Author Archives: Admin

Today I failed to do anything really constructive

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Ended up getting up later than I’d planned due to dozing off and having one of my Saturday morning dodgy dreams. I remember there being lots of naked people but that was about it. Went to Tesco’s, Jamie had failed to give me his shopping list, so has no food.

Came back, walked the dog had lunch. Drove to outside town, parked up. Walked to Maplin, picked up some blank Blu Ray discs, want to archive a couple of bits off the PVR. Walked into town, picked up some new phones for mother. Drove to mothers, installed new phones, listen to her talk about herself for a bit. Came back home and did the accounts. Now I’m not going to have a bath (so no need for wine), will have a shower instead and then cook a curry. Tomorrow I’m sure will be full of excitement. Probably not though.

Today I learnt Kanji (Well not all of them)

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Last night to stop my heart palpitations I drank a considerable quantity of wine and ended up going to bed fairly late. This cure the heart problem, however it did give me a hell of a headache this morning. So this mornings productivity wasn’t particularly high. So I went through a few videos on more course on ‘Kanji’, ended up learning about thirty of them. All useful ones like in/out, stop, including tax and the sort of things you see on signs.

Walked the dog. Came back and did some work, today was mostly on Android stuff, had a lot of loose ends to tie up. Did Body Pump. Came back and did a load more work to make up for this mornings loss. Still have a few more Android things to sort out but it’s getting there. I think I’m going to have a bath now, but for once I’m going to skip the wine. Talking of wine, the brewing is going well. Well the Red is certainly bubbling away, about one big bubble a second. The white however is refusing to bubble at all, it’s fizzing gently in the bucket, but no major gas output. I’ll keep an eye on it.

Now having chest pains, caused by over exercise? No, trying to book a fucking flight online

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So, Jamie’s day off. So I leave him to find a suitable hotel and flight in Japan. By lunch time he’d vaguely got up. I went for a run. I was working this morning on various mobile stuff.

He spent the bulk of the day finding a hotel. In the end he choose the one I told him to chose, at least he felt like he was doing something useful. Then I found a flight, from Bristol. Now started the joy of trying to book it. So started on one site that had the cheapest hotel offer, then looking at one of the comparison sites it also did the flight. So then tried to use the same site to book the hotel and flight, no chance it couldn’t find the flight. So then tried to use the same site but different windows to book the flight and hotel. No chance, couldn’t find the flight. So then booked then hotel. Went to a different site to book the flight, which crashed, several times. By this time my stress levels had sky rocketed and I started to get chest pains. Jamie took over before I had a full blown heart attack. Finally in the end it’s all confirmed. So we are off to Tokyo, yey. It’ll be expensive.

I’m now going to take a shower and take it bloody easy as I’m still not breathing right and I have severe chest pain. If I die, mother gets nothing.

Inu desu

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The day started with taking the dog to daycare at 6:30, followed by a phone call from the cleaners at 8 to say they were coming by 1:30. So started the day fairly promptly and took an early lunch at 12 to go running. So back just in time for the cleaners. They did their thing and I picked the dog back up at 4. So fitted work in between all these stops, mainly involving math and sprite tweaking.

It looks like this years holiday will be in Tokyo, so with my Japanese being as rusty as the Titanic I got hold of one of various online course and gave that a blast. It’s all coming back to me fairly slowly, remembering I spent about three months working there about twenty years ago. I used to be fairly fluent, providing it was a conversion about beer, food or shagging. I could also read a fair amount as at the time Yokohama was fairly notorious about writing all bus and station names in Kanji. Jamie is trying to learn as well, so far he can say he’s American and can’t speak Japanese, so may need some work.

Watched some telly and had a fairly early night. Almost getting the end of the US ‘Celebrity Apprentice’. What will I do without my weekly fix of ‘Donald Trump’. The wine is almost up to temperature, so should start bubbling away soon.

