Fun weekend

Well, it’s been a busy weekend so far – but all good.

Yesterday morning I went for my normal run.  I have cut it to 3.5KM per day for the weekend as my knees are playing up (I could barely walk on Thursday – before I fell down the stairs in my heels ;p).  I think the problem is with my running shoes.  They are a few years old, and have had quite some use; and I think that the heels have just worn out and collapsed internally – meaning I have no support or cushioning.  So on Friday I brought new shoes.  Interesting experience.  As I can’t buy men’s shoes in my size I always have to go for women’s shoes.  The guy in the first shop was great.  He went looking for the size I needed, came back saying they didn’t have it.  Then he very nervously asked if they were for me or someone else.  Me I said.  Oh, in that case we have lots of other women’s running shoes if you’d care to pick something else.  I declined (I like Asics for running – they are comfortable and give good support) – but I thought that he handled it very well.  In the second shop it was less good.  The guy did his job well enough – but there was something in his attitude that said here is a bloke buying women’s shoes.  I think that they had a laugh about it when I left. Hoh hum.  The shoes themselves are great though.  No issues when I got back yesterday, and going for a run with Mrs Stace later today.

Then I had to go into town to get the car that I am building for my niece fixed.  I brought the bits I needed a couple of weeks ago, and I thought they didn’t fit.  A quick trip back to the model store with the car, transmitter and receiver and the guy showed me that I was being stupid :)  There has been a change in technology since I first brought the car 14 years ago and I just wasn’t up to date.

The plus side is that I now have a working chassis.  I had forgotten how much fun it was to play with.  I hope that she likes it and that it’s not too much for someone her age…  It’s a little quick, and she is going to have to practice with it to be able to control it well – mind you it’s going to be great for hand eye coordination!  Now we just have to pant the shell before her birthday.  We brought a convertible shell, are going to paint it metallic lilac, and we are going to paint a Hello Kitty on the bonnet and boot lid as she loves that.  It’s going to be quite a family collaboration to get it done.  I am going to spray the shell, and have built the chassis.  Mrs Stace is going to stencil the Hello Kitty on the shell.  My sister in law is going to fine line the Hello Kitty as she has a very steady hand, and then Mrs Stace is going to fill it in afterwards.  I can’t wait to see the finished result.

Then it was time to do some baking.  We ordered ‘The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook’ from Amazon and it arrived on Friday.  Hehe.  The recipes look amazing, mind you for the two of us there is possibly too much – I see my team getting lots of treats in the near future as I try more recipes.  Yesterday I tried the recipe for New York Cheesecake.  It’s in the fridge looking lovely at the moment – but as it had to chill overnight I can’t say what it tastes like just yet.  That comes this afternoon.  Yum.

Finally… Having played with the new speakers for a week I have found some unexpected work.  Our set up has been an iPod for background music, and the Blu-ray for playing CD’s when we really wanted to listen to something.  There has always been a clear difference between the two, but it was always good enough.

The new speakers / amplifier have spoilt us somewhat.  It’s not that the iPod sounds worse per say.  It’s that the new set-up show’s up all of the missing signal that the iPods poor circuitry, and the MP3’s poor encoding introduces.  It sounded hollow compared to listening to CD’s – and was not pleasant anymore – even for background listening.  When you know what it can sound like, it’s disappointing to have the iPod on.

So…  I have spent yesterday afternoon sorting the CD’s back into alphabetical order (something we do every couple of years as they get mixed up) and now I am busy encoding my whole collection again; for the fourth time (hopefully the last time!).  First time was encoded for MiniDisc using Sony Sonic Stage; second time was as 196kbps MP3, then 320kbps.  Now I am using FLAC – that is about half the size of a CD (three times bigger than the 320 MP3) but crucially is a lossless encoding (it sounds as good as a CD, and contains all the information of a CD – so I can convert the FLAC to any other format I need in the future).  After spending 6 hours doing it yesterday I managed to complete ‘A’.  25 albums.  That’s about 10% of the collection.  I think it’s going to take a while before the rest are complete (I’m 4 albums into ‘B’ at the moment from the 40 that we have).  I think I may need to buy more storage as well :)

A weekend away (sorry long post!)

