Wednesday, April 26, 2006
From an internet cafe
Well, not cafe exactly- no food or drink for a start. Waiting for Natalie to come home so I've sought refuge in her local computer place.
Frantically busy Easter. Camping was great, if cold. France lacked any edible food whatsoever, Disney was more funny than enthralling and BA failed to get us home. Other than that, great. Eiffel Tower was considerably bigger than I'd pictured it.
Had a great day in Kew Gardens on Saturday (having been deposited in London rather than Birmingham by BA, who are claiming it wasn't their fault). Very peaceful. Boys went to Salute and bought lots of figures. We are over new reduced budget by lots this month- typically just as we reach my birthday too.
Last week's Dr Who was better than the week before. DT is a very satisfactory Doctor but fails to live up to CE's standards as an object of desire. Pity.
Son's computer is broke so he is a bit lost for things to do at the moment. His SATs are next week. Can't remember if I said earlier that his school told him that the results would determine what 6th form he could go to- this is complete rot and we told him so. He is now possibly a little too relaxed about them, but never mind. I'm way behind with my course due to busy Easter and Finance Bill- did a couple of hours today on 16th C Italian mathematicians that I'd never heard of but who had interesting feuds with each other about publishing methods- apparently Italian universities had no tenure and the way to get your appointment renewed was to enter problem solving competitions so they all kept their methods secret from each other and there were virtually deathbed confessions of solutions to cubic equations. At least we have moved away from geometry for a bit- I'm happier with algebra.
My 30 minutes is up so I shall go see if Natalie is back,
Frantically busy Easter. Camping was great, if cold. France lacked any edible food whatsoever, Disney was more funny than enthralling and BA failed to get us home. Other than that, great. Eiffel Tower was considerably bigger than I'd pictured it.
Had a great day in Kew Gardens on Saturday (having been deposited in London rather than Birmingham by BA, who are claiming it wasn't their fault). Very peaceful. Boys went to Salute and bought lots of figures. We are over new reduced budget by lots this month- typically just as we reach my birthday too.
Last week's Dr Who was better than the week before. DT is a very satisfactory Doctor but fails to live up to CE's standards as an object of desire. Pity.
Son's computer is broke so he is a bit lost for things to do at the moment. His SATs are next week. Can't remember if I said earlier that his school told him that the results would determine what 6th form he could go to- this is complete rot and we told him so. He is now possibly a little too relaxed about them, but never mind. I'm way behind with my course due to busy Easter and Finance Bill- did a couple of hours today on 16th C Italian mathematicians that I'd never heard of but who had interesting feuds with each other about publishing methods- apparently Italian universities had no tenure and the way to get your appointment renewed was to enter problem solving competitions so they all kept their methods secret from each other and there were virtually deathbed confessions of solutions to cubic equations. At least we have moved away from geometry for a bit- I'm happier with algebra.
My 30 minutes is up so I shall go see if Natalie is back,
Saturday, April 08, 2006
Saturday mumblings
I posted something on the Guardians "Comment is Free" blog site yesterday. Today the original article and my posting have disappeared. I suspect conspiracy.
This morning I have been tidying up and posting Son's old Furby on Ebay. And a copy of Warlock of Firetop Mountain (the rather poor boardgame, not the book). Bit dopey- late night last night watching Bound, which was funnier than I expected, and staying up to worship at the Night Shrine (it has to be done between midnight and 1am to work). And playing E&T with someone in the US. I think I shall lose- I'm really not good at 2 player E&T.
Going canoeing this afternoon- took Son out to the local club last Saturday and discovered we liked it. It's a 15 minute ride up the canal towpath and you get to play with their club canoes (Kayaks, mainly, but canoes comes to the tongue easier.) Apparently the fun with canoeing on canals and other flat water is to get a canoe just wobblier than you can safely handle and fall in a lot. At least that's what the longtimers were doing.
We are off camping next weekend with our new tent, which is the size of a small house. I suspect it is going to be very useful for Party, being an additional room and lots of sleeping space. Going to Shropshire so we can walk on the Long Mynd and Son can go to Coalbrookdale, which we've never got round to taking him to yet. He has SATs after Easter; he's out buying revision guides at the moment (not at our prompting, I hasten to say. I shall do plenty of nagging when he does exams that actually count. But he wants to do well.) All three of us stayed up too late a couple of nights ago working out the geometric method of quadratic equations. Beloved is horrified by Son's habit of translating all fractions into decimals and then doing complicated sums in his head instead of manipulating the original fractions, but it seems to work for him.
