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2002-08-22 15:42:19 Source: Web

Lotta and I booked a whole bunch of ti´ckets to various dance and new circus performances next week, so that should make for a fun week! I'm also *hoping* that I may be able to wangle next week as a week off - it looks as though there's a crack in my schedule which would allow for that. The hope is to take a couple of weeks, but even 1 weeks break right now would be great.

I had my 5th driving lesson today and we practised backing round corners. I seem to remember that I always liked that bit of driving from when I took lessons 15 years ago in the UK. I think it's the precision aspect of it that I enjoy - much less stressful than actually driving around in traffic! This evening is the second theory lesson as well. Hmm - at this rate I might even make my goal of being ready to book my test before the new year (waiting lists are long though, so it's unlikely that I would actually get to take my test by then).

2002-08-20 21:26:31 Source: Web

Phew it's warm! The summer is still holding on here in Sweden. It's the time of year when the tap water never really gets cold enough to be refreshing and you leave every window in the house open in order to try and get a cross-draft going at night - but you still lie awake under a single sheet in a pool of sweat.

Well, that might be slightly poetic license, but it has been warm here for an awfully long time (with the occassional burst of violent thunder and rain!). Not that I'm complaining of course! However I'm starting to realise that the weather is simply waiting until I take some days off to spite me with it's malevolence!

Those days off seem to be receding further into the future at the moment. We still have a great deal underway at work and I don't see any gaps appearing ahead of me for a while *sigh*. It's better than having no work at all though - I heard that another IT friend of mine is being laid off soon, though he happens to be in a position to get a nice unemployment package. Even so it's somethig of a blow. I thinak my lucky stars that even though I whinge about my job at times I'm still earning a steady wage.

A quick apology to Lucy - she was apparently the last one in my family to know my "big news" about the driving lessons. I promise I'll let you be first to hear whatever turns out to be my next big news. I hope that makes it up to you - OK sis?

After cycling 131km (count 'em - that's 81.40340 miles to you) in just over 6 hours on Sunday, I've decided that my cycle weekend plans may need to be a little less ambitious. The last 30km were terrible! I did make it through though and the aches the next day weren't *too* bad. I may set my goals to be a little more realistic though, especially bearing in mind that I will be carrying more weight with a tent and extra clothing.

I've also decided that it won't be this coming weekend as I was hoping as the Gothenburg Dance and Theatre Festival is in town. This is a biannual event here which last time was completely fantastic. Their central theme is New Circus this year, which has been one of my passions for many years and as the seminal Strange Fruit are appearing I cannot leave town for 3 days. So the cycling holiday will have to wait - possibly another week, possibly more, depending on the state of play at work.

2002-08-15 11:09:42 Source: Web

It's been a long gap between updates thanks to life being so busy. Thanks to my sister though for reminding me that it was about time I made an update ;-)

So the main reason for the lack of updates has been that I've been working hard. We have a project underway which is eating up time from me. However the end is in view and I'm hoping I can take a couple of weeks chill-out time during September. In the meantime though I have been keeping myself active out of work as well, so life feels pretty good at the moment.

I have a 3rd robot underway believe it or not! This one os a little miniature solar powered number. I've built it, but it's not working very effectively right now so I need to it down and work through what's going wrong at some point. It'll be real cute when it does work though as it looks like a little insect with the solar panel as its wings!

I'm planning a lot for my long cycle ride! The idea is that (probably next weekend - the 19th-25th) I am going to cycle from Gothenburg to Malmö - that's over 300km in 3 days. The goal is to see some more of the West Coast landscape, do some tenting, visit a couple of people on the way and generally stretch myself a bit. I took an 85km spin at the weekend to see how I felt the next day and I can report that it was really positive, so I think that the distance itself won't be a problem. I'm just hoping that the weather will pan out to be OK.

As you may have guessed, reading between the lines, that means that my foot is sorting itself out. I finally got to see a skin specialist and she reckons that it's a simple fungal infection. She prescribed a steroid based cream to kill off the infection followed by a gentler cream for a couple of weeks to "tidy up". After a week of treatment I can report that the skin is healing nicely. I should get some test results in 2 weeks which will conform whether it is fungal or something else. If nothing else, it's good to know what the probably treatment is for when it flares up again.

Also on the subject of fitness, I broke my 1km record for breastroke yesterday, coming in at around 26 minutes. I'm pretty pleased with that. I'm starting to shift my focus towards some more work on my crawl technique as well. At the moment, swimming 50m crawl is pretty exhausting. I need to find a better tempo and technique. It's the breathing that is the biggest problem. I can swim crawl with my head out of the water, but trying to get a proper breathing rhythm going is proving to be a pain. However, my time for 50m is about half as much again as my breastroke time.