This weekend Mrs Stace and I took a trip to the UK.  I had some shopping to do, and as my parents were going down to see family as well I thought it would be nice to try plan my trip coincide so that we could have a family get together.

The trip started interestingly – we got 20 KM’s from home and had to turn around as we had forgotten the car documents.  If we had have been staying in The Netherlands I would have risked the fine of not having them on me.  But with three countries to drive in I thought that I had better get them…

We reached the Euro Tunnel and things started to get boring…  The journey from the French border control to the UK border control (200m or so) took 40-50 minutes…  We wondered if the UK border control agents are completely ashamed working so closely to the French agents who are courteous, pleasant and speedy – as opposed to the UK agents who are slow, grumpy jobsworths.  We were in a Dutch car, with me sitting on the wrong side.  Passed them a Dutch passport for Mrs Stace and a UK passport for me; the first question was ‘Why are you going to the UK?’ This was followed by ‘Oh, I see UK passport you are just going home, where have you been?’  Going home?  In a Dutch car?  ‘No I live in the NL, we are going to the UK to visit family.’  Why you can’t just say ‘I have a UK passport so I am allowed to go there’ I am not sure…

By the time we got to where we were going it was very late and we were exhausted.

The next day we went speaker shopping.  Mrs Stace, my mum and her sister went shopping and my father and I went to demo the speakers I was thinking of buying (expect a review soon).  An hour of listening to all types of music (a nice mix of rock, classical, trance, pop and vocals) and we brought them (along with an extra amp to power the low frequency drivers) – sorry I go into geek mode with the stereo system :)

After meeting up with Mrs Stace and the rest for lunch we went to pick up the speakers.  We piled into the shop and they brought them up from the basement.  Mrs Stace went into shock at the size of the box that came up.  Then I went into shock when I saw that it said 1pc on the side – I started to panic; I may drive a Volvo estate, but it’s only a little V50!  We managed to get the boxes to the car (using a trolley from the shop – at 33kg per box we couldn’t carry them!)  Thankfully with the seats folded down they *just* fit into the car (maybe 10cm to the side and enough room at the ends to fit the box for the amp and our little suitcase.  Phew…

That evening we had a family get together, at my aunt’s house with nearly all the family there (including my cousin who I have not seen in a few years).  It was a great night, a real laugh – going down memory lane and talking about old family holidays.  There were only two spoilers for the evening.  Mrs Stace and I were still shattered from the travelling – it seems that getting up at 4:30 (UK time) driving 60 miles to work and back, doing 4 hours (and forgetting to drink due to trying to get everything in the office completed) and then driving for 9 hours to get to Leicester is not a good idea...

The other was something that I have not had to deal with for some time now…  These days I get warned by my friend who works with me that I let my mannerisms come through too often.  I relax too much and have basically stopped caring about the rumours. Sitting in my aunts living room with everyone there that all came back to me and I spent the night trying to figure out how I should be sitting, talking, what to comment on - what not to comment on.  It was like being back at my parents’ house before telling them last year.  It didn’t spoil the night, but it was exhausting –  and when already shattered it didn’t help.  We left early so that I could drive back to my other aunts safely and slept as soon as my head hit the pillow.

The next morning I woke up with a hangover.  Slightly unfair I thought seeing as I hadn’t drunk for days!  A leftover from the exhaustion and dehydration I think.  A couple cups of tea, and we left for a day’s shopping.

I had arranged to meet up with Lisa this trip, so dropping Mrs Stace off at Waterstones, and after picking up a packet of paracetamol I walked to the Clock Tower of the city I grew up in to meet someone for the first time in about 20 years – when I was young teenager that was always the meeting point…

I met Lisa and her daughters and we went for a drink and chat at Costa (where when they say large cappuccino they mean *large* - I drink large cups of coffee at home, but nothing compared to that!).  We must have spent an hour or so nattering – I hope that it was not too boring for her daughters – and then went to buy a couple of scrap books.   It was great to finally meet up – just a shame that it was on such a rushed weekend!  Hopefully we’ll have a chance to meet up again the next time we are in town.

