200 Miles Later…

Just covered my first 200 miles on the Crossfire without any major incident. A few things have had to be tightened up at the road side and a bit of an adjustment to the gear change was necessary, but it’s nothing that I’ve not been able to do with a single Allen/Hex key.

I’m really impressed with how much better my cycle experience is on this bike. Although the top speed of the bike isn’t too much higher than my old bike, I’m able to maintain a higher average speed and therefore get from a to b much quicker. The lack of rear suspension and thinner tyres does mean that the ride is a little rougher, but the acceleration on this hard tail is far superior. My only gripe is the tyres seem to feel quite sluggish in the wet – in dry conditions they’re fine. Really impressed with the Carrera Crossfire.

I just need to get brave enough to install my SPD pedals .

Retro Game Revolution

After my wife recently picked up a Nintendo Gameboy Pocket with Tetris for £1.50 (an extremely luck find) at the local charity shop, something of a retro game revolution has begun in our house.

Courtesy of eBay, Cash Generator, Amazon and friends & family I’ve now managed to amass a collection of every type of Gameboy that existed, a couple of Sega GameGears and a pile of games.

My personal favourite games are Dr Franken on the original GB and Zelda 4 Swords on the GBA. In fact, I had to stop playing Zelda on the Gameboy Micro as my hands were starting to ache!

Although some of the games fetch a handsome price, most of these old consoles are fairly cheap. That’s a good thing as I plan to take some of them on holiday with us as in-car entertainment that I don’t have to worry about getting a few knocks.

Crossfire

On a quiet Saturday afternoon in front of the telly after a good day gardening I came upon an advert for Halfords bicycle sale. A great looking mountain bike caught my eye so we saddled up and headed off to the new local store for a look…just a look as I’m supposed to be getting a new bike for my 40th this December.

Having spent months looking at all kinds of bikes and just about settling on a B’Twin Rock Rider 8, I was quite excited to see how the Firecracker from Halfords would measure up against it and my existing ride. After all, this bike was reduced from £359 to £219. It had to be good, right?

On inspection, aside from the disk breaks, it didn’t seem much better than my existing cycle. Weight was about the same and so was the gear set up. I wanted something a little lighter and faster than what I already had. Then it caught my eye…The Carrera Crossfire.

This too was in the sale and after comparing to a few of the other hybrid bikes in there, I was completely taken with it. So much so that I’m now the proud owner of a shiny new bike. It’s so much lighter than my old Apollo and the special hill climber gear should make hills a snap. An added bonus is that my son had put a claim in on my old bike so he’s happy too.

I can’t wait to get riding!

We Can Rebuild Him

A mate of mine gave me an old Toshiba Satellite Pro A10 over the weekend. It was in a bit of a state. Just about stripped bare and anything that could be disconnected was! Still, I like a challenge

After a couple of days scavenging replacement parts, reconnecting wires, installing then re-installing the operating system (Vista, yuk!) I’ve got a nice little laptop that’s great for the internet, homework and iTunes.

Win!

[Update]

Still had a bit of an over heating problem with this machine. A bit of dust & fluff in the vent didn’t help but a web search on this issue showed it to be a common fault on these machines. Dremmel to the rescue. A few holes placed in a concentric series of circular patterns over the cpu has allowed for much nicer air flow and keeps the machine quite cool. Damn, I’m good

Happy Birthday

Got a really nice happy birthday text this morning. Only problem is, it’s not my birthday and I’ve no idea who sent it!

I sent a text back to say it wasn’t my birthday and that the sender should check their number.

They txt back with a lol. Not because they realised that they had the wrong number but because they thought I was “in denial about getting old”.

Me – “No really, it’s not my birthday. You’ve got the wrong person.”

Texter – “Mwhaaa. Your Altshimers playing up? Enjoy your fishing trip.”

Me – “You got me. Here I am, sat in my office on a dreary Monday morning wondering who this mystery texter is telling me of birthday parties and fishing trips and all this time it was my Altshimers.”

I didn’t hear back from them again but I do hope who ever it was had a nice birthday and fishing trip

Her Name Was New York

Well, “The Boy” has returned from a weeks jollies in New York. I ask you, when did school trip go to New York? I got as far as London for the day when I was kid.

In all honesty, I’m dead jealous yet very proud that we were able to get him there. I suspect that it’s a 16th birthday present that will not be forgotten for a very long time!

As ever, pictures speak a thousand words each so have a look at the Picasa album. It looks like they had a blast.

Now, if only he would stop with the “New York is awesome…New York is much better…..New York this, that and the bleeding other!”. Lol.

Back Again

After another round of router swapping (this time, just for fun), I finally got round to getting back on line.

The swapping and experimenting was down to the god awful Netgear router that refuses to NAT loop back. That means that, because of the way I have wordpress set up, I can’t access my blog from home.

Speaking of home, we don’t have a computer any more. That’s not strictly true, we all have a laptop each, phones capable of tinterweb access, a Wii with Opera and several iPod touches; we just don’t have a tower computer on a desk taking up a chunk of the house. It’s gone (along with it’s excessive power demand) to be replaced by a nice book case and new dining table. Much more functional and pleasing to the eye.

Relight My Fire

I can’t believe that it’s the 11th of January and I’m only just getting round to my first blog post of 2011. There’s a couple of reasons for my neglect. Firstly, the router that I have at home doesn’t cope well with accessing my blogging from home . Secondly, my wife bought me a Kindle for my birthday and I’ve an extensive eBook library that is begging to be read. Aside from watching NFL and the odd Blu-Ray, my Kindle has not been out of my hand.

I must admin that I was in two minds about which version of the Kindle to get. Wi-Fi or Wi-Fi & 3G. On reflection, I’m glad that I opted for the Wi-Fi only version. It costs less, the battery lasts longer and there’s no chance that you’ll ever be charged for using Whispernet, Amazon’s conversion and delivery service, because you accessed it via 3G.

For anyone who owns an eBook reader or even just a lot of eBooks, you really have to check out the brilliant Calibre. Simple to use but packed full of great featurs. It makes organising your library and transferring eBooks to the Kindle (or many other supported readers) a breeze. I don’t even have to plug the Kindle into the computer. I just click on the book, send it to my Kindle email and a few seconds later it’s ready to read. Bloody awesome!