www.madebygeeks.com is live! The beta of our new website went live at the weekend with Mark biting the bullet and putting the first video up. Now that the site is live, this blog will move over to there. Therefore this will be my last post on www.lifeofanitgeek.blogspot.com. The blog will continue as www.madebygeeks.com/blogs/adam and as you can see, some of the older posts are there too.
See you on the other side!
It looks fun but it’s got to be the most dangerous way of travelling ever!… I imagine it’ll catch on in the UK but the potholes and speed bumps will make it much harder!
Once again the English BBQ is here once more(as opposed to the South African BBQ season which never really stops). It’s that time 
again when the people moan that it’s too hot and then stand next to a fire to burn meat for hours on end. This year will hopefully see more BBQ’s as they’re always fun and these days there are more experienced chefs knocking about (I’m not claiming to be one but I’ll have a go!). Unfortunately the days of the big party have gone for our household as we’re in a much smaller house with no garden and there’s just enough room for 4 people yet alone 20! I’m pretty sure that it won’t stop the pool from
showing it’s face though, but it’ll probably just mean that people will either have to go through the pool to get outside, or they’ll put it in the front garden! At least then we’ll probably fit in with the locals…
Finally i've washed my car and as promised, here are some pics. A short and simple post today. More tomorrow.
This months blag is my car. Between £2500 and £3000 worth of repairs to the Audi (flywheel, clutch and gearbox housing) and I didn't pay a penny! Hahaha! Beat that Jon!
It's so much nicer to drive now. It's smooth and easy to change gear. It's exactly like it should have been when I bought it! At least i'm mobile now!
I've just contacted the garage and they say my car should be ready in about 2 hours! Lets hope they're not lying! I can't wait to get it back. 
I can only hope they've actually fixed it too, rather than just replacing the clutch and welding up the gearbox housing. To be honest I don't really care anymore. I just want my car back! The train is so annoying and long! It takes 45 minutes to get to work by train when it's only 20 minutes by car! The only good thing about going by train is I get a little exercise!
Finally a decent recent picture of the lads! I've been looking for a picture like this for ages!
Not much to talk about today really... The house is slowly getting tidier and hopefully by the end of the week it'll finally feel like home.
My car is still out of action. It's still at the garage I bought it from and hopefully they'll get back to me today!
The www.madebygeeks.com website is coming along nicely. I've seen some test versions and they look great. I've also seen some more photos from the lads stag holiday and can't wait to the others!
Work is quiet but will probably get much busier in the next few weeks. The directors have recognised that I'm going to need some help and will speak to me shortly. Fingers crossed it'll be good news and hopefully the word "raise" mentioned...
Soon i'll have my internet connection back which means i'll be back on the WoW! There's rumours of the old group getting back together as Horde characters. Hopefully we'll see something soon.
Back to the work side of things and the packhouse that shutdown and reopened again will soon start packing. Of course this means that the secret meetings have begun. Standard practice here is for a selection of managers to disappear into a meeting leaving the other managers and important people to wonder both what they're discussing and why they're not invited.
Naturally this starts rumours and once the gossip people have got hold of it at the fictional water cooler, it get distorted and 12 different stories start to circulate. Good old office life...
We're finally in the new house! For those that were or weren't aware, we've moved house. Jacques, Amy and I are now living in far away from Darren and Marks World so there'll probably be less pub trips, but at least we're living in a cheaper house and I'm closer to work which means less of the ever increasing in price diesel. With any luck I can shift this debt and start saving!
The move in general went well but required more trips than we expected. Now the cleaning operation has begun to clean up the old house so that the agency can inspect it.
When the new house is a little tidier i'll post some pics.
That is a picture of the gearbox on the Audi. See that black line? Yeah... That shouldn't be there! It almost looks like a seam but it's actually a 5mm gap that's been cut by a broken clutch. I know what you're gonna ask. "How did it do that?" The answer is I don't know and neither do the mechanics until it's taken apart! Hopefully it'll be fixed under warranty but if not it'll cost between £2500 and £3000 to fix. Ouch.
Well you seen the pictures, now it's time to read what happened. Well we started with a fry-up in the local greasy spoon, then cruised up to the busy M25 which wasn't all that busy. We stopped off at Fleet services for a stretch of the legs and again at another service station a little closer to check the map. We finally arrived there around 2:30pm which meant a 1 and a half hour wait until check-in. Luckily this went quickly and we were soon in our Chalet (or Villa as Jon calls it!). The evening was spent in the arcade where I won £40 and the clubhouse.
The next day we went for a trip to the site of our previous lads holiday at Brean. We headed up the cliff on a 2.5 mile walk to Bread Down Fort for a host of pics and video. It was also where Jon decided he wanted to touch a cow... The evening was again the same with time spent in the arcade and clubhouse. We were also very to lucky to get a glam rock band for the cabaret who were just dreadful!
