Fantastic week, fun, booze, sore fingers and sore toes!

Just back from my really fun week in the South West of France care of The Acoustic Guitarist Holiday

I had a really great week, lots of fun, really fantastic students who all gelled together really well and made the days fly by. Great home cooked food, prepared by Chris and Jenny Trotter (with help from Alice) who run the events and really calm and sensible teaching from Richard Perkins who managed to avoid laughing at some of our worst effots through the week.

Skill levels varied, Mike, Glen and Gunther showed some genuine impressive (ie I was drooling) skills at times which made me wonder why they were there, but even they found some of the work challenging. Paula, Danae, Dave and myself kept them on their toes though (bwhaha)

I was genuinly good fun, helped along by some really fantastic weather and a constant desire to play and play and play...oh and eat...ermm and drink. We did shift a fair amount of booze, my liver will need to go on its own holiday soon I think to recover.

A few lows though, I almost broke my toe dropping a false drawer front on it...that left me hobbling for a few days.(pics below)

I was also pretty crap during my final performance to video piece (a jazzy version of Amazing Grace), I'm sure Richard can edit it to get 20 seconds of decent playing but I have done better, I am going to practice a bit more then post a proper recording on here, but am sure my crap efforts will be on show on Richards link soon

I also got a bit ill on Friday night/Sat morning, not sure why, but was up at 1.30am scrambling around in pitch dark (stubbing my already briused toe) trying to find a big white telephone to call Hugh on...fortunatly I found it just in time..something didn't agree with me, and its better out that in...more than likely waaaay too much free vino. I was fine in the morning, and had a really nice Braised Ham dinner in a service station on the way back, lets hope it stays down...so far so good.

I didn't really take a lot of pics, since they take a lot of pics for the blog anyway, but I have no idea who that fat bastard is wearing my clothes and playing my guitar on most of the pics. But what I did take are posted below.

Overall I feel this was one of the best things I've done, guitar wise it was challenging at times and I didn't really enjoy having to learn masses of strange Gypsy Jazz chords, its not really my thing though the others enjoyed it, but I have been inspired to make more effort to learn them and move forward.

The pieces we were given struck just the right balance of difficulty, though in such a short space of time I didn't really get them all worked out as well as I would want, but will do at home after a good nights sleep and a bum rub (sadly solo...) after the 9 hour drive back.

Working with other guitarists at varying levels was also incredibly good fun, I really need to make more effort to play with others and bounce things off people, that alone was worth it.

I hope to keep in touch with everyone, I have to send a few tabs to people, hopefully going to go back again later in the year for the electric course where I will take Lucille for an outing, and perhaps have a bit more skill to show so that I don't fluff my performance bit.





pretty....the rural setting had lots and lots of lovley insect and birdlife,



My Battered Toe....

And again.....not the best pic but I want to emphisise, hey..that hurt!!!


Can you see it?


just missed

there he is, there were loads of these Gecko like lizards around.



And at last a proper pic.

Getting quite used to the camera now isn't he...



1st up the ladies do their version of Turn the Page with Richard singing.

The rest look on and wait.


Dave gets some backing..



Can you see it?? Yup thats as close as I got to the Eifel Tower...though Paris Traffic seems to be pretty busy for miles outside





There are many many more pics over on Richards blog of the course

And now time for a sausage buttie and a bit of practice.
Ahthankyew

Parteeeeee

After class yesterday we all went to the local micro brewery to sample some of their delights, not being a beer lover I opted for some local whiskey which was really nice after the initial rawness...We all had a few snifters and loosened up. I bought a few bottles of the "scotch" aged in Pinot barrels to take home.

The alcohol theme was continued as we came back for our evening meal (more alcohol) and in true drunken group of guitarists style, we ended up singing (even me a bit) and playing with a few strange dancing efforts to boot. ( I did however thankfuly refrain from any dad dancing and stayed firmly in my chair)

All in all a good night was had.


Today is the last day, with a final "performance" evening tonight, which we'll have to try to stay sober for.


Ahthankyew

Sunny French Villa's

A few pics of our farm accomodation.

Very nice weather is continuing and we even managed to eat out in the sun last night, though as it went down it got quite chilly and we had to use our wood burning stove in the cottage.

today has been a challenging day, doing some strange jazz chords which I am totally unfamiliar and we haved a jazzified version of Amazing Grace to learn for this evening.

Most of the others have gone into Cognac to have a look around, but I prefered to stay and catch up on some work during the down time before practicing my Amazing Grace again.

Bina is off to the UK today so hopefully she will be bringing back a stock of pies on her return (yum yum hint hint)

Off to follow up some student emails...... A Beintot...or something.











Ahthankyew

Hic Strum Hic

The travel down to the "south" of France was of course quite long but fairly uneventful I am happy to say, though I was totally shocked by the cost of the toll roads, I had to take 3 toll roads and in total was charged around 50 euros...one way!! Thats kinda steep, I had loads of change in my pockets expecting it to be 3-4 euro's a time it never occured to me it would be 15,22 and 23 euros....seriously thats absurd.

I've settled into my weeks intensive guitar course/holiday. I'm in a group of 7 "students" mostly my age or older, a few who are better than me and a few not so good so I am able to pair up with the better ones to get a challenge and show off to the not so good ones :D Nah really its quite handy being able to alternate your playing with people of different abilities.
I am sharing a farm cottage with 3 others, making 2 men 2 women (and only 1 shower so no wandering around with my dangly bits out), with another group of 3 in another cottage

The Cottages are really cool and calm, though the bedrooms have wooden floors so they are incredibly noisy. I'm sharing with Gúnter, nice Austro/German chap, who snores...sadly our beds are too far away for me to elbow him or give him a cuddle to persuade him to roll over, which works great for Bina...maybe just as well!

The wine, fresh French country air (we are in the middle of nowhere I have to say the night sky is incredible) and 1st night travel tirednes have so far ensured I've been pretty tired and gone to sleep regardless of the snoring....that may change at the end of the week :D

Richard the tutor keeps a blog of the course activites, and there's a few pics of some strange long haired pasty fat bloke that keep popping up..

The weather is fantastic, wonderful sunshine so its a good job I brought some sun cream, though I did forget a few important things, like a stand for my Breedlove which has now picked up its first scratch from being laid down on the floor..oh well, its only the 1st 1 that hurts.

Playing is improving already, I've found my timing getting better and we're all enjoying playing some reasonably complex tunes properly. My fingers are aching though, and I am also limping after dropping a fake drawer front on my toe this morning..ouch.

Internet and phone connections are a little ropey so I better get this uploaded while I can, and go catch up on some work I need to do while I am away this week.

Missing everyone at home, I think Bina would LOVE this place, you have to come for the sax course, though they do admit its possible a little advanced, they may consider doing a beginners course sometime.



