drplokta

Those who read flickgc's LJ will be aware that we got a dog yesterday, a rescued three-or-four-year-old Bernese mountain dog whose previous owner died. Here's a brief video of her bounding across the front garden (taken in Vine but uploaded to YouTube instead, since Vine doesn't let you rotate videos).

The switch just got flipped at the exchange, and we have ADSL again, after a week of relying on very dodgy mobile Internet on our phones. Will be catching up on email over the weekend. It's currently syncing at 1440 kbps, which could be worse, but won't do much streaming video. Can't do a speed test until we've stopped pulling down tons of delayed emails, RSS feeds, etc.

We drove down to the new house this morning and collected the keys, our money fortunately having arrived a little before we did. Then after poking around the house, garden and stables for a bit (What are all these pull cords in the bedrooms that don't seem to do anything? Do we actually know the alarm code? What's this bare concrete patch in the middle of the front lawn?) we drove home again, because we're not actually moving in until Friday (although I'm going to be there all day tomorrow to let in carpet cleaners and the window cleaner, and accept delivery of a washing machine, a dishwasher, a fridge, a freezer, a ton (literally) of horse bedding, some horse feed, a lawn mower, a strimmer, some other bits and pieces from Amazon, a dining table and chairs, some stable tools, and a grocery order from Ocado).

Our new concrete has been laid, and the stable yard looks good, although there's some grass that needs to grow back. The fencing work isn't being done until mid August, but we have electric fencing on plastic posts to keep them away from the dodgy fences until they've been replaced.

We're now a little concerned by the amount of stuff that needs to be done by next Wednesday morning, when the horses move in -- there's some junk in the stables, tack room and barn to get rid of, door furniture that needs replacing, electric fencing that needs to be connected up, and so on.

In theory, our phone line and ADSL account will both be switched over to the new house some time on Friday. If we go offline for a while, then this did not actually happen.

We collected Jonny from near Gatwick today and installed him in the same livery yard as vgrumpybastard. Except that he doesn't actually have a stable of his own and is living outside in the field, which is what he's used to.

( Cut for lots of pony stuff, and a photo )

Nights spend away from home in 2012 (including forthcoming New Year's Eve). Asterisks denote more than one non-consecutive occasion.

Ras al Khaimah, UAE (5)
Boston, Mass. (3)
Heathrow (4) *
Sheffield (4) *
Troyes, France (1)
Isle sur la Sorgue, France (5)
Geneva (1)
Luxembourg (1)
Bruges, Belgium (1)
Tuddenham, Suffolk (3)
Reading (1)
Cambridge (2)
Chicago (5)
Walthamstow (2) *
Nottingham (2)

40 nights, only a bit over 10% of the year.

I just realised that the window of opportunity for human spaceflight has been and gone. It's no longer feasible. The orientation sensors on your smartphone won't work in zero gravity, so everyone's screens would be the wrong way round, which obviously makes the whole enterprise infeasible until the invention of artificial gravity.

My mother works in the Oxfam shop in Chester. They've just been given a large collection (she says 35 crates, and estimates at least 1,000 items) of comics and RPGs. Does anyone know of any dealers who might be interested in taking a trip to Chester with a view to acquiring it?

Joyden's Riding Club show today, my first show. I came third of six in the Novice Senior Rider class (flickgc came first), which was better than I was expecting. "Senior" means over 17, so I qualify rather easily. And then second of four in the in-hand Veteran class (Veteran here being the pony, who is 17, rather than me).

( Here be photos )

An otherwise satisfactory Google translation of an article about the Olympics in Der Spiegel reports that the snakes at the venues kept within tolerable limits. Thank goodness for that.

Since no other source that I follow has picked up on it, I thought I'd point out that FT Alphaville (which is not behind the FT's paywall) is running a really interesting series of posts on the current economic troubles viewed as the problems of a post-scarcity society. And there's Fuzzy Felt too.