chris’sBlog

Twittering..

Saturday, April 11th, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

I’m still here and having a go at twittering. See the sidebar on the RHS for details of my recent twitter activity! Perhaps I’ll even do a main blog post soon.

Tags: twitter

James is 4

Thursday, December 18th, 2008 | Home | No Comments

Can you believe it. Must be getting old because James was 4 years old not so very long ago. It only seems like yesterday that I was asleep in the hospital after a traumatic (hope Emma doesn’t read this!) labour. Time seems to fly by, and I sometimes worry that I’m missing chances to see him growing up. I suppose when I think about it we do OK, after all we’ve had several trips to see trains and planes and all the things that dad secretly likes.
It was great to celebrate with him, especially as I just made it out of hospital in time.

Next, to Christmas, where James has decided that Father Christmas plays a large role in proceedings. I’m hoping for a non crazy family Christmas this year with a little time and space to enjoy each others company, but I fear it’s not the way of today!

Christmas Pack Up

Thursday, December 18th, 2008 | Home | No Comments

Well it’s that time of year again when the home appliances stop working and you shell out you’re hard earned cash on new ones. The casualty this year, the washing machine. Well, it’s done about 9 years of service, which in this day and age is’nt all that bad but it’s now given up.
A new Bosch machine at around £300 is on it’s way and nowadays they even take you old machine away and recycle it for you. I hope that the new machine gives even more service than the old one!

Minor technical changes

Monday, December 15th, 2008 | Geek/IT | No Comments

After a number of years experimenting with gallery software and wordpress, I’ve decided that I never maintain all the other bits of my site, so I’m moving my blog to the main directory of my website. I’ll leave the blog directory there with a redirect, but from now on http://www.chrisdixon.net/ will direct you straight to this blog.

Quick update and thanks..

Monday, December 8th, 2008 | Home | No Comments

Many of you will know that I’ve spent 10 days in hospital with a plural infusion (mank in between bits of my lungs). This normally effects old people, but apparently I got pneumonia with complications and this caused all the mank. It usually only takes a couple of days to drain off all the mank, but in my case it was a bit blamonge like and did’nt want to come out which resulted in chest drains, ultrasounds, CT scans (very cool) and lots of other poking and messing about.
Above all else it was boring, but there were plenty of people who were actually much worse than I was (evidenced by two deaths on the ward whilst I was there).

I’m so grateful to all the people that prayed for me, visited me and sent cards and messages. I don’t feel as though I don’t deserve such wonderful friends so thank you so much.

I’m back at home now and I still get out of breath at the smallest exercise and my right lung is still not right, but I’m slowly getting stronger and I’m sure that I’ll make a full recovery.

Hopefully I’ll find some time to do some more blogging soon, when I’m feeling a little fitter.

London calling (well Cambridge)

Thursday, November 6th, 2008 | Home | No Comments

Took a trip with work on Wed / Thu (stop over Wed night) to Cambridge.
I won’t bore you with all the work details, except to say that it was a useful trip, which they don’t always turn out to be. However, whilst passing through our capital I achieved two things which I’ve wanted to do for a while.
Firstly I took a trip to the Worshipful company of clockmakers museum which is in the Guildhall in London. It’s a facinating one room museum which charts watch and clock making from it’s earliest days. I recomend a visit, but not with children! There are some intersting items from John Harrison, including his H5 marine chronometer which is accurate to 1/3 of a second per day. I also purchased a book about Harrisons clocks, which is very interesting.
I don’t know what facinates me about clocks and watches, I guess in an IT world the marvel of small mecanisms is still amazing.
I also viewed the Newgate clock, which commemorates the 375 anniversary of the society.

After visiting the museum then I decided that rather than going straight on to cambridge, I’d stop and try to take in a firework display, so after a google on my phone I headed to Clapham Common and watched their display which was actually quite good. Lancaster is still good in comparison although at the end I suspect that they had more money to burn, anyhow you can judge for yourself with my video.

The shack

Sunday, November 2nd, 2008 | Spiritual | 2 Comments

I’ve just finished reading The Shack.
Firstly, it’s an amazing book. Why do I say that? Well I supose that it made me cry about 4 times, not in itself amazing, but it did raise some interesting questions and I think it touched quite deep into things that I feel at an emotional level.
For those that have not read the book I won’t spoil it, except to say that it deals with probabbly a no. 1 issue for Christians, namley the question of suffering and why God doesn’t just put a stop to it all.
It also takes up a number of other interesting questions. I think that I will need to read it again, perhaps a few times and there are things in there that need to come out.

