Summer Time...

A fab day so far!

Today has started off really well.

Had a great journey in - sun shining, little traffic on the roads, just sailing along on the old bike...

Stopped at a shop to get some cookies, which are delicious (and some are Oat and Raisin making them almost a Health Food!) - this is breakfast as I didn't have time to eat at home... ;-)

Got to work and bumped into a guy who I had helped out a while back - beyond the call of duty, etc. He had promised to buy me some wine to thank me. I was thinking a bottle - he gave me 3, and it is good stuff too!

Logged on and found that an old colleague had Friended me on FB...

Checked my Lottery numbers...

Nothing...

Oh well, you can't have everything! I will take what I got, thanks!

Dull, dull dull, continued...

Here is a video update to yesterday's post - sorry for the slip with the language, I don't think it is gratuitous, just reinforces how I feel about the hospital...

Update! Mrs RC had a little chat with the people at the hospital and they have agreed not to be such a-holes. Taking names and saying things like "can I quote you on that?" seems to make people much more reasonable...

Dull, dull dull...

Countdown...

First of all, thanks for the comments to my last post - things have settled over the weekend and it seems that we are not the only ones who have been victimised. For some reason this has made us feel at least a little bit better!

Anyway, this is my last week of work before we head off for our summer camping trip! Yay, we can't wait. Sunday saw us digging everything out, testing air beds, making lists of things to take, etc. Will be posting photos of the trip when we get back. Hope the weather is better than it is right now - grey sky, constant threat of rain. Still, if it is like this now I guess there is a chance that it will have cleared by next week!

Having just complained about the weather, it did not stop me spending a relaxing couple of hours in the garden, drinking beer and playing a wargame on the garden table - the Duckmen were victorious against the Evil Overlord's army of Orcs, monsters and Demons...

More soon! Hope you had a great weekend and have an equally great week!

Elsewhere...

Hi

My mind is elsewhere at the moment. Just discovered that someone has been unspeakably evil towards me and my family - I can't think of any other words for it.

Not sure where to go from here.

More later when I can think better.

RC

Quacking up...

I have started to sort out some of my old wargames figures. Here is some of my fantasy Duckman army...

Everyone needs a giant hedgehog as a friend...

Next to him is Psyduck who is a truly giant duck in these games...

The Sacred Egg...

The thing on the toadstool was inside a Kinder Egg - the toadstool is made from modelling putty.

A close up ofsome of the Duckmen - these ones are armed with slings while others have swords or pollaxes.



Finally they have a Bard who sings songs as they head into battle - his favourite song is Freebird...

********************

Had a strange dream last night - Mrs RC and I were at a 1970s disco...

"We are family!

I got all my sisters with me!"

The place had it all - huge disco ball, under floor lighting, the works.

We have never been to anything like that as a couple - in fact Mrs RC is sensitive to flashing lights so would have passed out within the first few minutes if it had been real, but that was conveniently forgotten in the dream. We were right in there, doing all those dreadful dances...

What a strange thing to dream!

Shredding...

I inserted another document into the eager mouth of the machine, and felt it take hold, drawing the dry, dusty paper into its maw.

As another piece of old, redundant information was erased from the universe for ever, I could almost feel it dying, slipping away into oblivion.

**********

My fingers danced across the strings, moving with a speed and confidence that was far too fast for my tired brain to control. The stresses of the day flowed from my mind and body, out through my fingertips and into the strings of my beloved guitar. This music came straight from the heart - when I stopped playing I would not remember a single note I had played.

**********

My knife slowly sank in and I cut it's heart clean in two. Then I began to slowly and deliberately slice it into thin strips, each thinner than my little finger. Soon it bore little resemblance to its original form, it was just a mass of small pieces dismembered by my gleaming knife....



"The lettuce is ready!"

The weekend

Well the school play was great fun.

It was a schools version of the stage show We Will Rock You - so we were treated to 90 minutes of Queen songs sung with varying degrees of skill.

My son got his lines in OK - they were nice and simple, being part of interrogation scene - "Who is The Big Bopper?" and "Where are Strawberry Fields?", that sort of thing.

Friday we tried to get some help for one of my older relatives who is going off the rails again - thought things would be OK, but the weekend has been a bit of a nightmare - others are trying to sort things out today. (Update - things are now moving in the right direction for everyone involved,)

By way of light relief, on Sunday I watched some of a video that I had been lent by a "friend". It is a TV series that was shown once in the UK, on Sunday mornings in 1977. You can see the beginning of the first episode on the link below - it gives a good idea of what it is like:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMD5tjf3W9o

Well it gave me a good laugh, anyway!

