So 24

Remember I said about not being able to access certain harmless, and even educational, websites because of an over-zealous firewall here at my placement? Well, thanks to this article and a bit of fiddling, I've managed to create an SSH tunnel from my placement PC to my home PC, so that now I can (at my discretion) use my own (home) PC to access the internet via this link as if I was sitting in front of it instead of about 13 miles behind it - and it's as easy as changing a browser proxy setting now all the correct programs are installed and configured on both machines: voila, no more nasty messages from John Dobson!

In reality, there aren't many sites I need that are blocked, and the browsing is a lot slower (limited to my upload speed of about 20kbps) when I use my home connection, but it's nice to have the option (and the firefox switchproxy plugin makes it so easy) to make that nasty message disappear. So now I can do all those things I've wanted to do from my works PC: read my gmail, write this blog, and learn how to make bombs out of stuff you find lying around in a hospital ;-)

UPDATE: Wow, now I'm remotely controllling the home PC too! Using ultraVNC, I can now sit at work and take control of the PC at home. Good for downloading stuff I find at work, and for keeping watch on Becky's Ebay habits ;-)

Buses

I really hate buses. Which is good considering I've just bought a pass condemning me to bus travel until the end of my placement (£250). What I didn't reckon on was the time it would take to get from Saltburn (where I live) to James Cook Hospital, Middlesbrough (my placement) - bear in mind I can cover the distance in 20 minutes driving: I figured out, you know, using those "timetable" things which I guessed (silly me) would be accurate - they look so precise, down to the minute - that I could make it here in an hour (here I say, as I'm here at my desk right now. Yes this is work, it's valuable keyboard practice). So why has it taken me an hour and a half, every day this week? Bus is late. I Get on late bus. Bus proceeds to: Stop-start-stop-start-stop (extended as a passenger asks a seemingly unanswerable question to the driver,and then at last fumbles as an eternity passes for money in a bottomless purse) -start, traffic jam, stop-start, traffic jam at traffic-lights, red, green, red, green, red, green got through at last stop, start, stop(extended as lots of people get on) , start, stop-start-stop-start....change buses, missed connecting bus as first bus late, wait for another bus, bus late...bus comes, stop, start...you get the picture. I travel the 13 miles to work in the time I could travel 100 in my car. That's like traveling to the Scottish border. I could be in a different country, in the time it takes me to get to work. Put another way, the guy who won the - also 13 mile - Great North Run, and plenty who didn't, would easily beat me to work, using their LEGS for goodness sake!

I'm not looking forward to this year. Think of the money you're saving John, think of the money...actually, although I'm saving £50 a month, I'm already not thinking of the money; I'm thinking of the buses, the neverending line of buses I must take...

The Great North Run

Yesterday I ran the Great North Run for the first (and last!?) time, easily the hardest thing I've ever done. I wasn't expecting it to BE that hard! Anyway, I didn't run in the time I was expecting - 2hrs 15mins - but I did finish - without stopping - in a time of 2hrs 34mins, and a position of 26669 (out of 50000) - so pretty much the average, middle of the pack time. Let me tell you why it was so hard, OK:

Hills. Lots of them. I mean, I looked at a map of the course, and it didn't seem so bad, but the actual run on the day seemed to be one long sequence of hills! I suppose the next point made them more noticeable:

Heat. It was VERY hot. Probably the reason, amongst others, that 4 people died on the run. I think I saw one of the poor guys by the roadside, he looked in a really bad way...very sad. It was too hot for running, and the following two points made it feel hotter:

Water. Why was there none provided at the start??? Unless Paul and me started in the wrong place (we did jump the fence to get "into the pack" before the start line). The fact is, we had to run for 5 miles before any water was provided, which is too much given all the other factors, and not what I'm used to: I usually have a bottle with me (I didn't bring one because I thought there would be loads provided) and drink from it regularly during a run. Not getting off to a "good start" in this way made the rest of the race that much harder for me. I was fairly dehydrated, given the heat and the crowd, by the time we had run 5 miles. The crowd?:

Tight. Shoulder to shoulder running for about the first 5 miles is not something I've done before, and it really puts you off getting into your pace, your "stride". Plus I think I went off too quickly at the beginning due to the people around me running fairly fast, it was impossible to run any slower really!

