Dooey Sat 29th Oct

Arrived at Dooey just after 10 this morning, and the wind was quite variable. At first I was tempted to try the 9, but after checking the wind for a few minutes I set up the 12.

Out on the water things were going much better today. I now feel like I'm back to the standard I was at a couple of months ago, which I had regressed from last time I was out.

The accidental rolling and board nose problems with jumps are almost gone, and I was riding out over the waves well. The wind started off cross, and moved around to cross on, so perfect conditions. Waves were good, quite frothy, but with long flats in between. Still haven't got a proper handle on the jumps, but getting a lot better; today I was able to consistently jump two waves that came in doubles - never managed that before.

My toeside riding right to left is coming on, usually I just carve around to heelside again, but sometimes I tried a flip back to heelside before turning, managed it not too bad, although I'm sure it wasn't that beautiful.

Not sure how long I was out, but I think after somewhere between one and two hours on the water I started to mess up some simple stuff, so I knew I was getting tired and lazy - time for a break.  During my break I helped launch/land the other four guys, and also took some GoPro footage of Jonny. It was a warm (~14 degrees) and sunny day, so that was perfect.

During my break the wind had picked up, so I set up the 9 before heading back out. Just as I was preparing to launch the wind seemed to drop, but I though the 9 would be ok. I walked to the water, and had a few runs out and in, but the wind was really for nothing, so I came back in.

I had a few good falls today, drank a fair bit of the sea, some through my nose, and also I think in my ears. Oh, and when I was setting up my new trim line I forgot to add the wee black stopper, so that was a bit of a hinderence, although it didn't cause me as much trouble as I originally thought, I just couldn't let go of the bar.

All in all it was a superb day, I think I'm more suited to short sessions than long ones; my fitness level can let me down.

Data Recovery - TestDisk

I was asked by a friend to help set up their 'new computer' and while I was doing so I discovered that they had taken the computer to a local (reputable) PC shop, and they had said the hard disk was done, and replaced it. They also said that there was no data left on the disk to recover, so all was lost.

I got the disk, and got to work on it. Sure enough, plugging the disk in showed an empty, newly formatted volume. I spent an evening downloading quite a few free data recovery tools, and ended up getting the best results from "TestDisk".

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk

After a couple of tries, I was able to set the software to only bother about image files (otherwise you recover txt, dll etc that I really don't care about)

You could see it stall as it got to the bad sectors on the disk, but it kept spitting out files, thousands of them, mostly internet explorer cache images. It ran for a good few hours, I let it run overnight. I then filtered the images by dimensions (most of the cache images were thumbnail size). This left me with 700 image files, some of which I knew were of interest, others obviously came with the PC.

I used the unix (cygwin) exif command in a script to move all the files into folders based on the camera that took them, and subfolders named by the date taken. This should help the user to reorganise them, when they get them back.

I would heartily recommend this tool, its not very beautiful looking, but it is quite easy to use, and very effective.

Benone Friday 7th Oct

Today I had planned to have an extra long lunchtime session at the beach while working from home. I had already more than done my hours for the week, so had agreed to take some time off today. However plans changed, and it was after midday before I got to the beach.

It was sunny with showers today, as I got to the beach I could see the rain blowing in from the distance. I knew I could get set up in the meantime, and so I got the bar and lines out and got the kite pumped before the rain arrived. The rain was over in a few minutes, but it was so heavy that there were puddles on the kite.

When I went to get my harness out of the boot it had locked itself shut, but I managed to prize my way into it from the back seat (to repair later)

On the water with the 12 it was blowing great, although quite up and down, but some trim adjustments meant I was powered nicely, having a great session. The waves when breaking were huge, over 6ft, and it was a frothy break, but really long flats in between, just how I like it.

However, with it being almost two months since I had a proper run out I noticed I had lost a lot of progress. When jumping out over waves I was rotating a bit, meaning I had a tendency to miss the landing, and end up on my side. Once I did this and smashed straight into an oncoming wave, boy that was sore.

Apart from that I was getting on grand, lost the board a couple of times, bodydragged back and picked it up no problem. Still working on the toeside on the way in and the jumps on the way out.

I was sailing in, ready to turn in the shallow water and suddenly the bar disappeared away up the lines. I thought my chicken loop had come out, but when I looked it was still in! My trim line connecting the chicken loop to the front lines had broken!

