50+ and proud of it.

I would like to thank the pilot of the Mk something-or-other Spitfire that flew over my village on Saturday. My wife would not. We were enjoying a cup of tea on the patio when I heard something interesting flying over. I looked up to see her (ie the Spit, not my wife) banking around the village and disappear behind the roof tops. I leaped up and rushed to the end of the path, bumping into the patio table as I did so. I managed to get to a decent vantage point just to see her do a victory roll over the next village and then drone off over the Thames Estuary and towards Essex. Yeah! Thanks! I went back into the garden. "That was a later mark", I explained, "that didn't have the Merlin engine, else I'd have heard it earlier. That one had the later Griffon engine - they're quieter, so that makes it later than a Mark XII or later." "Sod that, now can you get me another cup of coffee please?"

I was helping 1 my 95 year old mother to fill out the online census form when we came across this question: "Have you ever worked?" The answer is of course "yes", Mom worked as a wages clerk and left for good in 1950. We entered 1950 - here's how the form reacted: ...and refused to allow me to submit the form. What do you do? Keep incrementing the year until it works? What's worse - inaccurate data or no data? What a cock-up. Who programmed this? Aren't people supposed to live this long? I ticked "No". 1 Ok, I was filling it out for her. She's 95 for goodness sake!

It's very difficult to describe the Grand Canyon without referring to the Hitch Hiker's Guide To The Galaxy's Total_Perspective_Vortex , so I won't. It is however, very big, very big indeed. Enormous. Huge. We flew out in a Dornier 228... ...met Chuck the Coach Driver and Mr Yamamoto, the Japanese translator (don't ask) and then simply marvelled at the jaw-dropping beauty of it all. The pictures simply don't do it justice... Oh alright then...

As well as the Grand Canyon, one of the highlights of my visit to Las Vegas was a trip to 2900, East Tropicana Avenue, Las Vegas, NV 89121 - otherwise known as "The Gun Store". Expensive, but well worth it IMO. Where else can us Brits get near anything remotely dangerous without going on a week's Health & Safety training course? All the instructors, employees and the cleaner were all "packing heat" and the safety briefing was quite simple: "Point it that way or you're dead." "Posed by model" I fired an AK47 (aka Avtomat Kalashnikova), an IMI Desert Eagle and a Magnum .44 (yes, à la Dirty Harry) I still have "nosseW dna htimS" bruised into my palms. "Not posed by mode l " Epilogue: WW also had a "go", firing the "Ladies Package", which consisted of an AK47 and a Glock. The instructors were brilliant and kindly dismantled the safe end of the range so she could fire in safety whilst sitting in he...

My first grandchild - a boy - was born last night 1st March 2011 at 21:05, weighing in at 8lb 13oz. You can Google for that in mectrickery if you want, I'm old school. Mother and son are just fine. I haven't seem him yet, but my wife went to the hospital very soon after he was born. "He's absolutely gorgeous" she said, "he's got a lovely round face and big hands and feet!" "So, we have a Hobbit as a grandson then?" I slept downstairs.

Whilst in Vegas, the four of us went to the "Cafe Bellagio" for afternoon tea and got slightly nosed-up because we weren't wearing dinner jackets and bow ties, but they begrudgingly let us have a table anyway. On the grounds that cocktails were only slightly more expensive at $12 than a coffee or lemonade, we decide to have one each and share a "Strawberry Cheesecake" between each couple. I think it was because of this that they gave us their *special* version. This consisted of cheesecake, ice cream and something on top they referred to as "spun sugar". This is, in fact, is barbed-wire. When eaten, this jabs with needle-point precision, any available gum, tongue or throat with the same reckless abandon as a manic dentist on speed. The bill came to $72 for four drinks and two razor-wire desserts. We left an $8 tip in case they gunned us down on the way out. Just out of earshot on the mall outside my friend remarked "F*** me, we just paid $80 for S...

My wife and a couple of lovely friends (WW and Hubby) went to Las Vegas the other week ostensibly to cheer on WW in her attempt to win an archery competition that was being run in the conference rooms 1 of our hotel. In reality, it was just an excuse for us all to get away for a week. TBH I was a little underwhelmed by it all as my wife had *seriously* hyped it all up in the weeks prior to us leaving, so when I got there I just went "Yup, this is what I expect". What I hadn't expected though was the distance between the Hotel Lobby and our room was in fact a short bus journey away through the Casino, down the "mall", past the (15th) buffet, round by the Wedding Chapel, up the express lift and onto the 19th floor - and we were in one of the smallest-sized hotels on The Strip at 2,286 rooms. I now know why they have Coke & Ice machines on each floor - if not, by the time you get to the bar for a drink and go back to your room, you're ready for another. I...

