Embeded YouTube video test

Ok I've just set up a YouTube account so I can post videos to this blog so I'm just testing it with the infamous backflip attempt video.



If only I'd just tucked my legs up and got through the whole rotation ...

Anyway, it looks like it works so I'm all set to post pictures and video as well as bore you all with these posts. I might start uploading old pictures to my picasa site if I get bored. So there might be pictures from randoms things I've done in the last few years showing up.

Formatting fun

Right so I've got to sort out some corrections on my thesis and send a corrected version back to my internal examiner so he can approve it before I finally submit my fully bound thesis to the university and officially get signed off for my degree. The corrections have been ok, I pretty much sorted them out in a few days, all the content ones that is. However, some of my graphs had yellow plots on them which are hard to see (I know, it was fine on the computer and I only realised how bad the problem was when I printed it out, its just that I have quite a few different plots on the same graph so was running out of colours). So I've got to replot a few of the graphs with a different colour and put them back into the thesis. The trouble is the formatting. I did all my work on my PC in uni and I wrote everything on it as well. My laptop which I have is a Mac, I really like it except the .emf graphs have a minor formatting error. The y-axis label has the word written vertiaclly along the axis but the letters are horizontal. So bottom line is it looks crap and you can't read it without staring at it for an hour. So I was going to use my dad's PC laptop do to the corrections, sorted. Or not. His laptop also has the same formatting error. I'm guessing its due to old software on his machine. But regardless, its not working. So bottom line is I have to not only redo the few graphs that needed to be replaced anyway, but I have to redo every graph in my thesis. I haven't counted them but there must be a hundred or more. Basically a lot. I suppose the only bonus is that I'll be able to .pdf my thesis so it will be more difficult to screw up printing it (I have a .pdf writter on my Mac but not on any PCs) plus it probably should have been written on my Mac from the beginning.

I suppose I could have done a few things differently to avoid this problem. I could have written my thesis on my Mac from day 1. I didn't because bringing the files back to a PC didn't work all the time so I stuck with the PC version because the Mac could always read it (except this formatting error with .emf files that I only realised later on). I could have stayed in England an extra week and got it sorted but I didn't know how many corrections I'd have and it would have doubled the price of my flight. If my examiners were sorted out earlier my viva might have been earlier, but that was out of my control. I could have submitted my thesis earlier, but that was difficult to do once it became obvious that I was going to get it done within a month or so of my deadline at the end of September and theere would have been no guarantee the viva would have been earlier. Or I could have stayed in Leeds until it was all finished and then thought about having some fun later. But I needed to book flights when they were cheap and bottom line was that I wanted to be home for Christmas. So I guess this is the price I'm paying for having christams at home for the first time since 1999.

... and another one

We had another earthquake this morning. Check it out here. A 3.5 in pretty much the exact same place as the one last night. Also the same place as the one a couple of days ago. Thats been three in a few days which is quite rare, but better than having all that energy released in one big quake. That or maybe its the end of the world starting ...

Earthquake!!!

Well we had another earthquake just now. You can check out the details from this specific earthquake here: USGS site Another 3.7 pretty good.

If you want to check out a real time map with updates on earthquakes you can check it here: Real-time Earthquake Maps.

All part of the fun and games of living in California.

Embeded Picasa photo album test

This is just a test to see if I can post the albums I've created in Picasa in my blogs. So this should be the old school boarding album.

Old School Snowboarding

So it looks like it works. It just creates a link to the album with the cover shot. Right so I'll be posting my pictures like this from now on. Enjoy.

Web album

Ok, I've been trying to sort a few things out. Basically how to post media in the most efficient way possible. So I've set up a picasa web album to post my photos. They can be found here:

http://picasaweb.google.com/nick.c4524

As of now I've just posted a few pictures of my old school snowboarding with sweetness in the neon ski suit. I'll post more photos as I make them or trawl through my old photos and find things are are worth putting up.

California

Ok, so I've been home for a few days now (actually a week). I've basically just been chillin, doing my corrections and not getting up to much. Quite dull I know but it's nice to have a break and relax. It's been typical California as well. We haven't had any rain (except just now its spitting) and we had an earthquake. Yup, good old Cali, earthquake central. It hit in the evening when I was watching TV with the folks. It was a 3.7 that hit south of Berkeley (so not too far away) and it had quite a long duration, not just a jolt. It's quite funny to think of how casually we took it. We just sort of looked up from the TV

"Was that an earthquake?"
"Yeah, I think it's still going."
"Yes, probably a two or a three."
"Thats about right."