Working hard...



Ahthankyew

Haw he haw he haw!

I am off to France tomorrow for a Guitar Holiday...nope, I never knew such things existed either! Its a weeks intensive guitar tution with a small group of like minded nutters who spend the days twanging strings, drinking wine and drinking wine, there may also be some wine drinking involved.

Its run by a company called Creative Vacences and I am hoping to attend another course later in the year, perhaps even get Bina to go to one of their Sax courses (I said Sax!)

I'm really looking forward to this, at the vast age of 47 I am about to go on my first ever holiday alone......ermmmm....yeah...how does that work? Who's going to make sure I packed my underwear?

Nah its cool, Bina is heading off to the UK next week with Jodie and I don't really want to spend time in England(though it would be lovely to see you mum, I think you get fed up with me after 20mins!!!) so the timing of this is nice.

I've not got any work to do, so there's no problem with me taking a week "off", though I do need to keep in touch via email, there's no need to go to the office so I can head off to France and have fun while doing a bit of lecture prep in the evenings over a class of wine....I love my job!!!!

I should have internet access there, so will post updates if I can. Its a long drive though, 8 hours accoring to the sat nav, so more like 10/11 allowing for stops to eat and stuff.

Since its an acoustic course I'll take my Breedlove AC25/SR+ with me, and also my Ovation VXT for a bit of extra silent late night noodling. Also taking my G-Dec amp and of course my Ipad for Amplitube fun with headphones.

If I have any fingers left at the end of this, and I've been damaging my hands all week in the run up to this, so who knows what is going to happen when I am there, there may be some recordings to come up...watch this space.











Ahthankyew

Breaking nails

I have got pink nail varnish on my thumbnail..I feel like a plonker...but I had to take emergency repair action when the nail on my thumb...which is quite long for guitar playing purposes, snapped almost clean off at the top of my thumb, 3/4's of its width hanging off...this a few days after I cracked another nail further down the nail bed but its stable.

Since I need that nail next week when I am off for a weeks intensive guitar lessons I had to take drastic action...Superglue to hold it down..fortunately there was a nice clean ledge to put the nail back, and, nail varnish on top to support it.

All I could find in this house of women was pink sparkly stuff...well there was a bright red hussy shade..and I am not that kind of boy.

So...for the moment at least I have a pink thumbnail...very fetching, I'm sure the ladies can provide some clear version in due course.

But the glue seems to have worked, we'll have to see if it holds up to full playing on the day..I'll take a thumbpick with me just in case.




Ahthankyew

More Pride

All ready for the Prom....

all grown up now...still 'orrible at times but how things change in 2 years.




Ahthankyew

Pride :)

My Students :D

Ahthankyew

Bug Crushing fun

A simple and frankly obvious thing I tell my students all the time, is not to fixate too much on a bug being something you think it is..It may indeed be something totally different elsewhere causing a problem.

I've had such a bug myself, for quite some time now I've been trying to prevent a random speedup in the control system of my game which caused the main character to fly off screen when exiting rising or falling water. (It'll make sense later when you know the game.)

But try as a might, I could not work out exactly why the damn thing would sometimes fly off wildly at speed losing sync with the control system that keeps the character in a block range for collision checks.

So of course it had to be in the move routines...it had to be....or in the water routines....or in the key press readers, or or or

I hunted and hunted for this bug in all sorts of places, convinced it was something really complex that needed lots of hacking exception code to correct.

Well of course, it wasn't it was in the end blindingly obvious, I was using a flag to change between speeds and the fault was that I was doing it without checking if I was wholely on a block before altering speed, which meant the co-ord position of the character could bounce off a block and never get to check for a valid collision point..result...sometimes it flew of screen unable to detect the edge boundry blocks.

Ok not a blindingly obvious explination but the main point being I need to practice what I preach.... I will of course tell my students that I can be a bit of a dick sometimes...though not as often as they :).

On the upside a long standing and very demoralising bug has finally been crushed...onward.

Ahthankyew

My face is melting

Bina and Jodie, brought back a few jars of Nando's piri piri sauce when she was last over.

We LOVE Nando's but they don't have them here so making our own was an exciting option.

Since my surgery and radiotherapy last year though, I have not really been able to eat anything too hot or spicey, which is upsetting, I was and will always be a Vindaloo and Extra hot Nando's lover, but I am going to have to give my mouth a few years to toughen up before I can indulge again.

So what they brought back was Medium

Medium, ie, a bit hot but not painful.

Its a LIE...Nando's medium cooking sauce is actually molten capsicum in pure form and when added to chicken and cooked results in an experience which is something like sucking on a red hot glowing poker which then turns to lava in your mouth.

Medium.....I used to eat raw chillies, I once had the staff at a resteraunt peer out the door watching me eat a chicken phal (granted with severl gallon sized jugs of ice water), and I used to get Bina's mum to put extra chillies in her curries.

Medium....is now too hot for me, how the mighty have fallen.

sigh



Ahthankyew

Movie nights rock!!

Had the 1st movie night with the new wired system, what a picture! Everything works perfectly on the movie side and I got a fantastic Hi-def DVD image that is totally cinema quality.
The TV output still gives a pink picture from time to time that needs a singal reset to fix (unplug the cable basically) but other than that its 1000% better and I will be junking those wireless links now. I'll try setting up the cable direct into the projector rather than via a repeater to see if it fixes it....assuming the cable is long enough...it seems to be.

Also it was payday yesterday..yeahhh, though that was slightly tempered by the end of month totting up process which showed I'd gone a bit overboard this month on Home Cinema and guitar bits and bobs...going to be a rather austere month next month. No takaways.

Its been fantastic weather all week, but would you belive, we are going to a BBQ later and today the weather is dull and overcast, probably going to rain!
Bahh!

Ahthankyew

Wooooooooohhhh

This


+ This



+This




==
All kinds of awesome


(ps it also gets a lot of "turn that down" requests)

Ahthankyew

Cables == Quality

Cables finally arrived and I got everything hooked up. There were a couple of niggles due to the remote system for the HD switch/splitter using the same IR signals as the TV systems display settings causing great fun as it set up screen modes that netiher display could support!!

But its sorted now...HD quality images now being projected from the DVD player in 720p, using a scart upscaler, and the Freesat box sending direct to the switch.
And with the press of a button (can't use the remote) I can send the images to the projector or the TV in glorious 720p Hi Def.

I do get an occasional "pink" screen on the TV, when going from an HD channel to a standard def channel though, easy fixed by switching channels a few times but still...The coder in me does not like to see an obvious bug, but 99% functional is still pretty good, and the picture quality, with no signal loss or wavy lines is brilliant. I will see if I can shorten the HDMI cable and avoid using an extender, which may be part of the problem, but really its not such a big issue.

