Ténéré, Africa Twin, Ténéré, Africa Twin.....

Ack, just when I think that I've decided on selling the Africa Twin and buy a new or nearly-new Yamaha Ténéré, I go for a 75-mile ride on the Twin and she tries to talk me into keeping her.

Rode to Taunton on the A30 (the old London trunk road) through the beautiful Somerset villages and small towns, and into Taunton from the  south for a change, avoiding all the Henlade/M5 traffic.  A lovely ride, some nice roads and lovely old houses in the towns and villages.

Came back via the Somerset Levels, through Othery and Aller (a great short straight of open kinks in the road there - sweep, sweep, sweep, sweep) to Langport, out to Sparkford on the A303 dual carriageway and back home via the country lanes through Queen Camel, Marston Magna and Mudford.

She felt more stable on the dual carriageway than the Ténéré even with an almost empty tank - hmmm, alter the seat, new rear shock, maybe £5-600, or sell her and buy a Ténéré spending an extra £3000+.  I already have the top box, panniers and racks, engine bars, tax and MOT for the Africa Twin - the extras would have to be bought for the Ténéré.......

I'm starting to think "better the devil you know" - for now, at least.

Ténéré

No, not the southern bit of the Sahara in Chad, the Yamaha version.

I took the latest version of the Yamaha XT660Z Ténéré out for a test ride today (the model that was launched in 2008).  It's a 660cc single-cylinder adventure motorbike with a big fuel tank and plenty of suspension travel.

Took it for a quick 30 mile test ride from Branson's out through Mudford, Marston Magna and Queen Camel to the A303 at Sparkford, then along the dual carriageway to the Cartgate roundabout and back into Yeovil for some town work.

Very enjoyable ride - hmm, might be my next bike..

After that I rode out to Taylor's Motorcycles in Misterton to look at a Honda Dominator, but wasn't able to take it out and I just didn't like the vibe in the dealership, so that's off the list. 

Rode on to Beaminster to my uncle's café and his wife's gallery - the Ann Day café and gallery - but it was shut for staff holidays.

Rode back into town as I'd said to my brother that I would go up and watch the 2nd XV rugby game at the club he belongs to, Ivel Barbarians.  I took my camera along to take some pics, and put the best of them on my Smugmug gallery.

Home afterwards with a quite red face from the sun :-)

Clients....

Why is it so difficult for clients to decide that they want some new functionality, to specify that functionality once agreed internally, and then send that specification to us?

I'd just started testing some new functionality, spend a day and a half on it, and then they decide that they want to do it slightly differently.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

On a brighter note, I've just ordered my new P&S digital camera today:

Canon Powershot A480 - a cheap one to carry around with me.

I've copied my iPhoto library from the Mac Mini to the MacBookPro, next up is the original images folders, and then I can start taking photos and storing them again, before uploading stuff to my Smugmug online photo album.  Hmm, thinking on that, I don't think I added last September's motorcycle meet ride report to PixByMe
either - must do that sometime....

Brrr

It's only the middle of September and we've just put the central heating on boost for an hour - my hands were getting cold typing in the small bedroom-cum-office.

How can it be this cold in September? Hmm, maybe I need a break somewhere warm next year!

Train tickets for London arrived today in the post - pretty good service!

Londinium

I've booked up a short break in London for October.  Train up on the 14th, overnight in the King's Cross Travelodge that night meeting Pete who's over from Hong Kong, then move to the Ibis in Earl's Court for the next three nights, getting the train back on the evening of the 18th.

Now to work out what I want to do/see up there :-D

Companies - bad and good

Why are some companies so uselsss?  Cancelled my Sky satellite subscription on 4th August, giving the required 31 days notice, so it would end on 5th September.

Lo and behold, I get a bill for the month commencing 6th September!

Call them up - again - and the operator tells me that they can see my notice of cancellation on 4th August, but that the person I spoke to then marked it as 'Pre-Advance Cancellation Notification', not 'Cancellation Notification'.  Dumbasses!

Hopefully, this new bill will now be null and void, but lets wait to see what happens.