And then back to the TV. It reminded me of the scene in LA Story when they're out having lunch in Beverly Hills and the earthquake hits them. Anyway, its good to know nothing has changed too much

Ticket? Roof? Job? Check, check and check!

Right, so here I am, chillin in California, kicking it with the cotton tops. Life is alright (apart for the corrections and little bit of work I have to do). But the whole point of this exercise is to take some time off work and go for a season out in Colorado. So what do I need? I need a ticket to get out to Colorado, a place to stay and a job to support me. So whats the score? It's all sorted.

I called up Breckenridge resort today and finally got in touch with the Lift Operations Supervisor who I've been chasing for the last few weeks. 30 minutes and a phone interview later and I've got a job as a lift operator at Breckenridge. Result! I'll be hearding punters on and off lifts for 10 hours a day, 4 days a week and getting paid for the whole season and I'm working for the resort so get all the benefits associated with it. Lift pass, discount, the works. Get in!

So I got the job, but I need to get out there. A quick trip online and into cyberspace, give up some crucial information and I've booked my arse onto a Greyhound bus heading out to Colorado ... via LA. Go figure. I thought thats kinda the wrong direction but no, its about the best way to do. I'll even get a trip through Las Vegas, too bad I won't have time to hit the casinos (it'll probably save me money though). So I've sentanced myself to 30 hours on a bus filled with all the most colourful Americans you can imagine. Not sure I'm too happy about it, but it'll get me to Breck and thats what counts.

So now I'm in Breck, got the job but I need a roof to sleep under. Well I haven't exactly sorted that one yet but I do have a bed in a hostel booked for my first few nights. Not quite ideal but we're working on it. Once I get out there I'm sure I'll be able to find a place no problem. I'll just have to pound the streets and hit the phone until some sucker lets me live with them.

So assuming I get these corrections sorted in the next week or two, I'm ready roll out and cruise some fresh Colorado pow!

Bags, we don't need no stinking bags

So my bags were missing. As I checked in at Gatwick airport they weighed my board bag, 30kg. I had to pay the excess baggage fee, but I was expecting this so apart from the fact that my flight left in 30mins and I still had to negotiate the security check it wasn't too big a deal. So I had to go round to the ticket desk and pay for the bag before taking it over to the oversize baggage check in. My other bag was 20kg but due to the fact that it was a large backpack with straps hanging off it they still made me take it to oversize baggage check. So I rushed over to the ticket counter, paid the extra £25 and struggled over to the oversize baggae check.

There was a pile of about 10-15 bags there already and two guys sorta louging on them like they were on a tea break. I dumped my bags and told them that they were for the Charlotte flight in 30 minutes.

"Yeah, no problem"

"They will make the Charlotte flight, right?" as I was shoving them into place in a hurry

"Yeah, of course they will, don't worry about"

At this point they sort of turned away and looked like they were about to step outside for a smoke break. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed with their concern for my bags getting on the flighht. Oh well, there were plenty of people behind me trying to catch the same flight and I still had to get on the plane. As it was the flight waited for everyone, an extra hour, so surely the bags had made it on.

Fast forward to Charlotte, carousel A (for apple), baggage from the US Airways Flight 1495 from London Gatwick will be on carousel A, is spinning around without anymore bags on it. The baggage supervisors have just stacked up all the remaining bags for people to claim in a corner and announced that all the luggage from the plane has been unloaded. Great, my fears that the marx brothers oversize baggage handlers weren't up to the task are confirmed. Oh well, no time to contemplate it now, I've got a connection that leaves in 5 minutes.

Fast forward once again but this time to SF. "Yeah I just had a look out there and there's no boogie board bags, you may as well submit that claim and we'll deliver your bags to you when they arrive, probably tomorrow morning." Okay, it wasn't a boggie board bag, you have no clue where my bags are and they probably won't show up tomorrow morning because they'll be at least a day late since there is only one flight from Gatwick each day. My confidence in US Airways is not gaining, but what can you do.

