2008 — 1 Mar: Saturday, windy, cold, dry? Rabbits!
It's 00:38 or so, and just time for a placeholder. Up early in a few hours time as I think I need to do some supply shopping before heading over to Winchester for the next walk. The "downstairs relaxation" I mentioned a couple of hours ago was the film Death at a funeral which was everything a well-acted, well-written comedy ensemble piece should be apart, that is, from actually being funny. Oops. Can't win them all, I guess.
By the way, I've also now "proven" the wireless access from tiny toy PC to my remote web server in Texas using an SSH session. Took me a while to find where the access to the console window was buried. Now what I'd really like is to find a Linux equivalent of the wonderful WinSCP tool and its GUI rather than drilling laboriously down through the subdirectory hierarchy each time to get to the files I want to update. Too tired (at 01:16) to go digging this late, however. I shall just listen to the soothing sounds of the gale that's apparently blowing outside. "The cradle will rock..."
Speaking of which, when I joined IBM in 1981 Christa's parents visited us that autumn and stayed in our new house. Christa took them around locally, of course. And here's a rare sighting of a rather junior "Junior" — later this month is his 28th birthday, for heaven's sake!
They were resting in Mayflower Park at the time. Me? I was stuck in the office, of course... I must admit, there seems to be a certain family resemblance between "our kid" and the young chap pictured here back in 1954.
Back on the air
It seems (at 07:58) to be bright and sunny, but the chap on the radio is implying it's been enormously windy in various more far-flung parts. Indeed, I assume some parts have been far-flung. I got up at 02:30 to close the bedroom window, thus reducing the ambient noise to the point where I could actually then sleep. And this is, of course, St David's Day. (Just as it was last year, though it seems to me that that was a happier occasion!)
We used to have a full-blown, full-grown civil aviation industry indigenous to this country. Then, under undue government assistance (some might call it interference) this got slowly smashed into one big piece. (Just after I left the industry in 1974, funnily enough.) Today's news about the European Airbus $40,000,000,000 contract win (over Boeing) for US military re-fuelling1 planes assures us that 13,000 long-term, high-skilled jobs have a certain amount of security because (if you please) we design and make "every wing" in Bristol and Broughton (but not Hatfield, of course, where I was once confidently told that I was an idiot for turning my back on a decade or more of steady work [by the singularly ill-informed idiot2 who {it was widely rumoured, though never believed by me} only masqueraded as the Apprentice Training Officer there at the time by virtue of his marriage to the daughter of one of the directors]). I could tell a few stories...
Meanwhile, the chappie on the radio was saying that everyone was delighted last year by the news that worldwide civil airline operations made the equivalent of £2 per passenger3 — now that's a thin operating margin. (It's also the first time the word "profit" has been needed since 2001.) Have a good flight back to NZ, Big Bro — he emailed me overnight while sitting in a (no doubt luxurious and restful) transit lounge in Los Angeles International.
News from the life-long learning... dept.
Turns out there are compensations to this waking up too early lark. I'm listening to BBC Radio 2 and the "Sounds of the 60s" programme hosted by Brian Matthew. I had previously thought the phrase "Yada, yada, yada" was an invention of comic geniuses Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. Not so! It shows up in the track "Push push" by Austin Taylor on the album The Bert Burns story. I'm a better person for getting that off my chest. Though not for having been reminded of just how awful the version of "Yellow submarine" by Mrs Miller sounds. On with the breakfast input; it's nearly 09:00 already. How does that happen so quickly?
Plus this link for my main co-pilot — he hates the things, he tells me, and saw some in one of my imaginary menagerie photos earlier in the week.
Refreshed
Just back from nearly 7 miles circumnavigating (with Mike) various bits with "Compton" in their name. I would show you the map but, as you may have noticed, I decided my breach of the OS copyright ought to stop. I won't bother with the link to the "Free our data" folk, either, as I've been informed by a chap who knows about these things that the issues are a lot more complex than may at first appear (aren't they always?). For reasons that pass all understanding, I'm reminded that I've just phoned dear Mama, too. And it's not even Mother's Day. I must be coming down with something. Perhaps I was bitten by a fiercesomely large tree snake? Click the pic for a close-up:
Huge tree snake, at least in my imagination
Time ticketh relentlessly on, and I have a bath to fit in (as it were) before heading off to the next meeting of the monthly dinner club.