Busy Busy Busy

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!

Project : Vista

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.

Casper gets older

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!!!!!

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!

General Catchup

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!

Project Vista

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.

Early summer ending?

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!

Less than a month to go...

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!

Wednesday Night - Mark's World

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!!

Loft 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!

English BBQ Season upon us?

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...

So I forgot...

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!

The Last Train Journey

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.