So I call them up Friday morning. This gives them the chance to get the same set of flights I took and arrive in SF Thursday evening and they can deliever them to me in the afternoon. I call up the number for lost baggage claim. Is it a heartless machine that gives me number options? "Press 1 if your bags are lost, Press 2 if want to waste more time listening to a machine, Press 3 if you want to because you're never going to actually talk to someone in person so may as well press a button ...". No its not, I get to talk to Alex, and heartless machine with a name that uses voice recognition so I don't have number options, I just say my options. Unfortunately, Alex has to explain what options I might have which takes twice as long and pisses me off twice as much. My lost baggage claim number was TZTVVP, try that on for size Alex, Mr. Voice Recognition, "Tee, zee (American), Tee, vee, vee, pee". Yup he didn't get it. And at the end of it all what was his answer?

"The location of your bags is unknown at this time."

Great, not something like "Your bags accidently went to Timbuktu, we are currently working to get them to your destination in San Francisco." No, just a plain old, we have no fucking clue.

Well, trust mums to come to the rescue. "Lets go to the shop and buy you some socks and underware, if we start replacing your clothes, your bags are bound to show up right afterwards." So off down to the local shop, buy a few essentials and get back home. Not more than 30 minutes after I get home the phone rings, "US Airways delivery service, we have two bags for you that will be delivered today between 3:30 and 5:00". Result. Bags found, no thanks to Alex, and problems sorted. They even delivered them early, at 3:00.

So everything is all sorted now. My bags have arrived, I don't have to ask my examiners to re-read my thesis and provide their corrections again and I still have all my stuff, including sweetness. And guess what, I even got the bonus of writing this expectionaly long post on my blog. I wonder how many of you have actually read this whole thing. I think that will be the topic for my next post: posting really long posts that are quite good stories but written by an engineer who could make even the most entertaining story long and boring (note to self, tell everyone the lumberjack joke).

Home at last

So I finally made it home, although with out my bags which could cause some major difficulties. Anyway, you just keep going. There's not much point in dwelling on the negatives.

So I finally had a chance to slow down and reflect on life. I came to realise that I'd not really made life easy for myself in the last week or two and that I could have done it all a lot better, or maybe I should say easier. I should have quit the pub a week earlier, I should have done my powerpoint the previous weekend, I should have had less to drink on the weekend, I should have scheduled my flight so I didn't have to leave the day after my viva ... should've, would've, could've. As much as I regret feeling so rubbish in the run up to leaving and that in the last day or two I really didn't feel at all excited to be going home and off to snowboard for a season, I think it might have been the best way to do it. If I had an extra week I think there might have been a bit of a come down, an anti-climax. It might have been nice and relaxing but I would have just been dicking around (or more likely still working away like an idiot trying to sort the corrections in time, which again would have made things a lot easier). I don't know, in the end I think it was quite good to go out in a mad rush. It meant that I didn't have time to worry about anything or second guess anything, I just had to do it all and live with it. And in the end I did pass my viva as well as I could hope to and everything did get sorted out. I might have got a few more grey hairs in the process but oh well, life is meant to be lived, its no fun if you just go through it on cruise control.

Leaving Las Leeds, Part Six

So we were over a hour late taking off which meant that Bubba and Bobbo should have got my bags on the plane, but it didn't look good for making my connection in Charlotte. There was a bit of in-flight entertainment from a fellow passenger. He was in uni and studied some pretty hard applied maths type of thing but was a complete space cadet. He just threw his stuff everywhere, his carry-on bag was a shopping bag that was completely ripped up and then he got into anxiety attacks all the time becuase he couldn't find anything. I didn't think he was really planning too well to prevent his anxiety attacks by having his stuff strewn about the cabin but hey he's not me and for his sake I hope he's some sort of genius because otherwise it just a bit pointless.

