"F1 Diffuser Appeal" written by Rory on estrip.org

Category: sports

04/15/09 05:50 - 40ºF - ID#48388

F1 Diffuser Appeal

I don't know how many of you follow Formula 1 (especially now the US Grand Prix doesn't run anymore after the fiasco a couple of years ago), but this piece of news just made my day:

And as we're in the UK for a portion of Sunday, I may even be able to watch some of the race (at least the start) before we have to head for the airport.

I'm so excited!

Permalink: F1_Diffuser_Appeal.html
Words: 83
Location: Doha, NY

Category: work

03/26/09 03:09 - 49ºF - ID#48205

Promotion

Looks like I may be getting a Promotion at work (subject to CEO's approval)

The interview yesterday was for a Project Manager position - technically a step up from the Business Analyst role I'm supposed to do today (which actually includes Project Management anyway). It would involve a grade increase, so a little extra moolah and I would FINALLY get business class travel again for work and pleasure after they rudely took it away 2 1/2 years ago.

Thing is, I don't LIKE Project Management. I'm a tinkerer - I like to be involved in the nitty-gritty aspects like testing, development, design etc.

Whatever, we'll have to see what happens. Frankly I don't trust anything at this company until I see it written on paper, and even then it's suspect.

Permalink: Promotion.html
Words: 128
Location: Doha, NY

Category: work

03/24/09 10:56 - 35ºF - ID#48187

Job interview

I have an unexpected job interview this morning....

Permalink: Job_interview.html
Words: 8
Location: Doha, NY

Category: life

03/15/09 08:23 - 28ºF - ID#48057

Woo hoo!!!!!

That is all.

:)

Permalink: Woo_hoo_.html
Words: 3
Location: Doha, NY

Category: life

03/03/09 06:24 - 8ºF - ID#47929

Two Weddings and a Funeral

Was nice to get back to the UK over the last couple of weeks. Got to catch up with friends and family that we didn't get to see last time.

One of my best friends got married while we were there (was kinda the whole point of going back really). Was an awesome day, they looked really happy. (if (e:ladycroft) tells you I cried at the wedding she's a fibber- it was a dusty church and I got something in my eye ;) )

(e:ladycroft) finally got to meet my Dad - I'll leave her to give the lowdown on that, but needless to say he thought she was awesome.

I also managed to see my step-grandfather. He'd been taken into hospital just before we got there with suspected lung cancer. He wasn't looking too good when we went to see him, wheezing and gurgling whenever he spoke. It was good that we got to see him again as he passed away two days ago.

But to end on a happy note, one of my other best friends got engaged yesterday. The bride-to-be had been desperate for the groom to ask her for ages, so it's nice he's finally got off his backside. So that'll be another wedding to go to!

Permalink: Two_Weddings_and_a_Funeral.html
Words: 211
Location: Doha, NY

Category: work

02/04/09 07:18 - 13ºF - ID#47629

Albuquerque

I ended up going to Albuquerque NM last week for work.

Overall it was really enjoyable. We had a 14 hour flight direct DOH-JFK. Overnight in Manhattan, which allowed me to catch up with my Uncle (who moved to the states about 15 years ago) and his wife.

Interesting parallel - my Uncle works in the airline industry and has an American wife; I work in the airline industry and have an American girlfriend. Curious, huh?

Then LGA-ABQ, with a 10 minute transfer window in Chicago. Luckily the two gates were next to each other or we'd have been stuck. As it were we the last three on.

Albuquerque was dusty as expected. It also snowed, which I wasn't expecting.

Went to a Casino on the last afternoon. Lost 160 dollars in about 20 mins, which was a bummer to say the least. All on slots too - they didn't even attempt to make it interesting, they just took my money while (metaphorically) laughing at me.

One of the guys I was traveling with knew the manager of the casino. He suggested we go to the cable car nearby (longest suspended one in the world or something). It was about 10 mins by car, so he called us some transport......

..... which turned out to be a huge stretch limo! Seriously - the only car he had available. It drove us to the foot of the cable car and waited for us to get back.

I also had 6 ours to kill in Washington on the way back so I went to the Air and Space museum on the edge of the airport (owned by the Smithsonian now I think). Really worth going too, especially the space exploration section (if that's your thang).

11 hour flight home. Slept for 8 of them. WIN.

Anyway, just realised this was a really dull post, so check this out:

Made me chuckle.

metalpeter writes at 06:58:57 02/04/09 - Comment #45182: (e:Rory) what no Bugs Bunny Jokes about how you got lost because you should have gone left, HA.

In Terms of Jet Lag the way I understand it is, that it isn't like staying up all night. Ones Body has a time that it naturally wakes up at and when you also want to sleep (yes alarms violate and change this). So you wake up and your watch says it is one time and your body thinks it is another. Or in a football example a west coast team comes to the east coast and plays a 1pm game there body thinks it is 10am because to the body it is, so they aren't awake and they lose the game. I also wonder how sun light and the darkness of night factor into it.

tinypliny writes at 06:53:25 02/04/09 - Comment #45180: Jetlag is not just due to lack of sleep. It's disruption of endocrine functions for eg. melatonin and your internal clock regulation of things such as body temperature. That being said, sleep and sleep deficit is an important part as well.

If you travel across multiple timelines, your body has missed a circadian natural rhythm of day-night-day and gone into a day-nap-day routine pretty suddenly. It's no different from partying, staying up all night studying, being on-call and on your toes >40 hours. Some people handle it better than others.

