Stuff to do with me and about me
Well, I have managed to blow one of my new years resolutions already.
In my attempt to waste less I have had to start eating the vast amount of chocolate that has accumulated during the xmas break. I thought long and hard about what I should do and unfortunately the less waste scenario was more favourable!
Oh well I guess that ill try that one again next year!
Happy New Year!!
Well another year is here and I just about managed to see this one in!
It started off with a few drinks, some food, some more food, some piss taking, some more food and some party games!! I opted not to play twister as I didn`t want to start a new year with a dodgy back, so I sat back and watched the girls make fools of themselves and then decided to try and tie the boys up in knots buy `fixing` what body part goes on what colour.
We then went home to see the New Year in watching the fireworks going off around the London Eye, god knows how much was spent on that. But I will say that it looked a bit of a mess towards the end, so much going off the whole TV screen went bright white!!
I decided to make 2 New Year Resolutions this year –
1) Waste less
2) Stop eating chocolate for a year again.
I guess we call all stop wasting stuff, but with 2 fussy child eaters in the house its not always as easy that.
As for giving up chocolate again, I say again as I have done that a few times in the past. The main reason I guess is the fact that I was partially to blame for the consumption of around 85K calories over the Christmas break. Far too many chocolate sweets around and far too many half price chocolate sweets on the shelves in shops!!
Unfortunately there are still around 28K+ calories still floating around the house!
Hmmm, I wonder how I will get on with those this year!!
Its Christmas 🙂
Lots of fun today as the time has come that the boys have been waiting for, am surprised though as Father Christmas has left them both some presents even thought they have both been very naughty this year!
We had Christmas at home this year, as T is now getting to the stage where he knows more that is going on, we thought it only fair that we have Christmas day as family day.
Bit disappointed as I got the wife what she wanted, but she is still not happy!!
Well, it was only a matter or time before this happened……
Today I went to Colchester Zoo to do my Zoo Experience Day that I got for my 40th birthday.
I opted for the experience that had Elephants, Birds of Prey and Reptiles.
Last time I was up close with Elephants was in Sri Lanka when I was on honeymoon, we both got to feed a small elephant calf and watch them have their lunchtime bath in the river.
I had to pick reptiles as I have one myself, thought it would be great to see other reptiles and where they live. If I`m honest I wasn`t too bothered about the Birds of Prey – but I have to say they were probably the best part of the day!
The Elephants
They were great, huge beasts of an animal, I got to feed one up close and watch them coming in at the end of the day to be locked up for the night. The metal work on the cages is unbelievable, but then when you have something that big you can`t have it made of chicken wire!
The Birds Of Prey
These were unbelievable and as I said by far the best of the day purely because of the surprise that I got. I wasn`t expecting them to be like they were.
I got to hold, with the help of a very thick glove, small owls up to a very large and menacing looking Eagle which weighed an absolute ton.
Reptiles
I was looking forward to seeing these – I got to see –
Rhinoceros Iguanas – I loved these, they were great, they move like you wouldn`t believe especially when going after a flying locust. They came charging up to us when we went in their enclosure, they for that close that I managed to give one a stroke 🙂
Green Iguanas – they were not quite as big as my boy Yoda but it was still great to see some, in a huge enclosure.
Giant Millipedes – not strictly reptiles but they were in the same room as them. We used to have 3 giant millipedes so was nice to handle one of them again.
Snakes – I was holding one just as my boy looked through the windows at me, he so badly wanted to come in and hold them with me.
Komodo Dragons – these were the last reptiles that I got to see. We went right into the enclosure at the back, where we could see them. I was only a few feet away from one of them, they are phenomenal creatures.
I would love to do that again.
Well its been a year today so i think that its time i got rid of what data remnants i have left from my past.
I had a look around to see what was there that i could get rid of, surprisingly there was rather a lot – paperwork, source code, programs, emails, dongles, phones, mobiles, CD`s, DVD`s, MySQL databases, MSSQL Databases, hard drives, cloud storage files, keys and backup hardware.
All gone now.
Today we went to get H his birthday present from one of his Granddad’s.
He asked him if he could have a snake, and granddad was only too willing to get him one. Unfortunately granddad could not be with us when we went to get it, and needless to say he wasn’t there either to pay!
So, we had a look at a few snakes and settled for a nice quiet corn snake that H was able to pick up and hold with no real issues, I didn’t see the point getting one that he couldn’t hold or one that was too big, as it might be a bit daunting for his to start with.
We picked a nice stylish vivarium for her and a few things to go in it along with some fluffs for her to eat. All that set me back just over £180!! Some contrast to when we got Yoda all those years back as a rescue case from the RSPCA man that we knew.
We get her home and set everything up in H`s bedroom, laying down the law about what he can and can’t do. He decided to call her Rex, after Commander Rex out of Start Wars! I guess we need to get her sexed as soon and she is old enough to make she we have the right name for her – but then I guess once we have called her something we can’t go back on it.
I can see that Rex is going to be interesting, the wife won’t go anywhere near her or help us with her, so I guess it’s me and H doing it all.
I have finally upgraded Satan, my home server which is now running in its 4th reincarnation, to hardware that supports Hyper-V.
Given the MCITP certification that I am currently working on, it made sense to have access to a Windows Server 2008 R2 training infrastructure that I could access remotely and that was separate from my main Server.
It was a bit of a faf to get it going, I had to upgrade the BIOS on the motherboard 3 times to get Hyper-V to be supported. For some reason updating the BIOS caused the OS to fail to load, and at gone 01:30 in the morning I couldn`t be bothered to figure out why that was!
Satan V4 is now up and running the following hardware spec –
Windows Server 2008 R2
Intel Core i5-3550 CPU @ 3.30GHz
16GB of PC3-10666 1333MHz Ram
Gigabyte GA-Z77-DS3H Motherboard
2 x 500GB SATA – Raid 1
Now I just have to install all my software, scripts and support tasks the same as the old server 😐
Today I came across a rather worrying discovery! I learnt 2 new terms that I was not familiar with.
1) `Batabase` – which I can only think is a database of batter that is used when deep frying fish (and or sausages etc.). Given one of my former jobs, that would have come in dead handy! All my attempts to locate it or find more information on it have proved negative. Hopefully it will crop up at some point – I think the possibility of that happening is quiet high.
2) `Secruty` – I have no idea what the hell this is! My attempts to research this have led me round in circles so much so that I have disappeared into my own backside and come out again. It might be some kind of dodgy ware from what few results I have seen. Again I will have to keep an eye on it to see if it crops up again! Hopefully it won`t but again it might 😐
Today I bought my first Apple device, an iPad. Not like me as I am a diehard Microsoft geek and would normally tell Apple loving fan boys where to go.
But, surprisingly I was actually looking forward to it, new technology and all that and a chance to have a play with it and not look like such a plum in front of students when I try and find my way round something I have not used before!
Sadly the whole experience was somewhat marred due to the arrogant fuckwitt that served me at PC world. I really should have ordered it on Click & Collect at the local Sainsbury`s but I wanted it there and then. I don’t know how many times I told him that I didn’t want this `Know How` support service crap, but it still ended up on my bill. Im sure that there are some kind of rules in place to stop this, but I could not be bothered to waste more of my time and money to complain, so I called `Know How` and cancelled the contract and called the bank to block any payments that might come off my card.
Still I guess that was the better! of the 2 options I had as the other one was a rather hyper Chinese lady running around the store like she was on speed trying to serve 2 customers at once.
What happened to the days of going in to a shop and buying something and getting what you asked for?