Friday, June 29, 2012

We're in London this weekend

We set off very early this morning (6.40am) for London, to avoid road closures
in and around Nottingham, with the Olympic Torch procession billed for later 
in the morning. The roads were closed from about 7.00am to 10.00am, which
will have caused major traffic disruption, as it did 
yesterday evening when the
OT arrived.


I didn't feel at all interested in seeing the Torch myself, which looks like a giant
Cornetto ice-cream cone with a flame on top. I gather that there are several
copies of it, being used up and 
down the country. I'm not interested in the
Olympic Games either, though I probably will 
watch a few of the highlights being
shown on 
the telly. I will be more interested in watching the Mens and Womens
Wimbledon 
Tennis Final on the TV.

Tomorrow we're all going to a school sports day in Kingston (London), during
which one of our granddaughters (Mini) will be competing. Her classmates will
be having their bit of fun 
at the beginning of the day (around 11.00am), but we
are all expected to hang around for 
four hours, to watch other events & for the
awards ceremony at the very end. "All children 
will attend, and all children will
wear their (award) badges / ribbons at school 
next Monday" ... so the headmistress decreed.  Groan!


We'll be on the motorways going back to Nottingham on Sunday, while the Euro
2012 football final 
is being played. I predict that the roads will be very quiet that
evening, so it 
should be a fast journey home. I look forward to seeing the highlights
of the match when we 
get back. I'm not one for sitting around watching an entire
football match on the telly ... I just 
like watching the highlights (the best bits)
at the end of a match, and while the match is on, I prefer to 
watch some more interesting on the box instead (e.g. comedy or drama, on "catch-up").


Yesterday, Mrs C and I went to Scarborough with my mother-in-law, J, for a
family funeral. 
It was C. of E. church do, which we didn't really like ... too many
references to the dearly 
departed going off to Jesus' / God's home, which we
don't really believe in.

For those who 
are believers in Christ / God, it is obviously a great comfort to them
that there is an after-life, 
and that one day, they will be able to meet up with their
loved ones in the next life. 
Not so good however, if the person you married had
run off with someone else, and 
had made your life a misery. In the after-life, all
you'd wish to say to this person is: "Fuck off!"  



After the church service, we met up with the widow and her family for a chat over
a cup of tea and nibbles, which went very well. The widow is a distant cousin of
Mrs C, whom we last 
met in 1999, at a family get-together, when a New Zealand
cousin and his wife came over 
to see us all.


Between the showers of rain, the sun shone brilliantly in Scarborough, and the bays
looked 
glorious. We'll be back in Scarborough in early August, to celebrate our
40th wedding 
anniversary with our family (daughters, partners and grandchildren).



Sunday, June 24, 2012

What I've been up to recently

Hi everyone,
Just to let you know that I'm alive and well, and am keeping busy ... doing jobs
around the house and garden, photography and photo-editing, giving occasional
talks to my local computer club, and seeing family & friends.

To add a bit more detail to all the above, Mrs C and I spent a few days in gay
Paris earlier this month, and visited a few places of interest in the area. It took me
about 2 weeks to process all my photos, well the better ones, which I've put up
onto my Flickr site (over 200 of them).  The weather was much warmer in France
than in the UK, and drier too. We saw how bad the weather was during the Queen's
Jubilee-fest, on our hotel TV when we got back on the Sunday evening. A pity for
her and the Duke, having to stand around and endure the whole show. She didn't
look happy having to sit through the pop show put on in her front yard ... but then
I wasn't impressed with the show either.

As regards the house and garden, I re-painted our master bedroom, which took
me 2-3 days, and today I did some pruning of the trees and shrubs in our garden ...
having said that, it's Mrs C who does the bulk of the work in our garden, especially
the weeding (which I don't like doing).

Last Thursday, I gave a talk all about Google Drive and SkyDrive, both of which
I've used a little. I started preparing the talk on about 24 April, about the time that
Google launched Google Drive ... very rapidly, Microsoft responded by changing
its storage and pricing for SkyDrive, as some of you will have noticed.

I found an interesting review article about Google Drive, and its ongoing rivalry with
Microsoft. Will the general public carry on paying for Microsoft products such as
its Office suite and new versions of Windows?  If you're using Windows XP, support
for which is ending in April 2014 I gather, are you happy to throw out your XP
machine and buy a new one with Windows 8 on it?  My PC has Win XP on it, and
is working 
perfectly well ... I'm thinking about installing Ubuntu Linux on this instead.
The only 
reason why I'm hanging on to Windows XP, is the fact that I've got
Photoshop Elements on the computer,
 which is brilliant for working with RAW 
images.

One day I hope that Adobe will get round to producing a version of Photoshop
Elements for the Linux operating system.  I would be happy to buy this, as would a
lot of other people, who have made similar requests online.

Here's the link to the review article I mentioned above ...
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/hands-on-with-google-drive-review/2320