Journal: July 2006

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Photos
Sun 30/7/06 (Link to this entry)

Well, I finally managed to get out and play with my camera a bit today. There's a wee bit of wilderness in between my house and Camberley city centre which has some fields and a few woody trails. On my way to pick up a few things at the shops, I snapped a few interesting things and played around a bit with the camera's settings. The results are impressive despite my lack of photographical expertise - this is a good camera.

As can be seen in the picture above, these are actually Army grounds which the public is permitted to access, although the disclaimer is a bit worrying ("if we hit you with an artillery shell it's not our problem")... It's a nice bit of ground though (and one of the fields would be really good for hosting an archery shoot - might have to start up a club :P ).

I've put some of the photos into a little subpage in my 'photos' section - I'll build this section up as I go to more interesting places and take better pictures but for now it's pretty sparse. One of the pics that didn't make it in is the one of our front door, I thought I'd whack that in here so you can see where I'm living:

We had a barbie out the back this afternoon which was nice, and Craig let me have a go at his drumkit. This was simultaneously great fun and utterly appalling - I am so badly out of practice it's not true. Hopefully I'll get more opportunities to have a bash down here than at home, where I was always worried about being antisocial to the neighbours. The walls are thicker here so it shouldn't be as much of a problem :D

Less Wonky Connection
Sat 29/7/06 (Link to this entry)

I've finally worked out why our 'net connection has been such a pain in the neck. It was hooked up to what must be a fifteen or twenty metre extension cable. ADSL signals don't carry well along that kind of line, so the signal was degraded before even leaving the house. We've got it hooked up to the master socket now and it seems fairly stable. Fingers crossed!

Celtic seem to have gotten off to a good start today in the SPL despite a pretty crap pre-season, so things are looking good on that front. Gotta love the BBC's online broadcast of Sportsound - I'd miss my weekly football dose otherwise as I doubt I'll be able to catch any Scottish football coverage down here.

Wonky Connection
Thu 27/7/06 (Link to this entry)

No updates in the past few days because the internet connection here is being a bit wonky, meaning I can only connect from time to time. It's a pain in the neck really, you don't realise quite how much you rely on the 'net until it's gone. I've got an idea of what the problem is though so I'm going to give BT a phone and try and sort it.

Work's been progressing nicely; I've been in training this week and I'm feeling fairly comfortable with the material we've covered so far. It's filled in a lot of gaps in my knowledge so I'm able to be more confident in what I'm doing on a unix box. It's a sandbox training environment too, so we've merrily whiled away the hours trying to think up more inventive ways of screwing up other people's systems (we all have root access to each other's boxes, which is fun).

My crowning glory was setting up an alias on Lewis' box so that whenever he tried to use Telnet (a tool for remotely logging into someone else's box), the computer displayed "NAUGHTINESS IN PROGRESS" and rebooted. My personal favourite, though, was when James edited Chris' hosts file so that whenever he tried to log into someone else's box, he just logged into his own. Seeing as the only reason we'd have for logging into each others' boxes was to inflict cruelty upon them, that had a certain panache to it as whatever Chris was going to do to someone else would now happen to him instead :D

Coming home from work today was a laugh; there was a dirty great thunderstorm from about half five to half six (right on time for my trip home) and I ended up cycling home through it. The torrential rain was rather invigorating, but at times my feet were actually being submerged as I pedalled. This was on the main road. It was mostly OK until a wanker in a Corsa decided he was going to hammer through a big puddle and give me a cold shower. Hopefully at some point in the near future he will die a slow and painful death.

Tomorrow Is The First Day Of Your Working Life
Sun 23/7/06 (Link to this entry)

Well, it's been a fairly busy weekend but I'm now sorted out and all ready for my first day at Sun tomorrow. I've spent a fair bit of time getting ready for it, making a practice bike run to the campus, swotting up on the hardware range, etc., so I'm now in a slightly reduced state of OHMYGODWHATIFICAN'TDOTHIS. I was at the labs on Friday afternoon for a while to get a bit further acclimatised, too, which was useful. We actually finished a bit early, too, as there was a Red Arrows display on so half the workforce trooped out to watch it :D

Of course, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, so I've not had the head completely down; Saturday night saw a trip to the pub with Jason and some of the Blackwater guys, which was fun. Kim appears to be at least as good at pool as I am, which is simultaneously intriguing and faintly terrifying (<chauvinism> surely girls aren't supposed to be good at pool?!</chauvinism>). We also made a small fire in the back garden, which appealed greatly to my pyromaniacal side.

