Moving shed

In preparation for the garage getting built we had to clear out the accumulated rubbish from the foundations. For the most part this meant lifting wood and other rubbish, but the biggest item was the garden shed, which was a quite substantial task.

After preparing the path we got the heavy lifting machinary in and got it delicately balanced on the forks. Matthew kindly drove it all the way around to its new resting position, where it will stay until the real garage gets done.

Now we just have to wait for the builders to turn up :)

Up!

On day 4 out on the water I'm finally riding, only short distances, but still up. Once I made it over several waves, and couldn't believe how I got over each one! Looking forward to getting out again...

On the water again

The wind was just right again tonight, so I was back at Benone to pick up where I left off. This time I was able to go short distances before falling. I'm not ready for any competitions yet, but at least a little progress is encouraging! No pics or vids tonight, the multimedia crew let me down!

On the water - just about!

After months of waiting for wind that was the correct strength and the correct direction I saw the forecast for tonight, and left work as early as possible. On arrival at the beach at Benone I was pleased (although a little intimidated) to see three kiters already out on the water.

I headed over and parked up, introduced myself, and began to get set up.

After my first few disastrous attempts on the water one of the fellows came over and offered some advice, so I tried that for a while, until the handle came off at one side! Fortunately it was just a loose screw and I was quickly back in action.

Hours, and lots of attempts later, with more advice I was making some progress, "riding" for short distances before either sinking or being pulled over on my face.

I definitely am absolutely no good at this sport, but it definitely is the most fun I've had!

Unfortunately there are no pictures of me up on the board, one person suggested that it was because there wasn't a fast enough setting on the camera!

Garage?

Last night we had the contractor who built our house back to give us a price for building a garage. Hopefully it'll come in at something reasonable, but we'll wait and see.

It is quite a coincidence today 6 years ago we had his quantity surveyor here pricing up the build of the main house. Link here: http://www.ccso.co.uk/sb/13Aug2003.html

Ozone Imp Quattro 1.5

New kite for the kids arrived today, its an Ozone Imp which is designed to be an introductory kite, and its perfect for learners. It flys really nicely, right around the window, but never has too hard a pull, exactly what I wanted. Good fun for me too!

Google car

Today on my way home I spotted the google car here. So when the streetview goes live check for a bule impreza in the middle of Greysteel, that'll be me!

Rust in my gas!

Today I finally got a change to return to Automotive Gas Systems in Portadown to see what was wrong with my autoGas conversion on the impreza.

After spending a while looking at it they discovered rust residue in two of the solenoids. They asked where I got my gas, as they said this can happen when people fill it from home gas tanks. I assured them that all the gas I got came from the two local Texaco garages in Coleraine.

Well, anyway, they replaced the two valves, and reset the ECU so we were on our way.

The ECU reset means we need another trip back, as the automatic learning program has to start again. Let's hope it goes better this time!

Rocker cover gasket

About three weeks after I fixed the last oil leak from the crankshaft a new oil leak appeared in my car. This time it was the rocker cover gasket.

The rocker cover gasket in something like a nova, which is probably the last one I have replaced, is a simple job, as the camshaft is at the top of the engine, and it takes about 10 minutes.

The impreza is not so simple, as with a box engine the camshafts are down at the side. So I stripped back the airbox, and the boost solenoid assembly to give me space and eventually managed to get the six bolts and cover off. It took ages to clean the seal as the old rubber gasket had disintegrated and stuck itself all over the place.

Placing the new gasket, and getting the cover back on was a breeze, and I then screwed everything back together, and as always was pleased when I turned the key and heard the engine start. Now all that remains to be seen is if the oil leak has actually gone, and if that is the last one!

First Day

Today I began my employment with Sita in Letterkenny. Quiet day, lots of reading and getting settled in. Seems like a nice place, good people, looking forward into getting settled in properly.

Benone with kite...

Nice and windy today, so we headed to Benone. We went off up the beach where no-one would bother us, and I practiced my one-handed flying, required when in the water with board in one hand and kite in the other. Kate took some pics one of which is above.

No 747

While moving jobs this summer I had decided to take two weeks off in between employments. As always a list is compiled of things that should be done in the 'holiday'. This year that list had one item - slabs. We had left an area at the side of the house that needed to be laid with patio slabs, so the time had come to do it.

