Transmission resumed maybe

Am on the train to Paris using a diabolically bad Internet service on the train....they have a nerve calling this access...can only get it on my iPad and then with effort. The day has not started well, with my newly purchased mega case containing all my gear and clothes for the week literally disintegrate on the half mile walk to the station...not helped by the need to climb multiple stairs at the station which is undergoing a major revamp. The case has got me on the train but with the wheels literally coming off I will have to try and find a luggage shop in Paris nord since I doubt this piece of crap will survive the trip across town on the metro. On the pluses side, lugging around the weight of a small dead adult up and down stairs is shedding pounds, in sweat if nothing else.. Might as ll relax and enjoy the trip, while I can....it can only get more and more comedic. Ahthankyew

87.7 wow. big drop...And a break in transmission

Again eat what you like Friday (home made turkey curry) results in a spot of the trots and anotehr big weight loss....cool.

Am off to France for my week of guitarrrrrrering at creative vacance so weighing will have to stop, as indeed with the diet, though the food is heathy and unlikly to put much weight on there will also be massi....I mean some wine available all week so will almost certainly put a bit on...we'll see. I will still avoid snacks and keep myself on small portions and try to maintain the diet.

Ahthankyew

Time to change the facebook status?

Strange modern world we live in, now we announce our marital status via facebook..I guess its time to set mine to single, its never been single since I joined a few years back.
Then wait for the hoards of nubile young ladies coming after my lynx scented body, or Axe as they call it here....or more likely the door will be broken down by fellow middle aged singletons down the pub wanting fresh money for a new round.

right now pub seems a good idea..but got packing and marking to do....pub soon though...soon.

Ahthankyew

88.2 and Disaster

My difficult IGD CT3 course has finally been graded...14% pass out of 61....oh dear

I have their retakes since it was clear most had failed so hopefully we'll see some improvement there, and their final course of the year CT4 is so far looking 100000% better so hopefully they finally got it in the last block. Hoping to complete the grading tonight...or die trying.

Ahthankyew

88.6 last push??

Weigth loss has slowed quite a bit now as my body is getting used the the restricted diet I suspect...But its still dropping so all is well, I'll have to up the amount of walking and cycling and start doing some of the dreaded pushups and crunches now to tone up the flabby bits and break a bit more of a sweat.

I had to buy some pushup bars since it seems my wrists have bumps in them and were painfull when I tried to do my inital extreme workout of 3 pushups....I'll aim for 5 ;) but next time am at Docs I'll ask about the bumpy bits on my wrist, I think its jsut Ganglion masses, like I have on the base of my middle finger left hand...nothing to worry about but worth checking in case its arthritis or worse starting to kick in.

ahhh that would be my typical luck, just as I'm getting good enough on guitar to be musical I'll end up being unable to play for medical reasons!!!
Meh!

I'm hoping today will see the end of the marking hill so I can enjoy a day off marking before my trip....we'll have to see. Time for a coffee to kick start me and get on with it...definitly no guitarring today, though I've enjoyed the 2 Eurythmics numbers so much and found them so quick and easy to do that I have decided the next is also going to be one of theres...though it will be more of a singing challenge...gulp.





Ahthankyew

Getting experimental

I've been staring at grade assignments for 11 hours..needed to get the guitar out

amazingly I seemed to have a bit of a flow going and knocked this up in less than an hour, with 20 mins or production...there's a minor bum note in the 2nd solo and the vocals are generally crappy but I think its quite cool..something to expand and improve on in the summer





now back to marking...2am finish should see the last of the CT's then an all day tomorrow for the PR's and I should be done.

gulp

Ahthankyew

88.7 last few days of hell

I suggested to someone that marking at this time of year for me is like climbing a hill, a very very big hill, I push on upwards knowing that when I get to the top theres a great big downward slide to lookforward to.

The hill is big, but I think I can just about see the top of it now, all the high priority grades are done, one more big days push should finally see the end of it.

no guitarrrrrring today.......maybe later..if I finish


Ahthankyew

Here comes the loop again

Another quick 1 hour noodle, only did 4 or 5 takes but needed a break from the marking, will probably fix the solo error and slight breath control problem, another time..but overall I thought this came out really nice.





Ahthankyew

88.9 After the morning coffee

Amazingly, despite gorging myself on food while over in the UK, not much extra weight as been added...Am back on the diet again now though, however I will have to break it ever so slightly due to the fact there are 2 pork pies with my name on them courtesy of my Beloved Leader at work who must have been in the UK when I was...

I never thought to bring back any food, since I'm not eating much, it never occured.
So while I must damn his googly eyes for bringing them back I will also thank him for the kind thought...and maybe have 1 for tomorrow's lunch.

