Michael's Meanderings

Back to work after Easter on Wednesday, took Tuesday off. Went Line dancing as is the new normal - and each following Wednesday. Ballroom classes on Tuesday, with practice on the 2nd and 3rd Fridays. Social Dance on the last Saturday.
On Saturday 7th I took public transport to my sister's (replacement but and train on my season ticket, and waived on the final bus for free) to celebrate out combined birthdays (hers is the day after mine).
My Parents, sister and brother-in-law, were joined by my niece and her husband for a most excellent Chinese take out (delivered)
The following day my sister and I went to a Ceroc workshop (where she was a taxi dancer / assistant) and I tried to remember steps. this was my third Ceroc workshop and it was finally sinking in!
The Brighton SF Reading Group discussed "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town" which I again did not finish ;-(
J went on holiday to Japan for 3 weeks, so I had to get a lift to the station from one of my fellow dancers. It was quite weird dancing on my own most of the time.
Got a new banking app on iPhone, old one expired & needed to setup a secure access using my thumb print, unfortunately this didn't work and I spent over an hour with tech support trying to get it to work before they were notified the service was down!
I did finally manage to get it working and it's must easier that the previous system.
Follycon sent my Souvenir book and other documentation in the post, including a pin as I was at the previous Follycon in Liverpool in 1988 (so named as it included 1st of April in the weekend)
Got my PC replaced with a new Dell with Windows 10 (64-bit with 8GB memory & 256GB solid state drive) which means my old PC would be thrown away, I requested if I could retain it myself (as it's much better speced than my own desktop)
Put together VR Cardboard goggles (quite old and sticky tape not very strong, but even so surprisingly effective. Took my old PC with it's 2 screens (3 journeys on the train) home and setup by installing Ubuntu over the original hard drive.
Then asked to bring it back in so the hard drive could be removed and physically destroyed!

I've continued to suffer from cold / flu / asthma so I finally visited the Doctor last night. She said I'd probably had a mild viral infection exacerbated by my asthma, I need to increase the use of my inhaler by 4 times and it should resolve. It already seems to have had an impact.

At the end of October Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala was released and I've been playing with it. It seems to be faster starting and is easier to install on SD Cards and USB sticks. The Netbook Remix is also much smaller and easier to install too.

I've been trying to move material from my old 486 running MS-Dos 6.22 to more up to date storage, and have so far managed to recover some of my original digital pictures from a now defunct Casio QV-10, they were very small and grainy but at the time...

I have decided to reduce my book buying. This is because I was unable to pay off all my credit card bills for the last two months, a large chunk of which were Amazon and Forbidden Planet. Since the 6th October I have only bought 3 books, not including ebooks or books ordered prior to this point. This doesn't mean I haven't got anything to read as I do have a large too be read pile. This has been successful as I was able to pay off all my credit card bill this month.

Last Thursday I had my yearly appraisal, which boiled down to "must improve performance" ;-(
This was followed by going to The Hawth theatre to see Fascinating Aida which was great, for those who haven't heard them they, are a bit like a female version of Flanders and Swann!

My copy of Fledgeling by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller arrived in the post yesterday, I had already read it as an ebook, but it does complete my Liaden collection.

Recently the trains have been delayed and they have been particularly bad over the last couple of days. This morning due to cancellation and delay I got to work an hour later than intended.

This evening I have a Science Museum Tour booked. Details to follow later!

I really need to update more regularly ;-) As a completist, when GURPS Vorkosigan was finally published on 11 June, after a nine year wait, even if only in PDF format so far I had to get a copy. But now I'm finding my laptop screen too small to view it properly.

The last few weekends I've been having deep tissue massage, to help with my back and right heel tendons, this last week I've had to use a hot pack on my right thigh, it does seem to have helped. Last Saturday since it was such a nice day I decided to walk from Hove to Brighton, this took over an hour, but then I did stop to check out various shops. Later that evening I saw Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds at the Brighton Centre. Which was most excellent. If it had just been a live performance of the album it would have been great, but there was a wide screen on which live action and animation were used to illustrate the story, that's not to mention the holographic Richard Burton. To cap it of an animatronics Tripod war machine descended from the rafters to the stage. One other impressing item was that for £20 go could get a copy of that night's live performance, so I ordered a 3 CD set and was able to collect it and leave half an hour after the performance had ended!

On Sunday three weeks back I had my last walk around Bedelands Farm and saw rabbits, ducks, geese and butterflies. The Windows operating system on my laptop failed and I finally decided to install Ubuntu 9.04. Everything works (though the laptop screen doesn't quite fit, though when plugged into the TV it's fine. Most things I can do without any problems, but I'm finding it difficult to find all the tools that I've picked up in Windows over the last ten+ years in Linux versions. But it's certainly interesting, looking for the tools, and learning how Linux differs from Windows (and is the same).

