Arcoarena

Oh The Irony!

I’ve been back on the bike in to work this week. It’s been quite a while since I regularly cycled in (over a year) but my average speed is slowly creeping back up.

One of the bane’s of my life was punctures (sorry, p********s). I was getting one a week on my bike a one point and I regularly carry two innertubes on the basis that trying to repair road bike tires is like trying to hold back the tide. I’m getting a hybrid bike on works newly set-up cycle2work scheme (probably a GT Transeo). My theory is that the wider wheels will enable me to get puncture resistant tyres that actually work.

So anyway…  Monday and Tuesday this week I cycled in and it was painful but uneventful. I decided to have a rest day today and drive in. So I get to the car, reverse out of my parking space and something feels wrong, and bugger me, my car had a flat tyre. Now that’s ironic, Alanis.

A Little Quiet

Well, I haven’t said much recently. Partly becuase I haven’t got much to say (though I’m not sure that’s stopped me before).

Work’s quite busy, though much regression testing means I’m doing the same bits of testing again and again. It’s a rubbish bit of the project. Nothing new is going to happen, the feature set is fixed. All that’s left is tidying up the mess made by feature creep and various compatability issues between code, hardware enclosures etc. Many bugs but very few challenges unfortunately. I don’t really feel I can talk much about work as it’s all commercial stuff and I don’t want to get fired or anything. Not that any insider knowledge helps predict what will happen to the share price.

As I was saying, not much has happened. I bought some new tyres for my bike (Continental Grand Prix 4000, no less) and I haven’t had a puncture yet. New brake blocks are next and they’re currently making a disturbing metal-on-metal sound and not doing a whole heap of slowing down.

Oh, and I’m thinking of buying a house/flat/cupboard depending upon what I can afford. I’m hoping to look round a few in Southsea this Saturday so we’ll have to see. I guess I’m lucky to be outside London.

Chilly

Well everyone’s noticed the recent cold spell of weather. I’ve been fortunate to aquire a thicker cycling top from one of the guys I work with as my current long sleeved cycling jersey isn’t quite man enough for these temperatures. Another key factor in cycling comfort is a decent pair of gloves, which I have. I’m on the verge of wearing two pairs of socks in the morning as my toes take quite a while to warm up once I get to work.

All this preparation (the lights, the warmer clothes etc.) never quite prepares you for some things. Once in a while you ride along, looking at the traffic thinking …..

‘you lucky, lucky people, sat there in your cars with the breakfast show on the radio and your heaters on full power’

This thought did occur to me tonight, as cycling home I was engulfed in a hail storm. My old list of most hated weather for cycling went 1-Head-Winds, 2-Rain, 3-Cold. I can safely say that hail has now taken the top spot. My only consolation for this was the fact that (as ever when it rains) the traffic on the M27 was going very, very slowly. This added to the fact that on the way in this morning I passed a car that then didn’t re-pass me until 3 miles later. I’m guessing I got home quicker than I would have done by car.

Air of many varieties

Well it looks like it’s going to be a long week. Having worked an 11 hour day yesterday due to a conference call to the states extending my day in work you can imagine how happy I was with the head wind on the way back, especially after returning to my bike to find a flat front tyre.

I’ve just replaced the rear tyre after finding the bit of glass embedded in my wheel that caused the recent spate of punctures. I think this one is a dodgy valve though. I bought a foot pump recently (as opposed to the mini-pump I carry with me in case of disasters) so I’m getting used to fully inflated (100psi) tyres, one of the bad things about a road bike is small bumps on properly inflated tyres hurt so imagine what kerbs are like.

I’m sat at work at the moment relishing the thought of another ride home with a 30mph head wind for 5 of the 7 miles. Yay. But to be fair I am still enjoying cycling in. I’m getting quicker too…….I think as I have yet to get a cycle computer and I can never remember the exact time when I set off. I have bought a nice big bike light though - complete with lead acid battery (I decided I’d rather pay, unlike some people)

A fortnight of car ownership

I bought a car, a peugueot 106. Recently doesn’t appear to be a good time to own a car. Fuel prices rocketed by about 5p/ltr in less than a week. On a related topic I heard the organiser of the ‘go slow’ protests today on the radio. He said “I think most people are behind us”, that’ll be the big queue of cars he’s talking about or the population at large.

