Welcome to Blogging With Dr P... blogging when I can - honest
Your Blogging With Dr P... search result is below this annoucement. In April 2008 Blogging With Dr P... moved to Blog Bypass.
If you're using the Blog Studio Search Facility to find a link to a previous blog, then I've been very generous, and NOT included an automatic re-direct which would take you there.
Thank you to Blog Studio for all the help over years! :)
(Feb 2010 Update): Haloscan is no more. Therefore the comments on this blog are no more. Sad, but true. I'm not paying $12 a year for the occasional comment with Echo. Apologies to all those who have commented. I have saved them and may well stick them somewhere else at some point. Sunday, April 18, 2004
"The time has come....."
...the Walrus said, "To talk of many things. Of shoes,and ships,and sealing-wax - Of cabbages and kings. And why the sea is boiling hot. And whether pigs have wings."
Or..."There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads onto fortune.Omitted, all the voyage of their life is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. And we must take the current when it serves, or lose our ventures." Julius Caesar Act IV Scene III.
Getting the jist of this yet? :)
With much sadness etc I have to say: "It is time to take a break from Weblog Land for a while".
Why? Well there are several reasons really, mainly to do with life, the universe, and everything. I really do want to knuckle down and learn all about Dreamweaver MX 2004, and I simply don't have time to do that & maintain my usual output here. Also, I lot of my regular readers disappeared in one fell swoop a few weeks ago for one reason or another, and it occured to me that some of their reasons were rapidly approaching me, as well, in various shapes and forms.
I do also have a bit of a job thing going on. That's to say, I don't really know what's going on with it! So, I want to stay a bit more focused in that direction, and other directions as well :)
I shall not be going altogether - oh no! - I may still post some pics up on my Paul Pics at Fotolog.net, but I shall definately be cutting back, if not disappearing from Blogging With Dr P... for the foreseeable future. This isn't the definite end - just a rather large interuption :)
It is been an enjoyable couple of years weblogging. I highly recommend it to anyone. I made lots of new friends. I learnt a lot about the internet, webpages etc. Most importantly - it's a lot of fun :)
I'm sorry to disappoint anyone whose dropped by expecting an update here - cos it ain't going to happen for a while....:).
If you do feel lost without me - browse through the archives - there really is some very good stuff there :)
So, as the glowing mists of Weblog Land settle on another productive day of journalling, blogging, and diary filling all across the internet, wish me well as I shall not be joining you in the morn, as mine is a different path tomorrow, no longer into Weblog Land, but onwards & upwards into the stars..........
There are many great tourist attractions in London. One of them being the London Dungeons. Although we did have to queue for about 1.25 hours, as you can see below, it was well worth it for the photos........
Yes - it is rather suspicious taking flash photos in a gents toilet - particularly when the place is full of bloody tourists! However, the bloody guillotine over each urinal was a picture worth snapping, (if you'll pardon the pun), at any cost.
And the funny looking pair of dudes on the right, are just the kind of people you'll find wandering around the dungeons! ;)
Not exactly The Doors track you might be thinking of. But, I had a weird dream last night.....
My dad, (and it's the anniversary of his death around now), and I were looking at a map of Colorado, (I think), and there in the middle of all these old mine manes squidged together on the map was one called Jake Diamond Mine, or Jack Diamond Mine. And he said: "There it is!". And I agreed with him - as if we'd looked for it before but never seen it on a map.
Then he went into telling me one day how he was out there swinging his axe etc, and I said - "Hold on - what were you doing out there?" "Prospecting," he said. Well, my dad may have done plenty of things in his time - but prospecting for gold in some Western state wasn't one of them :)
I've searched for Jake/Jack's mine - but no luck, but if anyone does find anything, then please let me know :)
So it happened to a colleague of mine. Lets' call him "Phil" - because that's his name! Anyway, Phil left a message on my phone yesterday morning that he had fallen off a ladder whilst coming down from the loft & had twisted his foot, hit his back etc. Oh dear. (But he wasn't badly bashed, honest!)
Anyway, the outcome of all of this was I ended up 'doing' the audit he was supposed to have done for the last two days. And it was no bundle of fun I ccan tell you. It was just one of those places where it takes at least two of us to run the audit effectively. Basically I could have done with some help ;)
But the folks there were very nice. They fed me coffee & Burger King and let me sit down in the manager's office :)
In the end, I got out of there in one piece - just. Oh yes - Phil is coming back to work tomorrow - the brave little soldier - ha ! :)
Yes, there are plenty of weird and wonderful things to see down Covent Garden on a weekend. As you turn right out of the tube station, and head towards the main market area, you'll usually come across some chap like this guy. This rather inventive character had starched up his hair, tie, coat etc to make it look as though he was walking into the wind.
