... to Miami

Today we had no meetings, so it was just some time to send a few emails, and a conference call to dial into. After that it was off to the airport with my customary detours.

We stayed around Miami, so we were never too far from the airport, just in case. First stop was Miami Beach. Now, you have to understand that what we call a beach, like at Castlerock, is not a "Beach" in the US. Miami Beach is a town, or area, and yes, somewhere there is a beach too.

We arrived at Miami Beach, and to be honest, it just looked as bland as any other part of Florida, so we didn't even make it to the East coast real 'beach'.

Instead we went further South to Cape Florida State Park, on an island (or "key") called Key Biscayne.

This turned out to be smaller, and hence a lot less time consuming than we had expected, which was great. Unfortunately the lighthouse which had drawn me to this island was closed, although in the heat I don't think I could have managed to climb it anyhow. Nevertheless we managed to get a nice view of it from the beach, and IIRC we also spotted some nice birds ;)

On the way out of the park we noticed a sign for the curiously named "no name harbour". Needless to say, we just had to satisfy our curiousity, and see what features would cause a harbour to be christened "no name." Turns out its just so bland, that that was probably all they could come up with.

West again - in daylight

After the potentially cool place I found last night I thought I would make a concerted effort to get out there before sunset (around 8:30 in Florida). I managed to make it out in good time, to see that there was a park area, where there seemed to be a lot of private parties with boats who would go out fishing for the day.

It was a pretty cool place, obviously popular with the locals, and an epic setting on the edge of the glades.

I had studied the maps last night, and discovered that the road didn't actually stop completely, but in fact changed into a dirt track, and continued to a real road again after a few miles. Being the sort of person to try stuff, I had it in mind to have a go along this track, you know, just for fun. I was disappointed to find a big yellow barrier there to stop me :(

Anyway, I'd paid my $5 to get into the car park, and so I stayed and got a few shots of the sunset. Another cool evening. I do enjoy a good sunset.

Going West

Having tried, and exausted East, I thought I could give West a go. Unfortunately tonight work lasted longer than the daylight, so it was West in the dark. Before I travelled this time, knowing I probably wouldn't have the time to go hundreds of miles, I looked to see where I could go with relatively easy reach. Turns out there are a few places where roads go into the 'glades, and come to a dead end - so I tried one of those!

I went out a road called "Lox Road" which was perfectly straight for about 6 miles. Upon entering the road I could see a flashing light, which seemed close, but as I travelled towards it, it became clear that I was not close. After 6 miles I could make out a "Road Ends" sign, which of course I continued on past.

It seemed that there was dirt track beyond it but darkness and the thought of alligators disuaded me from going any further. So I just took a couple of long exposure shots, and went back to the hotel.

Going East

Tonight, after a long difficult day, I took the hire care and headed East, towards the coast. I didn't really expect to see anything new as I did some extensive coastal driving last time I was here on business. But I stumbled upon a pretty cool wooden pier at Deerfield Beach. So I duly paid my $1, and made my way out onto the pier where there were loads of folks fishing. I managed to see a guy reeling in a fish he caught. Pretty cool.

I also managed to see a fairly decent sunset. A grand evening in all.

Travel, and delays

Once again I set off for Florida today for more customer meetings. This week could prove to be another hectic one, with less time for sightseeing, but I'll try and squeeze a few sights in...

Today we had a relatively timely, quick, and painless flight from Belfast to Newark, apart from the usual disgracefully loud and messy N Ireland crowd.

I had risked booking a quick change at Newark, but upon arrival at Newark I discovered my flight would be delayed. This was also awkward because a colleague was going to pick me up from Ft Lauderdale.

Fortunately (?) his flight was delayed too, so he arrived at the terminal with the hire car just as I had picked up my luggage! Great timing! All worked out in the end. Me sitting down to a big steak burger at 2am (9pm local time). Madness.

Automating Clearcase

Playing around a bit with clearcase tonight. We will shortly be trying to use rsync to keep a remote clearcase instance up-to-date with our code. This will require quite a fudge on our part as far as I can see, but will still be preferable to using clearcase over a slow link.

