Messing About On The River
This weekend I was mostly getting drunk on a canal boat.
We've got a friend who goes by the name of Jago and who has recently moved over to Enlgand from LA and he is living on a narrow boat which is currently situated about 45 minutes outside of Oxford. This guy read Classics at
Univ (University Colege, Oxford) back in the 70s and has now come back to do a doctorate in modern history. We first met him out in LA as part of a scholarship that our college gave us both, essentially to have a vacation in The States. The scholarship was funded by alumni and we essentially tracelled round The US staying with various old members and acting as ambassadors for Univ. It was a win-win situation. We got a free vacation, the alumni got to keep in touch with Oxford and student life via us, and the college benefitted from the good relationships we maintained for them. The only condition was that we had to produce a journal which now sits in the college library for future scholars to peruse before making their travel plans - I'll get round to posting some extracts from it at some point.
So anyway, Jago left Univ worked in the travel industry for a while before setting up a kids soccer magazine. He's sold that since coming over here and is now attempting to move his narrow boat to oxford. It's been a bit of a farse for him. He's had to double back on himself a couple of times due to lock closures and the odd break-down and after a month of travelling he eventually got back to where he started while we were on board on Sunday morning!
We drove about an hour east of oxford to meet up with him on Saturday afternoon after The Girl's driving lesson and after I'd been into the lab to make sure that my experiments weren't working. We droppped the car off at a train station close to the canal and with precision timing we arrived at the canal just as Jago was pulling up. We spent the remaining daylight hours meandering up the canal which culminated in decending 6 or 7 locks in quick sucession. I'd taken over the driving just before we got to the locks so I got away with watching the others put in the hard work!
Darkness got the better of us and we had to tie up a couple of miles short of where we had planned to, but at least we were in walking distance of a couple of pubs! Jago is a fantastic cook and before long we were swigging wine and munching on roast chicken. Much of the rest of the evening is a blur. I know for a fact the there was a substancial ammount more of wine swigging followed by a trip to both of the local pubs and I beleive that there was poker and vodka after that. We also had a long and drawn out battle with the coal burner, since some numpty had sold us wet coal. We got through a whole pack of fire lighters and most of the previous weeks newspapers before it finally decided to light!
I was not on best form the following day, to say the least. I managed to open a few locks before passing out again and waking up in timly fashion for lunch! I was supposed to be playing poker with some unversity friends that evening as well as needing to get a couple of hours work done in the lab. It was gonning to be a tall order.
We left Jago when we reached a neaby train stataion so we could ge back and pick up the car. In 24 hours we had travelled precisely two stops on the railway - a journey that takes the train 14 minutes - it's going to be a while before we see Jago in Oxford, me thinks!
Somehow I managed to drive us back to Oxford safely, before passsing out for a third time - this time in my own bed - and waking up with just enough time to play some poker. Poker was tough. We were playing at higher stakes than usual and there was very little easy money. Most of the big hands were pocket pair against poket pair. I doubled up with KK agaisnt QQ and then spent the rest of the evening gradually leaking it away. We also had AA agaisnt QQ and amazingly someone managed to lay down KK against AA. I ended up with about £10 more than the £50 I sat down with, but it was an enjoyable grind nevertheless.
By the end of poker there was no way I was going to get into the lab. I'd picked up a migrane and nedded to pass out for the final time that day. I wasn't feeling any better the following day as the hangover seemed to be merging itself into a cold. I managed to haul myself into the lab in the afternoon to tend to my cells, but that was about it.
The rest of this week has gone equally slowly. My cells seem to be growing at a snail's pace so I can't get the experiments done that I need to. At this point I have a lot of knoledge about the techniques and theory of the project I just have very little to show for it. With any luck, it shouldn't take too long for me to get the results I need, but luck is something that has eluded me so far in the lab.
I'm still keeping mostly away from online poker, although Party Poker have just introduced a new Sit-n-Go shootout tournament. It'll be much easier than my trying to explain it if you just click on the following link: Party's Steps Challenge. Suffice it to say that it's fairly addictive. I've been failing miserably at it. It took me 5 attempte to complete Step 2 and then I finished 7th in Step 2 - grrrrrr.
Right that's quite enough ramblings, I have to go and sing sweet songs to my cells in the hope of achieving grerat wonders. Peace.