Since coming back from Las Vegas last week (more on this later) I noticed that my Internet speed was very slow, stupidly slow in fact - speedtest.net reckoned it was about 0.1Mbps download! I phoned BT Broadband Technical no-Support, presumably in India, there were a few clues to this. "Hello, my broadband is very slow." "Who are you, what is you phone number, what is you first line of address, have you tried resetting it, I will test line, line is OK, it's 8Mbps, have you tried our BT speed test?" "Yes, I've tried all that" "Oh OK, thank you for calling BT." *click* I read something about the exchange throttling and then resetting after 3 days. I waited 3 days and during that time I just about managed to watch a BT video on YouTube about wiring and the like. I tried again, and rang them back and got the same stupid-reading-it-off-the-crib-sheets reply. I tried everything - swapping ADSL filters, PC's and even got the same speed whe...

There are times when you just feel like running around the house naked shouting "yes, YES!" 1 . Last night was such a time. Now, I was on my own and I didn't get naked however, but I did run around shouting "yes, oh yes!" 2 . You see my Mom never knew her grandparents because (according to family legend) they died when her mother was only 3 years old, and consequently her Mom never knew them either. So sadly the family tree has looked like this for some considerable time now: Searching for gran's name has only ever turned up the one census record after she was living with her uncle (noted as "niece") and logically, as she was born in 1882 then there would be no census records for 1881 (not born yet) and 1891 (both parents already dead). I did some lateral thinking and (eventually) came up with searching for anyone in Wolverhampton born in 1882 whose name began "A* L*" and there, at the top of the list, was gran - but both her first AND ...

Far too late in the day (so to speak) I've been tracing my family history. And, I've been doing really well - simply because my Mom is still around at 95 with a razor sharp memory for anything prior to rationing finishing (which, spookily enough, was nine months before I was born). She can remember her grandparents and consequently remembers the stories they told to her about their grandparents - which I think takes us back to about Henry VIII. Having researched the BMD Indexes and Censuses and found a few anomalies there were a few things that needed clearing up. We went to visit last weekend. "Hello Mom, can you tell us about your uncles and aunts?" "Yes, Uncle Harry was Mayor Of Wolverhampton and Uncle Frank's son, Norman was Mayor too at some point." "Wow, that real interesting, were you proud of them?" "Nope, bloody Labourites all of 'em, not like my friend Enoch 1 , he was lovely he was, he came to visit here once you know......

This happened to my work colleague yesterday. He took the department's pool car into Kwik Fit (the tyre & MOT people) to get the tyre pressures looked at as the dashboard was complaining that one of them was low. The fitter drove the car into the bay whilst my friend waited in the waiting room next door. A few moments later, his iPhone rang. It was his girlfriend. "Where are you?" "In Kwik Fit, why?" "Are you alone?" "Yes, there's no one in the waiting room, why?" "Great! I thought we could have phone-sex..." Yeah, brilliant, he thought. "Go on you start." There was a slight pause and he could hear his girlfriend talking, erm, softly, but with the background noise from the fitting shop, he was unable to make it out clearly. After a longish period of barely audible whispering and then silence he assumed that her signal had gone. The fitter walked into the waiting room. "I just thought you'd like to know tha...

Over the course of the winter we, like most other people, had very cold weather. Also, as a result of the previous heron debacle, I'd fashioned a crude temporary wire mesh cover for the pond. I also know for a fact that if you leave on the "water feature" (aka cheap filter from Argos) then the pond surface does not freeze, thereby not suffocating the fish below - which I no longer have. When I fitted (i.e. threw on top) the mesh I took one last look and saw no fish, not one. "Have you counted them?", "Yes, twice". I retired hurt, working out if the penalties for budgiecide was applicable to herons and resigned to restarting the pond in the spring. About a week later I heard an odd noise from the pond. The water flowing from the fountain was landing on the mesh and promptly freezing - forming a spectacular ice carving all the way to the pond edge and the excess running off into the garden. The result being that the pond had nearly emptied and the filte...

