Where am I?

I have signed up for the new Yahoo app fireeagle it allows you to update your location then present it to a webpage on the internet.

You will need a GPS enabled phone, a fireeagle account, a blogloc accoount then your off. Just create a page using the code provided.

If I give you the password you can see my location at http://neilbaldwin.net?page_id=934 and if you know my pets name you have got it.

Flickr account

I now have a Flickr account. Below is a sample entry, basically you can insert a Flickr set into a post. Here is a group of photos mainly fungi taken on a holiday during October 2007.

[flickrset id=”72157614908348045″ thumbnail=”square” overlay=”true” size=”medium”]

Weight Watchers meeting?

Went to Princes Risborough for a quiz to raise money for the Risborough Cricket club. It was held at a primary school. We were in teams of 10 and you had to bring your own snacks, drinks but fish and chip supper was supplied. We came 7th out of 10 but at one point we were 3rd.

Each member of the team felt duty bound to bring enough snacks for everyone one so we had enough crisps and dips to feed a hundred. Just we we thougt we might run out of snacks the fish supper turned up.

Walk round HMP Bovingdon

Field view

Started off the A41 at the services near Bovingdon. Parked near paint balling centre. There is lots of rubbish perhaps from the market.
Magpie, Chaffinch, Long-tailed Tit, Great Tit, Rook, Yellowhammer, Goldcrest, Robin, Kestrel, Fieldfare, Redwing, Starling, Blackbird, Buzzard, Blue Tit, Skylark, Red Kite, Wood Pigeon, Collared0 Dove, Mallard, Black-headed Gull.
The walk ended at the Bovingdon Market site, and it was market day. Helen did not enjoy walking down the stalls but we got some chips and vegetables for dinner tomorrow.
At the duck pond on Whelpley Hill there was a large rat on a bird table.

Published
Categorised as Birds, Walk

Gran Torino *****

Gran Torino film poster

The film is about a grumpy old man Walt Kowalski, played by Clint Eastwood, who lives in a run down neighbourhood where most people are immigrants or come from immigrant famlies. He is unhappy with the people in the neighbourhood and his own family. He gets involved with the family next door after the son tries to steal his Gran Torino. It covers many moral issues around religion and racism. It is a great film, made even better by the good storyline.

I give it 5 out of 5, and would recommend you go and see it while it is still on in the cinemas. To find out more about the film including more that you would want to before seeing it try the Wikipedia article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gran_Torino_(film)

Film reviews

I have added a new category to the blog Film Review I like going to the pictures, and try to go quite regularly. I often can’t remember a film I have seen even a few months later, perhaps old age is setting in, so this will be a way for me to refer back to films I have seen.

I will try to do the blog entry just after I have seen the film, by email using the BB. Films will be awarded up to 5 stars.

By the way they have started pouring concrete down at the dump site, I will try to get a picture of the machine with a big tube that they use to pump the wet cement. Not I used concrete and cement in the same sentence because I don’t know the difference between the two.

UPDATE – Apparently cement is the important ingredient in concrete, it is the fine grey powder that goes hard and holds all the other stuff together.

RDP shortcuts

RDP Shortcuts

Here is a tip I find very useful. I find myself constantly having to log in and out of RDP sessions at work. Recently I realised that it is possible to create an RDP file, that is effectivley a short cust to a session. I have put all mine in a fiolder and linked the folder to my start bar for easy access. To create yourself an RDP file you just need to press the options button in the RDP connection and use the save as option, or if you are feeling adventurous you can create one from scratch in notepad as they are just text files. I created one from the terminal services client then created a template and create new ones from that.

Credit crunch chilli

Chilli ingredients

Here is a recipe for veggie chilli nicked from Caroline Sharp. My recipe for a big saucepan full of chilli, that can be frozen.

Ingredients:-

Two onions, three green peppers (missing in picture), two chilli’s, garlic, cumin seeds, coriander, Quorn mince, tins tomatoes (2) of flagelots, berlotti, haricot, green lentil, and sweet corn, salt, pepper, and anything else you like to bulk it out.

Fry your cumin seeds, onions, green peppers, chilli’s, and garlic. Add the tomatoes and all the other tins of stuff, leave to simmer, for a while. Cheap lovely food.

A walk around Dancersend

Dancersend

Back from visiting my folks for the weekend. The weather fine so I made the most of the time remaining of the weekend by going for a walk around Dancersend. I parked past the famous Gravity Hill in a small layby. From there I headed back for the hill and took the footpath that crosses the road, in the direction of Tring. You pass an old walled garden, which must have been part of an old estate there is a big house nearby.

Fungi

I then headed toward the Ridgeway via a place called Hangs End, where I came across a flock of Chaffinch and Yellowhammer, try as I might I could not see and Brambling. Following the footpath up the hill, which has been moved to the top of the bank of a deep ditch, which makes for a much better walk, iI took a picure of some fungi. You hit the Ridgeway then turn right and eventually end up at the top of the Crong. Trun right down the steep hill until the bend and enter Dancersend nature resrve. Back up the hill to Dancersend house and you back to the car.