Quick and dirty Google Earth Cache building
One of the most useful things I use while driving around is Google Earth. I bought a map of Mexico and it was useful but rather limited. The street signs in Mexico are appalling! Often you would be driving down a highway, say the I190 along the pacific coast and it would branch off, many times, but remaining the I190!!
A lot of the time you could just follow the road and it would usually take you to your destination, but often it is very, very nice to have a up to date map which shows your current location right now.
This is what I use Google Earth for. The latest non-Pro version allows you to use the GPS to show your current location.I pair my computer with my Royaltek RBT-2300 GPS tracker and it picks it up through bluetooth. They did something to it in version 5.0.11733.9347 so that it only shows if you tick the ‘ automatically follow the path’ which is unfortunate. This means it has to follow the path and then hovers a few thousand feet over the GPS, constantly tracking it. There is an older version of the pro version on the usual bittorrent sites that doesn’t have this bug.
Google please make it so you can follow the GPS location and adjust the orientation of the camera on the fly. Having it ‘birds-eye’ overhead isn’t that much fun. If it would follow the car’s position and let you see the road ahead (like in a tour) it would be so much better….
The problem is that when you’re driving through the jungle or desert you don’t have an internet connection to update the maps. You can only see what is already stored in the GE cache. You could zoom around the route you’ll be taking and manually building it, or you can do it the quick and easy way. There are also programs to build a grid of points which you can use to do the same thing, but of course countries and places aren’t square and who wants to start figuring out how many kilometers square the grid should be…. just do it with a tour.
First change the navigation options to the following. An angle of about 70 degrees is good, you can get a good look ahead then and 500 meter height is useful if you’ll be in a place that has a lot of mountains to obscure the view.
Add a path and draw on the map a load of lines covering the area you want to fill the cache with. Save it and then click the ‘play tour’ button. You then get a control in the bottom left of the map which you can use to accelerate, stop, reverse or loop the tour.
Connect to the net, set it going and go to bed. If you loop it (and its not insanely large) you should get a couple of loops around and a full cache ready for your next trip.
Flying along the tour, building the cache.
Tags: maps, fly, internet connection, jungle, gps tracker, navigation options, orientation, birds eye, google, thousand feet, google earth, map of mexico, bittorrent sites, gps location, kilometersPhoto of the Day
Down the park in Birmingham just before I left the UK my good friend Martin shows off his juggling skills while I try to capture a picture while shooting into the sun.
Good times 
My brother got married.
Here are some photos I’d like to thank him for an acceptable speech :p
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| There are a lot…. |
Biddulph Park
Back in May I took a trip down to the park with my nephews, Charlie and Jacob. I wanted to test out my new lens some more and I showed them how to race dandelion heads down the dirty stream.
Here are a few pics I like.
Barging around the Staffordshire Moorlands
My parent canal barge is nearly finished and when I was home I finally got to take a trip on the beast.
Who’s that girl?
I met this girl in Hong Kong a few years ago and lost her email address. She was working as a teacher in Shanghai and invited me to come live with her. Her name was Divine Maxine, or Maxine Divine.
Pity.
Back in the Biddulph
Well is it good to back? Kind of. Its nice to see my family again of course, I’ve been catching up with friends too. Last night I went out with old friends Sally, Tim and Phil and then this afternoon I went to see Chris and Kate in Wincle who now have a 6 month old son, Thomas. What a cutie!
Tags: staffordshire moorlands, wincle, old friends, cutie, Travel, tent, trousers, son thomas, thumb, old friend, sally
Some Great Sites
http://www.beachtraveldeals.net
http://www.daytraveldeals.com
http://www.firsttimebackpacking.com
http://www.groundwriting.com
http://www.holidaytraveldeals.net
http://www.learning-salsa.com
http://www.spanishxela.com
http://www.travelantigua.net
http://www.traveltrousers.com
Longest Friday
What a hectic couple of days, lots to do, things to sort out, post, put up lofts, computers to fix, relatives to see… felt like it would never end. And then I go to sleep at 4am, get up at 9am, run around madly for the last few hours, make it to the Airport 3 hours before my flight, walk through customs in 5 minutes and then sit and wait for my flight. Ane wait. And wait…. still no gate assigned but it says there will be one in 25 minutes. They have been saying that for the last 2 hours.