The following are some commands, which I will no doubt be integrating into a nice automated script shortly. They do all the things I need to do - add view private files and directories to clearcase, upversion files that have changed, or back out files that are the same. The only thing I haven't got yet is automated removal of files / directories, but I suspect this will be the job of the script.

############################################
# mkdir : [view private object]
while(<>)
{
chomp;
print < < TAG;
mv $_ $_.1
cleartool mkdir -nc $_
mv $_.1/* $_
rmdir $_.1
cd $_
TAG
}
############################################
# create a new element
cleartool mkelem -nc -ci _element_name_
############################################
# show view private files
cleartool lsp -other -l
############################################
# show view private and checked out files
cleartool lsp -co
############################################
# list checkouts including directories.
ct lsco -recurse -short
############################################
# checkin or revert if not changed
# (always creates a new version of directory)
ct ci -nc _element_name_ ct unco -rm _element_name_
############################################
# if [checkedout but removed]
cleartool co -nc .
cleartool unco -rm _element_name_
cleartool rm _element_name_
cleartool ci -nc .

XP stops loading at mup.sys

Had a weird problem with a PC - it was all running perfectly normally, then one day wouldn't start. Starting in safe mode printed out all the drivers until it gets to the line ending in mup.sys, apparently something to do with USB drivers.

After that line the screen flashes a couple of times, and the PC reboots. Repeat. Forever.

I spent some time reading of the gazillions of people who have had the same issue. Some have tried changing disks, RAM, PSUs, reinstalling operating system, USB drivers, everything conceivable about the computer.

Then I stumbled on this post:
http://cyberiapc.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=5288&st=15&p=33885&#entry33885 in some random forum. Try "chkdsk". Just before this I had run fixboot, which hadn't really made a difference. chkdsk had to be run with a force, but reported a few errors.

Upon reboot, the machine started normally. Great, thanks OP!!

That's better

Woke up this morning feeling 10 times better. Still not perfect, but not poorly enough to mope around the house. Went to work, and worked almost 12 hours. I'm sure that'll help me recover ;)

Ill

Today I was ill. You might think this is not exactly blog-worthy, but frankly, I don't care. It's good to keep a record of these things. Last time was 13th August 2003 (see http://www.ccso.co.uk/sb/13Aug2003.html)

Got up this morning feeling not great, but thought it was one of those things that would pass by mid morning. But it didn't. I ended up bowed at the great white throne at work (which may I state clearly was cleaner after I was finished...) and heading home sick.

Spent the rest of the day between bed and sofa, not even feeling fit enough to walk, and generally feeling sorry for myself. Watch this space for more exciting installments...

More lawn, last lawn

Having a rather large site, we have put a lot of it into grass. This has been done in several sections, beginning in the summer of 2004 (http://www.ccso.co.uk/garden_blog). Today saw the last section of grass go in (I hope); a little area beside the road. We had originally thought of flowerbed, wall, and a variety of different solutions, but when someone suggested grass, I thought that sounds easy to keep :) So grass it is. Hopefully. It is all nicely seeded, all we have to do is wait for it to grow...

Kitesurfing : Day 4/5

Due to loads of work and lots of other stuff going on at the minute, its one of those times where there is no "leisure" time. Not ideal.

Yesterday we managed to spend part of the afternoon at Benone, getting the kitesurfing kites out again to do some static flying. The wind was strong and steady, giving good practice time. I really think I should have had the 12m instead of the 8m, but the 8 was going well.

Today we headed back to the beach, but the wind wasn't just as steady, or strong, and I think the 8m was really too small - it didn't fly well at all. And then the rain came on. Good thing we've got a reasonable length of washing line :)

It is still going to take a few more outings before it'll be time to take to the water!!

White Park Bay in a storm

Tonight we tried to organise a coastal walk for the "young adults" of the church. Unfortunately only a few of the committee types turned up, but we still went ahead anyway, and it turned out great.

We were about 15 minutes late of getting started, which meant we missed a huge rain shower before we started out from White Park Bay. The waves were massive, most rolling up close to the sandhills, so we had to dodge them!

