Drew's Blog. The dots in .co.uk

Drew Wagar's Weblog.

Main | Next page »

Wednesday June 21, 2006

Karate update...

Just managed to get my Orange belt, so that makes me "Mostly Harmless" I think!

( Jun 21 2006, 11:15:13 AM BST / Jun 21 2006, 11:15:13 AM BST ) Permalink Comments [1]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/karate_update

Nerina Pallot's new album

Fantastic album and well worth getting, I'd sum her up as a modern day Suzanne Vega with a bit more zing, not that I am a very qualified popular music buff or anything. Worth getting though.

Quite surprised by the advertising for the album though. The tagline at the bottom is a quote from the Sunday Times which describes the main track "Everybody's going to war." as "A record of optimism and hope." which leads me to wonder whether or not they actually listened to any of the lyrics...

I found the song as a the cry of a melancholy, disheartened generation voicing their damning critique of the Blair/Bush "War on Terror". Can't quote the lyrics obviously, but check it out and see what you think. It's a great album and the "War" song is brilliant.

( Jun 21 2006, 11:11:35 AM BST / Jun 21 2006, 11:08:52 AM BST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/nerina_pallots_new_album

Wednesday April 19, 2006

Karate!

Took this up as a bit of addition exercise for the new year. My wife and 5 year old son have been doing it a bit longer and have already achieved their orange belts. I recently got my yellow one, so now feel I'm in the club.

In case your interested we're doing a variation of Shotokan and the belts run thusly:

White
Red
Yellow
Orange
Green
Blue
Purple
Brown One Stripe
Brown Two Stripe
Black.

The journey from white to black takes about five years with reasonable commitment, so I've sent myself a target of getting a black belt before I'm 40. Scary thought! It's quite a challenge, as the level of flexibility and fitness is quite a lot higher than most other sports I've attempted. However, I'm pretty fit, and it's fun during the warm up sessions to see all the teenagers collapsing at the side of the Dojo and whinging when old Greybeard is still going... ;-)

I'm under no illusions that I'm going to be a sort of mid life Bruce Lee, more a sort of "Crouching techie, hidden consultant" I suspect.

All I want is to be able to jump into a room and shout "Small Tree!" ;-)

( Jun 21 2006, 11:14:15 AM BST / Apr 19 2006, 05:34:58 PM BST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/karate

Proud Dad thing...

Big round of applause please!

My 5 year old son Mark has just learnt to cycle without his stabilisers. Very proud of him obviously, cool to see as well as he managed it for the first time, screaming his head off with a curious mix of enthusiasm, excitement, wobbling and downright terror. ;-)

OK, he's still got to master the "starting and stopping without falling off and crashing into passing pedestrians or nearby vegetation" aspects of the task, but significant progress made I feel!

A big milestone in his life!

( Apr 19 2006, 05:18:32 PM BST / Apr 19 2006, 05:17:24 PM BST ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/proud_dad_thing

Friday January 27, 2006

Narnia : Coming back through the Wardrobe...

Went to see 'The Chronicles of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe' recently, full of the trepidation usually reserved for classic book film adaptions...

It opens with a quite terrifyingly accurate portrayal of the blitz (though the Pevensey's blackout rigour left something to be desired) and proceeds from there at an energetic pace.

The English countryside looked like England for a change. The train stations were correct for the period (yes, most country stations were unmanned) and they even got the right steam train, a 4-6-0 Great Western Castle Class. Top marks!

The fear and worry etched in the mothers faces whilst evacuating their children to an uncertain future was spot on too, this was set when the UK was standing alone against the Germans and we were expecting to be invaded in short order.

The rest of the film was a faithful protrayal of the book, with a few 'action sequences' thrown in. However these didn't detract from the flow. Giving the Beaver an east London accent was a nice touch, and it worked. Some of the dialogue was especially good, my favourite being from the eldest boy 'Peter' as the children are deliberating about whether or not to follow the beaver when he bursts out with "It's a beaver! It's not even supposed to be talking!"

All in all it felt like a junior version of Lord of the Rings, and that's not a criticism. Go, see and enjoy. I was pleasantly surprised. Recommended.

( Jan 27 2006, 11:52:00 AM GMT / Jan 27 2006, 11:42:09 AM GMT ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/narnia_coming_back_through_the

Thursday January 26, 2006

Signs of the times...

Walked across from London Bridge station yesterday on my way to the office and was confronted by this sign as I left the station which made me laugh. (sorry about the poor quality camera phone pic!)

