Archive for the Family Category
Roll back to November and my brother calls me from Germany:
Brother: I can’t play any of my DVD’s, only the one I got in Canada. And it wont let me change the region back.
Me: How many times have you changed the region on your laptop’s DVD drive?
Brother: It asked me to change it when I put the Canadian DVD in but I haven’t change it before and now I need to change it back.
Me: Hmm, ok…
Followed by about 5 minutes of me talking him through various different things to try, and to also confirm to me that he couldn’t change the DVD region away from Region 1 (North America). In the end I’m not able to solve it, and we hang up with a promise from me to have a look at his laptop when he is back for Christmas in a few weeks.
Fast forward to just before Christmas and I’m having a look at my brothers laptop. Sure enough he has run out of changes to his region code and the various software hacks and downloads don’t work. I even flash his DVD drive with the latest firmware as suggested on various web sites. Still no luck, looks like he is going to have to buy a new DVD drive. A search on eBay gives some promising results.
Just as I’m about to admit defeat and hand the laptop back, I download VLC on a whim – and it works! I have no idea how it works, I guess it just ignores the region and plays the DVD regardless.
Another satisfied customer 
It’s been a while since I’ve posted and I’ve no real excuse other then laziness. But that’s not to say I haven’t been doing anything with my time. Far from it, this is the first weekend that I actually have nothing specific to do.
So what have I been doing, I’ve been to two weddings, two weekends away for meetings, a weekend in Cumbria for a fiends birthday, trip to Sheffield to go climbing, many parties in and around York, across to Leeds for the fireworks, family birthdays combined with a geeky weekend. And oh yea, I quit my job and got a new one (more on that later).
As my Mum so delicately put it “You get around”.
Unfortunately it’s raining today, otherwise I would be in town to pick up a few bits and bobs.
I hadn’t realised it until just now but July has actually been a fairly busy month. Every weekend I’ve been doing something or going somewhere, and often during the week as well.
You can see what I’ve actually been doing by having a peek at the 135 pictures I’ve just uploaded to the gallery. Yes, 135! That’s what made me realise it had been a busy month.
It’s also the month that the picture counter on my camera passed one thousand. Over a thousand pictures since I got the camera on Christmas day, I hate to think what the cost would be if they were 35mm film pictures.
EDIT: It was actually 846 miles, not 746.
That’s the distance from York to the far North of Scotland, a bit of travel, and back.
I’ve out pictures from the trip in my gallery as usuall - http://www.tuxx.org.uk/gallery2/v/n_hw_scotland/
Last Tuesday I drove us up to Edinburgh (watching out for the speed cameras on the A1) where we stayed with Clare, a friend who would be joining us, and her husband Richard. The following morning Dad and I shared the driving until we stopped short of Durness at a place simply called Hope. From there it was a walk into our first bothy; one that I hadn’t been to since 2000.
I feel that it’s time for an update.
For me it was back to York for the Christmas and New Year period. Christmas was once again full of enjoyment with santa delivering as requested, along with a few surprises! This year even more of my family were in York than in past years. My grandma from the Midlands and aunt with my cousins from Spain joined us and proved that the 2 houses can cope with a few more people. I’ve put the pictures up at http://www.tuxx.homelinux.org/gallery/christmas_2005. These were taken with my new digital camera (execpt those starting with a caption of P). Thanks to my Mum and Dad for the camera!
One of the highlights of winter for me is snow. Unfortunatly it didn’t snow on Christmas day but did a few days later. Got quite a bit of practice at driving on snow and ice that week!
For the New Year I was in a camping barn near Pickering. Unfortunatly my camera got lost on sone ones bag after the first day so there aren’t may pictures of the event its self. Pictures in the gallery as usuall.
Pictures of my brother’s (Ben) passing in parade and are now in the gallery.
For those of you that don’t know he decided to join the Navy, and so last February he traveled down to Plymouth. After 10 weeks of training we all traveled down there to watch (proudly) as became a ‘sailor’ in the navy.
Only 3 and a half years until Mum gets rid of my other brother
