Journal Entries
Why Don't You...
Posted Dec 2, 2000
Take a day off work and go and do something more interesting instead.
Today (2000-12-01) I did just that, going to the Nene Whitewater Centre (URL removed by moderator)at Northampton. Drove across London (don't do it kids!) to pick my friend up, then back across London pretty much to my place to get to the motorway. Up the motorway to Northampton, follow the instructions to arive at the artificial whitewater site. By this time, the sun had set and there were some floodlights on. The only problem was that the pumps weren't running. and you could see the course for what it really is, a concrete ditch with some bit of plastic to mould the flow of the water. One of the staff did turn them on as other people were arriving. That did make a difference to what was seen. Now there were waves, drops and holes in various places. We started out having a warm up play in he pump pool, surfing back and forth accross the wave formed by the water being forced into the pool. Then off down the course. Along a short run with some fun small drops to the big one. A big drop through a constriction into pool a. This drop is where the main play hole on the course is and a large give way sign is hung over the drop as people may be playing and you don't want to crash into them - could be a nasty accident. The rest is similar with wave trains and small drops into the pools. In the last pool, there is a large concrete 'rock' placed a few metres from the drop. I managed to hit it twice out of three goes! Yes I did swim (after hitting that rock 
) but I survived, the water is only about 1m deep so it's stand up and pull the boat to the side.
A good refreshing afternoon out. Proved that I need to go paddling more often to get better though 
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Latest reply: Dec 2, 2000
When is a Mac not a Mac?
Posted Oct 31, 2000
When it's an overcoat 
Yesterday I finally managed to get the old powermac that's been sitting around the office for a while to do something useful. It's become a unix workstation. Thanks to Linux, which has been ported to the powerpc chip at the heart of powermacs I can now have a unix workstation. I have been able to compile the kernel and get X (a windowing system) working with the built in graphics hardware. The biggest problem after that was X is designed for three button mice and macs traditionally have one button on the mouse. It was solved by setting one of the keyboard keys to act as a mouse button - hurrah.
Next problem (not much of one really) is getting a long network cable and hooking it up to the network here at work and finishing off setting it up 
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Latest reply: Oct 31, 2000
What I did on my holiday...
Posted Sep 24, 2000
Well I've spent a lot of time travelling over the last week.
First it was the trip from London to Manchester where I was able to sit in an almost empty first class carriage because they couldn't run a first class at seat service (the tea boiler broke!). Not bad considering I was sat on my bags next to a door because of the full standard class carriges.
Buses around manchester to go shopping and see a movie (X-Men enjoyable stuff I thought).
Train and high speed catermaran from Manchester to Dublin. A couple of days in Dublin saw me doing the touristy stuff (tour bus ride, book of kells, guinness museum drinking in Temple Bar) and then back to Manchester.
Over to Doncaster to see if I could sort out my car with my sister. Not getting all the documentation together meant that no I wasn't going to be driving back to London just yet 
The train back from Doncaster was diverted due to track and signalling work between Stockport and Manchester and so I was able to see some places near where I live for the first time in a while (the train went through Marple ). Unfortunately the train was delayed due to a broken down train on the track in front of us. We were delayed at a station and the guard opened the doors to let people get some fresh air. Seeing where we were I thought it'd be just as quick for me to get off and travel back to my parents place from there as it would be from Manchester city centre, so off I got and went and managed to phone my sister for a lift. As they arrived half an hour later we watched the train I had been on pull out of the station!
Today has been a national express coach from manchester to london. Only an hour late due to heavy traffic so not too bad 
Trains boats and cars I only needed to go flying somewhere last week and I would have completed the set
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Latest reply: Sep 24, 2000
Holiday
Posted Sep 15, 2000
I'm now on holiday. I'll be away for about a week and so will only be able to get online occasionaly.
Catch you later.
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Latest reply: Sep 15, 2000
New Toys
Posted Aug 13, 2000
Well I've been away for the weekend on a paddling trip. Some members of Regents Canoe Club went up to Shropshire to go and play on Jackfield Rapids. This is a short set of rapids on the River Severn, just a couple of miles downstream of Ironbridge. I took a boat I wanted to try on moving water before decing if I was going to buy it.
Did I like it, I loved it. It just felt right, ferry gliding, surfing, breaking in and out. I was the one controlling the boat, not having the boat control me I'll certainly be buying it now.
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Latest reply: Aug 13, 2000
Phil
Researcher U55494
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