Wife in a Blue One

Today I had the privilege of listening to a new sound. The harmonies of three British Royal Navy wives, collectively known as 'Wife in a Blue One'.

They have just release this on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFNpYGVydq4

Their first cover song is 'Feel Like Home'. A Randy Newman song originally covered by Linda Ronstadt. Though this first song by Wife in a Blue One was recorded without any special recording equipment, I think they do the song justice. I wish them well. I know they will have a lot fun singing together.

I hope all my friends out there will give this song a chance and share with their friends.?

Visual Basic 2008

Jip and I have been discussing our future plans and our future definitely lies in Thailand. I need to expand my programming skills. To that end, I dug out my Visual Studio 2008 disc and found I burnt it in March 2009! Crikey! I completed my VB course three years ago!

I have re-installed VS2008 and started to refresh my knowledge of VB by working through MS Visual Basic 2008 Step by Step. So far so good; it all seems so familiar.

Our plan now, is to work towards a move to Thailand in mid to late 2013. Plai's graduation ceremony is expected to be during the autumn of that year and we want to be there for that.

Wherever You Are - pre-order now! #MWC4XNo1

I am very proud of my nephew and his wife. Tori is one of the many wives that make up the Military Wives Choir who will shortly release their stunning love song "Wherever You Are". Join their campaign - Military Wives For Christmas Number One - http://whereveryouare.co.uk/. Trending now on Twitter #MWC4XNo1.
Come on everybody and let's make this not just Christmas number one but this year's number one.

New Look Amsri.co.uk

I have now completed - well almost, some pages still have no content! I didn't go-live with the PHPBB but instead I'm now using Google+ and I like the 'circles'. Facebook hasn't drawn be back. The new look amsri.co.uk can be found here. Pop over and give me some feedback? I'm still undecided on the content for 'Thailand'.

Amsri Website

I'm re-writing my family website - http://www.amsri.co.uk. It currently runs on Joomla. Recently my ISP upgraded their PHP. This caused some errors to show up with the underlying Joomla. I had a choice, upgrade Joomla or write my own PHP. As I have accumulated a large amount of PHP knowledge over the last couple of years I've decided to do a re-write.

I am following Google's lead and leaving older browser compatibility behind. I'm writing in PHP5, HTML5 and CSS3. I have deserted Facebook and as an alternative, I am including a Public and Private forum. This will be using PHPBB3.

I'm liking the look at it so far!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Goodbye Facebook

A little later than planned but I have finally put Facebook behind me. It took me awhile to 'Download Your Information'
but I got there in the end. Internet Explorer 9.0.8 didn't appear to work with the download button. After the third failed attempt, I tried again using Firefox 4.0.1 and it worked first time! I received my email from Facebook within a few hours with a link to my download. My file was about 49 Mb and took a couple of minutes to download. Once this was downloaded and checked I then deleted my Facebook account. Free at last!

Night Photo of Thai House

Our Thai house at night.

Quit Facebook Day

Are you bored with Facebook? Do you spend too much time in Facebook? I am and I know I do!

Why not free yourself and join me on a Quit Facebook Day - 1st March 2011.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Have Patience With Yourself

One thing I have learnt over the years - patience. There are many things I want to do, but now is not the time, but do them I will. I leave you with this thought... "Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew." - Saint Francis de Sales

Glaucoma - new eye drops

Following my recent visit to the eye clinic for my annual checkup for glaucoma, the consultant was please that my eye pressure has come down and no further damage has been done to my eyes. However, he wants the pressure to come down further from the high teens to the low teens. To that end, he has prescribed me another eye drop medication. As I suffer from asthma he thought long and hard about prescribing this one. Eventually, he reasoned that the benefits outweighed the side effects. He warned me to be aware of any side effects and see my GP if I had any problems. The new medication? It's Allergan. I'm not too sure about some of the substances - hydrochloric acid! So now, that's Allegan (twice a day), Trusopt (three times a day) and Xalatan (once a day). Oh well, I suppose it'll be worth it in the end. I'd like to keep my sight. :)

Win Friends and Influence People

I read an excerpt from Dale’s book “How to Win Friends & Influence People”. This quote got me thinking... “You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you.” – Dale Carnegie. This is so true and I think for this one statement it is worth reading the whole book. I wish more people would heed his words then perhaps the world would be a happier place.