Oh I got an email back from boiler men, apparently they have now applied for the building certificate.

That’s 30 litres of Chardonnay and 5 litres of Shiraz brewing

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Didn’t start the day quite as early as I planned but still felt pretty good. Got straight on with work, some physics to do and then a bit of AI. It was a varied if not entirely productive way work wise (sometimes no matter how hard you try it just goes like that some times). So need to do a bit more on it tomorrow but that will probably be the end of this little project.

Went out for a run (Jamie’s turn to walk the dog). Came back, did some more work, went to the early evening. Then it was a bit of a mass sterilization session. Bottled the Strawberry and added the oak to it, I’ll leave that to sit for a few weeks and see if it needs further sweetening. Then started up 30 litres of Chardonnay (not a cheap one either) and 5 litres of Shiraz (okay, I didn’t break the bank, I’m not a fan of red). Red is brewing, white just needs to come up to temperature before I add the yeast. Then it’s just sit back and wait. And hope this time it doesn’t explode.

That’s pretty much filled my evening, so now I’m going to have a shower and then eat salad and watch crap TV. Avoiding the wine, which is a bit odd as I spent all evening with the bloody stuff. Early start tomorrow, Sasha off to daycare and cleaners are coming. Just need to take out the bins now.

So your new puppy chewed your cardy, thanks for bringing him back to the dogs home

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Got up, it’s a Monday, so never really a good start to the week. Had several coffees then got on with it. Had to do quite a bit of manual fiddling about on the project today. Got it all done in the end though and looking quite nice.

Took the dog out for a walk lunch time. Had a call from a broker to do with medical insurance (I actually contacted them), it looks like what I’m paying now is pretty much on the money. I may get them to try and negotiate a better deal for me though.

Got the boiler receipt through, it’s a word document with no invoice number, but it looks like the stuff they bung out all the time as the other items on it were correct. They charged £350 labour, most plumbers would charge that for a tap washer. I asked again about the building certificate but I think that will fall on deaf ears, I do have a way round that one though, same for the consumer unit.

Got a call to do a house check for a cat. Also asked about a dog that has reappeared on the website. These things do happen, sometimes dogs just don’t settle. I asked why he was returned, apparently it was he chewed on a cardy or something. There was probably a lot more to it, but it does annoy me when a dog gets taken back because it does a bit of chewing or it pulls on it’s lead or barks a bit. It’s a puppy, they are not programmed up from birth to be perfect, you really do have to work on it. If we panic’d every time Sasha did something vaguely wrong we could have taken her back several hundred times by now. It’s a long term commitment folks, you have to work at it, it’s a two way thing.

Went to the gym, did combat, Liz is back, it was fun. Came back, did some more work. Watched some telly, ate salad. Now going to have a reasonably early night and try and start work at a sensible time tomorrow so I can finish at one.

Mostly I stayed in bed and read a book

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So today I didn’t exactly do much. I woke up, had breakfast in the middle of the afternoon, stayed in bed and read a guide book to Japan. It was a very relaxing morning/afternoon. I then did the dog shit run, stocked up the bird table and had some toast.

Finally got round to doing the pfSense upgrade, which is now almost completed, just need to reinstall and set up NUT. Upgraded the server packages, upgraded wordpress and al it’s packages. Upgraded my Ubuntu box. Stuck a bit more filler around the boiler flu. That needs to be sanded now really to see what a full bloody mess I’ve made of it. Ordered some pastry rolling sheet things. Ordered some more wine kits. The strawberry is cleared ready for bottling, so I’ll probably do that when I start the new ones off so I can sterilise all the stuff together.

Then we went out for a meal. Chose a different place from TripAdvisor. An Italian called ‘Di Meo’, which is at the top of Gloucester Road. Looks a bit of a tip from the outside, but a lovely little restaurant. TripAdvisor review done. Here’s my review of the “Lucky Dragon”. Then came back, got into bed again and did some more reading. Think it must be time for a bath, before, mmm, bed I guess.

