Feet Size - Large

The high tec digital calliper is a good way of measuring feet.

Results for measuring the Phalanges (exterior skin measurment) :

Big toe is over 5cm long thats about 10% bigger than avatar's big toe.

2nd toe is not perfectly straight. 4.7cm

3rd toe is a near perfect toe. 4.4cm

4th toe next is not straight and is quite curved. 3.7cm

5th toe 3.3cm

Foot length 27.8

























My feet are not that ugly with the big toes being the best looking ones.
The fifth toe is sometimes called the pinky toe / little toe because it is the smallest

Fire

Had the fire brigade deal with a burning car in the middle of the night close to the house, we were evacuated for about 20 minutes until the situation was under control. This was the result and the fire brigade say it was a case of arson attack . The car had a 3 lt engine so I am suspicious of the owner setting the fire and claiming on the insurance due to not being able to afford the petrol running costs!






The UK has been quite strict with fire regulations that go back to the Great Fire of London of 1666. These controls together with an efficient fire service must save many lives and property.

Skyscrapers are a recent occurrence in London partly due to the strict fire code with buildings restricted to the height of fire engine ladders.





Surrey Fire and Rescue Engine.

One thing you notice when travelling in poorer countries is the common occurrence and damaging effects of fires. Shanti towns are particularly at risk.

quickmaps web site.

This site allows you to make your own maps using googlemaps webmaps. I expect this site will catch on because it is very simple to use. Here is my first attempt.

Know your leaf shape!

This is a lovely chart to help your identification of plants.

Housekeeping: Quit Changing My Towels!

with "don't change towels" doorhang

read more | digg story

Road Tax Time

Its time to get the tax disc for the old skoda again.
Cars over a certain age need to be Ministry Of Transport tested - and the car is then made officially road legal. Over the years the testers always seem to find a fault / faults and need to do work for the MOT. This work often means the hassel of leaving your car at the garage for a day or to and you have to get back home some how plus the extra expense.
Yesterday's MOT, I am happy to report went smoothly, costing a mere £50. All I have to do now is get the disc from a post office and the car is ready for another years driving.
The price of petrol yesterday was £47 for my tank or a price of £1.14 per litre that a tad short of £5 per gallon.

This could be one solution to the petrol problem :

The price has gone up rapidly, I expect throughout the world, and it means more people will be using public transport this year as a result. 2007 saw the UK rail passengers rise to an all time high beating the post war highs for the first time.
I work in Reading about 33miles away from Weybridge and it is becomming very attractive to go by train - it is actually cheaper than the petrol I use!

The Durian is a Tropical fruit which is very popular in Asia and further afield. They are a seasonal fruit and are harvested between June and August. If the tree is grown in colder climates it stops growing completely if the average temperature drops below 22 Degrees C!
The fruit is very large and has a formidable thorn covered husk with the fruit weighing up to 3Kg! A problem with the fruit is it gives of a sulphur smell which can annoy some people.
Davao city has a monument of the Durian fruit above.
The unusual husk has inspired architects and artists also.

This Fruit seller in the Philippines is weighing what looks like a small sample of the Durian, it may be the end of season stock?
Behind are the juicy melons - much better than the ones back at home.
The inside looks like this - chicken drumsticks, you eat these and inside is a large brown seed.

My Great World - new network site for photographers

This site is easy to use and uses a scoring system to encourage users to upload their photos. The strength of this site is its ease of use and is a dedicated photo networking site with a geographical dimension.
The site is in beta and is quite new, my first photo was placed in southern Philippines and I was the first in this part of the world! Here it is.

DSC03338

http://www.mygreatworld.com/

Travel IQ

The Web's Original Travel Blog.

This is a great bit of fun and will improve your knowlege of the world.

Money seems to be going mad in the UK or am I just getting older?
I was walking to the railway station through the car park as usual only to see the latest price for parking your car. It had gone up from Around £3 to an amazing £5 a day! - that is getting close to the cost of a taxi ride both ways! The carpark was still full of expensive cars like normal. These people are now paying £100 a month to drive from their massively overpriced homes to the railway station. Added to the price of the expensive peak time rail tickets most are paying £400 a month to get to work.
Why does this seem so overpriced - well a new car at £7500 on a loan would be about the same price and the parking ticket!
Clearly most people in Weybridge have no money worries, with very high wages.