Fortunately it was in the shallow water, so I could walk to my kite and gather it up. If it had been out in the deep water it would have taken longer. That's why its nice to have a big beach :)

automating ssh login

ssh instructions

http://linuxproblem.org/art_9.html

Linux secure disk erase

shred -vfz -n 100 /dev/hda

http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com/2006/06/how-to-securely-erase-hard-disk-before.html

Castlerock Sunday 28th August

From early this morning the wind was blowing well from the North, the water was visibly choppy from miles away. However we had a big family lunch, and it was big, so that took up a fair bit of the day, and it was after 4 before I arrived at Benone.

I was glad to see a few kites in the air, always a good sign, but on closer inspection they were all struggling. The wind was quite low, so I had a chat to a few of the guys and decided to head for Castlerock.

At Castlerock the beach was almost empty and the wind was howling. I set up the 12 and went out, and had a good wee session, it was up and down a bit, and at one stage I could hardly hold onto the 12. I set up my 9, but of course by the time I had it up the wind had dropped, and even the 12 wouldn't pull me.

Unfortunately some of my family had decided to spectate during the lull, which was pretty poor timing for them. Just after they left it picked up again.

Once it picked up I was out again for another reasonable session, although the wind shifted a lot more onshore, and it meant there were limited chances for riding over the waves.

Around that time lots of cars turned up and decided to park close to me too, so that didn't help, especially swimmers in my path and little kiddies in my crash zone. When that happens its time to pack up.

Not a bad session, felt a bit rushed, bit crammed, but it was nice to get out. My legs were still a bit tired from the cycle this morning, maybe not such a good idea. It will be nice when all the tourists go home and leave the beaches empty again ;)

Holiday Day 7 - Friday

After another poor nights sleep we had breakfast and checked out of the hotel. We also got a drive through the shipyard, as the main road was closed and the diversion went right through the H&W yard.

We went into the city center this morning and browsed many, many shops.

After a snack lunch we went to visit Lisburn pool, which was a lot of fun as always, it always goes down well with the kids.

Tonight we came home and cooked tea; it's nice to get back to normal food.

I got back to the steps, did a bit more, a little more progress.

Holiday Day 6 - Thursday

Didn't sleep that great last night, but sure that's hotels for you.

The entertainment for this morning was provided by W5. Its a great science exhibition in the Odyssey which can provide many hours of entertainment. We'd visited a few times before, but it changes each time with the kids getting older. We built an aluminium bridge, a remote control car, few a helicopter, landed a plane, made stop motion films, presented a weather forecast, and saw a liquid nitrogen demonstration, to name but a few of the things we got up to.

In the afternoon we went to the cinema to see Mr Poppers Penguins, which is a reasonable film, carried by Careys humour, which I can't help enjoying.

In the evening after some shopping (Decathlon) we went to Andrew's house and had chinese for tea. Back to the hotel.

Holiday Day 5 - Wednesday

As a treat for the kids we decided to book a hotel for a couple of nights, and tonight is the first.

We spent some time figuring out what to spend the days doing, and decided to go to the Exploris Aquarium in Portaferry. It is a small aquarium, but still well worth a visit, the kids were well amused by all the wonderful creatures.

At teatime we made our way to the

hotel, where we got checked in. Its in a handy location beside the Odyssey, so we went to pizza hut to get tea. We had got a voucher for pizza for a fiver, but due to some weird "we are but we aren't" pizza hut wouldn't quite honour the deal. However, we got more than we could eat for less than thirty quid.

Holiday Day 4 - Tuesday

Another lovely day today, sometimes sunny sometimes overcast, but perfect weather for working.

I started work on the steps at the end of the wall. I spent a good while at it, a lot of time on planning as it is pretty tricky.

Picked the car up from Ryan tonight, its like a different car, the clutch has never felt like that in the last four years.

On the way back from Magherafelt we called in to see granny - nice way to end the evening.

Holiday Day 3 - Monday

Had a nice lie in this morning - its nice not to have to get up.

We went to pay for the rockery plants this afternoon but there was no one there. We did something I wanted to try for a long time and walked from the barmouth road towards castlerock which was really nice.

This evening I strimmed up the side of the grass. The new strimmer is a super job.

Holiday Day 2 - Sunday

Sunday. We had a visiting minister today, I have to say I just couldn't get tuned in at all, although everyone else seemed to rave about him. Mum and Dad were over for dinner; Dad took the kids for an epic cycle (to Castlerock & back).

After Benone tonight we went to Normas for a very enjoyable evening, and some very nice buns. Good not to have to go to work tomorrow.

Holiday Day 1 - Saturday - Silage

Got a phone call this morning to come help lift tyres to prepare for the silage. Well, one thing led to another, and Matthew and I ended up staying all day.

It was good fun, its nice to help out, but especially on a day like today, blue skies and fresh cut grass.....