We proceeded around the coast, enjoying the stormy sea, and the wind in our backs, until we arrived safely at Ballintoy Harbour, where another car, and a hot flask was waiting for us. As we arrived the rain came on, and again persisted for some time, so we took cover in a small shed and had a wee cup of tea.

Overall what could have been a wet and miserable evening turned out to be one of the best walks I've had in a long time!

Shopping, and then off

Great. So, imagine you have one morning left in Orlando, what could you fit in? Maybe a quick tour? Maybe another drive? Maybe just go early to the airport and sit for hours waiting on your plane?

All of these options sound tempting, but I chose another, I chose to go shopping. I had promised several non-specific presents to several members of my household, and so I spent the morning shopping for these gifts.

After walking around the entire Florida Mall twice, I had managed to load my credit card sufficient, and it was time to leave for the airport. Got the car filled, and returned to what seemed like the busiest rental return facility in the world.

After that I managed to bypass the American Airlines waiting lines, which seemed to be longest waiting lines in the world, to my Continental check in, where there was one person ahead of me.

After getting my boarding pass I proceeded to walk around the airport passing the 2 hour wait (walking round more shops ;) I really wouldn't like to do this a lot. Once in a while is fine.

The flight to Newark was on time, and we arrived into the airport as the sun was setting.

Parts of the ride home were very bumpy, I woke at one stage, thinking we were landing, but we were still at 35000 ft.

Friday Adventure

Today was the last day of work, meetings booked for the morning and afternoon. Fortunately the host decided that he would prefer if we squeezed everything into the morning, so we stretched the morning session a little, meaning I was on my way by 1pm.


I had decided that if I got away early rather than driving directly to Orlando I would take a detour through the country, maybe through part of the Everglades.

So after work I headed West, into the country, nowhere particular in mind, just going West before turning North to avoid the huge roads. On the outskirts of the urban area driving through the edge of the Everglades I stumbled on a small outfit that does Air boat tours, and I went in to see if they were open. To my surprise I was told the next tour was in twenty minutes, so I booked my $20 seat.

The air boat set off, engines roaring, into the middle of nowhere, and after a few minutes we came to a stop and were told to look in a particular direction. After a few moments I spotted what we were supposed to be looking at - an alligator! It was about 9ft long, right by the boat, pretty cool, to be honest this is exactly what I was after for my "tourist" experience.

After that tour, I headed North through the smaller roads of the country. It was about 93 degrees (about 34 in Celsius) thankfully the air-con was working 100%, but that blistering temperature dropped quickly when clouds filled the sky, and the sky started to empty. It was one of the coolest storms I've seen for some time, rain so thick the wipers were no good, massive, clear fork lightening straight in front, and flooded roads.

This persisted for many miles, I was wondering if I would see rain in Orlando too, but all of a sudden the sky brightened, the road was dry instantly as I came out of the other side of the storm.

I made my way on up through the small roads and small towns, around Lake Okeechobee, before joining the turnpike toll road again at Cypress Creek.

The remaining hundred or so miles went by relatively quickly, bringing me to check in at the hotel at about 8pm, as predicted by my GPS system.

In the evening I decided to see if I could see any of the local features quickly and cheaply, so I took a drive, and ended up in the car park for Universal Studios' "City Walk" - which is a "City" - more like a normal town with a great pedestrian area. Ironically this manufactured "town" was the place that felt most normal to me, looked like a real town, albeit relatively small.

Pretty cool place, 10pm and still roasting, outdoor concert and hiving with people. It was a pretty cool experience. Then it was back to the hotel room where I caught up with the latest episode of 'Lost' using the abc.com online viewing service I am normally barred from because of my non-USA ip address.

All-in-all a great day!

Coastal Drive

Living near the coast I tend to have a fascination with all things coastal, and I like to see stuff, whatever "stuff" is. When I heard I was travelling to Florida I realised that the prospect of getting to see a lot of "stuff" was slim. Today was a busy day at work, between visiting sites, and working in the hotel room where I have real internet connectivity.

