More fun time with baby Catrin
July 6th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
It’s been three weeks since I blogged about my wonderful granddaughter Catrin and, in the interval, I’ve seen her twice, each time collecting her from nursery and then babysitting. She continues to grow in confidence with her walking and she is more and more expressive.
She is so playful with such an impish sense of humour. She loves hide and seek, she offers me food and then puts it in her own mouth and, when bath time is over, she keeps pushing the plug back down when I’m releasing the water.
Since her nursery and home are near London’s South Bank, we usually spend some time there, chilling out together. These are some photos of her latest escapades.
“This is amazing. Blue sand.”
“Incredible. Now it’s red.”
“It’s my baby panda – not yours.”
Posted in My life & thoughts | Comments (4)
Thank goodness, we’re no longer in the United States (2)
July 6th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
I did a posting a few days ago about the extraordinary weather suffered by a part of the USA that Vee and I visited very recently for a holiday. I’ve now had a detailed personal report from my friend Michael Grace with whom we stayed outside Washington. This is his account:
“As two folks who have recently experienced D.C., I thought I would give you a short update on our situation.
As you know, a major storm ripped through the D.C.-Baltimore region around 10 p.m. on Friday night. The storm literally came out of nowhere and featured hurricane strength winds, strong rains and powerful gusts. The entire region was devastated.
The day had been hot (even for us) and we had guests that evening. Our power went out about 10:30 p.m. We have a 15,000 watt home generator that automatically kicked on about 30 seconds after the power cut off. The generator is fueled from an underground 500-gallon propane gas tank. It is buried in the landscaping near the garage. The generator powers all of our major appliances and many of the house outlets on the first and second floors, including hot water heater, refrigerators, freezer, water pump (remember, we have a well) and microwave. We had water, our food supply was safe and we could prepare meals. We also had power for our TV and broadband. But we could not power our air conditioners, which take about 40,000 watts for just one.
The rest of the region was not so lucky. More than 1.5 million people were out of power, electric substations were knocked out, water pumping stations had no power and major streets were blocked with huge, fallen trees. Some neighborhoods looked like the Jolly Green Giant had sneezed and knocked down every tree.
Temperatures over the past several days, meanwhile, continue to remain in the mid-nineties to over 100 (yesterday, it was 104). The weather has been uncomfortable for us. The both of you would have melted like ice pops in the desert.
In addition, most gas stations had lost power to their pumps and people couldn’t even get enough gas to leave town if they wanted.
The utility companies were caught totally off-guard. Usually, we have some warning for major weather events such as hurricanes or snow storms. This storm blew up suddenly late in the evening on the first day of the weekend and few power crews were standing by or on call. As you also know, we still have most of our wiring above-ground. When the winds came, trees and poles went down like weeds. The companies took hours just to get crews on the streets as workers had the same power and travel challenges like everyone else to get on the job. In addition, we have deregulation in our electricity now, and our utility companies have faced criticism over the past several years for cutting back on maintenance, repair and restoration for the sake of profits.
This situation has not helped their reputations.
We had a major golf event taking place over the weekend, The AT&T National PGA Golf Tournament, hosted by Tiger Woods, which was broadcast on national television. Tiger always draws tens of thousands of people to any tournament he plays and even non-golfers follow this event. The devastation was so bad, that the event was closed on Saturday to volunteers and spectators. The tournament was played on Saturday as crews worked overnight to clear trees and debris from the course. But we witnessed an eerie scene watching the golf tournament on TV on Saturday with no spectators or crowds. As a joke, the professionals would clap for each other on good shots. (Sunday was a different story, as tickets from Saturday were honored and the crowds were massive.)
Power crews were called in over the weekend from as far away as Oklahoma and Texas, but the Monday morning rush was a nightmare for active workers. Major commuter roads remained blocked with fallen trees, most traffic signals were dark and offices still had no power. Federal, state and local governments gave workers “liberal” leave or allowed for telecommuting. Non-essential workers were urged to “take a vacation day.” In addition, several local communities canceled their traditional Fourth of July ceremonies and fireworks.
Laura and I remained fairly comfortable throughout the past several days, but many families have experienced a real ordeal. Our power came back on about 3:30 p.m. Tuesday. Our generator just hummed along and in the evening we had a fan blowing cool night air on us while sleeping. So this was just another adventure for us.
As of today, July 4, several hundred thousand people still have no power and more than 20 weather-related deaths have been reported. Our surrounding community is functioning again, but the utility companies say power will not be fully restored in the region until Friday.
This storm was a big deal, with many comparing it to the destruction left by Hurricane Irene which hit D.C. in 2011 and was one of the worst hurricanes to ever strike the area. People will be talking about this one for a long time.