I wore the nice pants again this moning

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So woke up, put nice pants on. Had a tamper, Jamie then said he smelled and needed a shower. I therefore looked up curry recipes. After his shower we had a pretty good bumming session. I actually got out of breath, I don’t even do that at Combat. Needed to get out as I had a parcel to pick up from the sorting office and time was getting on. He then goes to the bathroom for twenty minutes complaining that I’ve ‘unblocked something’. Well if I knew I was that effective I wouldn’t have bothered spending three hours out in the freezing cold unblocking a drain full of his greasy frying oil and just shagged it instead. Anyway, he surfaced from bathroom and we went to Tesco’s. He then complained that I hurt is arse and that he smelt of ‘cock’. He didn’t complain during the act and kept saying ‘do it harder’, I’ve knocked down walls with less force. We bought a new throw for the couch. Also supplies for bread maker.

I had lunch. He read the instructions for the bread maker. I left him to it and walked into town and visited mother. When I came back he had actually managed to make bread, which tasted pretty good. And left a mess, which he’s also pretty good at.

I did the accounts. And now I’m about to make a pie. Chicken and leek. A bit adventurous. Oh it looks like we are probably going to go to Japan. Very expensive beer. At least I feel quite tall there.

So that’s the last of the fruit cake and chocolates

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Last night I got through the last slice of Christmas cake. Also now finally got through all the chocolates, biscuits, lager and crisps. So it’s just the biscuits for cheese to go, and I’ve got a hell of a lot of them. Will have to buy more cheese though. Beer fridge is now defrosting.

Spent the morning working on the main project, a few online type things. Walked the dog. Ate a salad sandwich. Actually just before I walked the dog I ran the boiler people, no answer just a machine. Then I actually got a call back, apparently he’s been on holiday. Although I expect that now I’ve demanded a full VAT invoice he’s decided to give up trying not to issue one. I won’t go away, I’m very annoying. Anyway, we will see if it turns up.

Tried to watch some sci-fi film last night. Gave up after half an hour, just couldn’t work it out. Will try again tonight.

Spent the afternoon working on mobile concept, added some sound effects and music.

Went to the gym and did pump. Only just finished work, so bath, phone mother, eat pizza and give that film another shot.

I can feel a summons coming on

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Still working on the mobile game. Spent most of the day trying to register an iPhone5 on test flight, it kept telling me it was an iPhone4. Eventually found out that it was because it was restored from a backup. So lots of buggering about later it decided it was in fact an iPhone5. So first version of that concept out, got some feedback, lots of work to do. I’ll start on that tomorrow. Ended up doing a few bits on the main project, again need to do a bit more on that tomorrow.

Went out for a run. Much to the dogs annoyance. She got her walk in the evening, plus we played ‘bombing the ball down the stairs’, which is always popular and knackers her out after ten minutes.

Still no receipt from plumbers. So Saturday I’ll put a formal request for everything in a letter and send that off. If after fourteen days they fail to respond I’ll send one recorded and then issue a summons. I don’t know why people attempt to piss me off, they all fail.

The Strawberry wine is almost there. Added a couple more sachets of something, now need to let it clear, then siphon it off. Then add something else, bottle it and wait another bloody four weeks. The White wine still seems to taste a bit shit to me.

New flash card arrived and USB reader, I shoved it in the Ubuntu box and it read it fine. So now transferring the latest pfSense image to it, will then try and mount it and copy the config across. Then at the weekend I’ll put the new card in and see what it does. I’m not going to bother putting gag on it this time as that seems to interfere with the automatic upgrade process. I’ll wait until I have a stable image before doing that again. I never updated the MAC address for the network card on the UPS script anyway. They are pretty low power now so the UPS can run for them for quite a while, so I’m not going to worry about it for the moment.

Need to pick Jamie up from the station at midnight. Oh joy.