The impossible: it's just a question of answers

I just read this... "Success is 99% failure" this ties in nicely with one of my favourite quotations. It’s a beauty from Thomas Edison (The guy who invented, among other things, the incandescent light bulb; for all you youngsters out there that’s the old-fashioned type that you can’t buy now in the UK!) Mr Edison is credited with saying, following his many ‘failures’ in trying to get the light-bulb, or ‘globe’ to work, “If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is another step forward”. Say’s it all really. Or, as I like to say “The impossible: It’s just a question of answers”.

Posted via email from Paul Richard Evans

#RaceTheSun #CouchTo5K - Another good training run tonight. Only 79 days to go.

After the recent bout of wintery weather this week, I managed to get out tonight and run in some fading sunshine. That’s session 6.2 of #CouchTo5K completed – 2x10 minute jogging sessions, split with 3 minutes walking. It went well. I’m still feeling good. Hips and knees a little sore but otherwise ok. A little more info on the #RaceTheSun visit http://www.connect2charity.im/charities/event_95065.html. There’ll be more info to follow later. I’ll be asking for sponsorship later.

Posted via email from Paul Richard Evans

Thai House - Ceilings and Bathrooms

Work on the house in Thailand progresses. The ceilings are looking good. The bathrooms continue to develop. The rear stairs are being built.

Cartoon Me

Thai House Build Update

We received the latest photos of the teak house build in Thailand. Upstairs and downstairs bathrooms have been bricked up and the cement floor downstairs has been laid. More roofing and ceiling work has gone in. We are looking forward to the coming months and further photos!

Race the Sun

Having lost a stone before Chrisitmas to raise money for the DEC Indonesian disaster appeal, I have now volunteered to run a leg in this years Race the Sun. This is a race from sunrise to sunset around the 98 mile coastal footpath of the Isle of Man. I have volunteered for leg 2 - The Cronk to the Point of Ayr - 11 miles of beaches, dunes and grassy paths.

The event takes place on Saturday 19th of June - two days before the summer solstice. I have about 2 hours to complete my leg. So, I am back in training. One, to loose another 2 stone and get my weight down to a comfortable 10 stone race weight, and two, to get myself fit enough to complete the challenge. It's 15 weeks till the race, so it is do-able. I plan to get my race speed up to at least 9 minute miles, hopefully 8 minute miles and complete my leg in less than 90 minutes; a tough challenge for a 54 year-old office wallah. Heck, it will only be a couple of weeks short of my 55th birthday!

This event is a sponsored event so, over the next 15 weeks I will not only be posting a training progress report, I will also be touting for sponsorship!

Wish me luck!

New Website Online

To paraphrase... "One small step for web gurus, one giant leap for me!"

I have just completed a successful transfer of my domain - amsri.co.uk - to 34SP.com.

Not only that, I have re-built Evans-Amsri as a Content Management System (CMS) using Joomla, then finally (after several attempts - to resolve various errors) imported the site and MySql database to the new host. Phew! I hope building and hosting the next site is a little easier.

Checkout my new CMS family site - www.amsri.co.uk

Thai Keyboard

I say Thai keyboard but, read multilingual keyboard. I was googling for "Thai Keyboard" when I came across Frontype. I know WinXP, Vista, Linux and probably Macs too have a screen keyboard built in but, this takes things a step further. Not just a multilingual keyboard but, a touch-typing tutor to boot! Within 5 minutes of me downloading the trial version, I bought the full version. I love it's simplicity. The trial version lasts for 7 days. Give it a try.

Boats

I'm just thinking...

I miss my old Hinemoa 'Sebastian'. I miss messing about on the water. Should I build or should I buy? The cheapest Hinemoa of worth is around £2,000. To build a Hinemoa is around £5,000. With second-hand boats, there is all the extras that come with them. Though with building a Hinemoa, the cost of the plans is £210 or £278 with the Tiki rig plans. The cost of the build can be spread over the time it takes to raise the finance. Though the build time is around 500 hours, this can be spread over several years, depending on the speed of financing. Should I wait another few years to go sailing? Should I take pleasure from the building? Where should I build?

I have been following Neil is his build project - 'Gleda' at www.gleda.org. We are of a similar age. I have the added responsibilty of a young family. Time and money is very precious now and to find either for myself is quite difficult. Perhaps, I can get my boys interested in building? Though, there is the concern of exposing them to the dangers of epoxy resin. Still much to think about...