Obviously this is designed to stop passengers from waving at the train drivers, but it's more fun to misinterprete it as a piece of general advice on the mental health of train drivers... On the whole I guess it's probably a good thing that train drivers aren't off with the fairies, chasing giraffes or talking to themselves whilst driving hundreds of tonnes of fast moving metal! ;-)

More misleading signs on the otherside of the bridge too, a man with a placard bearing the message,"The End is close, turn to Jesus."

I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to indicate either, as, according to my Christianity inclined friends, no one is supposed to know the exact date of the end of the world anyway. Anyone claiming the opposite has, so far, been quite demonstrably wrong, unless as the late Douglas Adams pointed out, the end of the world has already happened and we were all to drunk to notice!

( Jan 26 2006, 01:55:07 PM GMT / Jan 26 2006, 09:45:24 AM GMT ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/signs_of_the_times

Friday January 20, 2006

My family is on its way to Pluto...

Well, not exactly, but we got to put our names on the 'New Horizons' spacecraft that successfully launched yesterday evening. Well done!

I thought this was quite a good away to capture the imagination of kids. The New Horizons website ran a page where you could submit your name for inclusion on a CD which would be loaded onto the spaceship before launch. That CD with our names on it, (along with 430,000 others!) is now somewhere in interplanetary space between here and Jupiter...

My kids loved watching the launch on the net (no TV coverage mores the pity) and now we have to wait. 'New Horizons' will go past Jupiter in early 2007, but won't reach Pluto until 2015. By then my two sons will be 15 and 12 - scary!

( Jan 20 2006, 09:07:00 AM GMT / Jan 20 2006, 09:07:00 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [2]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/my_family_is_on_its

Friday January 13, 2006

Incoming space debris...

There is a bit of a tradition in the tech circles of Sun in the UK to find the most esoteric, odd ball or just plain funny URL or email and forward it around to a select group of appreciators on a Friday afternoon. This is the 'Friday URL'.

Occasionally this explodes into a frantic exchange of humour based on how 'good' the URL/email is. Last Friday was one of these.

Robin forwarded us all the unlikely tale of a poor Nigerian spaceman. Particular attention was devoted to the subject of space station exports, which eventually degenerated into mammoth speculation what exactly was done with 'waste products' produced by the occupants of the space station in question.

After applying our brains for a while it was clear that the best bet was to dump the stuff into the earths atmosphere and allow it to burn up. I even coined a new technical term: "The Excreteor." ;-)

Of more serious note would be the ones which didn't burn up completely and actually hit the ground. These are: "The Excreteorites."

If you were unfortunately enough to get hit by one of these and happened to live in the United States (prone as it is to turning nouns into verbs) you might suffer that most terrible of fates....

...Excreteorisation.

Maybe you had to be there, it was a Friday after all!

( Jan 13 2006, 05:19:28 PM GMT / Jan 13 2006, 05:13:54 PM GMT ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/incoming_space_debris

Wednesday January 04, 2006

Happy new Year!

Hi Folks!

Welcome to 2006 and all that. I'm happy to report that, due to the wonders of wireless networking, I am now writing to you all from the comfort of my new conservatory! Yay!

It was finished on Dec 24th at 12:30, so, technically, just in time for Christmas. ;-)

I'm officially poor now, funny how these things ALWAYS eat up about 50% more than you budget for!

( Jan 04 2006, 04:45:52 PM GMT / Jan 04 2006, 04:45:52 PM GMT ) Permalink
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/happy_new_year

Friday December 02, 2005

Aloha!

Hey! Got somebody in Hawaii! Hello! :-)

Little things please little minds!

Though conversely: "A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men." !

( Dec 02 2005, 09:08:55 AM GMT / Dec 02 2005, 09:08:55 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/aloha

Thursday December 01, 2005

Er... Hello World!?

Since Robin was blogging about his Hawaii blog reader (what is the proper term for someone who reads a blog? Blogee? Blogette? How about Blogerator? Perhaps not;-).... I thought I would take a look at my clustermap...well!

Hello this week to Northern New Zealand, Japan, The West Indies, The Canary Isles, Iceland, Jakarta, Borneo and most interestingly of all, some tiny island in the Polynesian chain in the middle of the pacific which I can't quite make out...(no Hawaii for me though!). Nice to have you all aboard though and thanks for reading!

