Arcoarena

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.

Well I spent Thursday back at Imperial College (Union). It was cool to be back. Slightly odd as each year I go back I recognise fewer and fewer people. I did have a quick chat to Kristine from the office though.

I have to say I wasn’t expecting much from a Xyratex point of view as I went last year and spent most of my time explaining what Xyratex does to people whilst thinking ‘I wouldn’t employ you if it was my choice’. This year I spent most of my time explaing what Xyratex does to people who seemed quite promising. It was much better than Bath careers fair (sorry Nia) where we had a couple of good people. At Imperial it was probably in double figures. This was all largely helped by being at the end of the UDH so we got fewer people visiting but those that did make it were the motivated ones.

Whilst on the subject of Imperial it is possibly time to say that I do miss Dramsoc. Not university as such but Dramsoc and the stuff related to it. I get very few chances to do anything big like Freshers week now, the big society thing and bar nights were good too. Having said that I’m determined not to say ‘I wish I was back at university’ it’s very much a one opportunity ends and another begins, sort of. I still get urges to march up to the staff in clubs and demand to do some decent lighting rather than the crap they have. I’ve also spent the weekend looking a various techy website and discovered how simple DMX appears to be compared to other serial busses.

Finally, there has been much argument about whether Linux is ready for the desktop or not and usability as a whole. I got a phone call from Andrea wanting to check her email so I told her the details to log onto my Ubuntu system (so a Gnome desktop). Now Andrea isn’t the most computer literate person, but a while later I phoned back and she said that everything was in an obvious place, that it was easy to use and that she ‘prefered it to Windows’.

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)

Well, I’ve changed the .htaccess file so I think the old feed now points to the right place and all the links to old posts should point to the new places.

The old drupal installation doesn’t work properly now but I’m planning to change that soon.

Let me know if you see anything I’ve got wrong

Well I’ve ditched Drupal and changed to Wordpress. Only a year behind everyone else then. I got fed up of Drupal not working more than anyhing else. I would’ve been happy with it if the comments worked. But anyway Wordpress is nicer, and a lot easier to install with a simpler database structure (migrating was stupidly easy compared to what I’d psyched myself up for).

So I’m sure you’ve all got questions so here we go
Yes – I know is is annoying that it’s now at blog.arcoarena.co.uk and so links don’t work
Yes – I do know I could rewrite the .htaccess with re-write rules to keep links constant.
Yes – I am intending to change the theme (nice as it is) to something I write or atleast adapt myself
No – Of course I’ll never get round to doing either of the above