trail is a mix of on-road and shared-path however the onroad parts were adequately signposted to ensure not to get (too) lost for those unfamiliar with the area.

Should be used to it by now

Despite the weather's attempts, I managed some 50km (Strava track for those interested) before putting the bike away to find food and something refreshing to drink. I even survived a sailing event with only sunburn to my ankles, so while some might call me crazy, I rather enjoyed it :)

Australia Day also continued the warm weather and while many went to the beach or river, I went on an early-morning group ride, and despite splitting up near the end (heading in different directions) I pushed through to my first 100km milestone. Final total for the month: 500km in ~22 hours. Big news of the month however was the bike upgrade - I now own a carbon road bike and it is a huuuuuge step up from my hybrid. Lighter, faster, and (surprisingly) comfier on the longer rides.

After the first ride

No, I haven't fallen over with the clipless pedals yet. Yes, I also now own (and occasionally wear) lycra.

Another year down - it all goes so fast! Even worse is I'm strugging to think of all the things that have happened since my last post 'update' post in June - although I guess my Twitter stream could help there.

I guess the major achievement in the second half of the year was getting back into an exercise routine. I initially got my old bike brought down from my parents and rode that for a few weeks - the first ride left me crumpled on the lounge for a good hour and it was only 5km long however that slowly increased each weekend. A month after starting, I could push out 20km in an hour - not bad for the heavy old mountain bike I had. It was about that point I decided to upgrade as well - a new 'end of season' hybrid, which I've been absolutely enjoying - even going on 2 or 3 hour rides now. (Side note: Strava is an awesome online service to track rides online, and is currently also branching out to runs/walks too).

Weather warmed up, more cycling (with a bit of sailing mixed in), Relay for Life came and went (Strava says I walked just shy of 20km) and suddenly it's December! Christmas Day was fairly pleasant although a bit warm during the day. We did, however, have a nice lightning storm come through in the evening providing the chance for my sister to grab this impressive photo.

Photo: K. Thomas

Hope everyone else had a great Christmas and New Year period too, because I know I certainly did :)

I've been thinking about writing up this post for the last few months now but with the release of ScummVM 1.4.0 a few weeks back (which supports T7G iOS), now seems like a suitable time.

My first iOS game!

The 7th Guest for iPhone and iPad was announced mid last year and then released in December. I read around a bit at the launch and it seemed a mixed bag - three culled puzzles (including the notorious microscope puzzle), high framerates for most videos, but a good large dose of nostalgia for many people.

Back in April I was able to borrow a friends iPhone, and so was finally able to test out the port for myself. Though it played fluidly, it was a little rough around the edges - the music was a little flat (admittedly this is personal preference), the cursor mapping just above the finger was a little awkward for some puzzles, high-speed animations included all the 'teeth' events which took away from the atmosphere (and caused out-of-sync music). Interestingly, the port also suffered the same problem as the Windows interpreter (see ScummVM bug #2831041) though not too surprising given the Windows release source was likely used as the reference. Similarly, the cake puzzle bug also still exists.

After the playthrough, the next step was to obviously look under the hood. After extracting the app archive and digging down into the folder heirarchy, it turns out almost all the original game datafiles were present, completely untouched (including the original introduction and credits - both of which were replaced in the port). Data-wise, the largest change was the removal of XMIDI music in favour of AAC.

AAC powered music!

Work then began on the required changes to support the game - clone2727 mostly worked on the AAC decoder (as part of extending the QuickTime code) while I added the necessary changes to handle and load the music resources as well as a config file option to run the game at faster game speeds (add t7g_speed=tweaked in the ScummVM config file for faster walking/puzzles but normal cutscenes and supernatural events, t7g_speed=im_an_ios for all non-cutscene videos sped up).

Stauf is back for more microscopic action

In the end, it was a relatively straight-forward process to add support for the game. The missing puzzles are also back as the required game scripts were never removed. Best of all - this provides an easy way (if you have an iTunes account) to grab T7G but play it on whatever platform you desire :)