Burrs Weekend 1-2 Feb
We had a club weekend at the Burrs activity centre. Ran the gorge section but not a lot of water in it. The first day was OK. Second day weather freezing and Deb didn’t want to paddle. The kids from the club were cajoled into doing a race which I couldn’t be bothered with (let’s all do something competitive for the sake of it when most of you are in play boats and want to play ‘cos granddad knows best, yeah right).
Work
Fighting with Oracle Forms 6i. A lot of the bugs I thought had gone have come back. Weird stuff like triggers not firing so you copy the text, delete them, recreate them, paste it back in and then it works OK. Errors appearing that don’t show in the debugger, all that kind of crap, my favourite is pre and on-insert triggers crapping the whole form out until you recreate the trigger. I revisited some of the forms from the beginning of the project and they can never have worked in places but no-one said anything. I took the pragmatic approach and hid the parts that were broken – what the eye don’t see the heart don’t grieve over.
Play
I’ve been learning Ruby. I wish Java were Ruby although I’m still trying to get my head round what some of the constructs mean, especially things like yield. The language is taking shape in my mind and I like it. There will never be any opportunity to use it seriously, I think. It needs a decent editor with code completion because it has so many methods, it probably has one and I don’t know where it is (as usual).
I tried a Liquid Logic Session http://www.liquidlogickayaks.com/products/session.html. Seriously easy to finally get the moves going. Going to borrow it at the weekend and try it on some tame moving water.
I’m selling one of my guitars, my TexMex Fender Stratocaster so I can fund buying the Session if it works out. (have a look on preloved if you’re interested).
I replaced the feet on my Thule roof rack ‘cos the current ones seem to be worn and come undone the best part of £60, that Thule stuff ain’t cheap.
Music
Been listening to the Foo Fighters almost continuously. Got into them via the One by One but the rest are damn fine too. One of my dear friends bought the complete Tom Lehrer and sent me the duplicates seems very contemporary satire but was recorded in the 50’s and 60’s – politicians are still warmongering undemocratic tossers so I suppose no change there. I’m currently listening to Temple of the Dog’s eponymous CD, my kind of blues rock – not wildly original but got that vibe – singer like Coverdale before his voice went, overloaded strats with a lot of trem. Almost makes me want to get a band together again.
Religion
Went to see my Dharma teacher. Very good session but I can’t discuss details here. I don’t know what I’d do without him and my daily meditation practice, it keeps me sane and I haven’t needed antidepressants for a long time now. If you want to find out more see the Dechen link on the right. I don’t know if I’m a better person but Buddhism works for me on every level and the best bit is you don’t have to take anything on faith, you take teachings, try them out and then report back. You walk the path, no-one else does it for you, others may help you find your way but you are responsible for yourself. Very adult, can’t blame anyone else, not very new age passive.
Coming up
Taking Rosie to Frogg manor for a birthday meal on Saturday. http://www.froggmanorhotel.co.uk/One of the best restaurants I have ever been to and it’s not in the South of England.
Paddling the river Leven on Sunday. Looking forward to it. Looking forward to playing with the Session (very sensibly taking by Big EZ to the Leven, I’d get eaten alive in the Session).
Blessings rain upon you all. Happy Valentine’s day – I got a cake from my son, I nearly cried, soppy soul that I am.