On the other hand, the orangey chap was sort of an orangey bronze colour :). He would remain perfectly still until someone, usually a child would come near hime, and then he'd spring to life. He'd talk in a squeaky mouse-like voice, so that he wasn't saying any words, just noises - but with all his facial expressions & arm/hand gestures - you knew what he was on about.
Sham on the other hand, had a much more complicated act. He was a juggling unicyclist. The highlight of his act was to juggle a machete, a baseball, and an apple. Oh yes, he also ate the apple as he went along - cute, eh? Whilst the bunch of classical performers were really rocking! Excellent stuff.
And just when you thought the juggling unicyclist was fairly tame...he ended his act by shouting "Thank you" to everyone - whilst his mouth was still full of apple:
Yes - it's a wonderful day out at Covent Garden :)
Once again I've decided to dabble with Fotolog and started another entitled paulspics. If you recall I did have the very popular woodgnome fotolog for quite a while - but the password got banjaxed whilst they were upgrading their site - and the tecchie support people there wouldn't answer my emails. So, I started another one :) I've only taken the basic one-a-day account as it became rather time consuming when I used to be able to upload six pics at one time,(when the free account allowed you to do that!).
Back in early January me and the Colonial In-Laws ;) went to Covent Garden, London. It was cold, but it was fun. And, as you saw if you clicked on the link, (or read it all originally), I took lots of photos.
Well, today me & Sue went down there for a touristy kind of day, and then went onto Trafalgar Square. We did actually stop by the Texas Embassy for our Easter treat - yum yum! :). After the nosh up, (beef chimichanga - my favourite), we decided to walk off as much of the outrageous calories we had just put on, by having a stroll around Nelson's column. As is their won't - there were lots of lovely tourists having their photos taken. And, of course, there I was snapping away as well :). So, here for you now is probably, (yes another!), one of the best photos I have taken...
The girls had all jumped onto the base of one of the lions which sit around Nelson's column in Traflagar Square. And at the precise moment when they all "Snarled for the camera" - I was there :) It could have been a pop video shoot for all the professionalism and posing there was involved. All-in-all it was a lovely image to capture.
And just so not to disappoint those of you who have been delighted at the wide variety of signage we have here in the UK. Here is one which was strapped to a lampost outside Charing Cross Station, London...
It has a message which needs no interpretation, and yet, asks a lot of questions about the use of the streets of London, don't ya think? ;)
Comments, (and they don't have to be clean comments about the second photo!), as usual, on the link below.
The Dangers In Not Knowing My brother Tom bought a PC from PC World about three years ago. He paid for a full installation and demo - which means he should have known all about his PC and how it works. Perhaps he wasn't told everything, or perhaps he forget, but in three years he never updated his anti-virus software with new definitions. There was some grand assumption that it was all going on automatically in the background. And, of course, if you are completely PC illiterate, you wouldn't know to ask about what to do with your anti-virus software if someone tells you it's installed to protect your PC - would you.
Well.......needless to say this young man (!) started to have MAJOR problems with his PC recently. So, last night I whizzed into central London with my PC Emergency Tool Kit, after doing a quick diagnosis on the phone. And to cut a long story short, I installed a new version of his anti-virus software, (which is no longer supported by the manufacturer (!)), updated - and sat back as the show began.
I went home. It was late. Sue & I had a Chinese. The phone rang. It was Tom. And the winning number was: 4,300 infected files had been detected.....I'll say that again for the hard of reading4,300 - OUCH! Thankfully, the software has dealt with all. However I have a sneaky feeling that a Windows Restore may be on the cards.
Lesson to be learnt? Update your anti-virus software definitions!
So there I was in St.Albans this morning, all day in fact, with no hope in getting away early to avoid the Bank Holiday Traffic. I was there to collect the auditing laptop & equipment etc from one of our chaps who left today. He has gone on to pursue a career outside the company - as the official line is often said :).
So, to cut a long story short - get your maps put - instead of going A1081, M25 & home I had to go: A1081, M25, (then found the motorway blocked), north up the A1, east on the A414 through Hertford & Harlow, (across the M11), through Chelmsford, up the A12, across the A130, down the A13 - and home. There - did everybody follow that?