The town has been part of the commuteing ring around London since the Railway opened over 100 years ago. It is just inside the famous orbital motorway the M25 which has become the new unofficial London boundry. The economy inside the M25 is massive, the GDP is greater that the super state of California!
With this is mind maybe the £5 is a good price - it is to stop us plebs from parking, we are expected to walk!
The UK still does not have one bank producing the money as you can clearly see in this photo. Northern Ireland, Scotland Gernsey and Jersey still have there own money with the pound note still in use in places. The Isle of Man has sterling also but technically is not part of the UK.
The euro will one day bring a money union to the whole of the British Isles - with Ireland already using them.

The Polish word for Vodka is Wodka and the oldest known use of the word was in 1405 in Poland not Russia. It is claimed therefore Vodka was born in Poland!
Poland has always been a major producer of Vodka and now is the forth largest market in the world.

Networking

The shelfari network is for book readers. http://www.shelfari.com/
What I really like about the site is the ability to display the books you have read on a virtual library. When you have completed a book you can update your shelf for all to see.
I am a poor reader and have read only a few books, other keener readers are able to discuss / group / comment on their favourite books.
The book 'Two Caravans' is what I am currently reading. It is supposed to be better than her great book 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' - so far I am not convinced.

Kayak

Kayak
Found this web site that helps you find plane tickets. It is the best I've seen and is very impressive indeed. Finding Airline websites from one location to another can be a long process but this website does all the hard work for you. How did I manage to miss this one? Already 7 million subscribers! - It was first launch in the US so maybe the UK edition is new?
I found this site through a hardcore travellers blog called vagabondish -
http://www.vagabondish.com/
What is really nice about the site is you get a google map of your travelling area and you can click 'use nearby airports' feature which means if you chose an expensive airport the search will include the cheaper ones nearby.
I am an instant fan of this site because I enjoy dreaming up new routes and travelling possibilities and I keep a close eye on the new routes airlines are launching and planning.

Ireland - Eriu, Eire, Airlann, Irlanda, Irland, Ierland - St Patrick's Day Today!

This is an actual Photograph of Ireland

We have Irish blood in the family but we do not celebrate St Patrick's day. To make up for this Here is my dedicated Irish Blog.
The Shamrock Symbol
The three-leafed shamrock is the Irish christian symbol of the Holy Trinity
The Anglicized word for Irish word for "clover" ("seamair") is "seamaróg". So the word Shamrock indicates how close Ireland and England were in our long history.


Ireland is the 3rd largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world.
It lies surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets and is a part of Europe.
Politically, the state Ireland (described as the Republic of Ireland in cases of ambiguity) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of the UK, covering the remainder in the north-east.
The population of the island is slightly over six million (2007), with 4.34 million in the Republic and an estimated 1.75 million in Northern Ireland .
This is a significant increase from a modern historical low in the 1960s, but still much lower than the peak population of over 8 million in the early 19Th century, prior to the Irish potato famine.
The name Ireland derives from the name Eriu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word land. Most other western European names for Ireland derive from the same source, such as French Irlande, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Irlanda, German Irland and the Dutch Ierland.
A common misunderstanding is thinking St. Patrick was Irish - but a simple explanation show them the error of their ways!

Ireland - Eriu, Eire, Airlann, Irlanda, Irland, Ierland - St Patrick's Day Today!

We have Irish blood in the family but we do not celebrate St Patrick's day. To make up for this Here is my dedicated Irish Blog.

The Shamrock Symbol
The three-leafed shamrock is the Irish christian symbol of the Holy Trinity
The Anglicized word for Irish word for "clover" ("seamair") is "seamaróg". So the word Shamrock indicates how close Ireland and England were in our long history.

This is an actual Photo of Ireland.
Ireland is the 3rd largest island in Europe, and the twentieth-largest island in the world.
It lies surrounded by hundreds of islands and islets and is a part of Europe.
Politically, the state Ireland (described as the Republic of Ireland in cases of ambiguity) covers five-sixths of the island, with Northern Ireland, part of the UK, covering the remainder in the north-east.
The population of the island is slightly over six million (2007), with 4.34 million in the Republic and an estimated 1.75 million in Northern Ireland .
This is a significant increase from a modern historical low in the 1960s, but still much lower than the peak population of over 8 million in the early 19Th century, prior to the Irish potato famine.
The name Ireland derives from the name Eriu (in modern Irish, Éire) with the addition of the Germanic word land. Most other western European names for Ireland derive from the same source, such as French Irlande, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese Irlanda, German Irland and the Dutch Ierland.
A common misunderstanding is thinking St. Patrick was Irish - but a simple explanation show them the error of their ways!