Just think about all of the excitement that you both missed by just a couple of weeks. What a story you could have told. Imagine the exciting report for your blog, Roger.
Oh, well, we’ll see if we can produce a real, live hurricane for you to experience on your next summertime visit to D.C.”
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
What can you do with a telephone box?
July 3rd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
First it was life-size models of cows; then it was huge decorated eggs; now it is telephone boxes. I am referring to collections of artistic works placed in public locations all around central London. What’s the latest thing about? To celebrate the 25th anniversary of ChildLine, BT has launched the BT ArtBox project – a vast, open-air art exhibition running in the capital from 18th June – 16th July.
Taking inspiration from the Gilbert Scott-designed original K6 kiosk, BT has engaged over 80 leading talents to re-style that much-loved icon of British design, the red telephone box, in their own creative way. Each BT ArtBox artist has transformed a full-size, fibre-glass replica of the original telephone kiosk, introduced in 1936 to commemorate the Silver Jubilee of the coronation of King George V.
You can see what they look like here.
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (0)
A record three months of rain since my water appointment
July 2nd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
I have now been Chair of the Customer Challenge Group at South East Water for three months.
As explained here, the three months April, May & June are now confirmed as the wettest on record in the UK.
Some people say that there is no such thing as coincidence …
Posted in British current affairs, My life & thoughts | Comments (0)
Thank goodness, we’re no longer in the United States (1)
July 2nd, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Our major holiday in 2011 was a week in Syria [my account here] and a couple of weeks later the revolution began there and continues its bloody course to this day.
Our major holiday this year was two weeks in the United States [my account here] – including one week in the Washington DC area – and a month later the region was hit by record temperatures for June and a ferocious type of storm known as a derecho [more information here].
Thank goodness, we live in Britain where the politics and the climate are both relatively moderate.
Posted in American current affairs, My life & thoughts | Comments (1)
A review of “The Five-Year Engagement”
July 1st, 2012 by Roger Darlington
Searching for a good rom-com movie? Look no further. This fits the bill – see my review here.
Posted in Cultural issues | Comments (0)
What I love about my New iPad
June 30th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
As I explained in this posting, it was my birthday on Monday and I treated myself by ordering online the latest (third generation) version of the iPad. It duly arrived by post on Wednesday. Already there are many things that I love about it:
- It has my name and mobile number engraved on the back.
- It was incredibly easy to set up – even for me.
- It automatically downloaded all the apps that I had on my old (first generation) iPad.
- It is slimmer than the old iPad.
- It is lighter than the old iPad.
- The screen is much sharper.
- It downloads my new e-mail even faster.
- It loads web pages even faster.
- I now have the iPad version of the “Guardian” (free because I subscribe to the print version).
- I have the clever cover which switches the thing on when you open the cover.
- The cover also acts as a stand with variable positions.
There are other features of the New iPad that I need to learn over the weeks ahead. Also apparently there are other uses for the New iPad that I haven’t explored yet – such as this one:
Posted in My life & thoughts, Science & technology | Comments (7)
What proportion of Britain is built on?
June 29th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
The answer may surprise – and reassure – you. Check it out here.
Posted in Environment | Comments (0)
Americans and UFOs – now it can be told …
June 29th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
How many Americans believe in unidentified flying objects (UFOs)? How many actually claim to have seen one? And which presidential candidate is most trusted to protect the USA from such alien visitors? Only in the United States would such questions be taken seriously. But, if you’d like to know the answers, you’ll find them here.
Posted in American current affairs | Comments (0)
Is the Royal Bank of Scotland hiding something?
June 26th, 2012 by Roger Darlington
As the latest news confirms, the last week has been a disaster for millions of customers at the Royal Bank of Scotland, Nat West (my bank) and Ulster Bank. Almost all the media attention has been on the adverse impact on so many customers and the efforts of the banks to mitigate these impacts. But we need to ask why this problem occurred and assess the chances of it reoccurring at RBS or other banks or even other organisations. The public owns RBS and has a right to know. All IT managers and staff live in fear of their system going wrong and we need to share experiences and lessons.
All we have been told so far is that the problem occurred because of an upgrade to the banks’ IT system. This seems odd. Upgrades to IT systems are happening all the time; we know that they can cause unexpected problems; so one should test the upgrade on a closed part of the system first to identify and address any adverse impacts. Was this done in this case? If not, why not? If so, why did the upgrade cause such major problems?
At least one report suggests that the problems began last Tuesday night during an upgrade of a key piece of software known as CA-7. This controls the batch processing systems that deal with retail banking transactions. The owner of the CA-7 software is a company called Computer Associates which has declined to say whether CA-7 lay at the heart of the problems. So, could something else be involved – perhaps a virus, or malware, or hacking? We need to know ….
Posted in Consumer matters | Comments (1)