I met Mrs Stace at Waterstones – with a nice selection of books to add to our collection – we went to pay (picking up along the way a Mouse and Gruffalo soft toys to put on top of the new speakers).  A healthy jacket spud later and we went clothes shopping.  Mrs Stace introduced me to a new brand (well new for me…).  Zara – she likes their clothes and I spotted a nice lilac canvas skirt that I will order online here soon.

A meal with my aunt, her husband and my cousin and his girlfriend (who I haven’t seen for a couple of years) and again a night of chatting, catching up and talking about life the universe and everything.  It got quite late and as we had a lot of driving to do the next day I dropped a hint of how tired I was (felt awful for doing that, but we really needed to be rested before leaving).

The next morning we had a nice cooked breakfast (thanks to my aunt) loaded the car (best bit of 3D puzzling I have done in a long time to get everything in).  The border crossing this time was easy – the French border control saw that we had passports and that was enough (why are the UK agents so useless?).

After we got home we just ate some soup (neither of us wanted anything substantial) and chilled (well I unpacked the speakers, I couldn’t wait :P).  Today has been setting up the stereo, tidying the cables and chilling.  Back to work tomorrow!

Busy times…

What a week!  Seems to be the story of 2011 (at least the story so far!).  We have a project coming up for release and it’s entering the stressful period.  Give it a week and it should be fine – but for now it’s slightly less than great fun.  It has been a nice project though, and I am going to be proud of it when it goes to production.

Monday I was sick – I don’t know what it was, I got to Hilversum and suddenly I felt really nauseous.  I struggle through the morning, but after a stand-up meeting for a project where everyone else in the project group told me how bad I looked I decided it was time to call it a day and went home.  90 minutes on trains, busses and then a 2km walk wasn’t exactly what the doctor ordered and when I got in I just collapsed on the sofa and slept for most of the day.

It was a 24 hour thing though, as on Tuesday I was back at work, just very, very tired.  Wednesday I had to stay late for the something that went wrong on the project (my fault, I was supposed to copy data from production before changing data structures, it seems I forgot and had to spend 2 hours matching the old production data, with the newly entered data to make sure that the business didn’t have to spend a second day setting everything up… It was difficult, but I was actually enjoying the challenge of making a SQL statement that would do the work for me (I may be a project manager / team lead – but I’m still a geek :p) and learnt something new in the process that will save time in the future.

Thursday I was evil (as I said yesterday – I have not heard if the guy is walking without saying ‘ow’ a lot yet).

Today (I started writing this late last night…) was just non stop.

The car needed servicing.  I don’t trust garages, there is one that I just about trust so I always use it even though it's 90 miles away (I’m also the only English customer so I am always remembered and get good service – or so I thought).  It was a cheap service (you have cheap, normal and expensive services for AWD Volvos – but it’s all relative…) but I knew that the rear brakes were ready for replacement – they are 168000KM’s old.

Or so I thought.  It was the front.  And as it’s a turbo they are special brakes and I prepared for a stupid price.  It actually came back *very* cheap (10 euros more than someone on my team just paid for front brakes on a Fiat Punto!).  Oh, but the rear pads were also shot (oddly enough not the discs – another 168000KM left on those!).  Oh, and as they played with the front and rear brakes the fluid was changed at the same time.

And the alarm needing re-certifying (now a yearly occurrence) in order to keep the theft insurance valid (just because it’s an AWD the insurance classes it the same as a Chelsea Tractor re theft protection, the FWD version doesn’t need it even though it’s faster and more likely a target for the joy rider!)

All in 800GBP (less than I was expecting with the extra bits, more than I wanted to pay).  But, it took 4 hours to do all of the work.  And I had lots to do today so it put me way behind. 

I drove back and rushed the weekly shopping (thank goodness for smart phones that Mrs Stace could send the list to!) in a store I was not used to, so I was walking back and forward for longer than I wanted.

