Watch out for the fondue this christmas

This happened down the road from us!

You do wonder how these things happen in the era of health and safety we find ourselves in! I'm sure these fondue sets will now come with a risk assessment as part of the packaging next year!

All i can say is I'm glad Santa did not deliver anything dangerous to our house this year!

Sunday morning ride!

So decided on a test - a 120mile route over towards ZigZag hill (vote best road in UK via continental tyre customers), over Salisbury plain, back towards Winchester then home. Idea was to see as many B or unclassified roads as possible - thanks to offline planning!

My day pass was stamped and I set off just after doing breakfast duties for the kids.

You know your in trouble, when (a) the bike complains about the weather - those pesky Germans like to remind you how cold it is by flashing various warnings on the dash - the actual temperature is displayed and an annoying flashing snowflake. (b) every time i went into a slight covered area and the temperature dropped the wing mirrors and front screen misted up (ON A BIKE FOR GOD's sake!) Never seen that before. Little unnerving as your blind to the rear, the roads are damp - or was it black ice, not sure!

Good news is that you know the sun's going to rise sooner or later and it will dry out. Also good to test the olde riding skills. Good to say that i kept it upright, got over 120 miles done, and a nice hot mug of tea and a sausage bap at half-time. Good morning's riding!

Now who wants to come around and wash the road salt off the bike? ;-)

Now we know where were going!

So the land rover has built in sat-nav so it was bye bye to the old TomTom and i spent the money on a new SatNav for the motorbike! Ruggerised, can be submersed in water and is impervious to petrol! So this means I'm bound to break it in the first 3 months!

Managed to mount the display inside screen of the bike! Just waiting for some bits from an off road company to wire the unit into the bike battery permanently!

Great features include being able to plan route on PC and upload to garmin unit. also have the ability to upload pre-planned routes or even load the route log into Google Earth! Cool!

Some things in life are free!

Last week i had to travel to see clients + do some training in the evening with my US counterparts via live meeting. Options were (a) stay at home and do training from home office and get up the next day at 4am to get to client (b) get to hotel near client and do training from there with a 7am start. So it was option B the family favoured!

So how do i watch training + connect to the audio bridge. Easy. Connect using free Internet at hotel, connect over Internet to live meeting server. Audio? I know - use Sony Skype mouse which also acts as phone/speakerphone. Dial freephone access number from skype and open up speakerphone. Hey presto - good audio and video capabilities and the best thing? I didn't get stitched for a 2hr phone call at hotel rates or for dialing a freephone number :) When the technology works it's great!

An afternoon in london

Had a few hours to myself so was at a loose end. What shall i do? Really want to get out on the bike but where shall i go? I know - quick blast up to London.

So left just before noon, legged it up M3 in the pouring rain, through chiswick, hammersmith, kensington, under hyde park, Piccadilly, around eros, down past design museum, IOD, Trafalgar square, down towards Buckingham palace (road shut), left into back of horse guards parade, into Parliament square, Whitehall, embankment towards the city, quick blat (avoiding traffic cops!), then over Waterloo bridge, stop for a quick photo at London eye, past st thomas's back over Thames and southwark bridge, left onto embankment and then a quick stop at Albert Bridge for a quick photo! Hop on bike, head past earls court, past twickenham etc to pick up M3. Didn't fancy the motorway so came off at bagshot, down through camberley, blackbushe airport, hook, odiham, Alton, then some single track country lanes before getting home 4hrs later, knackered, wet but grinning from ear-to-ear.

Air Ambulance

We had the Hampshire air ambulance drop into the field next door the other day. All very exciting!

Seems the calor gas man was delivering canisters and somehow managed to puncture a lung. Land ambulance, police cars,etc. After 45 Min's the helicopter landed! You can't see it, bit it landed in a small boggy field surrounded by overhead phone lines, local power as well as a high voltage power line as well. All four sides in fact. Allot of skill was needed to get the 'copter up and above the cables.

Mac Vs PC - decided

I took what i thought was path of least resistance!

I specced up a Mac - £4000. Gulp.Then i looked at the hassle of moving apps - such as Photoshop - from the PC to the Mac (a paid platform upgrade) and then the hassle of all the other bits and pieces.

