Kersti's Corner

On yer bike!

Never thought that I'd see the day, but I'm now the proud owner of a shiny new bike. Christian has been hounding me to get a bike for a few months now, and to be fair, the DART commute into work is getting a bit boring so I started to warm to the idea. I did some research online and found a stunning bike that would be just perfect - a handmade Pashley "Princess"... that got me really interested! Unfortunately the 1000 euro price tag was a bit steep, but at least I had an idea of the style of bike I was after and even had a name to put to the style - a classic shopper. (Doesn't that sound just like me????)

Saturday we headed into town and took a look at a few different shops. Not a great deal of choice in shoppers. The last shop of the day however did have a few to choose from, they even had a boy's Pashley bike in store so I could confirm that the workmanship was amazing. Anyway, long story short, Christian test-rode a couple of the bikes for me and the woman in the shop took me through all the ins and outs of different models and I've come away with something not quite what I had originally decided on, but which has the features I wanted - a Sprint Trace Ultralight.

The shop had to build it all up for me, (I added in lights and a chunky U-bolt thingy) so we went and had coffee - which is when the heavens opened. By the time I picked up my bike it was raining quite hard, but it cleared a little soon after. So for the first time in over 20 years, I rode a bike home. Later on the night we went into town to see a concert, we took our bikes and then rode them home again. Still not quite sure how to get the gears working in my favour, and looking over my shoulder to check traffic is scary stuff - for now I think I'll keep out of the busy times until I've got real control over the thing.

Sunday morning I could barely move! I rode the bike to the car hire place (that's another story!) but didn't quite make it. About 500 metres away my legs totally gave out, nothing left in them at all. I had to walk it the last bit and even that was difficult! So the bike was locked up at home, the idea being to be riding it again by Wednesday and take it to work.

But Tuesday I found that my poor little bike had been truly christened, some bastard has taken the seat! Not even a week old, and already violated, I can tell you now that I'm not happy about it. Aside from anything else, it's amazingly inconvenient! Grrrr....

Ever wanted to see Star Wars in Telnet???

Of course you did! You've been wanting this for so long it's become a part of your makeup, so much so that you've forgotten about it - the want is just there, part of the everyday fabric your soul.

Well now you can. Actually you've been able to do this since 2000 but it's so cool it's worth watching again. A smidge under 14,000 frames - quite a feat!

From any command line, type telnet towel.blinkenlights.nl and sit back to watch the show. This is the least productive thing you'll do all day, but probably the most fun.

Dark in here...

A woman takes a lover home during the day while her husband is at work.

Her 9 year old son comes home unexpectedly, sees them, and hides in the bedroom cupboard to watch. Just after getting into bed the woman's husband also comes home unexpectedly. She tells her lover to hide in the cupboard, not realising that the little boy is also in there.

After a little while the little boy says, 'Dark in here'.

The man, who obviously got a real fright not expecting to hear anything, let alone from a little boy says, 'Yes, it is.'

Boy - 'I have a football.'

Man - 'That's nice.'

Boy - 'Want to buy it?'

Man - 'No, thanks.'

Boy - 'My dad's outside.'

Man - 'OK, how much?'

Boy - '£250'

In the next few weeks, it happens again that the boy and the lover are in the cupboard together.

Boy - 'Dark in here.'

Man - 'Yes, it is.'

Boy - 'I have football boots.'

The lover, remembering the last time, asks the boy, 'OK How much this time?'

Boy - '£750'

Man - 'Sold.'

A few days later, the boys' father says to the boy, 'Grab your boots and football, let's go outside and have a game of soccer.

The boy says, 'I can't, I sold my ball and boots.'

The father asks, 'How much did you sell them for and to who?'

The boy says, 'To a friend of mine for a £1,000.'

The father says, 'That's a terrible thing to do, overcharging your friend like that. That's four times what they cost when they were new. I'm going to take
you to church and make you confess your terrible sin.'

They go to the church and the father makes the little boy sit in the confessional  booth and he closes the door.

The boy says, 'Dark in here'.

The priest says, 'Don't start that again you little sod,  you're in my cupboard now'.

Surgery Plans

Tomorrow is D-day. I'm headed into Mt Carmel hospital for some surgery. Fairly routine and the doctor I have is by all accounts one of the top in his field in the world so it should be simple. I'm due out at 6pm, although the last time I had the same procedure done I was kept in overnight. I'll be off work for a week.

Howth Cliff Walk

On Saturday morning I was feeling a bit daft, and actually agreed to go on the Howth Cliff Walk. Of course, the fact that there are 6 caches along the way was a major draw for me and 4 hours didn't sound too bad when the sun was shining outside.

We started with a quick virtual cache, of course it was never going to be quick in Ireland and took the best part of an hour thanks to a lack of entry points for the cemetary, but nonetheless we found Lynott's grave which looked like a rather large and old cache had thrown up on it, it was so covered with knick knacks.

From this point the cliff walk is best done backwards, so we went to the nearest Martello Tower to start - so far so good! Very quickly, however, I discovered just why it's called a cliff walk and by about 2/3 of the way around I was totally knackered. There were 6 caches in the series named after this walk and we managed to find 5 of them - the unfound one is naturally half way and only unfound because of the couple who looked like they had settled in for the weekend right on the cache location!

By the time the light started to fade I would have eaten a horse was very very happy to see the pub at the end. Some lovely views, some very sore limbs!

We headed home early, which is just as well as I was almost unable to walk and even Sunday morning I hurt all over! Today my back is still sore, but at least my legs have recovered, but no I'm not going to do that again in a hurry.