And the other for dessert! :D


Ahthankyew

London.....And Denmark Street

London was busy as always, and the weather was on/off rain, hot, muggy, but it was a nice weekend, we'll have to see what comes of it.
Took the eurostar which was a surprisingly easy if little cramped due to being so busy. Took about 4 hours from Breda, with 2 transfers and slight waits, but nothing too stressful unlike planes...If I have to go to london again, I'll probably do that.

What was totally bizzare on the train back from Brussels though, I had a pervert sit across from me on the other side of the train, rubbing himself up and nodding invitingly in the direction of his groin whenever I glanced his way....wtf...I know I'm cute and getting cuter with the diet but thats seriously fucked up..I was in two minds to go over and grab his nuts or just speak very very loudly and tell him to stop playing with himself...but of course I did neither, I just looked out my window with my ipod playing some nice sounds.

This trip, I finally got a chance to go down Denmark Street, the famous music capital in London, with 8 or 9 guitar shops open on a Sunday...It was soooo much smaller than I thought it was, but every shop was a music shop, most of them guitars, and it was guitar heaven for me.

I twiddled and teased and twanged and got to play a range of really nice expensive and cheap guitars. Including an awesome Taylor in a posh shop where they called me sir...:D It was nice but can't honestly say its better than my Breedlove. I tried out several things I'd never seen and overall my impression was that my collection still has every thing I want as far as electrics are concerned. I wanted to try a Jagstang out since I've never played a short scale, but none on offer.

I didn't entierely resist the temptations on offer, but I did resist the very serious urge to buy a very nice Fender Mustang I was given a good price on, its a short scale like the Jagstang so was a good test to see if I liked the shorter scale...I most certainly did...but I'll hold out for a Jagstang, which I will probably swap for something. I don't really have the spare cash for it, cos there are bills to be paid, but the credit card, now paid in fixed monthy amounts quivered for a bit in fear of being abused.

I did however buy a Guitar Banjo...at first I thought I got a good deal on it, getting 20quid knocked off and a few freebies chucked in, but once home a scan on ebay shows the same one 50 quid cheaper....ahhh... though most at the price I paid, oh well not to worry. I got to try before I bought and slightly high action aside, it has a very nice interesting sound I want to use in a recording experiment. I was going to get a Uke for that sound but trying several out I realised they are not for me, so the guitar tuned 6 string banjo gives me a (similar but different) sound I want. Results will be posted in the holidays as its going to be one of my recording projects.





Ahthankyew

Friday off..nope...saturday

Friday is supposed to be Ribs night, that amzing diet food I discovered last week, but I have to pop to London tomorrow and expect to have a nice expensive dinner while I am there...and probably nando's and fish and chips...nom nom, so tomorrow will be my free day..

Weight loss is proceeding steady, around 3-400g a day so thats not bad, the high protien diet means I don't get too hungry, but when I do around 5 I really need o eat..I'm enjoying the spiced meats with small portions of rice a lot. So not too unhappy with the food.

I don't see much improvement in the mirror, moobs are a bit smaller, but Large T's are now fitting better than they were so its having an effect.

Most importantly, the main reason for diet, the reflux causing chest pains, have not materialised since I started it..I did have a bit of chilli related indigestion but a Rennie took care of that, not had to use a Zantac for 10 days now...a record.

So, it seems to be working, around 5Kg lost so far, in 12 days, so half way point reached and not too many slips on the way. The Protien content keeps me from feeling constantly starving and the occasional bowl of bran keeps things moving....

I do think I will stop when I hit the suggested 10kg though, as much as I like the food I'm making I do hate having my diet restricted.

and 2 or 3 weeks and we should hit it.....then maybe make some changes, perhaps have a day on day off kind of thing for a slower loss.



Ahthankyew

88.4 - still employed

Assesment went well, only one area of concern which is my ability to read advanced research material, which I've always had a problem with if I can't put it into actual use...The subject of a Masters again cropped up but wasn't pushed...phew. Going to reduce my workload a bit next year too which will help as I've felt quite swamped at times.


Very pleased with standard of student work coming in so far...hope that after such a hard slog I might see some good results, and so far so go.

Ahthankyew

88.8 - Marking sucks

broke 89 :D probably pop up again but still it feels good, and some of my "tight" tshirts don't feel quite so tight so the loss is finally starting to feel tangible.

Have been locked in the attic that last few days marking/grading projects,with the odd break for plinky plonk time, and answering student help requests and getting it all out of order...but hey ho.
There's some urgent grades I need to try to finish today, for 2nd year students who need it for their P, but then I can continue with my other grades.

