Right, it's about 1a.m. as I start writing this. It's been a very long four-day week (but productive on the MOSES side of things), I'm dead tired, I need a holiday, and I turned down an invitation to Micky-off-of-Newsbeat's birthday bash in the O'Neill's.

Why am I typing this, then? Well, it's a milestone night: my last in Cranleigh. Tomorrow I move to Agraria, possibly with the help of Mr Bridger, if I find out that my AX can't take all the stuff I brought over any more.

The room is only half-packed-away, as tonight (Matthew) I will be sleeping here. However, that'll all change tomorrow. All the bits and pieces (including this box) will be sorted semi-randomly into boxes and heaved into the car, and driven to somewhere where I don't think I'll be able to park in daylight hours. Bum. Must sort this situation out. Dunno how, yet. Parking at Gomshall overnight seems an option, just getting the train there each day. But seems a little extreme. (The council's webshite was out of bounds yesterday, but that could be associated with the electricity vanishing across a large portion of London. So I don't know how to get one of these blue-badge thingies, if that's even what I'm supposed to get. MANY questions have I for Abi.)

Seems a while ago, but certainly not almost a year-and-a-half, since I woke up early one weekday morning, the first week I was here, due to the fact that the entire outside wall of my room is double-glazed window. It's a nice feature, if you're not trying to sleep in, and I'll probably miss it a bit. Similarly I'll miss G&J, and the well-furnished flat and kitchen. But not sharing with pet rats (now rat singular, since last Friday).

I also twigged yesterday that it's a year since I was in Big Bear, on that fateful observing trip. My first and only visit so far to the country I want to work in for a few years. Must chase up that last enquiry about jobs, too...

I'm getting tireder now. Hopefully there'll be drinkage tomorrow night with Mr Bridger and Lord Dobke Jr, plus the new housemate! Yay!

Need sleep so I can get up about 9a.m., and thus stand a chance of getting everything sorted out tomorrow afternoon.

G'night all. G'night Cranleigh.

An anonymous irishman, calling me on the mobile at 8:01 am:
"I don't remember how I got in to work."
[other details have been removed to protect his identity.]

I think this is the funniest wake-up call I've ever received.

After playing about with RSI's own examples, I now have a widget whereby you can set slider to two positions by using corresponding buttons. It's about as complex as JavaScript can be.

Some way off from having something which will behave as I want it to (i.e. you put in certain known/fixed/ideal values, and vary/covary the others to help you understand the limitations of your instrument design), but every journey starts with a single step.

I make it nearly thirteen hours today.

Eurgh....

Absolutely wiped. Soberly wiped.

Long day indeed.

Just need sleep and conversation that doesn't have anything to do with work. Hence a proliferation of pre-office-departure (serious career future) e-mails with Neil, and a flurry of text messages with James who claims to be reading Solar Flare MHD in the CR. Which is a worrying turn of events given himself...

I, meanwhile, just want sleep now. Fixed the boss's colour problems in IDL (least I can still fix IDL colour problems), attended the solar flare discussion meeting, started patching up some pages for an EIS SPG user (seriously, that interface needs a massive re-write sometime soon -- just not this side of Mallorca. Anyway, I fixed the previous problems with quote symbols, thanks to the Camel.

Must relate the weekend tomorrow sometime.

Have an Orbiter meeting (first of many regular ones, apparently) tomorrow at 9:30. Would like to be in from 8:30am, but that involves getting up very early, and I don't think I've the energy for that just now.

RDI still hasn't been dispatched, owing to the mysteriously disappeared HD boxes (complete with anti-static bags). This blog would be a lot easier tonight if I could actually type. Similar story with the texts tonight, too...

Must listen to Sydney's Nova 96.9 FM on Neil's request. (Big things could soon be afoot for himself and Himself...)

'Kay, started my streaming experience now with Pink and Get This Party Started. In ASX format. Points for music, none for streaming format, MS hoors... :)

Nine days.... what's happened in nine days....?

Well, if you're reading this in New York, Detroit, Toronto or Ottowa, the chances are that it won't be right now. I don't know what's going on there... currently watching it on BBC News24. Bit scary if you're claustrophobic.

And Neil's been producing Mrs Mills for the last two weeks, in for M&L, which has been hilarious for me, at least... Interactive radio (must post the picture confirming this soon -- it's at the orifice)



Oh yeah! The heatwave! It knocked everyone here out completely. Things have now -- however temporarily -- returned to how they were in the good oul' days: somewhere around 20°C. So where did I decide to go during the hottest weekend on record in England? London. Eejit... Still, met Neil in the King's Head (I think) by Blackheath for the West Ham opener of the season. Then many nice boozes on Blackheath with Neil himself, Ben off of the OfficialChartShow and Hosie. I passed out, uncharacteristically, on the heath, and Neil -- bless'im -- stuck his hat over my face so I wouldn't end up looking like your typical Brit-abroad. I remember going into the adjacent Princess of Wales and the Dutch barmaid not sweating a drop, while our multitude lined up along the bar sweated like MG in a bank... There are also pictures (in my T610's rapidly filling memory) of random people sunbathing/sundrinking (?) around us. A really nice day and good craic was had, along with much beer, random bubbly, white wine (cheers, Hosie), pringles and a bag of M&S goodies (like strawberries'n'cream, Wimbledon-style). We even managed to get home rather quickly via the taxi rank which I remember vaguely from one of the old PhD/RAS scam visits. (Cheers, FPK!)



and back in Studio Sloan saw that I managed to get to sleep (without necessarily knowing when it happened). I awoke, as is often the case, to find one of Stretchy's mates on the adjacent sofa (under a duvet! The madwoman).