From about 7:30 tonight I took the chance to have a drive around the coastal area, I only had time for a short drive, as I had some work to get through, but it was good to get a quick tour.

The inland area is highly urbanised, you would hardly know you were ten minutes from hundreds of miles of beach. Tonight I headed East, just aiming my GPS randomly at the coast to get somewhere, and then I drove North along the shoreline.

Got a couple of pictures, not that great, it was a little too dark, and I have no stand.

I'm surrounded by Disney

This morning when I woke up in my 17th floor hotel room, in Orlando, I got to see just what was outside. From my room I could see the rides in a part of the Disney "World". (you can just about see them in the picture if you squint! - see the hotel here: http://tinyurl.com/2ylbcd and scroll left for the huge Disney carparks, then the center).

I put World in inverted commas because, while it's not quite a "World" it's not far off it! I had to check out of my hotel today a couple of hours before my first meeting, so as well as grabbing lunch I decided to go for a drive. I aimed to go slightly out into the countryside, but managed to find myself rounding the edge of Disney world. It is absolutely huge, you can drive for miles (like 10's of miles) around it, taking various exits off the Disney branded freeway into the various attractions.

The sheer scale would kind of put me off ever really going.

Had to drive back down to Boca Raton tonight, and did it all in one go this time, that's a long drive :(

On the upside, there was another cool sunset before I left :)

A long drive

Today was the first day at work in Boca Raton, and we decided that tomorrow we would meet in the facility in Orlando.

This is a fairly straightforward journey, with only a little complexity at either end, the middle part being all on one road. When I got onto that one road, my sat nav told me in its best American accent : "Continue for one hundred eighty two miles"

When I got less than 1/3 of that distance I decided it was time for a detour, so I headed out to Jensen Beach, which took me through some great Florida scenary. It is generally very urbanised, but in a strange way, that it's all flat, with a lot of waterways. See my detour here : http://tinyurl.com/yost9h

I also got to catch a nice sunset on the way.

P.S. It isn't nearly as nice as this everywhere, I did a lot of miles to see these nice sights. More often its just cars and buildings.

Its a dirty job....

...but someones got to do it. Yes, I will admit that being a software engineer is not as sexy as they made out in careers class, but it is not without its perks.

Tonight I am writing from the Hilton in Boca Raton, Florida. That's the sexy bit, the no-so-sexy bit is that today I spent a total of about 10 hours in 2 planes, and 6 hours in 3 airports travelling just over 4000 miles. Work has sent me to have some meetings, so thats what I'll be spending Tuesday-Friday doing.

However, as I only do this once in a blue moon, I'm not going to complain. (I may complain on the way home on Saturday...)

The travel all went well, arrived in good time, and in one piece. And the Hilton is just fab.

On yer bike!

It seems logical to me, as people get older they get wiser. My Dad, in his wisdom has decided to purchase a Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Tonight we travelled to Larne, where the bike was waiting to be picked up, and Dad rode it home while I followed behind.

It's a noisy beast, all part of the character if you ask me. When we got home we went for a spin down the road, and it was great. That was the first time I ever rode pillion in my life, and I can safely relate that it is a scary experience.

The bite of the 2-cylinder engine is fantastic on that drag bike, which has a very high first gear. The torque even in 5th gear is amazing.

Command interface : Tab completion in perl

For a project I'm working on just now, and because I'm very lazy, I wanted to have tab completion of the many variable commands entered. Finding a module was easy : Term::ReadLine - finding a simple example was difficult, but in the end I got it.

It is not complete by any means, but it will get you started!

use strict;
use warnings;
use Term::ReadLine;
my $term = new Term::ReadLine 'Simple Perl calc';
my $prompt = "cmd >> ";

my $attribs = $term->Attribs;
$attribs->{completion_function} = sub {
my ($text, $line, $start) = @_;
return qw(a list of candidates to complete);
};

my $OUT = $term->OUT \*STDOUT;
while ( defined ($_ = $term->readline($prompt)) ) {
my $res = eval($_);
warn $@ if $@;
print $OUT $res, "\n" unless $@;
$term->addhistory($_) if /\S/;

}

Board building continues...