In the end I bought a 250GB extra drive for the existing PC for £112 to go with the 80Gb one already resident in chez PC!

I have forgotten what a pain putting extra bits of hw into an existing chassis can be:

- remove existing drive

- remove rails on side of new drive

- mount new drive into internal pc chassis

- make sure the jumper settings are right

-get ribbon cable right sequence (grey before black apparently)

- mount drives in chassis properly and remover to put all the other bits back you had to take off to get to the drives in the first place.

- update BIOS to look for SLAVE drive

- get windows xp to recognise new drive (using disk manager - which is difficult to find!)

- format drive to be NTFS (took over an 1hr)

- take backup

- move data between drives

And here's me thinking it would be a 10-15 min job!

New UK VOD service.

A new digital download services was announced by the three big TV companies in the UK- BBC, ITV and C4. Believe me - this is going to be a great service. C4 have been winning many awards for their 4OD service as well as being popular with "da youf" market. See. I have not lost my ability to talk with the younger generation.

Mac vs PC

So the old PC is filling up. Now have 30Gb of music, music videos and the old bit of TV on it and its growing everyday. We have a new Apple Store in the local town and i spent 30 mins yesterday playing with an iMac, MacPro and iphone!

24" imac with 2GB of RAM and 500Gb of disk space looks good. Got to think about the migration - most things are platform independent - JPEG's, MP3 files, but its the apps - Adobe tells me i have to purchase a "platform upgrade" to move from PC to Mac, plus need to look at all the other things that need to migrate and figure out the true cost. Alternative is to dual boot the iMAC of course! Mmm.... Choices to make

Not keen on the iphone. Bit slow and a bit fiddly for my fat fingers!

3 go mad in wales!

Great night Monday. Stereophonics live in wales. Legged it from work down the M4, picking up two friends on way, then quick meal + few beers, walk to venue, then queued with a bunch of mad welsh nutters for more beer!

Support band - the enemy - made good noise for a 3 piece guitar band. Sounded a bit like the Jam we thought.

Main act great. 90 minutes of loud rock 'n' roll stuff. Didn't just play their new stuff but wove in a number of their classic tracks to get the audience going

Loud music, beer, whisky, hot sweaty bodies....what a great night. Yep we stood in the main part in front of stage as we are proper gig goers! Stayed up in Cardiff in hotel so we spent time in the hotel bar....well till about 1am.

Only downside - had to get up early to go to work Tuesday morning.

Rain, rain and more rain

It hasn't stopped all day! It as been so wet we decided to go play in the puddles with the aid of the Land Rover! Much more civilised way to play outdoors. Instead of being wet, cold and allot of moaning we had dry, warmth and laugther as we tried to see if we could get the water over the roof of the disco! What a great afternoons sport

Hotmail not so hot!

Must be getting near 40. Feel like a grumpy old man today - must be something to do with the very wet weather today and the fact i picked up a cold the past 2 days. Yup - dodgy food to cold in one easy step! Any how i digress. I use hotmail, but over the past two days been getting poor service - can log into mail and read it, but as soon as i want to send a reply i get "Windows Live Hotmail couldn't send your message because the server was busy. Please try again later." How busy does it need to get to this stage? How difficult is it to send email from online mail? When things work there great and you take them for granted but when they fail, its irritating. oh hum!

The other side of cycling

Some people take great glee at poking fun at others hobbies or interests if they are outside of the norm.

Me, i normally just let people get on with it - if it's something they like, have a genuine interest in and it's not harming themselves or others get on with it! But after reading this story I might have to change my liberal stance on things!

Taste the difference - 'fraid not!

Fell ill whilst visiting an italian media company on monday/tuesday.Wasn't too sure who or what was the culprit, though having purchased and consumed the offending item from Sainsbury's from their taste the different range i think we know the root cause. Sainsbury's we thank you from the bottom!

Jnr offroaders

Spent a week at Gleneagles in Scotland last week. Everyone in the family had something special to do. Dad enjoyed the clays - though on the 2nd day they were disappearing in the FOG!

The kids got to try their hand at offroading. Gleneagles have 1/2 scale series 1 land rover replicas. Electric power. Instructor carries wireless remote control kill switch just in case!

