A few more shots from my honeymoon in 2008.
Bad News
Today I had some news that made my heart sink and my bank balance weep! Yep, you guessed it, the car needed major repairs. In total I will be a grand lighter in the pocket but on the plus side I will have nice new shiny tie bars and track rod ends (!) to go along with new discs and pads, cam belt and last but by no means least…new nearside front wheel bearing!! What are tie bars and track rod ends I hear you cry? Well, according to Google they are something or other that helps a car go around corners and over rough terrain…who knew? The handy image below will make it all clear for you.
To be honest we have now had 3 VW cars (2 currently) and until now we have never needed any major work done. That being said it does appear to have all happened at once which in all honesty makes it harder to take. Plans for holidays, birthdays and bar mitzvahs have all been cancelled. The children’s toys have all been put on e-bay and we’ve been out this morning to buy them a hoop and a stick for them to play with- if it breaks we can easily and most importantly, buy a cheap replacement. Furthermore, I’ve even taken the difficult, completely irrational decision to take Lou’s car off the road and the family car will now be replaced by these…You don’t see any tie bars, track rod ends on these so they couldn’t possibly need replacing! I always knew bicycles were better!
Waiting in line
Unfortunately my daughter has been ill for the last few days so today it was off to see the Doc. Typically as soon as we get to the doctors she starts to perk up a little, although not enough to resort into her normal cheeky ways! Whilst I completely value the job a GP does, what winds me up is the time you spend waiting to see them. In our surgery the appointment slots are 10 minutes apart yet even with the 2nd or 3rd appointment of the day they can be running nearly 15 minutes late! How?!
Anyway, upside is the doctor thinks she just has a virus and it will work its way out over the next few days so nothing to worry about.
Ciclismo de Gran-Bretagna 2008
The following photos were taken in Liverpool during the Tour of Britain 2008. The TdB was eventually won by Frenchman Geoffroy Lequatre riding for French team Agritubel. As cycling has grown in popularity the interest in the TdB has also grown. Although still only a relatively new tour, more and more quality teams and riders are signing up. The 2012 route has not yet been released but already promises to be a fantastic bike race.
More pictures of the TdB 2008 can be found on my flickr site.
Something strange about vaccines
The first website I used to host photos was Pbase.com. I set up this site at a time that Lou and I lived in New York primarily as a way to show family and friends where we had been and what we had been up to. As I got more serious about my photography I started to use Flickr as I found the web experience better. Lou continued to upload photos to Pbase, primarily pictures of our son, Ben. After one of his vaccinations, the so called dreaded MMR triple vaccine, he developed the what we now know is the typical adverse reaction consisting of a rash. Now he wasn’t overly bothered by this and continued his cheeky crazy behaviour (as you can see below!), whilst his parents on the other hand stressed about whether or not it was going to get worse! We took a picture of the rash and posted it to Pbase and thought nothing more of it.
MMR Rash
As I wasn’t using Pbase regularly I was unaware of a number of comments/messages from other parents who were frantically searching the web to find out what this rash was that their child had developed after having the MMR vaccine. We were pleased to help put their minds at rest that it was quite normal although we couldn’t work out why Ben’s picture was getting so many hits. A quick google image search using the search terms “MMR rash” shed some light on this…Ben’s picture being the number one return! To this day out of all of the thousands of pictures I have on Flickr and Pbase, Ben’s picture is still the one that gets the most number of daily hits!!
Dave Johnson's Photography 