Movie nights will be a lot more fun with no microwave interference or image drop at random intervals.

Awesomeness.



Ahthankyew

Card Fraud Resolved

yeaaahhh

Card frauds have been refunded and a new account set up. Only got 1 of the sneeky auto renews refunded though, but the major £2,300+ fraud has all been refunded with the interest charges that went along with it.

Normality can now return.


Ahthankyew

Frustrations...its all a matter of scale

Little bit pissed off that some ebay stuff I ordered to finish off the wiring in the play room have still not arrived. I can probably find a 20m HDMI cable at a store here but it would be expensive...and of course as soon as I buy it, the one on order will turn up...its a bit like getting in the bath when you are expecting a delivery..they always arrive just as you settle in (in fact its a cosmic law..try it if you need your package to arrive quicker, just run a bath)

Its all I need to finish up the media systems and get a big improvement over the current wireless systesm but its going to have to wait till the cables arrive...frustration.


Other frustrations in life are harder to cope with, bad tempered brothers for example, I won't go on about the specifics but it seems both my brothers are now not talking to me. Well I have to say in both cases I really can't be arsed to argue with them, they're being dicks and I'm not interested in saying otherwise just to make them happy. Face book defriending is just a tad on the sad side for a couple of so called adults in their 40's. Very modern though, and I suppse more civilised that storming out of the pub.

When peoples 1st reaction to some percieved offence is anger and insistance on their viewpoint being the only one to be heard then there's something seriously wrong with your reasoning. I have long since given up the desire to go along with things just for a quiet life. I'm happy to listen to and acceptn anyones view point, but I won't be forced to share yours. Get over yourselves. Frustrating.

Other frustrations are on a global scale, the idiocy of governments and politicians is staggering, Libya is now the cause de jour, when similar issues are around in Saudi, Bahrain, Yemen, but choose the easy options why don't you! Frustrating

When is the UN actually going to stop pandering to political heavy weights and try to make the bloody PLANET a safe place for all of us. Too many dictators and too many powerful interest groups taking priority over basic human needs. Frustratung

Comic relief was on in the UK last week, as always showing pictures of terrible suffering in Africa...in the 21st fucking century we still have babies dying of malnutrition!!!! Frustrating.
Lets not even start on the people of Norhern Japan, that particual bit of realisation we are all human and subject to natures whims, has been skillfully wiped away in the news. Frustrating.

And then to round it off, on Facebook recently I've seen a couple of people stating that cancer is curable and its only the governments and drug companies that are stopping easy cures from being made available so they can make money....shiiit...On every level this is nuts...If it were true.....it's too horrible to comment on, and if not....how can people belive such nonsense?? Conspiricy theories are probably the most frustrating, they're like religions, people want to belive in something and refuse to see the simple logic that shows how wrong they are.

Crazy world ...really crazy world..

And I am sat here working on a game project I am dabbling in, trying to get a monkey to create a splash when it enters a rising water level......surreal.
And it wont' work....frustrating.









Ahthankyew

Self imposed exile for 30 mins

Bina and Jodie are watching something called a Gok on Channel 4??

I felt my IQ dwindling the more I stared at it and decided it was best to retreat to the office for 30 mins or so of string twanging.

hmmm I never noticed before that this shirt just does not go with these shoes!!!!


Ahthankyew

Working at home

Peoples perception of what you do when working at home is kinda strange..There's an underlying belief that you're not doing anything, because you are taking a break watching TV, or playing a bit of guitar or walking the dog or whatever...so you might as well catch up on some household chores.

Fact is though I am rather busy, though I can and do have many nice breaks, I am working on a couple of important presentations, learning more about networking for next block, going through the PS3 SDK, fixing some bugs in our school developed project, looking at some students submissions for retakes and generally keeping just about on top of the admin I need to do were I working at the office.

So, I'll get to hanging those curtains and using the leaf blower on the garden just as soon as I've done the day job stuff.


Whew....need a break now.


Ahthankyew

After a bit of a tidy

So now we get a better idea of the space we have in the upstairs room

Bina working in her corner.


Guitar corner



Media and clothes drying corner :D



Ahthankyew

The Play Room MkIII

So 1st up some Guitars on the walls ;) Its a bit crowded in there but thats just becuase I've shoved everything in the corner while I do the work.



Before the TV got moved, Lucille,PRS EG-3, Gibson SG and Fender Telecaster.




Fender Strat and a PRS EG-3 super strat. Surprisingly similar, but stunningly different to play.



Then we have the blank wall which is about to be transformed

The Hardest wall in the universe, the top left corner hit a steel support so I had to drill over to the Right a bit.




Frame up



And stick the 50" generation #2 LCD beast up....took some lifting.







Projector source, the projector itself is out in the hall and we have a hole in the wall to beam through. Once I've papered that new wall I'll put a glass frame up there to seal out the noise totally.



And the screen drops in front of the TV



Hooked up and ready?


Now at this point I hit a snag....I discovered that the brackets holding it up were obstructing the input sockets on the back...so I had to take it off again, move the brackets up and install the cables on the TV then reset it.




Piping TV to the Projector ITVHD looks pretty cool, cables tidied up and ready



Electrics are not 100% yer, I'm still using the wireless feed to send the images to the projector, but we have an HDMI switch box and cables on the way via ebay to finalse everything.

TV, Satbox and DVD all route sound through the Home Theatre's Dolby 5.1 and I can also add a PC to it if I choose...not sure I'll bother tbh, but maybe..we do need a central printer server in the house.

Monumental tidy up is halfway done now, just having a wee rest putting this up.



Ahthankyew

And the final few bits

Literally, I had to go buy a 10mm masonary bit..and while I was there, some heavy brackets, some hooks, nuts and S hooks to hang the Projector Screen which arrived yesterday.

The TV mount turned up this morning, so I decided to get to it and try to get it all done before Bina arrived back from her overnight UK shopping trip (where she bought me a sweet minature version of Stevie, (unknown to her I had also ordered one on ebay..but ah well her's is nicer))...I didn't quite manage it, since drilling holes in the wall of this house is only marginally harder than trying to cut diamonds.

It took ages to drill the holes to mount the TV frame, and on 1 of them I actually hit a steel girder so had to drill another hole, but eventually the mount went up...TV fitted and a few leveling adjustments later..We had a TV mounted on the wall.

Now the fun bit, the 10 ft long projector screen...again more drilling to get the brackets in place, each hole took nearly 15 mins to drill, and the drill bit came loose a few times from the pressure and was seriously hot. But eventually 4 new holes in place.

