Headers Already Sent

Laura and I went to Thorpe Park yesterday to commiserate the end of the summer. The beautiful weather combined with a practically empty park made for a great day.

The highlight probably had to be Stealth, what a ride! I thought it combined Alton Towers’ Rita with Oblivion. 0 - 80mph in under 2 seconds. Weeeeeeee!

I’ve been reading a book I found on Aaron’s shelf this weekend. It’s called “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” and it’s a quasi-fictional account of a boy growing up in Hawaii and getting taught tough lessons about money.

I can see why the book is a bestseller. The personal story combined with the straight up way it’s written makes for compelling reading. However, it doesn’t seem to leave a lot for the average joe to take home, and I guess that’s the point.

From what I’ve read it seems that unless you own the means of production like real estate or other businesses then you’re forever going to be a wage slave, stuck in the rat race. He makes the point quite early on that you can be a very well paid rat, but you’re still stuck being driven by two very strong human emotions: greed and fear.

I still haven’t finished the book yet, but overall I’ve found it to be a very interesting read and one definitely worth checking out.

UPDATE

I finished the book and while the start was coherent and informative, I felt it really trailed off towards the end. It seemed quite repetitive and I got the feeling the author couldn’t really be bothered to finish it. Plus there was a terribly cheesy bit about giving to charity thrown in for good measure. Either that or I was rereading pages as 2am approached.

Over the weekend I moved back home to Kent from Fleet. It’s certainly been an interesting and very enjoyable year living in Fleet with Matt and I’m really going to miss being in that part of the UK (not to mention the 6 minute drive to work).

I’m still recovering from moving all of my stuff. It’s truly amazing how much crap you accumulate over 3 years away from home and I spent much of yesterday making room for it all.

So I’m after a few things for my room at home. Firstly, I need a new TV. Secondly, I’m going to pick up a mac mini as a media hub which I’ll plug into said TV. Thirdly, I need a new laptop. I’m still using the Dell inspiron I’ve had for 3 years and it’s looking battered. I’d put up with this but keys have started falling off which makes typing next to impossible, and the battery has died. I’m thinking about continuing the mac trend and picking up a macbook, but probably not before they update the lineup. *fingers crossed for August*

Anybody have any thoughts / recommendations on TVs / Mac advice?

Wowwweee, What a week! On Monday Laura and I got home from 7 days in Dalyan, Turkey, and good times were had by all!

We stayed in a lovely little place called the Sultan Palas Hotel and to get into town every day we had to catch a boat. The weather was hot hot hot, usually hitting 40 degrees C by about 11am, and making us very thankful for the AC and swimming pool.

In other news, on Saturday I’m moving home from Surrey after a year of living here. I’ve still got 2 months of placement at Sun to do, so during July / August I’ll be commuting in every day. It’s certainly going to be strange living at home again but it will also be considerably cheaper, so I think it’s worth it.

On Wednesday I popped down to Brighton for Lauras birthday celebrations and ended up clubbing in Oceana. Luckily I’d booked Thursday off of work beforehand because justifying coming in at 4pm would have been difficult!

On Saturday we popped over to Calais for some lunch at “Le Chanel” which was VERY good, although I don’t think the waiters made too much of me and my hair. Or maybe their looks of disdain were because I’m 30 years younger than the majority of their clientele. Or maybe it was my incredibly bad spoken french. Anyway we had a good time and even though the sun didn’t come out for us, the rain didn’t make an appearance either…

In between doing loads of freelance work, regular work and listening to this guy, nothing too much has happened as of late. It’s June and it’s still raining so I find myself still spending the vast majority of my time inside.

Today I did two things. The first one was that I got around to registering my university modules for next year. I’ve decided that I actually want to graduate with a decent grade so that means I have to choose modules that I can pass well. That also means I’ve got to forgo some of the more interesting topics (neural networks) that boggle your mind for the year then bite you in the ass come exams, and stick with what I know.

My uni project for next year is something I’ll briefly mention. I’ve managed to get a good team of 3 together and an interesting bit of code to munch on. We’re going to add some sort of torrenting ability to the UK Mirror Service. As I’m at Kent I figured I might as well try and take advantage of some of the more unique things they offer. The UK Mirror Service apparently shifted 154 Tebibytes of data in October of last year which roughly equates to over 200,000 CDs. Working on something that will be heavily used is very exciting indeed.

So in the end I opted to do a business module, a philosophy module, a networking module and two consultancy based modules. Conveiniently this is the area I’m keen to move into after uni anyway so it all looks good. Next year is shaping up to be something special.

Secondly, I changed the theme of my blog back to the Wordpress default. I guess I wasn’t terribly happy with how it looked in the end and I think that was keeping me from updating it. In the future I’ll look at reintegrating it with the design and how to best lay it out.

June is set to be a busy month. I’m off to Turkey in two weeks (I’ve got the new bond book to read, plus another Haruki Murakami) and at the end of it I’m moving back home from Hampshire. It’s certainly going to be weird moving back, I’ve really grown to like this place…

Oh, and one more thing that’s worth mentioning… Last month I stumbled across the newly formed Libertarian Party UK. Go check it out!

Last weekend Laura and I went to Alton Towers just for the hell of it and it rocked! The weather held out on us mostly although we did have a bit of drizzle in the morning, but this kept away the crowds. Nearly all of the rides had reasonable queues, and for those that didn’t we had fast tracks which meant we weren’t waiting for any more than about 15 minutes (Fast tracks are well worth buying).

The rides were amazing but I was a little disappointed with Air. It’s a cool concept, but lying face down loses its appeal after about 5 seconds. The second time round we got on the front which made it slightly better, but I didn’t once feel like I was flying like they advertised. Now Oblivion on the other hand, that is a ride! On the way down I actually thought I was going to die.

So as the summer is coming up if you get a chance to go, do! It’s an amazing day out even if you don’t like the roller coasters… the grounds are beautiful and vast which makes for good walking.

More soon!

(Also, what on earth have they done to Wordpress? I’ve just upgraded to 2.5 and I’m wondering why they decided to ruin the admin area.)

I made it to the grand old age of 21, hurrah!

Thank you to everyone for their birthday messages. I’ll be heading down the pub later for a few beers, however right now back it’s to work for me…

A bigger update is coming soon when I have the time. Things are pretty busy round these parts at the moment. A lot has happened over the past month and a new website is literally days away which is very exciting (for me). I’ve sure my devoted readers will be pleased to hear that  although this blog has been neglected recently, is has not been forgotten.

On the annoying / “deep” side I saw a very good quote on my personalised homepage today. I like it because it can be taken on many levels.

A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream. ‘What are you?’ I cried to them as they drifted by. ‘I am a bubble, of course’ nearly a myriad bubbles answered, and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed. But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered, ‘We are this stream’, and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices, but just a quiet certitude. - Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei…

Peace!

This weekend I popped home to Kent to see the family. Not much to mention but as the weather was so nice on Saturday Laura and I took a trip to Kearsney Abbey and had a walk around. Although it was a bit chilly, the Sun was out and the gardens looked beautiful. I took a few photos on my phone to try and capture the moment, which I ultimately failed at doing, but I’ll stick them here anyway.

I need a new camera.