dave-smith.co.uk

(written ages ago, but never posted)

So after a lot of doing nothing I’ve finally moved my site, nothing wrong with the old hosting company I’ve been using for the last 10 years, just that the level of complexity they offer is no longer needed by me and I’ve been using Rackspace Cloud Sites now for a year for other bits and pieces and so with a large number of bounced emails due to an IP address being blocked it was time to change.

Simples…..
1) Grab the DB from the old server, do some DNS jiggery pokery and then on to a new site build.
2) Into the Rackspace control panel
2.1) add a new domain
2.2) build a MySQL DB (add a user)
2.3) create an email address

We’re now ready for the site build.

I downloaded the latest version of WordPress, uploaded the DB and ran the WP installer, filled in all 4 fields and job done, my site was back, but on new hosting. I decided to grab the plugin’s I wanted and as ever I’m still tinkering with the theme to use.

Oh and I found some useful Word Press tweaks to get the built in updating feature to work.

I added the following to my .htaccess to go above the mod_rewrite stuff

php_value post_max_size 128M
php_value upload_max_filesize 128M
php_value memory_limit 128M
php_value max_execution_time 6000000


Less than an hour to migrate the site including the DNS changes and email setup, happy days.

So today we dived along the M40 to Oxford for the Foodies Festival, ie rock up sample free food, try and get Iona to eat something nice, try some wine and then stroll home, today however as well as organising the tickets Octavia had booked us in for the Wine Theatre “Burgundy Demystified” by Louis Jadot (the champagne tasting was fully booked)

We sampled five fantastic wines and were taken through them and Burgundy by Quentin Sadler. Quentin spoke informally with real passion about the region and also the wines of Louis Jadot and in spite of suffering from a sore throat made the session very enjoyable with his knowledge and humour.

And on the food front Iona had a very nice sausage in a bun (not interested in the Hog Roast this time) and also demolished a large ice cream before bouncing like a loon on the Oxford Mail bouncy castle.

So is it just me, or is having access to BT Openzone with my iPhone as useful as a chocolate fireguard, I’ve never managed to get a working connection using BT Openzone, in fact the first thing I do when having connection problems on my iPhone is turn off the WiFi as invariably it is connection to Openzone, and can’t do anything, maybe “we” need to create a new version of the UK Snowmap and use it to log BT Openzone #FAILs ?

Oh and on a related subject BT Openzone is not always BT Openzone when it is a BT Fon zone. I must admit I had come across this and never managed to get BT Fon to work either.

So here we go, the start of August and no training done since the start of July, of course being the sensible chap I’ve ensured that I haven’t eaten or drunk too much whilst not training, oh wait…..

*sigh*

Stood on the scales this morning and the unsurprising news is that I’m now the heaviest I’ve ever been, ever. 91Kgs, I thought it was hard to lose the weight when I was 83 – 84Kgs, I’ve now made it 7 kilos harder on myself. Time to charge the iPod, sort the Garmin, pump up the bike tyres and get out there. Training for a marathon over the last two years has done me no favours, although it has highlighted a long term problem with my leg (note to self: do the bloody physio!) but all it has really done is made me give up training when I was injured and given me almost endless excuses.

So what to do, well Triathlon seems the obvious choice, I enjoyed the training when I was doing it, and I enjoyed the competition and racing, so lets set a benchmark, 8th September I’ll be “racing” at Dorney assuming I can still squeeze into my trusty wetsuit and my bulk doesn’t break my bike! Then winter training with the aim to race in several races next year, depending on how the early winter training goes I’ll then decide on my race(s) next year….

So now, reading the Triathlete’s Training Bible and talking to people, time to do some planning, wish me luck (or point and laugh)

Lewis Pugh re-thinking swimming on Everest

So here’s the thing, this site has been going on in one form or another since March 23rd 2000 which is 2466 posts of mainly mindless drivel on the interweb.

I’m almost proud to have done my bit to add to the general clutter, but I just can’t bring myself to kill the site, it sort of serves a purpose, and there have even been a couple of actual useful posts.

But what to do now?

So this weekend I achieved a first, as I managed to crash a powered vehicle and not require the presence of the emergency services to get me out….

*thankfully*

Low speed incident in a car park, sadly it will be down as my fault and not that of the person doing 20+ MPH in a place with a speed limit of 10 MPH, one of those things I guess, and no one was hurt, just my pride and McQeen.

So this blog, if not dead is certainly on its knees watching its own blood seeping into the ground… and I’ve been meaning to post stuff up, there is certainly plenty going on, but there is also plenty that I don’t feel I can write about for various reasons… and for this last reason I’ve just taken the easier option of doing fuck all.

So I’ve blamed the blogging tool, tumblr is easier, they certainly have a nice iPhonie app, but then I also use a combination of twitter / facebook to ensure I keep up with my daily quota of inane internet drivel (both of which also have nice iPhone apps) oh and of course my photos are on flickr (there’s an app for that) and then this blog is based on word press (there’s an app for that too)

And so what to do? I want to post (something) once and have it appear on appropriate sites, I want also to the win the lottery.

Oh and seeing as I forgot to mention it here just after it happened I’m dad again, Nell was born on the 30th November 2009

Blimey, I really have been shit.

(doesn’t everyone name their cars!?)

So today after 3 years and 57470 miles Gertie Golf goes back so:

57470 miles / 32mpg (avg) = 1796 gallons of go juice
1796 gallons = 8165 litres
8195 x 115p litre (expensive fuel, rather than the norm) = 9424.25 UKP

of which 6126 UKP went straight to the government in fuel tax

Nice.

Or how about :

57470 miles @ avg speed of 20 mph = 2873.5 hours
2873.5 hours / 24 = 119 days 17.5 hours driving

Not just here on this blog detailing the mundane and unimportant aspects of my life, just, well must try harder.

Simples.

First off, “it is what it is, deal with it” which is what I’m doing, having made this simple realisation a week or so ago everything is much better, no really, it is.