Brackets mounted, hooks in place, s-hooks on the screen mounts and hup she goes....
bit of fiddling to get the height right, bit more to get the drop to the right place, bit more to get the retraction right, a small interuption to the process to fix some food for a returned and hungry Bina and eventually we have it up...it looks awesome...I'll post some pics I took on my phone when I locate my little dongle thing for putting the pics on my PC.

After my mild panic about the TV not having an HDMI and discovering it did, I realised as I was checking things out, that the Home Cinema system did not have an HDMI out...doh!!!
So (hopefully) final purchase to the Home Cinema upgrade bill is a Scart to HDMI upscaler...which is quite cool since it means we can also use the Wii on the projector now, was not going to be possible before.

A long hard day...drilling, lifting, screwing, adjusting and tomorrow clearing up...but worth it.

Pics to follow soon.





Ahthankyew

Holy CRAP!!

Stevie arrived today, all nicely packed and safe in a nice sturdy box.

Opened it up, took her out of her Fender bag and there was a pristine Fender Stratocaster, only 2 tiny blemishes on her top edge under the arm which can polish out though they really can't be seen.

Tuned up with what looks like a new set of 10's on her, she has a lovley low action, perhaps a tad too low on the bottom E, as theres a tiny buzz if hit hard, but easy to resolve.

Feels like a near perfect set up Stratocaster.

Plugged into my amplitube amp on IPad, she sounds impressive...select a clean setting, turn up the tone and...

O.M.G.

Those Texas specials are utterly utterly amazing.


This is a stunning guitar, just stunning, depite being a fan made copy of a very pricey custom guitar this has had love and money spent on it and it shows.

The sounds this thing makes are.....oh wow. It blows my much more expensive Suhr equiped Fender Strat Deluxe out of the water in terms of crunchy hot blues tone.

Quite possibly the best, and I mean THE best 200 quid I have ever spent.


Ahthankyew

and..

And HDMI repeater/connector!!

I'm sure other odds and ends will crop up..
I had a mild panic this morning when I realised I had not checked if the Samsung had an HDMI connector, after all it is an older model we brought over from the UK and is about 5 years old now, but its ok it has a port so Plan B still seems plausable.

Out of curiosity I was looking to see how much projectors are now...They have certainly dropped in price, can't remember exactly how much mine was at the time 2nd hand but it was a few hundred, now you can pick up HDMI capable projectors for under 200, even 150. Must be quite a boom in home theatres to generate that much competition.
A lot of them are cheap rubbish though, and I don't plan to change mine for some time as its a cracker. But good to know when it does pack in I can replace it for what by then will be the price of a computer game rather than a guitar.

Carnival time here in Breda, lots of happy people in silly costumes wandering around..I like the spectacle of it all but not so much the participation, try to push through lines of nuns, popes, teddy bears and smurfs to get to the bar to be overcharged for drinks that now need to be paid with tokens gets a bit tedious...it'll be back to normal in a day or 2, just the smurfs to contend with...at least those who bought their paint from Halfords ;)



Ahthankyew

The cost of fun and games.

Spring Break is upon us, so I have a week off and aside from guitar (of course) I am finally catching up on the odd jobs that need doing.

The satellite systems are now firmly tucked away in their respective cubby holes and the TV unit in the lounge is now benefiting from invisible cables and dual sat inputs for full functons. So we have UK TV, Dutch TV and Dutch Cable TV...not that we watch much Dutch Cable TV...its pretty strange.

Next job is the Play Room. We enjoy movie nights and at the moment we're using our hi def widescreen projector to play movies on the wall, its ok but its not perfect.

I've currently set up the TV and DVD system using a wireless system but its not totally stable and we do get signal loss, as well as having to manually plug cables in or switch things off when not used, plus the wall is not really white or smooth enough to get the best pics. And we have a dirty great big Samsung TV up there not being used.

So...plan B... The Samsung is going on the wall, and a projector screen will give us better pics..but its a bit of a chore setting up HDMI cables when you want to use the projector and the TV...Lucky for me ebay is the providor of all things.

Wall mount for the Samsung
20m HDMI cable.
4x2 HDMI auto switch, lets me plug 4 things in, then choose where the images are sent to.
110" Glass bead remote electric screen.

When its all done, we should be able to plug in the Home theatre and Freesat system and choose to watch on TV or big screen. AND we can pick up an PS3 and Xbox for games too...maybe a PC...

Thing is, man these things are pricey, you need to factor in stuff like this when you want to do that kind of system...But it'll be worth it. I'll try to put some woodchip up on the new walls we had added just to finish it all off. I'll post some pics when done.


Ahthankyew

Wood!!

Just won this for 200 quid on Ebay, £200 for a genuine Fender!!!! Ok ok not a genuine SRV, its actually a modified Mexican Fender Deluxe,which is still a very nice guitar, the owner has addedgenuine SRV scratchplate and hot texas pups which are expensive on their own...the stickers are fake but he was of course quite open about that.
200quid!!!! I fucking love Ebay.
Of course it going to be called Stevie, and I'll fit her with heavy strings and keep her tuned down in SRV mode.

omg 200quid!!! I do hope the seller does not back out on it...I'd be very upset having to let it go at that price but it just didn't appeal to the die hard SRV fans who wanted a genuine SRV (£1.5K) or nothing. Me I just like the idea of another quality guitar that someone has spent some time and loving on....ermmm well figurativly speaking..I hope!!


:D Happiness is an ebay bargain, never mind those damn cigars!!

Ahthankyew

aches and pains

I've not really done a lot of heavy physical activity the last year so its no surprise to find that when I do some I pay the price.

Helping my friend Martin move his gear from his apartment to his new house involved a lot of lifting and today I ache....ahhhh yes...the memories of physical labour...now I remember why I became a game programmer.


Ahthankyew

sigh

Though my paranioa was reduced by them sending pics and demonstrating it was in fact a genuine item, I decided to set a low limit on bidding which it eventually exceeded. Its not a bargain if you end up paying full price after all.

Besides we've just had a big rates bill in so better focus on household bills with the spare cash this month.

Was a lovley thing though.....there will be others!!




Ahthankyew

hmmm hmmm hmmm

My Paranoia about the 0 feedback seller is much reduced, they have indeed sent me an image of the actual beastie and willing to send more, so it is genuine...might actually be something of a steal since their 0 feedback status will put people off....
Going to see how this plays out..might end up with a total bargain here.



Ahthankyew

grrrr

Didn't get the LC Les Paul, came close though and am hoping I get a 2nd chance offer if the winner backs out, as they often do on ebay....otherwise its not going to happen this time round. I'm just not confident that other one is genuine. Not to worry, going to get the Mighty Dark Fire up and running again soon its probably able to do a pretty mean PG impression with the right set up.