Sunday was more of a rest day. We'd all burnt in the sun from our walk at Brean so we just took a cruise to a cider farm which was small... really small. We also went for a walk around Minehead where Jon bought his very first ball! When we got back we played a little basketball (I won) and football (I didn't) which drained us of all
energy completely and then again went to the clubhouse for drinks. Finally on the way home we stopped off at the Haynes International Motor Museum for a gander at some amazing cars! Happy Days!
Well the holiday has come and gone. If you're a friend of Marks on Facebook, you may have noticed that the MadeByGeeks website is up and running and currently is showing our Twitter feeds from the holiday. As promised here are some pictures! There'll probably be more on the www.madebygeeks.com website later. For those of us with Internet Explorer, hover over and image for a description.
I thought i'd post up a few previews of the kind of scenery we're gonna have on holiday. These are of course taken by others.
It's finally here. This time tomorrow morning we'll be getting ready to leave on our 4 hour trip to the west country. Unfortunately the Audi will not be our ride for the weekend as it's still in pieces and probably will be for a while. Luckily Jon has offered to drive us in whatever car he ends up with... Thanks Jon! Tomorrow morning will start with the 4 of us meeting at mine and then heading off for some breakfast at the local greasy spoon. Then it's off to Somerset via the busy M25, hopefully missing rush hour!
To be honest, I really can't wait! It's been a while since we last had a lads holiday and even longer since it was the original lads group of myself, Mark, Matt and Jon. It's almost like a little reunion holiday!
What I must stress is that this is not strictly a lads holiday. It's a lads stag weekend for Matt who's getting married in December. Therefore general focus will be on the stag himself ensuring that he is treated in the typical stag sense but slightly quieter ensuring a good time is had by all. Consider it a warm up for the proper and official stag do later in the year!
Last night was a night of classic gaming. I borrowed my brothers NES and after 20 minutes of frustrated fiddling, I got it to work! The 
light gun didn't seem to work but that's irrelevant as the original Super Mario Brothers was the game of the night. Everyone that has played this game can remember it and often in detail, especially when it comes to cheats and hidden goodies. Naturally this gaming session wouldn't be complete without Amy screaming her head off closely followed by Jacques attacking her whilst at the same time doing nothing... Good times.
Only 3 more days to go (including this one!) before us lads are jetting off to Somerset for a stag holiday. The Audi is currently at the garage having it's gearbox looked at and will hopefully be ready for the 4 hour cruise down to the west country. I've been looking at the weather forecast and it's constantly changing as usual. It's currently set for sun on Friday and Saturday, cloud on Sunday and rain on Monday. Lets hope that changes and it's sunny on all four days!
Apologies for not blogging recently. Windows Live Writer has been messing me around but I think i've found a way around it.
Apologies for not blogging everyday as usual. I've been very busy here what with my boss no longer around to help me. This weekend 
will be no exception as Christa, myself and two friends head up to the Lake District for a long weekend of camping. As you can see from the picture it's very scenic and to my knowledge this is a similar view to what we will have from out tents! The only thing I can hope for is good weather. Please can we have good weather!
I have two large decisions to make. Do I get the 32bit or 64bit versions of Vista and do I upgrade my PC or leave it as it is? I know that i'll be getting the Home Premium version but that's all!
I currently use Windows XP x64 so i'm tempted to use get the 64bit version, but will it work? Is there enough software available? Also, can my hardware support it? My machines current spec is a 3.2Ghz AMD Athlon (single core) with 2.5Gb of RAM and a 256Mb Radeon X1300 graphics card. I can't help but think it's not going to be powerful enough! Any help would be appreciated so feel free to leave suggestions using the comments system.
At the weekend was Jon's birthday gathering. I can't remember the last time I was drunk at Jon's place to be honest! Anyway, the reason 
I called him Casper is because of this photo. It was taken in his spare/computer/soon to be baby room with a normal flash and this is what came out! This was one of the few geeky moments of the evening when Jon showed us his new headset for those enjoyable WoW sessions. Sunday not surprisingly was recovery day...
Finally the news we've all been waiting for! The announcement was made last night that we had won the company back! We're back in business! Next week we can get out of our cramped little board room and head on back to the main office and carry on like we were... hopefully. We need a customer and supplier first!
On a different note, this time in three weeks the lads stag holiday will get under way! The weather has turned a little grim as the European Monsoon kicks in but with any luck the good weather will return just in time. Fingers crossed!
Last night was another trip down to Darren's World, but instead of all the lads, it was just Darren, Mark and I. Sometimes I prefer the quiet nights but i'm not sure that Darren did as Mark and I got into the geek talk again!
Madebygeeks.com is still in the making and hopefully we'll have something soon.
