This Ordinary Life

My confidence in the human race has been restored! Last night I drank a bit too much red wine while at a colleagues leaving do. I struggled to stay awake (!?!) near the end and as a consequence when I got off at my tube station and wanted to leave through the automatic gates, I noted the absence of my wallet.

Now the last time I struggled with staying conscious I ended up at Wembley Park and had to catch a £20 cab to get home. Losing my wallet was really a pain I could have done without.

I don't know how I managed to get out of the tube or home, but at least there wasd enough adrenaline mixed with the alcohol to enable me to call to cancel my card. Well actually I cancelled on of them twice and two not at all.

This morning's hangover was fierce. Leaving my bed for the couch at 13:00 was painful. However, while nursing my hangover by drinking joughurt mixed up in water (supposedly a well-known Bulgarian cure) and watching Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares (god I love that show), the phone rang. Turns out it was my bank and they had something to tell me.

They took a reluctant me through security (I never trust people calling you up and asking you for account details. Can you believe it that someone had found my wallet, called the bank and asked them to get in touch with me?

I finally spoke to the guy and arranged to meet with him for a handover. He didn't ask for anything in return and everything was still in my wallet. All he left me with after I thanked him profusely was "Don't worry about it, I lose my wallet all the time.". To add to my elation, it turns out that the two cards I forgot to cancel are the one's I'll need for my overseas trip later this week.

If everyone had a shred of this guys decency, the world would be a much better place. So I emplore you all to hace a heart and go out of you way to reunite lost things with their owners. You never know when you might next loose something (do you drink?)...

Posted by this ordinary life at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you live, travel or otherwise find yourself near Southampton in the UK, something that you must spend a weekend doing is sailing the Solent. Although I an nowhere near an expert sailor, I have sailed on the Solent enough times to realises that it is as unpredictable as the outcome of the 2008 US Presidential Race and more taxing to the stomach than a few hours on the Teacup ride at a carnival. I have been covered with salt, vomit, food and booze during my various journeys, but loved (well, almost) every minute of it.

There are a variety of ways you can get yourself on a boat. Most larger companies in London and the region will have sailing clubs and if you work in a corporate environment, check and see if you can't get one of your suppliers to invite you along to the mack-daddy of all UK sailing events, Cowes Week. I have been on a number of events and weekends, but the best thus far (aside from being out on a boat with just my mates) has been Little Britain. This is the construction industry's annual sailing extravaganza and Waterman, an engineering consultancy, always throws a mean party for all of their clients and suppliers. Last year's was complete with a hog roast and live music late into the night.

I sadly only made it onto a sailboat twice this year. Once for a day at Cowes and then for another two with some friends for a weekend of sailing. It was enough to get the juices flowing, but not enough to really satisfy my thirst. The photo is from my last outing where we had Force 7 winds and some heavy rain. Combine that with the last day of racing for Cowes Week and you have some exciting sailing! I'll have to see if I can't get myself onto a boat for a couple of racing weekends over the winter... brrr, that'll be cold...

If you haven't already, no matter where you are in the world, go out for a few hours, a weekend or even a week of sailing. In this age of high petrol prices, it feels extra nice to get your thrills while being sustainable!

Posted by this ordinary life at 9:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, over the last year or so a number of my friends have moved overseas. To keep in touch and up with the times (I used to be a total gadget-a-holic), I bought a webcam and wanted to "get connected" - for free - via Skype.

Amazon.co.uk had a great deal on the Logitech Quickcam Pro 9000 (wow, that sounds very professional, doesn't it?) for £39.95 down from £58 something. Now everyone that knows me, knows that I love a bargain, particularly when it is a top of the line webcam complete with Carl Zeiss optics! I did check the system requirements (very demanding) but thought my Toshiba P30 Laptop with it's Pentium 4 at 4.7 Ghz would make mince-meat of it.

Well, I was mistaken and it didn't even really work for a moment. Turns out that the 2.0 Megapixel webcam was so resource intensive that it caused my computer to overheat and shutdown (well, not really as the P30 has this inherent flaw when running at full speed - and not even top speed was fast enough for the webcam). Spats of frustrations were intersperced with bouts of disappointment. As I'd bought it from Amazon, I'd have to pay the postage to send it back, what was I going to do?!?

There were a number of options open to me including throwing it out the window, not connecting it to my computer and pretending it works, etc... etc... However, in the end, I knew there was only one option... give it to my parents.

I had already done this once with a very old Logitech Quickcam Express (7 years old by now) and thought the least I could do was give them an upgrade... and take my old one back.

I was suprised to see how ancient it was when I got it home. Resolution of 640 x 480 and no built-in microphone. At least it runs like a dream on my computer (it was designed for the Pentium 2, me thinks). However, it was annoying to have a separate microphone and camera.

So I decided to rip apart an earpiece/microphone that I had and glue the microphone to the camera. I also screwed a long screw into the bottom so that I could perch it on my laptop. The results were a meisterwerk of man over machine.

Sadly, I haven't found anyone on Skype yet to test it out on. I am confident that I managed to rescue a number of technologically out of date pieces of kit and combine them into something that Logitech wouldn't even sell in Eastern Europe (not offense to Estonia as it is one of the most technologically advance countries there are!), but the proof is in the pudding. Someone please Skype me!

Posted by this ordinary life at 9:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)