Spent Sunday afternoon, then -- which was really the hottest day ever -- in the Big One, where Neilo had to cobble together a Busted live set for the OfficialChartShow with HiThisIsWes. Who I saw in the flesh. Only hours before, however, I learnt the full meaning of the phrase "it'll be curtains for Wes". It's based on the second funniest thing I've ever heard anyone say. The annoying thing is, it's under wraps for good. Until Neil's book comes out, anyway...

Thence to the Waxy O'Connors for several (five, I think) ice-loaded pints of Magners, straight out of the bottle. Thanks to Gerry for introducing us to this in the CR, and getting Paddy to introduce it to the CR itself. Great stuff if you're parched (don't care what the Tall Green Man says about apple juice for girls).

I should've remembered that the train times were all shot to pieces on the way back, though. I thought I'd catch the 21:45 to Guildford from Waterloo: it wasn't due into London till 22:30, which meant I'd missed my bus. Hence, a taxi ride. But not before I'd wandered down to the bus station in Guildford to find one, then wandered back to the train station. And on the way back to the latter, what did my still-drunk eyes perceive but a man in trunks swimming in the Wey! CAPITAL MAD BASTARD. Still, probably not just as dangerous as swimming in the strule, à la Bones (with his ensuing medical problem).

Then Posh Ben was back on Monday, replete with blondified (but conspicuously uncut) hair, and suntan. Git.
(Interestingly enough, Ben off of Saturday's drinking is called Ben Newby! How coincidental!)

But the prize for News of the last nine days goes to Anna.

My little sister,

who used to hate all forms of schoolwork,

got:

3 A's

Mum said she was crying with happiness, and Dad wasn't far off. I'm very proud, and god bless Scott for giving her a shout today about 14:45. (Much obliged, fella.)

That makes all three of us students at QUB, then.

Phew. Well, tired now. Four very long days. I've tinkered with the air conditioning to make it less hostile to Swiss people, and it seems to have worked. Difficult to say for sure if it's still working alright, but the office is no longer like a fridge in the evenings, which means I can get through the backlog of tasks in my diary.

And hats off to Chris B for getting that job in Camberley he was after. Very well done, mate. Couldn't have happened to a nicer fella. I missed the Barbie Chez Aggie tonight, but not out of spite :) (which he knows).

Cool! We had a barbeque at work this evening in honour of our guest, who's an astronaut!!!

Seriously -- he went up in the shuttle!!!

HOW COOL IS THAT???!?!??!!????!???!?

Aw wow.....

Must suppress incoherent babbling... He's a very nice, laid-back guy who's now 67, and his major line of work is the same as mine, but he got to go into space to man a few experiments on Spacelab-2, on the Challenger shuttle (yeah, that one, but not that flight obviously).

He said that the further back in time that the 8-day experience receeds, the more unlikely it seems that he actually did it.

As Chris said, "I've touched him [ed.: shaken his hand :) ], and he's touched space!!!". That is quite something.

And he likes wine, which makes him a king amongst men, frankly.

And I also need to learn XHTML sometime soon -- especially when pages can look as neat and crisp as this, as my current webpage is starting to look very old and outdated. A major concern in my job, clearly... Well okay, it'd be a misuse of precious time, but I'll put it near the top of the everygrowing list that's starting to look a bit like this.

Also, the main product of yesterday afternoon was this

{
I tried to say this in a postscript to lastnight's blog, but some SNAFU with my web ping-time meant it got lost in the aether... :o/
}

Emboldened by the success of this technique (which I shoe-horned into the thesis last year, and the Ganch ultimately used to make this LMSAL FP: woo!), I think I might try the transparent surfaces soon...... I'm not letting Lord Ben Jr gazump me, now am I?

Then we're off to ObjectGraphics::Land

Things are starting to look slightly skew on my screen, and it's not the display rotation going haywire. I think it's my head. I ought to leave for home.

On the plus side, today, I've done this and think I might attempt transparent surfaces some day soon. Before Lord Ben Jr. gets back. I'm not having him gazumping me! :)

Went to see T3 lastnight. Not quite the excitement when me and my mate Colm from school went to see it in Cookstown at the Ritz Cinema. But then, you sort of had low expectations anyway :)

Mr Bridger led a break-away kino outing consisting of himself, meself and everyone else who -- on Wednesday -- was involved in the strangest e-mail conversation EVER.
(This was one of the results. Poor b3ta, and poor me...)

And I lost my wallet lastnight SOMEHOW. It's more difficult to write off to experience if you've been sober at the time. If you're in the Guildford area and have my wallet (cash-less) GIVEITBACK!!

In other anti-craic, I'm listening to Pete Tong while simulatneously being at work. This is very, very wrong! (no Tong rhyming slang pun intended.)