Not much else to report really, am up late due to a couple of very long sleep ins disrupting my sleep pattern, an early morning tomorrow will kick that back into sync.

Feeling good though, about life in general, happy pills doing their job quite well, and things in general not being quite so stressed. Finished my mountain, and I do mean a mountain of marking, which means aside from 1 lecture I have to give this week I basically have 2 months to please myself, working on a new PS3 course I want to present next year.

I am even getting close to having a proper yawn for the 1st time since last April. Here's hoping I manage it before I celebrate the anniversary of the surgery that stopped me yawning.



Ahthankyew

hmmmm and hmmm again

Another dodgy rare Gibbo here A converted LP Faded Standard by CV Guitars.

0 feedback seller, who is happy to answer questions about delivery but not so happy to respond to mails asking for pics...and the pics there are from the CV guitars site lifted direct...you'd think if you are going to sell something worth 1500-2K you would put some original pics up and respond to requests...All a bit suss.

There's another genuine one on ebay though which I am going to have a bid on, Peter Green is one of my idols and his tone is almost impossible to recreate without a modified Gibson '59 standard, which PG used then later gave/sold to Gary Moore who made full use of it, I'd love to have one...only they cost about $1M now...gulp

The CV mod versions though are incredibly close to the '59's and are collectors guitars in their own right which are growing in value. So I am on a mission to buy the 1st one I can afford, even if I have to flog a couple of my other Gibsons to do it.

Now where did I put my camera, I got some guitars to put on ebay, need to make space for some new arrivals.

Ahthankyew

Small upgrade to the TV system

HiDef TV is cool, but our system was a little basic, so I invested in a nice Humax PVR system, better menu controls and most importantly the ability to record things...so never miss an episode of Corrie or Top Gear again ;)
The replaced box can now go upstairs in the projector room...awesome ;)


Ahthankyew

yup

uhhh man, daytime Tv on ITV.....its a mind fuck!!

I normally keep away from it, but at least BBC's daytime stuff is mildly interesting and easy to walk away from, ITV has Jeremy Kyle and This Morning.....OMG

terrible terrible...excuse me, must go Phil and Hollie are interviewing some fashion thing

Ahthankyew

Is UK TV still shit?

We'll find out soon, I got the new quad LNB dish up on the roof, after drilling yet more new fixing mounts which cracked the bricks so I'll be buying a few more re-enforcment bricks, but its up, its connected the the tuner and we got a good signal and quality, so just wait 30-40 mins for the scan to finish and we should have UK tv again.

just in time for the next series of X factor or Britains got Talent or or..

Ohhh Corrie :)


ok we're up and running...yeahhhhhhhh :D Bring on the Rovers Return japes.
Ahthankyew

Dim Distant Memories

Though I had been a freelance and had my own small company for a while, my 1st real job as a programmer was at the (then) mighty Ocean Software, here's a group pic of the bunch of reprobates who made pretty much everything, over shadowed by the supreme overlords.


Quite a trip down memory lane,just over my right shoulder is Joffa Smith, who was a total hero of mine, he died last year and seeing this brought back many happy memories of the times we had showing off our code...well he showed off his code to me, I was never in his league but was always grateful for the tips.

Ahthankyew

So True

click on image for full picture

I've been here a few times



Ahthankyew

Well duh!

Up to now I've really liked working with Windows 7, its fast,easy and has not given me any issues at all. But becuase I have a fairly small SSD drive on my C: boot, I have to be careful not to put to much stuff on there...
Last night I ran out of room..ho hum, time to move thngs around, then I noticed an option to compress the drive..Given its an SSD this would not cause any signigicant delays, indeed it could even speed things up, so I checked it....off it went...and promptly complained that it couldn't continue because some files were in use..grrr

ok fine, back to cleanup and so on...After which my Itunes got a bit stressed out becuase I moved its directory which I then replaced and had to do a reset...

ok.....then I get... BOOTMGR is compressed. press ALT-CTR-Delete to reset

arrghhhhhhhh stupid...why compress a file you can't uncompress to boot up.
Its now dead in the water unable to progress beyond that screen.

I need to dig out my windows DVD from somewhere to do a repair on it..its fixable but its a pain in the bloody backside....


Stoopid Microsoft, bloody Stoopid!!!!!

Ahthankyew

32 Mature People Truths

or read it easier here

Ahthankyew

Sad

RIP Gary Moore

58, no age at all, and a fantastic axe slinger



Ahthankyew

meh

My 1st public performance, was...ok...the girl singer backed out and we had a different drummer who didn't know the song, and the 2 leads had their kit plugged into a pa that didn't have the power to make them heard, and I messed up a few notes....but it was kinda recognisable, just no where near as good as the rehearshals.

Shame really but ah well....it was still fun.


Ahthankyew

Musicality

Is that even a real word? I keep hearing it on Jodies MTV reality shows....

Anyway, at last nights jam/rehearsal we actually sounded quite musical, myself playing rhythm guitar, along with 2 far superiour heavy metal guitarists out-twiddling each other on lead, and a jazzy singer, as well as a nice steady drummer. Sadly we had no bass player, but we did manage to exhibit a certin degree of musicality which surprised us all. We did an awesome version of Back in Black which was quite different to the original, and a passible version of Tribute (Tenacious D), Whole Lotta Rosie was a bit hit and miss though. Lets hope we can repeat the good bits in front of out friends and collegues (gulp..)

The Ovation arrived today, (they had left off part of the postcode which is why it took an extra day) and it is lovely, simple, plain and straightforward. I had a bit of a twiddle before heading to the office, going to have a proper fiddle about with it after work and continue my practice for tomorrow's public jam. I'll have to have a play around to see how to get the best acoustic and electric sounds out of it.

Feels very much like a combination guitar, light with a thick neck but low action and fast like an electric...neither one thing nor the other but nice to play.

Fed straight into my Marshall it was kinda hard to hear much difference between acoustic and leccy, apart fron some damping on the sustain, In fairness though the Marshall is overdriven so will kill any acoustic tone anyway, so will try the stereo amp settings to feed it through a clean acoustic setting and see if there's more of a difference.

Edit..yes, the best results come from having her plugged into 2 amps, one set as a clean acoustic and the other standard electric..Pushing the mixed acoustic signal in a mono setup, provides many very interesting tone variations but nothing that sounds all that acoustic. Once you have the twin amps up though you can switch between clean clear acoustic and heavy Electric with ease...Nice. My DF does something similar but is a bit more complex to set up in its acoustic mode, this is simple plug and go and I like that a lot.

Ahthankyew

Working from home

Though hopefully going into the office this afternoon, as soon as my package arrives. (excited!!)

