Scott Adams Just tells 'em so well.

I've had this experience with Flora, but Scott Adams on The Dilbert Blog puts it wonderfully:


Last week, my in-laws were in town. While they were out visiting some other relatives, I took my turn watching their dog, Mollie. At this point, I should pause and mention that I haven’t had a dog since I was a kid. And in those days, in the country, when the dog felt nature’s call, we’d simply let the dog out, and it would use any part of our 2.5 acres as its toilet. Later, if you wanted to throw a ball around, you just kicked the (usually) frozen logettes to the side to clear a path. In those simple times, you weren’t playing a sport unless someone ended up covered in dog feces. It was just part of the game.

These days, things are quite different. Today, if you go to school covered in dog feces, there’s a stigma. And of course there’s the leash law. But nothing takes the joy out of a walk in the fresh air quite like being required to carry a plastic purse full of dog poop.

Back to my story, I took Mollie for a walk, thinking I understood how this process worked. The leash was no mystery. It had a cool spring action with a pistol grip. I liked that part. And I grabbed an official poop bag on the way out of the house. I was ready for anything.

Within a minute, Mollie laid down a steamer. I think she had been eating the cat food, because it wasn’t the firm little log I was expecting. But I soldiered on, turning the bag inside out like a glove, and grabbing the warm pile that melted in my hand. It wasn’t pleasant in the usual sense of the word, but I experienced some satisfaction in a job well done. I tied the bag into a tidy little package and intended to head home.

That’s when I noticed Mollie had just begun to poop. I don’t know if she was trying to spell “HELP” in case a rescue plane flew over, or what, but by now she was in full production. Step, squat, step, squat.
I looked at my tidy little bag, now sealed, and realized I was screwed. I knew the neighbors would be looking, or feared they might. I couldn’t leave this Katrina-sized disaster and get another bag lest someone think, incorrectly, that I had abandoned my doody. So I decided to see if I could untie the pooper bag and have another go at the new deposits. This plan did not work as smoothly as I had hoped.

Do you know what is NOT effective for picking up warm piles of poop? If you guessed “other warm piles of poop,” you might have been in this situation yourself. It was like trying to pick up mashed potatoes with a catcher’s mitt. And I was hurrying, so needless to say, back at the house I needed the Karen Silkwood treatment to feel clean again.

Later, when my in-laws returned, I told the story. Larry, a laid-back gentleman from Arkansas, turned to his wife Cheryl and drawled “Mollie double-bagged him.” Let me tell you, the only thing that could have made my experience worse was finding out my in-laws have a name for it.

Incredible Coincidence

Dawn is delivering a lecture in Vienna at an annual Symposium she organises for the market research industry. As part of her powerpoint presentation she wanted a map of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but against modern borders. I produced this for her:



















Last weekend, I was at the community rubbish tip getting rid of a load of packaging material. As I was heaving it onto the tip, I spotted by my foot the corner of a piece of paper with the words 'Austria-Hungary' on it. I pulled it out and there was a pristine Bartholemew map of the AH Empire, circa 1910, pictured below:

Provence

We spent our summer holiday in Provence. We stayed in an area called Les Baux. As the name suggests this was where Bauxite was discovered.

The medieval city of Les Baux is perched on top of a hill. The lower part of winding cobbled stoned streets is filled with modern shops, but sympathetic with the architecture. The church was beautiful and very peaceful. At the top, where the castle used to stand has been left uncommercialised and a made into living museum.

Various siege engines are set within the ramparts, commanded by crumbling towers which are etched by the Mistral - the wind from the north west.

You can see the trebuchet firing here

Slideshow below:

The Girls with Altitude thank you

If you were a donor to the good cause that they were collecting for.

You can see a video diary of their trip here:

sponsor Felicity

Felicity is raising money for a good cause...

comeon...sponsor her and her team!

An awful thing

I have been addicted to DM of the Rings (written by Shamus)...a quirky take on the Lord of the Rings Films as played by Role Players. In true Shakespearean tragedy (and I don't mean that in a flippant way) the juxtapostion was that the person writing it saw a fire in the garage next door and it turns out that his neighbour died in the fire.

The interesting thing is that Shamus puts so much effort and energy into its creation but he can't make any money out of it for copyright reasons...but he continues to entertain us anyway. He has, however attracted a huge audience and I'm hoping that good old Hindu karma being what it is, we can use that audience to generate a fund for the deceased's widow and children...and also his garden. Frank was a keen gardener and the fire (and the fire service's effort to put it out) destroyed his work, including a pond which attracted ducks which Shamus's children used to feed.

Please give generously, if you ever read this blog. You can click here to read about the. tragic event.

and I'm hoping that by the time you read this Shamus will have published his email address so you can paypal some money over.

:Edit: (18th June 2007) - I have now seen from Shamus's website that Frank's family have sufficient resources to restore Frank's work (and thereby his memory), so no donations required.