The small folk even have their own special course with includes obstacles such as: Rumbling rocks, tilting bridge, turtle backs, logs, camel humps, off set logs, windy ridge, moguls etc

What a weekend!

Drove 10 hours Friday from Scotland to home after holiday (more on that soon!), then Saturday/Sunday was a friends 40Th birthday party.

The problems started at 7pm. Started to drink beer, the i remember various curries being cooked, snacks etc, more beer.....then just after midnight things started to go wrong!

Most of the neighbours and folks who weren't staying started to leave, which left the hardcore Scottish and Irish contingent.

The problem came when one of the madder Irish folks decided to make cocktails. Ingredients included: Whisky, Rose wine, vodka, blackthorn cider and some orange juice. I was told Sunday that the trick is to "mask" the alcohol so people don't slow down. Well it worked! We partied to 3am! Luckily the hostess forced us to drink 2 pints of water and take paracetamol before crashing. I'm glad as i don't know how i would have felt Sunday morning without it!

We have a couple more parties before it's mine in June 08 - more practice :)

Clarksons guide to sporting clays!

All i can say is click here

Good album

Back to the music! Radio 1 from the BBC in the UK turned 40 this month. They have a 2 disc CD set out. It's great. They take a track from each of the last 40 years and someone does there own recording of it in there own style.

All along the watchtower (originally by Hendrix 1968) but done by the Fratellis anyone?

Band on the Run (Wings/McCartney 1974) done by the Foo Fighters?

Englishman in New York (Sting 1990) done bu Razor light?

Definately an album for the collection

T Minus 5 sleeps!

A major KPI used by the short people in the house is "number of sleeps before something happens". We are counting down till 1/2 term holidays. Ladies and Gentlemen we are officially at "T minus 5 sleeps" before the Landie, guns, a the rest of the kit heads North. Scotland here we come.

Cinema.

Been spending sometime with the back room boys and girls at the studio's recently. All very interesting - but it's been a wee while since i've been to the cinema and seen any of their output. Time to be one of their customers. Been travelling this week and managed to get out to cinema where we hold our quarterly employee meetings as a fee paying customer. Saw "Kingdom" with Jamie Foxx. Actually thought it was a good film. Hollywood actually has produced a film about an emotive subject and i think got the balance about right.

Normal service will be resumed...after Nokia rips me off!

I have two phones - one work, one personal.

The personal one is just a phone - No 3g, no camera, no funky stuff.

Works well as a standaling phone and i can get it connected via bluetooth to my new land rover. A friend's just bought a jag, with basically the same bluetooth setup in the car (thanks to ford ownership) BUT he has alot more funcationality. For example, the ability to scroll through contacts on the phone and select. Me i have to push the numbers in on a keypad on the dash. A little distracting!

Documentation from Land Rover states i need a certain software release on the firmware on my phone. So in an attempt to get a better working setup i check with Nokia on upgrading the firmware. The answer is:

- you can't do it over the air
- you can't do it with a USB cable
- you have to phyiscally visit a Nokia Service Centre (15 miles away)
- you have to leave the phone with the service centre (2 trips)
- and you have to pay £25 to the service centre for the err......service.

Feels like i'm being ripped off! Customer satisfaction very low at the moment.

I hope it works after all this hassle. If it doesn't i might buy a blackberry instead!

Red Light

Cool young band, working hard on their music, and one's related to me! The lead guitar/vocals is my 13yr old nephew. Someone to watch in the future. They do sound good. Me? I'm just a very proud uncle.

What's also interesting is that the stereophonics (hero's of mine) have connected to the on myspace. How cool is that ? :)

If you think your drivings bad!

Check out the 67 yr old from belfast who has a long driving record !

Some Technical Mumbo Jumbo for you!

So i was wondering why the playback from the IPOD was so good on the TV!

