Week 29 and the Silver Lady

[Philip Ayres]

Car's been in for a pre MOT check. It looks like all it needs is a new tire and brake pads - phew !

[Andy Turnbull]

That's not too bad then.

Andy

[Andy Turnbull]

Went out for a run and got caught in torrential rain. Bracing doesn't even begin to describe it.

Soaked to the skin.

Andy

[Philip Ayres]

Discovered today my local Borders is one of the five getting the chop - not happy.

[Hero]

Will find out possibly soon if fatherhood is on the horizon.

===KEN

[legios]

Glad to hear that the car isn't going to hit your wallet too hard Phil.

I got slightly damp myself this afternoon - decamped to Linlithgow for a walk and was slightly ahead of the rain that was coming in from Stirling-way for most of the time, but it finally caught up with me whilst I was two-thirds of the way around the loch. I had stopped to take a rest on a bench with my book and got halfway through a chapter when it started to drizzle. Fortunately it didn't get any closer (it was hovering over Falkirk in very menacing style) so when I moved around to say hello to the geese I moved out of the rain shadow.

Got back home whilst the clouds were pausing for breath fortunately. I would not want to have been out in what came down later in the afternoon (I suspect it was related to what you got hit with Andy).

Ken - I shall keep my fingers crossed for you.

Karl

[The Doctor]

Local bank holiday today so had the day off, which annoyed me. I don't want any days off. I had almost a year of them. But I thought I'd have a go at it, so went for a haircut and then visited the Kelvingrove Doctor Who exhibition. Plans for a walk around Glasgow's West End were curtailed due to heavy weather so popped in a pub to read comics for a bit.

Second driving lesson this evening. Yep, this is going to take several months I think.

-Ralph

[Deleted]

About a couple of hours ago my family looked out of one of our bedroom windows and noticed a fire in the back garden of one of our neighbours. We went out to investigate and discovered that the neighbour in question was just having a bonfire to get rid of a bit of cardboard. Strangely, he gave the reason for the bonfire as 'he wanted to burn the cardboard before it got wet!' (clearly he didn't want to put it in the recyclable bag given to everybody by the council for the dustmen to take away) but more alarming was the fact that he had started the bonfire right next to the hedge that separates his garden from ours.

[Shockprowl]

I'm emotionally drained after watching Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Sunday afternoon.


Ppppfffffrrrrttttght.

[Philip Ayres]

Jul 13, 2009 19:56:59 GMT Hero said:

Will find out possibly soon if fatherhood is on the horizon.

===KEN

The suspense is killing me.

I can remember sitting in the cottage we were staying in in Wales when we did the test to find out that Liz was pregnant !

[Dezzeh]

My lady found some orange bugs crawling through one of the kittens fur today, after their flea/parasite treatment. Apparantly they were crawling towards the ear. A trip to the vets is on the cards for the poor little blighters today..

[Philip Ayres]

Jul 13, 2009 15:20:25 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Discovered today my local Borders is one of the five getting the chop - not happy.

50% off everything closing down sale ! Unfortunately the Graphic Novel section had been stripped out before the sale started. Still spent £40 in there though on Christmas presents for Mrs Toys

[Hero]

Phil: The suspence is killing me too. I'm pretty excited at the prospect of being a daddy. One thing is for sure that I can't drop out of uni although I feel I should if things do actually happen. I promised George at her request I'd stay in school.

Chris R: All the best with the kitties. You may end up having to just give them dots and its all a matter of getting them to stay still.

Internet Browsing has felt like a transfer from Black & White to Colour since shafting IE aside for Firefox. I wish I made the change earlier.

===KEN

[chrisl]

Really hope you get good news Ken.

Firefox > IE8.

I think the only people who like IE8 are the users of its 'privacy' features or what techies describe as 'porn-mode'.

[legios]

Well, that was an odd experience.

I have been retreading familiar ground today. I took a trip through to Stirling, where I lived when I first lived when we moved to Scotland, and revisited a lot of old haunts. My first surprise was encountered when I got off the train. I had vaguely heard that there was a new footbridge that spanned the railway line to link the centre of town to the new cinema, leisure and retail development that has grown up on the other side of the railway. What I didn't realise was that it was this huge suspension construction of white, glass and steel that arcs over the station platforms. It wasn't so much a case of noticing it as being unable to avoid seeing it.

It was interesting to see the centre of town again. A strange mix of changes have gone on - some bits of the centre have gone all up market with very swish shops indeed, and others have gone distinctly downmarket in the same period.

