Trying to sum up the NZ portion of the trip, …

Posted on July 31, 2018 by Craig

I’d intended to do my standard “blog all of the things until people are totally sick of the sound of your typing” thing for this trip, but as it turned out, I didn’t.

Oddly, the reason wasn’t laziness, or at least wasn’t all laziness; I found it difficult to think of the Auckland & Wellington portions of the trip as being an actual noteworthy vacation, at least from a ‘write about it’ point of view, which is why I took so damn many photos, so that the folks who were interested could see something.

One of the goals of the NZ trip was to see whether I was going to be overcome with a wave of homesickness/nostalgia upon hitting NZ, and immediately make plans to ‘move back home’. That … didn’t happen.
Auckland was nice, seeing people was entirely awesome, but no desire to immediately move back to Auckland has thus far emerged. Not planning to get a bus pass and an overpriced poorly-insulated flat.

Likewise with Wellington; Great to see & hang out with people, and to roam around the city, but no plans to move there.

Of course, when I decided to leave Perth it was a few days after a visit to NZ, once I’d had some time to myself to be alone with my thoughts, (which is usually when they get weird & creepy) so I may just be talking total bollocks here. Maybe after a few days I’ll be filled with an irresistible urge to move to NZ & start taking an interest in rugby?

OK, the rugby thing seems unlikely.

Getting There

Posted on July 13, 2018 by Craig

Nymphadora made sure to tell me, as I left this morning, how much she would miss me.
And my ability to open food sachets.

I actually got some work done, fixing some code I’d written, then documenting the damn thing while I still remembered what the requirements were.
Also discovered that our version control system had decided that I totally wanted to delete that project, and that if I wanted to cancel the delete, I’d need to delete the project first.
Not sure what I did to it, but I did it a lot, it seems.

Still, that can be a problem for Future Craig; That guy’s awesome, he’ll figure it out.

Aylesbury to Marylebone – Done!
Marylebone to Paddington – Managed!
Paddington to Heathrow – Achieved!
Self-Service check-in kiosk – What Are A Passport?

Maybe it was wondering whether I was able to enter NZ, but didn’t know how to ask.
Or maybe it was having a bad day.

In any case, after maybe 40 minutes in a line, one of the check-in assistance folks sorted things, got me my boarding passes, and tagged my checked luggage*.
Got through security in about 20 minutes, at a VERY relaxed pace.

So, now I’m loitering airside at Heathrow Terminal 2, in the ~~patio~~ balcony section, of course, trying to decide how to kill the hour & a half until the gate is announced.

* checked luggage weighed in at 5kg, so, lighter than my carry-on.

Made it to Singapore.
That was a long damn flight, with a fair bit of turbulence, so they left the seatbelt signs on for most of it.

Got some sleep, which is more than I expected, and watched both Pacific Rim films.

Once I got to Changi Airport, had a moment or two of confusion because I couldn’t find a sign pointing me to Terminal 3.
Then realised that this probably means I’m already in T3; Asked someone, and they confirmed it. (I get the idea it’s a common question for arrivals)

This is a big terminal.
Maybe not “Report on an Unidentified Space Station” big, like Dubai, but getting there.
It might be the number of people here which stops it from being creepy big.

And I made it to NZ.
Tired.
Very tired.

Sun. Beer. Music. Inescapable Football

Posted on July 8, 2018 by Craig

To be honest, this is mostly a post so that I can try linking images from Instagram into CraigBlog.
Just so you know.

A group from work made the arduous journey to Haddenham for the beer festival.
Naturally, we did brunch first.

The setup is a big sun-baked field, with a stage where bands¹ did their best to get crowd response happening (it didn’t), and a whole lot of tents with booze in them.
And some food trucks.

First beer of the day was an OK-ish cider (I was sticking to half-pints; it was going to be a long-ass day, and the half-pints were on the generous side), the name of which is lost to the mists of time², though I did get a picture.

😃

A post shared by Craig Buchanan (@itcanbefuntorunaway) on Jul 7, 2018 at 5:07am PDT

Then there was this one, an actual beer, named Chocolate Fudge Stout Detectives, from 4TS.
It smelled like coffee.
It tasted, pleasantly, like a cold cup of coffee.
While nice, a half-pint was my limit, as any more would have left me feeling ill – as someone said, there was a lot going in that glass, and I’m not really a stout drinker.

Chocolate Fudge Stout Detectives

A post shared by Craig Buchanan (@itcanbefuntorunaway) on Jul 7, 2018 at 5:26am PDT

Followed by a Sunset, from Dorset Star.
Or two.
Maybe three.
They were really nice stop judging me.

