The Topic of Great Randomness

[Lazy Leopard]

At Bletchley Park near Milton Keynes there's the UK's National Museum of Computing. Bletchley Park was the place at which a great deal of code-cracking work was done during WWII, and that it's now a museum campus owes a great deal to the work of a few individuals, one of whom, Tony Sale, died today. The project for which he'll be best remembered is, likely, the re-building of Colossus, and he was actively demonstrating the re-built machine last year when I visited the museum. It's a fascinating legacy. If you're even slightly geeky, and ever in the UK anywhere near Milton Keynes, make sure to pay Bletchley Park a visit. It's one of the birthplaces of the computer age.

[Stellazira]

My summer has been pleasantly mild this July. I'm hoping it's the same for August too. Not a huge fan of the heat and sun. :P

[Lazy Leopard]

Summer's here... in theory.

I think we had this year's supply of hot dry weather back in May, but I guess there's still hope. Anyway, yesterday LiveJournal was having an off day, so I went and had a look at my reading list on DreamWidth rather than relying on the cross-posting and syndication that usually pulls my DW friends' entries into LJ. The top post was all about snow! It turned out to be a post by a friend who's just moved from Cambridge UK to Christchurch NZ.

Winter's there... definitely!

Sean, I hope you're soon at home in SF.

[Sean L.]

Just moved here, PSA: San Francisco is awesome.

That is all.

[Lazy Leopard]

It's been a strange year for rainfall here, too. We had a long spell in April and May when it hardly rained at all, but now it seems to be making up for it, after a fashion. Of course, rain that falls now has rather less chance of soaking in and being useful, but at least it saves on garden watering...

I just got back from a five day trip to the Lake District. Now there's a place you expect to get rained on. Our first couple of days, including the day we did the stiffest climb, were both hot dry sunny days. I wasn't really carrying enough fluid for the second day; another litre would have been good, even if I whould have had to carry it...

I suspect it's not possible to spend five days in the Lake District without getting at least a little rain, though. True to form we got a good soaking on one day, and on the morning of our last day we were wondering just how heavy a deluge we'd have to walk out in. We got lucky. The rain stopped before we'd gone half a mile.

[marina salem]

I stop looking in for months on end and miss the contest opportunity of a lifetime. Granted, I don't even have a Twitter, but I mighta gotten one just for the occasion. Oh well, life is hard. But there's a title now! And the blurb only heightens my anticipation, even though it won't be out for a while yet.

But hi Sean. Long time no see.

Speaking of anticipation, A Dance With Dragons comes out on the 12th I started reading ASoIaF when I found out HBO was making a series out of it and wolfed down every book. Lucky me, I didn't have a five year wait between A Feast for Crows and Dragons, except now I get to wait with everyone else. Game of Thrones started airing over Easter break and I got my sister hooked, so at least there's someone to commiserate with.

Any suggestions on what to read next? I'm craving fantasy right now, and have read LotR as well as GRRM, loving both. However, the sheer amount of possibilities is daunting, since being prolific doesn't always translate into being good...help!

I hope the city doesn't catch fire on Monday. I've been home seven weeks and it's only rained one-and-a-half times.

[96bookworms]

Sounds amazing! funny thing, but my dad was in Kenya earlier this year, and a student from our college that my dad knows is studying there. She actually flew down and visited us in Cape Town for a few days. Also coincidentally, she and I had the same name.......

[Lazy Leopard]

I too am just back from South of the Equator; I've been visiting my mother in Kenya. She'd been due to come and visit me, but broke her arm at the beginning of May and wasn't allowed to travel, so I went to visit her instead. She's getting better now. I spent most of the three weeks and a bit I was there being a rather expensive driver (if you count the air fare...).

The first Sunday I was there we helped with a game count in the Nairobi National Park. We didn't get to see any lions or rhino, but we did see a fair bit, and had a good day in the Park.