I was listening to the radio as I was on my way to pick up a new breadmaker from the DHL depot. The previous one broke so I phoned Morphey Richards to try to get it fixed but the sent me a new one and I don’t even have to send the old (broken) one back.

I had all this free time as I’m about to finish my 2nd week of holiday. Back to work soon, Sniff

Transport

I now own a car. Sort of. I haven’t paid for it or collected it yet but I’ve won the ebay auction so I only need to sort out insurance and money.

It’s a 2001 X-Reg Peugeot 106 1.1. Not the most desirable car in the world but good enough. I can cancel the hire-car I booked and use this one to go on holiday to Cornwall now.

Irritated

A few things may be due to change as I’m getting fed up of them. Dial-up is one of these, I admit it’s not a big thing but it won’t be much more expensive to get an ADSL connection and it would be much better. Hopefully I’ll get round to getting a new TV at some point because the current one does actually need replacing, that can wait though.

I have, as many will know because I’ve moaned at them about it, got fed up with not having a car. Getting in to work, doing shopping and all the everyday stuff is fine; I’ve got a bike, no problems. Doing stuff like getting to Budleigh Salterton to go on tour (4 hours on the train and I still needed a lift in a car to get there within 5 hours), or going on company jollies (having to cadge lifts to get there at all) is starting to irritate me. Hiring a car wouldn’t be cheaper. The only option other than owning a car is to continue scrounging lifts.

Here in lies the problem. I could manage without a car, and certainly when you consider how much it would cost per day it got used everything starts to get silly. But at the same time it would drastically increase the number of things I could easily do (I cite washing machines as an example of this, a desperate measure I’m sure you’ll agree).

Apologies for the moany post. More soon very possibly.

All Change Please

I have bought one of these. I did a trial ride in to work on Saturday and was pleasantly surprised. It didn’t seem as far as it sounds (7 1/4 miles) and around 90% of that was on cycle-paths (which round this way appear to be pavements). Also because it’s the south coast and not Cumbria there aren’t really any hills.

I’ll see how it goes. I’m planning to cycle in most days but winter and lazyness might get in the way of that. The train does cost £54 a month though so that’s incentive enough to keep on pedalling in I hope.

Other than that. I’ve been karting recently and I helped with another fit-up at The King’s Theatre (which thanks to my flat move I now live very close to).

Noooooooooooooo

From D@n’s News:

…..I get an e-mail telling me someone has crashed / written off one of the minibuses - typical! - NNH Rest in Peace

Sniff….Cue dewey-eyed recollection of driving to Guildford and back about a million times last summer….ahhh. Happy times.

When I actually get round to owning a car I shall have a special lever that will recreate that ’special’ sound NNH made that weekend. Setting aside driving round Goodwood in an E-Type Jag, it was the most fun I’ve had in a motor vehicle.

Time to Relax?

Well, I’ve finished my course but haven’t had a moment spare since then. I’ve done quite a lot, a quick trip to Portsmouth (to see where I’m going to live), I booked a holiday for August (Shanghai to Beijing), been to Alton Towers and done a Fashion show.

I’ve just returned a hired van to the company after a slightly nervous wait to see if they were going to complain about anything and take my £250 deposit away from me. They shouldn’t have as I didn’t get anywhere near scratching or hitting anything but you never know.

The past day has confirmed that all Mercedes drivers are arrogant idoits. I’ve had about 5 cut me up or push in front of me in the past day. And it’s always Mercedes (except the one taxi). Anyway, in honour of this and all my other posts about my final year project I have decided to create a ‘Bitterness’ catagory for you to be able to browse my posts and find only those containing me whinging about one thing or another.

I might get round to writing about all the stuff that’s happened recently at some point. But that’s all for now