My mother's father, Kenneth Foott, served in the 2nd World War leading a tank platoon of the North Irish Horse. For his service he was awarded the Military Cross. Until today, neither my mother or I knew anything about the action for which he was awarded the medal. Today I saw an scanned image of the citation ( Read more... )

On Sunday afternoon wavestar and I were travelling back from Connecticut, where we were looking at houses, as detailed in earlier posts. Some way into the journey we became hungry and decided to find somewhere that would feed us. Upon taking a likely looking exit and travelling a little way we found ourselves in Bristol, CT. This is a town that seems to ( Read more... )

The evil futureless waiting limbo time has finally come to an end. This afternoon I was offered a chemistry position with Watson Pharmaceuticals, a company primarily specialising in generic drugs, at their plant in Carmel, New York state, near the Connecticut border. To this end, Jessica and I shall be looking for somewhere to live down there ( Read more... )

http://www.briansguide.net/

No plot. No controversy. Just a rabbit. And some funny.

It's been a strange and eventful couple of weeks, and worthy of one of my infrequent updates. Not last Thursday, but the Thursday before that my maternal grandmother passed away at a fine old age. I got on an Aer Lingus flight out of Boston on Friday evening and got into Dublin early Saturday morning, meeting my sister and my father at a train ( Read more... )

I saw Steamboy on DVD last night, which is an Anime film by the chap who did Akira. Not that I've seen Akira. It was really rather good. Particularly of note were the endlessly detailed huge elaborate steam machinery and the air of authenticity of setting (Victorian Manchester and London). Pleasingly, this included the accents. The main ( Read more... )

Some of my colleagues discovered Google Earth today. I have to say, it's the best thing ever for today. More detail in the US than anywhere else, but as a work-in-progress that's to be expected. Try it, it's fun just to play with. Watch out, though- it's not very stable, on these computers at least ( Read more... )

Much to my distress, my computer has recently run into serious problems, and no longer does anything. I am 95% certain that the problem lies with the motherboard, given the symptoms. I think I can save myself some money and replace the motherboard myself, but I don't know how to go shopping for the right part. What do I need to know, and how can ( Read more... )

Oh, my poor brain ( Read more... )

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4720863.stmRead more... )