All of the above combined plus: inexperience with this run and that distance. Not having done any sort of public run before, it was quite a learning experience to suddenly run with 50,000 people, up hills, packed in, with no water, under a blazing sun. I'm surprised and glad that I finished at all!

I can't see me doing it again, but if I did, here's what I would do differently, which perhaps illuminates some more "flaws" in my approach/training: I would make sure I'd run 13 miles before the race day, a few times at least. Having only run 9.3 miles, it was probably too much to expect a good (or even fair) time over the greater distance. I would include more hills in my runs, especially on long runs. The type of hills I run tend(ed) to be quickly run, steep hills, not the long gradual affairs that nearly killed me yesterday, so I'll have to study some maps of the area...I would make sure I brought my own water to the run, and more importantly, get to the start with plenty of time to spare. We had no time to stretch off before the run, and I think this bad planning was another thorn in my side from the starting line.

At least if I did the run again, I'd know my enemy, so to speak. I'd know his roads, his hills, his accomplices the sun and the crowds ;-) If my goal this time (and you wouldn't believe it given my negativity above) was just to finish, then my goal next time could be to finish FASTER...

Notwithstanding all of the above, I enjoyed the run - it really was an amazing experience running alongside so many people, all in such good spirits (the chanting through the tunnels and over the Tyne bridge, it was like being in an army on a march!), amazing too seeing the huge crowds stretch out in front and behind you - and I'm chuffed with myself for having finished it, I did what I set out to do! I have a medal and a nice T-Shirt to prove I was there - see below. Today, I'm a zone of pain, but I know it will pass, please let it pass soon...

One more word on the run: my friend Paul, having done ZERO training prior to the run yesterday (no running for 5 months), ran alongside me the whole way, and could have run off ahead and got a better time (I'm sure) - thanks for sticking by me Paul, when I wanted to stop, I had you there to keep me going! I just want to know, how the hell do you do it??? I wish I had your mental strength!!

I've put a bunch of photo's over on Flickr by the way, that's where I'll stick photo's now. Check them out here. There's a few from Saturday (but none from the run yesterday unfortunately) at the Beach hut in Scarborough - we've been at Scarborough for the weekend and Becky's Mum and Dad paid for a beach hut for us. Quite an experience, a bit cold, but when you can make yourself a cup of tea and sit on your deckchair you don't seem to notice!

Thomas the Tank Engine...

Joni loves trains, and she loves the old kids TV show "Thomas the Tank Engine" (she's such a tomboy), so we took her along to the North Yorkshire Moors Railway, as Thomas (and friends!) were going to be there. I took some video, just look how excited she is. She still can't stop talking about it! The [8.2MB] video's hosted here on putfile.

Joni also drew a picture this morning, easily the best she's drawn yet, of me and Bex. Click on the picture for a bigger version.

Watch this space...

Every day on the bus to work I pass a Church which has one of those Churchy signs out the front (you know the type), which, since I started in July, has proclaimed "Amazing things are about to happen in the name of our Lord - watch this space!" Well, expectantly I've been watching that space for the best part of three months and just as I was about to give up - a parable there somewhere - I was rewarded today with the NEW sign, the proclamation which I was awaiting daily, in anticipation of its amazingness, in awe at its claimed origin: it said "Car boot sale Sundays 9am".

Joni in Whitby...

Yes, I'm happy - very happy - with my new toy. We took it to Whitby yesterday to try it out, and I'm so pleased with the results. The only - expected - downside is the time it takes to convert DV to good quality DVD, about 6 times as long as the length of the film on the camcorder! Here's part of the film, in obviously reduced quality for the web, but I think you can still get a good idea of the power of this little machine, that fits in the palm of my hand...