Saturday 15 March 2008 - 12:26PM (GMT) Edit Delete Permanent Link 0 Comments
Wigets
This is a typical widget you can put into more advanced blog sites. On 360 you have to put it into a blog page, which is a shame. You see MyBlog on many websites now so I though it was time to get my own to keep up to date with things!
Recent Readers
View Entire Community Provided by MyBlogLog
Tags: widget Edit Tags
Saturday 15 March 2008 - 08:07AM (GMT) Edit Delete Permanent Link 0 Comments
How to build a boat.
This video gives you the inspiration needed to start your project. My project is a larger scale but I plan to build smaller boats like the one in the video when I am in the Philippines.
yfla.wrap("This multimedia content requires Flash version 9 and above.", "Upgrade Now.", "http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash", " This is the one we are working on now");

Function VBGetSwfVer(i)
on error resume next
Dim swControl, swVersion
swVersion = 0
set swControl = CreateObject("ShockwaveFlash.ShockwaveFlash." + CStr(i))
if (IsObject(swControl)) then
swVersion = swControl.GetVariable("$version")
end if
VBGetSwfVer = swVersion
End Function
This is the one we are working on now
yfla.wrap("This multimedia content requires Flash version 9 and above.", "Upgrade Now.", "http:\/\/www.adobe.com\/shockwave\/download\/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash", " http:\/\/www.spirainternational.com\/r_boatebook.pdf");
http://www.spirainternational.com/r_boatebook.pdf
Tags: boat-building Edit Tags
Sunday 9 March 2008 - 08:35AM (GMT) Edit Delete Permanent Link 0 Comments
Flying is getting that much more easy.


Kayak
Found this web site that helps you find plane tickets. It is the best I've seen and is very impressive indeed. Finding Airline websites from one location to another can be a long process but this website does all the hard work for you. How did I manage to miss this one? Already 7 million subscribers! - It was first launch in the US so maybe the UK edition is new?
I found this site through a hardcore travellers blog called vagabondish -
http://www.vagabondish.com/
What is really nice about the site is you get a google map of your travelling area and you can click 'use nearby airports' feature which means if you chose an expensive airport the search will include the cheaper ones nearby.
I am an instant fan of this site because I enjoy dreaming up new routes and travelling possibilities and I keep a close eye on the new routes airlines are launching and planning.
Tags: kayak Edit Tags
Saturday 8 March 2008 - 09:47AM (GMT) Edit Delete Permanent Link 0 Comments
Polldaddy.com

A new site starts today called Polldaddy answers at - http://polldaddy.com . I like the look of this site and looks like it will be popular with the Yahoo Answers fans. Yahoo Answers is very big in the UK and around the world so Polldaddy looks like a site tapping into this success.
You can choose to pay for a 'Pro' account which may suit the keener users and people promoting websites and hit rates.
This is my first Poll to test this site out - click on link.
surveys - Take Our Poll
Tags: polldaddy Edit Tags
Friday 7 March 2008 - 08:56PM (GMT) Edit Delete Permanent Link 0 Comments 1 - 5 of 504 First < id="num_next" href="http://uk.blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-KXAS.Dk7RKONN6JSWV8avg--?cq=1&l=6&u=10&mx=504&lmt=5">Next > Last
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video

How to build a boat.

This video gives you the inspiration needed to start your project. My project is a larger scale but I plan to build smaller boats like the one in the video when I am in the Philippines

This fishing boat is our project ongoing at the moment. It is 105ft long or 30 meters! so it is really technically a small ship.

Polldaddy.com

A new site starts today called Polldaddy answers at - http://polldaddy.com . I like the look of this site and looks like it will be popular with the Yahoo Answers fans. Yahoo Answers is very big in the UK and around the world so Polldaddy looks like a site tapping into this success.
You can choose to pay for a 'Pro' account which may suit the keener users and people promoting websites and hit rates.

Food

This photo says so much. The family of 9 live in a poor country of Bhutan in Asia and their weekly food bill is $5 US. This is 100 times lower than some European countries. A lot of the world lives of the land with no need for money at all.
I expect few people have met people who live like this, we are so used of money as it is the foundation stone of the western societies.

New to blogger

Well here goes -

The rain can be very intense - but never cold by UK norms.

Life is simple especially in this poor area of Pagadian Mindanao.

If you have a little money life is pleasent and you can do many things you could not back at home.

An example is going to the gym - in the UK it would be too expensive for me.