I just searched for myself on "Google Books" and found about half a dozen books that I'm mentioned in, and didn't know about!

Tags: vexen

I want more life!

More time to write, more affection, more hours in the day, more time to read, more intelligent conversation (only one person at my work can maintain intelligent commentary on whatever topic we hit upon).

I have to sleep less, work faster, type faster, think clearer... and find a way past my present location's complete FTP-ban (and ftp proxy ban) in order to upload texts.

I have to make a greater name, make a bigger difference, teach more people, be harder, overcome my own weaknesses and failures, and get more out of everything I do.

Because, like, I've lived a third of my life, and I haven't done a third of what I wanted to have done.

Tags: life, vexen
Current Location: Afghanistan

A very quick appointment. The Dr said that he had looked at my notes and didn't expect anything to be wrong and that I have a good history. During and after the inspection he said I have perfect teeth, and that “if everyone was like you, [Mr] Crabtree, we’d be out of a job!”. He also took an xray of my teeth, and said that normally they do this every two years (my last one was 2005), but in my case I am low-risk so they do it less often.

Tags: health, vexen

Vexen I've put up another ten or so photos from our Italy holiday.

Tags: 2007, dolomites, holiday, italy, vexen
Current Location: Mönchengladbach
Current Mood: happy

Mrs Crabtree makes me happy! I can put up with much more (in the outside world) when she is around, she makes me feel stable, relaxed, loved. Her crazy ways are always so cool :-)

She makes me emotionally satisfied in ways that she doesn't even know about!

And she always encourages me to do my coursework, to stop proctrastinating... she has effectively taught me to swim and has been patient with me.

We share things well... I do the tidying, she does the cleaning... I do the clothes washing, she does the cooking; I manage the computer network and she oversees the administration of our (3) cars.

I look forward to our "in" evenings more than I look forward to bank holidays and early days off!

Awwwwww.

Tags: family, marriage, relationships, vexen
Current Location: Monchengladbach, Germany
Current Mood: loved

I have a daft village on Travian (Vexen Village)... what an odd online game! I don't really know what it's going to be like once it gets going.

Tags: travian, vexen

I want to introduce everyone to Ziggy. Ziggy is a MS Access/VBA application that I write and improve, which manages my websites, academic notes on books, lists and manages book quotations and reviews, and writes the Bibliography portion of my HTML file. It is highly searchable, meaning it takes second for me to search for where I've used a particular quote, and seconds to (for example) list all the books I've quoted from on a particular page.

It can list all the "unused" notes I've made on books, so, I can see where I've made notes on something or quoted from the book, but I haven't implemented the quote in any text of my own yet. It has a "random quote" function that shows me a random unused quote from a book... so when I'm not inspired, I click "random quote" and have a look to see if it's anything I feel like writing about.

It also manages Notes... organised into topics, so, I have a series of notes pages on politics. It means I don't have to remember where I've left any .txt files around my computer when I'm trying to remember where I left an essay plan!

Oh, it writes http://www22.brinkster.com/vexen/site_index.html whenever I press on the "Sites... Make Index" button. And then opens it for me to preview.

Last few days I've programmed it to understand some FTP, so after doing an update I can tell it to open the local folder and remote FTP folder for the site I just tweeked. Handy.

When I'm inserting links into comments, I can tap "Sites... Search mine" and type in a quick keyword like "zombies" and it will list all my relevant pages, I can click on one and it places a "biblio" link into the clipboard ready for me to insert into the discussion. Example: "The Biology and Neurology of Zombies" by Vexen Crabtree (2006)

Ziggy will, over time, actually become self-aware. It will become knowledgeable enough to carry on writing my webpages, even once I'm dead. I just need to carry on and program it with everything I know, and press "Go". Ergo, world domination. Via HTML.

Tags: books, geeky, programming, vba, vexen, ziggy
Current Location: Salisbury, UK

I was in the British Library, reading through a few select chapters of "Religion in schools: controversies around the world" by R. Murray Thomas.

In one chapter on the controversy surrounding the teaching of humanism, agnosticism and stuff in RE, the author gives a brief history of the summary of religion in the UK... and hey presto, gives a references to (Crabtree, V (2002-2003)), and so I go check the bibliography, and there I am!

Crabtree, V. (2002-2003). Religion in Britain. Bane of Monotheis. Available online: http://www.vexen.co.uk/religion/rib.html#UK

It's the first time I've been an actual book cite me! And it's a good, scholarly, academic sociology-of-religion type book, too! How cool is that? *beams*

Tags: british library, ego, religion, vexen, vexen crabtree
Current Location: Starbucks near British Library, Kings Cross, London, UK

Got a few plans... see you around!

I finished work an hour ago, and legged it as fast as I could.

Going to the British Library for a bit.

Tags: kings cross, london, online, vexen
Current Location: Kings Cross, London

I am online in a Starbucks in London... downloading hundreds of emails and trying to get some stuff done...

I am in London for the next two and a half months, until the end of July. Woo hoo! But, I will be working hard and do not know in advance what weekends I will be free.

Nonetheless, I had a great quiet evening out with mattlazycat yesterday, and will endeavour to catch up with as many people as I can!

Anyway... in a months time, I will endeavour to post on this journal a very awesome, shocking and surprising photo of me in London at work... problem is, I haven't taken it yet. You'll see!

Tags: internet connectivity, london, starbucks, vexen, work
Current Location: London

I just got 80% on my first piece of coursework for my 2nd module (DD205), woo :-). And it was on a really boring subject that I'm not personally interested in (the USA/Mexico border).

I got two 80%-courseworks for my last module (DD100), and an average of 71%. (With the last half of the course being completed in Afghanistan, away from my library and mostly offline!).

So, what I learned from this first piece is: Leave it to the last minute, and then rush it!

Tags: academia, afghanistan, degree, offline, sociology, studying, university, vexen
Current Location: Monchengladbach, Germany

Spent most the day at work soldering (after doing 1 hour fitness on the airfield), but got nowhere. We're making up 5 great big power cables, but, all three I worked on were going nowehere! Noone could attach the last piece of the head of the first one, so my good-soldering is so far wasted. We all spent time trying to disassemble the indestructible (black) head of another cable, and got nowhere. The third cable... the soldering just wasn't happening. The buckets were too big so our little soldering iron wasn't melting them properly. We got a heat gun, and managed to blister all the hard plastic that housed the buckets. Eventually got it, soldered it together, and realized that we'd missed a bit inside the head cable-side, meaning, we'd have to take the head off and do it again. Useless!

Had a similarly useless day yesterday trying to get some electrolyte mix for the truck batteries. Fun all morning. Result: No electrolyte, and still a small pile of old, dry batteries with no paperwork to show that the job was in action. Blah.

Tags: vexen, work
Current Location: Germany
Listening To: "Crash" by Mesh