The video's/TV are recorded as MPEG4 with a H.264 codec which is great news as alot of the broadcasters use this . Both HD-DVD and Blue-Ray have H264 as a mandatory part of the player as well :)

Back to today though. So the content i have uses the H264 codec. Great news

Apple's 5th Generation iPod can play H.264 Baseline Profile up to Level 3 with support for bit rates up to 1.5 Mbit/s, image resolutions up to 640x480, and frame rates up to 30 frames per second. This device also plays MPEG-4 Part 2 Simple Profile video, up to 2.5 Mbit/s, 640x480 pixels, 30 frames per sec. Playback at full DVD resolution does not require any firmware modification to the iPod.

So content, storage device and output are all good. Now to the TV. I have a Sony 32" WEGA CRT. DVB compliant and also PAL format. So what's taking the signal and converting it to play to the TV? Something smart is going on.

Err, this requires more research or answers from a reader.

Move it with you!

So the future is definately DLNA (digital living network alliance) to move content around the home. The problem is i'm waiting for a digital TV from SONY to come to the UK with DLNA in it (hint hint SONY!)

Until then i have tried streaming audio/video from PC wirelessly. Nice try tonto! So many integration issues + the fact the PC has to be on all the time, the media server software is rubbish etc etc. I have a life and can't be bothered to go through all the issues one after another. ROi is just not worth it!

Found a stopgap if your an iTunes/Ipod user. Buy the AV connection kit. I was a little skeptical as i play music vides purchased via iTunes on a 2-head flat panel monitor setup. Playback is a little pixilated but acceptable. However, connecting the IPOD to the a 32" Sony WEGA TV in widescreen mode playback is good and will be a stop gap for the next couple of years. It's so good i've actually bought 3 TV shows off ITunes to checkout playback of those. Just for the record - South Park, Pimp My Ride and Jongleurs unleashed were the only "suitable" shows i could find for research purposes. Cough!

The good olde D 'n' V

Been ill over the weekend (not self-inflicted..a bug!). I will spare you the details but you have got to love the medical profession as they call what i have been experiencing - D 'n' V! I will let you figure it out yourselves.

Some other medical acronyms for you to consider:

- NFP

- CTD

- GROLLIES
- TTFO

- FLK

- GLM

- GPO

- TEETH

- UBI

Answers on a postcard....

Sunday Morning View

We have had a 40th in the family this weekend. No, not me, that's next year!

We managed to get my sister to look after the kids for the weekend and disappeared Saturday lunchtime to re-appear Sunday tea-time.

What wilds things did we get up to? Afternoon tea on arrival, massage at the spa, more tea, grown up chat about stuff we haven't had a chance to get around to, dinner, wine/whisky without having to nominate a driver, 8 hrs sleep, uninterrupted read of the Sunday papers (with the view above), breakfast delivered to the room, walk, horse riding, afternoon tea and a shopping trip without interruptions. All-in-all pure bliss (for those who have two small kids)

Now back to normality. How do you turn the volume down on the kids?

New Baby?

Ha! Bet you thought another child was on the way!

I'm looking for another bike! Love the GS Adventure and keeping it. Always a pleasure and its a dream to travel a long way on it someday. My ideal trip would be from Alasaka to Argentina! Maybe a chat to the Kevin and Julia at http://www.globebusters.com/ one day!

Looking for a small (ish) enduro/motorcross bike. Challenge is what to buy - 'onda, KTM, Beemer, Husky? Problem is you can't go to one place and try them all. Nearest Honda off-road centre is 50 miles from home. I just don't have the time to get around all the places. Ho hum. Hopefully figure it out soon and get to play in the lanes and mud around home

You've gotta tell it straight!

Been a long week. 200 mile drive late Sunday, 2 hotels and a total of 650+ miles and i just got back (Thursday).

Today ended with a 5hr meeting with a customer - a slightly unhappy one at that. Having spent $2m on technology from us they are struggling. A number of reasons but at the end of the day the past is the past and we have to look forward. For 5hrs i had observed some smart technologists ask us some very technical questions. Not a problem with that. But some of the business folks were adamant that they knew what they wanted to do and that they were not going to change. It was the technology that was at fault. It was obvious that internally the business and the technology sponsors were not aligned. The main sponsor - new to the customers company - asked everyone to leave the room apart from us - he asked our opinions directly! I had to tell him straight and direct. If he didn't align his internal folks - his company would be screwed and the effects would not be nice. Technology would be deployed but i was not convinced the company would achieve their business model goals. Not a threat - just observations. I explained my reasons with passion and facts.

