Bob the Cob & other tails

Oh, long time since I last posted. Therefore there’s a lot to say, which means I probably won’t get much work done tonight. In fact, that last sentence, and this one even more so, is probably just wasting even more time I could have spent on work.

When I say work, I mean own projects.

Work, as in my paid employment, is going well. It’s for a small web design company based in Oxon Business Park, Shrewsbury. Mutiny Design, and sister company re-route.co.uk, who do SEO, based in the same office, is backed by an organisation with quite a large annual turnover. The main benefit of this for me is that I’ll nearly always get paid on time.

Sharing an office with re-route.co.uk also means I get to learn a lot about SEO, as those who know something about it can probably tell.

Anyhow, I’m enjoying work, which is probably a good thing. Even so, I still think about my old job quite a bit. Actually, I haven’t touched a horse or done anything vaulting related for about 2 months. Given I’m supposed to be competing in 2 weeks with the Clwyd team, I don’t think I’m going to do much good. Still, Di said it’s either me or her and if she did it I’d have to lunge. Either way, I get to be a little humiliated!

There’s the vaulting holiday this weekend at Clwyd anyway. I intend to go, so long as I don’t have any more little accidents on the bicycle before then…

I think it’d be awsum to have a vaulting barrel in the garden. At least it would if I had a garden. I suppose there might be someone nearby who could accommodate such an ugly mass of steel in theirs but I haven’t the inclination to go round asking.

And finally! At least I think so…

The projects I mentioned at the start are: PHPeer - a Gnutella2 implementation in PHP - and ShrewsburyDIY (another excellent opportunity to include a link!).

PHPeer is progressing well. I can handle many of the processing that are required for what I want (not much, TBH - there’s already plenty of perfectly adequate software out there). And what do I want? Right now, another glass of milk. But from PHPeer, ability to search by specific hash (not started) or keywords (mostly done), the ability to download preview files (done, but needs changing to run in a child/separate process) and the ability to send this data via an API (mostly done).

Well, folks, the vaulting selection trial in Wales has gone and been. Fairly successful as far as I’m aware. I’m without results as yet but I’m sure they’ll be up soon.

Photos on my flickr page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/higgy/

I’ve been meaning to write for a while. As it is there’s been a few things going on since my last writing.

First thing, i guess, is Bob leaving. After a bit of trouble getting him in the lorry, he went back to his home where, i’m told, there’s another horse to keep him company. I didn’t get on well that day. Anyway, all settled and life goes on, all be it without Bob. Still, I’ve since grown to like a little pony called Swylltyn. Easy to understand: he’ll do anything as long as there’s food at the end of it.

Claude has also gone back home to Gloucestershire. I’ve heard nought of him since but his foot was healing well when he left.

Fudge was put down soon after returning home. Given the state he was in, and his age, i can’t say i’m surprised.

Ned, the ex-Perry RDA vaulting horse, has gone to his new home in Clent and is now living with 2 donkeys and being used for eventing. I’m hoping to be able to visit him and see how he’s getting on.

We recently had a film crew at the centre to film a new promotional video. No doubt i’ll appear several times looking a bit of a state. Maybe they’ll have the sense to cut any part including me…

Anyway, the real reason for my finally getting around to posting is that the British Equestrian Vaulting Championships have come to an end just this afternoon.

We had a bit of a lack of preparation, despite our efforts, due to Go Fast, the horse we were intending to borrow, being lame. Instead we had to borrow the Cader vaulter’s Tywysog (meaning ‘prince’), or full name Tywysog Arddechog (i’ll attempt to find that one out).

Tywysog’s canter is a little bit uneven and 2 of our vaulters came off in the pre-novice compulsories, one managing to injure her knee. In all credit to her, she stuck at it to do the freestyle but i heard this morning her knee has swollen quite a bit.

The freestyle had to be adapted to use only 2 people at a time, which happened only the week before. My part was reduced by quite alot so i had a couple of other moves instead. Despite the fact i missed one we still ran out of time when performing it.

Out of space again. I’ll give up for now. Full report later…

I’ll consolidate these into one message when i get to a computer. That and capitalise my i’s…