Got home, rushed lunch – which was a shame ‘cause I had treated myself to some really nice cobs that I rushed too much to really enjoy.  I was now 20 mins behind schedule and had to be out of the house in 40 minutes for therapy.  Normally that would be a rush, but since my first laser appointment I have started to wet shave as the results are far better.  So, a bit more than a rush…

Shaved, dressed (first time for a new outfit – I was over the moon with it; for one thing it fitted, which is an improvement on a couple of weeks ago)  and started on my face.  I have switched foundation this week – a local stored had a special offer on L’oreal so I decided to try the roll on foundation.  It’s wonderful stuff!  It gives a much nicer coverage than doing it by hand, and you don’t get foundation under your finger nails.

I actually managed to get ready in time (how I don’t know) looking better than normal because of doing things wrong (no time to do my hair using the brush normally, so I tried just using my hands – that didn’t work, but a quick attack with a brush afterwards looked better than normal and took half the time.  I have to practice that I think to make sure it wasn’t a fluke…)

Go to Amsterdam with no traffic issues for a change, and found somewhere quite easy to park.  And for once didn’t freeze getting the parking ticket or walking to the therapist’s office.  I got myself a winter coat.  Love the look and it’s *so* warm.  My only issue is that it’s slightly longer than my skirts.  Now this is not unusual in Holland (see it all the time at the train station – but Mrs Stace thinks that it looks a little like I forgot an item of clothing…)

The session was quite heavy this week – with a subject that I was really not comfortable talking about.  I’m glad that we did – it was what I wanted to talk about before I arrived (though he brought the subject up in the session), but it was difficult none the less.

Something light to end on…  I have gadget shopping trip coming up and have been trading mails with my ex-boss all week.  He is a Hi-Fi nut, valve CD players etc – and so I wanted his advice on how to set up my system when I get my next toys.  Got the advice I needed to get the preparations sorted (basically KISS) and found what I would like from Mrs Stace for my birthday - a FLAC server so I don't have to switch CD's all the time to get good quality music (and much cheaper than the presents of the last couple of years).  He also showed me he home network setup, and as a geek I have to say it’s very nice.  Something to think about if we build an extension to the house (as we are thinking about).

Chlling with music

Last year, not long after starting this blog in fact, I treated myself to a nice new amplifier. Whilst no music buff I like good sounding music and having completed my lens collection for my camera wanted something to collect for the next few years.

I settled on a Cyrus system - small, reasonably good looking and good quality. And the added bonus that the style of boxes has not changed in recent years, and that you can build and expand the system over the years without losing any of your investment. Hopefully.

I was over the moon when the I got it home (brought it from Leicester HiFi as they have always done me right over the years and seem to know their stuff). Even Mrs Stace who doesn't overly care providing it produces sound commented that it sounded nice once it was running.

Until December when it started make a whole platter of not nice noises and no noise at all. It went back to the UK and after being software upgraded and tested was returned. It is much better now, so far. Touch wood.

So yesterday evening I spent 30 mins plugging everthing back in and making sure that every input produced the desired sound.

To test the BluRay I sat in the floor picking my way through ald and new CD's, listening to a few songs whilst searching for the next and repeating.

I had totally forgotten just how much I love doing that. I've got so used to just plugging the iPod into the aux input and leaving it on shuffle that I didn't even realise how much I missed the whole searching for songs, picking a CD, listening and swapping it out for another. Takes me back to when I was growing up and I would do it with vinyl on my dad's stereo. Loved it, and have to make sure that I do it more often!

Stace

Sennheiser RS 160 Headphones (time for something more fun)

As I work for an internet insurance broker I get cheap car insurance, but I have to wait until the end of the year when I get a refund. This came through in January so I decided to treat myself and Mrs Stace to some nice headphones for in home.

I use Sennheiser ear buds for use with my iPhone and I am really impressed with them, so I started my search there. On the register I saw a review for some new wireless 'phones.

Now, over the years I have always been a little nervous about wireless headphones after using a friends pair and hearing the hissover the music - totally spoint the effect. But the review said they were great, and I liked the technology they used - 44KHz 16bit (ala CD quality) non compressed. So I thought I'd give them a try.

