The calm before the storm.

The calm before the storm. Today started bright and sunny, and I, grateful for the brief Indian summer have repaired to the Robin Hood & Little John pub in Bexleyheath to finalise plans for Steve Fraser's pre – MBE get together planned for tomorrow night. The usual Sunday evening Blog update will be postponed accordingly this week, and this posting will have to stand in its' stead for the time being. I have spoken to landlord in waiting Tony, and sorted out the food arrangements for the morrow. One further thing ticked off the list of tasks. The Shepherd Neame Late Red is in top form as well.

This is the first outing for my new sub notebook sized Asus Eee PC - the replacement for my venerable Dell D600 laptop, which has now been retired from active service and is now being used by Shirley for her college work. Unfortunately there are no free wireless networks in the vicinity of the pub, if there had been, as Ian put it, you would never get me out of the place! I bought the Eee PC with a pre installed build of Asus Linux – the nearest thing to a Fisher Price operating system I have yet encountered. I have since hosed the build and installed a heavily customised build of Ubuntu Linux for Eee PC. I downloaded it and installed the ISO disk image onto a 2Gb memory stick, and after a certain degree of jiggery pokery, I persuaded the Eee PC to boot from the USB memory stick, and then install the OS without recourse to a CD ROM drive. This should guarantee me a few bonus points from geek central.

Shirley and I went for lunch at the Ship and Trades pub in Chatham on Wednesday, a great pub located on the banks of the river Medway at Chatham. The pub is located in a former Royal Dockyard building. Give it a try if you are ever in the area.

The photo above was taken by the Eee PC's in built web cam, using a program called Cheese. It has not been re-touched or altered as I usually do with Aperture 2 on my Apple Mac. I am sitting in my favourite corner of the RH&LJ and the world is a fine place. Click on the picture for a larger version - heaven forbid!

Pewty Acres is due for a bit of a wash and brush up prior to the arrival of the Frasers. I like to keep the place looking clean and Spartan, but the kitchen and bathroom both need some fettling. I really could do with a bigger house with three bedrooms, as my second bedroom is dedicated as my office and computer / radio room. Suffice to say I will be sleeping on the sofa during their visit.

I was sitting on the post Dad visiting 99 bus from Plumstead yesterday afternoon, when I had a revelation – one of those philosophical moments when the meaning of life, the universe and everything becomes astonishingly clear. What an incongruous place for it to happen. Suffice to say that I will not be following on the L Ron Hubbard bandwagon and passing my thoughts on.