100 posts in and what's changed?

I was hoping that I'd have some earth shattering news for the 100th post but just now I realised that wouldn't be true to the rest of this blag.
I'm writing this at midnight, on a night shift (already got pretty much everything done for tomorrow...) and outside to the south the clouds are backlit by the almost full moon, to the north the sky still holds the afterglow of sunset; this time of year it doesn't fully go down. While I was outside taking the hourly observation the air conditioning unit shut off and all I could hear was the low susurrus of the waves on the beach to the north and the lonely cry of a gull overhead.
Just now a shower has run through, a light one, but enough for the air to take on that smell of sharp, almost green, cleanliness and the deep rolling tones of the shore to be counter pointed by the crisp tattoo of the rain on the balcony.
I'm not where I thought, or hoped, I would be by this point when I started this blog but right now, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I'm closer to where I want to be, and certainly in a better place but I keep making the path ahead of me longer than it needs to be.
Since I put the first post down I've finished my training and require evidence for three sections of units to finish my NVQ – I’ve been trying to get these units signed off since I got up here in Scotland. One of my friends has taken her Chartered Engineer exams (results by Wednesday, good luck!) and another has started the road to his MBA. I’ve completed my CBT, but not the full bike training, nor have I completed my IAM or diving training. I’m still resolutely single (damn it!) but that’s not really a major worry. I’ve made a good number of friends in the mess and am known by many more. I have climbed at least three Munros, with another planned next month for charity (if anyone fancies sponsoring us to climb a fairly major hill, PLEASE visit http://www.justgiving.com/mountain-numpties , it’s for WaterAid, a charity I’ve liked for a while) and I’ve got my accuracy up to 94.7% on my TAFs, which are the basic 9 hour forecasts we produce. If you told someone that the weather forecasts in this country were almost 95% accurate they’d usually laugh you off the stage.
I’ve got back in contact with a couple of friends recently, including Richard, the guy I shared a room with in the first year of Uni, and Danijela, who went to college with use.
I’ve been to a couple of old friends weddings, and missed more; visited friends down south for Halloween and had a brilliant time; spent one New Years camping in the middle of no-where and another on the banks of Loch Ness, climbing, sledging, mountain walking and biking, ice skating and snowboarding. I’ve walked through snow and thistle, in shorts (rarely), kilts (even more rarely) and trousers, under skies clear blue while the sun rises to kiss the mountains with a golden peak, under leaden skies soon to poor rain onto the ground below; I’ve started so early we had to wear head torches to see the way and seen nights so light with the afterglow of the sun that you can read outside at midnight; I’ve walked alone and with friends, with dogs and ice-axes; I’ve slept in winds so strong we’ve prayed for the morning and dreaded the thought of going outside and through all of it, I feel incredibly privileged to be here.
Yeah, there are things I want to do, things I need to do and things I really shouldn’t do, like all of us; for example I’d like to see more of my friends, but I realised that I am the architect of my regrets and my successes. When I look back again I know that it will be my choices and my actions that will shape whether or not I am happy with the time spent.

So there we are. 100 posts, which works out to under one a week. Still, I think it makes me the most frequently posting of any of my friends (of late anyway). I know none of the 100 posts have exactly been Pulitzer material and most would have bored the pants of anyone reading them but thank you for reading them and I hope that I can find something worthwhile to put up soon.

Little bit hungover right now

First off, cheers to Morgan for pointing out that I've been misspelling caffeine for two years.
At the mess last night heard some great tales and had a great time. Have a type 2 hangover right now and was worried when I got up because I had made a load of comments on facebook when I got back in.
Having a look at them I think they're okay but I really shouldn't drunk type.
In case you're wondering, there are 6 levels of hangover.

1. In a type 1 you have a little bit of a headache but nothing special, probably don't even need an aspirin.
2. Now you want an aspirin/fizzy-headache-cure of your choice. You've got a mild headache, your stomach feels a bit off-colour but give it a couple of hours and you'll be fine.
3. This one is what my friend used to call a "hangover in the form of poo." It's worse than a type 2 but only until you go to the loo, at which point everything clears up.
4. Here things start getting serious. Your stomach is growling, your head is pounding and you don't want to be moving much.
5. By this point you're swearing off booze forever. Your head isn't pounding, it's a constant pain. Your stomach is not your friend - it's trying to eat itself. If you decide to stand up (fool!) you'll soon sit down again, trying to move is a bad idea.
6. This is the biggy. It's self inflicted so don't expect people to be sympathetic, although it would be nice if they were. Your head and gut will be horrific, light should be avoided, pure water is a waste - I'd recommend fruit juice. Stay in bed, you're not going anywhere.

There's the old rule that four o'clock is the magic time when a hangover will clear but that only counts for type two and four. Type 5 can only be cleared by sleep and type six is a two day suffering that can only be cured on Sunday afternoon in the pub with friends, by which point you'll be drinking soft drinks with your roast lunch.
This brings me onto hangover cures - there are none! If you can be cured, any cure will work. My preference is alka-seltzer xs, but at the moment nurofen is enough. Replacing electrolytes and re-hydration drinks help but as my dad once told me, the only thing that cures a hangover is 24 hours with sleep. Once you get in, you're not actually asleep. You're not conscious but it's not proper sleep, that comes later. Mixing drinks will usually make the hangover worse, it's a chemical imbalance after all and different types of drink will have different effects on your blood chemistry.

Not sure why I'm blogging this, but I just felt like putting it down.

Anyway, hopefully England will play the rugby better today than last weeks abysmal performance against Scotland.

Blogger security

The BBC is reporting that a group is cracking Blogger and posting malicious blog entries that cause the reader to download spam or malware. Links in the entries put trojans on your system and some of the entries purport to be looking for testers for software and digital greetings cards.
The subject line will generally give it away, apparently most of the entries have things like "HAHAHAHA, man your insane!" (sic) or other such TXT SPK drivel (not that I ever use such things, oh no...). Unfortunately the system can use news stories to update some of the headers so unless you're sure the message is from me, don't use the links - or, hover over them and have a look at the target for the link without clicking on it, much as one would do with phishing emails.
Which does raise an interesting point. If the virus writers were switched on, they'd use an entry warning of the virus and containing the link to the virus itself, disguised like this entry. Ohh, existential!