I'm very happy to say that despite stress and enforced hair removal over the block my IGD students are on the whole producing some very nice projects.

Having spent most of the block expalaining how to set up a particle engine with emitters, their task was to come up with 4 unique particle types and impliment them into the engine...most have gone for really safe obvious things but at least they've done them, and a few have been quite clever and impressive...it seems a lot of click moments occurred this block making me a happy man.

Got my yearly appraisal today, not sure its going to be a good one, my admin this year has been shocking, mainly due to workload, with so many students and all project work its been hard...I will have to take whatever comes with a smile...and try to plan better for next year during the holidays.

Mainly its becuase I do assignments for them all, and with over 140 students at one point this year that was a LOT of assignments to go through, I never managed to keep on top of it, and have not really come up with a solution to make my life easier...something to ponder over during the holidays.



Ahthankyew

There's more to life than marking...

Well not if your a student waiting for a delayed grade...but I was getting blind reading particle code and and retakes...so stopped for an hour and did this




since it was rushed its slighly mistimed on the entry to the loop and there's a beat near the end where it went silent, a tech issue on my cable I suspect so probably won't do any more on this for now..but liked the feel of it, I was going for better dynamics on the solo...I'm starting to see a style in my playing, its ok but its a bit locked into a few standard tricks and twiddles so will hopefully improve that during my week away.



Ahthankyew

89.5 :D

Even with yesterdays sandwich still inside :D down to 89.5 clothed (88.2 neekid!) Going well, hopefully dipping below 89 in the next few days. Ahthankyew

Forgot, but nice things said!

forgot to weigh myself this morning as I was in a bit of a rush to get to work...which was a bit of a chore and I had a sandwich to get me through...nothing else though so tomorrow should see a nice drop.

had a couple of very nice compliments from people on my version of Only You I posted a few weeks back...don't get many of those, made me feel really inspired. But try as I might I simply can't get myself to sound like Ray Lamontange and do his amazing "Burn" song....might try another of his thats a bit less emotionally intense, oh wait they're all emotionally intense, thats why i like him... will see what I can come up with over the coming weeks.





Ahthankyew

89.6, return of marking hell

back down below 90...I strongly suspect that weight fluctuates a lot depending on how full you are bladder and bowels...Friday's little dose of the trots probably cleaned me out, and yesterday I had a drink of water before the weigh in....I must not get too stressed out over a few hundred grams here and there...the overall pattern is down..so all is good.


Exam week at work, so execting dozens of submissions this week...must try to keep on top of them, since block D has its retake week at the end of the block, rather than next block so they need their resutls much faster than I usually deliver them.

going to be hectic.


Ahthankyew

90.1 losing seems to be a habit

not surpised at popping back over 90, had nibbles galore at Peter and Liz's during poker, (I lost again quite quickly but declinded a buy in), but enjoyed the evening as always...So maybe I'll have to have 2 normal days :D

Back to fish and rice for tea tonight, but I will take mums advice and get some all bran to improve the fibre content.

Clearing up the last of my marking in anticipation of the deluge which is due this week.

Bina's things seem to be accumulating in various areas of the house as she packs them up ready to ship out, its all very tense as we studiously avoid each other beyond discusion of essential details.

I hate this situation but its something that has to be done. Next month at least there's the summer holidays which will give me a chance to mope about and take stock of things and get the place in order for me on my own. Hoping Danni will pop over too (hint hint)

Transferring the mortgage next week as well other issues with the council and tax, so hopefully there will be no massive finanical shocks apart from the clear and obvious con that is the Notaris fees, essentially a type of dutch lawyer who specialises in contracts and house conveyencing..they charge a fortune for the most minor of details but thats just the way things are done here.

One good thing is I'm not going to be here when this mass of boxes and bags finally ships out, I'll be in France, hopefully keeping my mind on the guitar lessons.

I've avoided saying much about the break up on here....mainly because I don't want to deal with any more hassle. I will try to maintain that...Its not the time to be blaming and looking back, its time to look forward.






Ahthankyew

89.0 Ribs are apparently....a diet food

I decided to take advice from a collegue and not starve myself all week, he said he lost a tonne of weight on a similar restrictive diet but made a point of eating normal 1 day a week...My day is Friday, I had Ribs...They were "amazing" as was the creamy gratin potatoes that came with them...and then I got the trots...lol

But on the plus side todays clothes on weight was a big drop, a bit of extra cycling yesterday and the trots which clearly removed the weeks lack of movement...ahem...has had a good effect.

Off to play poker with my dutch friends tonight to celebrate Peters son passing his Havo, which basically means he's graduated high school...good lad.

