0-60 still beats Clarkson

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Following on from the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain doing Kate Bush we have Metallica on cellos

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Yup, $500 ethernet cable.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

As seen in Soho

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

so, the old joke discussion of hifi-nuts comes round again. a quick google later I find myself so far boggled I still don’t know how to cope.

Possibly the ultimate mains fuse. Rhodium plated pure silver conductors, which are both demagnetised and cryogenically treated. Only available in 13A size. £39.95 each.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

How hungry are you ?

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Spent a day this week with friends photographing leopards in a private reserve in North Herts. Organised through Photographers on Safari four of us had the place to ourselves to photograph to our heart’s content. Our guide, John Wright, gave us hints and tips all day, luring the cats into photographically convenient paths to let us capture what we could. With occasional breaks where we reviewed the previous shots and took further advice it was a wonderful day and a rare chance to get really close rather than have to deal with the enhanced safety measures at a public park.

Despite coming away with many hundreds of shots very few are really worth keeping except as an object lesson to myself in how I get things wrong. That said, some of them are really nice, a few can be found by clicking on the pic of Sadé the snow leopard below.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

A new arrival in the land of the thugs. Following the demise of Conan 3 weeks ago friends remaining cat, Ghengis, has been alone and howling. Well, the howling has stopped; to be replaced by the angry hissing of the newest occupant, Freddie Kruger.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Sneak preview shots of that oh so desirable object, the keyboard-ed iphone.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

but what do I do for tomorrow’s bottles ?

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

#something.continuing…..

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

just a little more power, if you would, please.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

If somebody asks if  you’re a god, you say ‘YES’

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Over a week late, but a final update.

Saturday morning, following the essential coffee I mentioned in the last update, was spent trying to get the used to framing photos whilst looking up. Since I knew the day was going to be spent on my feet I dawdled around Bryant Sq. until the New Balance shoe shop opened so I could get a pair of the sort they sell to postal workers and other foot-bound workers. Then a little bit of wondering how you frame a building that doesn’t have consistent straight sides like .

Lunchtime and it’s all the way downtown to meet up with Simon & Christophe. After a gumbo lunch on the waterfront it’s an afternoon spent wandering and photographing, with stops in the obvious photo-shops to see if there’s anything to tempt one into debt. Slowly but surely heading back northwards to the allure of the Apple store on 5th Avenue. Christophe took his leave of us at this point and then Simon & I wombled off in search of food. The main problem being I was staying close to Times Square so everything is pure tourist. So, after dropping my accumulated goodies from the day at the hotel we headed up-town to Simon’s neck of the woods to the Heights Bar & Grill for a bite, drink and natter.

Sunday, and gentle amble around until lunch, pausing to note the Free Tibet demonstration in Bryant Sq. Then after a suitably chunky burger for lunch it’s time for the tourist trip and an open-top bus ride of Uptown.  As much as anything this was a test of the dual camera approach, switching depending on which lens was needed. The necks straps definitely get in the way but I’d like to avoid an ‘oops’ moment so maybe some sort of wrist-strap and clip might be an idea. As usual, a selection of the captures are available in the gallery  Items of note, we were brought to a stop for 15 minutes whilst in Harlem due to one of the lightning protests following the verdict in the case against the officers who shot Sean Bell.

As for Monday, not a lot to say. It was raining and dull, so the Downtown bus trip was a chance to look at the ground floors of buildings through steamy bus windows. A very nice Cobb salad for lunch and then a very slow taxi ride to the airport (over an hour) before the tedium of the flight home.

And when do I blog next ?  Who knows.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Saturday Morning,  New York City.

The big apple stirs from slumber.

Still not sure why I scheduled things like this, but whatever.  Red-eye from SFO to JFK was every bit as uncomfortable as I expected but I managed to maintain a rested pose even though, as is the norm, I don’t sleep.  Not sure I even corrected the time on the phone correctly (I think I let the provider adjust) but I wasn’t sure it was right so fiddled, but it looks like it’s corrected again. Ah, technology, and the saving graces of someone slightly more awake than me.

Sitting in a coffee bar and contemplating the next cappuccino. I’ve finally sprung for some t-mobile day passes to let me connect, but the laptop is dropping in power so I’ll need to find mains at some point to continue the madness. With any luck by the time I finish the next coffee more things will be open and I can spend some time browsing and building a list for later acquisition. Anyway, the lure of caffeine is upon me again……

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Well, that about wraps it up for Mountain View.

A week of attempting, in a mostly futile fashion, to build a full suite of certificate machines and perform full upgrades. Most of the grief has been trying to get the Java instances to behave in various combinations of virtual machines under differing hosts on some hardware that’s known to have odd characteristics (Dell 2950). But, in the end we have a set of notes of things that can go wrong and how to work around them.  The upgrade testing will have to wait until I’m back in the UK later next week.

Next stop, San Francisco Airport to catch the red-eye to New York to visit Mr & Mrs Pride and perform east-coast toy shopping. I wonder how much more the suitcases can take.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.

Originally published at Gnawing through the straps. You can comment here or there.