I should have been able to write this last week (they arrived Tuesday) but as I always have things delivered to the office as I am never home during the day I had to wait until I went back after my recent bout of tonsilitis.

Got there today, ripped open the packaging and hoped the rechargable batteries for the receiver had enough charge in them. They did! So I plugged in my iPhone and started playing my latest album - Muse / Origin of Symmetry. I didn't know how much time I was going to get on the batteries so I flicked through my favorite tracks (Bliss, Plug in Baby and Feeling Good).

The sound is stunning, everything you would expect for tripple figure Sennheiser headphones. The bass is rich, the treble is crisp. There is no tinnyness in the top end, and no distortion in the base, even at the volume Muse demands. On top of that my colleague sitting at the next desk heard nothing, neither did I when they tried the set.

And the tramission quality? Flawless. Nearly. There were a couple of times when it sounded like a CD skipping. Whether that was from the iPhone (it does it from time to time) or the headphones I don't know. I'm charging the batteries for the receiver now and then I'll try again on a nice classical CD and see. When paused they are silent, when not paused it's as good as any wired set I have tried.

Set up was simple. Plug the base unit into the power and sound source, put the batteries into the head set and press play in the iPhone. No set up to pair the phones to the base station. I'm almost sure that my parents could cope with it :)

The batteries lasted the whole day in the end, 8 hours of listening almost - on batteries that came out of the packaging. With no pain or discomfort on my ears either.

I'll post an update when I've had them a couple of months - but initial impressions are very positive.

Update: Half way through my second CD now with fresh batteries and it hasn't missed a beat, so I am guessing that it was the iPhone that was struggling not the headphones.

Wednesday Morning 3am

Well Saturday morning 7am... But still too early to be up and doing stuff.

To begin with appologies for the Americanism that's about to follow but I cant think of an appropriate English phrase :)

It's been a hell of a week

In the office it was a little sombre as you can imagine - slowly getting back to normal towards the end. There was a rememberance book for those who wanted to sign, but in the beginning it was on his desk - and I just can't do emotions publically.

It was moved after the first day to a private room, and on Wednesday when I got to the office I went and left my message. I welled up as I wrote it, just a simple couple of lines.

On the personal issues front things have changed a lot in the last couple of weeks. The epiphany from a couple of weeks ago came from reading Calies profile. Trans, non-transitioning, happily married.

After 30 years of knwoing, but not quite totally accepting myself this just jumped at me. And caused some more sleepless nights.

My issue now is that my better half knows about my dressing, and I think has an idea that it goes further. But I haven't told her everything. I'm ashamed of the last, but got scared. I really want to tell her everything - and I think that I have to for the sake of my head - but the thought of doing it terrifies me. When we first talked of the dressing she said it could never go further as she does not want a relationship with a woman. Whether she means transitioned or not I don't know.

I would not transition - I have too much invested in my life to do that, but I do not know what she would make of full disclosure... Sorry I'm starting to ramble here.

I did however come out to a friend. In totalness. More sleepless nights. But he has been fantastic - I'm not the first person he knows who is trans, and he actually acted exactly the same as I did when a uni friend came out to me. As in not making a big deal about it. I've been wanting to say it for a while - but finally plucked up the courage.

He's gay and when we go drinking it's normally in his local - a gay bar - where they have a screen with pictures of parties on the wall. A few of the people who go to the bar parties are also drag queens - I joked that maybe they should learn how to wear a dress (rather too much on display... - not *that* much but too much - but I digress). I had decided that I was going to do it and asked him to walk to the station with me.

On the way I told him I had something I needed to say - to which he responded that he had a feeling I had something to say for a while.

I went on to say I pointed out the guys who needed to learn how to wear a dress was... Because I knew how to wear one.

'Oh is that all'

'No... not really'

'Oh no, poor you'

He said that he was honoured that I trusted him enough to tell him, and let me know that it was safe with him and any time I needed someone to talk to he was there. Oddly enough he' had head issues himself recently and I said exactly the same thing to him.

