After a post on my friend Pam's blog I thought I'd post a picture of a cheese cake from the wedding of Sara and Andi:


Okay, the image is on it's side but meh.
Anyway, in case you're wondering, I can't remember which cheeses were included but ye gods it reeked.
The professional photographer had left by this point and hadn't got pictures of the cake so they asked me to take the official cake-of-cheeses pictures (sounds like a Monty Python sketch).

Thinking about it, while I'm sticking photos up I'll put up a couple more images.

This was the road through the Cairngorms before Christmas, it's ice not snow. It was cold (see previous entry for details).


This one is an image of the Falkirk Wheel. It's a solution to the canal in the Forth Clyde valley, rather than put in a series of 20-40 locks that would take something like four hours to navigate they came up with this elegant and beautiful solution. Takes about half an hour to go from the bottom to the top and it's just marvellous.
It's nice to know that engineers in this country can still produce designs that do their job and have grace and beauty. But then again, if you want another British design that's elegant, look at the Milieu viaduct.

Wandering thoughts in the shower...

No, not like that.
For some reason I was thinking about scientific notation and the prefaces used.
This probably came from a discussion with a friend awhile back about how some Americans use tenths of feet rather than inches, and kilofeet. Having said that, we use hundreds of feet at work, we also use tens of metres, decametres, in a couple of measurements at work.
Specifically I was wondering which was bigger, 2 Gigainches or 1 nanoParsec.
Go on, work it out, the answer may surprise you. Extra points if you don't need to look up any conversion factors.
Now I need to go out and get a life.

Christmas and the New Year

So, it's now 2008 and I've already put the wrong date on a form (at a climbing wall I put that it was the 04/12/07...)
I drove south in pretty much one go, it took almost an hour for my front wipers to fully defrost, until then I was getting out every 10 miles or so in the Cairngorms to manually clean the windscreen. When it did run fully there was a little but of water collected on the top of the rubber of the wipers which had frozen and lifted the blade out off the screen. Quick to sort out, just had to flick off a narrow strip of ice.
Went to see gran and some of the others in Swansea, which was great, but I have covered alot of miles over the days. I also went to the gym with my mum.
Now, as those that know her will be aware, mum has been a bit over-weight for a number of years and wants to get fitter generally, but also so that she can walk up Cairngorm next time they come up. She originally bought a rower, which broke down (as apparently all of that make did) and so I recommended that she visit a couple of gyms, not just the one at the local Cascades swimming pool because that one is basically shite. It's also filled with OAPs that go for their "gym and swim" which consists of 5 minutes on a bike then an hour in the jacuzzi. I finally got her to go up the hill to the gym at the hotel and speak to a personal trainer for a bit. She was so impressed she's joined up and is going three times a week.
Good for her.
Saw loads of old friends (and St Trinian's - great fun film), and I've been blamed by a mate for him loosing time when he's supposed to be writing a report. Honestly, he asks for a lava lamp then blames me when he gets hypnotized by the wax!
For new year I drove back up to join a couple of friends (and three others) for a week in the Highlands. While driving through the Cairngorms I got my first flat tire. This, I learned, is not the joyous experience one would expect. I had to get advise because I still had about 60 miles to go and only a space saver to use. I knew you shouldn't go over 50 mph, but I'd thought that there was a distance limit. Turns out no, there isn't. Two random members of the public did stop to offer help, which was nice. Got home to un-pack, sleep and pack at about midnight. Joy.
So, into the Highlands and cue a week spent walking, ice-skating, rock climbing, sledging and mountain biking. Have some great bruises and more great memories, saw many stag (including the one in the dark by the side of the road. Driving along thinking "aha, a dog by the road, I'll slow down, hang on, ANTLERS!!!!"). Also cooked for us all, which is a rarity as anyone that knows me will testify, and it appears that the cooking went down well. Got a bit further on guitar hero as well.
There's a few more bits that happened but I think that's about the it for the highlights. I've still got to try out Assassin's Creed, couldn't play it last week because Zack (Chris' cousin's Carin's son) was too young to watch the game, so that'll probably be my Sunday sorted, and then it's back to mundane Monday tomorrow for work.
I hope you all had a good holiday season and to quote Neil Gaiman:

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

*edited for ease of Neil Gaiman quote-age - cheers for the comment Pam!*