Published on
January 29, 2008 in
Bike.
Lights functioned perfectly, I was surprised how well the front lamp illuminated the road ahead, and the flashing rear light seemed bright enough to warn even the most short-sighted drivers that I was there. I was going to ride out to Braehead and back. It’s a nice flat run on quiet main roads and takes just under an hour usually.
I hadn’t reckoned on a driving headwind that slowed me to an undignified crawl. That coupled with the unpleasant burning sensation in underused thigh muscles indicated I should take it easy till I had got them up to speed. I turned up Helen Street and headed back past Ibrox.
Everything was going fine till I hit the home stretch. I was heading up towards the Squinty Bridge when the back tyre started to go down. Unfortunately my run of bad luck continues on the puncture front. This time it was a lump of glass about the size of an M&M through the back tyre. Luckily I was only about a ten minute walk from home so I slung the bike on my shoulder and marched back cursing under my breath. It’s a good thing that I didn’t go all the way to Braehead like I had planned. It’s also good that aluminium frames are so light.
It’s not the first puncture I’ve had with the bike. In fact I’ve had more punctures on the rear tyre since I got the thing than I’ve had in my life to date. Reviews on the interweb are mixed. Some folk think it’s the best tyre ever; others curse the fact that running over a bit of bubble wrap will burst the thing. I think it’ll be back to Dales before the week is out to see if I can get a decent set of fast rolling puncture resistant tyres before my patience runs out.
Published on
January 29, 2008 in
Bike.
I set out on a quest today prompted mainly by the fact that I finally reached a few degrees above the point of absolute boredom. The goal was simple, to get the parts needed to get me and my infamous bike back out on the road again. In the main that’s just a pair of decent lights to avoid me being run over by the locals.
The trip to Dales Cycles was as roundabout as I could possibly make it, including a trip via the SECC Walkway, Charing Cross, Chinatown and eventually Cowcaddens. I even managed to stop off in the recently renamed Virgin Megastore on Buchanan Street for a while. (It’s now called Zavvi…)
Naturally I hummed and hawed like a true Ayrshireman when it came time to actually decide what one to buy. I even took the unprecedented step of consulting some of the people that work in the place on the merits of the light sets available. They even turned a few of the display models on so I could see them in action. In the end I settled for a compromise between visibility, price and brightness. The set I chose were made by Cateye a fitting omen indeed. The set includes a powerful HL-EL320 front headlight and a psychedelic flashing TL-LD600 rear warning light both of which come supplied with batteries. Strangely the rear lamp uses 2xAAA’s and the front lamp uses 4xAA’s. I wonder if it’s got a secret built in laser cannon.
The decision made I wandered over to the counter to pay for my lights. The guy behind the counter was as pleasant and helpful as ever, well until my brain stepped out for a moment and let my mouth perpetrate yet another of my infamous WHIIIITTT!!?!? I remain convinced the guy serving me asked if I would like a bike to go with the lights. Naturally my mouth running on full auto blurted out the immortal line. WHIIIITTT!!?!? It turns out he was really asking me if I would like a bag for my lights. I can’t even blame McDowall this time as he was miles away at the time.
The two lamps were easy enough to assemble and fix to the bike, and from my limited testing (I closed all the doors to the hall and turned them on, very scientific eh?) They look to be bright enough to cause reports of UFO’s all across the south side. I’ll take them out for a test ride as soon as it gets dark.
In Scotland under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 anyone and everyone that intends to carry out road works must issue a notification to the council that owns the road. Traditionally the various councils and utilities haven’t paid much attention to the rules on when they can or can’t dig up a street. In the past they’ve just thrown some cones on the road, smashed it open with jackhammers and done whatever they were there to do. The hole then usually lies there for a period of time till finally a contractor arrives to fill in the excavation and restore the road surface.
This cowboy attitude has frequently led to frustration amongst drivers and other road users. In busy areas roads can be become congested and traffic can even grind to a halt. Naturally when members of the public become frustrated they complain. Firstly they complain to the local council, who in turn complain to the Utilities. When they found no joy at there they complained to the Scottish Government. The Scottish Government, like everyone in power, wants an easy ride. They don’t want to have to listen to the moans of the proletariat if they can do anything remotely simple to get them off their back.