Lotta and I are also starting to shift our focus back towards the apartment. The other day she managed to pick up the Ikea wardrobe we had chosen to go in our hall for around half price in their sale. It's a kid's wardrobe with garish bright colours and we just love it! It looks like the entrance to Narnia or something ;-) The next goals are to get our storage situation sorted out (we need more!) and then tackle the living room.

Last but not least, I should probably reveal the secret project I've been hinting at. I've finally taken the plunge and started taking driving lessons! For those of you who know me well, that's probably quite a shock. I've always been a radically anti-car person. However since moving to Sweden my attitudes have been softening. Car use in general is more sensible here and amongst other things one can join a car cooperative.

The idea is that one can then hire a car from the co-op when needed at a much lower price than a normal rental car. A smaller number of cars are needed to support the needs of a group of people who do not need the use of a car full-time.

For me it sounds perfect - we could start to get out in the countryside more often and I have visions of being able to attend triathlon and other races, which are normally out in the sticks.

So far I've had 2 (count them!) lessons and I have another booked this afternoon. I've also had my first theory lesson (the theory test is pretty comprehensive in Sweden). The actual driving bit feels OK - but after so many years of car hatred I'm having to focus on coming to terms with actually controlling one of the beasts. However I think it should go OK. I'll keep you all posted!

Phew - that has to be my longest blog post ever! If you read this far - cheers! I'll try and get back to a more regular updating rhythm now!

2002-08-04 21:45:49 Source: Web

Back from Stockholm and the golf! We had a great weekend - fantastic summer weather, lots of great corporate freebies (including insulated water carriers which will be great for cycle training), saw some world class golf (or so I'm told ;-) and our business meetings went really well too. All in all a success I would say.

On the downside, the new small blisters on my foot have gone haywire and turned into one centimeter wide blister which has made walking somewhat painful. It popped today which is partly great because the pain has gone away, but which worries me in case it becomes infected like before. *sigh* I'll just have to take good care of it I guess.

I have a new robot as well - it's only got a prototype chassis at the moment made from corrugated plastic, some hot-glue and a couple of rubber bands! However it's good enough to start testing some behaviours. I need to pick up some more interesting sensors than just the light sensors I have to play with at the moment. I'm thinking of adding an IR detector and IR LEDs for a proximity detector and a couple of contact switches to make "feelers". That way I can start planning the circuit and behaviour for my first "mini-sumo" robot.

Finally, the first stage in my "secret project" begins tomorrow and I'm kind of nervous! All should be revealed soon!

2002-07-31 17:30:41 Source: Web

I received this mail after my earlier post today. Now that I've finally stopped laughing I thought I should share it - and out the perpetrator...

(I would just like to state for the record that I will of course not actually be *playing* any golf in Stockholm...)

[Commentator 1]
Yes… and a gloriously summery day as Tufty steps up to the third hole on the course.

A fine summery day here in Stockholm, the skies are clear save for a few wispy clouds

And there seems to be a bit of a debate between Anders, Tufty’s caddy and the course Officials as to the ah… clothing regulations.

[Commentator 2]
Yup, I’ve never seen anything so harsh in all my life, can I borrow your sunglasses?

[Commentator 1]
No. Anyway, if you’ve just tuned in, Tufty is currently a shot down on the third hole on this glorious day at the Swedish Masters

*slightly hushed*

..And as he steps up, the crowds go silent, and… there’s Tiger Woods in the camera shot, looking on studiously….

*pause*

…some more debate about the choice of club, will it be the pitching wedge or the sand wedge?

…Anders looks like he’s giving him some fairly…strong…advice but Tufty’s adamant, and draws out what looks like a four iron….

[Commentator 2]
a bit harsh for a thirty yard shot…

[Commentator 1]
And Tufty hunkers down to get a good look at the angle to the green, pacing around in those….those strange tartan trousers of his… again, pacing round the shot…. And he’s backing away ….. silence from the onlookers here at Stockholm

*emphatic*

Oh my Gosh! It’s a run-up!!!! Hes taking a run-up, wind-milling his club around and around and… .oh!
Too late, he’s whacked it,

[Commentator 2]
-sky’d it…

[Commentator 1]
…Thumped it..

[Commentator 2]
…fucked it….

[Tufty]
‘FFFFJJJOOOOOORD!’

2002-07-31 08:56:48 Source: Web

It's been a while since I updated, partly because of a slight technical hitch but mainly because I've been so busy I've not really had the time. I still don't but I started feeling ashamed that so much interesting stuff was not being posted ;-)

Lotta and I had visitors at the weekend - Lotta's cousin and her husband plus their baby son (Abraham) who is all of 10 months old! We had a wonderfully summery weekend, with a trip to the beach (found a fantastic bathing spot out in the archipelago), lots of food, a walk in the park and lots and lots of fun and games with Abie-baby! It was a busy weekend, but great fun and I was sorry to see them go.

