Art Car

PICT0631.JPG
Originally uploaded by threetalook

This is the sun shine art car. Cool eh???

my wonderful ride to work!!!

E30

P1014599
Originally uploaded by josh.purcell

Gret shot from josh of the BMWCC reunion

Gmail - PICT1419.JPG

Gmail - PICT1419.JPG
Jock is now a porn star!!!

Bike Punctures are fixed by

Bike Punctures are fixed by:
Prevent:

• new tyres

• new tubes

• Do NOT using tyre levers to put tyre on. i.e. fingers!

• partially inflating tyre, then deflating then inflating to 100 (or whatever) psi. This pulls any creases out of the tube."

• Letting the tyre down every week, pinching the entire tread surface and getting ALL the glass out. Some tyres pick up more than others.

• don't ride through glass - doh
• don't jump kerbs (doh)
  

• wipe the tyre after riding through glass - hook your thumb over the back stay to stop your hand getting sucked into the gap between the tyre and the seat post (doh).

Fix:

• checking the area of the tyre where you get a puncture for glass, by inflating the tube, finding the hole, and laying the tube over the tyre to find out where on the tyre the hole was made. Often the glass is still hiding!!! When mounting tyres, position the tyre label next to the valve hole on the rim to facilitate.

• repair any holes in the tyre casing by either a Parktool tyre repair patch or a $5 note.

Who's 40?

Who's 40?
Originally uploaded by Strapper40

what a bro!

Pip, Jock (her Bruvva)

Pip, Jock (her Bruvva)
Originally uploaded by Strapper40

the best bro and sis a bloke could ask for!

Tonia, Nige, Debbie

Tonia, Nige, Debbie
Originally uploaded by Strapper40

A great night out at Jock and Bron's 40th

welcome the 40th

Well now's my chance to amend the stuff up I made at Jock's wedding. Not that I can remember it as i was so petrified. I've been petrified for the last week too - ever since debs started on about saying a FEW words. nothing strikes fear into me more than taht 5 letter word - speech. Nothing really happened until i saw the 5 tenets of Taekwon-Do in a slightly different light, i.e. related to my wee bro. The tenet are there to help us become better martial artists, and i guess it must be working cause i can beat up megan and rebecca with one hand tied behind my back now. So apologies for taking the slightly easy route out of the speech writing task - i tried all sorts of sites on the web to get it written for me, lay awake at night dreaming up fantastic paragraphs that i had forgotten in the morning, and promised debs i'd spend time during lunch hours getting this done. Buggers. well here goes...

1. Courtesy (Ye Ui)

Taekwon-Do students should attempt to be polite to one another and to respect others. Turning up early or on time for classes is also an aspect of courtesy.

How are we to practice courtesy? There are as many ways as there are moments in a day. Every encounter is an opportunity. Here are some examples.

• Show your appreciation, express your gratitude, and offer your thanks whenever someone treats you kindly. "There is as much greatness of mind in acknowledging a good turn, as in doing it."
  
• Scatter the dark clouds of gloom and spread sunshine with your smile. Remember, a smile is a curved line that can straighten many problems.
  
• Be as thoughtful as the 82-year-old woman who was more concerned about others than the pain she was in. "I may be in pain," she said, "but I don’t have to be one."
• Respect the opinions and decisions of others, even if you disagree with them.
• Be a good friend. Express your good manners with your emotions. When your friends arrive, say, "At last!" And when they leave, say, "So soon?"
  
• Act kindly toward others without expecting anything in return. To act in the expectation of a reward cancels out the kindness.
• Instruct your children. "Parents are usually more careful to bestow knowledge on their children rather than virtue, the art of speaking well rather than doing well; but their manners should be of the greatest concern."
• Be gentle in your dealings with others. To find out what others are feeling, don’t prod or poke. If you want play with a turtle, you can’t get it to come out of its shell by prodding and poking it with a stick, you might kill it. Be gentle not harsh, hard or forceful.

2. Integrity (Yom Chi)

One who has integrity is able to define what is right or wrong and have the conscience, if wrong, to feel guilt. Taekwon-Do students should strive to

be honest and to live by moral principles.

I nicked this off the interweb. may as well use it for jock's speech i thought, i haven't a hope of saying anything unless i do......

Imagine a world in which everybody in always "Integra",, like Jock, a world of honesty and sincerity, of being able to rely on what others say. People are punctual and fulfill their obligations and duties in life willingly and to the best of their ability. This would be a world without lying, cheating, stealing, fraud and criminality.

Then imagine a world in which everybody is dishonest most of the time: nobody tells the truth if it serves their interests not to, everybody is out to get everything they can, any way they can, including by lying and not keeping agreements and contracts. People shirk duties, obligations, and only pay debts when forced to. They will commit fraud and steal when there is an opportunity to do so. Obviously, this second world is going to be full of rules and laws, long contracts, lawsuits, police, judges, and punishments to control non-integral behavior. One of the main purposes of Law is to enforce Integrity when the people have none.

Its great people like jock are around to lead us down the right path, and to set such a great example. Thanks Jock!

3. Perseverance (In Nae)

Perseverance means having patience. One of the most important secrets of becoming a leader in Taekwon-Do is to overcome every difficulty by perseverance. Confucius said," One who is impatient in trivial matters can seldom achieve success in matters of great importance."