The varnishing, drilling and hammering continue....

The board is coming on well, but it'll be a day or two before I get out on it. That's ok, it'll be a day or two before I'm ready to venture out!

Glenveagh National Park

Today we decided to venture into international travel, and pop across the border to Co Donegal. We had it on good authority that Glenveagh National Park was well worth a visit, and it definitely was. The kids had a fantastic time, and the adults all enjoyed the spectacular scenery. A grand day out.

Starstruck

As anyone who knows me will know the only stars I am interested in are those in the sky. I liked a definition I read somewhere for what being famous meant: "A person who is well known for being well known," - a valuable trait I am sure.

Today in a visit to Morellis in Portstewart after all 12 of us had ordered, we discovered we had nowhere to sit. So we stood around looking gormless, and these nice people took pity on us and got up to go, leaving us their tables.

Turns out the centre of the party was a man called Jimmy Nesbitt, who is indeed "famous." Isn't that great? We saw someone in the flesh, who we know of, but don't really know. But what makes him special is that lots of other people don't really know him too!

Kitesurfing : Day 3

The perfect, steady wind continues, and so we made our way to the beach once again, at Castlerock this time. The wind was fairly steady, and relatively strong, so I decided to go with the 8m again, and I think that was a good decision.

The kite flew reasonably well, but I think the wind wasn't really strong enough to lift it too high. This was fine, as I am still in the process of becoming comfortable with the kite. If we go out again in a similar wind I might try the 12m one to see how it flies.

I had some trouble raising it above 45 degrees in the window, and again, I'm not really sure if I am doing something incorrectly, or if there simply wasn't enough wind. Perhaps I am just too timid. Better timid than injured, that can be my new motto.

DIY Kiteboard

Although we managed to find budget for some second hand kites, and picked up some other cheap stuff, the cost of a board is prohibitively expensive.

Kiteboards are available second hand from about £150, sometimes £250 plus - well beyond the available empty budget!

Many keen DIY kiters have decided to make their own boards, so I decided that would be a good route to persue. Some are very professional, made of fibreglass and finished with great detail. However, the way to begin seems to be plywood. So I got a sheet of 1/2 inch birch plywood, and tonight Dad and I spent some time cutting it to shape.

Next step is some more rounding (the ends aren't quite symmetrical), then getting the foot straps attached, and painting.

Kitesurfing : Day 2

Having a contractual half day on a Friday is great. I'd recommend it to anybody!

This afternoon turned out to be another beautiful one, with lots of sunshine and a light wind. We decided to give the new kites another try, and today was altogether more successful.

We spent some time reading and watching tutorials, and training SWMBO in exactly what we need to do, and what not to do.

The first stage in learning to fly a kitesurfing kite is to learn to launch, and fly the kite just above the ground. With substantial help from SWMBO, we managed to get this done, and it gave me a lot of confidence in the kite, and its setup. I think it'll be fine.

However, there definitely wasn't enough wind for anything more, or we would have needed the 12m instead of the 8m. I was very pleased with today, we achieved the first stage perfectly, including boosting my confidence. Now we're ready for day 3. Bring on the wind (relatively light, and not gusty, please ;)

Kitesurfing : Day 1

After the arrival of the kites in the middle of the week I was looking forward to getting out with them this weekend. However, I was delayed in getting home from work yesterday, and was asked to help out at a CU event in Limavady Grammar School for the afternoon/evening.

Today we all got up, had breakfast, and packed for the beach. I wasn't sure how it would go, because the forecast was for almost zero wind, and outside our house that was exactly what was happening.

However, when we approached Benone we could see windmills turning and trees swaying. On the beach we met with another problem - high tide and lots of shells. We found a suitable spot, parked up, and began to unpack. However it actually turned out to be a bit too windy for a pair of learners, even on an 8m kite.

It took a good while getting set up, and by the time we were ready to launch the wind had really picked up, and although my faithful assistant had been helpful and patient, she found the force of the wind pulling the kite a little too strong for comfort. If she isn't comfortable, then I can't be, so we called it a day and packed it up. Didn't even get the kite into the air.