After the meeting the team i was with did a debrief away from the customer. Conclusion was that it was risky calling it out and being direct, but the outcome we believe is positive and we can make progress. Interesting dynamic in the team - going in we were expecting the worst - but the outcome was different. We earned respect and trust. We can see a way forward and we believe that we can help the customer achieve their business goals. The team felt great.

At the end of the day - you've got to tell it straight.

Committment to work!

Last week i had all my pre-sales and consultants together for our quarterly off site. This is 2-3 days of learning + a bit of team building. We visit our Cheshire office and normally challenge the tech support guys! Last few quarters we have had go-karting and go ape (swinging from trees!). I deny being involved in the decision making process for the latest activity. I just delegate the job whilst before i went on holiday. Bad mistake! This time some smart Alec had the idea of paint balling. We were not prepared! At one point whilst engaged in this mad activity one of my fellow teammates thought i was a baddy and opened fire at close range (6 feet!). I got shot in various placed. He drew blood on both hands, alot of bruising (hopefully you can see from the crap photo) and i have had bruises on my legs that started as nice red marks, went blue, then purple and now most of my leg is yellow - and its been a week since the incident happened! Good news is there is a bit of post activity "sport" as the guy who mistook me for a baddy realised after the event that he just shot his bosses boss!

Next quarter i think we should just organise domino's or some pub related activity though deep down i know this is not going to happen.

Interesting start to the weekend

Been a couple of eventful weeks. More about that later.

Saturday we decided to go to a local country fair. Family loaded up in land rover. 5yr old in front - everyone happy. End up being 3rd car in line at notorious junction. You can see the junction on the right hand side of picture (we approach junction from righ to left). You've probably guessed where this is going. First car goes across staggered junction, second car (an old volvo estate) waits, takes a look and then proceeds to cross major road. Problem was white escort car approachs out of dip. Difficult to judge approach speed as its open country and no reference points. Estimate the contact at approx 40 mph! Escort t-bones volvo around driver door. Both cars run parallel with the impact and the resulting momentum, mount a grass verge and end up in a field. You can just see both cars in the photo. Not bad when you think it just moved 3 tonnes of metal that far and that high up. You can see the resting place to left of the open door on the Land Rover! The banking is about 5-6ft high at that point. Instinct takes over, i protect vehicles and occupants with land rover (as the road i am parked on is on the wrong side of a dip and is national speed limit and people like to make progress), wife jumps out with first aid kit we carry and starts to check folks and we call emergency services from landie.

Outcome - Land Rover: one shocked and upset 5yr old. There was alot of noise, glass shattering, crumping metal. Volvo: 4 ladies and a dog get out of volvo, shocked but physically ok. Escort: Driver shocked but physically ok. Passenger not wearing seatbelt. Broken noise, neck injury and alot of blood etc. Really struggling to understand why people do not wear seatbelts. The car he was travelling either did not have airbags or they did not activate. I saw where he hit the laminated windscreen. It was not pretty. 20 mins after calling the police and paramedics they arrive en masse. Gave statement and let the professionals to get on with it!

Volvo driver could be had for driving without due care and attention - lack of attention whilst entering a major road. Escort driver could have approached at a slower speed (though i do not believe was breaking the speed limit) and assessed the risks better. At the end of the day there was fault on both sides. Luckily no-one was killed.

An unplanned start to the weekend.

Works tough....

Spent a couple of hours this afternoon working on a special project - playing content around the home! yep, its work folks and i'm getting paid for it!

Looking at bringing in video, music, pictures or text into the home, storing it on Network Attached Storage, PC or say a PVR! From here, we look to either stream it around the home (or move it to other compatible devices in the home). One interesting test case i saw a couple of weeks ago was a Sony Cybershot camera with photos on it. It looks for compatible devices on the wireless network. Camera finds a new digital TV. We could then view the photos (which were still on the camera) on the TV. As you flicked through the pictures on the camera they updated on the TV (via the wireless link). Very cool way for the family to share and look at photos.

All the consumer electronics companies are bringing our more compatible devices. If you interested check out www.dnla.org You find find out how it works and also devices that are out there in the marketplace now!

