"Nothing but the rain"
Here’s a few photos of the best place in the world. When you are an aircraft geek there’s only the Smithsonian in Washington DC, all other places pale in comparison.
Space Shuttle Discovery
Another of Space Shuttle Discovery
The Lockheed SR71A Blackbird
More Blackbird
A Grumman F14 Tomcat
The car had to go to the tyre and brake people this week. I had noticed the feel of the brake pedal was changing slightly from smooth to a bit jerky when releasing pressure. This didn’t really concern me but the fact that the rear discs were looking rusty and there was only a thin band of clean metal had me worried.
The car went in to ATS Euromaster at 08:30 and I’d had the call by about 09:30. New pads and discs at the rear (I’d expected that), two new tyres as the fronts were worn to just about legal. I hadn’t really expected that but then I don’t hang around and a little sliding when it’s damp is good fun (no kids in the car and only where it’s safe and there’s space). I had mentioned that there was a slow puncture on the nearside rear tyre and it’s just aswell.
When I went to pick up the car it was still on the jacks so the guys could show me the problem that was causing the slow puncture. The inside of the tyre where the join normally occurs and is “welded” nicely was just a split. It had gone down to steel and would eventually have caused some serious issues. They believe it was a manufacturing fault and the tyre has been sent back to Pirelli and I hope I get a refund and I ended up paying for 3 tyres.
An interesting little fact that I hadn’t considered was that the new tyres went on the rear of the car and the worn tyres were swapped to the front. This is to try and ensure that when the car is on the limit it will understeer rather than oversteer. Understeer is much safer that oversteer and so by keeping the grip at the rear of the car (especially an estate where the rear is quite light) the car is safer to drive. Nice.
315 feet is the stopping distance of a car travelling at 70mph. This is the number given in the Highway Code. Most cars will stop much shorter than that. Should you ever be lost for a stopping distance then the formula s=v+(v^2)/20 works to give you the Highway Code numbers. The thinking and reaction time is the same number of feet as miles per hour and then the actual breaking distance is proportional to the speed squared. It’s all down to kinetic energy! See the Wolfram|Alpha stopping distance calculation here.
First things first. I love my dog. He is wonderful company, very playful and more than a little crazy. He doesn’t necessarily do as he is told but he fits in well to my family.
The renewal notice for his insurance came through about a week ago and the yearly premium has changed from GBP 400 to GBP 640. This was apparently due to increasing vet’s costs and his age being more of a concern. The whole reason I got the dog insured was to save on vet’s bills. Also, he’s only six years old and so has some way to go before he takes his final walk. A GBP 20 a month increase, or more than 50% increase, seems a little high.
I went to a price comparison website to see what other offers I could get and there were companies willing to insure him for last year’s rates but they would not cover pre-existing conditions. Unfortunately for us, George has had a few fits over the couple of years and should this become more of a problem than it is currently then a new insurer would not cover that cost. Bugger.
I phoned my current company and they said they could reduce the level of cover to a lower premium which sounded nice, but it would be the same as taking out new insurance and so pre-existing problems would, again, not be covered. Double Bugger.
It would appear that I am stuck with these ludicrous price increases for the insurance for my dog. It would, in all honesty, be cheaper to buy a new dog each year than pay my new premiums!
Apologies to Terry Pratchet for the title of this communication.
Only a short while longer and I will have collected all the Tintin books for my sons to read. I have been buying about two or three every pay day from Amazon for the last 9 months or so and I think I have two more months before I have the complete collection. Unfortunately, I did accidentally buy one in paperback and so I will give that one away and buy it again in hardcover. In all honesty they might be more for me than the kids but I’m sure they’ll read them eventually.
I already have all the Asterix books as I collected them during my sabbatical year when I was at Imperial College. It was the only time as a student that I had any money and I made sure that I didn’t have any by the end of the year. I put on a lot of weight eating in the Union cafe all the time and bought ridiculous things like a lovely Aiwa portable cassette player (remember those?) and a crazy Casio watch that had a thermometer and a barometer built into it. The watch could even do altitude (based on pressure). Now I guess all of my money for gadgets goes into my phone and it does a crazy amount more. Not just two sides of a C90 but a whole two weeks worth of music!
Possibly a bit of a random communication for you and perhaps I should aim to include more outrageous stories from my university days!
I recently bought some tickets to see the singer Usher at the O2 (or North Greenwich Arena if you followed the Olympics). The tickets were quite expensive and there was a similarly over-priced booking fee.
