On Sunday I had my second orienteer of the week and, courtesy of Aunty Sarah babysitting, Christine had her third. It was another short trip in to the Forest of Dean, this time to the BOK Gallopen at Headless Hill. For the Forest of Dean, the area was remarkably free of undergrowth and brashings and Alice and Mark had planned a good set of courses. My problem, as with most of the forest, is the hills. They’re steep and consequently I don’t enjoy running up them, down them, or around them. This was made worse by the previous night’s heavy soaking which meant the carpet of leaves covered a good slick layer of mud.
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Headless
Monday, November 24th, 2008Spectating
Saturday, November 22nd, 2008Off at Ocknell
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008Tuesday Thursday Run
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008Yesterday night’s run was what is confusingly referred to as the Thursday night run after it’s original place in the weekly running calendar. It was a fairly fast-paced run with not a lot of stopping so I was glad to have a bit of spring in my step (probably due to having not done much for the past few days). Unfortunately my watch hadn’t picked up enough satellites when we started off so the run appears to start somewhere in Portswood. You can imagine for yourself how we might have made it to there.
10 years on
Wednesday, November 19th, 2008Being presented with my “10 year pen” at a departmental meeting on Monday seems like a good excuse for a bit of a retrospective on my career with IBM…
No danger of CrackBerry addiction
Tuesday, November 18th, 2008As part of IBM UK’s transition from O2 to Vodafone we’re all being issued with new mobiles. I’m a bit behind the curve as most people were moved over whilst I was in Norway. Today, the SIM card for my new BlackBerry Pearl has finally been activated. Sadly, like most employees, IBM hasn’t given me a data service. This is considered a “personal option” and I could get it for £16pm (providing my department agreed to match that approximately to cover the server-side costs and support which is highly unlikely in the current climate). I largely understand that decision – I already have a data card for my laptop if I need to read e-mails on the move. What I don’t understand is the decision to give me a BlackBerry. It even says on the box “Vodafone Email Solutions”!
It’s also a shame that it’s only a Pearl 8100. If it had Wi-Fi support then at least I’d have some form of connectivity on the phone. As it is, I can’t even work out how I’m going to sync contacts from Thunderbird, Plaxo or Google Apps via the USB cable. No danger of me becoming a CrackBerry addict then…
Heart still beating
Monday, November 17th, 2008My Garmin has failed to read my heart rate for a few weeks now (probably longer as I actually rarely look at the trace once downloaded). Rather than replace the battery again, I thought I’d use the spare strap that Garmin sent me last time they replaced my watch. Although I knew the transmission between strap and watch was coded, what I hadn’t realised was that the pairing was a one off process and the watch thereafter remembered which strap it should be talking to. Fortunately it’s a simple matter (once you’ve consulted the manual) to select Settings > General > Accessories from the main menu and then, for the heart monitor, select Restart Scan. And voila, I once again have a heart beat. I’ve even added the heart rate back on to the main display of my watch so maybe I’ll actually start looking at it!
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