We've got a friend who goes by the name of Jago and who has recently moved over to Enlgand from LA and he is living on a narrow boat which is currently situated about 45 minutes outside of Oxford. This guy read Classics at
Univ (University Colege, Oxford) back in the 70s and has now come back to do a doctorate in modern history. We first met him out in LA as part of a scholarship that our college gave us both, essentially to have a vacation in The States. The scholarship was funded by alumni and we essentially tracelled round The US staying with various old members and acting as ambassadors for Univ. It was a win-win situation. We got a free vacation, the alumni got to keep in touch with Oxford and student life via us, and the college benefitted from the good relationships we maintained for them. The only condition was that we had to produce a journal which now sits in the college library for future scholars to peruse before making their travel plans - I'll get round to posting some extracts from it at some point.
So anyway, Jago left Univ worked in the travel industry for a while before setting up a kids soccer magazine. He's sold that since coming over here and is now attempting to move his narrow boat to oxford. It's been a bit of a farse for him. He's had to double back on himself a couple of times due to lock closures and the odd break-down and after a month of travelling he eventually got back to where he started while we were on board on Sunday morning!
We drove about an hour east of oxford to meet up with him on Saturday afternoon after The Girl's driving lesson and after I'd been into the lab to make sure that my experiments weren't working. We droppped the car off at a train station close to the canal and with precision timing we arrived at the canal just as Jago was pulling up. We spent the remaining daylight hours meandering up the canal which culminated in decending 6 or 7 locks in quick sucession. I'd taken over the driving just before we got to the locks so I got away with watching the others put in the hard work!
Darkness got the better of us and we had to tie up a couple of miles short of where we had planned to, but at least we were in walking distance of a couple of pubs! Jago is a fantastic cook and before long we were swigging wine and munching on roast chicken. Much of the rest of the evening is a blur. I know for a fact the there was a substancial ammount more of wine swigging followed by a trip to both of the local pubs and I beleive that there was poker and vodka after that. We also had a long and drawn out battle with the coal burner, since some numpty had sold us wet coal. We got through a whole pack of fire lighters and most of the previous weeks newspapers before it finally decided to light!
I was not on best form the following day, to say the least. I managed to open a few locks before passing out again and waking up in timly fashion for lunch! I was supposed to be playing poker with some unversity friends that evening as well as needing to get a couple of hours work done in the lab. It was gonning to be a tall order.
We left Jago when we reached a neaby train stataion so we could ge back and pick up the car. In 24 hours we had travelled precisely two stops on the railway - a journey that takes the train 14 minutes - it's going to be a while before we see Jago in Oxford, me thinks!
Somehow I managed to drive us back to Oxford safely, before passsing out for a third time - this time in my own bed - and waking up with just enough time to play some poker. Poker was tough. We were playing at higher stakes than usual and there was very little easy money. Most of the big hands were pocket pair against poket pair. I doubled up with KK agaisnt QQ and then spent the rest of the evening gradually leaking it away. We also had AA agaisnt QQ and amazingly someone managed to lay down KK against AA. I ended up with about £10 more than the £50 I sat down with, but it was an enjoyable grind nevertheless.
By the end of poker there was no way I was going to get into the lab. I'd picked up a migrane and nedded to pass out for the final time that day. I wasn't feeling any better the following day as the hangover seemed to be merging itself into a cold. I managed to haul myself into the lab in the afternoon to tend to my cells, but that was about it.
The rest of this week has gone equally slowly. My cells seem to be growing at a snail's pace so I can't get the experiments done that I need to. At this point I have a lot of knoledge about the techniques and theory of the project I just have very little to show for it. With any luck, it shouldn't take too long for me to get the results I need, but luck is something that has eluded me so far in the lab.
I'm still keeping mostly away from online poker, although Party Poker have just introduced a new Sit-n-Go shootout tournament. It'll be much easier than my trying to explain it if you just click on the following link: Party's Steps Challenge. Suffice it to say that it's fairly addictive. I've been failing miserably at it. It took me 5 attempte to complete Step 2 and then I finished 7th in Step 2 - grrrrrr.
Right that's quite enough ramblings, I have to go and sing sweet songs to my cells in the hope of achieving grerat wonders. Peace.
posted by Pinky @ 11:17 AM
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