We got the old faithful 4m buster out, but unfortunately it was too gusty even for it, so we had to pack up and go home. Unfortunate, but there will be other days....

There was no action, therefore no photos, but I have to include this one taken by Kate. I had removed my camera and phone from my pockets because of the harness, and left them in the car. Kate obviously found the camera and decided to take a few snaps, and managed to take this shot which is not very level, but amazingly has me framed nicely in the wing mirror!

Summer again

Four seasons in one day; not uncommon for our part of the world. Well we have just had two distinct seasons in one week. Last weekend was winter. Strong wind giving windchill factors of around -5.

Tonight however was a gorgeous evening, you know the kind that occur at the end of the summer. We decided to go for a walk on the beach at Castlerock, and it was perfectly still and very mild. Great :)

May there be many more!

Long weekend

This weekend has seen the most prolonged and sustained strong wind I can remember. The wind has been blowing through our yard in a way that makes it difficult to stand, and difficult to keep the bins etc in their place.

Today was a public holiday in lieu of St. Patricks Day on Saturday. We spent the morning at home, and at 11:30 we met up with a few of the folks from our Sunday night Bible study group for a walk on the beach. Again the wind was spectacular, but because it was blowing almost directly on-shore we went ahead. About five minutes into the walk we were hit by a hail shower, which was pretty painful given the strong wind. The ladies of the group retreated to the sand-hills, a move which wasn't really that wise, because the wind was stronger there and by the time they made it to shelter the hail had stopped.

Anyway, we walked back across the sandhills, and headed up to Crusoes for lunch.

After a great feed we got Kate from school, and went home. While homework was in progress I took the head-staggers and decided to paint the window-sills on the inside of the house. Well, I suppose we are almost in three years, so it has lay undone for long enough. Managed to spend the afternoon doing almost all the sills downstairs.

For the evening we popped to B&Q, picked up some curtain rails for the front room, and had a good general browse.

Kids off to bed, and then a quiet night in. Watched "The Trees That Made Britain" about the mighty Oak tree, very interesting. Thankfully the football on BBC1 meant that there was no Eastenders. Every cloud...

Floor almost complete

Dad returned today, and we finished off the wooden flooring. Three years later the last two downstairs rooms no longer have a concrete floor. That just leaves the hall then. I suspect another three years :)

It's nice to see these jobs getting done. No kiting today though, too much rain, and far too much wind!

Pride comes before a ....

Today Dad came over to continue the work on the wooden floor. We did all we could at the floor, and then headed over to the field with the kites. After a quick tutorial Dad had the hang of flying my toy 2.5m Ultrafit kite. He was even launching backwards and everything.

It seemed to be another of those perfect days, nice steady winds, not too gusty. I was having fun with my 4m buster too, and getting some good jumps in, not too high, more long - just how I wanted them (not so far to fall).

The wind picked up a bit, and it only took a few jumps to get dangerously close to the trees, and I had to let go of the handles and let the kite-killers do their work several times, the kite often landing closer to the trees than I had expected.

It was beginning to get a little gusty, but I was having too much fun to notice, and so came the mother of all gusts. You know how when an accident is in progress everything slows down, and you can see every detail in slow motion, just with an inability to control it. Well, that's not how this was.

It was over instantly.

One second I was happily flying, jumping, running etc and later that same second I was getting up off the ground, having been launched forward, so dramatically that my feet went into the air, I landed on my face, then shoulder, rolled over my arm onto my other side, and skidded to rest on my leg. Due to the rolling nature of my fall I had also landed on the lines of the kite, so I instantly got off them, and got up, in case they would make me into cheese.

I don't think the photo Kate took does me justice, but it does show how dirty my leg got.

A valuable lesson learned. Picking up the Kite (I will now address it with a capital 'K' out of respect) I tried again, and learned to let go of the handles instantly when I felt a big tug. Can't wait to get back out again :)

Spring Break (4)

Again we had a lovely start to the day with a family breakfast and getting the kids off to school. However, as part of those tasks we noticed that the radiators were cold... we were out of oil!!