All the best

Ravs

Other People's blogs

I’ve been wondering what other people put on their blogs, so I did a little research. One of the gems I discovered was Wil Wheaton’s site. You may remember that Wheaton played the almost universally reviled character Wesley Crusher in 'Star Trek - The Next Generation': an overly precocious teenager. It turns out that the actor, Wheaton , (a self confessed geek like me), who is now in his thirties, married with two children, is a regular guy with a great ability to express thoughts that certainly I feel. As his interests and concerns run closely parallel to mine, I find his articles interesting and occasionally moving. His blogs contain occasional rants (as most do) about climate change, politics and media, but also an insight into his private thoughts: for example, an article about how moved he was when he saw the moon rise in his back garden.

We buried Mozart’s ashes (see picture on the right) in the garden today. We were waiting for a rose we had ordered (Summer Song), and planted this with his ashes in the flowerbed where he liked to sun himself in the summer. After shedding a tear and drinking a toast of sherry to him, we reflected a little on the life of our magnificent beast; Felicity’s best friend.

Christmas Letter 2006

2006 Christmas Letter

What a year it has been and unfortunately two years since the last Christmas letter as Christmas 2005 was rather ambushed by other events.

As we write, we are pulling ourselves exhausted into the final weeks of the year having made the bad mistake of not taking a summer holiday this year but with much anticipation of a lovely break to visit Ravi’s family in Malaysia and then on to Bali to celebrate Christmas in the sun.

But back to the beginning, we celebrated New Year at home with a feast of Foie Gras, Prawns and Champagne but rather weighed down with worry for Mummy who had just made her transfer to boot camp, otherwise known as Unstead Park, for her stroke rehabilitation. Life at the time was rather dominated by trying to organise the “Dawn Patrol” as Ravi christened it, which was in reality a fantastic group of friends and family who took on the daily trip down to deepest Surrey to keep her spirits up. It was truly amazing how many people rallied round and a tribute to my Mother as well as her friends that so many people cared enough to make the regular trips for several months. To those of you fellow travellers, a thank you from the bottom of our hearts for helping to share the journey.

Mid January to late February saw me living “la dolce vita” (not) in Italy as the Torino Winter Olympic Games swung round and it was a long, hard, cold slog but ultimately rewarded by a happy client. Ravi, accompanied by Patrick, on a long and boozy train trip visited for the closing ceremony taking advantage of two fantastic Parisian lunches there and back – if you are going to Paris any time soon they are now the gastronomic experts.

Closing Ceremony saw me winging home to set up Mummy’s home and initial carers and then for the great homecoming. Whilst boot camp unquestionably had its pros and cons, the work that Mummy had put in paid fantastic dividends when she was able to walk, albeit slowly, upstairs to her own bedroom – a feat that we had all feared was going to be beyond her. We have been constantly reminded over the past year never to underestimate her fighting spirit and gritty determination to do what she wants to do!

April saw us off to Cornwall for two weeks – a fantastic holiday where we all enjoyed spending time together, lots of seafood (although Ravi is rather off crab since then!) and long walks with Flora, the great love of our lives.

If 2003 was a year for weddings, ours and 8 of our friends, 2006 seems to have been the year for babies. The other 4 couples all gave birth and we are delighted to welcome them all, particularly Eloise my new goddaughter, who is in for a lifetime of girly spoiling.

May saw a return to Italy, but this time to La Foce, in Tuscany. It has to be the world’s least friendly wheelchair house as now both Mummy and I have experienced but in a beautiful if remote location. The hill in Montepulciano is definitely not to be recommended, probably more by the pusher than the occupant.

The summer passed all too quickly and with loads of work on. The London Olympics might be 6 years away and undoubtedly there will be plenty of questions on whether they will be finished on time and on budget but there will be no criticism about how early everyone started working on them. We did at least get to experience the Chelsea Flower Show and Glyndebourne – both of which completed validated however how well we can do things in Britain.

In August we took receipt of our new “baby” Kiri Te Katawa otherwise known as “the devil cat” or “La Terrorista”. She is a very small brown Burmese who has us all under her paw and her brother Frodo lives down the road with Mummy.

At the end of the Summer holidays, Piggie and the boys, William and Jack came for a London holiday and the long awaited trip to Thorpe Park, with Europe’s highest roller coaster. We had a great day although neither Ravi nor I have a real head for speed. This was followed by our Summer Party, probably the last chance we had to see most of our friends this year and then Ravi packed his kit bag and enjoyed his Christmas present, a 3 day survival course in darkest Shropshire – which was undoubtedly made easier with the desert island luxuries of cigarettes and whisky!

Since then the autumn has absolutely flown by punctuated by Eloise’s christening in Northumberland which was delightful, a lovely birthday weekend in Chichester and very sadly the death of Mozart. He deserves a full letter of his own as he was such a wonderful friend to me over the years and we miss him terribly. I just hope that his soul has made it back to Australia and that even now he is ruling the neighbourhood in Sydney cat heaven.

