I'm back!

Boredom can be very frustrating...

So during a quiet day, I was skulking around Google looking for something to do and found this blog! I'd forgotten all about it!

Almost 5 years has now past and lots has changed, but I won't bore you all with that! Whether I continue to blog past this post is unknown but who knows?!

Nothing beats a good old fashioned experiment…

As some of you know, my legs are knackered and I’m still not sure why. Between myself and my Osteopath we have theories but until I see a specialist, we’ve no idea what the problem is.

What I do know is that there’s inflammation in and around the knee which needs to be kept down and the only way to do this is ice and ibuprofen gel. It’s now been a couple of months on the ice and gel and the general background pain that I had has reduced right down to almost 0 out of 10. I still get the odd day where it’ll flare up to a 1 or 2 but it’s not enough to worry about and if I’m concentrating of something else, I don’t even notice it. It still hurts climbing lots of stairs or walking long distances though…

Yesterday I thought I’d run an experiment. What would happen if I didn’t ice it at all? Well it’s been 24 hours and I have a result! It hurts more! The background pain stayed at a solid 1 or 2 all day going up to a 4 when going up stairs etc. I was also much more stiff which I didn’t expect! I’m glad I did it though as now I know that my leg isn’t healing as fast as hoped, if at all. We’re just managing it, meaning there may be something more permanent wrong.

What this does mean is that my theory of what’s wrong is looking more correct. Am I right? Only time will tell. I see the specialist in a few days…

Adam the Eco Warrior?

Maybe one day but I’m far from a anything close to an eco warrior right now! I’m not the kind of person to tie myself to a tree or anything like that. I am however starting to see a little more into what they’re trying to do and how I can do my bit. I’m still not going to tie myself to a tree as that’s not me. I’ll still be one of the first people to say “Chop it down. Let’s have a fire!”. What I’m talking about is reducing my consumption of resources and I’ve already started…

My car is the first place and it was merely financial. At the time I was driving stupid long distances and I needed a new car. It was obviously going to be a diesel but I wanted something that will last me a while and also me extremely cheap. It had to be diesel but not a silly small engine. Something like a 1.6 would be perfect. Not too small and not too big. Not too slow and not too fast. Just right. For the special tree hugging bit, I set my eyes on a Ford Fiesta Econetic. Very economic, the right engine size, cheap insurance and wasn’t crazily expensive. Ok, so I could have got something a little cheaper, but this was going to last me for 5 years at the very least. It was only 6 months old so no MOT for a couple of years and as it was so economic, the road tax is free. I now fill up with £50 worth of diesel once a month which if you go back to my Skyline I was doing every week!

I’m now thinking of my next car! Where will cars be in 5 years time? Battery and electric motor tech is improving each year. Prices are coming down and ranges are improving. In 5 years time I think that electric cars will be more common on the road and chances are I’ll be looking at owning one. Sure, it won’t be able to do the occasional trip to the north to see friends, but it’ll be able to go to work and maybe even my parents and back which is a 115 mile round trip. I’d certainly settle for a hybrid such as the new Toyota Prius which is for years was a bit of a joke, but the plug-in version they’ve released is now starting make more sense. I still don’t understand why it’s got a petrol engine and not a diesel which would make it more economic on longer runs… They should put the diesel engine I currently have in my Fiesta in place of the petrol one and it’ll be much better, and in 5 years it could be awesome! I think that combine improvements in battery tech, diesel engines and solar panels and it could become awesome. Now why doesn’t Ford do this with the Focus?

So like I said, far from eco warrior, but I’m thinking in the right direction.

First Class

I have to travel to London at least once a week now and like a lot of people, I take the train. I've noticed a difference between the train network from Hertfordshire to London and the train network from Kent to London. The trains are much shorter. The maximum you get is 8 carriages compared to Kent's 12. This means that there's much less space and only slightly fewer passengers. Make this worse by making two of those carriages first class and we only get 6 carriages!
   