Panic. Call Hunter Fuels, and yes they could deliver today, phew! With that resolved we went down to Castlerock beach for a freezing walk.

The rest of the morning was spent trying to get a part for the electric window of my car, we tried NB Autoparts, the real VW dealer, then off to the breakers. We tried Eddie Torrens, a fantastic place, quite literally the stuff of fantasy; I have visited his yard many times in the past, but its worse than ever. Pictured for your convenience. Then we called with a smaller breaker outside Kilrea, but he couldn't help, and so we went on to Quiggs who deal exclusively with the VW range of stuff. They assure me that they will help me next week, so lets hope they can.

Oddly in the evening SWMBO and I went to the Women's World day of prayer. Although it is not explicitly spelled out in this Blog, I am not a woman. I was asked to do the sound at it, and I have to say it was one of the trickiest events I have done. It is a fully scripted service, with various people taking various parts, and it required a lot of concentration, which I am not particularly good at. But it all passed off peacefully, thankfully :)

Spring Break (3)

Brekkie starts the day again, then the kids off to the Bus. We popped back into the house for a wee cup of tea.

I was asked to investigate walking routes for the Young Adults group in church, so we set sail for the causeway. We were really checking out parking arrangements, to try to ensure we could plan to park at a free carpark.

After calling briefly at the £5 per car Giants Causeway, we went round the coast road to Dunseverick Castle.

From there we travelled on around to the harbour, and then on round to Portbradden.

Travelling on the next port of call was White Park Bay where we stopped for a walk on the beach. It was freezing (almost literally).

Lastly we called at Ballintoy Harbour where the waves were breathtaking as they splashed over the rocks.

Afterwards we went home via Portbalintree for a light lunch, before picking up Kate from school.

We had a couple of small issues with the house, and so we waited for the builder to appear, and after some time he did, and we got problems sorted.

For the first time in a long time we got the kites out, and it was fantastic wind for them both, and it was great until the rain came on.

We gathered the kites up, and had a lovely Tescos pizza for tea. The excitement for the night was only about to begin, but unfortunately for the details of that excitement you'll have to check the minute book of First Dunboe Church's Committee.

Spring Break (2)

Second day of our break starts by having brekkie with kids again. After the usual madness, we got them off to the bus, and then headed for Cookstown to collect the new radio mic for the church hall.

On the way back we decided to detour, and found ourselves Lough Fea, which probably would be nice to see, but not today, as it was miserable and cold. Coming home we took another detour around Garvagh, where I was looking for an underwater bridge, or Ford, which I had childhood recollections of. We eventually found it, and I have to say that it wasn't easy to pluck up the courage to drive my car across a river. But I did it, and it was great, much to the amusement of SWMBO we made it through unscathed.

Next we decided cream buns would be good, and went into the "bakery" in Garvagh, and ended up coming out with scones. As we were in the area we popped over to Mums for a wee cuppa.

Afterwards we got some prices for tyres for my car, and then went in to pick up car2. On the way home we met a man on Captain Street, which may not sound unusual, except when you realise its a one-way street!

We picked up Kate from school, got tyres for my car and tried to get the alignment done, but because of a seized nut no-one would touch it.

After tea we all went for walk on beach in very strong wind, which was amusing, but freeezzzing.

Then home and kids to bed :) The End for today.

Spring Break (1)

Today SWMBO and started out holiday with a little lie in. We started the day with a family breakfast, followed by the usual hectic act of getting ready for school. Any Tuesday starts the same way, I kick off the latest '24' download. Then its off to the garage with my car for its service.

After dropping the car off I had some time to kill, so I did something I've been meaning to do for some time : make an appointment with our dentist.

With that sorted, I just had to stand on Railway Road, in the rain, until SWMBO picked me up. Then we popped over to B&Q for cups and pads to protect the wooden floor from the furniture.

Next we went over to Limavady to Bradleys to see if they could fix our thermostatic shower, which had grown distinctly less "thermostatic" over the last few weeks. Turns out it is under a five year warranty, so that should be fixed shortly.