I checked my insurance I bought this morning and it doesn’t have delay cover. Damn! Im sure there is someting about a flight being delayed by a certain time in the EU travelling outside the EU means you can et something. Maybe I should go and ask because its going to be at least 3 hours delayed. A cancellation and days delay would be good, I can get a last crack at the post office and burn some more DVDs.
My main concern now is somewhere to stay, as couchsurfing turned up nothing, I didn’t bother with Hospitality Club and all the hostels are either very expensive or full. Well, very expensive being £30 for a room, which considering I spent £50 in Dublin isn’t too bad. I need a different mindset now though, I have to cut costs as much as possible to stay on the road for as long as possible. How long I can manage this in the first world will be interesting to see, but camping, sleeping in Walmart car parks and hopefully getting some hosts will help. If Im haerroraging money I will be out of the country quick smart and GW can find some other sucker to prop up his ecomomy.
I cant believe the Euro and US cash machines in the airport have the gall to say they are commision free. The rate is shocking, 1.34 and 1.86 respectively. I will be getting $2 for my pound in the States Im sure, which is a nice 8% better rate. Its a good job too as I have things to buy. I need a laptop which will last me and let me blog, surf, organise my site (as well as a couple more) and post process all the photos Im duty bound to take. That itself is a rather scary idea, nice camera and a itchy finger means I could well be having to deal with hundreds of photos everyday. I will have to get myself organised and work out a good workflow for them otherwise I will be stuck with an impossible task.
That is a good idea for an outsourcing business that I may have to investigate, send your photos off to India and let them label them, crop, rotate, correct the colour, delete the dross and generally tart them up before mailing them back or putting them on your website. Just a place to upload the stuff I take onto my site will be another challenge I will have to overcome. Im sure the US is chock full of free wifi spots but what happens when I get further south? This is why I shouldn’t be so lazy about maintaining my contacts in Sweden where super fast internet connections for *uploading* files are mega cheap.
I will also be pricing up a couple more lens’ which are a bargain in the Stateas compared to the UK. The advantage is though that when my money runs out I will/should be so good I can come back to the UK and earn a mint as a wedding photographer. Nothing like a couple of years taking photographs of anything that moves to get you proficient with a camera. I even have my old SLR which cost me an absolute fortune in Autralia and is now essentially worthless as a backup body. I would rather that gets snatched in the ghetto than my beautiful digital body. I have to pick up a compact camera too, probably one of those groovy Pentax waterproof ones. With my phone and video camera I will be overdoing it a bit! :p
And then there is the issue of a car….
The flight was fairly uneventful, I spent half of it trying, unsuccessfully to get my GPS to reconnect but I think we were going too fast. It seemed to work fine until at least Ireland and then it lost the connection and never got it back. I hardly think its a huge problem, Im not intending to take any flights for a very long time.
So glad I hit the toilets before I got on the plane, after a 3 1/2 hour delay we enventually got under way about 5.30 and the reason was that they had been having problems with the toilets. I sat by the window, occasionally chatting to the middle aged scouse couple who say next to me (she constantly gave me gum, Im sure I brushed that morning… :p), watched Oceans 13, 90% of Shrek The third, the last bit of that ice skating comedy and wild hogs on a terrible TV in the ceiling. Not sure if I slept, it certainly didn;t feel like it. Im not sure if I should write to zoom and complain, I dont really think it was too bad, but by western standards it wasn;t good. If you’ve ever spent any time on Chinese trains your standard tend to slip a bit.
When we eventually got into Toronto 4 1/2 hours late (head wind for an extra hour) I sailed through customs and after a longer than average wait for my bag was in Canada. It was a bit damp but as I sat waiting for it I was imagining it was covered with bits of broken toilet and god knows what else.
Now I faced the dilema that I had force myself into, I had no guide book, no hostel booking, no map and had never been here before. The hotels looked pretty expensive and if I booked in would I even be able to get something cheap the next day? After 20 minutes wandering and looking for a working ATM I asked how much the Hertz rentals were. Well, no compacts but I could get a mustang for $47 a day… hmmm. Would be nice but not great for sleeping in, although would it mean I could go to a bar and pull with a cool car….? Theoretically…
I opted for a mini van, figuring I could just find somewhere quiet and stretch out. Only after I had paid did the guy tell me 90% of the company was on strike and there was a picket line for the cars. Great! but I thought it was simultaniously kinda cool, I would have to break through the rioting workers, getting hit by placards and getting spit on. Not quite as cool, I collected my keys and sat in a queue of cars waiting for the barrier to be lifted. After 20 minutes (which let me get changed in the back, get my GPS working on my phone and find a cool radio station (“the edge” is really good)) I was at the front of the line chatting to the Indian Security guard until my 5 minutes were up.