Lets hope I don't lose...getting a bit fed up losing things just now :D



Ahthankyew

I shoved!!

A sandwich in, todays hunger was too much, besides I really need the roughage the weight might be dropping but not in nice sold lumps if you get my drift. Really crappy rainy weather permitting I will burn it off with a bit of extra cycling on the way home tonight. Ahthankyew

89.9 (yeah) Last day of School...kinda

Broke the 90kg mark, with clothes...thats excellent, I must resist the temptation to shove cake in my hole to celebrate. 9.9kg to go
Probably due to the hair cut :D


Today's the last "teaching" day at work, my final Gamelab of the year so I'll be spending it watching presentations from my gamelab students...should be fun.


Ahthankyew

But I do have IE9

I wish I knew why blogger and youtube keep banging on about my IE no longer being supported, I had a look at how to uninstall it which was a pain but its not worth doing...will have to try and do some kind of repair of bite a bullet Ive been avoiding and switch to Chrome..which is probably why its doing this. Will have to give it a chance to fix itself. Ahthankyew

90.2 oh and even more upsetting

well I had a bit of a splurge last night after work, I went and had a sushi feast...nearly all protein so not such a big hit....am sure it will drop again tomorrow...still under 90 in the buff

But that did lead to another shock...looking down at the scales I noticed my 1st ever Grey pube sharing that moment with Billy Connolly;


I'm now officially old.
well at least my 1st arrived in my late 40's. so I'm still ageing slowly.


edit...since I was cycling past the barbers on the way back from the bank to try to sort out my messed up cards, I went in for my semi annual haircut...I tend to leave it till I am blowing it away from my nose...we reached that point a few weeks ago... And yet another sign of old age came to be.

As the haircut came to an end, without any conversation due to his lack of English making the process even more boring than usual, but happly free of innane holiday banter. He asked, via his collegue who spoke english, if I wanted my eyebrows trimmed........I said yes.....they were getting bushy....thats also a 1st.. next time I fully expect the ear and nose hair to also need some barbers attention.

The offending pube has been plucked...didn't half make my eyes water...

Ahthankyew

90.0

90.0 dead...though as I say with clothes so there's a variable bit on...I checked au natural and yeah I've broke 90 A small step for Brian a giant leap for his digestive system.

There's a couple of pounds will hopefully come off today, since I've not been to the bloody loo for a 4 days....all this high protien/low carb does not do a lot for one's bowls it has to be said. But I cheated a bit last night and had toast and cream cheese so that'll give it some roughage to work on.

Hunger is reasonsable easy to control, just drink lots of water....and keep busy with student work.


Lets hope tomorrow I smash into the 80's with clothes and then aim for the 70's




Ahthankyew

90.3 - getting hungry

had 1 minor relapse with a spare rib muffin, but back on track, though yesterdays chicken and rice was a larger than I expected portion. I was good boy though I left some of the rice in the pan

Hoping tomorrow I break the 90 point.

Ahthankyew

Oh....balls, it's diet time

Don't panic mum!!

I've been having a bit of an issue with minor chest pains...but its not my heart, went to the docs and its its usual low steady calm self.

But my long standing and probably chronic reflux issues are getting out of control. Not helped I'm sorry to say by stress in recent weeks, but more to do with the weight I am now.

I don't mind being heavy, in fact quite like it after spending the 1st 3/4 of my life as a skeletal freak, but I don't like the constant popping daily of Ranatatine and now the chest pains. So..diet time has arrived.

I've got to lose 10kgs quickly then see if that helps, and ideally lose another 10 over a reasonable time

Since I abhor excersise and even more so Gyms, (its the whole banging music shit I detest) I'm going to have to resort to diet and a bit more cycling and walking..no more snacks, and cut down on the meals, numbers and sizes.

I'm on the flavoured chicken/fish and rice diet now...One meal a day, modest portion, jsut chicker or fish, but flavoured anyway I want.

start weight was 93.1kg
today after 4 days 90.6kg

though thats with clothes on so not entierly accurate.

1st target is 80kg, might as well head for a round number, then we'll see if the reflux improves before I decide if I want to lose more or no.

I'll post updates here so I can see progress.






Ahthankyew

Wow, what a Bargain!!

Even though my GAS is now pretty much under control, and forsight  of upcoming seperation expenses means it will be for a while, I can't resist checking out the odd sale at some of the guitar stores in the area and on line.

