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2003-11-06 08:14:24 Source: Web

The MOT saga continues.

I got there at 07:40 this morning to find 15 cars already registered in front of me! The estimated queue time was 4-5 cars / hour. So I was looking at a wait of at least 3 hours. *sigh*

Looks like I'll have to get up *real* early in order to get the car checked. Blagh!

2003-11-05 17:46:20 Source: Web

Planned to get up early and take the car for its MOT today. Overslept! Woke up late and on the way decided that I should give up. The car is never gonna pass (not even close) and I am going to resent spending any money on keeping the bloody thing in use. So I went to work instead.

However my mind was changed later during the day (!!) so at lunch I went to see if there were still any quick MOT places left ( the system here in Sweden is that MOTs are performed by a central body. Booking in advance takes over a month at the moment, but they have 40 drop-in places per day). There weren't (and it took me over 30 minutes to find the bloody place).

So the plan now is to get up early tomorrow and do it then. *sigh*

What I really want is to just scrap the rusting pile of junk and get something newer. I *know* that the car will need several hundred pounds worth of work to make it roadworthy for another year and the whole MOT process is a pain in the ass. Anyway, I'll get it done just to make 100% really-and-truly sure that it's a pile of junk and *then* I'll go and find a newer car, 25 quid and several hours of time later.

Bah!

2003-11-04 17:36:18 Source: Web

Note to self - the anniversary of when Lotta and I met is today! The 4th of November.

:-D

9 years eh? Feels like only yesterday ...

*edit*
Well, actually 8 years! No wonder it felt like no time at all!

2003-11-03 09:58:24 Source: Web

Having expected a very quiet birthday indeed, I was very pleasantly surprised by having a wonderful weekend. Yes, it was a fairly quiet birthday compared to the festivities of the last few years, but it was a good kind of quiet!

We went out on Friday evening to see a classic old Swedish synth band at our favourite 80's club. There were LOADS of people there who I haven't seen for ages. Friends from Stockholm and London apart from others. So the atmosphere was great.

Saturday was spent testing the new sofa ;-) Lotta woke me (at a very reasonable time) with a bloody mary! Fortunately there was a nice cup of tea waiting in the background and I wasn't actually expected to drink the BM ;-) There were very few presents - but that was fine by me as I asked my family and Lotta's family to club together towards the cycle trainer I mentioned in an earlier post. It's now ordered and should be with me some time next week if all goes well. Yeeehaaa!

Saturday evening we went and tested an Italian restuarant near us which I've had my eye on for some time. Excellent food - very authentic and the freshest mozzarella I've ever tasted! After that we met up with a friend and had a nice quiet couple of beers.

On Sunday I went for a 50km cycle ride in the grey and damp! Went OK though - I need to keep up the distance through the winter so that I can get into top distance form for Vättern Runt next summer.

So all in all a very nice birthday weekend. Thanks to everyone who sent me greetings! Much appreciated. Now it's onwards with plans for a trip to London over christmas, Lotta's birthday, getting the car MOT'ed and the other secret project I have up my sleeve at the moment :-D

2003-10-31 11:11:14 Source: Web

I think I mentioned earlier that I have been looking at a major tax hit (£10k+), which has been helping to make me feel pretty low lately.

Well, this morning I just got a letter from the tax office saying that they will not be taxing me at all! It's basically a complete surprise, but I'm extremely thankful! I feel like I've won the lottery :-D

So with any luck there may be a new(er) car in the offing at some point (like after the Ford spectacularly fails its MOT for instance!).

2003-10-28 22:01:26 Source: Web

Well, the recommendation from the Ford garage is to take it for its MOT and see how it does. They pointed out a bunch of small problems but thought that it was probably worth seeing which ones the MOT brought up first before making a decision on whether to spend the money fixing them or not. Considering I also need two new winter tyres (100+ quid) this may well be the death knell of the Ford ;-)

Ooh - and swimming went well this evening. I've moved myself up a group to push myself and I completed the set (2nd time). So today that was 3600m swimming drills in around 1.5 hours. Not too shabby if I say so myself! I fell off the back of the group (so to speak), but only by about 100m or so towards the end of the session. I was pretty pleased all in all.

2003-10-28 09:28:15 Source: Web

I've left my car for a free "pre-MOT checkup" today. It's a case of either the car will make it through the MOT with a little attention - or we'll end up choosing to not get it MOTed and take it to the scrapheap instead. Fingers crossed for the first as I really don't have the resources to get a new car at the moment.

IKEA *still* haven't delivered the sofa we had a 2 day delivery estimate on - 2 weeks ago! Of course we got rid of the old sofa right away to make room for the new one. So we've been camped out in the living room on cushions and kitchen chairs since then. They'd better give us some money back for the cock-up!

I bought neoprene booties at the weekend for cold-weather cycle training. I got to try them out with some cycling in -2C as well! My toes still got a little cold, but they definitely made a huge difference. Looks like I'm getting an indoor cycle trainer for my birthday - Lotta and family are clubbing together so it's one big present only this year :-D It's one of these I'm looking at. These videos look like a good training resource for the future (especially as I'll be setting up my bike in front of my computer!)

2003-10-22 07:32:46 Source: Web

The best tale of Tech support I think I have ever seen! This guy should get an award or something :-D

It's Magic!

2003-10-19 22:26:19 Source: Web

Another weekend, another cycle ride. This time I went long, I did a really satisfying 100km trip yesterday. I felt that I really needed to get out and push myself and I certainly did that. I explored some really nice areas around the coast south of Gothenburg, found a cycle route on good roads that was almost exactly 100km and managed to completely tire myself out ;-)

We actually went to a friend's 30th birthday party in the evening and although I was completely pooped I had a really good time.

So I know that in order to achieve some of the plans I have for next year (amongst which I hope to complete a 300km cycle race) I'm going to need to get in a lot more distance training. I'm also going to need to find a more comfortable saddle and better pedals, but that at least is pretty easy to sort out.

Hmm - I just noticed also that the applications for next years race are already open, so I guess I'll be booking my start place when I get paid :-D

I've been researching PHP based content management systems for a project I'm thinking about giving a helping hand with in my spare time. What I've found is PHPWebsite which looks like it does pretty much everything one might need to build a community site. I'll probably be giving it a try over the coming week. Should be interesting.

2003-10-13 14:20:19 Source: Web

Well as promised I did get to go for a nice long cycle ride yesterday - before settling in for a half Sunday in the office :-( It was great weather and apart from almost freezing my toes off (I need some shoe-covers for cold weather) I really enjoyed the ride. The course I took will almost certainly become a regular middle-distance ride for me. It was around 40+ km, but as I didn't ride all the way home (had to pick up my car) it would probably be more like 50-55km as a round-trip.