Just today, after 10 days work at the area I laid slab no 747 of 875 - that was the entire interior area completed; now only the cutting remains to be completed.

This is the result of the labour.

Thanks to all who helped, without whose help this could have not been completed in this time!

Another kitesurfing lesson

I waited patiently for today. I had booked a lesson on Friday afternoon, and took off work a bit early, but there was no wind. Then yesterday I waited patiently at Belmont Shore beach, but again, all day, there was no wind. I got up this morning really not expecting anything, but by the time I got to Belmont it was picking up nicely, a 10-12 mph wind was blowing.

I called Nudge, and he met up with me, and we took to the water.

I knew this would be difficult, but after spending almost 3 hours on the water I only made it sort of up, maybe twice. In my mind there were several factors in this:

1) I still can't fly the kite well enough (this is the main one)

2) Everytime I was ready to get up there were huge waves washing over me. I think I swallowed enough sea to avoid eating salt for 4 years.

3) Sting rays [en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stingray] - apparently there are normally some lurking in the sand below the shallow water. They were on my mind.

4) Apparently it takes everyone a few attempts to learn :)

Having said all of that it was valuable time; having someone standing on the shore shouting encouragement, re-launching the crashed kite, and telling me where I was going wrong was all worthwhile. I will be much more confident at trying it at home now.

Back to CA again

With only 3 weeks of employment left I find myself sitting in an airport waiting on a flight to California, where I will spend the next 2 weeks. That'll be a total of 7 weeks spent in CA this year.

2800bhp, what a drag

This what 2800 bhp looks like. Quarter mile in about 6 seconds at 220mph, and in that distance using around 6 gallons of fuel.

This is the brawn behind the operation - a V8 engine, no cooling, only runs for a few minutes, then rebuilt after every meet.

Of course, cars that go fast need good brakes. This car has no foot brake (the driver only has two feet, one for the clutch and one for the throttle) so there is a hand brake. More importantly there are two parachutes deployed at the back. These do most of the braking.

Earthquake!

Last time I was in California the dinnertime conversation revealed that small earthquakes are not uncommon here, and being here for three weeks I thought I stood a good chance of experiencing one, but it didn't happen.

Tonight at work (I know, I was in the office at 6:11pm on a Friday) things started to shake, not a lot, but enough to notice things moving; I could see the monitors on the desks moving and feel the shaking for a few seconds.

I had a quick google, and came up with a site that listed earthquakes, and their magnitudes. It turns out that it was a 4.4 quake centered near Malibu, about 50 miles away.

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/shakemap/sc/shake/10403777/

Kitesurf lesson

Once again I find myself in the US on travel with work. This time I decided to see if I could get some lessons on kitesurfing, so I headed to the coast looking for kitesurfers. I eventually found a guy in a kite shop who pointed me to Belmont Shore, just north of Sunset Beach (sharing its name with the best TV show ever). 

Upon arrival I met Hank, who owns a kitesurfing shop. He told me to be wary of instructors who had no qualifications or insurance and pointed me to Nudge, who had a cancellation was able to take me for a lesson later that day.

We spent three hours on the beach setting up, taking down, launching and landing focusing a lot on safety. Nudge was able to give me a lot of good tips, and it seemed clear that the new kites make flying very safe and easy. The large amount of depower from the 8m Naish Code we were using made flying very easy, although there was almost not enough wind to fly properly - good for learning though.

What a great afternoon, I learned a lot and had lots of fun. Now I'm looking forward to the next lesson, where I'll get to do some bodydragging in the water....

Goodbye MNZ1221, hello new Astra

Four months ago we decided to change our Passat, and decided to go for a Kia Sportage. This jeep had all the good features of this type of car, but came at a significantly reduced price tag. We went to Roadside Garages, our local Kia dealer in Coleraine. After talking to their salesman we decided to go for a 2005 Sportage. 

After the deal was done we were very satisfied with our new car, well, all apart from the 25-30 MPG, but I suppose that was to be expected.

However about 4 weeks ago the car began to exhibit a fatal fault - every so often it would loose power and stop, but then after about 2 minutes would start and drive as normal. Obviously this was a great concern for our safety, so we contacted the dealer to get it fixed. Well, to cut a long story short the car seemed to have quite a chequered past and after disputes, solicitors, rumours, lies and the occasional fact we managed to strike a deal where they gave us an upgrade to a 2007 Vauxhall Astra.