Sunset, from Dorset Star

A post shared by Craig Buchanan (@itcanbefuntorunaway) on Jul 7, 2018 at 7:00am PDT

And rounding it off with a ‘Medium Blend’ from West Milton in Dorset.

Medium Dry … Something. Don’t think they were on their A game when they named it.

A post shared by Craig Buchanan (@itcanbefuntorunaway) on Jul 7, 2018 at 8:30am PDT

It was a fun, long, day.
At one point we moved so that some of the group could watch the … I think it’s called ” Foot Ball “? … on a giant screen in an adjacent field. A couple of folks and I completely missed the entire innings because we went off to find a drink, then found a pleasantly shady tree to lounge under, and were filled with the desire to never move again.
I mean, we could hear the cheers when England scored a basket, and there was no shortage of post-bout celebration, but tree+shade beats sunburn+crowds.

Oh, and this happened when I got off the train back to my place;

Video on Instagram – turns out I can’t do embeds from my phone

¹ There was one band we were pretty sure had lost their singer, and one of the guitarists was filling in.
With the lyrics on an iPad.
And without the range needed for the material.
Having not warmed up.

² Might have been Hendry Huffcap Perry, from Hecks in Sommerset.

A Bit Of A Test-Pack

Posted on June 26, 2018 by Craig

This holiday, because I’m doing a round-trip through NZ, gives me a chance to get some stuff from storage & bring it to the UK.
More importantly, curated stuff; I’m sure it’d be possible to get everything moved, but that’s not much use until & unless there’s a place to move it to.

All of which brings me to the notion that every kilogram of stuff I take on the round-trip is a kilogram of stuff I can’t bring back, or buy at Gen Con.

Naturally, this means that I have to bore the crap out of you with a photo montage.
Don’t blame me; I don’t make the rules.

Trying to travel light for Holiday 2018

I’m trying a new image hosting thing – the WordPress option fails more uploads than it manages, and OneDrive doesn’t like to let people see the images, so this is Imgur. Maybe it’ll work.
In any case, you can click through to the next image using the little chevron things which come up when you hover over the picture.

Let It Snow?

Posted on March 1, 2018 by Craig

The news has a cutesy rhyming name for the storm which is bringing so very much snow to these parts. They can keep said name, because it’s stupid.

So, we’ve had the Working In A Snowglobe thing the last few days.

Also, the canal froze a bit.

And then a bit more.

Yes, that’s a road cone.

It’s frozen into the surface.

Apparently one of the folks from work tried walking, or at least standing, on the ice, and didn’t go through.

My street looked like this.

Interestingly, the snow builds up a lot more on my side street than on the main road, possibly because it’s light powdery stuff this time, so it gets blown away?

Aylesbury Vale Parkway & Aylesbury stations, as seen on my morning commute.

The canal is now really frozen.

Though the statue of Ronnie Barker seems fairly chill about the whole snowfall thing.

It’s not building up much because the snow is so light and dry. It’ll collect in low drifts, but only if there’s something to build up against.

The flat-roofed building opposite work was almost free of snow, except where dunes built up on an obstruction.

Reminds me of the snow you’d get on Mt. Ruapehu, where aside from the ground cover, the drifts are either in front of or behind an object, and you could watch the wind pick up streams of ice crystals & carry them around in long tendrils.

Speaking of snow drifts;

Google Image Search To The Rescue

Posted on January 27, 2018 by Craig

I currently have some form of lurgh, so this may descend into even less comprehensible ramblings than usual

Back in 2016. at the start of my trip around the USA, I stayed in a hotel with some … unusual … wall art; This was in the corridor.

On the walls of the room itself were pictures which looked like photomanipulations, or composites, and I have been wondering who did them, and what, if anything, the story behind them was.

Eventually I had the idea of feeding the pictures I’d taken into an image search, which came back with an artist named Todd Baxter.

The first one is from a project called PROJECT ASTORIA : TEST 01 | Elk Grove, about an interplanetary colony which is slowly decaying, and the children who’ve grown up there.

The second is from Owl Scouts: Lost in the Woods, which is … dark.
Let’s just say that it doesn’t go well for the kid facing down the bear.

Yearly Tube Map Challenge

Posted on December 27, 2017 by Craig

Some time ago, I ran into a set of ‘rules’ for tracking how much of the London Underground you’ve used in a year.
That version had the counter starting on New Year’s Day, but I chose Boxing Day, mostly because the tube wasn’t running on Christmas Day.

Me being me, I decided to map it.

I’m going with two measures here, and colouring them in as they’re achieved; Tube lines used & Stations used.

To mark a section of tube line, I have to ride a train on that section. Given the annoying clustering of some lines – Circle, District, Hammersmith & City, and Metropolitan, I am looking in YOUR DIRECTION – I may end up taking a few extra trips to cover all of the lines in one go, – Piccadilly, DON’T think I haven’t noticed the section between Acton Town and Ealing Broadway – because colouring just one of those is going to be really fiddly.