On account of having repeatedly forgotten my camera on my jaunts around, I instead present to you a picture of my dinner which I am currently eating. This will hopefully alleviate some of my mother's fears that I won't eat properly down here.

A barbecue and an overturned car
Fri 21/7/06 (Link to this entry)

I'm just back from a very enjoyable Thursday night barbecue with workmates-to-be from Sun (geekery included). It was a really nice night, very friendly and relaxed - but the experience is dulled somewhat by what happened to Kev's car while we were out in the back garden:

I wish I could say those are photoshopped images, but the sad truth is that while we were out the back listening to loud music, some bunch of bar stewards was out front turning Kev's car onto its side. The first we knew of it was when a very confused neighbour came to the door to ask if that was a party trick or whatever. The police came and took prints etc, but they said they'd never seen anything like it so I don't think the culprits will get caught, sadly. You have to appreciate the inventiveness of the vandalism, but I think poor Kev would have been far happier if they'd just knocked his stereo!

And there was me thinking I'd moved to a nice quiet part of the country...

Home away from home
Thu 20/7/06 (Link to this entry)

Well, I'm now living in the south of England, having moved away from Glasgow where I've lived all my life up until now. Everything seems to be working out OK, despite how frantic it's been in the lead-up to the move. I moved down yesterday (my Dad drove me down - seriously heroic stuff, we left at 6am and he got back at 4am), and my room is now in decent shape:

I even have a king-sized bed which is scarily big. The house is really nice and Craig and Jason (my new housemates) seem like really good blokes. I played some poker with Craig and some of his mates last night and I only ended up a pound down (not bad, given my luck). The only thing that's not going right just now is the heat - I'm sweating just sitting here typing this. Sorry, folks, but I'm praying for an end to the heatwave... I can't take the heat, either in or out of the kitchen. Speaking of kitchens, here's a random pic thereof:

So, all in all it's looking pretty good for me at the moment. I've got an invite to a barbecue later on with the guys I'll be working with at Sun, so I'll be venturing out then to brave the blazing sunlight. I'll take a few more photos while I'm out (no outdoor photos yet 'cos I've been hiding indoors!).

Update: I just made a little tour video for a laugh (testing out the camera's video function :D )...

2 days to go
Mon 17/7/06 (Link to this entry)

Only two days until I move down south, and I've spent today installing operating systems. This is possibly not wise as it means tomorrow's going to be pretty busy! However, it does mean that my parents now have a shiny new Windows install, which resolves a few problems they had with the old install. I've also got SuSE 10 up and running on this PC along with Windows and Solaris, so I now finally have the box set up how I want it.

I met up with my mates last night for a few frames of snooker which was a good laugh, especially since I kept putting them off with my camera flash (the inevitable OMG NEW CAMERA madness was ensuing). Here's one of the shots I took:

Edit: forgot to upload this on Monday night. Got to remember to update the site after I've written new stuff :-/

21!
Sun 16/7/06 (Link to this entry)

So, I'm 21 now. I can legally gamble, and if I were to go to the US I could drink legally. Yay. It's been a good day so far, I went to see a movie with an old friend and I've been playing with my new camera (courtesy of my very kind parents). The movie was Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, which was very funny - Johnny Depp has to be one of the most unhinged people in the movie business. Looking forward to the next one (big cliffhanger!). I'm currently waiting for my parents to come home - I've been promised lasagne :D

Getting there
Thu 13/7/06 (Link to this entry)

Well, I'm getting there with the website... I've added in most of the new content I've planned, apart from the photos section which will have to wait until I have a camera. Thankfully, my 21st birthday is coming up and my parents have promised me a camera as a present, so no doubt this time next week that page will be full of pictures of people going "For Christ's sake, Liam, put the damned camera away already". Gotta love it when people get new digital cameras :D

First Entry
Wed 12/7/06 (Link to this entry)

First entry in my new journal... I'm rejigging my website at the moment, having finally become fed up enough with the outdated content on it to do something about it. This is one of the things I'm adding because I'm about to go on a work placement in the south of England; it won't always be easy to keep in touch with people back home, so hopefully I can share some of my experiences through here. Or, alternatively, nobody but my mum will read it.
Hi, mum.

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