Stuff Archives

OK - so any of you that have been following all the entries on this site, the photos as well as the blogs, will know that I've taken to hobbling off on walks and taking photos of animals (birds really). I like being outside and the photography gives me a bit of a challenge as well as a reason so it works quite well. I seem to have become interested in it since Karen and I went on safari last year.

Anyway, the avid reader will know that I wandered round a some ponds at a sewage plant. As I noted in the text above the photos it was actually a really nice place and definately one of the best when it came to wildlife. Still, if you looked at the photos you may wonder why I took a picture of the warning sign letting you know that “ponds contain waste water effluent.”

Well, it was for this article. Personally I think the sign should simply say “beware floaters” as it hits home a little better. You do have to look at the water carefully to see if the shadows under the water are carp or someone's second hand steak with a side of sweetcorn, but that's not the point of this article either. It is to tell you of the words I've been teaching my little boy. Examples of words I've used are:

• log
• skid mark
• dump
• trump

You get the idea. That said, I've typically been using these in their true sense of their intended meaning, but in that double entendre type of way, so, for example, whilst watching the auto racing on the TV I may comment that a car left behind a rather large skid mark when it crashed. William then picks up the word so when he plays with his cars he crashes them round the floor and says that they left a large skid mark. The joy then comes when Karen's not in the room as I can then look at him and tell him that he needs to tell his mother what happened. Next thing, he runs off to tell his mum “I've just left a big skid mark on the floor” to which I can't stop laughing and Karen gets really annoyed.

There is a rumor that one day I will grow up, but in the meantime - beware floaters.

But it's even further to get your car serviced!

I was randomly clicking away and found myself on the Nascar.com website looking at the standings after Kyle Busch came second in the Craftsman Truck series at the start of his "triple header" weekend where he races in three states in three days. I think it says he'll cover about 800 miles between races as he attempts to do this. (And I hope he does and continues to get good results).

Anyway, whilst watching the various NASCAR races, the commentators, from time-to-time, plug the fact that you can go onto the website and search for NASCAR approved services - such as getting your car serviced. So I saw the link for this and thought I'd take a look to see what local garages have signed up. Well, local is probably not a good word to describe it. The closest fuel / auto service to me is a mere 2,241.95 miles away in Washington. Seems that Sunoco (the official race fuel of NASCAR) are the only approved fuel / auto service vendors of NASCAR and they are only on the East Coast.

I think I'm supposed to service the car every 5,000 miles, so it's good to know that when I got back from this service I would have an entire 8 miles to enjoy before having to do it again. It also made me wonder whether this would be a more difficult challenge for Kyle Busch - to get my car serviced.

Iron Maiden that is, although I doubt anyone who knows me would think that I was a maiden of any other description. The first concert I went to was Iron Maiden in 1982 to see them on the Number of the Beast tour at Leicester's DeMontfort Hall. My mother was kind enough to take me and one of my friends as we were only wee nippers at the time. Rather fitting that the row in front of us at the concert last Wednesday was occupied by a mother and two young kids (possibly one or both being her sons).

The interesting thing though was the fact that the tour was called “Somewhere Back In time” which featured songs of the past - most of Maiden's greats from the '80s. So what's interesting is that the kids in front of us would not have been born when any of the songs were written. What's pleasing is that a new generation is getting to hear and like the music for the first time ... whilst us old folks rock on in the background.

I have to say, this was an absolutely fantastic gig. I've never been to a bad Iron Maiden gig, but this one was really well put together with a great stage set and accompanying pyrotechnics. And what's more, they played Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner - a song I didn't expect to hear, but was extremely pleased that I did.

It's going to be difficult to tell exactly when this website started as there were bits that were done to prepare and get something going, but today marks the one year anniversary of the domain registration. So I guess today is as good a day as any to celebrate the the fact that this wondrous site has been up and running for a year.

It's quite amazing when you think about it - a whole year without producing anything of any use or interest whatsoever. That's quite difficult to achieve when you think about it. You'd think that from time to time you would accidentally produce something of value.

Many thanks to Mr O for his continued support and completely irrelevant contributions. Unfortunately there is an illness with one of Mr O's family members so we wish him and his family all the best.

Finally, thanks to all of you out there that continue to read and contribute to this site. Here's to both of you. Actually, I'm getting really excited as my mum has decided to take a computer course which means that my audience may go up by 1 (or 50%).

