The ORACLE-BASE Blog

Over the months I’ve come into contact with several people who have competed for the the title of my Pool Nemesis, including:

• Really slow, floats with the current, guy.
• Middle of the lane backstroke guy with wide flappy arms.
• Three quarters of a length diagonal lane swimmer girl.
• Doesn’t swim much but gets in the way when I’m trying to turn girl.
• Swim half a length and stop to talk to the life guard dude.
• Refuse to swim in a clockwise clockwise direction in the lane, even when asked by the life guard, guy.
• Stand still and chill out about 5 metres away from the edge of the lane girl.
• Lean against the lane rope pusing it 1 metre into the lane girl.

I think today I met my true Pool Nemesis. She had drawn some of her super powers from virtually everyone I have encountered in the past. You’ve got to respect someone that can pull together so many different skills and integrate them seamlessly into a single package. Truely worthy of the title! 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

If you are sensitive to random venomous rants switch off now!

I know different countries have different attitudes to some of the following points, so please don’t be offended, but as an uptight English man the following things drive me nuts!

I hate it when people:

• drop litter in the street. There’s no defence. It’s just plain wrong.
• throw rubbish out of your car window. You may no longer be able to see it, but I can!
• flick ash or your cigarette butts out of the car window. You have an ash tray. Use it!
• drop chewing gum, or sticking it to objects so I end up touching it by accident. I’m a big fan of chewing gum, but when I’ve finished with it I put it in the bin.
• jump queues. I’m bigger, faster and stronger than average, so if I really wanted to get to the front of a queue by force I probably could. The reason I don’t is I have manners.
• let there dog go to the toilet in a public place, like a park, without cleaning it up. It may be fine in the countryside, but in a city it’s just wrong.
• murder a soft toy and fake a suicide to cover your tracks. It’s the start of a slippery slope. Today it’s a soft toy, tomorrow it’s genocide. You will be found and dealt with. Right Doug…
• hog the middle lane on the motorway. Once you’ve overtaken, move over! (suggested by Jeff Moss)

The list could go on, but…

Cheers

Tim…

On Sunday a friend held a sponsored Yoga Mala to raise money for a local childrens hospital. A Mala is a set of prayer beads, made up of 108 beads, so to complete a Yoga Mala you must perform 108 Sun Salutations (Surya Namaskar A). I couldn’t make the event on Sunday, and my friend was planning to supervise, so we both did our Yoga Mala the day before.

It was quite an interesting process. It started off easy, then gradually got harder as I got progressively more tired, but at about 80 it became rather easy again. The combination of that and a tough Karate session have left me walking like John Wayne. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

I just got some previews of the images that have been sent to Oracle Magazine…

I like the setup of the shots. The sky looks really cool in most of them, but I don’t. I tend to squint when I smile, so I look like I’ve got no eyes. Also, the shirt I wore was a bit of a mistake. There wasn’t enough contrast with the sky and it looks enormous, so I look like “I’ve eaten all the pies”. At least I won’t get recognized and mobbed on The Streets of San Francisco. 🙂

Cheers

Tim…

My forum is still being hammered by spam on a daily basis. I’ve added an assortment of phpBB Mods in an attempt to reduce them, but as yet I’ve had limited success. What I really need is a version of Spam Karma 2, which I use for WordPress, that works with phpBB. I’m getting more than a little fed up of waking up to see loads of adverts for porn, prescription drugs and gambling sites. I’ve toyed with the idea of changing the URL, and even shutting it down for a while.

Very annoying 🙁

Cheers

Tim…

This week has been really busy on the Karate front. On Monday we had an 8th Dan guy down to teach at the club. Very inspirational. Wednesday and Friday were normal classes, then I went to another club on Sunday, which was taught by a 6th Dan guy. I got about half way through the class and pulled something in my groin, so now I’m hobbling like an old man. I’m hoping a few days rest will get everything back to normal. Only time will tell 🙂

This lunchtime I had the photo shoot for the “Oracle ACE of the Year” award. I had discussed several interesting locations with the photographer, but because of the weather and some red tape, it ended up being done in the car park at work. 🙂 It sounds bad, but all you can see is me and the sky, which was quite funky due to the weather. I saw a couple of the shots and they looked cool. Lots of sky and not much of me… 🙂

Cheers

Tim…