We popped into Tescos to get some food for lunch, and then it was back home for tea. Lazily we killed a couple of hours watching "Mr & Mrs Smith" before having a pizza for lunch.

That is the holiday over, the usual procedure begins : pick up Kate, do homework, pick up Matthew, off to swimming lessons, all good fun.

After swimming it is time to pick up car1, and leave in car2, and have a heart attack at £380 bill!
Home for tea, then got Kate off to GB, then picked her up, and retired the kids to bed.

Time for a quiet evening watching 24, another action packed episode, great stuff.

Afterwards I watched William Crawley's interview with Dawkins, which was very interesting and informative, and certainly worth a watch. Sad really.

This is of course followed by falling asleep in front of the telly, and off to bed. Goodnight ;)

Paragliding

Today was a pleasant Saturday, breakfast with the family, then a few chores, the first of which was to pick up 12 sheets of 8x4 3/4 ply for under the wooden floor.

As the Sun was setting we saw the sunset was going to be beautiful; at this time of year the Sun sets further round the coast, and so we set off for Gortmore viewpoint. We got to see the sunset, and got a couple of snaps, which do not do it justice at all, but the cool thing was seeing a para glider come up from behind the cliff!

It was quite bizarre, but really interesting, and he was close enough to wave back to the kids, which they thought was great.

Roe Valley

Today we visited the Roe Valley Country park, which is a great park, just outside Limavady. We visited before recently, but the rain came on, and as we weren't completely sure about our solubility in water, we decided not to risk it, and got back into the car.

Today, however, it was not raining, but dry, mild, and calm. A perfect location for a great walk.

We walked southwards down one side of the river, and crossed over at the first bridge, and back along the other side. It was about 3 miles, which we walked in just less than an hour. A great way to spend Friday afternoon.

When we were almost around we spotted this Robin, and it sat on the branch while I got closer, and managed to snap this shot!

Riding in Cars with Boys [2001]

Having a quiet night in I randomly flicked through the films tonight on my TiVo. I ended up with "Riding in Cars with Boys", which I would never consciously choose, and to be honest if I hadn't been doing other things on the laptop at the time I probably would have switched over.

It's really a quite tragic story about two teenage friends who fall pregnant* and how these events profoundly shape their lives. Its a very emotive story, touching on all sorts of family problems including marital breakdown and drug abuse.

It's not the kind of film I like, but by the end I was gripped. Watching this film made me realise how amazingly privileged we all are. We live in nice homes, in nice neighbourhoods, with pleasant friends and loving, supportive families. Our lives and close families tend to be free from all the problems in the film, for example I have never had to attempt to nurse my spouse through cold turkey as they come off heroin. Many people in the world do have this and similar or even worse experiences. Maybe tonight we should spend time really thanking God for the bounteous gifts we enjoy on a daily basis.



* this phrase always amuses me, its not like anyone has ever just "fallen" pregnant...

Out of hibernation

Hopefully the lull in postings here has ended. The reason for the lull is simple. Each time I post it is because I have been doing something which I think is interesting. I simply haven't done anything that interesting recently.

This weekend was different though, with the unusually warm weather and bright sunny skies. On Friday afternoon we reassembled the trampoline which had been taken apart for safety reasons due to the high winter winds. It was great to get it back together, and a few bounces later it was as if it had never been away! Great!

The kids were mad to get out for a ride on their bikes, so on Saturday we packed them into the car and made our way to Castlerock where we had a great walk on the beach. The moon is full just now, meaning the low tide is very low, and fortunately low tide was early afternoon, meaning a huge amount of the beach was hard wet sand. The kids loved it and we had a thoroughly enjoyable time.

The best bit for me was the way the waves were splashing against the end of the pier. This seems to happen periodically when the waves are big and the tide is low. It can be quite spectacular, and worth a look. The great thing about it is that while the pier can be dangerous at high tide, at low tide the only danger is getting wet by a cloud of spray, as the water doesn't actually wash over the pier at all.

There were a couple of guys at the end of the pier attempting to get a good photo, but I think they weren't standing far enough back; I think I got the picture they were looking for.