Oh I do like to be beside the sea side

Oh I do like to be beside the sea...

Yep, I am posting this from spare oom in deepest Dorset, courtesy of my sister's WiFi. I just switched my Mac on, Airport found their network and off I went. Magic!

Seasonal Felicitations!

OK, a bit belated, but Happy Christmas to everyone!

Scenes from Buncefield

Most of the roads surrounding the oil depot are open now, so it's possible to get fairly close to the site. Here are some images of the office buildings nearest the fire showing the damage caused by the blast and shots of the tanks. The oil depot is most definitely off-limits! If you want to see more pictures go to my website. All images © Wizzard Prang.

Did the earth move for you?

If you heard (or felt!) the Hemel Hempstead oil depot explosion on Sunday 11 December, then the British Geological Survey would like to hear from you.

Who goes where?

Well the 2006 F1 season is nearly upon us (12 March 2006 but who's counting!)

If you want to know who is going where, click here !

F1 lives

In case you were getting withdrawal symptoms (I was!) the testing season ramps up. Schumi has been testing the new V8 at Jerez. It's looking good!

Here he is between runs trying not to listen to Alonso's singing! Image © www.pitpass.com.

Out!

Fires completely extinguished last night. Drove past on the M1 this morning, it was an incredible site. Even inside the car I could smell Kerosene, while lumps of foam drifted across the adjacent fields like tumbleweed.

Nearly out!

The fires are nearly out. All credit to the fire fighters for a superb job. They've tackled the biggest oil fire of its kind in Europe ever and in my opinion they did brilliantly!

It's still burning

The fire still burns, although the fire fighters are making good progress. The smoke goes for miles. All local roads remain closed. Stayed at home today, managed to get some work done by phone and email. Watched the news crews watching the fire. Took a few pictures. Images © Wizzard Prang.

Explosion!

At 06:03 this morning we were woken by the loudest explosion. The house shook, at first I thought the house had been hit by something, like part of an aircraft. We looked outside to see everything bathed in a bright orange glow. The nearby oil depot had suffered a massive explosion. There were flames 200 feet high.

12 hours later it's still burning. The whole area has been cordoned off, the local roads are all shut and we can't get anywhere. Some people have been evacuated from their homes. All day there has been this enormous plume of smoke which has spread for miles!

I took some pictures, pretty rubbish due to the low light levels. I sent some to Sky News and the BBC - Sky bounced the message because their email system was full but the BBC showed some of them! I've posted a few here, you can see more on my website. All images © Wizzard Prang.

Can I help you?

Amusing day to finish off a tiresome week. Spent the afternoon with a couple of colleagues "back to the floor" covering the switchboard while the switchboard girls had their Christmas lunch. This was the 3rd year I've done this and I still manage to cut people off or transfer them to the wrong number! It's a real hoot, and some of the callers, well what can you do!

Caller: "Hello can I speak to Ron?"
Op "Do you have a surname?"
Caller: "No"
Op: "We have 11 Ron's, 2 Ronalds and a Ronnie in the directory. Do you know the department?"
Caller: "No"


Caller: "Can I speak to Anne Smith?"
Op: "We don't have an Anne Smith in the directory. What are you calling about?"
Caller: "Don't worry I'll call her home number"

Caller: "Can you tell me the email address for Fred Bloggs"
Op: "You are internal?"
Caller: "Yes"
Op: "He's in the email address book under Fred Bloggs"

Duh!

Run

Managed to spare some time to practice the guitar again. Those chords are really mean, even the ones my guitar book says are "nice and easy". I know this is going to take time, so I'm not worried.

As a break from "lessons" I've been looking for an easy song to learn. I've started to learn Snow Patrol's "Run", which doesn't look too hard. Hmm....

Duh! Why did I pick that domain name?

Amazing as it may seem, when they come up with their domain name, some people just don't think it through! For example...

Here is Who Represents?, a database for agencies to the rich and famous:
www.whorepresents.com

Next we have the Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views:
www.expertsexchange.com

Looking for a customised pen? Look no further than Pen Island:
www.penisland.net

Need a therapist? Try:
www.therapistfinder.com

Check the links - I didn't make them up!

Music News

This week I have been mainly listening to Nirvana.

The Sliver album is particularly good. It gives an insight into how Nirvana sounded outside the studio. Brilliant!

The end of the week

Thank God!

Overall it's been a bad week. One of those weeks where you are just waiting for Friday to arrive. Work has been a real pain!

I've hardly had any free time to practice the guitar, which has been particularly disappointing.

And the weather! Sometimes I wonder why I live in this bloody country!