We picked it up today from the garage. It seems like a very nice, solid car, and hopefully should give us a good length of trouble free motoring. I has only 8000 miles on the clock, which is less than anything we've had before. I think this is a record for the shortest time we have kept a car, but now I have another number plate to remember. Pity, MNZ 1221 was quite easy, even for a "fish brain" like mine!

Goodbye Pipex, hello TalkTalk

After months of gaining courage to do so I have finally signed up to TalkTalk ADSL broadband. I have been with Pipex on an 'unlimited' service for about 4 years now, and have had several reliability issues due to the long length of phone line connecting me to the exchange.

Recently it had been working very in a very satisfactory and stable way. However, it was still costing me about £20/mth for a 512k service. When TalkTalk recently revised their pricing I decided to look again, and after a phonecall from a suitably pushy salesman I signed up. Line rental, all landline phone calls and broadband for £21/mth - a substantial saving.

TalkTalk didn't really inspire confidence with their overzealous sales, but I though it was time to take the plunge as the savings were potentially huge, plus they promised a substantially better service. Well, today it went live, and when I got home I unplugged my trusty Draytek router and plugged in the less than industrial D-Link replacement. Surely enough all the correct lights came on, and when I checked it had connected at just over 1.1M - a great increase on the old speed.

So far, so good - lets hope the high speeds keep up, and that its reliable.

TiVo - farewell

The simple act of TV watching in our house was revolutionised about six years ago when our TiVo arrived. Once set up we could pause and record TV scheduling 'season passes' to automatically record all episodes of a series, and it even looked at the programs we liked to watch and automatically recorded others we may enjoy.

As we moved to digital TV TiVo moved too with external freeview box control, an upgraded hard disk, and 'Mode 0' allowing recording at full 720x576 at 9Mb/s MPEG2 being output over component - a pretty good picture on a 32" LCD TV.

Over the years TiVo served us reliably, but more recently it has been freezing occasionally.

I had started to look into replacements, but any hardware options (like sky+) seemed to limiting, or just poor. I was hoping to replace both the TiVo and the XBOX (XBMC) with a single box. The only option was to go for a PC, using some form of PVR software to control it. I spent time setting up various offerings like MythTv, MediaPortal, GBPVR and a few others. Each had their positives, but I couldn't find an overall package I liked.

I had given up until a colleague persuaded me to try Vista Media Center. I bought a copy of Vista Home Premium Edition and installed it, and after a bit of messing around I was impressed. It is easy to use, simple to configure and seems to work well. The only issue we have is the occasional stutter on live TV, but hopefully we'll find a solution for that.

The other big advantage is that I can now cancel my TiVo subscription which was £10/month for their listing and guide data, meaning the new machine is already paying for itself...

I finally decommissioned TiVo and XBMC from our living room today, hiding a fairly out-of-place looking PC in the corner of the room. Hopefully it'll do us as well as the TiVo.

Snow

Welcome the winter, snow on the mountains on the way to work this morning

Television

Television is the first truly democratic culture - the first culture available to everybody and entirely governed by what the people want. The most terrifying thing is what people do want.
- Clive Barnes

Red Arrows - 2008

Two years ago we saw the Red Arrows perform over Portrush at the first annual airshow. Last year we missed them, 'cause we got the day wrong. This year we made up for it, they were on twice, on Saturday at midday, and on Sunday at 5pm. Once again it was spectacular!

Car fuel pump

This morning on my way into work the impreza started to stutter a bit, losing power at higher revs. Then as I continued the power dropped until as I was coasting into the car park at work there was almost no power at all.

I tried the car at tea break time and it wouldn't even start. So we got the toolbox out to do some basic checks, and found that there was no petrol getting to the front of the car, indicating a problem with the fuel pump.

After finding this article on the interweb we managed to locate the fuel pump, and see that it was not pumping at all.

Needing a new fuel pump, knowing the prices Subaru dealers charge, I called Eddie Torrens, the car breaker, and he said he would sort me out with one for £70. As the close of the business day was approaching I swiftly sent my better half to reluctantly visit Mr Torrens.

