I love them, I love being out on my bike, out on the road on a sunny day. However I am completely crap at doing anything at all mechanical. I changed my battery today and on my way to the mechanics to have the bike serviced, it died. I have no idea why, initially I thought the PCV had died which left me with a bike that was I'm possible to start.
Thank god I signed up for 24/7 roadside assist. I called them and they had a truck out to pick me up in less than an hour. The frustrating thing was I got the bike home and into the garage and just for shits and giggles I turned the key one more time to see if it would turn over.
What do you know, it fired up perfectly first time and ran with no issues for 5 minutes. Why?. I have no fucking idea. I am planning on taking the M out for a run tomorrow and I have bought a new battery to put in it. The battery is juicing up now and I am hoping that I will put it in and it's all going to work perfectly. However referring back to my original comment, I am crap at anything mechanical so I reckon it will all be fucked tomorrow morning.
If the bike gods are happy with me it's all going to work perfectly, the new battery will get the bike started and the trickle charge will have provided enough power to get me started again once I stop for lunch in kulnura.
Update tommorow, hopefully a good one.
Saturday, April 09, 2011
Thursday, April 07, 2011
Woot the M is back
Going to head out to kulnura on Sunday. The M is finally back on the road and needs to go out for a serious run. If anyone wants to go out for brunch, see you there at midday.
The Malazan empire
I have started reading a series by a guy called Stephen Erikson called the Malazan books of the dead. A lot of review will say things like "comparable to Tolkein at his best" and after reading the book you are left wondering if the reviewer read the same book you did. Stephen Eriksons series is not only comparable, it exceeds Tolkeins work in many ways.
In short I am convinced of Eriksons genius.
The trick with this weighty series of tomes is to keep reading. Erikson doesn't explain things, he doesn't give you a quick potted history of a new character or race after introducing them, he simply assumes you know as much as he does and moves on. The beautiful thing is the way he unveils information. You will be reading through the 3rd book in the series and he will explain something that was originally mentioned in the first book.
Everything has meaning, a cast off comment or what you think may be a passing character may turn out to be critically important hundreds or even thousands of pages later. His history covers, literally hundreds of thousands of years with races, characters and even gods coming and going over that period. Some characters have in fact been around for the entire history of the world.
His writing is in some places simply stunning. The fate of Coltaine at the end of the Chain of Dogs literally had me in tears. There are hundreds of characters of varying importance and you can never be sure if a character has truly gone even if they die.
The Malazan books of the Dead aren't easy to read, but the reward in persevering is substantial.
In short I am convinced of Eriksons genius.
The trick with this weighty series of tomes is to keep reading. Erikson doesn't explain things, he doesn't give you a quick potted history of a new character or race after introducing them, he simply assumes you know as much as he does and moves on. The beautiful thing is the way he unveils information. You will be reading through the 3rd book in the series and he will explain something that was originally mentioned in the first book.
Everything has meaning, a cast off comment or what you think may be a passing character may turn out to be critically important hundreds or even thousands of pages later. His history covers, literally hundreds of thousands of years with races, characters and even gods coming and going over that period. Some characters have in fact been around for the entire history of the world.
His writing is in some places simply stunning. The fate of Coltaine at the end of the Chain of Dogs literally had me in tears. There are hundreds of characters of varying importance and you can never be sure if a character has truly gone even if they die.
The Malazan books of the Dead aren't easy to read, but the reward in persevering is substantial.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Something that moved me as a child - Remember Them
If you are able,
Save for them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you,
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
United States Army
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Major O'Donnell was Killed in Action in Cambodia on March 24, 1970
Save for them a place
inside of you
and save one backward glance
when you are leaving
for the places they can
no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say
you loved them,
though you may
or may not have always.
Take what they have left
and what they have taught you,
with their dying
and keep it with your own.
And in that time
when men decide and feel safe
to call the war insane,
take one moment to embrace
those gentle heroes
you left behind.
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell
United States Army
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Major O'Donnell was Killed in Action in Cambodia on March 24, 1970
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Southern Armada Raid blogs
Half way there. I have now got week 40 up and done. There were a total of 86 weeks so I am about half way through. It has taken me a week to go from 31 to 40. I wish there were a neat little import tool for me to suck in all the data from the original HTML files, but there isn't so it all has to be cut and paste by hand.
I want to get it up into blogger tho so its safe and I don't ever have to do this again. One other distraction this week has been that I have purchased, had installed and picked up my new pipes. They fucking rock! Pics to go up soon!.
I want to get it up into blogger tho so its safe and I don't ever have to do this again. One other distraction this week has been that I have purchased, had installed and picked up my new pipes. They fucking rock! Pics to go up soon!.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)