Unfortunately at that point my train turned up and I had to leg it. I got a couple of supportive SMS's from him on the way home. Which I had to delete as we both share the phones at night if we need to send / receive an SMS and I'm not ready to tell her that I've come out to someone else yet.

We've spoken since. I said I was surprised that nobody had questioned anything. I've noticed reently that my mannerisms have changed a little. Plus I shave my arms and hands weekly and have an emeryboard on my desk, and I now have slightly long nails that are shaped a little... He just said he had an idea of something - but not how much.

I'm still in two minds about whether it was a good idea. It feels great to have offloaded it after 30 years, a weight has been lifted. It's nice to be able to talk about it. But someone now knows my secret, and I I always have this nagging doubt that talking about things is self obsessed - when I do it - I'll happily listen to others as much as they need, just feel that I am encroaching on others when I do it. (and with that an appology for long self obsessed post...)

Anyway - I hope this post doesn't read too negative. I actuallly see this week as a positive week. Apart from the lack of sleep due to a brain that is working overtime, I feel all the better for it.

And on a techy last note I have to recomend a remote from logitech. The Harmony 525. We got one last night , spent a long time programming it for all the tasks that we have (Watch TV, Watch a BluRay, Listen to the radio etc etc etc). It works great. You point it at the tv system and it does everything for you in one click of a button. As opposed to many clicks of many remotes that we had previously. Well worth the money, and it's great to have one remote instead of 7. Looks kind of classy too as opposed to some of the other universal remotes you can get.

Appologies again for the super long post. Once I started typing I found it hard to stop...

BTW: If any of you haven't already - I recommend this on Bree's blog. I thought it was a very interesting piece.

(Lyrics: Simon and Garfunkle)

Been a while...

Well after a long break I'm finally back jn the country and having spent just two weeks in the office I really need another one...

Going back to my post of a few weeks ago... I decided to treat myself to the new AV system. I have to say I'm pleased I did. Whilst speaking to guys in the shop we discussed what I wanted from the system and what it was capable of. Basically, I wanted a system that would give good surround sound, but that would not be an ugly splot in the living room (as most of them are IMO). Also, I wanted something that would sound great playing music - this was the main priority. With all this in mind a Cyrus AV master is the perfect solution. There are more 'complete' units that decode more formats, but are massive, do not fit into most living rooms, and unless you spend stupid amounts of money just do not sound as nice.

The dress on the other hand... Gone... Never to be unfortunately. There is a cheaper one in the shop next door - but I think that I have spent out for now.

My mind is still in a complete spin - both from my state of mind prior to the vacation and other factors. I'm writing this with on average 4 hours sleep for the last 9 days. The amount of sleep I am getting is improving, but not quick enough - if it doesn't improve soon I think a trip to the quack may be in order. I can't help feeling that speaking to a head shrink would also be a good idea - but can't bring myself to do it... Maybe one day...

The pain of shopping

Over the last few weeks I've really been in a spending mood - but haven't managed to quite think what should be the focus of it yet...

There's a number of gadgets that have caught my attention - camcorders and a new AV center mainly. But when I stopped tho think about it just how much would I use a camcorder? And what would I do with what I record anyway. For photo's I generally just use them out of the camera - I'm not one for sitting for hours in photoshop to clean up images, and video takes much longer than a still. And for the new AV - just how much do I need it? I hav a nice system that does what I want. Yes the new one would be better, but how good can you have without needing a special room to get the best out of it?

Then there's clothes. There is a local shop that has a dress to die for. On sale so it's affordable, it's classy and sexy at the same time. Wonderful, I love walking past the shop just to check it's still there. So why don't I buy it? As with the gadgets - when would I use it? I don't go out so I just can't justify the cost. It would end up living in the wardrobe being taken out once a month just to check it still fits.

And of course after weeks of tearing myself apart trying to justify spending the cash what happens? Either the sale has ended making both clothes and gadgets too expensive, or they've been sold and you end up with nothing...

One of these days I'll actally be able to work out my own head...