Now for the good - I called Manx Telecom and the Youth Hostel Association and changed my direct debits over to the new bank account down here and all was easy peasy, just how it should be.  I hope, anyway! :-)

Weekends

Weekends are good, but they never seem to last long enough!

I get my own bed back tomorrow night - Dutch friends have been over and I've been relegated to the z-bed in the 3rd bedroom-cum-office.

Thinking about a new smaller camera than my super-zoom, one that I can carry with me most of the time. Top choice at the moment is a new Panasonic as it takes AA batteries - hate being left in the lurch when a Li-ion battery dies!  Maybe I can get back into taking more pictures - my Deviant Art and Smugmug webpages are looking a little bare recently.

Just asked for a few days off in October - off to London for a few days R&R to meet Pete for a day on his way back to HK and then to have a wander around.  Might stay at the Ibis in Docklands - relatively cheap, in London terms anyway! lol

Life, the universe and everything

42

Well, glad that's settled!

Does that mean anything? Hmm, well apart from my age in just over 3 years time, I haven't reached that waist size - yet! I'm down about 9-10 pounds since moving back, even without the lunchtime strolls of around a mile or so that I used to do on the island - I now have about 30 minutes for lunch downstairs, and then back to work.

16

Another number, and my next target for weight in stone - only 1lb to go! 5lb to go to reach 100kg - I'm English, we use mutiple measurement systems depending on our whims.

38

My next birthday is in 69 days - interesting number there :-) Also my current waist size (no, not 69!) - do people realise how difficult it is to find trousers that fit when your a 38" waist with little legs - 30" inseam! At nearly 5'11", all my height must be in my upper body! Makes it a bugger finding a motorcycle to fit though..

80,000

Why can't I find any houses in this area for that sort of price so that I can move out? Yeovil hasn't particularly seen a drop in house prices yet - virtually full employment will do that for you, I suppose. There's been the occasional property in my price range, but definitely not in an area I'd like to live....

Cha-cha-cha-cha-changes.....

Sold the Seat car on the island, and rode the Africa Twin down here. M & D sold me their old VW Bora so that I've got something to roll around in, those happening sounds of radio 4 blaring out of the open windows.....

I've got the bike through its first MOT test in nearly 3 years (last one was in Jan 07 in N. Ireland when I bought it as the IOM doesn't have them) with flying colours, so will have to go down to Exeter in the next week or so to re-register it.

I've been humming and hawing about what to do next for transport - I've thought about a 60s VW camper as it's been a dream for years, but I think I've missed the boat on those. They're so damned expensive - last time I looked at one in the early 90s it was £1500 - a similar condition one now would be closer to £8-9k! A good one is cloer to £12,000 - too rich for my blood!

So back to musing on a new bike - I realised that I've never bought a vehicle that was younger than 8 years old on day of purchase, so I think, at 37, it's time to treat myself! I thought about a scooter, but then nah, I thought about a sports bike but that's not my scene, man! Back to the adventure sports rides, and as I enjoyed my Dominatrix (Honda NX650 Dominator) a single cylinder bike might be back on the agenda.

I sat on a Yamaha XT660Z Ténéré at the local dealer yesterday, and (damn my little legs!) I could just about get both sets of toes touching the floor! It can be lowered, plus my bulk will probably lower it slightly as it all settles in, so I'm gonna arrange a test ride next Saturday

Settling in

Over a month since my last post - "I'm not the Messiah, I'm a very naughty boy" (in best Life of Brian mimicry).

Settled back in to my old room at the parent's house now, built some shelving with my dad to hold my books and dvds - the CDs are still boxed up in the garage with nowhere to store them, along with umpteen other boxes (mostly kitchen goods, crockery, glasse, etc). Still haven't found my iPod Touch or torque wrench though

Hmm, I suppose the title of this blog no longer applies, having been off Mann for 6 weeks now (still miss some of the people though), so I shall think of something witty etc to rename it as.

Still got stuff to do here, but at least I've got a desk to work from when broadband was down for a couple of days, as I went up to Ikea in Brizzul. Connection to work can be slow sometimes, but it's great to be able to wander in to work at 8.30 and finish when I want to, and when I can afford to.