Beautiful morning

Shame I'm so bushed.

Went circuit training last night. Seemed to be going really well, with 22 burpees (squat thrust followed by a jack) per minute, flat out on the oblique curls etc. This morning I decided to ride into work, since it was so lovely and apparently not frosty.

Well, the first warning sign was the reason the cars didn't look white with frost - It was because the rain had frozen smooth on them instead. Then there was the nagging feeling in my legs as I climbed the hill out of the village. It was the same kind of feeling I have toward the end of a long ride - where you can keep going at a moderate output, but don't ask for any more. At the top of the second hill (nothing big) I could taste blood from breathing so hard. And the cold! I was sweating inside the jacket, but my forehead felt like someone had hit it with a hammer.

Oh the stupid things we do for pleasure.

Yay, now listed.

On the MTB blog-ring.

There's far too much fnaar potential in that, so I'll embroider no further.

A change in the weather.

The last few weeks it's been amazingly dry, although quite cold (especially here in the Cherwell valley). Now the weather's turned to rain. Is this the end of dry trails as we knew them? I certainly hope not, but it did stop me getting out for my second night ride last night.

In the last couple of weeks all the leaves have turned round here, and the rain has started them falling. Not sure I've ever seen it so late before. Will try to get some pix for the gallery before it's all over.

Comments back again.

Courtesy of Blogspeak. I've grabbed a slightly extended coffee break and managed to re-do them. It's painful working over dialup doing this kind of stuff, but so much nicer over a half meg line.

Finally completed the lights.

For those who've been following things through Bikemagic, you'll know that I've been building an offroad light set. I actually completed the lights weekend before last, but because of working away etc. I didn't have the time to test them properly. I'd also offered Mike Davis (BM's editor) an article on construction and testing, and that took time to write (and edit, correct, edit, re-edit etc). I'm still not completely happy with it, but sent it to him anyway, yesterday.

There's a 'step-by-step' photo guide in the fotopic gallery. Judging by the number of hits, it's proving to be of some interest. I will be writing some detailed (as in "do this, do that") style instructions for the lamp holders shortly. The Battery pack has already been completed.

It's certainly been interesting. I've read quite a bit about battery technology, and feel like I have a much better understanding of everything now. And the lights do actually work well, too :-)

Now, what was that verse about not putting your light under a bushell?

Back at last.

Glasgow has grown on me, but I'm glad to be home. The people I met in the lab there were some of the friendliest and quickest learning I've come across anywhere. And towards the end I even started to understand what they were saying ;-)

Actually toward the end it was getting dangerous. I was starting to adopt the accent (Ach noooo. Dinna fash yersell wi' tha = No, don't worry). Not a good plan, since I can't keep it up for long, and am bound to drop back into 'BBC English'.

If I manage to go back in the summer then I'll have to take a bike. The hills there look too enticing. When my colleague flew in the day after me, he saw snow on the hills round the city. It was quite cold, and my lips are all chapped, courtesy of a walk on Tuesday night to find dinner.

I'm a leavin', on a jet plane.

For Glasgow at 5.00am tomorrow. Don't know when I'll get back - could be Thursday, could be Friday.

Bye for now.

Bikemagic, this very afternoon.

A little ray of sunshine from the forum:

Cathaholic is an unheathly religious disease, similar to Prostatestant.

And

Catholics Anonymous

"Hi. My name is Milo and I am a Catholic. It has been 6 weeks since I last had a cat"

;-)

Oh yes, almost forgot.

Alex Leigh took some pics on the ride last weekend. For some reason I actually came out. Makes a change to see how I look (old, apparently).

I do believe....

I've fixed it. *Gasps sigh of relief*

Now lets see if |i can really foul it up with a comments facility.

Now I REALLY don't know what's going on.

I just restored the template script to the text I saved after I removed the original comments section, but before the new comments were put in. I seem to have an empty sidebar and eveything at the end of the posts. Not only that, but it's broken for Opera :-(

I can feel an evening's patience is going to be needed, and I ain't got that much right now.

Poxy comments!

Sometimes wish I was a script tech-head, rather than joe-ordinary, having to work through scripts line by line to work out what the stuff was going on.

Sorry if you've been trying to access things in the last couple of days without success. I'd tried to replace the previous comments facility (which had died, courtesy of the provider's problems) except that seemed to stuff things big time. Thought I'd stripped out all the dodgy new comments text before re-publishing, but I must have missed a bit somewhere or forgotten to save after stripping.

Anyway, it's fixed now, and I hope to have working comments again soon. Work is quite brisk at the mo, and trying to sort the blog through dialup (like tonight) is painfully slow.

Ah, relaxation. The Allman brother's 'Jessica' has just finished and Matthew's Southern Comfort 'Woodstock' is playing. Sure it's hippy trippy stuff, but it's also quite calming compared to, say ZZ top.

Just applied to join the MTB blogring

Or should that be 'Chainring'?

Stereotypes.

Well, America has 'trailertrash'. The UK has 'Wayne and Waynetta'.

In a bid for high ratings at minimal cost 'reality TV' is on the up. Tonight they showed a program called wife-swapping (nothing to do with swinging) where 2 couples change partners (for the daytime only) while being filmed.

I've never seen this extravaganza (no TV) but have heard the fallout from the program from time to time. If you didn't see it then see this thread on singletrackworld where people discuss the program while it is actually on the air.
I find it amazing that people like this can actually bear to exist, yet they apparently thrive and grow and continue with not a thought for anything else. 'Mazin.

Gives a lot of incentive to pray hard.

Do not forget.

Blogging is not reality.

I’ve not been here for a week now, and to be honest I have suffered guilt, but haven’t missed posting for it’s own (or my) sake in the least.

Now I have been somewhat busy workwise, and that brought home how much I had been doing using work’s connection in work’s time. Not good. On top of that, I read an article that Jordon Cooper linked to by a guy in the independent, and that covered a lot of the bases I was feeling. In addition, the comments provider I had been trying had a big problem that he (presumably) is unable to fix, and I couldn’t really see the point of a blog without comments (like I’m going to put my email addy up here??!). Finally, I realised that I was getting back from work, shoving dinner down my neck and then sitting at the PC for a lot of the evening, as if I hadn’t had a chance to use one for a while.

To cap it all, I spoke with a good friend the other day about blogs. She’s excited by the online world, and really likes lurking. However she also has a friend that runs the virtual housegroup (don’t have the URL handy, but it’s virtualhousegroup.co.uk or .org.uk or somesuch). My friend used to correspond by email regularly, until replies stopped coming. When she asked why, she was asked to work through the site. Nuts! Personal communication is meant to be that. It was enough to convince me that some bloggers can get too far up their own bottoms about how important it is (I DO have specific sites in mind ;-) and lose touch with reality.

So I got on and lived in the real world more. Went to bed earlier. Talked to my wife. Did a few practical things.

And the only thing that drew my mind back to it was the guilty feeling that I should be posting.

I DO feel like I’ve got things to say still, and I will be posting here, but I’m blowed if I’ll let it rule me, like it was starting to.

On a different topic, I’ve just bought Conan the Barbarian on DVD, and I’m looking forward to a little retro, un-cerebral entertainment.