Played Railroad Tycoon a couple of times with Son. Who naturally enough wins, having played the computer game rather more than I have. It's going to be better with 3 or more. As horrible railway games go it is quite good.
Trying to decide what would be good games to try out on the 6 yr old niece, who has apparently developed an obsession with games (blood will out) but is playing Monopoly and Gin Rummy at the moment. I think we might try Carcassone and possibly Settlers, and Bohnanza, of course. We are off to Paris together week after next (we are staying at Disneyland, Son and I will do one day in the park and then head off to Paris for the second day).
Went to Twycross Zoo last weekend. Mainly monkeys. They had dhole though- the Red Dogs from the Jungle Book. I've never seen those before, so that was exciting. And two types of tapir, and aardwolfs, and huge capybara. The elephants were Asian and the older ones still had their Indian logging brands, the orangoutangs and gorillas actually looked relaxed. No llamas though, and horribly full of shrieking children and ignorant parents. I know that one function of zoos is to entertain bored children but one got the feeling that this was the whole of their audience. Fortunately the zoo was clearly operating with conservation in mind as well. Penguin feeding was a bit minimalist- no actual talking to the crowd.
Right, Son has returned with revision guides and boating shoes. We had better have lunch and go.
This morning I have been tidying up and posting Son's old Furby on Ebay. And a copy of Warlock of Firetop Mountain (the rather poor boardgame, not the book). Bit dopey- late night last night watching Bound, which was funnier than I expected, and staying up to worship at the Night Shrine (it has to be done between midnight and 1am to work). And playing E&T with someone in the US. I think I shall lose- I'm really not good at 2 player E&T.
Going canoeing this afternoon- took Son out to the local club last Saturday and discovered we liked it. It's a 15 minute ride up the canal towpath and you get to play with their club canoes (Kayaks, mainly, but canoes comes to the tongue easier.) Apparently the fun with canoeing on canals and other flat water is to get a canoe just wobblier than you can safely handle and fall in a lot. At least that's what the longtimers were doing.
We are off camping next weekend with our new tent, which is the size of a small house. I suspect it is going to be very useful for Party, being an additional room and lots of sleeping space. Going to Shropshire so we can walk on the Long Mynd and Son can go to Coalbrookdale, which we've never got round to taking him to yet. He has SATs after Easter; he's out buying revision guides at the moment (not at our prompting, I hasten to say. I shall do plenty of nagging when he does exams that actually count. But he wants to do well.) All three of us stayed up too late a couple of nights ago working out the geometric method of quadratic equations. Beloved is horrified by Son's habit of translating all fractions into decimals and then doing complicated sums in his head instead of manipulating the original fractions, but it seems to work for him.
Played Railroad Tycoon a couple of times with Son. Who naturally enough wins, having played the computer game rather more than I have. It's going to be better with 3 or more. As horrible railway games go it is quite good.
Trying to decide what would be good games to try out on the 6 yr old niece, who has apparently developed an obsession with games (blood will out) but is playing Monopoly and Gin Rummy at the moment. I think we might try Carcassone and possibly Settlers, and Bohnanza, of course. We are off to Paris together week after next (we are staying at Disneyland, Son and I will do one day in the park and then head off to Paris for the second day).
Went to Twycross Zoo last weekend. Mainly monkeys. They had dhole though- the Red Dogs from the Jungle Book. I've never seen those before, so that was exciting. And two types of tapir, and aardwolfs, and huge capybara. The elephants were Asian and the older ones still had their Indian logging brands, the orangoutangs and gorillas actually looked relaxed. No llamas though, and horribly full of shrieking children and ignorant parents. I know that one function of zoos is to entertain bored children but one got the feeling that this was the whole of their audience. Fortunately the zoo was clearly operating with conservation in mind as well. Penguin feeding was a bit minimalist- no actual talking to the crowd.
Right, Son has returned with revision guides and boating shoes. We had better have lunch and go.