It turns out that Usher decided that being a judge on the USA version of The Voice was more important than singing to his fans in the UK (I don’t consider myself a fan, see My Music). So he has postponed his tour over here.
Ticketmaster, through whom I purchased the tickets, were really good at contacting me about the postponement of the event. I received a text, mobile phone message, home phone message and an email. I have also been refunded the price of the tickets. However, they have kept the booking fee! As far as I can tell I have not actually booked any tickets because they don’t exist anymore and so I should get a full refund.
I do know it is probably in the T&Cs somewhere about them keeping the booking fee. What do they care? If I want to see a band in the future I’m still going to use them. It’s win-win for Ticketmaster.
I’m happy.
There’s a Gran Turismo application (or program to someone my age) for the iPhone. It’s called GTune5 and is an app that should make the tuning of cars easier.
I think the idea is that it will give you settings based on a car set up you like and translate them to other cars. So, I like some oversteer in my cars and the app will allow me to recreate that in other cars once I enter the details for a car I can really handle well.
Lovely. Now I just need some time to play the game!
Find me on PSN as Kertz.
I went with WW to see a couple of basketball matches at the London 2012 Olympics. We went on the first day of competition and had a great time. The travel from Ebbsfleet was smooth and fast. The entry into the Olympic park was swift and the park itself was gorgeous and had a lovely atmosphere. The only issue was the availability of food which, due to poor organisation and deliveries, was not plentiful. We ended up eating a pretty poor chilli and rice (picture below).
Here’s a picture of the slop they called food:
I am officially a member of the Michel Vaillant club, I think.
I have the letter but I need to read it, carefully and slowly! I don’t really speak French. If I really struggle then I’ll ask some people at work to read it for me. We have many language specialists!
I have some serious issues with Prometheus! About two months ago I saw a trailer and knew nothing else about it. Wow, space stuff with Ridley Scott! That’ll be a really interesting film then. Put head into “protect” mode and don’t look at anything connected to ensure the pure film experience. Persuade wife that it’ll be a great film to see on one of the three times a year we get out to the cinema. Booked the tickets online and as far in advance as I could, even coughed up for gallery seats at Bluewater cinema. Now I could say I’m not grumbling but about GBP45 for two cinema tickets is a bit steep, even for a double leather sofa and as much coffee as you can drink. I even booked a 3D viewing and I think that is mostly a con.
The actual day came along and I was still persuading WW that it’ll be ok and not that scary or gory as it’s only a 15. Little did I know how horrified I was going to be.
Glasses – got
Free nachos – got
Free celebrations – got
Free coffee – got
Adverts and trailers – over.
Film start. So excited.
Big white man, ok. Ancient drawings point to a star system, yeah, bullshit but ok. Man, that looks good. The whole thing just looks so bloody sexy. Oh, he’s a robot, others sleeping, seen it before but it still looks good. Everyone wakes up and ok. Still looking good.
Let’s go and land, and just drop the ship down without circling around and scanning for a little while – now I’m starting to hurt a bit. I’m not sure it would happen like that.
Hold on. You wouldn’t do that. Film looks gorgeous. Oh dear, I think they are losing it a bit. Why don’t you map the building before going in. Why take your helmet off? Why try to pet an alien worm creature? Oh shit. I think this is causing cognitive dissonance. Wait until end of film, try to cope and tally the expectation with the experience.
I have spent the last two weeks reading reviews of this film. I have tried to find out why it was causing me so much pain and I think it comes down to the fact that it was shit. Ridley Scott has made a gorgeous looking film but the script and story line we probably just ideas on post-its that were thrown in the air and those that landed upwards were kept. It was shit.
So, so very disappointing. For a film that looks so lovely it stank. I would recommend you go and watch – Moon. It’s far better and greater in terms of everything.
I want to thank George Hrab for his thirty one minutes of PrometheusBoo on his podcast. He managed to say everything I couldn’t because I’m still in shock. I would also like to point out that this review here is a crock of shit. Man, I could link any film you care to mention to Jesus and the message of Christianity.
Oh, it still hurts. I still can’t juxtapose the gorgeousnous of the film with just how much it stank.
Well, this was a surprise! WW went down the shop to get some toppings for rice crispy cakes. This is what she brought back!
I am just hoping these aren’t the jewels used for vajazzling. It all seems rather wrong to me! Now if I say they are Australian I’m sure that’ll make perfect sense.