But I've noticed something, these sales are nearly always total shams, claims for items like Gibson Les Pauls was 2999 now 1999 are in fact entierely false. Its true the 2999 is Gibsons normal RRP but nowhere I know actually ever sells at the RRP usualy its 1K or more less. So in fact these "sales" are nothing of the kind
A sale is when you knock down the price you would have charged! So if the RRP is 2999 and you sell at 1999 then a sale price of 999 is indeed a bargain of 1000 off.

It seems to me to be quite a cynical and indeed very common sales trick, convince someone that they are saving big on something and they will feel the need to buy quick before the offer is revoked. Its only when you're a sad bugger like me who buys these things often that you realise that in fact no saving at all has been offered.

the moral...always check the price against what other stores/ebay are offering. if there's no great saving invovled dont' bother.

One thing I have discovered though, especialy here in the netherlands though it might be as relevent to music stores worldwide is that they will haggle. Stores like these need to keep a lare inventory f expensive items so shifting them quickly is of utmost importance so they can be quite open to a discussion about discount, especially if you through in a few other items.

Still I think its pretty low to bang on about great savings and 1 time only sales when in fact they're not really doing anything but conning people who may only ever buy 1 item from such a store.
Us regulars need to let the world know!!!



Ahthankyew

Fath in all its forms

Facebook is a fun thing for getting in touch with old friends, but sometimes those old friends are not how you remember them..

A few have recently been added to my list and wow...they've changed. And guess what...God rears his head again.

Yup they add me to facebook, have a quick troll around my pages spot an anti god comment and boom! I'm getting messages banging on about how I should not post things like that and how I am wrong and that God still loves me blah!!! She's got a funny way of showing it, to paraphrase an old gag.

Why...I mean really, why do god botheres feel the need, to push on about how wrong I am?

I don't post much in the way of anti god stuff, a few choice quotes from Dawkins and other notibles that highlight the hypocracy and idoicy of irrational faith but not really my thing to post things like;

THERE IS NO GOD!! YOU'RE ALL IDIOTIC MORONS WHO NEED TO STOP LOOKING FOR OTHERS TO BLAME FOR YOUR FUCKED UP LIVES.

Its not really my thing...even though for the most part I agree with the statement.

No, I make it clear to anyone who wants to find out or ask me that I am an athiest and thats the full total extent of my "agenda". I'm not converting anyone I'm not standing on street corners, I'm not even getting involved in discussions with Father O'Flanagan about it...its my view, its personal I hold it to be true based on facts, and rational logical thought processes. When you of fath, apply the same processes to your thinking...we'll be capable of a debate.

But here's a funny thing that god botheres do..they have to attack anyone who does not hold their viewpoint and challenge them to recant.

Why?

I don't go hunting all my friends pages to see if they've posted anything in support of god then write massive long messages telling them how wrong there are...which of course I could...I generally honestly avoid arguments or debates about religion, since I am fully aware that such debates are utterly pointless, if faith could be overcome by debate we'd all be living in a Utopian scientific society now...

Faith is what it is, I don't really care if you believe in god, I don't really care if you believe in flying spaghetti monsters I won't really get upset or excited about your faith, it its not part of my life.

If you want to abandon rational , reason, logic and responsibility to ignore the realites of how the world/universe works thats fine...

But don't go on about how wrong I am, until you can actually give me proof that you're right...

I think the reason for the attacks is simple, faith cannot tolorate dissent, it must therefore be attacked, and silenced so that faith is no longer questioned.  But if faith cannot tolorate a dissenting view it surely has a problem, no matter what the faith is in, if you find yourself irrationally attacking someone with overwhelming force, even to the extreme of damaging yourself, so that you can silence or remove someone who holds an opposing viewpoint there's something very wrong!

Faith in all its forms, is irrational and idiotic.

Lets stop being idiots?

Ahthankyew

Creeping over the line

I must admit its been a hard academic year, teaching non programming IGD students to program has proved to be a very hard task.
They are finally starting to get it, but the progress I usually hope to achieve is just not there. So many of them simply don't enjoy it and its hard to stay motivated when you know so many just want the class to be over so they can forget about it for a week...Which of course makes the problem worse, since all languages even coding need practice and repetition to allow for that wonderful "click" moment to occur.

This final block they have a task that I think is fun and interesting and they are starting to see some of the joy of programming as things begin to make sense but I must confess the usual end of year euphoria of a job well done is not there this year.

I am really just hoping to limp to the holidays, take stock of things, recharge and come at it again with a better work plan next year. Something simpler for the IGD students which they can enthuse about much earlier and hopefully start to feel some of the joy I get from coding.


There's still 2 weeks of teaching though, who knows perhaps the partical assignment they are doing will get more of them interested...I hope so, they don't know what they are missing.





Ahthankyew