So we get to perseverance. Kind of hard to talk about this one so i let the interweb do some talking. Guess i had to persevere a little myself to get this darned speech written. glad the people around me persevered in the pestering or it would have one of my usual 30 second wonders. Bit like Jocks perseverance with his relationships. He's feeling like crap (he never lets on - but you know when he does) but always has the time for a cup of tea on a Sunday arvo. He has to put up with his healthy, full of live and Taekwon-Doer brother for on hour when all he feels like is crap after another week on the chemo. Thanks for persevering mate - its not often people will go that far. There I managed to get started, and actually wrote some stuff of my own. Back to the interweb's version of perseverance:

The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places.

Consider the postage stamp: its usefulness consists in the ability to stick to one thing till it gets there.

Don't be discouraged. It's often the last key in the bunch that opens the lock.

I may not be there yet, but I'm closer than I was yesterday

Most people never run far enough on their first wind to find out they've got a second

4. Self-Control (Guk Gi)

Without self-control, a Taekwon-Do student is just like any fighter in the street. Loss of self-control is disastrous both in sparring and personal affairs. "The term of stronger is the person who wins over oneself rather than someone else", Lao Tzu.

Do we lose that weight we know we should. Are we brave enough to start that diet and have the self control to head out on the lonely road to health and fitness? Or is self control easy for some of us? What about jock - he's gots buckets of it. It actually easy for him, as if he fogets his predicament and has the odd beer, he sure as hell pays for it the next day. One of the side effects of losing half your liver. So how about our self control - not that easy is it? Think about it next time you start off on a fitness program.

5. Indomitable Spirit (Baekjul Boolgool)

A true student of Taekwon-Do will never give up, not even when faced with insurmountable odds. The most difficult goals can be achieved with indomitable spirit.

So we get to the last tenet. The biggie as far as Jock is concerned. He's faced with insurmountable odds right now. But has he given up? No. Has his family given up? No. Thanks to all the family, and especially Bronnie and Pip, he's now got a fantastic support network dedicated to curing him of this cancer. He's never managed to accept the negative advice he's been handed over the years and always looked for the best outcome. Recently this involved setting up a trust and organizing a huge fund raising effort so that the current treatment can be payed for. So the insurmountable odds are now looking more and more surmountable, and the life continues. No longer the chase of racing a car, we sold the Targa project Corolla and bought a BMW. That was taking its toll, so now we're looking after a mates car, and of course, all stored cars need a spin round the block every now and then! And on to the next project, and nitro car, or radio controller model car. The theme is to keep the petrol in the veins, but not shake up the frail body too much. So onto the current milestone is the project of Cure Jock. At least Jock's a project manager, so he'll have that angle sorted, but what about a decent milestone to head for? The 40th was always going to be it, and here we are. Fantastic work team. Now the next milestone please - this is probably the hardest part of celebrating a win like this one, setting the next goal. So I hope you can do it mate, as I sure as hell need you to. Go for Jock, and happy 40th.

hunting for time zone patches.....

Sun News Center: "Sun's Top News Stories IBM Expands Support for the Solaris OS on x86 Systems (Aug 16, 2007 ) Jonathan's Blog: Momentous Day for Solaris"

winmail update

The winmail.dat attachment is created by outlook when the sender is trying to send as RTF (a m$ thing) to a recipient (usually Linux or Mac) that can't open rtf. Get the send to turn rtf off for your email address, or better still, all emails - use html instead. Or even better - swap over to gmail for your email - it can decipher rtf for you.

Google Toolbar for Firefox

I installled the Google Toolbar for Firefox.
Great piece of kit!! I even used it to blog the link above.

chilli

Went to Donald and Steph's on Saturday night. Ian and Terry are dog sitting as they're away. No visit to Donald and Steph's is complete without a taste of one of his "collector" chilli sauces. So Ian obliged and got the 357 Mad Dog Hot Sauce Collectors Edition (with Bullet) out. Weeeehhhaaaaaaa. its the coolest sh.t i've ever had. Turns your pee red for a couple of days, or maybe that was the Taekwon-Do trials on the Sunday? See http://www.funkypepper.co.uk/prod5.asp?prod_id=8270&id=210&grpid=8270&msg=&offset=#prod_anchor . This cilli is 600,000 scoville units - well on the way to total insanity!.

winmail.dat

How to view the peskie winmail.dat files your windows mates keep sending
you.

Create a script in your home drive:

#!/bin/ksh
if [ ! -d ~/winmail ];then
mkdir ~/winmail
fi

if [ ! -f ~/winmail/winmail.dat ];then
echo 'no winmail file please save as from mail to folder winmail'
echo Press enter to continue
read
exit 1
fi
tnef --overwrite -C ~/winmail -f ~/winmail/winmail.dat
rm ~/winmail/winmail.dat
nautilus --no-desktop --browser ~/winmail

Create a application launcher to run it
Save the winmail.dat into the folder winmail, and click on the launcher.

dial up and linux

i got a dell d510 laptop. lets see if the modem will work so i can go anywhere. wooooaa look at all that geek stuff to set up the winmodem. NO thanks. So i connected a US Robotics via the port on the back of the laptop, added my account details in /etc/wvdial.conf, created a link in /dev/ for modem (ln -s sttyS0 modem) and then types wvdial. It connected and here i am typing this post!!!. at last something simple in linux land.