Not only can it handle photo's, but also music and video. So if you want to watch a video upstairs you can stream it from the PVR or NAS! No more cupboards full of DVD's, or finding the case but no DVD inside. With DNLA you can search all available storage for the title you want!

Good news is that the PS3 is DLNA enabled......and so is the PSP. Mmmmhh. Might have to start looking at funding for the home! Now for that 4 Terrabyte NAS!

Proof that Land Rovers are not monkey proof

Need to write to land rover customer care. They obviously sell Land Rover as an "adventure vehicle" and i am sure Asia is a big market, but the boys in LR marketing obviously have not market tested their Discovery product as it failed the most basic test - The Monkeys of Longleat! Little Buggers. The Monkeys, not the staff at Land Rover! I felt confident that the LR would survive, but that soon disappeared when this chap jumped on the car! Come on Land Rover, take your product testing more seriously!

Normal Service will resume shortly.....

Been to California with business then flew back, got off plane, unpacked, sleep, breakie, pack....then 2 weeks holiday. Couldn't have picked the weather better!

400 piccies to sort through before next excursion to Belfast at the weekend to see the outlaws!

A tool for every job

A friend and i headed out last Sunday in California for a bit of clay sport! I'm always tickled by the fact that some of the guys get around the layout using modified golf buggy's. You can see the modification here - gun rack and space for cartridges. Didn't get a close look but i suspect there was a cooler and a small BBQ on board as well!

Geekville

Been in california for a week with work. Missed all the bad weather! Did a bit of shooting, wine tasting and shopping.

Had to pop into the Apple store in Stanford shopping mall and was confronted with alot of people huddled around the central display? What was it? the iphone. Couple of days later one of the guys at work demo'd his iphone. It is very cool on a number of fronts!

Scots Invade England

Yes, you heard it hear folks. Spotted at the head of the riverbourne taskforce as it invaded Henley on friday evening! The town will never be the same again!

Henley Royal Regatta

Was invited out by friends for a trip up and down the Thames yesterday at Henley. The Henley Royal Regatta was on. Great event. Crews row in gladiatorial style down a 1 and 3/8th mile course down the Thames! It certainly looked knackering from our motorboat. We enjoyed it whilst drinking beer and eating fish and chips. Brilliant fun.

Just Enough Education to book tickets!

We're off on a musical journey again! Just booked some tickets to go to a gig in Cardiff to see the stereophonics in November with two fellow nutters. Saw the band in Brighton about 18 months ago and it was a cracking night out. Plan is (a) few sherbets (b) loud rock and roll music (c) few sherbets (d) kebab!

Who said middle aged men don't know how to party :)

Weather

We are certainly becoming obsessed with the weather at the moment. Heavy rain storms Friday and we had numerous power outages. Bad weather continued over the weekend - a low hit without any wind, so it just dumped rain on already wet land. One example, Sheffield normally gets 60mm of rain in June, yesterday along it had over 240mm in one day! People had to be rescued by air/sea rescue in the centre of Sheffield. Here we have heavy clay soil, so i have i growing puddle in the back garden. Shortly we will be legally obliged to mark the deep and shallow ends of the puddle!

Paris

Been spending time in Paris with work recently. Nice mix of customers - software ISV's and media work (TV/VOD). Centre of Paris is a great place to hang out. We have a small office between the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. Didn't think you would want to see pictures of the tourist places - so this is the view from the office. It's nice catching up with email, window open on a hot day and listening to the hustle and bustle of the city outside. Also close by are some great little

restaurants just off the tourist routes that my colleagues know very well.

Credit Cards - great when you have them!

My wife has misplaced her purse. We think it's at her place of work, but someone double-bolted her shared office and walked off with the keys and we cannot locate them. Security cannot even open the door. Upshot is we are unsure of what's happened to the purse and are 50/50 on if its in the office or not. So we erred on the side of caution and mentally went through what was in it - cash, library card, gym,credit card, oh and partner credit card to my main account! So i ring card company to cancel her card - "sorry sir we have to cancel all cards including yours!" - "ok do it, when will i get replacements?" "5 days!" "yikes". Now the problem is this is my main card - the other is AMEX which is not accepted often.

