Academic view of student behaviour

First year - we tell you what to do.

Second year - We tell you what we want done

Third Year - (Placement) Someone else tells you what they want done, and if you are lucky, sends you on training courses.

Final year - You tell us what you are going to do, and we mark the process.

New Knee

I went to see the Doctor today, after that little upset with my knee collapsing on me a week or so ago. He says that he thinks it is time to have the knee replacement done. With any luck it will last 15 years, or until I am 78, and by then technology will have advanced. He is writing to the consultant that has to OK the procedure, who i will see in about a month. Then there is about 13 weeks to wait for the op. I came home quite pensive, wondering if I am doing the right thing. maybe I should have held on for a while longer. If I hadn't given up the glucosamine pills in January, would I be in this state now? I don't think the gel that I am using instead is as 'potent'.

Since then I have been working in the garden, becasue I am still very active. That's the sort of thing that makes me wonder if I should have it done or hold on. But then a twist in the wrong way, or putting that foot down heavily, and the pain shoots through my knee, and I am definitely up for it.

Of course, on the way home from the Doctors I stopped in at the bike shop and ordered a new seat post!. That says something.

accomplishments

About this time of the year, people start to think of New Years day resolutions. I don't bother, but I sort of live by that old adage that 'any day that I don't learn something, I'm dead' . and I thought that I should try and accomplish something every day, even if it is minor. Today December 28, I have observed the logs on my new computer system and seen that x.org is not loading properly, which I new, but now I have a better feel for why, and now I need to figure out why. I don't expect to complete this today, but knowing that I have taken a step further is sort of an accomplishment. I have also treated my new bicycle saddle, so that counts too.

Lets hope that I can keep it up. I don't intend to enumerate all accomplishments here, but I think that I should note them in a diary.

Wish me well.

History of the world

In the beginning there was Google, but nothing to search for.

So God created the earth, and the planets, and day and night, and a myriad of other things, and on the seventh day he created the most cantankerous, opinionated, argumentative thing that he could, and that was Man, who would disagree on everything from Autocracy to Xenophobia.

Then Google found 20 definitions for everything, and now we have to teach our students not to accept anything that they find, but to do proper research and see that all facts are verified from reliable alternate sources.

(so Man built wikipedia?)

MythBuntu

I have given up trying to get Mythbuntu working. Not because of any faults in the MythTV part of it. I have not been able to get the wirless networking link working. The version of Ubuntu that it is built on is not the latest that I am familiar with, and doesn't have the KDE GUI, so not my usual environment. Becasue my wireless link is encrypted, this has casued teh struggle getting it to work, trying to get the correct encryption statements in. My usual system works using wpa_supplicant, but because I don't have a link, I can't download this. Catch-22. And now I have the problem that teh system keeps locking up. Again, perhaps a problem that I should have been ready for, as it is built on the discarded PC from the house, which was discarded because it kept on - you guessed it - locking up.

So for now this project is on a back burner. maybe I'll try it on one of the other PC's in store.

What I would really like is to be able to add MythTV to an existing Ubuntu installation. Something to look at.

New bicycle

There comes a time in every cyclists life when thoughts turn towards replacing his trusty steed. In my case being made redundant and receiving a pot of redundancy money meant that there was the possibility of a lot more cycling for pleasure and the funds were available to buy a new cycle

The first thing to think about is the type of bicycle needed. What kind of cycling was I intending doing? I wanted to get out roaming the countryside so a 'road' bike is what I needed. For those trips into Wimborne or down to Bournemouth or other civilized places where theft could be considered a problem, my trusty 30 year old Raleigh would be beneath the eyes of any thief.

How much money was I willing to spend? Well, I am not considering training for the Olympics, I just want a reasonably good bike. I put a top limit of £500 on it. I have seen bicycles at Iron Man and Triathlon competitions that cost in the thousands. I even looked at the Cervelo web site. I have always been a fan of Raleigh and Dawes bicycles, so I looked at those first, but also looked at Trek ( Lance Armstrong rode those) and others. I visited one cycle shop in Bournemouth where their lowest price bicycle was just about in my range. I wanted a step up from that.

I came around to thinking about the Dawes Giro 400 and the Giant SCR 3, both at about £450 and also the GT range, but as I hadn't heard of these, was not enamoured of them. At a local cycle shop I sat on both the Dawes and Giant, but favoured my position on the Dawes better. This is even though the Bicycles that I tried were not my size. The shop will get in a bicycle of my size, reluctantly, if I am keen to buy. My feeling is that I want to try the bicycle, but I can buy it from another shop that advertises on the Internet significantly cheaper. As a skilled and experienced bicycle maintainer, I am not worried about needing aftercare.

Months have gone by, and I recently visited Forest Cycles down in Boscombe, and saw the 2009 range of Giant cycles, and the equivalent of the SCR3 with the very able assistance from the guys in the shop in setting me up on it, is a definite contender. I now want to see what Dawes have in the lineup for their 2009 range.

One of the problems is that our local cycle shops do not stock a large enough range of the different sizes to enable a prospective customer to go in and try the bicycles.

I still haven't got my new bike.

23 October -Have seen the 2009 range of Giant bicycles, But discovered that the Dawes 2009 bikes will not be released until January. And I cannot buy a 2008 bicycle because all of 58 cm frame size have been sold. So I either buy the Giant, or wait until January and hope that prices have come down.

Last day of full time employment - Ever?

Well since I got that letter yesterday saying I had to take my remaining 32 days holiday before the end of July - 14 working days away - I decided that all those things I wanted to tidy up can be done by somebody else.

So I cleared my desk today and left. It's all piled up in the garage and up here in my office. I'll sort it sometime.

Of course I will be going back for 2 days a week in September, but that will not seem like working because I will not be engaged in it 7 days a week.

After all these years working it seems funny to think of not having an employer to drive me, to have achievements in my job, deadlines to meet, a feeling of satisfaction at the end of a days grind. I have always said that I want to learn something new every day. Do I still? ( Damn Right I do!)

It all depends on whether Retirement is preparation for the grave, or a new exciting phase of trying to get the best of a wearing-out body.

Let's see what tomorrow brings.