It was my father in-law Rodney’s funeral today. The best funerals are a celebration of a life lived well and to the full. I like to think that we did Rodney proud. Many thanks to everyone who came along and special thanks to celebrant Scott and Kelly from the Co-op who played their parts perfectly. It means a lot.
There’s a motorway bridge near us which is presently undergoing expensive repairs because bits of it are worn out. When I was going through my old pictures from the 1970’s I found this picture of the bridge before it was made.
They are pile driving foundations for the pillars that will hold the bridge up.
I lost my lovely little Polaroid Meter. I managed to convince myself that I’d left it in my room when on holiday. So I bought another one. Fortunately it was not terribly expensive. Unfortunately it didn’t work. They must have been using a much more liberal definition of “tested and working” than I do. Anyhoo, the good news is that I then (of course) found the original one in a place I hadn’t thought of looking. Truly, the best way to find a missing item is to buy a replacement (whether the replacement works or not).
Number one son took a look at my newly arrived shorts. “You’re going to want to send these back” he said. He’s right. Instead of ordering XL I’d gone and bought XS. At least I didn’t get as far as trying them on. That would probably have killed me.
In anticipation for our trip to Whitby tomorrow we got a steam engine running at home. I bought the little engine a while back and it still works, which is nice. It even had enough steam to actually power the little led lights (although they are a bit hard to see in this picture).
It would have been so cool if this had been what you could buy
Today we had to head home, but before we got on the train we took a look in a few places, including the Microsoft Experience Centre on Regent Street. If you are ever in that part of town it is worth a look. They have all the new Microsoft machines on show (including the latest laptops and tablets with CoPilot) and upstairs they have a lovely gaming display including the original X-Box which was unveiled when the console was announced. This is interesting because it really is a giant X (see above). We had a look around the back and it has all the connections so, in theory it should be possible to plug it in and play it. They had lots of other XBoxes too plus a range of games and accessories.
this is about the best I could do on the day. Turns out that racing cars are hard to photograph
Formula E is a bit like Formula 1, except that the cars are powered by electricity and sound a bit like turbocharged hair driers. We went to the final event of the season in London today. We watched the practice, the qualifier and finally the race. In between these we wandered around looking at stands in the exhibition attached to the race, watched a mini-concert from Craig David and generally had an all-out wonderful time. I took a camera and the Rabbit R1.
I took a bunch of pictures with a proper camera, and lots with the Rabbit R1. I was lucky because for some reason we had good mobile phone connections and the Rabbit was able to take the shots and do “Magic Camera” type things with them. I really like the results. They are not photographs in the proper sense of the word, but they provide a lovely record of the event and I’m very pleased to have them. And if you bear in mind that a Rabbit R1 is a fraction of the price of a new camera lens I reckon it is a good investment if you want a quirky record of what you’ve been up to.
This is what the rabbit thought of the race
Some of the racing got quite intimate
A “Rabbit’s Eye View” of one of the cars on display
The Racers
Yes, there was a Costa
Tyre smoke at the start
From now on I’m going to be taking the Rabbit R1 with me to get its unique perspective.
Not sure if this is a life tip, but it is a good tip nonetheless. We spent a big chunk of today arranging a funeral (helped by the wonderful Kelly from the Co-op). This was made much easier because my father-in-law had taken the very sensible step of making clear exactly what he wanted to happen and sorting it all out in advance. Doing this really helps those that are carrying on.
Spent the afternoon watching a Spanish chap win Wimbledon and the evening watching the Spanish football team win the European Cup. Truly a good day to be Spanish.
This is what the Rabbit thought of the menu
Another trip to Leeds to day for a birthday bash. Had a Most Excellent meal at Hickory’s Adel. My menu tip: go for the frozen custard. It’s awesome.
This is a blog mostly about frothy fun stuff and tech with bits of hardware and jokes alongside the occasionally useful aside. But every now and then real life intrudes. My father-in-law Rodney passed away on the 10th of July at the great age of 94, with his family by his side. He was a splendid fellow and will be sorely missed. I’m going to take a break from blogging for a little while as we deal with this, but I will be back..
I’m surprised it is not more dusty. After all, it is an antique.
What do you do if you want to own a genuine antique? You buy and Apple product and wait six years. Apple have just announced that the original Apple Homepod (released in 2018) now has “antique” status as far as they are concerned. This not not much of an honour for the poor thing though. It means that it is no longer deemed repairable and probably won’t get software updates. I’m used to devices going out of date, but this seems a bit much. I’ve got batteries older than that which are still working.
Never been to Staithes before. Which is as good a reason as any to go. So we did. It’s lovely.
A view of the village
Adventures in wide angles
Incoming tide
The Cod and Lobster is a great place to eat
Lots of lovely details
Pity about the yellow lines…
If you get the chance, you should go. There’s a lovely little museum that gives you a great background to the area and lots of places for good food and drink.
Available for free - you just have to come and pick it up…
As a result of yesterdays efforts we now have a new sculpture in our garden. I call it “Gone off the Railings”.
I’ve no idea if it works or not. But with these looks it doesn’t nave to…..
They say that the perfect is the enemy of the good. This causes me no end of problems. As an example, consider this blog. A perfect blog would have an entry every day with interweaving narratives which are sprinkled with humorous bon-mots and apposite pictures. But over the last few weeks I’ve not had the time to make a perfect blog. And every time I’ve considered writing a post I’ve thought about the effort needed to make my blog perfect, groaned inwardly (and sometimes outwardly) and gone off and done something else instead.
So I’m going to settle for good enough. When I get a bit of spare time I’ll go back and fill in the gaps and make everything my idea of perfect, but I’ll also stop stressing about having everything present and correct before adding the next post. Over the next week or so I’ll be filling in gaps and making things as perfect as I think I need. And I’ll be blogging when I get time.
As for today: I spent a bit of the morning helping to get rid of some iron railings and to celebrate the success I bought a movie camera for less than the price of a video game….
We went along to the Humber Marathon today. The middle of Hull was awesome busy and the weather was properly splendid. I think it was perfect running weather, bright and crisp. But then again, I’m not a runner so what do I know.
Anyhoo, we watched them all start off, had a coffee and a wander round and then watched everyone finished. I did take a bunch of pictures, but I wasn’t using my own camera, so I don’t have any to post I’m afraid.
Headed home today. But first we had some pancakes….
See if you can figure out how I won…
Won at bowling today. That is all I want to say.
They had some very busy ants
The place we are staying has a zoo attached. It has a great selection of animals, including a really cool sloth.
Modern arcade games need a lot of setup….
After living in a tent for a few days I’m now in nice little place near Blackpool. Indoor plumbing. Yay! The weather is not presently optimal (horizontal rain does not make for great walks on the seafront) but we are finding places to have fun.
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.
Make your own programming language. Find out more here.