It's amazing how I've come to depend on the VISA card. I don't carry much cash and use the credit card all the time for on-line transactions, fuel for the card, travel to work on the train (using the automated machine) and impulse buying!

So we have resorted to old way of working! Had to take some cash out of the ATM today and we have been rationing it today - so there is some upside :)

Problem is tonight we are off to the cinema on a rare outing and i booked the tickets online 2 days ago. You guessed it - to pick tickets up, you use the credit card you used at booking. The cards been terminated and cut up! Lets see if the cinema has a set process and if they can cope with this exception case!

Interesting in this day and age that you cannot terminate a partner credit card even when it has it's own unique number! Ah well, at least we'll spend less over the next 5 days! I hope :)

Big puddle

For some reason 50 foot long puddles seem to attract nutters like magnets!

We didn't just do it once!

More pictures from the course soon.

Step 4

Front brake on, back brake off, clutch in, start engine, let front brake off, stand up on pegs, release clutch, use engine braking to descend!

Oh, and look out for the big puddle at the bottom of the hill. I said - look out for the big puddle at the bottom of the hill

Step 3

Swing leg over bike, foot straight on rear brake! Front brake on. Ready to start engine and ride off!

Step 2

Balance bike and wiggle handlebars from lock-to-lock to turn bike downhill.

Remembering not to drop bike! If bike does start to fall downhill remember to let go of handlebars!

Step 1

Get off the bike whilst on a hill - easier said than done!

Make sure bike does not roll backwards! Clutch out, engine off!

Figure out where you want the bike to go. Feather clutch. Lean bike on leg!

Wrong order!

"Are you sure you ordered garlic bread with your pizza sir? Bugger, now i can't get up the hill"

So your stuck on a steep hill, got to get the guy's garlic bread, the bike's stalled, if you start it the bike cannot get up the hill...what do you do?

Well you have to go downhill, first though you have got to shift 198kg of bike and yourself. No one is going to help!

The instruction begins!

Structure of course is great. You get to learn how to feather clutch, use front brake going downhill (i know i know....but their right), slow speed control, balance etc...then you move onto topics such as "what to do when you stop part way up a hill". Watch out zippy....nutter on a bike coming!

Nice shiny bikes!

We used all bmw kit on the offroad course - F650GS, 1200 GS Adv and G 650 XChallenge. All nice, clean and mechanically sound when we started :)

Weekend away

Just spent 2 days in Brecon in South Wales on a motorbike offroad course! Boy am i knackered, but it was great fun, learnt alot and my body aches!

The folks run the course on behalf of BMW

http://www.offroadskills.com/

Instruction, location, food, equipment are all great.

For anyone who has ridden a bike for a while i recommend it. They even do a lady only course as well.

One guy even flew in from Canada for the 2 day intro course and today he is ridding 80 miles offroad through the national park before flying home.

Dirty Boy

Just to prove all 4x4 drivers are not Chelsea tractor drivers! Evidence of getting off the tarmac

My only excuse for the disco getting this dirty was i didn't realise the puddle on the bridleway was so deep! Also be thankful that the blog does not have smelly-blogging. Stagnant water smells real bad!

Smartie Break!

On our 2nd outing on the MTB our 5yr old managed to do 5 miles offroad in 59 minutes! I know you've worked it out - the average speed is now 5mph up from 3.7mph! There is no stopping the boy! Well there is - me. If he had his way we would have done 20 miles!

Picture is of us at 1/2 way point taking the mandatory Smartie break! Doesn't everyone eat smarties when they exercise? The blue one's are the best!

Quick getaway!

Have a couple of days holiday monday and tuesday next week so it's a long weekend for me. I was hoping to get a early finish to work today but sod's law meant i was working till 7pm. Ah well, finsihed now. Time for a beer, feet up and a good film!

Nordic Walking

Was introduced to Nordic walking at a work off site. Initially i was a bit sceptical. But it's won me over! Let me tell you what it is then i can explain the benefits!

Nordic walking is basically Nordic skiing without the ski's. You walk and propel yourself along with the poles (made of carbon fibre with titanium spikes on the bottom!). Exercising this way is 20% more efficient than normal walking and it not only exercises the legs but arms and torso! I can burn 1,000+ calories in just over an hour.

