TW3

That Was The Week That Was!

And what a week... melting ice caps, penguins, space shuttles and hurricanes.

The week began last Sunday evening with a train journey from Ely to Birmingham New Street Station. In fact it began with a delayed train journey from Ely... (you get the picture!). My boss, Paul Ruskin and I were off to the National Circuit Riders Conference with another colleague, Chris Bailey who we were due to meet on the train at Ely.

Anyway after a delay caused by over running maintenance, over head power problems and lack of drivers, we set out for Birmingham an hour or so late (yes I know it could have been worse, but...) we arrived at Birmingham New Street with instructions that the hotel, The MacDonald Burlington Hotel was "a 2 minute walk from New Street Station" and it is, if you go the right way and exit the station from the correct side! Still it was nice to have a walk round and get some air!

Once safely booked in and unpacked, my boss Paul and I met up with some guys from the NCC, (Matthew Edmondson and Mark Brier) and went and had a meal with them. Chris had to find his way there from his hotel and arrived a good while after us! We ended up at a Thai Restaurant called the Thai Edge which is in Brindley Place. It was superb! We had one of the set meals but the quality and quantity of the food was fantastic. Absolutely brilliant and even better as the meal was on the NCC boys! (Respect!)

The conference itself was very interesting. Especially for me as a newbie circuit rider. I got to meet a lot of people I'd heard about, spoken to on the phone, come across on the UKRiders List etc, and also met up with some people I actually knew!

As you can imagine at a Circuit Rider event the talk was mostly of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) and how it can be a viable alternative to more common 'off-the-shelf' packages! Unfortunately those that wish to promote and champion FOSS can be almost evangelistic about it and become that very thing they are trying to avoid - offering only ONE solution to the IT community! It's quite interesting to see. That Other Well Know Brand of Software and its creator are very much seen as the baddies (that sounded a bit like You Know Who in the Harry Potter books, whilst circuit riders and their open source bag of tricks are the fellowship of the ring out to defeat the evil Sauron!

Sauron (yes I know it's the eye of Sauron!)

vs

Gandalf & The Boys (Aragon, Gimli and Legolas)

Anyway enough already. The Circuit Rider Conference was great fun. I learnt a lot about the way the sector works.

On the second evening most of the delegates met up at a bar in Birmingham for a drink and to decide where we would go for food later. Sounds good? Yep, so far, so good!
Anyway, research was undertaken to see what peoples culinary preferences were. After a very length consultation process it transpired that no one really minded, (as long as they didn't have to make the final decision). Eventually someone suggested a good Vietnamese/Chinese restaurant so a party of about 15/17 of us went off to the restaurant. Having arrived and been given a table the next stage was to decide what we all wanted, but before that was the question of where could we apply for the funds and where there one or two strands to the project that would need funding (i.e. one big bill split x ways, or one for food, one for drink and people pay for what they have). Eventually after several meetings this was agreed in principle. Then came ordering the food - (what do we spend our funds on) - this took nearly 50 minutes!!!
The food, when it arrived was awesome and well worth the hassle.
Once the meal was complete we moved in to the final report on the project phase. We collected all the funding, did a final expenditure breakdown, and found that despite all our funders commiting to provide enough funds to properly finance the project, we were in fact short of our required target and had to seek some emergency 11th hour funding to bail us out!

Waffle, waffle, waffle... The Melting Polar Ice Cap - apparently, this week the state of the Polar Ice cap was so bad that if the continuing 'warm' weather did not stop and re-freeze the ice there would be a rise of 1/4" (nearly 6.5mm) in the levels of the worlds oceans.

Whilst on the subject of freaky weather, what about the winds on Thursday (18th Jan) - wow. They got up to 78mph in out part of the world. This was also the day we had our space shuttle in for a new 'paint job' (check out the pictures). Moving it out of the hangar at the end of the job was a job no one was looking forward to as the shuttle was in danger of toppling over. Anyway, a safe haven, sheltered from the wind was found round the side of the hangar and the shuttle stayed there overnight and was moved back to its usual location the next morning. See further posts on the shuttle!

Penguins...? Linux!

Watch This SPACE!

First Officers Log: Stardate 210701.10

Who would have thought it possible. At the end of October last year I was facing the challenge of looking for a new job. By the end of November I had found that job.

I now work as a Circuit Rider for the Cambridgeshire Circuit Rider Project which is itself a project of Advice for Life.

At the interview when the duties of the job were explained to me, and how the hope I would fill the role, expand it and help drive the project forwards, in terms of scope for the project "the sky's the limit" - little did I know that I would be becoming involved with a project that involves a Space Shuttle!! Wow UB40 to NASA in 3 months!

I will be keep you up to date with the progress with regular mission updates.

It's a real Star Trek moment, the old "... the final frontier. Our mission to seek out ...new civilisations. To boldly go where no van has been before!"

There have been monkeys and dogs and even pigs in space, has there ever been a moose? Could be a first.

Live long and prosper while the force is with you!

That's What Friends Are For!

We have just got in from visiting our very dear friends in Cambridge (it's just after midnight.)

We arrived at their house at around 1pm. We sat and chatted for a while and had coffee listening to the Lord Of The Rings Soundtrack. I managed to snooze for a bit.

We had lunch which consisted of homemade bread, a selection of chicken things, prawns things, cheeses, crisps, vegetable crisps, tortilla's, bread sticks and flat breads. Followed by mini puddings.

After lunch we watched Baby's Day Out - a much underrated film that has us in fits, although I managed to fall asleep again and this was whilst I was holding a conversation. This was followed by the Anniversary Special Edition of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. (The Child Catcher is still scary pants even after nearly 40 years!)