On a work note there's no news on the old company and we're still having to wait and wait and wait and wait...
I filled up the Audi yesterday. It had done 650 miles and still could have done 50 more (according to the computer). 650 miles to £70 is much much better than 200 miles to £50!
I'm always badmouthing Vista. Lets face it, who isn't! My XP x64 is acting a little strange and keeps presenting me with the good old blue screen of death! That's when Mark has suggested that I give Vista a try. This made some sense as XP is due to finish in the next 
month or so leaving Vista to be the only operating system for sale to the general public, meaning it's going to appear more and more on peoples computers! So, soon i'm going to install Windows Vista Home Premium as a project. Can I get on with? Will I ever like it? Will my computer like it? I'm aware that Vista is a bit of a resource hog so will my 3.2Ghz single core AMD with 2.5Gb of slow old DDR RAM keep up? I'll post regular updates as to the projects progress.
Something tells me that I can guess what most of the country did over the weekend. Three simple letters... BBQ. I know that's what I did on Friday, Saturday and Sunday! Friday night was one of the nice quiet bbq's that I like at home which involve plenty of wood as you can see by the picture below. Believe it or not we did eventually burn that big thing completely!
Saturday I took the long trip up north in the Audi. Cruising up the I managed a healthy 55mpg which means I got there in just half a tank, which is half the amount of the Skyline. The Skyline used to do about 220 miles to a tank whilst the Audi has done 555 miles and still has a quarter of a tank to go! Whilst up north with Christa we 
had two bbq's (after having to buy and build it one) which was nice. We had a half english and half south african bbq mixing burgers with steaks and then koftas with chicken. Speaking of the chicken, it didn't make sense... the packet said cook from frozen on a high heat. Isn't that asking for trouble??? Sorry for not posting yesterday! It was a busy day!
In 4 weeks time we'll be on the road on the way to Doniford Bay for Matt's stag weekend! At the moment it looks like it's going to be me transporting the lads in the A6 on the 4 hour journey to the west country for a weekend of fun... hopefully! There are talks of filming the event (in HD of course) and possibly even streaming live on the Internet for the whole world to see! I'll confirm this nearer the time. On a different note, Madebygeeks.com is in the design process so hopefully soon we'll have something to show you!
Last night was the usual Wednesday night pub. This time instead of heading down to Darren's World : The Three Sisters, we went up to Mark's World : The Manor Farm. For the first time ever I saw Mark 
with two beers in his hands!
Changing the subject to work... We still don't know what's happening! The administrators are still making a decision on which bid to accept. I thought it was a case of highest bidder wins but it appears not. Nothings that simple in the business world! Hopefully we'll find out today... I must say that every time I post something about work!!
Last night was a successful bodge... I know there's probably no such thing as a successful bodge but we did it. It was a relatively simple job actually. A cable comes in at one corner of the house and it needed to be extended to the other corner of the house.
As you can see, we took the job very seriously and professionally... After the initial "how are we going to do this?" discussion we got straight to work and routed the cable up through the ceiling, across the loft and back down into the computer cupboard (which was in the sex room). At first we thought that there wouldn't be enough cable but it turns out there was plenty to spare.
It was a bit messy, dusty and a little cramped up there but like the pros that we are, we got the job done. We found some strange stuff up in that loft too... Mills & Boon books, lots of broken glass and a riding crop which we believe could well have been used in the sex room along with the sex swing! Once upon a time that must have been one dirty house! At least we can soon continue on with our WoW sessions!
Is summer finally here or is it yet another tease? The fact that the weather has stayed nice for more than 2 days is a good sign!
We certainly took advantage of the good weather by having a bbq (not that bad weather normally stops us!). In fact, we had multiple and even had an English style bbq with good old fashioned sausages on crappy disposable bbq's!... but sadly no burgers.
Changing the subject to cars, I'm so glad that i'm not walking to work anymore and drowning in my own sweat!... The Audi is up and running and returning economy the Skyline could never reach! At the moment i'm set to do at least 500 miles to a £70 tank as opposed to 250 miles to a £50 tank. Now if only the price of diesel was to come down...
Car tax. The one thing stopping me from driving my nice new car... At least it's only a small delay as I'm now taxed up, but it still meant I had to get the train again today!
On a work note, there's been yet another extension for bids on the old company. Maybe one day it'll finally get completed and we'll know what's going on!
This afternoons trip home will be my last train journey as this evening I will pick up my new car! My Audi A6 is ready for collection later tonight and I really can't wait! I'm fed up of the train journey and the walk that goes with it! Although it's not the same colour as the one in the pic below (thankyou parkers.co.uk), it's the same model. Mine is actually a dark blue and after a little work with some good polish should look lovely.
It's also got a nice interior and luckily it hasn't got the wood interior like the one below! I'll put another post up when i've got it, washed it and taken some pics.