Well, hope you had a better weekend than I did!

The weekend starts here!

Well, sort of...

Having to take tomorrow off to sort out some stuff.

I had mean to do another vblog tomorrow but that will have to wait now.

Tonight is my youngest son's last school play before he moves up to High School. Not sure what it is all about but he is a Policeman and has a few lines to say. Hope he gets them right. I am sure he will, but hey I'm a parent, you know what they are like...

Have a great weekend!

Sibling Rivalry...

We have a growing rivalry in our house...

Not the kids, no they are OK unless they are playing Wii Tennis or something...

It is Custard the dog and the rabbits.

It started as Custard being a bit jealous of the attention that the rabbits were getting (not that he is really lacking attention) - they get fed about 5 times a day, their run gets cleaned 3-4 times a day (these rabbits could poo for England), and when someone is in their run HE isn't allowed in. He stands by the gate making stupid little noises. When we feed the rabbits Custard wants some too - you should see him trying to eat prickly dandelion leaves!

Do the rabbits care?

Of course not! They look at him through the wire, twitching their noses, not even bothering to thump their feet!

But this morning things took a hilarious turn.

Mrs RC was giving the rabbits some fresh carrots. Custard wanted one, so she gave it to him. He was all proud at first, strutting around with it in his mouth, wagging his tail furiously.

Then he must have got a taste of it. Not so sure now.

He dropped it.

Bubbles, our male rabbit, saw and tried to get to it, but the wire stopped him.

Seeing the threat, Custard picked up the carrot again.

And dropped it again.

This time the carrot rolled, and went under the gate into the rabbit run.

Bubbles was on it in a flash, but stopped when he realised it was covered in dog drool.

So what did he do?

He turned around and peed and pooped on it!

We couldn't believe it! We never knew that rabbits did things like that!

I suspect that Custard will be looking for a way of getting his own back now...

A great start to the day - which is bright and sunny. Today is going to be a good one.

Hope you have a great day!

A dull and dreary day Part 2

Well the sun came out while I was at lunch, and that has perked my up no end!

Cloudy again now, but hey I caught some rays and that is what is important!

And I just realized what it is that has been bringing me down - not the weather at all! Had an odd conversation with someone yesterday and found out something about someone that I wish I hadn't. Must have been sitting at the back niggling. This could make life a little complicated at some point in the future...

Who needs therapy when they can blog?

Anyway...

Lunchtime wasn't very exciting, just a trip to the shops to get my dad some stuff that he is running short of and to top up my Pepsi supply at work - can't get through these hot days without my hit of sugar and caffeine! (It is still around 80F in my office with all the windows wide open). An unexpected bonus was that I had managed to accumulate a bunch of Reward Points which paid for most of it! Wish that happened more often!

Ah well, back to my map - The Map That Will Not Die! I am sure it will look good in the end, but right now it is the equivalent of a room that is half way through having its wallpaper and woodwork stripped and I am standing there thinking "Oh crap, why did I do this?"

A dull and dreary day...

This is the view out of one of our office windows into the central quad of the Uni.

Everything is grey and damp, but at least the rain has stopped for now. The fish are swimming too deep to be seen and even the ducks have flown off to the river for the day!

I guess the plants need the rain, but the sudden loss of sun seems to have dampened my spirits this morning. There is no sparkle, I have lost the urge to take over the world. Indeed, even my current task seems to have reached that point where there is no end in sight. Blah.

Hope the sun comes out later...

The Wall

Hi

Took a stroll along the city wall this lunchtime. Sorry about the "technical difficulties" at the end...

Have a fantastic weekend!

Getting the gang back together

Until a couple of years ago I was part of a group of regular wargamers. Every week we would meet up, play toy soldiers and drink a few beers.

Then things seemed to get "iffy". Attendance became unpredictable, organising things started to feel like a chore - focusing on studying seemed more important. I handed over organisation to someone else and it all fell apart pretty quickly.

But we kept in touch - we have our own Yahoo Group! Yay for technology!

But I have recently started to miss regular games - playing occasional games is OK, but I need a regular fix. So from next week we will be meeting up again, once a month. I think this will give a good balance - regular games but not so often that attending and organising becomes a chore. It will be good to see the old gang again.

A good day...

Today has been one of those days where everything seems to go right.

Woke up with a spring in my step.