So now where? Hotel? Camping spot? Jail? I hit the gas and repeated my mantra about driving on the right choosing a random direction by following the majority of the cars. It kinda reminded me of a nighttime xbox driving game in my sleepy state, without the cops or crashes. I drove for 1/2 or so, bought some random groceries and drove a bit more to find a big car park and got my head down. You can see all this on the GPS map! Cool eh??? /zzzzzzzzz :p
Tags: mail, photographs, sleep, wanderings, photos, laptop, photo, hostel, toilet, money40 hours to go
and Im not packed, will be frantic tomorrow no doubt. My drivers licence arrived this morning so thats another piece of the puzzle. There are quite a few other things to do but nothing really major. Nothing I can’t sort out by staying awake all night on Thursday :p
Im sorting Sally out with my old computer so at least I have one regular reader, if only I can find someway to always make her homepage my blog Will go to see my 96 year old nanna for possibly the last time tomorrow, although Im secretly banking on coming back for her 100th birthday. Just as long as I get a return flight I don’t mind.
I really had better sort out a definitive list of stuff to sort out tomorrow, the packing can wait and all I really need is my camera, passport and cards. Everything else is immaterial. I just have to be careful I dont start thinking I can just start blowing my money as soon as I arrive. I need a laptop and also want a couple of lens but I will try to hold out until the el’ cheapo USA. This is all assuming they let me in, but then I can always hop back to Canada and look at my flight options. I also have to assume I will get into Canada with a one way flight, I better print some bank statements eh? One more for the never ending list!
Tags: cards, laptops, USA, sally, blog, Travel, laptop, moneyEverything is possible
Or at least I hope so. I have 24 hours of time to finish sorting my stuff out and after making a few piles I think I’ll be ok. My parents were freaking out at all the stuff I brought back but some is for posting, some are a few last minute ebay items and a lot is going in my sisters loft. Hmmm, maybe I should talk to her about that :p I was slightly concerned myself when I looked at it all, and I thought I had managed to sell nearly everything. There certainly is money in tat!
Was very sad to leave Mad and Tulasi today, but I’m counting on seeing them next year in Costa Rica. I hope I didn’t annoy them too much by counting down my shifts while they have 10 months to go. I think they did pretty well out of me, Im sending them off to Manchester to see Manu Chao next month and annoyed I’m missing the tour. What a guy, I dont know how I missed him! Hope they video it for me!
Popped in to to Jono, Claire and Milly on the way up. My beautiful 2 year old neice has finally decided she likes me (or remembers me) and is a joy to be with. Anyone who can get my bone idle brother to dance (to the hokey cokey) is ok by me! I love kids when they’re at that funny, talkative age when everything is a mystery and laughing is as natural as breathing to them…. and then they grow up :p Also popped in to see Deb, but she’s MIA, I suspect in New York and then went to see Nichola Twemlow. Always a crisis with her, she was nursing a injured cat with blood and shit everywhere while waiting for the RSPCA. Poor little bugger. And the cat wasn’t happy either.
Tags: freak, Travel, money, brotherLast 2 days at work, or what is wrong with the western world.
Karl sent me a text on Wednesday morning to say that he was shocked and my line manager wasn’t happy. Maybe she wans’t happy about the fact that everyone else in the building got the news the same time as her. Other people were placing bets on whether I would come in the next day but I did. I had holidays booked up tight and couldn’t have much more time off, certainly not my last four 12 hour shifts.
I was asked to come to my leaving interview in the morning, which was a barrel of laughs. Lots of questions about the company and scores for various aspects of the place, salary, holidays etc. I had it with my immediate ‘manager’ and the manager who put in the new shift pattern. He always was pro 12 hour shifts but even though he used to be in my dept wasn’t going to have to work them. Even when we talked about the whole concept couldn’t grasp the idea that someone actually didn’t like staying up all day to reset their body clock.
So an interview with the 2 managers who really didn’t like me (which is ok, the feeling was mutual) and who directly lead me to resign was a pretty stupid concept. Or a brilliant one, since I was rather reluctnat to tell them directly that they were both a waste of time (Im sure the feeling was mutual there too :p). They asked me questions and made notes, god knows what they put down as my answers. It would have been infinetly preferable to speak to my direct manager and really tell her the truth, but I guess it was her call.
