Random Madness Blog

Run the AVG 8.0 installer from the command line with the following switch.

/REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSurf  /REMOVE_FEATURE fea_AVG_SafeSearch

Et voila!! No more Linkscanner!

Yes and I do mean Flailure.

It’s been a constant flail over the past few months. I can only hope that things begin to go right.

I haven’t updated my site for months. I’ve been working like a slave.

But on the plus side my Hat Manipulation hat will be here tomorrow:-)

3 Ply felt Top Hat.

Hello Nobody,

If your looking for me this week then you may have trouble in finding me. I’m away for a while. My Mother is not very well, so most of my time will be spent hanging around in hospitals for the forseeable future.

Be patient and eventually I will get back to you.

Stage 2 of building a Bokken involved realising that Bokken are built a certain way for a reason. They are not built using an axe to shape a piece of wood.

I have now started to remake a Bokken using the actual build a Bokken instructions.

Instructions can be found here.

Firstly I had to fell an old tree from my friends garden. When I say fell an old tree I do not mean a 400 year old Oak or something.

I felled an Elder which was standing deadwood. So it didn’t need to season after I have cut it.

Then I had to plank the trunk. Planking is quite easy but only once you know what you are doing and only if you have the appropriate tools

I put my trunk through the rip saw and ended up with the planks I needed.

After reading the Bokken instructions, my planks were cut to be the appropriate size. 1 inch x 1 1/2 inches x 49 inches.

Today I put my wood into clamps and by tomorrow I will have the wood glued and bent to the appropriate shape and size

Working on the principle that I can have the planing and routing done tomorrow I will have an almost complete Bokken by tomorrow night

Leaving the wood in clamps overnight seemed to ensure that it was glued properly. Once reomved from the clamps I was left with this.

Using a sharp router cutter I was able to shape the edges of the Bokken. This was to give both a nice shape for the grip and also for the blade front and back

Routing the back edge of the blade was done using a 45 degree router cutter. Be careful to only use this cutter on the back of the blade and not the grip

Rough cut the tip of the Bokken and then shape using a method that suits you. The tip of my bokken was done with a combination of router, hand saw, Belt sander and sandpaper.

Sand the entire Bokken, removing any rough edges or lumps. Then Varnish to desired effect

A finished Bokken, it is nicely weighted, turns and cuts very well. All in all a nice training sword.

It’s official, I am a Monkey.
I’ve completely retraced my steps of the week before last, every customer has been revisited, every friend has been phoned or appropriately hassled. My book has gone into oblivion. I really hope that noone else is reading it. There are some things that are only meant for me and the rest is unedited.
Now I can only start again, I’ve accepted my fate and my lost ideas. Just the experience alone has given me more to write about.

You know, you have to take the rough with the smooth.

Out with the old and in with the new, for this my friend is book number two.

At this point, minutes feel like hours, hours feel like days and time feels infinite. I have no idea what to do.
A week is apparently long enough to change everything in my world upside down. Well in this case an hour and a half was long enough.

Some people are amazing on so many levels and i met one of those rare few last weekend.

And I lost my book, 5 years writing and I can’t find it anyway. I’ve spent my time retracing last weeks steps in an attempt to find the one thing that has saved me from myself.

Life is hard, harder than I ever thought it should be. But I wasn’t designed for this world, maybe a slightly different world but not this one. Not this consumer society where I have no place to be and no-one to share it with.

Those rare glimpses of happiness, of the expansive future are the only things that keep me going on days like today. I’m not sure that it’s enough just to keep going.

But obviously it is, you have to keep going, reach for all the things that you dream of, otherwise what would be the point?

All I’ve had this week is blog spam. So in an effort to reduce it I have install wp-hashcash.

It is working on the other blogs that i’ve installed it on so i’m hoping it’s working here too.

Not like anyone is reading this:-)

And I’m done. All backups were made, and all upgrades complete. Didn’t even take that long:-)

Yesterday I went to the 5th Bristol University Juggling Convention. Which I must say was fantastic. There is nothing quite like a room full of jugglers. So today I feel inspired. I finally got round to upgrading Wordpress. I’ve been meaning to it for ages (it doesn’t really take more than 5 minutes). I’ve also got to upgrade the projects componant of my site, and the gallery. And then tomorrow I will Juggle.

Just got back from watching Hayseed Dixie. And they were fantastic as always.

The Cheese and Grain in Frome really seem to pull it off, but ocasionally you can’t help but feel that you are watching an excellent band in your Village Hall.

Anyway off to work in the morning.A day full of interesting people and problems awaits.