Other hot news is that I've now acquired the brains for my next robot. Plus a couple of servo motors, which I modified last night to spin complete revolutions. I am amazed by how easy it is to work with the Microcontroller I chose (a Basic Stamp from Parallax). Using their "Board of Education", (which is a prototyping board which makes it very simple to test out connecting components to the chip) I got an LED blinking with 4 simple commands and last night wrote code to accelerate the motors and brake them again in a controlled movement. I can already see huge possibilities for what I can do with this system and not *just* in robotics. I've definitely been bitten by the electronics bug!

So my plan is to build a chassis for a "test platform" robot, which will carry the entire Board of Education. I can then use this to connect up test circuits and try different programming configurations. Then once I have a behaviour and design I like I can build a specialised chassis for the type of robot I wish to build. I bought some plexiglass yesterday to experiment with building a chassis and although I'm away all weekend I'm hoping I can put something together fairly quickly.

Yup - I'm away all this weekend. I'm in Stockholm for the Swedish Masters golf championship. Heh - that probably made some of you blink in surprise! Basically I'm there for work reasons, there's a business meeting we're having on Friday, on Saturday there is a "jammy junket" and I have invited Lotta's dad Anders to follow along for the weekend so we're going to relax and watch the golf on Sunday. (He's a golf enthusiast so while I'm running around meeting people he'll be watching the golf anyway ;-) It should be interesting - though I still have no idea what I should wear! I was thinking plaid plus-fours, a v-neck pullover in garish colours and a flat-cap!

Last and least! My foot is slowly getting its act together. The infection has gone away, along with a large patch of the skin on the sole of my foot. However it is healing nicely and I hope to be able to start running again soon. The only worrying aspect is that I have some new blisters popping up around my big toe. I just hope they don't go out of control like the last ones. I'm waiting for a private skin specialist in town to return from their summer holidays so I can go and get it looked at. Bloody stupid Swedish medical system!

Well, on that pleasant note I'll get back to work - it's been blazing sunshine here since the end of last week and I'm hating being cooped up indoors - but at least things seem to be going well for us right now.

2002-07-21 10:13:26 Source: Web

A quick change of colour for the site. Subtle huh?

2002-07-20 07:41:58 Source: Web

I've just come back from an early morning trip to the doctor (after a 5 hour waiting period last night I gave up) and the painful blisters on my foot have a secondary infection. I still don't know what the main infection is - he recommended I go to a dermatologist. Great! So now I get to take some antibiotics to fight the infection and try and work out how to get seen by a skin doctor before the original infection goes away.

This is the real problem with the Swedish medical system - it takes so long to be seen by a doctor that the symptoms go away before you get there. I bet there's at least a month's queue to get to see one and what will they have left to look at by then?

Well, that's my moan almost over with. Oh - the doctor wanted me to take sick leave while the foot heals. Not a chance! The project I'm working on right now is both time sensitive and critical to out company's future. I've already cancelled most of my holiday - now I'm refusing sick leave.

Someone should give me a medal goddammit!

2002-07-16 22:29:06 Source: Web

For those who perhaps didn't know, I've been away at the summer house for a few days! A much needed little break, though shorter than the 2 weeks I had originally planned to take due to us having secured a couple of important contracts at work. Sometimes one just has to bite the bullet and get the job done eh?

Anyhow, a nice break from the daily routine, we had fantastic weather the whole time, which has meant that I've been swimming in the lake every day and managed to get my first sunburn of the year ;-) Now I'm back and the focus will be on work for a while, but I've also started planning what I want to build for my next robot project. On top of that I'll be enjoying som longer cycle rides (once the extremely painful blisters on my foot have cleared up) in preparation for a cycling weekend I'm hoping to take some time in August. More on that as it happens!

2002-07-06 18:58:27 Source: Web

Yay! My robot is up and running - well, rolling anyway! Today I managed to cobble the body structure together and keep the wheels on for long enough to get some video evidence of it completing a laid out circuit on the kitchen floor. Talk about exciting ;-)

You can watch the dramatic action by clicking on one of the links below. Modem users will probably want to choose the first file on the list (which will probably take a good while to download anyway I'm afraid.) Broadband users can choose either .avi or .mpg formats thereby keeping both my Windows and Linux using friends happy.

Small file - robot1.mpg 3.6 Mb
Large file - robot1.avi 8.4 Mb
Large file - robot1_high.mpg 7.0 Mb

*updated*
I got around to adding some "headlights" to illuminate the track in front of the robot (and a couple of posey blue LEDs inbetween the wheels if you look carefully). These (smaller, but grainier) videos show the robot following a light line on a dark surface in low light conditions.

Small file - robot2.mpg 1.1 Mb
Large file - robot2.avi 2.6 Mb
Large file - robot2_high.mpg 2.1 Mb

Just think - you could build one of these too - check out the book Robot Building for Beginners which guided me through this first project.