Then, having got my amateur radio licence back in February, I applied for a temporary licence to operate in Kenya, and spent an hour or three on the air most days. I'd only taken a low-power trasceiver (maximum output 5 watts) which made contacts a bit tricky, but I did get lucky one day, and made contact with a guy living in Guelph near Toronto, over 12250 kilometres away. He asked me to repeat my tranceiver's output power several times, because he just didn't believe it the first time.

All good fun (apart from my mother's broken arm)...

[96bookworms]

Back from South Africa =D It was really amazing, as expected, and I had lots of fun! Paris was wonderful too, but we were only there for 3 days...we got to see the highlights though! it was beautiful!

I was really shocked to come back here and find out all about the 10th book, too! that was something extremely unexpected...but good =D The rest of the summer is fairly uneventful for me...I am re-enrolling in school today (my mom had to pull me out when we left early for SA) and then I am also helping out with our local theater's production of Camp Rock the Musical...

And I second the feel that the ToGR might be fading a bit...i was gone for 6 weeks almost....and there were...5 posts. hopefully Games Wizards Play will jolt some life into the forums....

[Garrett Fitzgerald]

Apparently so. Scary.

In recent news, I've started playing clarinet with the Bangor Band, a local community band which was once conducted by R. B. Hall -- you probably won't recognize the name, but would likely recognize at least one of his marches, if you know band music at all. I still play with the Brewer Hometown Band, along with my wife and elder daughter Ael (clarinet and trombone, respectively). Erin plays trombone in school band, but she hasn't gotten the same kind of intensive experience Ael got at Brewer when she got started, so she won't be ready for Hometown Band for a while. When she is, though, I think that will be a new record -- there have been 3 family members at a time there before, but I don't think there have been 4. :-)

This summer, I was cast in UMaine's Summer Music Theatre Festival production of Mary Rinehardt's The Bat, but pulled out before the first rehearsal because of a schedule conflict with band I didn't want to miss. I also tried out for their production of Sweeney Todd, which I wasn't cast in, but am in the pit band for. Since we're doing it with only 9 musicians, I have to work hard to make sure there aren't lots of mistakes for the other 8 to not cover up very well. :-) Fortunately, I still have a month to practice before the first rehearsal.

I'm still working the same place I've been since April 2007 -- this is unfortunately a new record for me, but that's a good thing anyhow. :-)

[Sean L.]

ToGR, did you die?

[kk]

96bookworms: Sounds like a lot of fun! Looking forward to pictures!

Ardub: Ahhh, you lucky person! My grandparents paid for me to buy causeway tickets (back when it was set for the 29th), and my family and I couldn't stay to see it because of the reschedules. :/ We were so disappointed, even with live coverage online. The worst part was that my mom bought a shirt that says, "I was there," and she didn't get to be there. It's almost wonderfully awful.

But it's so wonderful that you got to see it, even with the reschedules! That must have been awesome!

Heh...Hi, all. I keep disappearing. I miss when the ToGR was used more. Ah, well.

I ordered Omnitopia Dawn, but it arrived with a torn dust jacket. :/ So, reordering. Hopefully good condition this time.

Oh, and my sister finally got me to watch Doctor Who! Well, the newer stuff. I've been watching the 1960s stuff, and it's wonderful, but she started me watching the 1st Series (Christopher Eccleston), and I'm quite addicted. I'm almost through the first DVD set. (Apparently the librarians are as hooked on it as I am, because I found out that they've bought the DVD sets pretty much as soon as they've come out. They already have the 5th Series set, and it usually takes months to add something to the catalog.

[Ardub]

I went to see Endeavour launch on Monday - that thing is impressive! Photos don't capture how dazzlingly bright it is even at 6 miles where the closest public viewing is. Comparing a picture to the real thing is like the difference between a birthday candle and a sparkler.

This shuttle was named in a contest for K-12 students in '88 or '89 and I was on my school's delegation (we were one of the "Endeavour" entries) so I inevitably feel a personal connection to this one, and it was great to see.

[Stellazira]

The Playstation Network is coming back online!

[Johnny]

Wow

Have fun! Sounds like a blast, and a lot of good times ahead. Hope you enjoy every moment! ^_^

I look forward to the pictures.