Fortunately I had taken the precaution to send her a picture of what it was I was looking for, as upon arrival she was apparently presented with a fuel pump for something entirely different, and so was able to say it wasn't the correct part. After dissecting another car they managed to get one.

About two hours later they arrived at my work and we inserted the new one, and the car started first time. What a relief.

So, thanks to Mr keita from the forum for taking the time to provide me with step by step instructions! Most helpful!

Dogleap Stages Rally

I have now passed the advertising signs for the Dogleap Stages for 3 years on my way to work, and finally my curiosity got the better of me. I called in at North West Motor Factors who sold me a program, showing the stage maps for the rally. It turned out that two of the stages were within about 2 miles of our home, so obviously it would be rude not to go.

We took a drive around yesterday to see where to stand, and unfortunately a lot of the stage was inaccessible to pedestrians due to overgrown weeds. However, we found a good clearing in the middle of the stage, where we could see a good bit of the track from, so we decided to go there.

This turned out to be a good spot, and as there were 3 stages using this same track we moved around for each of them. Each spot seemed to be just as good.

I would definitely recommend it to anyone with an interest in this kind of thing, in my opinion it was just as good as the WRC, if not better, as the crowds were smaller. Escort Mk IIs are the best :)

More pics here: http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/simonmcc/DogleapStages

Terms and Conditions

I like this guy's attitude, taken from:

http://torrentfreak.com/top-10-most-pirated-movies-and-tv-shows-2007-080101/comment-page-1/#comment-253708

For me its a matter of convenience quality format and control.

If the studio's released TV shows online free for download in 350mb xvid/divx format from a quality source with a quality compression I would GLADLY download it from them. Commercials and all. I really do not mind commercials that much as long as they are not ANNOYING like what sci-fi sometimes does with commercials every few minutes. Dozens of them. Keep it to 10 minutes of commercials in 2 or 3 "sets" and I will gladly download it from you.

ANY DRM ANY conditions ANY Restrictions and back to bit torrent I go. ANY COST better be met with ZERO commercials and still NO restrictions and the price better be cheap $1 an episodes sounds about right. (Music should be around 12 cents a pop)

These are my terms.

They are not really up for negotiation.

Accept them or I will enforce them myself with bit torrent or a recorder etc.. This is not a discussion. I am the consumer if you want my eyes or my money it WILL be on MY terms NOT yours.

Once they learn this they can go back to making good programs and raking in the cash.

Mussenden

St Aidens

Occasionally I get the chance to drive home on a Friday around either the Seacoast otr Biships road, which both provide stunning scenary. Many times I spotted the sign to "St Aidens" and I had heard of it from other sources too, but I had never been.

Tonight on the way back from Benone we took a detour through this idilic countryside, and walked up around the Chapel. The first picture is the ruins of the old Chapel, as far as I can discern from around 1660.

The site apparently dates back a further 1000 years though when it was founded by St Colmcille, although thats a little further than I can remember. I'll ask Susan.

Kiting at Benone - again

Today we spent more time at Benone beach, although by the time we got there it was late, and high tide was approaching. This did mean that there were very few cars on the beach, as only folks with 4wd were welcome on the loose sand. This was proved by some boy in a people carrier who drove about 10 metres onto the beach, and promptly got stuck. It was fun rescuing him.

Anyway, turns out the wife likes the new camera too, when she arrived back from her "run" she merrily shot about 200 photos. Here is a small selection.

Kite!

After lazing around for all the good weather we have had so far I decided to get out with the kite. I had worked a while the other night changing the lengths of a couple of lines, so I wanted to test if it helped the flight.




So I took to the freshly cut field tonight and had a grand time. It was a bit blustery though, where a smooth wind would have been better. However I still managed to try a few settings, and settle on one I was happy with. A beautiful evening.

bash: creating an alias with an argument

This is something I've thought would be useful for a while, but I never got around to figuring out how to do it. We have a command we use frequently at work for configuring the sun one application server, glassfish - asadmin. The asadmin command takes the command and then some arguments eg:
asadmin deploy --target instance1 --user admin --passwordfile /home/whatever/.password dist/application.ear

The bold bits tend to be common with only the italic bits changing. This is how to set up an alias in bash:
edit ~/.bashrc and add the line:
aa () { asadmin $1 --target instance1 --user admin --passwordfile /home/whatever/.password $2 $3 $4 $5; }

After logging out and in, you will have a new command called 'aa' which you can use like:
aa deploy dist/application.ear

Now, that's easier, isn't it?

