laurence's blog

Partition Drives
# fdisk /dev/mmcblk0
# mkfs.vfat -F 16 /dev/mmcblk0p1
# mkswap /dev/mmcblk0p2
# mkfs.ext4 /dev/mmcblk0p3

Mount

# mount /dev/mmcblk0p3 /mnt/gentoo/
# mkdir /mnt/gentoo/boot
# mount /dev/mmcblk0p1 /mnt/gentoo/boot/

Install files

# cd /tmp/
# wget http://distfiles.gentoo.org/releases/arm/autobuilds/current-stage3-armv6...
# tar xfj stage3-armv6j_hardfp-YYYYMMDD.tar.bz2 -C /mnt/gentoo/

Install boot files

# cd /tmp/
# git clone --depth 1 git://github.com/raspberrypi/firmware/
# cd firmware/boot
# cp bootcode.bin start.elf kernel.img /mnt/gentoo/boot/
# cp -r ../modules /mnt/gentoo/lib/
# vi /mnt/gentoo/boot/cmdline.txt
root=/dev/mmcblk0p3 rootdelay=2

Setup gentoo

# vi /mnt/gentoo/etc/fstab
# vi /mnt/gentoo/etc/shadow
# vi /mnt/gentoo/etc/make.conf
CFLAGS="-O2 -mcpu=arm1176jzf-s -mfpu=vfp -mfloat-abi=hard"

To merge or cat the video files from my Samsung Galaxy S3 on Ubuntu I use MP4Box.

Make sure you have it installed.

sudo apt-get install gpac

This is the one liner I use with some magic.

MP4Box `for i in \`ls *.mp4\` ; do echo -n "-cat $i "; done` -new output.mp4

I still can't make my mind up if its been a shitty or a good year. Started the year without a solid plan and it pretty much took the whole year to bring the plan together. It was a lot harder than I thought to get out of Ireland and then get setup in London. Maybe was a little naive thinking that moving to London was the easy option.

As standard top 10 in no apparent order:

• Cape Town visit and holiday romance
  What a friggin good holiday, I hadn't been home for 2 years, so was really good to have such a long holiday to reconnect with all my friends. Also to make a few new ones, nod nod wink wink. Even if that hasn't seem to work out that well. A boy can still have hope.
• Faithless Concert
  Totally spontaneously I got a call saying, Faithless are playing tonight. Faithless are on my "Must see before I die" list, magically I got a ticket online and that evening we where watching Goldfish open and then Faithless.
  The live performance beat everyone of my expectations, so many quality tunes.

• Alfa Romeo 147
  After loosing my little Fiat last year, part of the repair my soul plan was to get an awesome car in the UK. R was kind enough to take me car shopping and after driving a few token Toyota's we found this solid 147, 2 litre engine and BOSE sound system. Love it to bits, even if it breaks down at some stage it is worth it. Servicing has been a little expensive (as has insurance), but "Maria the Beast" has been reliable as a Japan bullet train.
• Rise Against Concert
  
  Another band on my "Must see before I die" list. I probably got a little over excited buying 4 tickets assuming it would be on everyone else's list. Turns out they aren't on many people list but I managed to rope in another vegan and force fed R, Rise Against CD's so that he wouldn't hate it. Concert itself was crazy and sweaty which is good. A big surprise was Billy Bragg and Tom Morello that opened the gig. Just seeing them was almost enough. We all represented in the pit, keeping up with all the little emo kids.
• Getting out of Ireland
  As much as I was not happy in Ireland and as happy as I was to finally get out of the damp place. I spent nearly 4 years with it being "home", so it is always going to have a little spot in my heart. Just before I left, I was actually getting pretty settled there. Good circle of friends and decent progress in the gym. It's always like that when you leave a place though, you milk it for the last 6 months because you know you will never be there again.
  
