This time around I’m hoping to raise money for the Breakthough Breast Cancer charity following on from my own personal encounters with the disease. Please feel free to donate any spare change.

I’m joining forces with David and Harry again and hope to finish the journey in seven days. Not as fast as last time but apparently the weather will be against us most of the way; prevailing winds and all that business. Plus I’ve not ridden a bike any distance since… well the last time, so I’m expecting any ground breaking performances.
Of course I would not be a the geek that I am if I did not make something of it. To which I present you with the Long Cycle Down web site. Yes I was watching Ewan and Charlie when registering a domain name.
Please drop by and offer some support or make a donation.

This does not provide a perfect environment for the Creative Services crack team that is Jim Brown and myself. So in a Friday afternoon moment it was decided that we should spark the place up a bit, but rather than just obtain artwork or posters from the nearest shop we should think about it.
What better excuse than to make some South Park avatars of ourselves and post up with something that matched.

Jim Brown

Jim went with the heavy metal scene, no seriously he is that much of an AC-DC and Maiden fan.

Adam Chamberlin

Next it was my turn, I opted to keep it simple the only problem I found was that there was no iPhone accessory only an iPod.

So if you know me or have followed this blog you will no doubt know that I work as a sales development manager for Oscar Products; a small local packaging wholesaler.
Unfortunately thanks to this sudden movement in the “save the environment and don’t use a carrier bag” inspired by the Daily Mail and green movements.
Now I’m not going to start the whole debate of should you do this or that with your packaging, but what I will say is that this sort of information damages.
The damage this time around was the downturn in business for Oscar Products; so much so that there had to be some serious cost reductions to keep the company afloat. One of those costs was me.

So instead of enjoying the beginnings of the summer I spent May trying to reflect on life and contemplating my options given that as of the 1st June I will be made redundant.
Obviously the first step was to get my name on the local recruitment agencies and employment services. But my second step was to decide what I wanted to do as I saw this as a second chance.
Of course my love for the internet came to the front so I started looking for a job in this industry.
Easier said than done when you have no portfolio and nothing much to show for your time, so after a few set backs I sat down with Lucy and we talked about my options, we decided I need to start at the bottom again and work my way up; build a career and a suitcase of projects.

In stepped Prolog; a local company but a National leader in logistics and fulfillment. Around Sudbury if you mention Prolog most people think you work on the Tiscali broadband call centre, however there is so much more to the company; one of those is a Creative Services studio that produces printed and new media in the forms of web sites.
Turned out they needed a web developer, that also doubled up as a studio assistant with the printed stock. The salary was not right but the opportunities and inspiration was just what I was looking for.

June 1st I started as the new web developer at Prolog. Within the first few weeks I was working on a printed magazine and experiencing Quark Express for the first time. A month on I’m producing company documents and helping the studio manager produce a national magazine.
I’m now two months into my new job and so far it is looking great. So much so that I’m able to sit back down in the evenings and enjoy my time. Which will hopefully mean I can blow the dust off this site and get writing again.

Now I will level and say I have not always been up to date with my knowledge of motorcycling, so put me up against a die hard fan of Mr. Toseland and honestly could not answer questions about his beginning’s in trial bike riding. Or how he got signed into the 125cc class and worked his way up to his current Tech3 Yamaha MotoGP deal.
But I do follow the sport and I know a good rider when I see one, you can also tell that James has a stand up personality. So when I heard that he was going to be visiting Bowers Motorcycles in Bury St. Edmunds I decided to go along and have a nose.

When we first got there the first shock was the crowd. Queues for autographs went three times the length of the store. Second was the fact that after seeing JT Lucy had a bit of a overwhelming feeling.
I was slightly put off by the queue so decided to head back into town to grab some food and plan my offensive. Whilst sitting in Burger King I used the internet to find out some details, trying to come up with a useful titbit of information I could use as a question. Then behind us two workers of Bowers appeared. Turned out there was going to be a piano set and then a second round of autographs.
I now knew my plan, go back to the shop, when the crowd disperses as James takes a break, pick my spot and wait for the crowds to return.

Sure enough JT went off for a break and like Moses the crowds separated and I was able to find a location just feet away from the grand piano they had set up for him. Having waiting for a while people started appearing again, soon I was surrounded yet my view was perfect.
James returned and set about a 4 piece musical set, containing songs he had written himself. If being able to ride a motorbike was not enough, the boy can really tickle the ivories!

After the applause had finally died the security went about trying to form a ‘reasonable’ queue again. This is where I noticed a complete change in Lucy. She was now all ‘girly’ and going a bit week knee’d. She actually tried sweet talking the security guard into starting the queue behind her. It worked!
We were actually second in line and my awesome question was fresh in my head. I was ready to walk up with Lucy and obtain a handshake and a signed poster. Yet when the time arrived it did not quite go as planned. That part of the female brain that makes women go a little bit crazy suddenly took over Lucy. She instantly stepped up to the plate, almost pushing me aside. Realising I was no competition for the 27 year old Superbike rider I opted to take advantage of the situation and took some more photos of Lucy with him. Finally Lucy’s feet touched back on tera firmer and she introduced me, now I got my handshake. I thanked him for the set and taking the time to meet the supporters, wished him all the best in 2008 and let the next in line take their turn.
Strange how even though you think your fine, sometimes you just end up being polite and wishing people well. My question was discarded but I got to met a legend, one which will hopefully go onto bigger and better achievements. If not I’m sure he will be in the music scene very soon.

Full Photo Set

But now thanks to the wonders of borrowed dvd’s, iTunes and the odd visit to the ABC website I am fully up to date. From the very first opening of the eye in the pilot, right up to Meeting Kevin Johnson. Deep down I was hoping it would answer some questions I had, like the reference to the Polar Bear, but no, in fact I’m now more confused; why was there a Polar Bear in the jungle.
But that it the key to Lost, the story is just so intense that you can’t help but be totally sucked in. It is the reason that on some days I was watching 4 episodes in one sitting. I don’t mind that with each episode now you are left with more thoughts in your head, conspiracy theories left right and centre and the deflated thought that it will be another week until you get some answers.

So off I went, install XP, service pack, updates, more updates. Now onto web browsers, update to IE7, then find the IE8 beta page. Right install. Whilst I was watching the bar as it checks for web updates I thought to myself will this install over IE7? Or will I have to versions of IE I can play with?
It was the first, installed over version 7, so all I have is IE8 beta. Not a problem as also installed on there is Firefox, Opera and Flock (got me some browser love going on).

Thinking nothing about it went about my routine. Ahh rumours of Service Pack 3 for XP are running through the vines, lets do an update and see what is about. As most people know, windows updates are just web pages with activeX magic that update your system, but they need to be run from Internet Explorer. But here is the kicker, not from IE8!
On firing up the update screen I was greeted with an error screen to say my browser was not supported and that I should be using IE5.5 or higher. Clever that I always though that 8 was higher than 5.
Panic set in as I thought I have now upgraded the only web browser that will work with Windows Update to a browser that it not know by Windows Update!
But to my saving IE8 has a clever little feature ‘Emulate IE7‘ this not only makes pages look like they would in IE7 but also convinces Windows Update that you can update your installation.