Anyway, we got in to Charlotte an hour late which gave me 50 miuntes to get to my next flight. But to make things easier this was my first port of entry into the USA so I have to collect my bags and clear customs with them before re-checking them and getting on the flight to SF. Great. So I got off the plane and through the passport check point in fine time. All that I had to do was pick up my bags get through the customs. So I waited around the carousel ...
A bunch of bags were coming out but not mine ...
Maybe they would bring them through the side door since they were oversized ...
Or maybe not ...
Did I foget to pack my ski googles ...
And then it happened. The lady said all the bags had been unloaded off the plane. but mine weren't there. Nor were a couple of backpacks that a couple other guys were waiting for. Either way it released me to try and catch my connection. I had five minutes. Off I went again, following signs for connecting flights. And then I ended up outside the security check point again. Genius. The guys who designed the airport decided that if you were connecting flights that the security at the first airport was obviusly inadequate (it was probably in some foriegn country that didn't know about security) so they didn't direct you straight along to the gates, they sent you outside the security zone. So three minutes to go, strip off, rubber gloves, bend over, tear apart your bag (carry-on that is) and all the rest of it. I was going to miss my flight. I got through security and checked the departure screen. I was in luck, my flight was delayed an hour. The San Francisco fog had saved me and I was still in business.

Then it dawned on me, as I sat down to wait for the flight to board. My bags hand not made it. They were proabably still stacked up in Gatwick somewhere. What was in those bags? Well a pile of clothes, I need new clothes any way. My snowboarding stuff, ditto its all old and crap and I'm replacing it all this year anyway. Sweetness, oh no, not sweetness. My old school board might be gone. That is an irreplaceable item. You just can't buy another one. Then something else occured to me. I had another irreplaceable item. In my viva my examiners had given me their copies of my thesis which contained all their notes and corrections I needed to do. I wanted to have them in my carry-on but 600 A4 pages of thesis is just a bit too much to carry around so in the bag it went. Now if that has disappeared, well I'm sure I can sort it all out but lets just not think about it. I got on my flight and started the final leg of my journey contemplating my lost bags and what it meant.

So one more flight, how hard could it be. It started off well. The flight was only half full. There was even enough space to escape the howling baby I was seated next to and move to an emergency exit aisle with endless leg room. Bonus. But the fun was short lived. After being initially quiet, the baby decided to start howling. Not the ideal sound track after 16 hours of travelling. But my iPod still had some battery life which helped with that problem. But then it happened. I hardly even noticed it but surely enough a lady just vomited all over the aisle and toilet right in front of me. I wasn't hit by any shrappnel so survived without any collateral damage but the place was a mess. The flight attendents decided to cover it all in newspaper and leave it. Lovely. A fresh pile of vomit stinking up the plane just to settle my stomach. It got to the point where I was jsut tasting the stale saliva in my mouth that you always get before being sick. I couldn't wait to get off the plane but there were a good few hours flight time left. It was a real test of nerve and the howling baby wasn't helping but somehow I got through it all. I got off that plane in a hurry and was so happy to be home and see my parents waiting for me.

A quick trip to the baggage office to make my claim for the bags which never showed up and I was home at last.

Leaving Las Leeds, Part Five

So up and out early again, But this time to tackle rush hour on the underground with my massive bags. Before I even got to the tube station I was already fed up of travelling. It wasn't a good sign with another 20+ hours ahead of me. I got through the underground all right but it wasn't fun. I was sweating like a pig hauling around what felt like a body bag. But I made it to Gatwick so it was only a quick train ride until I could check my bags and have some one else man handle them around. I didn't bother getting the Gatwick express since its about three times the regular price but after sitting on the slow train watching the minutes go by I was thinking that maybe it would have been worth it.

I actually got to Gatwick two hours before my flight. I was very tired and still feeling rough. The line at the check-in desk wrapped around the terminal about three times and I thought there was no way I was getting on the flight. But it turned out that everyone inthe line was for the same flight so we were all in the same boat (or plane if you want to be up to date and topical). They somehow managed to get me through with a half hour to spare but since I had an over weight bag I needed to pay for it and get both my bags over to the oversize baggage check-in. Another delay. I managed to pay the excess and run over to the security check, which was another line that snaked around the terminal. It was going to be much more than the 30 minutes I had. I managed to be a bit checky and move up the line quite well but the real winner came when an airline rep was escorting a late passenger through the line. I managed to tag on the back of him and get through to the metal detectors in no time. So after I'd stripped my self of all metal, took my shoes off (bent over backwards) I was zipping through the machine only for the inevitable "Would you step this way, we just have to look through your bag." Lovely, just what I needed. Another five minutes of a lady unpacking my whole bag and wipping everything down to test for a bomb. So they realised I wasn't a terrorist and let me go. I sprinted off down to the gate, and yes, it was the furthest on away. They plane was still there, I'd made my flight, and with five minutes to spare. My bags, well lets say the baggage handlers at the oversize check-in didn't look like they were going to set any records so I wasn't sure about them.