Breakfast - bacon on thick toast - yummy!

Got to work at a good speed, in spite of the head wind.

Tackled a really nasty looking job - combining a pair of 18th century maps (different cartographers, different scales, different dates) and creating a new pretty version for a book. By lunchtime I had them aligned with each other.

Went to the local Mexican place for lunch - good solid, tasty food that sorted me out for the afternoon. Told the guy about yesterday's experience and had a good laugh about it. He is a guy who likes his food and made a note to avoid that place in the future.

Stopped off at the guitar shop on the way back to work and tried out one that caught my eye - oh yes, that was a great guitar. A copy of a Gibson Les Paul but this was actually better than a lot of real Gibsons that I have played, and the sound was phenomenal. I think that might be the guitar I go for when Mrs RC gets me my new one...

Back to work - time to create my new version of these old maps.

Now I am generally a modest sort of guy, I don't usually talk about how great I am, but the finished map is nothing short of incredible. I sat back and told myself what a genius I am, they are going to love this one. If they don't I will point out how amazing it is and force them to admit my genius!

Then I will stage a coup and take over the country and save it before this government destroys everything that is dear to me!

Then the world! Yes, I will rule the world and everyone will be so in awe of may amazingness that they will stop fighting and hug each other in gratitude that I have saved them!

And the BP oil leak will stop of its own accord, global climate will revert to its normal balance, and Panda Bears will no longer be endangered.

YES!

Or maybe not. We will see.

Posh Food

Had dinner at one of those posh restaurants today...

The sort that gives you a huge bowl with 3 spoonfuls of soup in it...

Or one good mouthful of pasta...

I sat there thinking...

"I will need to have a Big Mac on the way back to work"...

I started to fantasize about ribs in sauce, pepper steaks, fudgecake...

The whole meal must have been less than 300 calories, including 2 slices of tomato bread...

Managed to resist the Big Mac, but I just had 2 bars of chocolate...

Is this how celebrities get thin?

A week eating like this and I would probably die of starvation...

Next time we plan something like this I will ask about portion size - excuse me, wil the meal provide more calories than it takes to sit and eat it?

RC's guitar workshop

A niece of mine plays guitar - I have taught her on and off, according to her levels of enthusiasm which naturally fluctuate wildly. She is a teenager after all!

Anyway, word got to me that her guitar needed to be restrung. She can't do it herself (her guitar is incredibly fiddly in this way) and the guy at the guitar shop was going to charge her £30 to do it.

No worries, I'll do it!

Sat down with it on Saturday afternoon. Unbolted stuff and removed the old strings.

Started putting on the new strings. Going fine. Ah, one of the tuners is loose - sorted.

Started tuning it up - but no matter what I did it never worded - tuning one string put the rest out.

Then I realised what was happening.

You see her guitar has got a trem system - the bar that you move to make the note go "Wawawawawawawawaaaa" or make a note drop low and up again. This relies on having springs inside to pull the note back to where it started. Her springs were, um, not in a very good way, shall we say. By the look of them she had been practicing "dive-bombing" (i.e. dropping the notes as low as possible). In the end I stripped the springs out of one of my own guitars to fix hers.

Tuning could then resume, and the guitar was as good as new.

With hind sight, the guy at the shop must have known what he was facing! If not, I suspect the bill would have been rather more in the end! Will she notice? Will she thank me? Maybe!

After that, I restrung one of my own guitars (not the one with no springs - must get some more springs on the way home!) and gave it a good clean and polish. As I put it back together I fiddled with the string height to see how low I could get it - the result was incredible! It is now like playing thin air! I love that guitar!

And I might be looking for a new one soon too! Mrs RC says she wants to get me a new one this year! Do I really deserve a woman this great?

Do I?

Go on, say it - you now you want to! :-)

Braaaaiiinnnnzzzzzzzzzssssss.....

Sorry for my absence over the last couple of days!

Woke up on Tuesday with a "bad belly" - spent most of the day in bed sleeping.

Wednesday morning found me with a better belly, but as weak as a kitten, so I stayed off again.

Thursday I was better, but that was already booked off as holiday - well, sort of holiday. Went shopping to get Number One Son a suit (got a mega bargain too, saving around 2/3rds of the original price) and then returned to the bank to be finally declared "Not Deceased". Not Deceased is the same as Undead in my book, so the Zombie title will remain for a while I think! I quite like it...

Well, that about wraps things up for now! I am backing stuff up right now, and I think I need to change DVDs...