Still, I was leaving and didn’t really care, my problems with the company were hopefully over. As long as I was getting my last 2 month salary it was all good. Even so, they didn’t even ask me directly *why* I was leaving, it wasn’t on the sheet, so it didn’t seem to matter. It mattered when I said my holidays were just ‘good’ and not ‘very good’. Again, no concept of anyone elses perspective, ask an opinion and then argue with the answer. Last year I had three one month holidays, which I would class as ‘very good’, now it was not so good. Ok, its good if you want to go to Spain for 2 weeks, but where is the fun in that?!?
It was all fine until the end of the interview, first they said I had handed in my overtime applications too late. They were from February but I had phoned HR and asked if it was too late, they said no, but the policy had officially changed the week before. Secondly I was told the one days holiday I had left would be docked since I didn’t come in a few weekends before. Actually I had an interview booked the same day for my recent poor attendence, but it seemed a bit silly to discuss it since I was leaving in 3 days. Next the bombshell about the bank holiday monday incident when I did some printing for Martin and the ink ran out. I forgot to cancel the print and the next day there was 2″ of Polish Hare Krishna translations with my name all over them. Busted! 
I had been told off by the facilities manager on the tuesday, I could hardly deny it and you can see who prints what. You dont see what they print, but its pretty traceable. Everyone does it, printers are such a rip off so a nice colour printer at work is a perk of the job. I usually just used it for scanning things but my generosity got the better of me and I told Martin I would do some prints for him and this was potentially disastarous for my plan. What if I was sacked that day, I could lose the cash I needed for my trip.
You could see they both loved this, no overtime, no last holiday pay and we might sack you. Great. The final knife in the back as I walk out the door. Well sue me for saying your shift and stupid new policies are suck so bad Im leaving. They just felt pissed that I had taken the gift of my seven week break and used it to get out quicker. And why shouldn’t I? Did I really want 8 weeks of them maybe screwing with my shift pattern, maybe telling me to do another job and maybe messing me around as my time ticked down? No, one week notice before my holidays was fair and above board, if a little sneaky They were also pissed about the fact that they had things to do before someone leaves and I left them little time to do it.
All this made me wish I had not bothered giving my notice at all and just gone and not come back. They probably would have kept paying me too which is always good. My more dishonest idea was claiming I had been in a car crash and then sending photos of me with plaster casts on my arms and legs, stuck in Mexico and unable to come back, even to recupperate. I was more worried about getting sued for fraud when they eventually found out (as Im sure they would). No, play by the rules, even if you use them to your advantage and keep your karma… the knife in the back sure was itchy.
My line manager hadn’t said anything to me all day, but its not unusual for her to be pissed off about something and it wasn’t nessasarily me. I went over to apologise for the abrupt departure and she was ok, I think a whole day for her to mull it over had mellowed her somewhat. She said she thought I was mad for going on my trip, but thats only because she’s not hardcore like me Shame really, sitting by a hotel pool is fine for a week but hardly life affirming, Im sure she would love a big road trip, but wouldn’t dare.
And this is why I wasn’t doing it, what kind of life is it being tired all the time, having no social life to speak of, earning a good salary and thinking you must spend it on a nice car to show off but you only drive it to work everyday. Fuck that. Adventure. Excitement. Really wild things. Being English in England is truly depressing. When Im abroad Im unusual and interesting, I am a unique snowflake! Pretending to be Swedish in the UK just doesn’t cut it :p
Tags: job, mexico, cars, photos, Travel, krishna, englandLast day in the park
Still so much to do but I spent all day in the park playing frisbee and juggling. First we went to Big Wok in Birmingham for brunch. I can’t say Im a fan, you can tell if you should eat there from the patrons, and none were Chinese. I cycled up with Martin and Pepe, our new, and for me very temporary, flat mate and on the way back Pepe who had been in the city 2 weeks raced to the park in the most direct route while Martin tried to get me lost in the back streets.
Was a good weekend all things considered, but thats easy when your mind is on the day shift and they give you the weekend off from your last weekend at work. Very decent of them I think. On Friday I nearly didn’t go out, 3 days notice isn’t much to give people when you are leaving, Karl was busy, Jude called in sick…. ! but Pete Sparks was out so I hooked up with him and we went to see another work group who were celebrating Sam and Frans ‘career break’ years off. Very sensible, but since I didn’t have 5 years servitude wasn’t an option for me. We ended up in Oceana dancing until 3am, was kind of weird, 5 theme bars and 2 dance halls, but when the DJ shut up and started playing some good music I started to enjoy myself.