It turns out that all my efforts to jump through the security line and get on the plane were completely unneccesary. We waited on the ground for another hour while everyone else got on board. Well at least my bags should make it right.

Leaving Las Leeds, Part Four

The travelling started on Tuesday. I'd been sleep deprived for over a week and still coming off a massive bender over the weekend. Time to get the train to London. Public transport with a 30kg snowboard bag, 20kg backpack and a "carry-on" bag is never fun. I managed to actually get to my train in time (after going in to uni, I just couldn't leave that easy). The train ride went by in flash of sleep. Now time to negotiate the London underground with my massive load of bags. I was in luck though since the train arrived at 4:20 and I managed to get across town before 5:00 and rush hour. It meant I was sitting in the tube station for a while waiting for Jules to finish work but I was quite happy to sit on my bags and chill out, watching all these commuters scurrying by just thinking that I was going to be snowboarding in a few weeks and they would still be scurrying around. Fresh powder runs here I come.

Jules finished work and we got my bags back to his place and I could finally rest a bit. But was it a hearty meal and early to bed? Almost, we had the hearty meal but I couldn't escape the inevitable leaving drinks. So a few drinks with the meal ( and with Jules involved you know there was Strongbow Super on the menu) and it was out to the local bar. Now this was no ordinary local bar. It was a tacky tiki bar. Perfect. Just the place you need as a local. They had all the bambo poles out and carved heads everywhere. We kicked back and enjoyed the oldies music. Sort of oldies beach rock with the local parent types dancing away on the danc floor in hawaiian shirt. And of course the required cocktails, all with beach names. The aruora bora boreallis, bahama mama, blue hawaiian the list went on. I actually managed to get away without drinking too much since it was a work night. But I still didn't really get the rest my body needed before battling the underground in full rush hour in the morning and of course a nice relaxing 18 hours of flighting.

Leaving Las Leeds, Part Three

I woke up Monday morning feeling very rough. My alarm hadn't gone off but I was sure I had heard Lynne get up. She was my lift into uni and if she left without me I was screwed. I looked over at my alarm clock just to check the time. It was 2:00am. Shit. Get back to sleep, get some rest. This was the first of many times that I woke up in the middle of the night. Why? Lets recap. I had come to Leeds to get a PhD. After four years of work I had one final exam where I had to defend my thesis and prove that I had done a good piece of work. Now, although I thought the work should be ok, you can never quite tell. Who knows what the examiners are going to think. Then there was the matter of my preparation. I had basically got not much sleep for the last week, been working on a completely different project and hadn't even looked at my thesis for two months and topped it off with a two day bender over the weekend that left me with a half finished presentation to sort out before the viva. Not really text book stuff.

When the actual morning did come and I finally got into uni I was still feeling the effects of the weekend. My head was clearer but the stomach wasn't all there. Maybe it was a bit of nervousness. Maybe not. Either way it wasn't the best. I managed to finish off my presentation and get the project set up for the demo. Then it was time for the viva.

Apart from my internal examiner being 15 minutes late and having a bit of a mess sorting everything out the viva went well. They liked my work and I escaped after only 2+ hours with only minor editorial corrections. Result. The last four years of my life were not useless. So I had to finish cleaning out my desk and a celebration drink was in order, despite not needing it at all. A quick pint in the Eldon and then off home to get my final packing done. After my bags we packed it was a final leaving drink in town with everyone coming out to see me off. I always knew a few people would show up but it still surprised me how many people were there. I guess I never really took the time to realise how many good friends I was leaving behind in Leeds.

Leaving Las Leeds, Part Two

So it was now Friday. I had finally moved everything out of 146 and was living in 37 with my stuff stacked up everywhere. I had to get in to uni nice and early again to put the final touches on the projects, but they still needed some so work to be finished. But not much was going to happen because it was our office day out and my leaving do.