Is there a closet steam train fanatic out there in the pacific? ;-)

( Dec 01 2005, 11:37:35 AM GMT / Dec 01 2005, 11:33:06 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/er_hello_world

Reality meets the blogosphere

I haven't had much time to update the blogs on account of a lot of conference and demo work recently. However, during the Manchester conference we all attended last week a handful of people who have been reading my blog actually took the trouble to come and visit us.

Quite cool when you realise that real people are reading what you write! :-) So special thanks to Stuart, Mike and Phil for emerging from the blogosphere into the real world!

And not a mention of trains either!

( Dec 01 2005, 09:13:44 AM GMT / Dec 01 2005, 09:13:44 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/reality_meets_the_blogosphere

Friday November 18, 2005

Driving a steam train...

Well, if you were following my blog last week you'll remember I had been given an early Christmas present; a day driving Steam Trains up and down the famous 'Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch' Line.

We got there for 8:30am on a cold and frosty morning. Firelighters had already been there for two hours, preparing the engine for work. Takes a long time to boil hundreds gallons of water!

Here is our engine, Typhoon. In railway nomenclature it's a 4-6-2. It weighs 6 tonnes, and the tender (coal and water) is a further 2. We were pulling 8 coaches, 2 tonnes a piece. Takes a whole train length to stop. The engine is putting about 100 horsepower.

And here is yours truely, waiting for 'a road'. It's incredibly hard work. You're monitoring 4 main gauges, boiler pressure (around 150 pounds per square inch), steam chest pressure (how much steam pressure in the driving cylinders), water levels (too little the boiler explodes, too much and you aren't moving for 30 minutes) and brake pressure (all vacuum driven).

You're shoveling coal like there is no tomorrow and trying to keep an eye on where you are going. Driving isn't a case of pull the throttle (regulator as its known) and off you go. You've got to balance another control (cut-off) between traction and steam usage. It's pretty overwhelming!

It's pretty hard to see where you are going on a steam train, keeping an eye out for hazards (which included two errant sheep on our journey) along with signals etc is quite hard work, as this view from the drivers eye shows...

The trains are 1/3 scale, which means that top whack is about 25mph, a scale speed of 75. It feels much faster than that, particularly when you are leaning out of the cab trying to get a funky shot whilst moving along...

We had a beautiful, if cold day, frequent stops and refreshments throughout. I have to say I now have enormous respect for those crews who ran services from London to Edinburgh non-stop in all weathers. Hard work doesn't even approach it. I'm now an honoury member of the 'Romney Regulators', though I might not mention that in all my social circles! ;-) Great fun though, and if you like steam, nostalgia and engineering, thoroughly recommended! There isn't much in life that beats being at the controls of an express steam train, flat out down a main line.

The railway's website is here - One quick factoid, it is the only steam railway in the world that still runs scheduled services and has done without interruption since the day it opened, including throughout the second world war.

( Nov 18 2005, 11:08:51 AM GMT / Nov 18 2005, 10:56:08 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [4]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/driving_a_steam_train

Friday November 11, 2005

I've no idea whether anyone will find this remotely interesting...

We've succumbed to the lure of having a bit more space in the house (always wanted an extra downstairs room) and so have invested in one of those very British affairs, the construction of a conservatory.

In case don't know what one of these is, it's basically a glass room on the outside of you house. Like this...

One of the reasons these are so popular in the UK is that you don't (currently) need planning permission to put one up, and anything that avoids contacting the local council is generally a good thing.

We're having one put here, apologies for the dingy photo, it was a bit too dark at the time...

I'll keep you posted on the construction.

( Nov 11 2005, 09:43:11 AM GMT / Nov 11 2005, 09:41:11 AM GMT ) Permalink Comments [0]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/i_ve_no_idea_whether

Thursday November 10, 2005

Hey, cool! And, thanks!

It seems I am regularly appearing on the 'Hot Blogs' list on the main page now, which is cool. It's all down to you dear readers, so many thanks indeed!

ps. Robin will probably have a fit about me starting a sentence with a preposition in the title. He he! ;-)

( Nov 10 2005, 04:47:46 PM GMT / Nov 10 2005, 04:47:46 PM GMT ) Permalink Comments [2]
Trackback: http://blogs.sun.com/Drew/entry/hey_cool_and_thanks

Yep, me.

moon phases

- Get my RSS Feed!

people stopped by, thanks everyone!

My Blog Entries...

Today's Page Hits: 50