And now, in between trips to Europe and Asia for work, I am buying and packing dozens of Christmas presents, decorating the house for our pre-Christmas events, writing the cards, listening to carols and trying to overdose on my favourite time of year before we set off to Malaysia, Singapore and for Christmas a luxury villa in Bali where we will be joined by Ravi’s mother and his siblings, my Mother and delightfully Claire, Olivia and my other goddaughter, Indiana travelling from Sydney.

So, hoping this missive finds you and yours well, we wish you a happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.

Slings (but no arrows)

Sling Project

Went about making my sling today. The first one didn't work at all well, it was just a piece of flat material with strings at either end - the tennis ball kept falling out of the holder. So went to work in the shed, cut a larger piece of material from a pair of old jeans and riveted the sides of it into a pouch. Also to reinforce the holes through which the string goes, I sewed in some metal washers and then took Flora for (another) walk.

Met a bloke and his young son in the park, he had grown up in Central Africa and had spent the weekend making a bow for his son, so he was very interested in the sling (he read a lot of military history as well). Initially the results were disappointing - I couldn't get more than 20 yards or so and the accuracy was non-existant. I couldn't understand this as the videos on the net of people slinging tennis balls showed then getting at least 150 yards. Then I found that by rotating the sling anti-clockwise, the tennis ball went like a bullet - I was getting about 150 yards with an underarm throw. So success! 150 yards with a tennis ball suggests that it's quite believable to get at least twice that distance with lead shot. The Romans would inscribe their shot with little messages, like 'Kiss Pompey's arse' and 'Dexa!' (latin for 'Catch!')

Here are pictures of the sling. I think I might replace the nylon cord with paracord, its much softer and lighter.

Slingers

The Sling
I've been reading about slings, the oldest projectile weapon known to man and made famous by the biblical story of David and Goliath. An accomplished slinger is able to achieve a range of approximately 500 metres (550 yards)- The length of a par 5 hole of a golf course and the projectile travels up to a speed of 400 kph (250 mph) - The speed of a formula 1 car going flat out. This is truly amazing considering the technology involves no more than a piece of string and stones. The ammunition is plentiful and cheap and the sling has no parts to go wrong. If it does break it is easily repaired. However, In tests carried out by the Leeds Armoury, the maximum distance achievable was 160 yards (far more believable), although the individual carrying out the test says that this may be due to a lack of technique on his part. More information can be found here: www.slinging.org

So my weekend project will be to make a sling to throw tennis balls. This will be dual purpose: it can be used as a lead for Flora and tennis ball launcher for her to chase.

Shed works

Feeling absolutely knackered. Spent the whole weekend reorganising the shed. Three trips to the rubbish dump and two shelving units built. Got rid of the old kitchen unit I was using as a workbench. Next project is to build a proper workbench and not rely on the portable.

Took Flora to Richmond Park, tried Ham Gate for a change. She liked the pond.

Perfect ordinary day with a dark cloud

Lovely ordinary day. F-- y cooked asparagus and sausages on the BBQ. Talk is that we are going to merge and that there will be a big announcement in the first two weeks of June.

Bought some more stuff for the travel kit, including a firelighter. The trick to getting it to work is to put the metal striking surface on top of the tinder, not under it.

CE’s funeral is on 14th June. He died of cancer last week. He was a good colleague, so full of fun and will be sadly missed.

The Kit

Prepared travel 'medical kit'. The first aid kit will probably need to be supplemented, but everything else is there. Needs a door contact/electric eye burglar alarm.

Started 'Jade Empire' - enjoying it.

Everybody has turned 40

Phil and Alan's 40th birthday presents - chest from Tuscany, handmade books, inpots, sealing wax and seals, crowsquill etc.

Met up at the Raddison hotel for drinks at 6.30 (I stopped off at Orc's nest and picked up a couple of games and a D&D player's manual on the way).

Saw the movie, Revenge of the Sith, and had a chinese afterwards. Movie SFX brilliant, but acting still laughable and wooden in parts. Nevertheless general impression was good based on the 'didn't notice time passing' principle.

Got home late - Flora very excited.

Bournmouth with Charlie and Ilsa

Went to Bournmouth for the bank holiday weekend to stay with Charlie & Ilsa. Also there were Belinda and Jason and Alex and Caroline. Much fun had with Flora on the beach (until a grumpy old man told us she wasn't allowed there). Poole potteries disappointing. Cool street in Poole with craft, model, comic and game shops. Lots of BBQ food and wine at home. Hilarious game of Jenga, Boules and Cranium.

Stopped off to see Uncle John on the way back to London. He was very pleased to see us and about to go on a balloon trip. Quick diversion through the New Forest on the way home. Flora meets the new forest ponies - they have just foaled.

Drinks with Paul and Kate at home. Discussing fence arrangements.