Best Band on the Planet

Kerrang Awards Best Band on the Planet - Green Day.

Yeah! Too right!

This week

Still listening to My Chemical Romance - Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge.

What a brilliant album!

Trouble at Monza

An Italian court has ordered that F1 cars will need to be fitted with silencers if further races are to be staged at the historic Monza circuit. (Reported in Pitpass.com)

Utter Madness! The circuit pre-dates almost all of the houses built in the area, but that hasn't stopped locals complaining. According to Italian newspapers, the Judge described motor sport as a "superfluous, dangerous and socially useless activity that had a major impact on the environment." He's clearly unaware that other than an assassination and the rather odd carryings-on in a local nunnery, it is motor sport which put Monza on the world map.

And I thought it was only Blair's Britain that was a nanny state!

See the full Pitpass article here

Which OS are you?

Well, I came out as:


Why not find out yours?

This week's music

This week I have been mainly listening to My Chemical Romance.

Broken News

I saw this on TV for the first time last night - brilliant!

See for yourselves

Sunday extra

Not a typical Sunday. I managed to replace all the skirting boards in the dining room. I had previously removed them as part of The Great Decorating Project prior to laying a wooden floor, however sufficient time has now elapsed that we have decided to lay carpet instead.......

I predict that I should have the room finished by Christmas. Christmas 2006 that is.

Someone started a thread on Pitpass about favourite aircraft - just shows that the F1 season is in hibernation. I shall have to think about compiling my own top 10 list.

Useful English laws

• All English males over the age of 14 are to carry out 2 or so hours of longbow practice a week supervised by the local clergy


• In Chester, you can only shoot a Welsh person with a bow and arrow inside the city walls, and after midnight


• In York, excluding Sundays, it is perfectly legal to shoot a Scotsman with a bow and arrow

See what I did there? Hope you appreciate the symmetry...

For more strange laws, click here

Eat, Sleep, Work, Consume, Die

Next time you are sitting at your desk being bombarded by emails, your landline and cell both ringing, wondering whether you can spare 30 minutes for lunch, read this!

Eat, Sleep, Work, Consume, Die

Weekly news

No changes to the web site this week. What free time I had wuz spent on the guitar. Sore fingers!

This week I have been listening to: Velvet Revolver - Contraband.

twangg!

Well I've been practicing the guitar all night.  Ideally I'd like to practice every day but mostly I just don't have the time at the mo. Trying to make up for it I guess - devoted the last 2+ hours to it. Must stop now before the neighbours complain!

I'm trying to learn Oasis' "Importance of Being Idle". This is a brilliant track, I have to say it's my favourite Oasis track. Pity my playing isn't up to it!

What's the chance of that happening, Eh?

Great fireworks session (for the children, honest)!

Bit of trouble with the rockets - one went up 20 feet then turned hard right and screamed across my neighbour's garden like an exocet!

Also, one of the bigger rockets hit a tree - a glancing blow on a branch - and came straight back down, hitting the ground next door. The bangs were really loud close up - we all ran for cover!

No time to say Hello, goodbye.....

Been really busy since the weekend. At work I have been mainly firefighting, with a brief interlude to interview for new programming staff. Some interesting candidates! After a while you wonder whether you are ever going to be able to employ anyone ever again! Eventually I did manage to find a couple of suitable people. Fingers crossed then.

Into November...

Well Halloween is nearly over. I have a real hard time tolerating the trick or treaters. Oh, well!

Last night my daughter had her friends over for a pre-Halloween party. I hid! I spent several hours playing Medal of Honor.

Which was nice.

My favourite pastime

Shopping. Not.

Just spent many hours watching my women shop.

However this enforced period of inactivity did turn up some interesting facts. For example you can spend £5K on a mobile phone! Who in their right mind would do that?

Excuse the picture, taken through glass with a camera phone (and the £5K phone doesn't even have a camera!)

Apple Store

At least there will soon be an Apple Store at Brent Cross.

Hurry up Apple!

I hate Halloween!

The apparent suicide of a woman found hanging from a tree went unreported for hours because passers-by thought the body was a Halloween decoration, authorities said. (AP)

tweaks

I decided that the photographs were too big at 800x600. Resized them to 700x500 and reloaded them. 700x500 isn't in direct proportion to 800x600 so had to crop them vertically. It's important to get the smallest images from a "time to download" viewpoint but retain sufficient quality in the image.

Web site updated

More photos uploaded to the site.

It's a bit long-winded because I didn't want simply to add them "as is", I cropped and resized them first, then created thumbnails as well. It all takes time, I'll have to see if I can find a way of automating the process.