Been trawling through a small mountain of programming assignments I have to mark, its pretty tedious work, since a lot of students tend to leave it to the last minute and as such there's not a lot of care and attention to detail, and its all pretty much the same basic ideas repeated cos they worked.
Many students, even the capable ones, feel its ok to do just enough to get the grade...yes maybe, but its not going to do them any favours when they get real jobs.

But I'm also happy to say that every now and again I fire up a CD and am happy to see a bit of extra effort has gone into some detail or feature that makes the assignment that much more interesting and then you know you got through to at least that student during the lectures where you bang on about quality of work.

Teaching can be a bit of a chore, but I do think the reward when you see that little spark of care is worth the effort.



Ahthankyew

Grrr is it really that hard

To get an address right?

I've been working from home today so I could be in when a package (the new Ovation) arrived, but on checking the tracking info it seems they have incorrect address information...I mean its not a complex address, and I double checked ebay and paypal invoice details and its all correct.

May have to work at home again tomorrow...not that thats a big issue but I am trying to complete my grading and it is better to do that at the office with access to the CD's and other hand in materials...oh well.


Ahthankyew

I'm getting good at this.

I'm getting so I can spot potential fakes quite quickly now...this for example

Seems to be a '95 Corvette Les Paul with some damage...but its wrong!. Seller claims to know nothing about it yet makes quite an effort to sell it with hi res pics and all, but starts it at £1 with NR, then avoids hassle by claiming no technical knowledge.
Its a pretty beasty to be sure, even with a bit of damage, which in itself looks suss...but there's other things, the lack of chrome in places, the pickups should be inscribed and there should be a stamp on the headstock back, as well as a chrome truss road cover.

I'm not 100% sure its a fake, no two guitars are exactly the same even in the same model, and its not uncommon for things to be changed in production or after..but...meh I'm more than 50% sure which is enough to keep my hand off mouse.

If its real its one of 200 in the world, quite collectable and worth 5-8K maybe more depeding on the damage....and it probably will sell for around 1K.
Someone will either get a bargain or be very very pissed off.

edit....yup..its been withdrawn....probably other people noticed it too.


edit.edit yup was a copy, in fact another corvette LP with the same serial number is for sale on the US ebay for £4.2K with all its chrome and engravings in the right place, so that is probably the genuine article (or a better copy using the same serial)..So a good spot.

Anyway the point of this...is to be careful when you buy expensive items on ebay, impluse buys are often prone to mistakes...do the checks and research the item and you can avoid being ripped off 99% of ebay sales go without a hitch and are very successful but never forget there are crooks and cheats out there as well as people who just make mitakes and sell stuff in good faith which is not what they think it is.
Ahthankyew

Nice innit?

She's an Ovation VXT-s Hybrid, which means she's an "electric", acoustic with fancy pickups and internal electrics to dial in the Electics sounds when you want them.

Like this


Nice...I just picked it up from ebay, nice and cheap too, though they are being sold off, as Ovation is going through some managment changes and a lot of models have been discontinued like this has, making them more affordable than the £1500 they were asking for them a couple of years back.

Sadly though this does mean the end of my Roberts Skeleton, since she's basically a much more advanced version of that, and I can't really claim that keeping both is justified. Will put it on ebay when I get this one and check it all out, think I might dump one of the electric classicals as well to make space and help pay for this.

Ahthankyew

Too Good to be true?

You know when people say something is too good to be true, it must be a con.

This looks like one to me

If your reading this 3 months later, it will be gone and you have no idea what I am linking to, but basically someone on ebay is selling a very rare Duane Allman signature Les Paul, prototype no less, with no reserve starting at £1. with 2 hours or so to go, the price has reached a little over £1000

I dunno what it'll make in the end, probably £3-4K. But that is a bargain. These retail "new" at £7K when they were out in 2003, and change hands for anything up to 24K now...

But its all wrong, as much as I am DYING to bid on this for a purely investment chance (well maybe some playing) it don't feel right..The seller is apparently US based, but the item is in Spain and listed in the UK ebay for pounds not Dollars or Euros..They won't deliver to most of the European countries and to top it off they are totally unresponsive to questions.

And that price...who the hell puts a 24K+ guitar on an auction starting at £1 with no reserve.

Its all very very suss. So while my savings are screaming at me to buy it buy it, my head is correctly pointing out, something aint right......so I'm going to very very very reluctantly pass on this.

sigh

2 hours to go and its at £1,130....I predict 3K as the final price, but I'm going to keep an eye on feedback on this to see if it really is a con, if not I will be soooooooo upset.


edit, yup £3100, a fair bit of money, but of this thing is for real its an absolute steal and an easy double/triple your money by selling to a specialist store. I really can't see it being genuine though, just too many things not quite right about it, I'll be keeping an eye on the sellers feedback to see if it all goes tits up.

Ahthankyew

Guitars are cool

I'm really loving Larry, the Gordon Smith G60, though she does need a new pickup selector, or perhaps just a clean..she's really light and has an awesome neck, she and my SG are my 2 now favourite practice guitars. I most certainly am going to keep my eyes peeled for a GS flying V if its anything as good as this G60 it'll be amazing.

On Doctors orders, I've been practicing a lot recently, my fingers are positively sore to the bone, but the result is my picking/finger co-ordination is considerably better, I'm hitting complex licks with much more confidence and regularity, even a few solo's are starting to sound melodic..yeaaahhh only took 30 years to work that out.

I'm practicing hard for a public jam session with other IGAD players next week. Might have a crack at some more recording soon, that should make mumsy proud :D

Gibson sent me a new selector switch for my DF, so I'll be taking a trip up to the dealers near Amsterdam to get it booked in for its repairs. It won't be ready in time for the jam, but thats fine I don't want to take it anywhere where it might get picked up and dropped again, I'll probably take Nonemore and Frankie with me to the Jam. Nonemore's EMG's will make themselves heard above any amount of din and Frankie is awsome for chugging away in the background.



Ahthankyew

tick, tick tick tick, not yet, tick tick

Just been doing a bit of reading up on post cancer issues, and boom

This section here about depression and anxiety is very very familiar.

hey ho...

Ahthankyew

ANOTHER COLD!

Starting another cold...thats the 3rd since my birthday last month.

I had a reasonably cold free year last year and now I seem to be catching up on all the sniffles I missed out on.

3 in a row is crazy shit!



Ahthankyew

zombie no more

As part of my treatment for depression brought on from my cancer treatments, I've been taking oxazepam, the pills he gave me to sleep. They're pretty standard tranqs and calm you down when you have feelings of heightened anxiety or stress, which depression tends to magnify ( a lot!!!).

At the doctors suggestion I've been taking more of them the last few days as I was feeling said heighted feelings of anxiety and stress recently over the mail opening issues, which deeply affected me.
But no more. I've been a total zombie unable to do much more than shuffle around or sleep were I fall. I'll have to deal with anxiety and stress issues some other way.

