Author Archives: essiep

very November

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4°C, heavy rain, windy too. No cycling.

It’s getting worse, as the average height of british men increases, the average length of trousers in the shops gets shorter. The longest ones M&S do now is 33", it used to be 35". I need 36" waist to go with the 36" inside leg. Can you tell I had another frustrating and wasteful shopping trip today. why do so many people like shopping, I can’t see it- it’s infuriating. 
 
Novermber: here we are, cold, dank, dull & grey, topped up with heavy rain. It must be November.

Now it’s snowing.

Orange skimmed rooftops

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6°C, cold, still and misty. C=4×21 miles
This week has been good for cycling, despite very cold air, -3°C some mornings. Both mornings and evenings (which now happen in Mid-afternoon) have seen colourful sunset/rises. Routine makes it feel like "Groundhog Day". I see the same pedestrians in the mornings, crossing at the same places, the same cars overtake and the same sun sets.
See the picture of orange sunlight skimming horizontally across rooftops and trees.

Apetite: insatiable this week. Someone suggested that it is the cold that has boosted my hunger, which is an interesting thought.
I had 513 emails tonight, all claiming returned emails, so some spammer has been using my address as return addy.
Staffroom: we debated a Virus’s right to life status. No we aren’t virus antiabortionists, I wasn’t sure if they were alive in the first place. They’re not.

The kids did charity things.

Remembrance

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12°C, clouds. Wind abating. C=53 miles.

Riding out across the Sittles farm estate, I heard what sounded like Opera, drifting across fields from the north. Curiosity drew me into the Alrewas Arboretum where a grand Remembrance Sunday event was held. thousands of people were there, loads of ol’ vets and military big brass. They’d just had a ceremony ( my arrival was just after 11.00am). the event concluded with a flyby by a Douglas Dakota painted in army colours- see photo.

Bioshock

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13°C, dead-calm & clear.

Pripyat & Zones of Exclusion was delivered today. Large format photographs of Chernobyl and Pripyat city. Gorgeous book.

  http://img.photobucket.com/remix/player.swf?videoURL=http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v411/EssieP/STALKER/0836fa1f.pbr&hostname=streammg.photobucket.com
this could be quite a good feature to play with, the stock music is rather bland, & it’s not clear whether you can upload your own- probably not.

A week of repairs

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13°C, misty.

Where has the time gone, it has been quite a busy week. Including Tuesday- fast for a blood test. That was annoying- all down to a low IQ phlebotomist. I was left thinking over the word phlebotomist – a medical professional who extracts blood samples. After the appointment, my mind wandered over to the search for a word for a medical professional who takes the piss.
Today, no cycling- we had a nice walk instead, only slugged by last night’s late finish.
The winter bike is back on the road, it’s so gooood to have it back & running.

Arrow, back on the road.

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16°C, sun & heavy rain. C=45 miles.

Arrow: is back on the road, after three months. The brakes are better than ever as is the handling (after adjusting the headset properly) . Had a decent ride despite being beaten back by the rain. It was warm and sunny otherwise.
Back to work tomorrow….

I don’t know how she’s done it, but Rosie has a Facebook profile. I hope she doesn’t post anything too rude on there, it’s meant for humans really.

Empty handed

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13°C, clouds 100%

Visit Birmingham to buy clothes. No luck , could only find warm thick heavy ones; they would not be suitable for someone who works in a place heated like an old-people’s home. So I returned empty handed.
Artemesia "Powys Castle". Bought one depite the contentious link with Absinthium. I’m not at all sure how close this variety is. It smells right however. The photo below is a wild variety, Artemesia Vulgaris, "Mugwort". Wormwood still eludes me in the wild, it is said to be quite common in the Midlands, especially likes sandy soils, which are common in Birmingham.

Take-off

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13°C, dull & grey. C=35 miles.

FS-X: fixed the Flight simulator. There was a corrupt user-log file that the main game opens on launch.Deleting it removes records of previous flights, but at least it goes now.
Back into cycling, the commuting bike is all but ready. There is  one tiny light-bracket that I can’t find. It’s stored somewhere safe, those things are fragile, but I can’t remember where. That was the last day of the holiday- a mending-things holiday.

Grounded

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10°C, still cloudy.

Suddenly, MS Flight Sim-X stops working today. No apparent reason, no error messages, just a permanent stop in the splash screen.Disappointed. Running "repair" and re-installing the service pack has made no difference.

3DS Max. Updated the Digger animation. Some new textures and a few new components. Once the render has finished, I can post a small version of it here.
http://img.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vidmg.photobucket.com/albums/v411/EssieP/3Dgraphics/BIGdigger_n85.flv

Edukators

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13°C, Cloudy & chilly.

Edukators: Good contemporary German film. Long but worth it in the end. It’s full of almost dated idealism from the characters; plus various themes centering on the generation gap. Acting is all impeccable, as is the filming- the whole thing is vivid bar one distraction. One editing trick is the "drop-cut", it works like a few dropped frames, as if the editor wanted to speed up the scene a bit so took a few frames out here and there. the effect is a rather jarring.
Forks: collected. Rebuild soon.
Kevin Ayers album- on first listen- it sounds terrible.