Bits and bobs

Well, the darkness has returned – it’s now dark for the morning walk at a little after six, and by the time I got home from Birmingham tonight it was persistently raining and almost dark enough to need my torch to pick my way round the woods. I need to buy some new wellies as my left boot has a leak in it and my foot was soaked after trudging through the puddles.

Still, I’ve got some positive things to offset the lack of sunlight – I finally cracked the problem of replicating a sql database across the firewall by using ftp to transfer the snapshot files, so I no longer have to copy the backup files and restore them manually. It’s taken nearly a week of messing around off and on, and I now know more about sql server security than is healthy. Also, I’ve finally beaten the remote control plane mission in San Fiero – the little Red Baron is frustratingly difficult to manoeuvre and shoot at the same time, and the fuel limit allows very little room for error. I went back to using my original xbox controller which has the black and white buttons (for rudder control) at the top of the button layout rather than at the bottom as with the S controller, and that did the trick. Just one more mission for Zero, and I can finally cross that annoying Z icon off the map.

Now, it’s time for a cup of coffee to stop me nodding off half way through Lost, and to watch the excellent drama documentary Space Race. It’s fascinating to learn more about the Soviet space programme, in contrast to the rather more well known US efforts as seen in ‘The Right Stuff’ and ‘From the Earth to the Moon’.