Older blog entries for Bryce (starting at number 895)

Saturday

Friday

Humm well mum and myself went for a walk up Slieve Gullion (mountain) before breakfast (ok so breakfast to me is currently 10:00, but I digress) The going was rather wet from yesterdays rain. I'm also slightly out of shape,.. (embarrased look) Much huffing and puffing later had the specatular view of the

inside of a cloud... couldn't see a damned thing which rather spoiled my photo shoot.

Went on a little excursion after coming back down around the back of Camlough lake.

Back at base, got email from one potential employer. Somewhat intresting. Some of the legalise looks a little iffy though. Contined with the shifting of junk to the bin to make way for the books. Time to lift the bar on what I can call junk I fear 8/ Still, if there isn't room, it's gotta go.

Mum's sisters called out to give her a present from when they were off in Australia and to have a natter. Had a brief talk with them myself.

Little later on, ran into town to get a few messages and fill the car up with diesel. Well, that was a shock. 79 pence a litre. So with a little conversion, that equates to £2.99 a US Gallon which when you convert back into dollars makes a US Gallon of gas $4.66 which is a far cry from the $1.35 I used to pay. So UK petrol/gas is about 3.4 times more expensive than in the US. Last time I'll fill up in the UK. Fortunately I'm close enough to the border to be able to drive into Eire and buy diesel there in Euro's for a damned sight less. Still more than I would have had to pay in the US but significantly less than what I'd pay under the UK petrol taxation schemes. To think, only 4 years ago it was about 42 pence a litre. The UK Government has a nasty habit of using the UK motorist as it's private piggybank whenever it overspends.

Thursday

Watched the rain. Nice steady drizzle, not one of these 15 minute downpours that I used to see in NC. Odd how you can miss the rain

Got a call from Al, another friend that I'd not heard much from since he came and stayed over for a week or so while I was in NC Caught up on the fun of whats going on in his life.

Got email from James back in IBM^H^H^HAT&T also wanting to hear what was the craic was now that I was back in the UK. Must give him a ring later on.

Did a little more slash and burn on the contents of my room. I'm getting close on enough space to sort out the books. I need shelving.

Looking around the rest of the house I see a number of odd jobs that need attention eg painting, replacement of the eves, guttering needs cleaning etc. Ugh. Oh well it'll keep me busy and out of harms way I guess.

Wednesday

Drove into town, sorry, city (they recently upgraded the status to city probably in an effort to increase taxes) to go looking for nice periodicals like Computer Weekly which I remember used to have pages and pages of IT jobs in the back section. Damned if I could find it. (Found out later that WH Smiths in Belfast still carry it) Bought Linux Pro, Linux Magazine, Broadband and Computer Shopper to catch up on the UK status quo.

From the Broadband maazine, it looks like if I want to shift off 56K modem tech (running at 44K max connect to BT 8/) then, I'm looking at satalite comms. I'm apparently just a little too far out from the exchange to get ADSL. I suppose I could get a leased line but thats WAY too expensive and theres no cable in the local area. Thers no wireless network in the area either 8/ I have to say though that the broadband magazine was rather useful. Looking at various coverage maps, it certainly looks like BT have been dragging their heals over the last few years. I'm a bit peeved at the ADSL situation though. I don't think BT do ADSL repeaters. So, as I say, I think I'm left with satalite as my only other sensible alternative.

Read some of the reviews on RH Advanced Server. Innocent whistle. I'm saying nothing.

Tuesday

Paperwork day. Lots and lots of paperwork.

Popped onto IRC to be mugged by Timp and Sopwith from back in the office. Least no one has merrily tried to shift blame for amything bad onto my shoulders yet. Still I bet it's only a matter of time 8) Even if it is for lack of dark muttering.

Elliot brought me up to speed on the fate of the alphas. Timp went through a list of assets still in my cubicle that they weren't sure about. Something tells me Timp managed to get the better deal by asking first what was available for redistribution.

Got final word From Ben that the car had been sold off at carmax (much happiness). Seems Jeremy didn't pickup the DVD player I'd sold to him. Asked Timp to catch Jeremy and get the money off him and give it to Ben for his good deeds.

Started catching up on the diary. I'll have to post it in as one huge update.

Monday

Still a little stiff but otherwise OK. I don't want a recurance of that back trouble ever again.

Popped into the DHS to sort out getting signed up for social security. Noticed that even though they had a 'take a ticket and wait for your number to be called', an awful lot of people just barged into line. Rather pathetic really. Whats worse is that they kept doing it even when there was a staff member there shouting out the numbers. Finally got sorted out an went on home after getting a few messages for mum and having a little look around at a couple of the larger stores on the Armagh road. Bit depressing to see the range of goods is somewhat limited and downmarket from the last time I was over 8/

Not a lot else happening today. Mum was supposed to be working on taxes (due in today naturally) but seemed to get conviently distracted to go do something else.