My kitchen has finished being built, there are new floor tiles, the walls and ceiling have been repainted and new gas cooker and cupboards have been installed, with a work bench over the disk washer and the washing machine.

On Thursday 18 June I was supposed to have the afternoon off, but instead I got a call at 6:00am asking me to get to the office ASAP as we had a virus outbreak! The whole organisation was affected by the Conficker virus. Getting rid of it and making sure it couldn't return took all our efforts.

I did take Friday off though (as tickets had been bought) and I went to the British Science Museum to see the Wallace and Gromit display, urging attendee to get inventing. I also discovered that becoming a member of the Pulse scheme got me in to all special exhibitions and IMAX showings for free so I signed up. I only need to go to 4 more events over the next year to break even!

That evening I went to the Peacock Theatre in Holborn to see Latin Fever with Darren Bennett and Lilia Kopylova, a dance spectacular which was excellent

On Tuesday afternoon of last week I went to the dentist for a check up, all was well, and then last Tuesday I when for my annual Asthma Review, and this was also OK so medically I mostly fit!

Juggling has now finished until next term, I I've been working on my club passing. I've managed to keep the patterns going for a while (over ten passes) with only one partner. I've been less successful when we tried with multiple partners, but then we aren't all to the same standard yet. That fact that four of us managed to get 4 cross passes is very pleasing.

I don't normally make New Year resolutions, but I feel that I really ought to be able to post at least once a month!

I finally realised I hadn't posted in over two months and if I don't do so today, I won't have my diary to refer to!

So back at the end of October....

I took some training in Powerpoint, which allowed me to take the final module of the ECDL, which I passed! It's not too technical a qualification, but it's the only the second IT related one I've got (3rd if you count an "OA" level taken in 1978!)

In mid November I went to the Hawth theatre twice. First to see Cirque du Glace - circus on ice. The whole stage was iced over, and most of the performers were on skates. There was ice dancing as well as the usual circus performances. The second was to see Shades of Brown, a one woman show, high lighting issues of skin colour. A tour du force, the writer / performer (Rani Moorthy) was on stage all the time (even when costume changing).

I started watching "Sanctuary" on ITV4 using ITVPlayer as my sky+ box had finally died! Last in the series is going to be on TV this Monday (sky+ box replaced over Christmas). Also have been watching "Merlin" and "Strictly Come Dancing" on BBC1, both now finished and "Fringe" on Sky1 also on my PC with SkyPlayer, but when I tried to view the last episode (ep10) it wouldn't work, so I'll have to find it elsewhere.

Finally booked my flight to Atlanta and hotel for Gafilk, though with the exchange rates and petrol prices it was a bit higher than in previous years. I look forward to seeing friends again, and hearing good music.

I've bought a new camera, as the old one fell apart when I was in Denver last year. It uses an SD card and can record video (but the sound isn't so good). It's smaller and made of metal, rather than plastic, so I hope it lasts better.

Jugging class finished a few weeks back, for this term. It will restart in the New Year, but due to Gafilk I'll miss the first 2 weeks. (previously it was on Monday so with the plane schedules I only missed one week, now it's later so I miss two!) We have been doing quite a lot of passing, with both balls and clubs. I used the new camera to take some video I may post them some time.

December 12th was our staff Christmas party / dinner. It was in the evening and I though the meal was quite good, some how I managed to have two christmas pudding, though I decided not to drink, so that may have balanced out.

I've finally managed to get Ubuntu to run on my eeepc from an SD card, as if it were a writable Live CD and with the wireless function working! I'm using the Eeebuntu Netbook Remix which works like a charm. But it still takes twice as long to boot as Puppy Linux which is also now working from SD Card.

And so I'm nearly up to date. Two weeks ago I saw a double bill of "The Tale of Despereaux" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still" at the local cinema. Then we get to Christmas which I spent with my parents, and sister and her family. Oh yes my niece has just past her driving test, only three month after her 17th birthday, when she first started driving.

On Christmas day we watched the traditional "Doctor Who Christmas Special", followed by "the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas Special", back home on Sunday afternoon, when I had to go out in the freezing cold to buy my Annual Season Ticket (so I can travel in 2009 at 2008 prices) then back to work on Monday. We did get New Years day off work, and I spent it, as expected reading.

The book list meme has been going around at this time, so I extracted the data from LibraryThing and determined that I read 343 books during 2008. I'm not going to post them all due to space considerations, but it would be really cool if there were a widget which could be set to show the books you'd read over a certain period. A week, a month or even a year.