• Bodyweight overhead
  Be careful what you tell kids! When I was 13 years old, I went away for a holiday on a farm. The farm owner took me under his wing and we did all kind of manly things (like hunting). One of his stories was about when he was just out the army, how he could lift his own bodyweight above his head. This is actually pretty hard to do. In my mind he was a monster of a man, but looking at the pictures he was actually not that big and I have made it harder for myself by bulking up. Not to take anything away from his own achievement, but I think he would be pretty chuffed if he knew I can now get my own bodyweight overhead.

  This is also pretty much the start of my Olympic lifting "career", this coming year should be the year of easy gains. Maybe even get close to snatching my own bodyweight, which is the sign of a true athlete.

• VF week in Austria
  The yearly VF week is always great, this year was no exception. Solid week of great food, lot's of training and interesting people in a foreign country. Ticks all the boxes for me.
• Emerald Green St Patricks Day
  St Paddies day is a point in my Ireland time line because I arrived in Cork on St Paddies in 2008, see each one has been exactly a year since I arrived. This years was awesome as we went on a pub crawl with the Cork CS group ending up in beer garden with people singing folk songs.
• London
  Love and hate London, the city really eats you and your money up. Feel so privileged to actually have a job in a cool location and with a view of the Thames. The big plan was to live in central but it was just impossible, too expensive unless I went into a house share and even if I was in central getting around is a nightmare.
• Rock Climbing
  R bullied me into doing this, at the moment I am totally the wrong shape to be doing this kind of stuff. It is fun though and awesome excuse for the boys to hang out once a week.

As is now tradition Top 10 of 2006,
Top 10 of 2007 and Top 10 of 2008.

2009 was a totally different travel, I actually got sick of travelling and just wanted to be home with my koala bear. No longer was I allowed to call myself someone in there mid twenties (I still did though), became a lot more grown up almost bordering on being "mature".

Top 10 of 2009:

• M moving in with me at Trinity Court and buying our fist item of furniture.
• Resigning and getting escorted out of the office
• Being accepted to study my MSc at Edinburgh University
• Training with the guys at Unit 20 -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71zSlaJKdPw
• Owning a mountain bike again -> http://www.baldy.za.net/pblog/658/P2170102-med.jpg

I am just about finished reading a little book called "The Art of Happiness". It seems to be working, well it was last night.

Today I am not particularly happiness, sat at work after a particularly early "roll and go" wake up to get the early bus. I dont think my hangover has quite reached its climax yet either. In any moment of weakness will ask myself "What would The Dude do".

Tomorrow is Ireland is playing England in the 6 nations. Not that big a deal? Well since coming to Ireland I have got rather fond of going down to the pub and watching the rugby, so I will be looking forward to it.

The match has much more significance than that though. Even more significance than just the fact the Irish are huge rivals of the English and will go nuts if they beat them.

Time for the history lesson, in 1920 during the Irish war of independence the IRA woke up and killed 14 British agents in the morning. This rather pissed off the English who retaliated sending British forces to a stadium called Croke Park in Dublin where the British forces killed 14 civilians including the captain of one of the teams, this day became known as Bloody Sunday. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bloody_Sunday_(1920)) This was a major turning point in the war for the IRA and they gained much support after the actions of the British.

As is now tradition (Top 10 of 2006,
Top 10 of 2007

Here is my top ten for the amazing year of 2008:

1. Passing my Bsc Degree! ( and having a party to celebrate http://www.baldy.za.net/node/643)
2. Moving to Cork in Ireland
3. Leon and Lehesta Rademan wedding
4. Completing my first marathon (http://www.baldy.za.net/node/594)
5. Spencer Tunick installation at Blarney Castle (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article1301679.ece)
6. Anne Frank house, Amsterdam very emotional
7. Road Trip in Audi A6 from Munich to Brno in Czech (http://www.baldy.za.net/node/610)
8. Traveling over land from Brno to Helsinki
9. Pub crawling in Munich (http://www.baldy.za.net/node/607)
10. Selling my Monte Carlo (http://www.baldy.za.net/node/559)

Nominations include:

• SA meetup in Amsterdam

I just got reminded that I started this post, have updated it a little. It gets a little fuzzy and hard to judge what really counts visiting a place. I took a bus across Estonia got off and got straight on a ferry hence the 1 hour, in truth I had traveled across the country.