The long weekend should be a lot less stressful. Have a good one :)
As y'all can see I've done a few changes to my site recently - and thank you for the nice comments. One of the things I've just dispensed with is the list of other people's weblogs that I go and read. Now, there is a could reason for this - the list has got even shorter since I last wrote this less than a week ago. It's not as though I don't know who my regular guests are - and you know who you are to, but from a purely asthetic point of view, it seemed liked a pretty poor damned short list, and looked slightly embarassing! :)
And it amazes me as well that there are so many people who come here - and don't leave a comment. (I've stopped posting the weird & wonderful search words & phrases that people have used to find me. But I can assure y'all that if I had indulged in some of the descriptive terms that lead people to me here - I'd be blogging to you now on Visitors Days only! ;) )
Anyway, to cut a long story short - I've not become anti-social just because I've taken my short list of your weblog links off the page, it's all just a matter of keeping the place looking clean & tidy. I shall, of course, be a-visiting folk as & when.
Yesterday was the 30th anniversary of ABBA winning the Eurovision Song Contest with "Waterloo". In commeration of this event, their record company is re-releasing the ABBA Gold CD & DVD.
Okay, that's all the tecchie news stuff. But what was it really all about? I think it was about a group of well looking Swedes, with an outrageous wardrobe singing songs of love & peace etc. (Yes, it does sound rather sixties doesn't it?)
Of course, ABBA's music was really fab & groovy, and it made Sweden a lot of money. At one time they were Sweden's biggest export industry - outstripping Volvo & Ikea!
However, it was the combo of fresh faces, snappy tunes, and of course Agnetha's Bottom had a lot to do with their popularity in the younger male generation :)
And if you want to see and own more of Agnetha, take a look here:
As pictured on Sunday afternoon on a polo practice coral in Ham, London. Note the fine riding jodphurs, polished boots, clean & well protected riding helmet. A fine figure of a man to grace any polo field around the world.
American Cowboy
- and then the genuine article :) As seen on a Colorado ranch recently. Note the baseball cap, jeans & knackered old farm workers boots. Yessireee - a real cowboy :) At home in the US of A.
Aren't we all lucky there's a bloody big ocean between us both? ;)
Yesterday we went to the Richmond & Twickenham area. We'd originally went down there to look for this place: Backhaus. It's a german food deli in Ham, which is quite close to the lovely River Thames...
But there are some people brave enough to go out there...
And there's even one of these for those who don't want to do it themselves...
All-in-all, it was a good day out. Sue got lots of German bread, sausage etc, (no, I won't list them here in case I do mispell them!), and we also got to walk along the towpaths of some of the nicer stretches of the Thames.
Yes, this is the fourth generation of designs in Woodgnomeland. We've come a long way since my first efforts back in 2002. There was a reason for doing this now. I got sick of the past layout :). Anyway I fancied playing around with CSS again to see what I could do. Admittedly, I did steal most of the layout design and tweaky bits from Amanda - who I really most thank - yikes!
Anyway, it's with amazingly saddeningly coincidence, (if such a group of words exist), that I am surprised this week that several of y'all that I normally come and say 'hi' to, have, for one reason or another, decided to "re-join" the real world again - or, at least cut down enormously on your weblogging/ internet diary activities. Yes, it is a funny old world - and quite often we have to deal with it as well. I know recently, with work, I've been dragged away from here - from writing, posting pictures, talking to people, (which is far more interesting than TV as a means of in-house entertainment). So, I hope y'all who have taken a leave of grace from the weblogging world remain cool & groovy and pop back here from time-to-time to say hi.
And on that happy note - i feel a cup of tea coming on. Toodle pip! :)
And shortly after the news of Ken & Barbie splitting up back in February, this is what I saw in one of those cheap convenience stores near Denver:
And the price of such a downfall?....
There's a lesson to be learnt here for all the Ken's of the world. "Don't get hooked up with any plastic faced bimbo who changes here hair & her clothes at the drop of the share prices of her favourite toy company, (Mattel), because it'll never last!"
Lesson over....;)
[Link] - | Old Blog Search Thursday, April 01, 2004April 1st? Me Driving a Left-Hand Drive Car?
Yup. On some very straight highway in Colorado. It was the safest place for me! And it was an automatic as well. I've only driven a stick-shift before - so this was a whole new ball-game! I kept pressing for the clutch pedal and reaching for the gear stick - and to my left side as well, (which is how it would be back in my own car). Of course, after bashing my hand against the car door a few times, I finally got the idea that the gear stick wasn't there ;)
However, the most embarassing episode was when we pulled off the highway into a rest stop. As the car slowed down, I suddenly got it into my head that it was going to stall, and I was frantically clutching thin air, as the car rolled slowly over the Stop Line! Thankfully, there was no cops or traffic about :)