Then either side of dinner - which was homemade Chicken Korma, Rice, Naan Breads followed by Raspberry Pavlova and/or double chocolate gateaux yum yum - we watched our 3rd film of the day - Wallace & Gromits Curse of The Were-Rabbit. First time I'd seen it, absolutely brilliant the best W&G yet.

During and just after dinner the topics of conversation ranged from people we knew through to the names of the 7 Waltons children plus the names of mum & dad and the grand parents, plus the couple that ran the shop and the spinster sister that made the hooch! Through why make films about The Elephant Man or the sinking of the Titanic, or 9/11 etc. Plus an indepth analysis/assasination of musicals such as The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins and in particular the "singing" skills of Christopher Plummer in SoM.

We did nothing all day except talk, watch films, eat good food and enjoy the company of great friends.

What an absolutely brilliant day......

Recipe - Simple Soup

Ingredients

• 5 to 6 Carrots
• 1 x small onion, leek or shallot
• 1 x medium sized potato
• 1 x small tin green lentils
• 1 to 1.5 Litres Vegetable Stock* (water will do)
• 1 x table spoon Oil
• Salt & Pepper to season
  

Preparation

• Finely chop the onion, leek or shallot
• Chop the potato in to small pieces (it is basically in the mix to 'thicken' the soup)
• Top & Tail the carrots and wash them thoroughly avoid peeling if you can. Chop carrots in to pieces about half inch (1.25 cm) in size
  
• Open the tin of lentils, drain and wash carefully. Tinned lentils can be very salty and need to be rinsed before use.
• Make up the stock. * If using one of the powdered stocks like Bouillon use approx 50% of the quantity recommended to avoid a very salty soup. The seasoning can be adjusted later.

Method

If you have access to a liquidiser or a hand/wand blender then follow METHOD A other wise follow METHOD B

METHOD A

1. Take a large saucepan - preferably a pressure cooker if you have one
2. add the oil and heat
3. add the onion/leek/shallot and fry for about a minute (don't let it burn)
4. add the carrot and potato and stir these round for a minute or so
5. add about a third of the lentils and stir these round as well
6. add the stock
1. If using a pressure cooker - follow the instructions for bringing the device up to pressure and then cook for 8 mins. Then turn off the heat and allow to lose pressure naturally.
1. If using a large saucepan - bring to the boil and then turn down heat and simmer for about 20 mins until the carrots are soft, Leave to cool
   
7. Now take the cooling soup and blend it either in a liquidiser (only half fill the goblet each time, and place the blended soup in a clean container or saucepan), or by using a hand blender. REMEMBER although cooling the soup is still very hot. Also if using a hand blender take care not to redecorate your kitchen - you may need to split the soup over two containers and blend each separately.
8. Place the blended soup back in the original pan and place over a medium heat
9. Add the remaining lentils and stir through the soup.
   
10. Check the seasoning and add a couple of twists of black pepper and if required a little more salt - remember extra salt & pepper can be added when the soup is served.
    
11. You can now heat the soup and enjoy or leave to cool completely and place in an air tight container and store in a fridge until required. However, because the soup has no preservatives it is best used up in 2-3days of making. It does freeze OK.
    

METHOD B

• Divide the carrots in to two pile on a roughly 60-40 split.
• Take the larger pile and cut all the pieces in half
• Take the smaller pile and chop as small as possible
• Now follow steps 1 - 6 of METHOD A
• Skip steps 7 & 8 and follow from step 9 onwards.

Serving Suggestions

Add a sprinkling of fresh tarragon if you have some
Serve with crusty bread, or ciabatta or focaccia (either 'plain' or flavoured with rosemary or tarragon)
But above all ENJOY!

Out of the Ashes

V

Well it's officially the worst Ashes tour for 85 years (roughly).

We lost 5-0 to an Australian side still smarting with embarassment from losing the little urn to the Pom's for the first time in ages.

Not only that, they came in to the series on the back of some outstanding results, had a settled, fit side, and, oh yes they were playing in their own back yard.

Now the inquests will begin, the finger pointing, the retired pro's and pundits will crawl out of the woodwork and claim they new this would happen coz the seaweed stayed wet when Mercury was in the house of Aquarius ( and I don't want to know how inaccurate that statement might be). However you dice it, slice it, weigh it and send bits away for toxicological analysis the result will be the same, Australia were better than us, and when chances arose to win games, we didn't make them count, and they did!

I seem to remember back to a time when England used to win the Ashes, and after one such trip to Australia, we spanked the Ozzies on their territory and mass hysteria ensued in Oz and post mortem's were held etc., and out of this carnage and despair rose the Academy System dedicated to all sport not just cricket, and since that day (well a couple of years after anyway)...

Mind you, you thought the Test series was bad! Cheer Up! There is the one day series to look forward to. Mind you we know were pants at the one day game so it won't be so much of a suprise.

Will I be watching? Probably not. However I will be playing a stupid game I found on Miniclip.com

Snow Line Help Santa Claus collect the presents.

Play this free game now!!

Happy New Year !!

Here's wishing you a very happy, healthy and prosperous new year.

I have deciced not make any resolutions this year save one, to be true to myself at all times.

I see 2007 as a year of change, having started a new job, I need to lose some serious weight (and yes that it right) the loss of some 6 to 7 stones would still make me overweight, and as I am unlikely to grow another 2-3 feet tall, it's diet and exercise time.

I plan to expose you all to the trials and tribulations of my attempt to reduce my weight to point where I can re-join the human race. At the moment I am the size of a small whale and the weight of a full grown bull elk!

So... as today is the first day of the rest of my life... I'm off up the burger van for a halfpounder with cheese! You coming?