This brings me on to my subject for today. What is the point of first class? It's never more than half full, so why have two? Why not only have one and give more second class passengers the chance to sit down?! Better yet, why not remove it completely and make your second class passengers, who make up 98% of those travelling, considerably more comfortable! 
   
Here's another question for you. The train is packed. All seats are taken and the door area's are full. You can't actually get in without squashing everyone. Is there anything wrong with standing in the first class door area? I say no as it's technically not first class... The seating area is first class but standing by the door isn't. This is not the view of the ticket checking people... If the door area's are first class then first class ticket holders are getting ripped off as it's no different than second class! Actually, what do first class ticket holders getting for their money? All I can see is the white headrest cover... 

People of Essex and Hertfordshire - Learn to drive!

By nature, i’m not a road rage kind of person. I actually think these people are a bit stupid really as shouting at other cars is pointless as they can’t hear you! That being said, i’ve just called myself an idiot as since i’ve moved to Hertfordshire, my road rage is growing by the day…

It’s largely because of people not being nice or courteous and this is coming from someone who grew up driving in Kent. Here are a list of my gripes:

1) People drive too close behind you – It seems there’s no stereotyping either as it’s a mixture of all cars from small Ford Ka’s to lorries.

2) People don’t understand roundabouts – Going on the outside lane three quarters round the roundabout is very dangerous thing where i’m from, but here it’s not just acceptable, but fairly normal.

3) People don’t understand roundabouts 2 – The normal rule is to give way to those on the right. Here, the rule is to give way to whoever is fastest. This applies to whether the car is already on the roundabout or on approach and it doesn’t matter if you’re already on the roundabout and have priority. Speaking of priority…

4) Pinch-point priority – There’s a road here that has two pinch-points to slow traffic. They both have different priorities – if you have priority for one, you won’t for the other. This tends to mean that if someone goes through the one where they don’t have priority, they then drive straight down the middle of the road as they have priority for the next one. This is regardless of whether there’s a car going through the one at the other end. I’ve had countless close calls, a few “I can’t believe he didn’t hit me!” moments and i’ve been practically run off the road twice. All because morons forget that there are two sides of the road…

5) Finally, motorbikes – Here’s a prime example which happened only this morning and caused this rant. I was in a queue approaching a junction. I wanted to turn right and so did a motorbike a few cars back. As the car in front of me approached the junction I see the motorbike weaving in my mirror. I think little of it as he’s still a few cars back and the car in front of me has now pulled out. I pull up to the junction, look right, look left, prepare to pull out, start my move and the motorbike pulls up on my left and drives straight across me, causing me to brake. What was he doing on my left hand side when he wants to turn right??!?! I then pull out behind him and give him the “What the hell??!?!” hand gestures and he/she just shakes their head. What a prick!

Lads Camping 2012

It's once again time for another lads holiday and we're off camping again to Matt’s Hill. This time next month we’ll be in the woods trying to make as big a fire as possible without actually burning the whole wood down.

This time there are going to be a few changes. Firstly, for the first time ever we’re going to have more than one tent! This means no more sleeping on top of each other and not so much waking each other up in the middle of the night for drunken piss breaks!

We’re also continuing (I hope) with last years 2 night camping. I certainly enjoyed having two nights and the activity that comes during the day on Saturday. Last year we went to the Isle of Grain and did some fishing. We didn’t catch anything but it was a fun experience. This year nothing is planned but hopefully we can think of something to do!

It’s back!

After 4 years and 9 days of being in suspended animation, the lifeofanitgeek blog is back!

Just over 4 years ago we created madebygeeks.com and sadly it ceased to exist a couple of months ago. I do still like to vent my creativity occasionally – or have a rant – and suddenly I have remembered my old blog. This one! So, I’m bringing it out of retirement so that I can post crap about my life and thoughts… more likely my random thoughts.

Firstly though the site has had a new look applied and I’ve updated the Twitter and Flickr and a couple of other gadgets. Expect a few more posts in the near future!