Now I just have to pack up all my stuff here, haul it up to Stoke, sort it all out for storage or charity shops and wait for my flight on Friday. I hope my diving card arrives next week. Come to that Im still waiting on my drivers license! I assure you I know what I’m doing
My letter to O2. It worked :)
Sir
I called late Friday afternoon to complain about the fact that you were planning on changing the terms of my contract and that I wanted to cancel it. During the first call I hadn’t actually got a copy of the contract in front of me to prove why I could legitimately do so and said I would phone back.
On the second call to a ‘marco’ I explained the same thing and that I wanted to cancel, this time referring to the 8.4c clause in my contract. After 10 minutes of attempting to sell me a new contract and point out all the benefits to it and disadvantages of leaving (which I patiently listened to, occasionally repeating I wanted to cancel) he then informed me that I would only be able to do so on the 1st of September. We had the same conversation a few times, me quoting my contract and him saying I could not cancel yet. I then asked for the address I could send my cancellation in writing to which he refused to give me. I asked for a manager and he said everyone was in a meeting. I asked again for the postal address and he refused. Then he rather rudely said ‘we are going around in circles and I will be hanging up very soon’.
I honestly don’t care that he wasted my time trying to sell me things I didn’t want (that is his job) but to refuse to give basic information to a customer is completely unbelievable. I wasn’t asking for anything I couldn’t just get from the Internet anyway but I am sure I will now be told I sent my cancellation letter to the wrong place… I sent it recorded delivery on Friday which was the 24th, so I expect my PAC code to arrive this week and my contract to be terminated on the 24th of September. If this is not done (and if I call to check in a few days that my 30 days notice has not been acknowledged) I will be making a complaint to Ofcom. I will also be cancelling my direct debit to ensure I am not charged.
I also expect you to teach your staff some basic manners.
Mark Towner
Tags: customs, job, Travel, fridays, circlesMortgage and pension, the death of hope.
So, earlier in the year they announced we would be abandoning our current shift pattern and moving to 12 hour shifts. It was official, starting 1st June. My immediate thoughts during the presentation were ‘how much money do I have saved’ and ‘how many months do I need to work before I can quit’. Actually the prime consideration was to get anything possible out of the company before taking an extended leave, ie quitting. The new holiday period would start on the 29th of September, so that was my deadline. No holidays abroad while saving every penny; use my holiday at the end to cushion the awfulness of leaving all your work colleagues in the lurch. I booked 3 weeks holiday until the 29th of September, using up all my holiday left for this year bar 5 days I can carry over.
I had managed to build up a considerable amount of time in lieu at the beginning of the year. The company is loath to pay overtime, unless they’re really desperate, but you can work a day and have a days holiday. Its not like I was screwing them over this, I was covering people when they were off and working my shift recovery week and weekends. I was doing them a favour, overtime would have been infinitely preferable but impossible to get. When the new shift started I had 140 hours owed to me, of which my line manager was barely aware. He was barely aware of my second name most of the time, just someone to say hello to and hope I don’t ask him a question in ear shot of his manager so he actually had to do something about it. I swear the filters on his email account diverted all my mail directly to the trashcan because he would not answer any emails. Seriously. You only got a response if you CC’d his boss. It wasn’t just my problem either.
So when I point out all this time I’m owed there is mass panic, ‘we owe you 140 hours??’,'How is this possible?’. First there is the careful checking of the figures, they pull out old outdated lists of what they think I should have worked and it obviously doesn’t match. I’m not stupid, I entered all my time in the rota when I did it, its all backed up and untamperable by me, I filled in my time reported card and another manager approved it, most importantly I actually came to work so if they were really checking they could see logs of me doing stuff on the servers. When the rotas changed I was working my seven day shift, Monday to Sunday, 62 hours of fun. Come the 1st of June my rota had me down as working the very first shift, directly after my night shift. Um, 24 hours…. I don’t think so. And this was the start of the worst week in the new pattern, 6 x 12 hours over 7 days.
