Life

Jul 2 2007

Silent and deadly

It looks as if the roadworks at the top-end of Milton Road are finally complete… the net result seeming to be that where previously there was a lane for traffic headed for Cowley Road, the Business Park, and the Park and Ride and a lane for heading into town, there is instead now but a single lane for all of this traffic. The dual-carriageway to the Science Park seems as unused as ever (I’ve never seen more than three vehicles between both lanes) – but now the queues down that single lane which carry all of the other traffic are enormous. By 10am each day, the queues go right back to the roundabout, so goodness only knows how bad it must be at 9am.

More to the point, it’s downright dangerous: this insane road layout encourages, almost ensures, that people will drive straight down the (empty) left-most Science Park lane, and then try to cut back into the traffic stream between two sets of lights. I guarantee that this will cause an accident sooner rather than later.

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Mar 9 2007

Rooms for rent!

Despite looking (quite literally) as if a bomb has hit it, my house continues to progress nicely. I think we’re about at the point now where everything really starts coming together fast: the new kitchen has arrived and is going to be fitted over the next couple of weeks, the bathroom now has the toilet and basin fitted and only needs tiling, painting, and the glass-block wall between the show and sunken bath building – and once they’re out of the way I’ll be able to move back in. Hurrah!

(At which point I’ll also be able to start walking to work again, which – given the blazing sunnt spring days we’ve been having recently – should be lovely)

I’ve placed adverts for the rooms at Gum Tree and on the Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board, and the response has been great! I’ve had several people come around to take a look, and I’m now just waiting to hear back for ⅔ to have already gone!

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Feb 23 2007

krunckle-crunch whump

The back-box and exhaust pipe fell off my car on the way to work this morning… it’s obviously not going to be my day <sigh>

(I think the driver behind me was surprised, though!)

In other news, the renovations on my house continue apace: The kitchen wall is down, the plaster has been removed from external ground-floor rooms to a height of 1m, and the electricians are about ready to kill the carpenters for making too much noise!

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Dec 8 2006

Moving house!

Well, my home is currently slowly being packed up, ready for moving on Monday (11th December) to my new, bigger, place closer in to Cambridge.

Scary stuff 😉

This does mean that I’m going to be off-line from about now until as long as it takes to arrange ADSL at the new place… admittedly, that means that most readers will see this message after the fact – but at least the RSS feed will get it, and even Google might catch it in time(!)

(Yes, I really should mirror this site to a backup server… or even just relocate artoo, this machine, into my employer’s datacentre on a spare external IP address, if they’d let me)

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Aug 8 2006

spásh∂l lít'∂r-∂-sé

There’s a great website at Spatial Literacy where such things as the distribution of surnames or internet usage by postcode can be looked-up.

 

(And take a guess at how many people, out of an office of 11 working in the High-Tech industry, were able to spell this URL right first time…

 

… and guess how many different variations of the word “spatial” there were :))

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Jul 5 2006

Usability guidelines

Carole: “Those headphones can be a pain in the arse!”
Richard: “If they’re a pain in the arse, Carole, you’re probably not wearing them in the right place”
…
Carole: “Glasses can be a pain in the arse too…”
Richard: “I refer you to my previous comment about headphones!“

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Jun 19 2006

Weekend in Manchester

On Saturday morning I drove up to Manchester with my younger brother Gareth, where we met up with my parents (who’d also driven from Cambridge) and my brother Peter and Heather (down from Chorley) at the Marriott Worsley Park Hotel and Country Club. Whilst Dad, Peter, and Gareth “played golf” (read: “lost lots of golf balls to overgrown areas and water traps”) everyone else walked around the grounds.

 

To be honest, I’ve never really been one for golf. To illustrate one of my major bugbears: After having paid for the game, some little Hitler decided that Gareth’s shoes weren’t suitable (flat bottomed trainers, unsuitable?); that his shorts were too long and had a stripe down the sides(?); and wouldn’t let him play without getting changed. This is despite clearly being with Peter and my Dad, who were kitted out, to a large degree, with “proper” golfing gear. To me this is, in a nutshell, exactly what is wrong with golf. “A good walk ruined“, indeed.

 

Later that evening we had a wonderful gormet meal to celebrate the May Gurney share issue, and the following morning we all used the hotel’s swimming pool. For me, this was a revelation, since it’s the first time I’ve been to a pool since I had Laser Surgery on my eyes (about 3 weeks ago now) – and so it’s the first time in probably a decade that I’ve been able to see in a pool without needing glasses! The Sauna and Steam Room were a bit much for me, though – they made my eyes feel prickly, so I left pretty much as soon as I came through the door 😉

 

Needless to say, a fantastic time was had by all (even if Gareth was understandably a little put out during his golfing).

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