I took a walk out to the site of my old high school on my way out to the Wallace Monument. I say the site of because the school has gone, razed to the ground to make way for housing which seems to be.... not actually under construction at the moment. All that remains of my high school are a pair of extremely rusted gates on which I leaned to look at the leveled scar on the landscape where the school had been. It was a strange moment - I experienced almost a sense of "ghosting". It was almost as if I could simultaneously see what was there now, and what had been there once. It is an odd thing to have lived to see your high school torn down. Not entirely something I regret (I never believed my father when he insisted forcefully that High School would be the best days of my life - mostly because things couldn't get much worse than High School without moving to a US Housing Project or an urban war zone.....) A very strange experience and not the last of the day.

From there I headed on to the Wallace Monument - I had forgotten how impressive that looked parked atop the craggy hillside. Every bit the mythical wizards tower. Fortunately it was not stocked with a random assortment of monsters on each floor. In fact they have done wonders to the place over the years since I have last been. A new visitor centre at the foot of the hill, audio guides available, a lot of renovations to the paths up to the monument (and in fact turning a lot of the informal tracks I remember from when I was younger into formally recognised footpaths) and generally making it much more visitor friendly. The views from the top remain as spectacular as ever - the sheer variety of what there is to see from up there is impressive.

Once I had finished there it was a short walk to the village where I lived for my teenage years. It is an odd experience to walk past a house where you once lived almost two decades ago. I thought I had got over being weirded out by it when I went back to where I lived in Wales but apparently not. It was fascinating to see what had changed there and what hadn't. What surprised me the most was visiting the remains of the Abbey at one end of the village (after all, there are the remains there of James II to pay my respects to). Normally when you go back to somewhere you knew as a child you come away with the sense of remembering it being bigger. Not this time, instead I came away with the sensation that it was exactly the same size as I remember it. A distinctly odd sensation, as if it had expanded to match my increase in size.

My route back to the train station and home took me past the primary school that I attended for a year - that was still intact unlike the high school.

An odd, but rather illuminating and actually quite enjoyable day.

I think I'm rather enjoying this being on holiday lark. It has been so long since I've had much in the way of leave that I had almost forgotten what it feels like.

Karl

[Shockprowl]

Jul 13, 2009 19:56:59 GMT Hero said:

Will find out possibly soon if fatherhood is on the horizon.

===KEN

Fingers and toes crossed for you buddy.

[Shockprowl]

Good on ya, Karlos, interesting story. Coupla years back Me and the Mrs went back to where I lived in East Anglia, and hadn't visited in fifteen years. It was enjoyable yet weird to see old places again.

[The Doctor]

Laptop saga continues. Was told it was riddled with a 'deep virus', so the computer was wiped clean and the OS reloaded. £59 fee. I asked for a full back-up but on booting up noticed all the music files and programmes I had added were gone.

Tested out computer. CPU still jumps to 100% and video playback is screwed. So, same problems as before.

I am not happy.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

Sounds like bullshit to me. I'm not the best with vista but around AA time (unless I can scare up the time before hand) I will take a look at the beast and see what we can do about the set up of it.

Andy

[The Doctor]

I'll bear that in mind.

If it's still causing bother past August and I'm still in a job I'll just replace the damn thing. It's becoming more trouble than it's worth.

-Ralph

[Andy Turnbull]

Might be worth just getting Windows XP and formatting the thing and starting from scratch. Given what I've heard of Vista.

Andy

[Dezzeh]

Nothing wrong with Vista at all. The only issue it had were due to compatability with *old* hard/software.
That riddled with virus lark is well known techy excuse, if they cant find anything wrong, its a virus.
A full reinstall may help, having not followed the issue you werehaving though couldnt say for sure.

[karla]

hooray! I finished my course, won't be getting my results till september but YaY!

and tomorrow i'm driving down to Hastings, to walk round the battlefield I think?? hmm....can't remember

[The Doctor]

Trying to get a hold of techy bloke, ie fix the damn thing. If it comes back still with problems I'll just scrap it. It's already been wiped clean and been re-installed from scratch.

It was so hot this morning I feared it would go on fire.

-Ralph

[blueshift]

Was sent home from work yesterday for being ill, apparently I am grey as a... grey thing.

Also a switch clicked in my head, and I'm now suffering the worst bout of depression I've had in years. Soonest a doctor can see me is tomorrow morning

[The Doctor]

Make sure and ask your GP for a variety of options for assistance, not just medication, and all the best.

-Ralph

[blueshift]

I've been on some quite strong medication in the past, that's no secret. I came off it in February, but it seems that was too soon and I've been spiraling down ever since. Then last week it seems like a switch went off in my head and I went from bad to worse.

[The Doctor]

That's why it's worthwhile asking your GP for options for assistance. For some people medication alone works, for others medication does not work. Sometimes support groups, counselling, etc can help. It does you no harm to ask. It's by no means an unusual request.

-Ralph

[Deleted]

Hope you get well soon Blueshift and I hope you get your computer problems sorted out Ralph.

[The Doctor]

Putting it in again tomorrow for another wiping and re-install. If it's still fooked after that it goes in the bin and will be replaced by Skynet II.

-Ralph