Archive for February, 2007

Busy Evening

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

An installation of Wordpress MU, the last episode of Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, going over the Cthulhu adventure for Thursday evening, and watching the piss-poor Mr Frost with the video night peeps.

Can life get any more exciting?  Can it?

I hope not.  My heart may just stop.

BigAl 

The Party!

Friday, February 23rd, 2007

Just in case word hasn’t got around properly, I’m having a big birthday bash on the 3rd March:

Time: 7.30 – midnight, 3rd March
Location: Whiteinch Community Centre

Details: We’re still hoping to get some sort of ceilidh band, who will be followed by our very own Guy Incognito on his might decks of doom. There will be a bar, but you will need to pay.

All welcome. If you’re travelling a distance, and are looking for a place to stay, I _might_ be able to find someone to put you up, so let me know. No promises….

mrBen

Back home

Thursday, February 22nd, 2007

I’m back from Mozambique, and there’s a whole lot of stuff to tell, but to start with I thought I would set up a flickr account for all the photos that Gary, Alan and I took while we were out there. You can see them in all their glory at http://flickr.com/photos/72732141@N00/ or search for the username moz_iris

More on all this later….

mrBen

Oh, I’m on a diet…

Friday, February 16th, 2007

Ruth and I hit the five week mark on Monday.  And so far I’ve lost 1 & 1/2 stone.

Whoo hoo!

Ruthy has lost a bit less but she’s still on track!

It’s not been easy and I still have to lose a good amount but I’m a weight I haven’t been in years.  Funny thing is, I never thought I could ever maintain a diet and I’d just fall off it within the first week. 

I almost did.  Almost.

The worst thing about the diet isn’t the restrictions on what we can’t eat but the damn cravings.

The cravings have alternated between chocolate, a double Whopper with cheese or a foot-long sub (cheese steak on italian).

Damn.  I could really go a sub just now…

BigAl

Away for a bit

Tuesday, February 13th, 2007

Well – I fly out to Mozambique tomorrow – very excited, and a little bit scared too. I’m taking a digital camera and a video camera, so there’ll be lots of evidence. Plus I think I’m going to invest in a low-tech blog (aka a notebook) so that I have some stuff to post on my return, although if I get a moment I may post while I’m there, if at all possible.

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to my sponsorship – only £184 to go at the moment, but it’s coming down nicely :)

Don’t break anything while I’m gone ;)

mrBen

Anti-Spam

Wednesday, February 7th, 2007

Last Friday I decided that enough was enough in terms of the amount of comment spam I was moderating, so I installed the Akismet plugin for Wordpress. I’ve always held off doing this, because of the requirement to sign up to yet another 3rd party service (in this case wordpress.com), even if it’s only a “basic” membership and free. However, given that it’s already pre-moderated over 1000 spams since installation, I think it was probably worth it ;)

If you feel your comment may have been accidentally marked as spam, then drop me an email.

mrBen

Mozambique Update

Monday, February 5th, 2007

Just a bit of a progress report on this:

  • Tickets are bought
  • Visas are in progress, and should hopefully be back this week
  • Travel insurance, including emergency medial cover, has been purchased
  • All our injections are done, and anti-malaria tablets bought
  • I’ve bought my (SPF 50) suncream….
  • We’ve arranged some overnight accommodation in Johannesburg for the 14th

Still to do:

  • I’ve raised just over half of my sponsorship, thanks to 1 extremely generous donation in particular, but am still about £400 short
  • I need to buy insect repellant
  • We need to sort out our grocery list
  • One or two other minor things

Gary and Alan are also both trying to raise money – I think I’m the furthest forward so far….. Next update on this particular topic should hopefully be from Mozambique itself (limited internet access……)

mrBen

LUGRadio Live 2007

Friday, February 2nd, 2007

Well – the event of the year is returning. Jono and the guys have confirmed that the open source/Linux event of the year will be taking place on the 7th-8th July at The Light-House.

If the postings on the last 2 years events haven’t yet persuaded you to give it a try, then you’re a hopeless case! I’ll see you there (wife/child permitting…..)

mrBen