We all headed into town around noon and jumped on the train to Manchester. This was when the drinking began. We had a few in some pubs, followed by an all you can eat chinese, followed by the dogs, and more drinking with drinking in between. By the end of the evening (in the early hours of Saturday) it got quite messy with most people being wiped out by the couple of Sambruca shots which were my genius idea. Hey, I was the scrotemeister and it could do what I wanted. Anyway, needless to say I wasn't feeling very good on Saturday, but by all acounts not many of the others were either, with plenty of stories of people chundering, tactial or otherwise to fill the office on Monday.

Which wasn't the best since we had the Christmas dinner planned. I just about got up in time to get over to Johns house for the secret santa exchange but still hadn't had anything to eat or drink. No matter, when we got to the Wardrobe and I had a glass of wine things were on the up again. Which was exactly where they didn't need to go. So a second night of drinking on the trot. Just what I needed, a full blown weekend bender just before my viva. Who said peer presure is a bad thing? Sunday was spent in much the same way as Saturday, on the couch feeling ill.

This was not the way to prepare for my viva. In fact I still had a powerpoint presentation to put together. There was a lot of kind abuse from Lynne, Si and Andy to get me into uni. Like snapping a rehab rubber band at my hip every five minutes just to the point where you think its going to hit your balls and shouting "Get up Coop, go into uni and do your presentation", but in a nice way. But it was no use, Top Gear was on TV and my head was definitely tuned out. I finaly went into uni to sort it out. But my head was like a vacuum floating in a void and I couldn't hold a thought until around 7:00pm. I finally got some rubbish written and called it a night at 10:00pm. Back home and I had to iron a shirt and get some sleep.

It was going to be my viva tomorrow ...

Leaving Las Leeds, Part One

So I had already finished my thesis and handed it in a whole day early before my ultimate four year deadline (back at the end of September) so that wasn't an issue. What was an issue was money, time and my viva. I managed to hook up a couple of projects in the deptartment so I had a full time job during the day trying to sort them out. I was also workng at a pub down the road in the evening. This was taking care of the money. So my days started around 7:00AM (ok maybe I slept in a little bit and wasn't in uni until 10:00 but lets not dwell on that, bascially I was waking up early) and ending around 1:00AM after leaving the pub. Now this wasn't too bad until the last week and a bit. This is how my scehdule was shaping up, starting from Dec. 1st.

I had been in uni all week working on the projects and worked at the pub Tuesday, Thursday and Friday the 1st. Saturday I played my last lacrosse game (and got man of the match since I finally played a good game) and had a couple of quiet drinks after (no this isn't a lie, it really was only a couple of drinks). Sunday I did some more packing and sorting out my stuff followed by working in the pub. I managed to get most of my stuff packed but not all of it. So all in all not too bad although the lacrosse game was really tiring and I didn't manage to get much done on the packing front.

Monday started off the proper work in uni. The project had to be up and running for a demo on next Monday (11th) and we still didn't have it all worked out. So I was going in to uni with Lynne when she went in at stupid o'clock (roughly 7:30AM) and working all day. Monday night was quite relaxed and nice, we went for a meal in the White House to use up my final coupon. Then Tuesday and Wednesday I was in uni with Lynne and had to work but since Lynne was selling 146 (the house I had been living in) and exchanging the keys on Friday I needed to move out. This meant packing my stuff after work on Tuesday and Wednesday and translated in to only a few hours sleep each night. Thursday was uni as usual to finish off the projects followed by moving the rest of my stuff in the evening. But I had to go back to the pub one more time for a few drinks to say goodbye.

And then came the weekend ...

The doctor has landed

Right, so I figured I'd set up this blog so that I don't have to keep anoying everyone with mass emails telling everyone how much fun I'm having. I'll start of by telling the stroy of how it all happened

Well, I better start from the start ...

First, there was the big bang and a pile of hot magma (Dr. Evil style) was shot out and created the universe and blah blah blah ... ok a bit too far back.

I guess it all started about four years ago when I made it to Leeds to start my PhD, and with every beginning comes an end. I'm the type of person that already thinks about the end before the beginning has even started and what I knew then, and I'm realising now is that at the end of the degree I'm going to want a nice big break. How about a season snowboarding. So this brings us up to date (even if it is a year or so late) I've finished the degree (almost, just a few corrections to take care of) and I've made it back home. But lets rewind a few weeks just to set the scene and review the final few weeks in Leeds. Why? Whyyyyyyy not!

Since its a long story (that went by oh so fast) I'll break it up into a few posts. Stay tuned for part one ...