Comes out to a total of 17 different cities I have visited this year.

Ireland, Cork 8 months
UK, Fleet 1 month
Germany, Munich 8 days
Finland, Helsinki 6 days
Czech, Brno 5 days
UK, Eastbourne 4 days
UK, Manchester 3 days
Germany, Dusseldorf 3 days
Holland, Amsterdam 3 days
UK, London 4 days
UAE, Dubai 2 days
Ireland, Waterford 1 day
Poland, Warsaw 1 day
Ireland, Dublin 1 day
Vilnius, Lithuania 5 hours
Riga, Latvia 5 hours
Estonia, Tallinn 1 hour

I had to get up early (5am) this morning to get to Stanstead so I could wait all day for connecting flight to Dusseldorf. This together with a packed Ryan Air flight, there random polyphonic jingles and the two large Irish girls discussing there sex lives next to me meant I had to make lists in my head instead of going to sleep as I usually do on planes.
I was remotely interested in there conversations, after it started to get saucy I checked them out and it rather took the edge off the imagery.
Normally I would have been more proactive and checked out the people sitting next to me as soon as I sat down or even based my seating on appropriate looking people. As I said it was early and no one is sexy in a ryan air sardine can with all that yellow and blue.

So lists that where bubbling in my head Top 10 for 2008, how on earth will I fit this year into 10 things?

I am totally besotted by Dido and this is her latest single. She sounds so miserable, ow to be able to make her happy. The opening line is something that I would say, can really identify with.

Sitting at work and the Theme song comes on the radio. Time to re-evolute...
Location: Work, not very bohemian..
Action: Working, again I suck (but I was listening to the radio, so not like I am a total robot)
Attire: totally unbohemian Diesal jeans, black shirt and poser shoes..
Company: all work colleagues, totally not bohemian.

So in general I suck at being bohemian this morning.

If your totally confused -> http://www.baldy.za.net/node/613

After a my stream of brilliant flat mates, I was beginning to think that this share accommodation thing was just like every episode of friends.

With the coming of winter I have made certain plans, a key component in these plans being a decent wingman. After all its not a bachelor flat else bachelors live there. So it was with some excitement that a French guy got in contact with me to stay for 6 weeks.

After some basic facebook stalking I found his profile page with a picture of him mountain biking. Our conversations over email also went well with discussion of other such manly bachelor things as Czech beer and the local pubs. He also worked for Apple so would have a large resource of colleagues from the furthest reaches (and best looking) parts of Europe.

So I thought this was a great deal and had visions of our duo of French style and charm together with my South Africanism would devastate the local female population.

This weekend I ended up in a club called "The Baldy Man" in the seaside village of Tramore county Wexford.
As is standard in Ireland at 2 oclock all the lights came on, the place closed and we all hit the street. Just out the door we started chatting to an Irish couple. This started off rather badly as my friend a fellow South African mentioned that ...

Not 48 hours after declaring Bohemian Like You the theme song to my life. Im standing in a bar and it starts to play.
I took this as a time to evaluate if I am living up to my theme song and will continue to do so in the future to track my progress. Based on location, action, attire and company.
This time I think I scored rather well.
I was in a dodgy late night Pub called The Slaide, filled with rockers and girls dress in the Tokyo, Gwen Stefani kind of look, that I do not know the name of. So location wise it was bohemien.
I was drinking Bulmers, an Irish cider and dancing so plus points here.
Attire I did very well as I was wearing my veganfitness.net t-shirt and my Ska slip on check Vans.
My company for the evening included an Irish man, a Belgium girl (very sweet) and a fellow Saffer.

I got a tip off from a member of the Cape Town Lancia Club that my car was being discussed on the cartoday forums. Cartoday.co.za being the website of car magazine, I would think the biggest car magazine in South Africa.
Someone took pictures at the recent car show that my car was displayed at and a few people passed some comment. Including a disgruntled Delta Intergrale owner who is struggling to sell his for R60k.
Check out the link here -> http://www.cartoday.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=049491;p=1