Bakers Hall is a fantastic venue for a Lodge meeting and dinner.  It is just round the corner from the Tower of London.  The CITO Lodge is extremely friendly and myself and my 2 guests had a very humorous and enjoyable evening.  Somehow we found our way home by train at about 2am after finishing the Dalwhinnie single malt scotch.

I'm very fortunate to be recently acquainted with Charles Hughes, the president of the BCS.  He is a very genuine and passionate chap, and I was pleased to be able to join him for his BCS residents dinner at "The Banqueting House" in Whitehall.  It was designed in 1619 and completed in 1622 with the ceiling paneling decorated with paintings by Rubens.  The guests of honor were the Duke of Kent and Lord Sainsbury.  After dinner entertainment was most spectacular with the band of the Royal Corps of Signals marching up and down between the tables playing excellent marches and other tunes.

I never went on a Rugby Tour when I was at school, however Im making up for it now with Marlow Rugby club and my 2 boys.  This is our fourth tour (2 to Brean Sands and last year to Eindhovan).  This year we visited the Hague and Oisterwijk RFC and had a fantastic time.  There were a few hickups, such as when I left Luke in Calais whilst I sailed across the channel with Oliver, but it all turned out fine in the end.

Full details and pictures at http://www.iwaszko.com/RockersRevenge2006

My 12 year old son was asking maths questions the other day and we got onto the root of minus 1.  I remembered it as being "j", however it is infact "i".

Here is an extract from good article explaining "i"

What is the square root of minus one? In other words, is there a number which when multiplied by itself, produces an answer "- 1"?

In arithmetic, minus multiplied by minus gives plus. (Taking a debt away from someone is really like crediting a positive sum of money - and in a similar way, a sentence containing two negatives becomes positive). Thus, because (- 1) squared equals +1, the answer to Ö (-1) cannot be "minus one" (nor can the result be plus one).

As far as ordinary, everyday numbers go, the square root of minus one does not exist. However, mathematicians find it useful to invent a completely new kind of number to fulfil that role. They decided to assume that such a root really did exist, and wrote 'i' to represent it. ('i' was chosen because it stands for "imaginary").

We can now go on and find the square root of minus four: the answer is '2i', because

Full article

My father in law mentioned that he had a shortend Lee Enfield during his national service in the far east, so I thought I'd try to find out a bit more about it.

I think it was a "Lee Enfield SMLE No 5"

Links

http://www.leeenfieldrifleassociation.org.uk/
http://www.lee-enfield-spares.co.uk/

It comes with a dongle to connect to your remote control. It lets you select the plane or Helicopter you want to fly from a broad selection of fixed wing aircraft… propeller, jets and gliders. In addition, you can scan in photos of a model plane you’d like to fly, feed in its parameters, and using the included Reflex RMK Model Editor construct a custom model. (Info from here)

http://www.reflex-sim.de/

Details at http://www.helihobby.com/html/reflex_sim.html

I recently bought myself an electric Hirobo indoor helicopter.  Ive long loved helicopers and this is the newest and most stable indoor helicopter around.  Its great fun to try and master, however it requires extreem concentration whilst learning.  - Spec at http://model.hirobo.co.jp/products/0301-904/

Preflight Checks
Trouble Shooting

Hirobo XRB spares http://www.revolutionmodels.co.uk/acatalog/copy_of_Hirobo_XRB_spares.html

Freedom and whisky gang thegither wrote Robert Burns over two hundred years ago.

Ive been invited for an evening at the society 21st and I'll report back (if I can remember on my recommendations)

http://www.smws.co.uk/venues/greville_st.php

This took place in the Grandstand and Phyliss Court Club, Henley.  A donation to the William Yeoman Cancer Care Trust was made for over £500.

Entertainment by "Soul Purpose" Jazz band made up of musicians from Local Marlow Schools

Caberat by Mr Graham P. Jolley - Mysticist !

It was my pleasure to attend this event at the Complete Angler in Marlow with my wife, Nicki and Reg Senda and Lady Anne Redgrave.  A good night was had by all.

BBC News Halo 2 leaked onto the internet

Bungie Studio (Authors of Halo 2) Gold release article and a "wired" look behind the scenes in the offices of Bungie. Windows Media Hi Res Version

Devices which detect speed cameras are to be banned, the Government has revealed.

The Department for Transport said it would seek to ban the dashboard devices as soon as possible because of fears motorists were using them to break speed limits without being caught.

Devices that use satellite-positioning systems to give drivers early warning of a speed camera will remain legal.

http://www.ukspeedtraps.co.uk/banned.htm

Building an IT infrastructure to run ones family and friends IT different demands is a complex task.  Things like uploading documents and pictures, updating lists and links from a browser, full email functionality with web access and Outlook integration over the internet, Blogs and Wiki's make it an interesting if not long assisngment.

The technolgies Ive used are all Microsoft dotNet based and are:

• Windows SharePoint Services - www.iwaszko.com
• Microsoft Exchange 2003 -       mark@iwaszko.com
• DasBlog for Blogs -                 http://blogs.iwaszko.com
• FlexWiki for Wiki -                   http://wiki.iwaszko.com

In addition to hosting Iwaszko.com sites, these technologies are now being used to host the following groups I'm involved in.

http://www.marlowrt.co.uk
.... more shortly