The knock on effect of that was the introduction of the Transport (Scotland) Act in 2005. This created a new government post called the Scottish Road Works Commissioner which was recently filled by a man named John Gooday. It’s his job to make sure that all road works are properly notified and carried out within all of the regulations. In addition the local councils have been given the powers to impose fixed penalties of £120 on any utilities that do not comply with their responsibilities as set out in the two acts. To make matters even more fun, members of the public have been given a new weapon in the form of a website:
http://www.roadworksscotland.org/
This freely available website gives live information on all road works that are planned or being carried out in Scotland. It works on top of the ubiquitous Google Maps API that seems to be cropping up on every website where somebody needs a map. Not that I’m criticising Google in any way. The mapping service they provide is very user friendly and accurate, only Microsoft’s Live Maps are even close in terms of usability of features. I would hazard a guess at their mapping system being simply a clone of the original Google service. In either case it makes me cry to think that I used to get by with the frankly awful services of the old Multimap. I notice as of writing that the multimap page has been updated to resemble Google and live maps. However I cannot help but growl in frustration when Firefox informs me that it has blocked half a dozen advertising popups while looking at a map. I never had this trouble with the good old A to Z.
I’m not sure if giving the public access to this information will cut down on congestion and frustration or not. It seems to me that the people most likely to make use of the website are those that are most likely to use it as a big stick against those carrying out road works. I can already hear the tiny mouse like scratching of a thousand fountain pens as the community council blue rinse brigade swing into action…
Published on
January 16, 2008 in
Uncategorized.
Like Gobo’s Uncle Travelling Matt from the Fraggles I’ve returned from yet another venture into the weird world of outer space. This time I landed on a strange planet know to the locals as Dundee. It’s a nice wee city, although a few folk I work with would like to disagree.
I noticed on the way out of the station that the RRS Discovery is now permanently docked just next to the railway station. For those of you that don’t know, the Discovery was the ship that in 1901/02 carried Captain Robert Scott, Ernest Shackleton and Edward Wilson to Antarctica. The ship itself is now a floating museum that recreates the atmosphere of a turn of the century sailing ship. Â It’s a thing I’ve always meant to get around to seeing but unfortunately I didn’t have any time to spare before my lift arrived.
Hopefully I’ll manage to scrape together some funds to go see it in the near future. I might even drag Teh Kat along if she promises not to try and steal it!
The Work have finally decided to reward me with a new job title and an increase in my salary. Sounds great to me but there are a few “problems” according to the Management and their minions in HR.
Firstly they tell me that they will be putting me up a couple of bands on the salary scale. They won’t however be putting me up to the bottom of the band until I complete a six month development plan. Problem is nobody seems to know what such a development plan will entail. Mainly because I’m the only person doing my damn job.
Secondly there’s no role profile for my new job as yet, it’s just something nebulously called a Technical Specialist. On the one hand that’s great I can shirk work by claiming it’s not in my role profile but on the other hand I can be landed with nearly anything since I don’t have a role profile… Apparently the role profile will have to be written and agreed before the situation can progress to me actually being paid for the work I do.
I won’t be eligible for perfomance related increases to my wages, this point doesn’t really bother me though since The Work’s performanace related increases are a joke anyway (see here for details). I’d only get £130 to £180 of an pay progression anyway increase anyway. If you’re not keeping track that’s exactly £30 bucks more than I’d have got on my original banding.
At this rate I might actually be able to afford to go to McDowall’s Wedding in a years time.
Published on
January 10, 2008 in
Uncategorized.
The chilly winter weather has got me thinking about snow recently. It’s also frozen my brain to such a great degree that I suddenly realised I had been surfing through Wikipedia for nearly an hour. Nothing really unusual about that you might think but wait till you see what I was looking at: Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the Antarctic Snow Cruiser. I had to rub my eyes when I first saw the article on Wikipedia, it looks like something out of Thunderbirds.
It’s truly a most interesting and unique creation. I’ve never seen anything like it before in my life. The whole machine was longer than a bus and carried a crew of five in some degree of comfort for up to a year. It even had room on the roof for a piggy backed biplane for use in emergencies. However, as pointed out by a friend of mine, the Snow Cruiser is possibly the most jinxed vehicle to ever have been conceived. Firstly it fell off a bridge on its’ way from the factory to the harbour, then it got stuck in the snow as soon as they got it off the boat and finally it seems to have ended up at the bottom of the sea.
Published on
January 1, 2008 in
Uncategorized.
You cannot hope not to be wished a happy new year….
All of your new year are belong to us…
Prepare yourself for enlightenment…