Crazy Mofo!!

OK, so I got myself another toy. I finally got myself a kite I can go boarding with when the wind is a bit light. For those that have any idea, it is a Flexifoil Sabre 9.5. That's a 9.5 square metre kite, with a wingspan of over 6m! The first day I got it, took it out, but the wind was really light, and barely got it up.

Anyway, yesterday I decide to go for a quick fly at lunchtime, minus my landboard. I slightly misjudged the wind, and mixed between a few graceful kite assisted jumps I had a couple of wipeouts. One wasn't too bad, got twisted round as the kite lifted me, and landed on my arse. The second one was a right pearler. Not sure how high I was, but my mate says that between takeoff and landing was 30ft, which ended up being a bit of a face plant, followed by a 20-30 ft drag. After checking a few websites, turned out the wind in the area was 20-30 mph!!

Slightly bruised, slightly grass-burnt, but a huge high!! Now can't wait to get it out in a sensible wind with my board!

Hmmm, Time for a new job?

The space industry is rather turbulent, and rather incestuous as well. At the moment it seems like we can't go a week without someone leaving. In the space of two months the team I'm in has going to go from 8 to 6 (three people left/leaving, one joined from another team).

*EDIT*
Realised I never stated why I said incestuous. There really aren't that many space companies around. A fair number of people tend to move between them as and when work appears at those sites due to the rather turbulent nature of the work distribution.
*/EDIT*

Now I'm here on a Friday night, looking at the jobs site of a local space company, contemplating putting in an application for a job or two they have there. I'm torn between a bit of loyalty to the company that has given me a chance that needs me there so they can complete current projects, and possibly a more secure job.

Arghhh!!!!!

(Celebrity) Love Island

OK, I am loving the evilness of this program this year. OK, so Fearne Cotton presenting it was my first draw to it, but the twists that are happenning.

OK, there are 6 girls, and 5 boys. The first this they had to do was "couple" off. This obviously left one girl "rejected" (Sophie Anderton). We've now hit a situation where the single girl has ended up in the love shack, so they've re-coupled off. The girls are getting soo emotional over this rejection thing. It is sooo funny (and yes, I am evil!)

This time Alicia Douvall is the singleton, which in my opinion is OK as she is kinda freaking me out as the ammount of plastic surgery has made her look a bit like a freak! (OK, I am soooo shallow)

Cordelia is dead - Long live Cordelia!!!!

At some point towards the end of my trip to the States, Cordelia died. She's my web, mail and file server, running Linux. Looking at the symptoms, it looked like a hard drive was causing the problem. She'd boot up, start mounting the hard drives, then halfway through a filesystem check (on a 200GB hard drive, takes a bit of time) she'd re-boot. So I bought a new hard drive to replace two that could've been causing the problem.

Anyways, I get back from Becca & Neil's Dr. Who finale night, with the best intentions of cracking on with the transplant, and she's not starting at all. I had a brief flicker of life from her, then nothing. Now the power supply has been a bit dodgy ever since she was my main computer. Sometimes took a bit of a wiggle on the power connector to get her going, but once she was going, she'd be fine. This time, nothing. So, after dropping my car off at the garage, I popped into PC World for a new power supply. Not the most economic place to get one, but at short notice it was the best I could do. Novatech is a 30 mile round trip for me and would've saved me £5.

So now I'm in the process of transplanting her heart, and giving her a go with the old hard drives, see if I can't bring her back to life as she stands.

**UPDATE**

After installing the new power supply, and re-installing all the hard drives, looks like she lives!!!! Ran an fsck on the large drive, only a few errors which were fixed OK.

Finally, a new shiny!!!!

OK, after berating them yesterday, I check the parcelfarce website, and they're holding my package, as they "cannot find the address" (even though it has full postcode, and even Google Maps gan find my place!!). Phone them up, and I'm told "Yes, you can pick it up tonite, here's the store number as well, might make it easier as you didn't recieve the card".

So, on my way to the parental unit's house, I pop to the depot and pick it up. So, I'm now the owner of a Casio Exilim Zoom EX-Z60. Uber-cool tiny shiny!!!

Finally back in the UK

Right, for those that have been wondering where the fuck I have been, I got sent out to Los Alamos, New Mexico for three weeks. This was to babysit a satellite delivery. Now, the place is in the middle of nowhere, has only 2 bars, about 4 reasonable restaurants that close at 9:30, and 40 (yes, forty) churches.

Now I'm back, they need someone to go back out. I returned on the 19th June, and got asked yesterday if I'm willing to fly back out there at less than 24 hours notice. Luckily managed to get out of it.

Parcelforce Sucks

Says it all, but I'll expand a bit. This is the second parcel I've had that is shipped by Parcelforce. Tracking it online, it has finally come up with "Cannot locate addressee", so I phone up the number mentioned on the website, and they have loadsa options for if you've had a card, which I haven't recieved yet.

Anyway, after finally getting past the voice prompt thing, (random pressing of keys) I speak to someone. I then get told that it doesn't appear on the system until after the second attempt, so the parcel I was hoping to pick up tomorrow will be at the earliest Thursday or Friday, and as I'm not here this weekend it is likely to be Monday, unless it gets left at the local post office, which will be on the 15th.

Gaaah, damned antiquated couriers.