In actual fact I'm not feeling quite so stresed about that now, could be residual oxazepam in my system, or just time calming me down. I HATE being doped up and this is exactly how the oxazepam makes you feel after 2 or 3 pills. Going to walk to the shop for some milk and then having several strong coffee's to clear my head.

I am really hating this whole depression thing, its a roller coaster ride with more downs than ups.


Ahthankyew

odd

Just noticed a text on my UK phone which I charged up to investigate the card fraud..Seems I missed a call today, and then recieved a text, saying I was £499 over my card limit and to reply back with my 3 digit code to pay...

hmmmmm bit suss, will call them tomorrow to see if its actually from them, or if the scrot who's using my card is trying to get my security number again. It does mean they have my phone number too...quite worrying.

Hope to fuck I'm not £499 over my limit, it means there's even more cash being stolen than I have information about. Shouldn't be a problem of course since its fraud but eek!!



edit.....wow....I discovered I can check my account on the internet now and sure enough, Enjaz information tech have been very busy £1,952.36 in total taken out over the last month or so plus the 350 or so in November.
Dozens and dozens of transactions some small some large...and the card comapany seem to only have let it happen till the credit limit was reached....shocking

impressive
Ahthankyew

Fraud reported

Ok so the fraud has been reported and the transactions should be refunded shortly, there's clear evidence of fraudulent use so they can't say it was me buying 50 online entry visa's to Saudi Arabia

They may even refund all or some of the missed auto renewed payments since there is supposed to be a notice of renewal and I never got one...though its possible it got stuck in a junk mail filter..They'll contact the company and should be able to agree the account was unused for over 3 years so they had no right to charge for it, but thats not as clear cut apparently since a lot of companies hide autorenew systems when you pay for things with cards and its up to the card holder to stop it...bloody scam merchants. Apparently its a well known issue but since everyone is making money out of it, they don't seem too keen to cut it out.
Nothing more dishonest than bankers!!

Either way, it won't be happening again, I'm being issued with a new card and pins to prevent further use and I'm going to be more careful about using cards on line.

Ahthankyew

Fuck me twice

To the tune of 350quid, some twat has used my card number to pay for Saudi Arabian visa's via a company called Enjaz Information Tech, they made a number of small transactions in November with my card details until a limit was hit and then they stopped, though may have tried again later.
Clearly a scam of some kind, I've no idea how they'd get the card number there are so few transactions on that card normally so the passcode on the back should be quite secure.

I'll call the card company tomorrow to get it resolved, visa should repay when there's fraud and there's not much doubt about this.

My 1st case of ID theft...not nice.
But still does not excuse in any way opening my private mail, I feel deeply hurt by that.




Ahthankyew

fuck me...

2 issues I am furious about.

1 is unnotified auto renew on credit cards you may use to pay for website subscriptions, it seems I've had one on an old dating site for some time when I was single, and every fucking year since its charged me even though the account was long since closed down. Took me ages to work out how to stop the autorenew hidden away in layers of account settings, and the cheeky bastards made me go through endless, are you sure confirmations. I'll be calling the card company on Monday to make extra sure that autorenews are stopped. I am down about 300 quid over 3 years and never noticed.

I'm livid about this of course, its a cheeky sneeky thing to do, and am trying hard to think about all the subscriptions I have signed up to over the years that will probably have done the same....but I don't think there are many others, mags and personal website renewals being the only ones I can think of, I'll need to investigate further.

It would have gone unnoticed, until I got my statements, since the card used is my old UK credit card which I only use for a paypal backup and situations when my dutch card does not work.

I have to send the statements to a UK address, which was fine till I recently renewed the card and had to give a different address in the UK. Previous years statements went to the house I was sharing with Austin when Bina and I were split, and I've not really been checking the couple of packages of mail he sent over as they were nearly all junk.

But how this was discovered is the 2nd point, the statements now go to Bina's mum, who from time to time sends our uk mail over to us. But for some reason, Bina asked her sister inlaw to open the mail to check for junk mail.

Open MY mail, my personal financial mail, being read by someone other than me...and now I've just had Bina on the facetime link on Ipod asking me about my financial spending while going through MY credit card statement, because the credit card company have been writing personal private letters to get in touch.

It seems there is some odd activity on the card, someone might be using it and they've sent a couple of letters asking me to get in touch, but it wasn't me who opened that personal and private letter....they've tried to call a few times, my UK phone has not been charged for some time, so I missed the calls, so they've written, and it wasn't me who opened that letter, someone else opened that letter.

Now despite the fact that these letters would be marked private, possibly urgent, other people are opening MY mail and going through MY finance statements, and reading that someone may be using MY cards fraudulently, and I'm then being asked what I am using my card for.

Jeezuz, that is utterly utterly wrong, I feel totally and completly exposed here...I totally trust Bina in all things but I have a very very strong sense of personal privacy and to me opening someones mail is just completely wrong, espcially financial things...I never ever ever open her mail, never, not in a million years, and she knows this, I've always handed her mail to her to open, and I would never ever expect anyone to open mine, bills, statmetns, letters, bank statements etc, are just so utterly personal that you just don't do that...

You just don't!

And I'm furious about this....but somehow I'm in the wrong for being upset that my personal and private mail is being opened.

I don't care if the autorenew scam got discovered, I dont' care that there is a worry that my card is being used by a scam artist, I will resolve that all when I open MY own personal private mail and am informed of the issue...I do not expect someone else to open my mail and hassle me about it.

FUCK THAT...JUST FUCK THAT, THAT IS SO FUCKING WRONG!!!

And I am 100% totally and completly right to be angry as fuck about this.

OPENING MY PERSONAL MAIL!!!!!!!!

No bloody way is that right, no bloody way.





Ahthankyew

Mojo is still missing

Lost at poker again..but played pretty well really, only the fact Dennis was on bloody fire and taking every big pot of the night, edging me on 3 big hands, stopped me from being in a money finish. So feeling quite good about it. A great game as always.


Ahthankyew

dark times

Man, the news is so gloomy, floods in Australia and Brazil killing hundreds of people, massacares in Tunisia, stampedes in India, bombs pretty much everywhere. Fires, disasters....

never seems to end does it.

Crazy old world.

Ahthankyew

The day after the night before

Had a good night out last night with several collegues and was drinking till 1ish. But have been suffering a bit today, not quite managed to shake off the hangover or upset tum.

Think I might stay of the booze for a bit after all ;) Though I need to have a bit tomorrow as I've going out to play poker.

I was planning to have a poker night in tonight since Bina is in the UK and I have the place to myself for the weekend, but everyone else had plans for tonight.
But I got an invite to come play tomorrow with my Dutch friends at their new housse, so I'll take them up on that. Lets hope I don't continue my losing streak, havn't won a damn game since my surgery, quite sure my mojo got removed.

