Well, that's it for our US trip. We are now back in the UK and wondering what happened to the last three weeks.
Because this blog has as much regard for the proper order of things as a typical episode of Dr. Who I'll be posting items from the past as I work my way through the pictures that I've taken, while updating on a day to day basis as well.
We had a great open day today. The weather was wonderful and both audiences were great.
I took a bunch of pictures and I'm quite pleased with the way that they turned out.
We're heading off on our holidays over the weekend, and in a change of style, I've hired a car. This is because one of the stops is Los Angeles, and apparently you can't get anywhere without wheels in that part of the world.
The travel guides reckon that an International Driving Permit is a useful thing to have in this situation, and since my driving licence is made of paper, very old and falling apart (in other words it has two things in common with me) I sent off for one to bolster my credentials behind the wheel.
It arrived earlier this week. It is a paper document with a colour picture of me stuck inside. I reckon you could produce a reasonable facsimile of it with a colour printer and maybe ten minutes of effort.
I just hope the relevant authorities are more impressed with it than I am.
When I was in the cub scouts, many years ago, we went camping. One of the challenges we had to complete was to "make a fire out of doors".
I've just taken a bunch of wardrobes to bits (with a lot of help from Ian) and I reckon I could do this really easily now.
We're having some work done on campus. I found this sign on one of the sites. I'm not sure if they are being funny or just wrong....
This is my typewriter. I found it while preparing for some renovations chez Miles. I bought it when I was a student. I got it one summer and then taught myself to type using a book I borrowed from the local library. One of the best moves I ever made when I was younger.
It still works and I'm keeping it for when computers go out of fashion.....
I'm not sure what a naughty hacker could do with my gas meter number, but I'm taking no chances....
I got this thing through from the Gas Company asking me to read my meter. They keep sending meter readers round during working hours and finding that I'm not at home.
Who'd have thought? It's almost as if I had a job that kept me out of the house during the week.
Anyhoo, I went into the garage and took a snap of the device. I then copied the numbers into the web page and was promptly told that my numbers were unbelievable. There are two possible ways to interpret this:
I really hope it is the latter.
Campus looking good today
Some time back I bought something on eBay. It never arrived. I heard nothing. Very sad. I wore black for a few days. As you do.
It wasn't a hugely expensive item, but it was irritating nonetheless. So I took up the matter using the eBay resolution centre. And the great news is that after pressing a bunch of buttons the eBay judgement computer (or whatever they use) has decided to give me my money back. Which is nice.
Just a note to all those people on Facebook who think I might like to have a go at Dragon City.
No thanks. It doesn't sound very nice to be honest, and I'm pretty sure that it will be almost impossible to get fire insurance there.
You know those scary moments that you have every now and then, when the world seems to wobble slightly on its axis and you fret that horrible things are happening that you are only just becoming aware of?
Well, just had one of those. On Tuesday, just as I was limbering up to do my talk at the Institute of Physics, I got an email from booking.com congratulating me for making a booking I hadn't made. Oh dear.
I'm not that happy with Booking.com to be honest. Last year I used them to book a few days in a Swansea guest house. It was very nice and all, but the company is now convinced that Swansea is the only place I want to go in the world, and keep sending me what they think are enticing offers to stay in the area again. And they keep telling me that "I've unlocked another discount". I haven't. I've just not used the company for a while. And it is likely to stay that way.
Unlike someone with a similar name to mine, who has just made a booking using my email address. I got the "click here to confirm it is you" message (which conspicuously lacks anywhere you can click to confirm it isn't you). I sent an email off to customer support and got nothing back. Except more emails about few places that my namesake might like to visit. Near Swansea as it turns out.
I've just got an email from booking.com addressed to my namesake, asking me to rate my recent interaction with a customer support person. Oh well. That has to count as progress I suppose.
Coming soon to a face near me...
So, I went for an eye test yesterday. Cue all the eye test jokes.
"Tell me sir, have your eyes ever been checked?"
"No, they've always been blue."
"Can you see that eye-test on the wall?"
"What wall?"
etc etc
Anyhoo, I was pleased to find out that my eyes haven't changed that much since last time. I've had my present specs for quite a few years. A year and a half ago a bit fell off and I made a "temporary" repair using heat shrink tubing that has been a bit less temporary than I intended.
This time I've just gone for a single pair of glasses. No messing around with "two for one" deals. Experiments have shown that I can't wear two pairs of glasses at the same time, and that I'll probably lose the second pair anyway. They should arrive in a couple of weeks. Rather excited.
We drove down to Bristol today. We've now got a policy of not using the SatNav on journeys like this.
Experience has shown that all it does is make you unhappy by warning you of traffic disruptions that you can't do anything about. I'd much rather sail along in blissful ignorance of the enormous tailback waiting just around the corner. And the alternative route is quite often a lot less pleasant than sitting in a stationary car for a while.