Anniversary

Wednesday was our anniversary, which we spent in Manchester, as the previous night we saw the Pixies (we saw Pixies actually, as they are “Pixies” not “The Pixies”, but “we saw Pixies” just sounds like we had a weird shared delusion…) in the Apollo, a great gig in every sense of the word. They played a superb set (Head On, Wave Of Mutilation, Is She Weird, Mr. Grieves, Caribou, Bone Machine, Monkey Gone To, I Bleed, Planet of Sound, Gouge Away, UMass, Isla De Encanta, Broken Face, Dead, Debaser, Tame, La La Love You, Here Comes Your Man, Winterlong, In Heaven, Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf), Holiday Song, Nimrod's Son, Vamos, Where Is My Mind [encore] Gigantic [encore 2] Hey), and the songs from their first album were the best (especially where is my mind/nimrods son) but “In Heaven” and “Gigantic” were surprisingly outstanding. I have a live recording of a gig they played when they had just reformed, and wow, they’ve “warmed up” since then. You couldn’t fault the playing, or Frank’n’Kims vocals. Spot on. Managed to talk a t-shirt-tout down too, something I will ALWAYS be proud of, I’m so rubbish at that normally! You should have seen me walking off with the oh-so genuinely disinterested look on my face when he quoted me a tenner for the top Becky wanted (a gorgeous top, I’ll stick a photo of it up below)…Wonder how long the got-for-a-fiver-t-shirt will last though. One wash? Two?

Yes, it’s been three years, and Becky still hasn’t left me…something to celebrate indeed. I would have left me by now - gosh I’m annoying, uber annoying, and demanding, and petty, and selfish. I’m like Mr Spock with a (twisted) sense of humour - I don’t think that’s a good thing. Anyways. We swapped presents at midnight after the gig, and all the silly arguments seemed to slip from our memories. Bex wrote me a lovely card, about us both loving in deeds and not just words (in a nice way)...I think that’s the key, I’m good at words and not so at deeds. This year, John’s going to be ACTION MAN. Keep this blog and see that I keep my promises.

A highlight of Wednesday was a look around Manchester Art Gallery, where we were surprised and delighted to see “Hylas and the nymphs". Prints of this painting just don’t do it justice, I suppose that’s always the way. You just have to see the skin tones, the colours, the textures… wow. I would have climbed in to a watery death, for sure. Don’t hit me again Bex?! ;-) Even more wonderful was a work I hadn’t heard of, by Peter Graham, “A Spate in the Highlands”. I had to look closely to check this wasn’t a photo! The rushing brown river sliding across the rocks, the sun shining on the mountains whilst the clouds obscure the sun and the sky…It made me yearn to escape to Scotland again myself, with my wonderful wife, a place we had escaped to three years ago that very day, saying vows and stuff…

Bex had her second scan photo the other week, it’s below, and (strangely) probably not as detailed as the last one. You can see the lazy thing has (his/her) hand behind (his/her) head. Bex reckons it’s HIS hand, because boys are lazy. Can’t argue with that one really.

I’m typing away here at work knowing that a wonderful (fully working hopefully) new toy waits at home (Bex just sent the e-mail), something that’s maxed our credit card, but which we will be able to afford (read: pay off), as long as I keep coming here to do blogs and stuff. This camcorder has 3CCD (3 chips) to process the image, something normally reserved for high budget camcorders, which means the quality of film should be superb…can’t wait to get home! Got it for £350, a saving of £150 compared to the “high street” price. Anyways, we needed one, there’s a new baby coming, the old video camera’s broken, I’ve saved money (about £750 a years travel to work by getting this pass)…and a million other excuses. Watch this space, I think I’ll be taking over where Bergman left off…(STILL no sight of “Saraband” on the net????!!!)

NB: a sorry footnote - Bex just realized she lost her wedding ring somewhere in Manchester! Three years to the day I slipped it on her petite finger, she had to take it off her badly swollen finger - and that's that. The baby is to blame for Becky's swollen fingers, and - by extension, as someone used to say - for the loss of the ring! I'm sure there's something symbolic about all of this...we're going to go to Whitby to get another one from the same shop, am I a free agent until then? Have to go... ;-)