Tally Ho!

Visited Duxford on Sunday, got a brilliant photograph of a Battle of Britain pilot (not the real thing, obviously!) - as soon as I saw it I thought "this will be just the picture I need for the web site". And so it is.

The original had a background of the hangar roof, so I ran it through Photoshop. I took the new sky background from a photo taken outside the same day, so I can say that the picture is authentic!

Now that the basic web site is up and running, my next task is to upload some of the other pictures I took at Duxford.

World Wide Wizzard!

Yeah!

My web site is now live!

My domain was registered today. I've uploaded the first version of the site. You can see the results at:

www.wizzardprang.co.uk

No news yet!

No news yet on my domain name. Because it's the weekend, I guess.

WWW here I come!

OK, well I've done the deed. I've decided on my domain name, picked a hosting company and submitted the domain for registration. It should be up and running within 48 hours but as it's the weekend now I'm not sure when it will be activated.

Fingers crossed, basically!

Bye bye, Shanghai

Well that wraps up the 2005 F1 season. Bad luck Ron, that drain needed looking in to! (Ha ha), As for Ferrari, well you know what you have to do!

I like many others mourn the passing of Jordan, Minardi and Sauber. Not necessarily because of what they brought to F1 from a performance point of view but they were the last of the small garagistes (as Enzo Ferrari called all the teams except his own!). With the exception of brave Sir Frank, and Ron, everyone else is a global manufacturer. Bang goes what remains of the charisma, spirit and enthusiasm. Hmm... we shall see.

Meanwhile in the land of dull, I have been working on the web site and stuff. I've found some new web dev s/w which I have yet to try out - I'll post my impressions in due course.

Switch

Had an evangelical conversation with colleagues, extolling the virtues of the Apple computer, iPod and iTunes.

Phenomenon of the recently converted!

Business as usual

An extremely frantic week. Guitar and web site - slow progress on both although I think the basic website is nearly ready to go.

The Kimster

Excellent result for Kimi. What a stupid points system - Kimi has now won more grands prix this year than Alonso!

Meantime, the guitar practice is slow (and painful), I spent hours watching the girls in my life shopping for clothes and I've been dabbling with the web site.

Typical Sunday, really.

no reason to get bored

At this time of night it's too late to play the guitar so I've been working on the website.

It's coming along fairly well. I'm about ready to get the hosting set up.

Watch this space !

Oh no! Suzuka!

Kimi Raikkonen will have to drop ten places on the grid for Sunday's race after yet another engine change penalty...

I don't believe it! McLaren are never going to get the constructors championship until Mercedes sort out their reliability.

Guitar

I was told "you are never too old to learn to play a guitar" so I'm slowly learning electric guitar. Only been playing for 2 weeks so I'm no threat to Slash! - and I know I never will be.

Anyway its a bit of fun and, once I get the feeling back in my fingers, a means of destressification (Where would we be without G Dubbya - he's proved we can invent new words at the drop of a hat!)

Another bite of the Apple

My latest acquisition is an Apple iBook G4, running Mac OS X (10.4.2); PowerPC 1.33GHz 512MB and it's a little corker!

Previously I have used Win XP on a Dell Inspiron laptop but I've passed this on to my eldest daughter for schoolwork (Hrm..).

The speed of the Mac is astounding compared to XP, fast boot up, brighter graphics - and The Sims 2 runs much faster! OK, so software is a bit more expensive but if you shop around this needn't be the case. For example I bought Photoshop Elements 3 and The Sims2 from Amazon for a lot less than RRP.

I never normally recommend anything but if you are fed up with Mr Gates' offerings do consider an Apple - I don't think you'll regret it!

(See the links in the sidebar)

Apple v. Microsoft

I've been using MS Windows for many years but in the last 12 months or so I've finally become disenchantment to the point where I felt I had to do something - trojans, spyware, and XP just being, well, XP!

After much thought I bought a Mac - and I am hooked.

More about Macs v. Windows in a later episode.

Web Site News

Had some spare time today so I started designing the site graphics, spent some time setting some buttons for the nav bar and a logo. I've been using Photoshop Elements 3 since I got my Apple iBook, it's a great piece of software.

As this is my first Mac, I didn't have a HTML editor. I found a free one on the net which looks quite good - it's by Taco software (www.tacosw.com) - worth a try if you want an easy HTML editor.

Made a change from painting the living room - I hate decorating!

The beginning

I've created a new blog at blogger.com. Be interesting to compare to MSN Spaces. For now its a series of disjointed ramblings, although I plan to use it to track the development of my new website. Watch out for changes.