The only difference is on the day you arrive at your destination, unless you are on holiday and can afford another sweet nap, you actually go out and work/attend conferences/classes/meet people like it was actually the next day (but its night by your body's clock). Not only that, your body is actually confused by the fact that its light out when its supposed to be dark. Ref: :::link:::

It took me a whole week to recover when I flew here because I had a really crazy flight from Delhi-Paris-California-New-York-City-Rochester (seemed like a good idea to naÃ¯ve me, back when I booked this trip. But boy, was I ever "wrong-er"). I was completely drained and had lost an entire night of sleep apart from acquiring this nasty bilateral pedal oedema. The next day was international orientation and classes started the day after. It was simply as if one night somehow got robbed or never existed.

There was massive sleep deficit, all my meals were at unaccustomed reverse times. It was just awful. Probably why I hate flying SO VERY MUCH!

I think frequent flyers and those in the flying professions develop physiological defences against the toppling of their circadian rhythms. Their sleep patterns compensate for endocrine imbalances and try to maintain homeostasis. :::link:::

However, some studies point to the fact that former/present flight-attendants and pilots actually have more circadian-rhythm related problems than the general public.http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18085072

tinypliny writes at 06:48:03 02/04/09 - Comment #45178: Jetlag is not just due to lack of sleep. It's disruption of endocrine functions for eg. melatonin and your internal clock regulation of things such as body temperature. That being said, sleep and sleep deficit is an important part as well.

If you travel across multiple timelines, your body has missed a circadian natural rhythm of day-night-day and gone into a day-nap-day routine pretty suddenly. It's no different from partying, staying up all night studying, being on-call and on your toes >40 hours. Some people handle it better than others.

The only difference is on the day you arrive at your destination, unless you are on holiday and can afford another sweet nap, you actually go out and work/attend conferences/classes/meet people like it was actually the next day (but its night by your body's clock). Not only that, your body is actually confused by the fact that its light out when its supposed to be dark. Ref: :::link:::

It took me a whole week to recover when I flew here because I had a really crazy flight from Delhi-Paris-California-New-York-City-Rochester (seemed like a good idea to naÃ¯ve me, back when I booked this trip. But boy, was I ever "wrong-er"). I was completely drained and had lost an entire night of sleep apart from acquiring this nasty bilateral pedal oedema. The next day was international orientation and classes started the day after. It was simply as if one night somehow got robbed or never existed.

There was massive sleep deficit, all my meals were at unaccustomed reverse times. It was just awful. Probably why I hate flying SO VERY MUCH!

I think frequent flyers and those in the flying professions develop physiological defences against the toppling of their circadian rhythms. Their sleep patterns compensate for endocrine imbalances and try to maintain homeostasis. :::link:::

However, some studies point to the fact that former/present flight-attendants and pilots actually have more circadian-rhythm related problems than the general public. :::link:::

imk2 writes at 05:36:09 02/04/09 - Comment #45174: I seriously don't understand what jet lag is. I mean, you're sleepy, you sleep, you feel better the next day. How is that any different than staying up all night partying?

ps. I was a flight attendant for a few years, so I know travel. Just don't know jet lag.

rory writes at 10:14:00 02/04/09 - Comment #45155: 'snot so bad. I'm lucky enough to be one of those people that gets sleepy within 10 mins of being on a plane.

I'm a champion sleeper. I once did 22 hours non-stop.

mrmike writes at 09:04:12 02/04/09 - Comment #45154: The jet lag from something like that must be epic

Permalink: Albuquerque.html
Words: 314
Location: Doha, NY

Category: work

01/20/09 08:26 - 10ºF - ID#47455

Missing out.

One of my best friends is getting married at the end of next month in the UK. (e:ladycroft) and are are lucky enough to be going.

As is normal before these kind of things, my friend is having a stag party (bachelor party). It's going to be a weekend go-karting, comedy, drinking, (probably some breasts thrown in for good measure) in Edinburgh in Scotland. I've been looking forward to it for months, and it's supposed to be next weekend.

And now I can't go.

Why? Because work want me to go to Albequrque in New Mexico to visit a potential system vendor. It'll be a total of 21 hours flying there, for a 2 day meeting, then 21 hours flying back. It's 14 hours just from Doha to JFK, non-stop.

Economy all the way too.

And tonight I'm going to have to tell him. :(

Permalink: Missing_out_.html
Words: 141
Location: Doha, NY

Category: computers

01/15/09 12:10 - 7ºF - ID#47411

Windows 7

So I went ahead and installed the Windows 7 Beta to my laptop last night.

Mistake.

I have 2 hard drives - one with my standard XP install, the other had Ubuntu on it (never worked with it properly - just wanted to install it for a look-see). 'OK', I thought, 'lets overwrite the Ubuntu with Win 7'.

Installation went fine (very quick, even on my 3 yr old laptop), but now I've lost the ability to boot to XP. Windows 7 can't even see my XP drive. Luckily all my data is stored on an external drive, so it isn't lost, but that now means I have to re-install all my apps on Win7 while I try and get XP up and running.

It's going to be a fun weekend!

UPDATE :
So it's all working now. Jason - your advice worked like a charm - I can now access my XP drive from 7 and run whatever programs I need to. I also fixed the bootloader problem, so I can switch back to XP whenever I want.

Permalink: Windows_7.html
Words: 173
Location: Doha, NY

Category: general

01/14/09 03:32 - 7ºF - ID#47402

Hello World!

Hi Everyone.

So - here I am. Just a quick post to get me off the mark and say Hi.

It was so great to meet so many of you at the NYE party, especially as (e:ladycroft) speaks so highly of you all. I had a great time, and I'm sure we'll be back soon for more shenanigans.

I'll try and get some photos and stuff up, and get my profile pic sorted.

Laters,

Rory.

Permalink: Hello_World_.html
Words: 76
Location: Doha, NY

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