Gibson have been in touch, they have sent out the replacement parts for the Dark Fire and I've found a service centre in the North to take it to have them fitted and the other issues fixed, will cost a couple of hundred euros but insurance should cover it ok. Quite pleased that Gibson have been so helpful in sending the parts for free or it would have been quite a bit more cost and inurance might be a bit fussy.

Larry is proving to be a cool guitar, though she does have a slightly dodgy pickup selector switch that might need cleaning..will look into that soon.

No more recording for a bit, I need to finish up some marking stuff so that I am free and clear next block to work on a new PS3 course, and not have people chasing me for old grades.

We're having some problems with our electrics, not quite sure what the problem is though, either lights or the central heating are surging from time to time and tripping the fuse. Its proving very hard to isolate the cause, though I know its the fuse that handles power in Bed 1,2 and attic and the Central Heating, but not sure which specific thing is causing it. All the lights are off and everything has been unplugged but it only seems to trip if multiple things are on.

But I'll switch one thing on overnight to see if it causes a trip in the morning, and call out an electrician or a plumber depending on the culprit. Its a bit of a pain if out CH is out, lucky its not cold at the moment though.

It caused a bit of a panic for the girls last night when it dawned on them the CH being off would affect the hot water for showers...but it stays on long enough for that, and if it trips you just need to make sure someone switches it back on before the water cools down. Its annoying for sure, but hopefully just a dodgy light fitting or something that can be isolate and fixed.









Ahthankyew

Another addition to the family

It was a long labour and took some time to locate but there is a new addition to the Beuken family.

Meet Larry.



She's called Larry becuase of the large Larry Flynt for President sticker on the back...which strangely has a connection with genuine Guns 'n Roses band members....

She's a 1991ish Gordon Smith G60 with custom Van Zandt bridge pup. A very cool hand made British guitar costing a fraction of the price of a Gibson or PRS. I had heard good things about these guitars but not found one that I liked the look of till this one came up. She's a stunner, lovely simple finish, very light, lighter than my SG, but a neck to die for and the lowest action I have seen so far.

She will be loved.



Ahthankyew

playing with recording toys

Amplitube on the Ipod is really cool, but the recording system is a bit flawed, I can't seem to work out how to do fade outs...so this effort just ends up going silent while the backing still plays then brings in some crap I doodled when I was setting levels.

It must be possible to set the fades, but not really a problem its just shits and giggles.

Now playing: BrianBeukenBadGuitar

Ahthankyew

too cold and too wet but plenty of practice time

Got a stinking cold, and today its been raining constantly with very low temps, so no good chance to stand up on the roof for an hour or 2(an optimistic guess at time) to align the dishes....better luck tomorrow.

In the mean time I've been twanging my guitars and am loving my new Fender G-Dec3 practice amp, which lets me play backing tracks and record some stuff, as well as play stuff on the PC and play along with it through the amp. Quite brilliant for youtube tutorials.

Been using a lot of cool gadgets recently, amplitude for Iphone/pad is brilliant too and means you can play and record anywhere, just remember to switch it off when your done or it eats the battery. (speaking of which I finally have a new battery for my laptop...yeaaahh)

No sign of any parts for the DF yet, will probably give the Gibson guys a nudge tomorrow, but am starting to think it might be wiser to use the insurance to send it off for a full and proper repair..will cost a fortune but if the insurance covers it, it might be worth it..after all its not as if I'll be without a guitar while its gone.

Also no sign of Danni's pressie from the UK which she sent over for my Birthday...must be lost :( shame....hope its not a puppy???



Ahthankyew

tick that off the list

The list of house jobs has been reduced by one. I had some trouble getting internet into the attic, it seems our floors are very very dense and even an 802.11n router could not penetrate from the ground to the 3rd floor. Surprising considering the increased range these have over standard .11g systems.

Thanks to my old mate Lee, who posted on FaceBook I was reminded of the Powerline mains networking tech, which seems to have become much more speedy and reliable. I had totally forgotton about this tech, and thought it had faded away but no its still going and has got much bettter.

A quick hunt on ebay for a Dutch supplier yielded a pair of Sweex 200MPS adapters and they duly arrived this morning.

Couldn't be simpler to install, plugged one into the mains and connected it with supplied cable to the Tele2 wireless router to get the internet, plugged the other one in upstairs and fed it, via cable again. to the 802.11n router and voila, we have coverage through the house via 2 seperate wireless systems. Job done, I might do some movie streaming upstairs on the projector system now ;)

I also built a new wall on the roof yesterday, more bricks and a lot more mortar this time should prevent it falling down. I was going to hook up the dishes today, but the lack of a partner to call out signal strengths means that might have to wait till tomorrow.

Once that's done, the only major job left before summer, is to paper the new wall in the attic, need to locate some cheap woodchip, its not that easy to find here.


Only a few more days of vacation left...so I guess I better get on with shelve building and any other minor jobs that need doing. I'm hoping we can sort out some wardrobes from Ikea soon.
Ahthankyew

Happy 2011

A slightly belated Happy new year to both my readers :D

2011 started off well with a great New Years Eve curry spectacular, we toasted the New Year in twice, during Dutch time and English time and a really good time and much drink was had by all. Though I tried to avoid getting totally blotto, I still had a bit of a hangover the next day.

So now we have a week of R&R before heading back to work so I have a chance to get things on an even keel again for the start of the year.

I'm not one for resolutions really, when all said and done, new year is just the day after yesterday so not that much actually changes but I want to take the pause we have now and try to re-focus a bit on what to do in the new year.

Certainly get my marking ALL done, try to sort out my bad brick laying and resolve the Satallite dish issues, paper the new walls in the attic room, which we're now using for film nights and generally try to get a bit better organised...like I say not so much a resolution, more a case of get a grip on things that I've let slide.

Oh and practice my guitar playing more...I am improving quite a bit with the recent extra playing but still frustratingly at a (bad) beginner level...after 30 years....shit!!! Lucky I am a persistant twat or I'd have thrown them out.
Perhaps some more lessons?
I also noticed a bit more damage to my Dark Fire the other day when I was showing it off to Martin, (who is a damn fine player and puts me to shame), the high E tuning peg is bent..working but bent, and the teflon nut is scratched. I guess I won't be selling it as an investment any time soon.

New IPod is very cool, though a bit of a battery eater, I've not worked out how to stop apps that are mult-threading so as a result it sometimes leaves apps running overnight and kills the battery...hmmm must be something I've missed in the setups.

Anyway....Festivities over, normality is returning to Breda, I'm looking forward to a good 2011.





Ahthankyew