To mark a station, I have to enter or exit the Underground at that station; Transit doesn’t cut it.

Here’s where I’ve got to so far.

A Christmas Market Straight Out Of Doctor Who

Posted on December 25, 2017 by Craig

In my experience, if I try to do some form of grand summing up of an event with lots of bits, I get bored partway through.
So let’s not do that.

Instead, let’s talk Christmas Markets.

This is the one in Leicester Square, which I visited while wandering around on Christmas Eve, and where I got some of this;

Raclette. The long stringy bits are cheese-rind, which I can take or leave, though I’d prefer to leave it.

I wound up in Leicester Square because I was wandering in search of misc. Christmassy stuff, and found it.
But that’s not what this post is about.

Nor is it really about this other market, which is not a Christmas Market, except for the fact that it’s happening at Christmas.

Nope, this is about the Greenwich Christmas Market, which looks like a set from Doctor Who.

Tree Infestation Contained: Warning Lights Set.

Revelers Detected: Prepare For Kringle Deployment

This will be our most sanitary Christmas ever!

The whole place looked like this.
Identical metal vendor booths, most of them padlocked shut, swaths of that white flooring stuff, and anything remotely natural or Christmassy hemmed in and safely corralled.

I wondered when the Santa-Bots from … at least one Doctor Who Christmas Special? … would be deployed.

I didn’t manage to get a picture of the two … well, I’m assuming they were Santa’s Helpers, based on their position on the path leading to Santa’s Grotto, but the khaki trousers and red berets made them look less traditionally festive and more We Are Redistributing The Gifts To The People Based On Need, Not The Arbitrary Bourgeois Notions Of Goodness, Comrade.

That said, there were Traditional Christmas Churros, so, it wasn’t all bad.
Just odd.

Contributing to the Global Nollidge Base

Posted on December 17, 2017 by Craig

Every so often I’m reminded of my alleged contributions to the global store of … let’s call it knowledge … over on Google Maps.

Places I’ve reviewed, information I’ve provided, and photos I’ve uploaded.

As I type this, 1216 people have viewed this image, taken on the mound by Oxford Castle;

it looks like I’m photobombing the dynamic walking shot of bobble-hat-guy.

136 have viewed this one, taken in a guest house in Inverness;

shall we all take a moment to take in that carpet?

But here’s the one with the most views;

it’s a hotel room (duh) in New Orleans, at The Saint hotel.

23,954 views.
More than twice as many as the next highest, an exterior shot of High Street Hostel in Edinburgh.

I have no explanation for this.

I mean, The Saint was a nice hotel.
I had an espresso soda there, which was strange but refreshing, and the decor had a certain Vous etes ici pour un Dirty Weekend vibe to it, crossed with an element of we saw this on CSI and thought it looked cool, but it’s just a hotel.
With awesome carpet.

If there is one thing I could change about this picture, one tiny thing, it would be this;
The typo in the title, because my top-viewed picture of all time, seen by more people than I can fathom being interested in such a thing, is titled “Rook with king-sized bed”.

Adventageous?

Posted on December 14, 2017 by Craig

ok, that was weak

I’ve been doing a “Christmassy Picture A Day” thing for advent, over on The Social Medias.
Daily posts to WordPress are a bit annoying, so here’s a digest version – I’ll update it as new images happen.

1

2

3

4

I couldn’t decide for the 4th of December, so there’s two.

5

6

7

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10

11

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18

Two pictures today, partially because I couldn’t decide, and partially because it’s super cold out there.

19

I feel that this one deserves some ‘splaining.
This is a box of misc. NZ sugary crap, sent by a friend in NZ in exchange for some tea & some Yorkie Bars.

I’m stashing it in my desk until the team, or at least the ‘local’ team, are all on deck, so that they can try strange New Zealand lump-based¹ cuisine.

¹ Someone commented that there are pineapple lumps, and jaffa lumps, and that NZ confectionery seems to have a lot of lumps in it, which led me, through Entirely Reasonable Steps, to come up with the phrase “lump-based cuisine”.

20

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These aren’t enormous plushie reindeer; They’re inflatable, and the pumps look to be linked to the lighting, so if you get there early enough they’re hanging like limp reindeer husks.

It’s kind of creepy, but not as creepy as watching them inflate.

22

The subject of today’s Christmassy Image is named Sammy, and enjoys tennis balls and not being easy to photograph.

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Took me a while to decide on the very last Christmassy Picture for my advent-esque series.

Tried setting up a few shots, but nothing quite seemed to work, so I took a walk to a Christmas Market in Leicester Square, and along the way, took this picture.