If I ever needed proof that the manager who thought up the rota really didn’t like me it was the fact I was expected to work 134 hours over a fortnight. He told one of my colleagues ‘there would be winners and losers’ in the changeover (with a smirk), well I wasn’t going to be his loser and said I would be having the beginning of the week off as my shift recovery week. When we’re going through the 140 hours owed they could only get it to 92, they put my shift recovery down ‘I thought you took that as a holiday’. So I have to book a holiday to get out of working a 24 hour day…
I did all this extra work between Februay and May and after they finally agreed that ‘yes, we owe you all this time’ the discussion turned to when I was supposed to take it. It was now around the beginning of July and both of my colleagues had the majority of July and August booked as holiday. So of course they say ‘you have to take it before September’…. um how? There is no way I can leave one ex-shift leaver and a new starter while I have August off. Besides, it needs to go higher for approval, they can’t just give someone a month off. I point out I have three one month holidays the year before and no one minded and they dont even seem to be aware I had been away.
‘Send me a proposal’ says my manager, so I of course I propose all of October. I get no reply after a few days, must mean he approves right? I mail him again saying my colleagues don’t mind. A few more days we’re on days and he calls me over to say that he has checked and no one else is off that month so I can have it. Sweet, 7 weeks holiday. I start changing the rota and one of my colleagues has a few days booked at the end of the month. What happened to ‘no one is off’. Oh well, I add my annual leave name next to his and say nothing. He’s a manager, he checked, he obviously knows more that me…
I have seven weeks booked, and had to give eight weeks notice. I think you can see the simple sum I needed to do. I was due back on the first of November, healthy, fit, tanned, after some great adventure… to go back to a windowless room working 12 hour shifts with no toaster*. It wasn’t all bad, my salary now was pretty good, I was spending little on rent, my car was a junker but good on fuel. It was easy to save money, the people I worked with were nice enough, lots of character but mostly cynical as hell. You throw enough money at people, get them on a good pension and they start paying a mortgage, you will probably have to wheel them out of the door. Mortgage, pension, pension, mortgage…. That’s the mantra under everyone’s breath when you’re trying to get through a 12 hour night shift on 2 hours sleep and the phones are ringing and servers are down. ‘We know!! (get off the phone so we can fix the bloody thing!)’.
I didn’t want to come back to this, the stage was set, I hadn’t breathed a word to anyone at work about my plan, all I had to do was make the decision and resign….
* Ok, I did set the fire alarm off doing muffins but who the hell puts a smoke detector in a kitchen? You need a heat detector.
Tags: cards, cars, wheel, ears, mail, stupidity, Travel, sleep, money, wheelsLast weekend in the UK
They let me go early today at work, was kinda weird to leave after three years, but they gave the weekend off and I can’t complain. I want to write about it but I think I should wait until I’m really gone and the smoke has cleared from my mind.
Read a great post about blogging with a lot of info I knew or had to research, I’m getting myself on techorati right now and trying to sort out my RSS feed. I had lots of ideas for posts last night, so much that I couldn’t sleep until 4am and then ended up being late for work; on what turned out to be my last day. Oops.
I have some good memories, how we laughed when Jude punched Phil… :p
And the reply…
Well, I am sorry if you were offended somehow. The fact of the matter is that I am not only new to e-bay and do not know how it works, but I also did not know when I purchased these glasses from you just how they really worked! I do NOW, though, because I purchased a 3D DVD set of shutter glasses + converter box + a 3D DVD called “The Creeps” from Amazon.com. Got the entire set-up all complete and it works pretty well! It is just that I did not know for sure, at the time I bought those glasses from you, exactly HOW they were supposed to work and with WHAT!
Again, I am not familiar with the hundreds of layers a person has to go thru to deal with messages to and from E-BAY and, damn it, I wish they would simplify the exchanges that go on here!!!
If they would do THAT, then they’d be no problem!!!
Am I right OR am I wrong???!!!?
I can’t believe it
I’m in shock… Someone left me a negative feedback on ebay! I was on 232 and doing so well! And for what? He bought some LCD shutter glasses and ‘Actually, I needed to buy a special converter for these to be effective at all!’. Yeah, the ‘special converter’ is a video card here in a box.
How annoying, but Im still on 99.6% positive and he has -1 :p I sent him a mail, I also have his address and I have a good mind to go around to his hick USA town and give him his £5 back (in 10p peices ). He’s on the map now….
Here is the mail I sent him, with luck he will close his account and the negatives are then wiped out.
Just a few pointers.