I've had a small fish pond in the garden for about three years now and have never had to cover it with netting to stop the herons, which, incidentally, have never been seen in our area. Last week however, my neighbour informed me that he had "frightened off a heron which was sitting on the garage roof." Sadly it looks like the heron had snuck in a day or two earlier and had a sumptuous meal of four goldfish with a tench for afters. If catch that heron, I'll hold its beak under water until it's had enough...

I had a phone call yesterday from the Care Worker for my Mom. "Hello, your Mom will be home next week. We'll put the care package back in place and we'll let the neighbours know." "So, I don't have to do a thing?" "No, bye" *click* Thank you, Wolverhampton Social Services.

I went to visit Mom in the rehabilitation hospital this Sunday to find her in good health, though a little down. "Hiya, how are you?" Before she could reply, my wife came back with - "Where are your teeth!" "In this pot here that they gave me. They're ever so nice here, especially the little nurse who...." "No, listen, why haven't you got them in?" "I have, I never take them out" "No, that's your top set" "Yes, that's right. I got them from Dr Shaw down the Tettenhall Road..." "...in 1950, yes, I know" I went to see the Ward Sister. (I've left out the guilt-trip conversation she had with me about living 200 miles away for the sake of brevity.) "She broke them Friday afternoon so we've emailed the NHS Dentist to see when they can come out and take a look. She's a little down because of it." "I'll see if I can contact the dentist I spoke to last time, they seemed...

FreeCell Game #11982 is the Holy Grail of FreeCellers. It is unwinable. Oh no it isn't: And no, this isn't PhotoShopped.

Today is my daughter's 21st and my son's 18 th birthday party. Earlier this week my wife promised to take the daughter to a "salon" in town for a small make-over as part of her present. The conversation went along the lines of: "How about taking you to town for a facial and get your nails down at the same time?" "Oh lovely! Thanks Mom! I've never had a facial before." My son drew breath, paused and said, "On the grounds that Dad's not here, I'll say the obvious!" Yes, I know, it's too late. PS. Try "Googling" in images for "facial makeover cucumber". It took a while to get this one.

Following on from the teeth saga of the weekend, I rang up the "Teeth PCT 1 " today to keep them up-to-date with the state of play. "Hello, let me explain about my Mom and how's she's found her bottom set of teeth." "Err, yes?" "Can you still come out to check her out please?" "Yes, of course, we'll come out to check that they really are her own bottom set and we can then..." "...what?" "Oh yes, happens all the time..." (weakly) "what?" "...also, I think that you get her name engraved on them so we know for next time." "Right, so, let me get this straight. There are 4,000 old people in Wolverhampton and 3,990 sets of bottom teeth and they rotate between them when they come into hospital?" "Yes" "So. You're suggesting that I engrave Mom's name on her teeth so they don't get lost?" "Yes" "Isn't this the NHS equivalent of dog t...

Yesterday (Saturday) should have gone like this: "Hello Mom, how are you feeling after your second fall in a week? Are they treating you alright in hospital?" "Yes thanks love, thanks for coming up. How was your 180 mile journey up to see me?" "Very good thanks, OK, take care, see you soon. Bye". What actually happened: Last Friday Mom fell over (for the first time) and they took her into hospital for a check up. Whilst there, she was, um, unwell and her bottom set of teeth fell into the bowl and was promptly discarded into the hospital waste unit. The following conversation occurred with Dept "A" of the PCT 1 : "Oh, it's our fault, we'll pay for them." "So, you'll organise for them to be replaced then?" "No, that's up to you, we'll only pay for them." "But she's really distressed that she can't eat properly, I need something sorted" "Sorry, you need to sort it out." ...

Since this has taken me four days to solve this one and, with almost no help from Google, I thought I'd log it here in case anyone else has this most bizarre problem. Scenario: You retrospectively install Reporting Services to an existing installation of SQL Server 2008. You try to configure it using "Reporting Services Configuration Manager" and as soon as you click "Find" you get "Invalid Class" 1 and no other information. These two links gave me the clue, they're essentially both the same. What they say is to run WBEMTEST 3 and connect to the Reporting Services WMI thingy. Then run the query, " SELECT * FROM __NAMESPACE ". When I did this I got: Note: TWO entries. The second one was a test database I had installed months ago and had removed at some point when I worked out that using the default instance of MSSQLSERVER was more convenient - but the registry(?) entries were still hanging around. I selected it by clicking o...