The benefits. I'm losing weight, getting out in the fresh air and doing exercise that does not cause impact injuries. All-in-all a good exercise for my weight loss. Since i have started i've lost 6lbs in weight due to Nordic walking.

There all right in the north west

Been working out of our Cheshire office for 4 days. Also took mountain bikes with me so that some of the team could cycle in the evenings. First night 4 of us did 14 miles down the canal towards Manchester. Nice evening and good ride.

2 nights later 5 of us headed to Delamere forest were we did one of the forestry commission fire 7 mile fire trail rides. We ended back up at the cafe/car park and bumped into the owner and the chef from the cafe. We were looking for places to ride and Colin and Dean just decided to take us out for another 45 Min's and show us some great parts of the forest. Technical single tracks, big drops etc. I have the scars and bruises to show for it but it was great fun and knackering. Thanks lads for helping us out! Check out the cafe website and the critter cam :)

http://www.delamerecafe.com/

Big News!

Our eldest - all of 5yrs old - has made some big progress whilst i have been in Cheshire for 4 days.

Cycling without stabilizers uphill and downhill. Cycling whilst chatting. Cycling whilst looking around!

Saturday we went out and bought a ridgeback MTB for short persons. Sunday eldest and Dad out for our first off road bike ride down disused railway line. Results: Average speed 3.7mph, total distance covered 3miles, total time spent cycling: 48 Min's! No falling off. One massive puddle, many tree roots and a few muddy bits. Excellent ride!

Fences and neighbours

Got to vent!

We are having a fence replaced at the back of the house. Approx 65metres. First panel goes up, neighbour around complaining about the concrete posts used to keep the panels up, the height of the panel, etc etc. The list is long! Main issue seems to be the asthetics of concrete posts. I explain the need for concrete posts (which are 4" wide) due to the wet clay ground and the poor drainage. To move things along we have adapted fencing at our expense to keep the peace. More work, more complaints. We adapt. More rework for contractor. Everyone happy. I wouldn't mind but i gave them details 2 months previously and everyone agreed! I have put up with abuse and some interesting language, but have remained calm (i know it's not like me!)

Funny part? The poor contractor who is doing the work got doorstepped by the wife of the neighbour today (who has been the worst offender during the past week). Guess what? She wants the contractor to put some fences with concrete posts. Go figure. The funnier part is the contractor is arranging a special high price to do the work as he doesn't like the way we have all been treated. Now that's funny!

You pay for what you sow!

Dark Nights!

Daylight starts about 5am and finishes around 9pm at the moment. Unfortunately, in a few weeks time, the darkness will last to later in the morning and the darkness will descend earlier in the evenings.

4 months and the christmas cards will be out in the shops :)

Do Not Follow Sat Nav!

Are we becoming too reliant on technology?

In part of the south downs i visit regularly we have just had a new sign put up. Seems delivery drivers aren't using maps anymore. The paper map shows via colours and icons difficult roads. Alot of drivers are relying on sat nav and following blindly that seductive voice from the dashboard!

I think we might be seeing more of these signs being erected over the coming months.....but i'm not sure how effective they are as most drivers don't read roadsigns much these days!

Where has the time gone?

It's been a while as alot has happened in the last two weeks - mostly work. Time in paris chasing a big deal, 2 day leadership offsite, 1 day team building - which turned into me on the phone for 1/2 day and lots going on?

The trees?

We've had the tree surgeon in the back garden to take down the fast growing willow which was endangering various gardens and buildings! Now we look for a smaller evergreen to fill in the gap!

Another Day another ride

Another great day weather wise today. Finished work, dinner, then loaded the MTB onto the back of the land rover and headed down the road. 15 mins away is the start of a 10 mile disused rail track (thanks mr beeching) . Good surface for majority of the way, outbound has a slight include that goes for miles and miles so a bit of a slog, but managed to do 17 miles in 90 minutes tonight. When the sun went down (around 2030hrs) it was still 17C ! Another 1500 calories burnt. Just as well as i am on a 7am train into London to catch the eurostar for Paris. Back Friday!