Today I had the day off as it was time for the second ultra-sound scan for Baby 2.0 down at Frimley Park Hospital. Whilst we usually try to get appointments at either the beginning or the end of the day, this time the only slots available were late morning, and knowing the usual timekeeping, I [...]

I thought I’d just provide a little update to my previous post about the less than pleasurable experience of upgrading to Sky+ HD.
First off, Sky themselves have refunded our £60 installation fee. I e-mailed in a complaint saying much the same as my previous post here (but without the Simpsons reference) and to their credit [...]

We now have Sky TV in glorious HD, no thanks to Sky themselves – this song from the Simpsons seems appropriate to describe the quality of the install… (words here)
In the past I’ve had one or two issues with Sky installers, generally a drawn out discussion getting them to run cables where I want them, [...]

After tweeting that I was going to hear Baby 2.0, thanks to the sheet ice on the road, Beth went on her own to the surgery, and I only got to hear the recording.
However they do say that live is always better than recorded, and that was what we got today, with the first specialist [...]

First thing this morning, pretty well fresh off the plane from Canada, Beth had an appointment at the hospital. This is a picture of the reason – Beth is pregnant, with the baby due sometime in late May or early June next year.
Anyway, all three of us took a trip down to Frimley Park Hospital, [...]

One of the things about having a relatively new house, is it costs relatively little to heat, thanks to the modern insulation. The downside of course about being so well insulated is that in this weather, once heat gets trapped in the house, it is very difficult to get rid of, usually requiring windows open [...]

I didn’t set out to get a Marbles Credit Card, I sort of got sold into it.
A few years back we changed around our credit cards, in particular we took the advice of the Money Saving Expert site and swapped to credit cards that provided benefits or perks. It has definitely been a good move [...]

I guess it had to happen at some point, nobody is perfect, and despite riding high at the top of numerous customer satisfaction surveys, there had to be some part of the organisation at Smile and the Co-operative Bank that wasn’t quite up to scratch, and unfortunately I’ve managed to find it.
The people in question [...]

Isn’t the best bit of watching someone playing on a Wii watching them, rather than the screen…
The Race from Richard Peat on Vimeo.

So this last week has been pretty monumental. Apparently some bloke was elected president across the pond, but the big news is our baby Lucy was born on Tuesday.
As some of you may know, Beth was diagnosed with gestational diabetes part way through the pregnancy. Basically what this means is that thanks to the hormones [...]

Seems I’m not alone in being disturbed by the palling around with terrorists/Muslim associations.
This is the full video of General Colin Powell, member of the Republican party, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of State in the first George W Bush administration, endorsing Barack Obama for the next President.
Powell is [...]

Just thought I’d share a picture of a couple of little “den warmingâ€? presents to celebrate having a working setup in our new den, and give a quick update as to why it’s been a bit quiet around here recently. With regards to the den, it’s a great little space to work in – cosy [...]

Back in February, a group of former Google employees launched FriendFeed, a site that allowed users of multiple social networking sites to aggregate feeds of their data from those sites into a single stream that could be shared with their friends, so for example my account on FriendFeed aggregates my blog and my Google Reader [...]

Usually when I’m ordering something, I try to have it delivered to work – the theory being that at work there is usually someone around to sign for the parcel, and you’re not going to have problems with forged signatures and parcels propped up against the front door. However every so often we have to [...]

We’ve had a load of notices go up on all the doors in the building today warning everybody to carry their electronic key fobs with them. Apparently last night someone was working late and decided to leave the building by going down the stairs rather than taking the lift – going via the lift all [...]

Talking to Mum this morning she said it was Ricky Week, the annual celebration held in Rickmansworth, the town where I was brought up.
The start of the week is always marked by a parade, which as you can see from this video of last years, can be a bit of a washout – having said [...]

So the twelve weeks is up, so we can now officially announce that we are having a baby. There are of course one or two people who already know, notably anybody who catered for us when we were in Canada, there are also one or two people who guessed, mostly from changes in what Beth [...]

As promised – here comes our snow for Easter…
Although it can’t quite make up it’s mind – mere minutes later, it is bright sunshine and blue skies!
Easter Weather from Richard Peat on Vimeo.

I should know when a customer service agent assures you that the computer system has just been updated, and the weird letter you’ve just had from the company in question is just an isolated incident, that it’s just the agent trying to be optimistic, and pass the thorny problem on to someone else a couple [...]

An entirely hypothetical question here, with no basis at all in reality… really…
Your employer has a set of licenses for a particular product, which are registered on their site to your company customer number, and against a contact e-mail address. Bear in mind that any installs of the product make use of the online system [...]