Monthly Archives: Jul 2007

Oak galls

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20°C, same weather,

My favourite Oak tree has galls on its leaves. The tree lives in a small but wild field near home where I walk the dogs*. It turns out that those red balls on its leaves are created by gall wasps, each one has a young wasp gestating inside causing no harm ot the tree.
 
* I say "walk", not what they do.

Thrips weekend

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20°C, sunny with cumulus clouds

Yesterday: got slightly burnt at the Duxford airshow. Despite wearing some 15 & 45spf sun cream, it still got through. IU blame the thrips- they were everywhere, itching and bothering everyone around. I reckon in wiping them off- some of the cream came off too. Funny little things thrips.
The photo below shows some american planes, this opener was marred by commentary from an american woman who was lbatantly reading propaganda.
 
Today, same weather, but no showers and 72 miles on the bike. It’s been ages since I did that kind of distance so it was quite hard near the end ( but oddly, felt easier in the last 10 miles).

The difference a day makes:

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20°C, clearing, wind dying away.

Suddenly: feel back to normal, that "looking-slowly" feeling has gone, cough has too, now feeling more that summer is back.
Tomorrow is an airshow- Flying Legends which I’m taking my ol’ man to. Just an excuse for a day out really. I have some ferrying to do – that means getting up at 03.00 to take Hannah to start her German trip.
 
The ride home was less wet today, but my paper-files are not quite dried out from yesterday. I felt like a naughty schoolie with a sheet that was due in today being all sodden & frayed at the edges.
A-hem.

that took the fun out of it

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15°C, rain.

Riding home: the rain was heavy before I set off, no sign of it easing so the journey had to be made. It was fine, all that thick surface water, running rivers down the roads and so on. then as luck would have it, the back tyre went down near home. I bet that was from riding on a cycle track for the last bit. It’s now about 3 ghours later and the rain has only just stopped. I was quite enjoying it until that point.
What a summer.

Samosely

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18°C, heavy rain showers, otherwise dry.

That was it, June is officially the wettest since detailed records began in 1914. That’s not to say that 1914 was wetter, so a re-phrase is in order.
 
Roll on summer holidays, tiredness is all pervasive, deep to the core and unshakable. I blame work, accumilated lack of sleep- it adds up eventually.
Go on, rain again- I dare you!

2-pass render elements

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20°C, same old showers, humidity and snails everywhere.

3DS max: Trying to fix a problem with that render from yesterday. The light cones increase the exposure of the background. So ( it’s going to get geeky here…) have rendered out a 2 pass render elements job. That givesa background pass, and an stmospheric effects pass (the volume light). The light glow pass didn’t work, that needs sorting before I can use the file. Oddly, Premier doesn’t offer DivX as an output compressionh codec. Clearly, I have some reading-up to do.
As you can see, this is not so successful, the light glow has gone, but the light-beam is definitely better.
 
When this is done, I’m off to play STALKER.

the nation changes…

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19°C, sun & heavy showers

….or not.
 
Newsworthy stories: new premier, new "bomb" attacks. Hardly bombs, more damp squibs. Some bloke drove a burning car into Glasgow airport yesterday. Not actually a suicide attack- the driver survived with severe burns. Its not clear what all of this means, what the message is or what we are supposed to think. The security forces are on the highest alert, parts of cities get slosed now and again, and all because of the small risk of a fire started by a gas cylinder. I wonder what level of alert they will use if there is an invasion cfleet approaching British shores, or the nuclear bombers are crossing the North sea. It all seems rather silly from here.
 
Smoking: banned in public enclosed places. At last, we’ve wanted this for over twenty years. Maybe going to a pub won’t feel like such a dirty experience any more. We can wear nice clothes there instead of old ones that won’t matter if they end up all smelly.
 
I want to go cycling, but the sky wants to drop huge masses of water carried in tall clouds by westerly winds. June was wet even by wet-june standards.