You shouldn’t leave someone negative feedback if you’re slightly unhappy. Did I misdescribe the item? Did it not turn up? Was it damaged? Did I really rip you off on the postage?
The answer to all these questions is ‘no’.
You bought something you thought would plug into your video card and would magically make all your games into 3D. Try doing some reading and research, it will only work on certain ASUS cards, which is what I wrote in the description.
I suggest you close your account and start again, people are wary of buyers who will leave negative feedback for no reason. You got exactly what you paid for but because you have no idea what you’re buying that somehow becomes my fault.
Welcome to ebay, I really hate having to give someone negative feedback, it just makes me so cruel, but its all I can do to keep unreasonable idiots like yourself away from everyone else.
Have a nice day!!
Mark
Tags: maps, map, cards, USA, Travel, mailLast summer day in the park
The sun was shining on Sunday, I was awake at a reasonable time so Martin and I made an effort to go down to the park. It would give me a chance to try out my new flash, the Canon 430EX I had bought last month. I still can’t juggle, but Martin is getting pretty good. Ironic how 6 months ago he couldn’t do it and it was me that taught him.
We had a discussion the existence of God. He wanted to roll a cigarette but had forgotten his papers, but just then a rolling paper flew onto the blanket. Proves nothing….
Juggling the stars.
The trouble with Trousers….
I signed up for google adwords a few days ago and finally got the approval and links, I fill out the info, generate the ads and post them into my site…. Ready to watch the money rolling in… hmmmm….. Marks and Spencers, ebay, leather pants…. seems the ads are targeted at my audience of fashion victims rather than penniless people who want to bum around the world….
I just paid another year for this domain! Don’t make me change it Mr Google :p
Tags: trousers, money, Travel, googlePrevious Trips
How much do you have to travel to be well travelled? It all depends on how you see the world.
The UN recognises 193 countries, but according to most standard definition there are 317 countries and territories in the world, at present I am on 37. If you add more obscure islands and provinces of places like the US, Brazil and India, the total can rise to 673, and my tally becomes 42.
Visits are counted as just touching the soil or refuelling stops. However I think this is kind of ridiculous, any millionaire with a private jet and yacht can easily get to 99% of the places (some are closed military bases, so perhaps you would need a private minisub too..,) but would be completely ignorant of the places he see and the people that live there. Your average America Tourist on vacation doing “14 days, 14 countries” has no idea of what they just missed. To travel is to be in tune with the world and its people.
My list comprises of:
Europe: Childhood trips with my parents/School
England, Spain, France, Germany, Monaco
First trip around the world for 2 years
USA, Hawaii, Cook Islands, Fiji, New Zealand, Australia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Sweden.
My European University Years
Denmark, Canada, Netherlands, Norway, Cambodia
Second trip for 2 years
Finland, Russia, Siberia, Mongolia, China, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Laos, Japan
Working in the UK
Czech republic, Switzerland, Egypt, Ghana, UAE, Uganda, India
Tags: USA, europe, Travel, tourists, ghana, englandDusting off the cobwebs
Well, after a rather long hiatus I’m back on the case and sorting my site out. Does this mean I have a big trip coming up?? Possibly… I do have 7 weeks holiday booked for September and October booked which I’m very much looking forward to. I also have a meeting booked with my managers for the amount of sick leave I have taken since they moved us to 12 hour rotating shifts. I had the pleasure of staying awake for 32 hours the other Friday which is enough to send anyone stir crazy, while having to call the police because the kids next door were throwing water balloons through our open kitchen window!
Anyway, I have a one way flight to Toronto booked for Sept 14th, plenty of cash saved and have been downsizing my possessions like crazy on e-bay. Mostly CDs and old unused tech bits, but I’m up to about £1k in takings now which is rather amazing. I also did a couple of car boot sales with me old mate Bandy which netted another £350 or so. So with money in my pocket, a long holiday planned and a rather brutal 12 hour winter shift pattern to come back to, its going to be an interesting crossroads in my life.
What, oh what, should one do…..?
Catching up with Chris and Kate
Went over to see my old friends Chris and Kate, took Sally along for moral support. Kate is due on the 24th of September, which was a shock for me when I heard, even more so for poor Sal. We all hugged each other and then Sal asks ‘why is everyone laughing at me?’. I defy most people to hug a 8 month pregnant woman and not notice.
These three were the ones I took my first big trip across the states with so we got the photo albums out and did some reminiscing. Good times (mostly :p).