Still working out where to put stuff in my room. I need to get rid of at least 1/2 of whats currently in there already.

Looking at the car thats been in torage for the last 2 1/2 years, I see that it has a rust spot on one of the rear wheel archs. That'll be a bugger to fix. I'll need to get gauze etc to patch it up. For the moment it's fine. I'll tackle it when I'm a litle more organised.

Sunday

Not much to say. read a little and just fiddled around in the house for a bit. A day of respite

Saturday

Ah,.. much better,.. I'm stiff, but no jarring pain when bending

Linked up with Keith at his place. Spent a little time going over what open issues he had with MicroSoft ME and various programs he had loaded up that he uses in school for teaching. Fixed up his Outlook (non) Express setup which was taking in the order of 2 minutes to come up to something a little saner (25 seconds but even thats rather slow for a 1Ghz machine)

Looks like he needs RAM... 128MB RIMM is rather icky in this day and age. I'll order him up a couple of sticks of 256Mb which should suffice for another couple of years

Dandered on out the road to look at a 2 acre plot of land that Keith had bought and was wanting to put up fencing on but the ground is too rocky for wooden posts so it looks like a concrete fencing solution for that problem. Looked at the mess that his neighbour is making of the boundry lines and hedgerows.

After that we went on out over Rathfriland and grabed an ice cream then drove off down into Castlewellen and on into Newcastle to walk around the coastline a little and catchup on the world of government control, schooling, plays, music and other assorted issues.

After that, we dove on around into Kilkeel to see if any new changes had occured while I'd been away. Only thing I saw was a lot more fishing boats than there used to be. So much for fishing quotas.

From Kilkeel drove on into Warrenpoint stopped over to look at Keiths B&B house and discuss what could be one for enhancing it. Finally drove on back into Newry, stopping off at Friar Tuck's for a chip and a burger 8) Made the terrifyingly bad move of asking for lemonade for a drink,.. I am not in the US, I am not in the US, I am,...

Finished off the pleasentries and drove on home.

Friday

Grumble,.. back still sore but is a lot better than it was.

Mail from the social security office for me to turn up at 12:30 for to get signed up for unemploymnt benefit. Guess I shall be one of the unwashed masses that are government employed job seekers.

One of the packages I'd been waiting on turned up... though at 150lbs, (mostly books) it was intresting to see how the delivery chap thought it was a wheel and tried to roll it to the front door while the sides bulged and the tape unravelled. Noted one of the check boxes on the delivery form 'Did contents arrive undamaged' I was so tempted to not sign for it but what the hell, I'm just glad it's here. Looks like the box has been through a warzone... *sigh* <tick>

Pulled the crate up into the room and opened it to look through and se what evil damage had been inflicted. Surprizingly enough the contents were fine and it's ust the cardbord casing thats taken the brunt of the punishment. Unfortunately I really don't have room set aside yet fo to be able to unpack this crate as yet. Doesn't help that I'd already filled the bin with old junk that I threw out. I can tell this is going to take a few weeks to sort out properly.

Called up Keith to see what the craic with him was since I'd not really heard that much since I wandered off to the US. Arranged to go for a drive around the country for tomorrow.

Thursday

Ow

My back still hurts (a lot) but not as badly as it did in the US I guesstimate I should be ok again by Monday. Maybe.

Started to take stock of whats in my bedroom vs's what I know still has to arrive. I need shelving or a lot more drawers.

Cleared out a lot of stuff that I now no longer need. Basically I did a very late spring clean of my bedroom. Unfortunately filled the dustbin very quickly.

Started fixing up mum's computer (AMD-K6/450) adding in 512Mb of memory and tidying up the Filesystem and upgrading the RHAT install on the other disk to RH7.3. *sigh* things I should have done before leaving,.. make an ISO of the 7.3 updates directory and made a copy of the RH8.0 release for myself.

Unpacked the alpha and set that up. Hummm, it's getting a little cluttered in my bedroom already ad I've not even recieved the other two crates yet.

Mum has designs on moveing her machine from my bedroom to what used to be my sisters room while she works on taxes etc.

Still rather tired from travelling. Listened to BBC Radio4 for a while while I sorted out repacking the 4 drives I have in the alpha to that they'd all fit in the case (ok, so I'd to loose the floppy, and one disk is still sitting loose on the base of the case but at least the covers go back on now. Most of the USB devices are working now also. The ScanMagic 600CU seems somewhat reluctant to work though 8/ Maybe I'll give some time over to see if I can get that to work under linux. It's probably something silly that needs tweaked.