It’s not really a Christian book, and I’d be intersted to see how non-Christians would find it. One thing that I struggle with is that sometimes I’m embarassed about Church and the way that people labelling themselves as “Christian” think and act. It’s not their fault sometimes, but the Church just really, really doesnt help.
I think that my current fave quote from Rob Bell sums it up. “A lot of people confuse relegion with God… and walk away from both”
This book gets towards some of the really deep, relationship questions and the nature of love and that’s perhaps why there was a face based fluid adjustment.

Canada - Day 16

Saturday, October 18th, 2008 | Holidays | No Comments

Last day here in Alberta
Most activities were winding down today. This morning we went for some last minute shopping at the Mill Woods town centre. We all enjoyed an ice cream, which was one last thing that we had not been able to do yet.

The other thing that we did it to return the car that we had for two weeks
The chevy had served us extremely well for all this time and it was sat to see it back at the hire place.
However we went to Edmonton airport and picked up the new car that will take us back to Calgary tomorrow. It’s a Dodge Charger, and it looks (and drives) cool.

So the next time I blog we’ll be right back in the UK, and I can’t say I’m looking forward to it all that much. It will be nice to see family and friends, but leaving the land of the free is a tough job…
Ah well. 3 hour drive, 8 hour flight plus check in etc. to look forward too tomorrow. See you all the other side of that, except if you’re Robin, Emma and family in which case see you all next year ;-), well perhaps a bit longer, but I expect we’ll be back.

As a final act, here is a picture of all the gang!

Canada - Day 15

Saturday, October 18th, 2008 | Holidays | No Comments

Today we went to see Robin and Emma’s friends Cheryl and Brian, who own a large acreage outside edmonton. They have about 80 acres of land as well as three dogs, a large house, an iguana, several cats and two quad bikes. There were also several deer in various states of aliveness.

As soon as we entered the property we were welcomed and treated to a view of some newly killed beasties, in this case elk (a taster for later!)

We then (after a brief tour of the house), got busy with some quad biking activities across the land. It was such amazing fun. Robin rode the sports quad at first, but after some practice I got to have a go and so did Emma.


After a while I got the hand of going fast. Here is a video of me shooting past Robin.

All the kids were also able to ride the quads in various configurations, including a trailer which was towed behind one of the quads. It really was quite something. Robin also had an interesting experience!

Whilst this was occurring, Cheryl and Brian were trying to prove that minute maid really could be made in a minute, however as the video proves, it’s not actually possible! Wait till I get home and post a video of making some cordial.

After this we settled down to a lovely meal of Elk and lots of other things.

After dinner the children had pony rides. It was a little dark so the video isn’t that great, but they all really enjoyed it. The pony was a little green, which I’m informed means that he’s not been ridden a lot, but he was very well behaved.

After all of this we enjoyed a total of 4 different deserts and we finally put the kids to bed at about 8:45pm!
It really was a lovely afternoon and evening and highlights how lovely all the people we have met have been.

Canada - Day 14

Friday, October 17th, 2008 | Holidays | No Comments

Today we took a trip to Tellers world of science which is a science exhibition, IMAX theatre and many other things.
The first thing of note is an amazing contraption outside, which my picture does not do justice to. It has metal, golf and ping pong balls all in a constant motion of playing various musical instruments and it’s really clever. James and Matthew watched it for about 20 minutes in total and could have watched it a lot more and it didn’t even cost!

Once inside we handed over the $12 entrance fee (children free) and started looking round the various gallery’s. The main gallery’s were on the subjects of “the human body”, “being green” and “police investigation”. We started in the being green bit, here are Emma and Matthew viewing a fish pond from underneath!

We were booked to see the 12:30pm IMAX film and so we had lunch a little early from the cafe in the place. We had hot dogs and some crisps, then we wandered a little more as we waited for the film to start. Here is Matthew enjoying a driving game.

We then enjoyed the IMAX film. It lasted about 40 minutes and James and Matthew were very well behaved and enjoyed it. It was about the Amazon and paralleled two characters, a traditional dweller in the high hills going down to look for new cures in the rainforest and a modern western medical biology type person looking for cures in the rainforest. It was (as always) quite a spectacle in IMAX vision, although I recall the screen a Bradford in the UK being bigger.
We then went on to the human body exhibit which was good. There were some interesting jars on the shelf!


The final exhibit was to highlight how the police solve crimes. There was a crime scene, which featured the kidnapping of a famous (I assume in Canada) dog. You then had to gather evidence, visit the lab and then charge a suspect. It was really quite good and I can imagine that for older children would be really captivating. There was also a police bike to sit on!

Finally we went to a kids area which had giant lego, trains, water, a puppet theatre and lots of other great kids things. Emma tried to build a giant house and was frustrated when the kids knocked it down, and James really loved the giant piano, which also made drum sounds.

Finally after another look at the amazing machine it was back to base, via Starbucks and to settle down to supper (tea in the UK!), a film and more of the excellent company.
I really do love it out here…