We did our Humber Bridge cross for Christian Aid today. We've been doing these for ages. The very first one we did was so long ago it involved a push-chair...
The weather forecast was not great, so we were fully decked out in waterproof everything, but in the end it was just a bit windy, but with some lovely clouds. I took the camera with the fat lens, which made for some interesting pictures..
Went out for lunch today at Skidby Mill. Very nice. Thought I recognised someone I knew, but lacked the confidence in my identification to go over and say hello. Oh well, sorry Emily. I think it is time I got some new glasses.
I hate water. I'd rather wire up a hundred mains plugs than do anything involving plumbing. Well, perhaps not a hundred. But certainly lots. Today I thought I'd to something simple involving pipework. And of course it all went wrong. After all, it does involve water. Hate the stuff. Have I mentioned this?
We have this fancy water filter thing under the sink and I figured it might be a good idea to replace the filter cartridge. Well, it has been a few years. So I carefully researched the item, bought a couple (in case I break one fitting it) and then successfully made the swap. In five minutes.
I was very impressed with me, as was number one wife. That was, until a puddle appeared under the sink. Turns out that the filter replacing shenanigans had caused a completely different part of the plumbing to start leaking. I can only think that I must have dislodged something hair-triggered under there. I've tightened things and bent them into a position where I think the leakage has stopped, but I'm now researching replacement bits and bobs to fix the problem properly.
Some time ago I bought a flood alarm from Maplin. This is a little circuit that you can put under your sink and it will sound the alarm if it detects water that shouldn't be there. I got it because we had a rather unpleasant homecoming a while back involving a flooded kitchen. I never got around to fitting it though. I worked out that the only real difference it would make would be to change "coming home to a flooded kitchen" into "coming home to a flooded kitchen and an unpleasant buzzing noise".
I'm now researching Raspberry Pi powered solutions which would mean that in the event of a leak I could receive an email which says "You are going to come home to a flooded kitchen...", which might be an improvement I suppose.
I'm doing some writing at the moment. V. exciting. I've spent some time playing with ideas and I've got something that I'm almost happy with. And one consequence of this is that I've opened a "scrap" folder for the project. Turns out I never feel I'm making progress until I've started throwing things away.
It might just be me, but my first attempt at something complicated is not usually much good. It's only when I've tried a few things and thrown them away that I feel I'm getting anywhere.
My scrap folder is a big part of this because one of my golden rules about working is that I never really throw anything away. Instead I create a scrap folder and throw it in there. Two reasons for this. The first is that these days I don't think anyone is ever really short of disk space, so deleting things is not necessary. The second reason is that it might be that my "better" idea is actually a worse one, and I need a way back to where I was.
I could use source code control for this I suppose, but since the work is really a collection of documents and bits and bobs it feels a bit like overkill. So I just make a folder called scrap and drop things in there when I don't think I need them any more.
Went up town today and bought an ironing board that can be adjusted to a height that makes it quite comfortable for me to use. Not sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing to be honest...
I'm not a huge fan of TV shows about food preparation to be honest. I've been known to shout "But it's only cooking" at the telly during the final moments of MasterChef, when the music picks up tempo and the voiceover solemnly intones '..and now Anton only has two minutes to finish his Béarnaise sauce..".
To me cooking is that thing you do when you feel hungry, or if you are into advanced cooking an hour or so before you feel hungry, because that's the time it takes to bake a couple of potatoes and lob some sausages into the oven to have with them.
All this means that I didn't have the highest of expectations today when we set of to the Good Food Show. But it was great. First off they had lots of stalls dishing out samples of food (including a wealth of cheeses) and then we got to see the Hairy Bikers do a live presentation.
I was really hoping that they would bring out a Yamaha motorbike engine and discuss how to adjust the valve timings, followed by a few minutes on caring for greasy hair, but instead they did some cookery. However, it was great fun to watch then cook up some bits and bobs. They have a great banter and worked hard to make it very entertaining. Harrogate is a great location for this kind of thing. The theatre is lovely, see above, and the exhibition centre is near the middle of the town, which is a nice place to walk round.
We left burdened down with a whole bunch of samples (including a pint of milk each, which struck me as strange as I already know what milk is like) and some really nice cheese. Much more fun that I was expecting.
Spent the day doing good. Two trips to the tip, one to drop of stuff at the charity shop and then setting up a new run for the guinea pigs. Who, as you can see, are very pleased with the result. Then did some gardening, washed the car and cooked tea.
I'm going into work tomorrow for a rest.
We went to Slimbridge today to look at ducks. As you do. This is easily the most impressive one I've ever seen. I've no idea what make it is though.
Rob Miles is technology author and educator who spent many years as a lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Hull. He is also a Microsoft Developer Technologies MVP. He is into technology, teaching and photography. He is the author of the World Famous C# Yellow Book and almost as handsome as he thinks he is.
A proper developer conference in Hull. Find out more here.
