Ben Richards

Felicitys’ 1st Birthday BBQ

Ben — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 09:44:01 +0000

Saturday 17th July 2010

We started preparing for Flicks’ BBQ the night before, unfortunately the weather didn’t look like it would be on our side. There were rain showers forecast for all day and it looked pretty grim. We decided to continue with the party anyway and have everyone inside if it really was that bad. So Saturday morning comes and is pelting it down with rain for most of the morning with only a few breaks in between the rain spells. I pick up the food from Asda and the Indian sweet shop (samosas & pakora) and we started setting up.

Paul, Gaz and I put up the big gazebo in the middle of the garden around 1pm ish and magically it stopped raining… and guess what. We had no more rain at all that day! it was glorious sunshine! Pots’ mom (Judy) made a lovely cake for Flicks birthday so we all ate and drank all day…

All in all it was a lovely way to spend the day and we wouldn’t of had it any other way. Thanks to everyone that attended.

Photo’s can be seen here

Felicity’s 1st Birthday

Ben — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:27:35 +0000

Today is Flicks 1st birthday. This year has gone so fast its too true. Her achievements so far include:
• 8 teeth
• crawling (like a crab)
• standing up on her own unaided
• climbing UP the slide
and probably loads more that I forgot to mention.

We’re hopefully having a BBQ / party on Saturday but at the moment the weather isnt looking too good. Hopefully that’ll change

Leatherman Surge

Ben — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 12:58:10 +0000

I’ve had a very basic Leatherman for around 8 years now and during those 8 years its been on my belt everyday and served me well. I have now treated myself to the top of the line Leatherman Surge. Its a fantastic piece of kit that I know I will get a lot of use out of. The major difference between the surge and my old Leatherman is that on the surge everything locks . I’ve had a few injuries cause by the blades not locking on the older Leatherman, well not any more.

New Camera: Nikon D3000

Ben — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 11:36:37 +0000

I’ve got fed up of late using a very cheap (< £40) point and shoot camera, and whilst it produces ok shots there just not the best. So after a lot of um’ing and ar’ing I decided on a DSLR. Now, having 2 kids funds are pretty tight so I could’nt go out and spend more that £400 on a kit really. So scoured eBay and other sites for a few weeks and finally settled on a Nikon D3000.

The going rate on eBay was around £300 for the camera and 18-55mm kit lense. I had a random thought and just googled Nikon D3000 for sale. I then came across a thread posted a week back on a reptile forum from a user selling a D3000 with the 18-55mm lense and also a 50-200mm lense. The camera had taken less than 30 shots and came complete with receipt and warranty from Jessops. So after a bit of negoation I ended up paying just under £300 for the camera and lenses . . . Bargin!

So here it is, this photo obviously crap was taked on my HTC Legend but my first set of shots can be seen at my Flickr Gallery

Ilfracombe on a nice day

Ben — Sat, 19 Jun 2010 11:31:41 +0000

Kids happy on the coast.

Messy Desk.

Ben — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 12:20:24 +0000

How come whenever I clean my desk off at work, it then takes less than 3 days to become full of crap again?

And We're Off!

Ben — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 10:07:43 +0000

The great computer build off officially begins today! I have around 10 different images to build in the next 5 weeks ready for the annual re-image in the summer! First off is probably the most troublesome machines the Toshiba A200′s. I say these are the worst but there not really that bad. The only difference between these and the standard machines on the network is that these have to have a shed load more software installed on them so the images take longer to deploy and take up more space on the server. Also imaging laptops is a pain in the ass because every year I have to get them all out of the trolley, hook them up to a switch and then start the imaging process. Pain in the ass!

Having a bit of a move around with my servers this year as well. Moving all my application files and networked application files onto their own server to try and give the DC some breathing space. I’ve also upgraded the two Acer servers to 4GB RAM and the two Intel DC’s are next once the supplier ships me the right RAM!

Looks like I need a new tv!

Ben — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 22:21:10 +0000

Playing COD MW2 and look what’s happened

Posting from Android

Ben — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 12:41:35 +0000

Just a quick test post from my HTC Legend Android phone with the latest WordPress app installed.

Williams Birthday

Ben — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 11:52:34 +0000

It was Williams 5th birthday on Wednesday and amongst the massive array of presents he had revieved, we had brought him a Nintendo DS lite.

Managed to get a refurbished unit off eBay for about half the cost of a new unit but sods law its a bit faulty and needs to go back. When turning it on it would just keep rebooting itself unless it was plugged into the mains. Now, I’m not entirely sure if this is the DS that’s at fault or the R4 card that I’m using with it.

I have sent the DS back today for a replacement so we’ll see what happens when it arrives.