Terzo No 244

When I got my impreza I knew it was a special edition - the Terzo, meaning third, signifying the third successive win for Subaru in the WRC.

There were 333 made, numbered 1-334 (omitting 13), and each was given a special plate in the interior with the unique number, but unfortunately some time during the 110,000 life of my impreza the number got lost.

I called Subaru's tech help in the UK and spoke to someone who simply asked for the registration plate, and was able to tell me that this impreza was registered number 244. I was hoping for 252, as that is in the number place, but whatever. Finding out the number wasn't nearly as exciting as I had hoped, but its nice to know :)

CDs : A new era

Today marked a new era for our Church, hardly a dogmatic change, but an important step nevertheless.

Instead of being recorded on 90 minute cassette tape, the service was recorded direct to CD with our new CD recorder. Afterwards the old tapd duplicator was pushed to the side to make way for the new CD duplicator.

So to all of those people used to listening to duplicated audio tapes, where 2 services sometimes overlapped, or the voice was wavering, now each copy will be a pure digitial replica. Next step mp3s on the interweb, then streaming....

Stop!

One important part of having a fast car is having good brakes. To this end when I got my Scooby last September, I changed the "suicide brakes" to 4-pot callipers off a 2003 impreza, which just screw right on. They also came with good pads, and a set of drilled and grooved discs, so I just used those.

There was always a very slight judder from the disks, so I knew they would probably never be permanent. Also, the back brakes have only been braking on a small part of the disc (about 25%) since I got them.

I managed to find an eBay seller, azcarpartsuk who was able to supply replacement discs/pads all round for under £200, which is pretty good since the pads are mintex, and the front discs drilled and grooved.

On Saturday night we fought with the back discs and changed them. Tonight I changed the fronts which was a lot easier. Now I've got brakes all round that should work well. Now I can stop.

Delayed....again, and again

So once again I find myself on a Continental sponsored holiday. I was supposed to leave Miami yesterday just after mid day, but bad weather at Newark meant repeated delays, until at 8pm the flight was cancelled, and I was booked onto the 2am flight.

With the time changing in the US this weekend I was walking around Newark airport at 7am wondering whether to book a hotel and catch some sleep, or go sightseeing. So I found the place to store luggage, and got on the bus to Manhattan. As usual I took a walk up through Times Square to Central Park, and got the tube back down to Times Square.

I had lunch at the Times Square McDonald's which is unlike no other McDonald's I have ever seen.

From there I took the tube south to go on a tour of the Statue of Liberty which is something I had hoped to do before, but never had the time

On holiday

Normally when I travel with work I rush a bit of sightseeing into a few hours, but this time I decided to book a real day off. So after we finished work last night, I got into the car and drove south. I had booked a hotel half way down the keys, and arrived in the complete darkness. Imagine my marvel when I awoke to see where I really was. Beautiful, shallow water as far as the eye could see. Great. So I set off south again for Key West.


As I drove down in the morning Sun, I began to see the extent of the keys - miles of little islands connected by miles of bridges. Literally. One bridge is actually called the "7 mile bridge".


The bridges were many and varied, some of the coolest were the old ones.

Many of the new bridges also had the old bridge beside them.

Some old bridges were so old that they were off limits.


When I arrived in the large south-most island I was met with a glorious sight - people kitesurfing. As this is something I am in the process of trying I had to stop off and see how it was really done. These guys had great gear, shallow water for hundreds of feet out, and perfect, steady onshore wind.


When I got into town in Key West, I took a walk around the harbour, went to see the south most point in continental US, and saw some other stuff too. A cool day.

On the way back to the hotel for the second evening I managed to catch the gorgeous sunset.



Maybe Florida is OK after all...

I'm off - and its snowing!

This morning I left home to travel to Florida. Another business trip, I was looking forward to the heat after the cold weather we've been having recently.

So it was even more weird to wake up in the morning to see snow. There wasn't a lot of snow, but it was enough for the kids to try out their new sleds!