Barry Knows Best
Apparently this shot is going to be in Dirt magazine this coming month along with an article about riding in the Surrey Hills.
Pretty damn pleased with that. No cash this time but nice to get published.
Time Machine
In all the years I’ve been using computers for day to day work [since around 97-98 when I started uni] I’ve never had to do a full backup of a system after a catastrophic failure. By catastrophic I mean water in my MacBook…
So I was a little worried that I’d lost everything! My laptop has all my portfolio of work on which essential for me gaining employment and also all my Part 3 work, not to mention all my music and photos.
Since upgrading to Mac OS 10.5 I’ve been using a program called Time Machine to back up which comes as part of OS X on the Mac. I’d never had to test how good it is and kind of hoped that it would just work when I needed it to. I’ve never needed to recover an individual file either as I’m usually careful about what I delete.
My new MacBook arrived from Amazon yesterday and as soon as I got it home I rebooted from the CD and selected restore from Time Machine Backup. An hour or so later my laptop was exactly as it was the day before the flood! Needless to say I am very impressed!
A walk to Super Fish…
Got bored of cleaning last night so decided to go for a bit of a wander. As soon as I got outside there was this amazing sunset over the London Eye. Incredible and looked at though the sky was on fire.
By the time I walked there it was pretty much gone and it ended up just looking overcast and cloudy which still made for a good picture. I think I probably have enough pictures of the London Eye for now though.
Then the inevitable rain came. Last few shots then off to get Fish and Chips at Super Fish. Read a few bits on contract law and had a few Peroni’s. Sweet.
Ooops
So, Thursday morning after seeing Cut Copy at the Scala, Emma and I got up as usual. Emma tried to have a shower but no water as they were digging up the road to replace the water main. No worries, I have a shower at work after the ride in.
Working away on my project when I get an email from Matt saying “The fire brigade just called me, the flat is flooded”… erm, excuse me? So rode home to see what was going on and this is what I find when I walk in…..
Ahh, erm. Well that’s the ceiling you can see on the floor. The water had come back on and jerked the shower head up, spraying it all over the floor for five hours.
The damage? Apart from the obvious lack of ceiling the list goes as follows, MacBook dead, two printers, airport extreme basestation, aiport express, sofa, table, chair, A3 printer, multifunction HP printer scanner thing, an external drive, 28″ TV, DVD player and surround sound box, speakers, hifi separates and lots of other bits and bobs.
No electricity in the flat for now and spent a few days mopping up and wiping down the dust and gunk. Got a dehumidfyer in there for now and hoping to go home tomorrow. Thank god for M+S insurance!
Skyline, Afan [in day]
Finally made it round the Skyline trail today. Been going to Afan for years now but never made plucked up the courage to do the Skyline trail. Vaughan and went for a day trip today, setting off at 7am. Got on the trails around 11.30 and it takes the same initial climb as Whites Level. At the top it splits off and goes on a much longer loop.
It was sunny but windy when we arrived and it was warm for first climb. The climb extends on to some rather dull fire road.
However it soon turned to foggy damp weather.. See the extended areas of fire road below. We were both pretty pissed off on the way round thinking we’d wasted a really long drive just for this.
Once we got to the later sections of trails known as Grand Canyon and Fast Forward, things soon got much more interesting. Finally some decent fast flowing singletrack!
The singletrack varied from really quick swoopy stuff in the woods to really open rocky sections. Our hands and backs were knackered by the end. Next time I’ll take the Enduro for some full suspension comfort! Overall it was well worth it but it’s certainly physically challenging especially after a 3.5 hr drive. Back again soon I hope!
Site visit
Had a meeting in Oxford today and took the camera. Train ride home was a little dull so snapped a few pics on the way back. Another Part 3 paper in today too.
Off to Afan with Vaughan on Sunday and going to try the Skyline trail.