I just got an email from my beloved Leicester City to see if I wanted to take advantage of an early bird discount and buy a season ticket for next year. Hmmm - let me think about that and get back to you.

I just landed at Houston IAH and as I was walking through I saw a sign for the “pet relief area.” The sign (which I should have snapped a photo of with my mobile) had a picture of a dog on it. If it were me, I'd have added the Mr Whippy steaming pile at the back of the dog so that it would be clear what kind of relief was going to be afforded to your pet, but that's just me. Also, my mind did wander briefly to wonder how many pets they actually catered for and whether there had ever been any problems with someone going there with a strange animal. But again, that's just me and it was only a brief thought.

We are in the middle of a mini heatwave here in the Bay Area. Since Wednesday it's been so hot here. Even in the City which is normally a little cooler than the surrounding areas. Hard to explain what this is like for those of you back home in the UK. Basically, each day there's this big fiery ball that rises in the sky called the Sun. This puts out a lot of light and heat. Try and imagine the UK, but a lot brighter, warmer and no rain. Yeah - told you it was difficult, but if you close your eyes and try really hard you might get the picture.

I've had many comments about the posts I made describing the things that were going on whilst I was ill. Generally along the lines of the fact that they were funny and I should keep them up. Kind of got mixed feelings about that as I'm pleased that people found them fun to read, but I'd rather miss out on the whole being ill thing that led to them being created in the first place.

I do, however, feel rather boring at the minute as I've just slipped back into the drudgery of the rat race and am merrily running around on my wheel. The biggest thing being that we are currently in the process of moving house, but there's nothing funny to write about that - the whole thing is rather annoying and really just leads to a lot of time being spent worrying about what could go wrong. Very unproductive, but I don't seem to be able to stop myself doing it.

So back to the illness. Well, I had to go into hospital this morning to inject myself again. They wanted to watch me do it without any guidance to make sure I was OK doing it. Everything went well and I've now graduated from the jab class and have been let back into the big wide world free to prick myself whenever I choose to do so.

Other than that, fairly boring - but I could do with a bit of boring for a while.

This site was named EastBayRag for a number of reasons:

• One of my nicknames is Rag
• Rag is another name for newspaper
• SFRag was already taken as a URL
• We intended to move to the East Bay

Well, it looks like we are finally going to be moving to the East Bay. We have sold our house in the City and have had an offer accepted on a house on the East Bay. To protect the innocent, I've changed the names slightly (but only slightly). We are selling our house to two gentlemen “friends” Well Hung and Two Stroke. We are buying the house from Mr & Mrs Hairy Mary.

It's interesting going through this process in a different country as it's totally different from the UK. The house buying process in the US is much simpler and much quicker than the UK. Basically, each transaction is separate and you don't really get into chains. Also, solicitors aren't involved as it's a pretty standard contract, so once you've made an offer and it's accepted, you're pretty much done barring anything coming up in any of the inspection reports.

What this does mean is that it's almost impossible to organize a move on the same day - i.e. to have the people complete on your house on the same day that you complete on the one you're moving to. What's more, the county we are moving to has made it illegal to do same day title transfers so we wouldn't be able to do this anyway. Apparently the reason for this is so that chains don't fall through and you're guaranteed to sell your house on the intended day. So, we are trying to time it so that we complete on the sale of our house four days before we complete the purchase of the next one. We've put a rent back clause into the contract of the sale of our house so that we can rent it back (at an extortionate amount I might add) for up to four weeks. All going well, we would exercise four days of this and everything will happen as planned.

So what can go wrong? Well, I guess worst case is if Well Hung and Two Stroke fall through for some reason like not being able to get financing. We have a backup offer on the house, but if that fell through as well, we would end up with two houses and two mortgages as we would still be obligated to purchase the one we are buying. The other scenario is that something goes wrong for us and we can't complete with the Hairy Mary's then we would be without a home. The thought of living with Karen, William and two cats in a cardboard box under the freeway doesn't appeal to me very much.

Still, they say that moving is one of the most stressful things ..... hmmm, now to do this week's vote.

The Owl and The Fox didn't go to sea in a beautiful pea green boat. Instead, the owls came down the M1 from Sheffield to Leicester in order to administer a severe beating to the foxes.

I will be gracious enough to say congratulations to my Sheffield Wednesday friends. It looks like it's going down to the wire this year. Good luck next week - maybe we can both stay up, but I'm not holding my breath.