Treasure the things you love.
Exciting life
How exciting is my life? This exciting: I love my new washing line cover!
Now you see it.
Now you don’t!
How to survive
This is what’s going to get me through the next few years of raising children. Good choice ww.
Places I have lived
And why not have a list of places I have lived? This whole site is about me keeping moans and groans and the highs of my life in a “secure” place for the world (and eventually my sons) to see. So much for diaries being locked and kept under the bed. Nowadays we like to let the world know what we are thinking and what we know.
I consider that I have lived somewhere if I have unpacked the stereo and wired it up.
Rosedene Flats, Leaden Roding, Essex (no longer exist) (too young for stereo)
Wagon Mead, Hatfield Heath, Essex (too young for stereo)
Broomfields, Hatfield Heath, Essex
Falmouth Keogh Hall, Southside, Imperial College, London (no longer exists)
20 Winchenden Road, Fulham, London
Ongar Road, West Brompton, London
Falmouth Keogh Hall, Southside, Imperial College, London (no longer exists)
Daver Court, Mount Avenue, Ealing, London
Chicago Avenue, Gillingham, Kent
Leonard Way, Brentwood, Essex
Wakeley Road, Rainham, Kent
Edna Road, Ringlestone, Kent
Eccles, Kent
There we are. Not bad going I reckon. I also think that there will only be two more places on this list.
Hot today
Feeling warm today, even my Galileo thermometer says it’s hot. Expanding water means slightly less dense and so very specific masses displace less water and so sink to bottom at particular temperatures. Ingenious.
Frank and Dave
Here are Frank and Dave. I bought this cactus from the Fresher’s Fair at Imperial College in Sept 1991. They are named after the two main astronaut characters from 2001: A Space Odyssey.
I have only had these twins in my possession for around half of their lives though. In 1996 I left them in the flat at 9 Daver Court, Ealing, where I lived while doing my PGCE. I then moved to Kent. Lost and gone but never entering my thoughts so not lost really. Then in 2004 I moved into my current home and a friend came over. She brought Frank and Dave with her as they had been living in her mum’s bathroom since 1997!
Frank and Dave now live in my dining room and occasionally get watered and hoovered! The spines catch quite a bit of dust.
More about another Frank and Dave another time.
Salad Cream
I’m slightly worried. For the last 24 years I have preferred mayonnaise to salad cream. This has even gone so far as to be happy eating a steak with mayonnaise. I thought this meant that I was sophisticated and grown up. Having mayo seemed like the continental, better thing to do. I was happy with this for many years and always shirked the idea of having either salad cream or, worse, tomato ketchup. It is only since I have been with my wife that I have grown to accept that HP brown sauce is ok (but only on breakfast).
But all of a sudden things have changed.
Over the last month I have wanted salad cream with my chips and on the side with my pizza. I’ve not had steak yet so I don’t know what will happen then (it won’t be gravy though, that is even more wronger than ketchup). Does this mean I have regressed? I still feel intelligent and sophisticated (you might not be able to tell from this blog) but I like and even yearn at times for salad cream. I am worried, what if my other tastes revert back to a time when I was spotty and uncomfortable? Will I suddenly have the urge to buy a Madonna album or jump on a push bike and just cycle around all day? I never hang out at the corner shop with mates smoking and drinking but is that about to happen? Like headlines that are questions the answer is no. I am going through a blip and I can blame it on my wife. Her recent pregnancy hormones have infected me somehow and now I just have to wait for my senses and tastes to return to normal.
If you are interested it’s Heinz Salad Cream, Hellman’s Mayonnaise and HP Brown Sauce. Never ever any type of ketchup.
iPhone Apps
Here are some of my favourite iPhone apps and why:
General apps:
- Podcaster – I listen to lots of podcasts! There’s a list here.
- Tunein Radio – when I do the washing up I listen BBC Radio 4 via the internet as the FM signal in the kitchen is a bit iffy. I also listen to Radio Rock – Helsinki
- Met Office – Get the weather and rain maps. Just great.
- WordPress – for editing this site on the move and when I am away from a computer.
- Wolfram – for maths stuff and finding out things that require time series or comparisons.
- Flickr – puts my family photos onto the Flickr site.
- Twitter – I can follow my favourite people and occasionally tweet about the aero-fauna I see.
- IMDb – ever recognise someone in a film and wonder what else they have been in? If so then you need IMBd. I remember it when it was based in Cardiff (that’s a long time ago).
- GTPlanet – I use it to check out interesting things about the Gran Turismo series.
Sport apps:
- WTCC – keeps me in touch with the World Touring Car Series.
- William Hill – I can place my usual amount on the sporting outcomes on offer.
- Spurs – just to keep up to date with the score and Premiership table. Football on the whole bores me as a sport.
- ECB Cricket – because cricket is a sport that matters.
- NFL – after motorsport this is probably my favourite sport.
- F1
Games:
- F-Sim Shuttle – in top 3%
- X – Plane – 4G
- RC Plane 2
- F.A.S.T.
- Real Racing 2
- Slayer Pinball HD
- Angry Birds – in the top 9%
- Sailboat Pro
- Flick Golf
My GameCentre name is Kurtz72
Random:
- Wind Tunnel – as an aero engineer (by degree) this is fascinating.
- Star Walk – it’s always good to know what stars you are looking at.
- Fractile – zoom into the Mandelbrot set which is just lovely and fascinating.
Jumping the shark?
This is me jumping the water sprayer. It was a cold day, hence the fleece. I was quite worried that I was going to slip on landing and end up looking the fool. Maybe I look the fool anyway!
Icons
Just put new icons on the mobile version of my website. They are from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. I like them and many thanks to the person who made them. When I remember I’ll link to that site. Link here.
Going to try and find some way of having the icons on my main site, I think that’ll look really cool. At the moment I am still bothered by time out errors and 500 errors. I think my server shares its time with other sites or it spends a long time doing site maintenance. Will try to find out.
I secretly hope that this site will take off and be very widely read but in reality I don’t want that responsibility. I could, of course, post stuff that isn’t well written and doesn’t make sense but in reality I want to use this to improve my writing skills which are currently poor.
Here’s to the web allowing me to indulge myself and make writing feel like fun, even with the iPhone touch pad.