Holiday Day 0 - Friday

Today is sort of the first day of my holidays. Well, holidays started at 4pm after work finished, but during the day 19 tonnes of stones had been delivered to the front of the house.

Matthew and I set about levelling them, which was a considerable task, and worked for a good few hours. By 10pm they were all levelled.

Benone Tuesday 16th August

I went straight to the beach today after work, and it was blowing nicely. I got set up and was on the water for around 5:30.

I was working a lot on some small jumps. Speed is key, more speed for a higher jump. That was on the way out, on the way in I worked a little on my load and pop with the kite at a solid 45. Making good progress, its all about practice, just need more time.

The session was really good, came in about 6:30 to call home, and went out again for about another hour. During this hour the wind dropped from 20mph to around 10mph. Time to quit.

How great to have a session in the sunshine

Benone Monday 8th August

For about a week now the forecast for today was to be solid NW wind all day. In anticipation I had booked a short notice day off work. I had hoped to spend the whole working day at the beach, but I had to work for a while in the morning. Still, I managed to be at the beach for just after 11.

It was blowing nicely when I got there, so I set up the 12 and went out. It was super up and down; must have ranged from 10-25+ mph, sometimes the kite wanted to drop, other times I couldn't hold the kite. The waves were big too, and fairly messy, although with the wind direction it was still possible to ride in a long distance without getting into the foam.

Met some new people today, a girl whose name I didn't get, who is a youth worker locally, she was out on the sand, and I met Mark from NIKF. Mark is up and riding, but still finding his feet, and was a bit daunted by the waves. Still, he looked to be getting on well.

After lunch it was back out again for another while, and during the afternoon the waves got bigger, but further apart, leaving huge areas of flat water in between breaks.

ST was there working with Pete to get him up and riding, but unfortunately his 9 burst its leading edge. Apparently they got on grand on Petes 11 later on.

As for me, I had a great day 'mowing the lawn' as ST talks about. Its good fun riding out over the break, and riding in along with it. I worked harder today than I have in a long time. I worked quite a bit on my toeside riding, and my toeside to heelside carving turns (going towards my left). The toeside riding is still quite flakey, sometimes when I think I've got it, I can't hold the kite, or mess up the board. I managed to control it pretty well today though, didn't have to ditch it once. Some of the turns are epic, others are embarrassing. Really nice when it works well, but you can go quite a distance downwind on a large circle turn.

On the jumps, I felt like I was actually making some progress just before I left, mainly on the way out, using the waves as a ramp. ST says I'm still not agressive enough with my kite motion, so I will continue to work on that.

Benone Yesterday

I have never seen glass flat water at Benone. Zero wind. Funny thing it was blowing 15-20mph at Magilligan, 5 miles away

Kitesurfing Castlerock 4th August 2011

Talk about wind chasing, on my way home I went to Magilligan, blowing 20+mph, then Benone, 0mph, then downhill, 0mph, then Castlerock 6mph, then home for tea.

Water at Benone was glass, I've never seen it like that before.

After tea it was back to Castlerock for a walk with the family 15-20mph, then back to Benone, still nothing, Magilligan, which had dropped to 10-15mph, back to Castlerock where I thought I may as well try.

As I set up it blew harder, and I had a good wee session out on the water. Nice and flat, well enough powered on the 12. After 9pm it started to drop a bit, so I packed up.

With the flat water I worked a bit on toeside riding, and my toeside to heelside carving turns. Getting better, still not very beautiful sometimes. I also worked a little on my jumps, although most times I think I was a little underpowered, but still cant get a good take off.

Nice to get out.

Benone Tuesday 19th July - Evening

Headed back down to Benone after we got tidied up, didn't make it there until 7, which was too late. It just wasn't windy enough.

Bad news is that my pump broke while I was pumping up, so need to go shopping.

Benone Tuesday 19th July - Lunchtime

Worked from home today, and made sure I got a long lunch. Had a bit of a saga with my half working kite quiver.

I went to Benone, got set up and went out on the 9, the only kite I have. It was ok sometimes, but mainly underpowered, so I decided to cut my losses and head to Castlerock where there is usually more wind. Not today. And there was that horrible foam everywhere too.

So, back to Benone, got the two kites out, and managed to replace the broken pulley on the 12 with one of the working ones from the 9.

Headed out, and the kite was steering to the side, had to immediately come back in and change the knot on the blue line that I shortened last night.

By this time my lunchtime was almost gone, so a quick scoot out on the water, few jumps, some toeside, nice carving turns and packed up.

Long time at the beach(es) short time on the water. Perfect conditions again. Was wondering half way through if they would sack me if I just didn't turn in for the afternoon. Decided not to find out.