Web Blog of Greg Mathews

What a day Friday was, we had so much to do, Tracey had the opticians in the morning, I had to go get season tickets for my father inlaw and I to see our local soccer team next season, we had to get grocery shopping done and then we had to go view and test drive the Motor Home we are thinking of buying.

Well get everything done in the morning, managing to get home for a cuppa before going back out to look at the motor home. That was until Tracey’s mum phoned, and as mum inlaw’s do asked what we was upto and I knew what was coming next. Yes, she wants to come and have a nose around with us.

So no time to finish that cuppa, we had to go and pick her up and then shoot over to the dealership. We ended up arriving 15 minutes late so we had to wait for the sales person to finish up with another customer.

We then went to view the van, Paul the salesman left us viewing it and would return in about 10 minutes or so so we can take it out for a test drive. We was aware that the van had an awning, but to our surprise it also came with sides for the awning so we can make it into another room. From caravaning experience we knew this was a great bonus, it means if we are staying anywhere for a few days we can put it up and the kids can sleep in  there, giving everyone a bit more breathing space.

Having mum inlaw with us isn’t always a bad thing, she loved it, well maybe that is a bad thing. Tracey is concerned about the cost (debt) but her mum was so positive that Tracey came round to what a good idea and investment it is.

We took it out for a quick test drive, and that was fun, the AutoQuest 180 has a total of 6 seat belts, the driver and front passenger obviously, and a further on the dinning seating. The lounge area at the rear has no belts. So the kids sat belted up in the dining area, Tracey and her mum sat in the lounge area at the rear and then Paul and I obviously in the front.

The test drive was no different to any other test drive really, except when I had to go all the way around a roundabout (360 degree turn) to head back. This was nothing special again but Tracey and her mum was unaware of the turn coming up and as mentioned did not have belts on. I am laughing still as a type this as Tracey’s mum went flying from her seat on one side of the van onto Tracey’s lap.  Oh taking mum inlaw out does have its fun moments.

Anyway, we asked the  normal questions, looked over the van, Tracey and her mum where virtually disassembling the interior, and we then discussed it on the way back up to the sales office. We decided to go for it, so we signed on the dotted line and are now the proud owners of a 6 berth 2006 Elddis Autoquest 180, with a Peugout base.

AutoQuest 180 - stock photo

We will be collecting the Motorhome in about 3 weeks time, we get a hour or so ‘walk through’ of everything and then we are on our own.

I now have 3 weeks to get my rear end into gear to start earning money to pay for it LOL

Yea this is a strange one.

Let me start with some history, we have a tent that we hardly use, we did have a 25 ft caravan which we used but not much, we have never had a motor home but I have always wanted one since I was a kid. NOTE : I wanted one not WE wanted one LOL

We haven’t used the tent much because we bought it a few years ago after selling the caravan but  the following couple of years things where good for us and we ended up going abroad and staying in apartments etc. If all else fails we have the tent for what are good fun holidays.

We sold the caravan because we hardly used it, because of it’s size and the narrow road we could not manouvre  it on/off the drive way so it had to go on storage, this meant when ever we went away, we had to drive over with everything needed and load it up, come back pick kids up from sch0ol etc and then go back and get the caravan.  This was OK but if we an ‘impulse’ weekend away in it then it became a lot of effort.

OK so why we  looking at a motor home now. We had been looking for something and Tracey suggested the shop at one of the local Caraven dealers, yea she was right they had the exact thing we was looking for, BUT they also had an 1985 motor home parked outside. I just had to have  a look.

It was very dated, but I thought ideal for us to drive to spain in etc. When I asked about the price they claimed it has just came in so had not been priced yet but expect it to be about £6500 GBP.  Ouch, more than I expected for a  24 year old vehicle so we left.

I then decided to try a speciallist motor home dealer local to us. Tracey is not keen at all but we take a browse anyway and then we left. I did mention another couple of places but we didn’t have the time so left it.

That evenning I checked my licence because I knew my disability meant I had restrictions on what I can drive, yea there sure is,I am limited to 3500kg weight. Tracey could drive something twice that but she won’t so there is no point even thinking about that first motor home (Recreational Vehicle) we had seen.

The next morning, kids get taken to school and then Tracey says to me, ‘what are we doing today?’, ‘what do you mean?’  I replied, ‘You wanted to go to Lowdham didn’t you?’, so we did.

We told the salesman what we are looking for and the restrictions we had, he said that is a big restriction for the number of beds we need but he has 3 that meet that criteria, two we looked at, one we liked, the third is at a show for the weekend, it is a couple of models above the one we liked so we have  arranged to view it on Friday after leaving a ‘lock it up’ deposit so no one can buy it at the show.

The motor home is only 3 years old, has low mileage and  costs an awfull lot more than I had ever thought I would pay, I didn’t expect to get credit for it because of the current climate etc but I did.

So come Friday we could well be the proud owners of a motor home, I am worried about the cost but I am also excited about the thought of being able to ‘tour’ the country and europe etc which has been my dream for years.

I have mentioned on here that I am struggling sitting at the keyboard without a ciggarette in my hand/mouth, well this past fortnight has just endorsed that.

I don’t know why but for about the last week or so I have spent no more than a couple of hours in any one day sat at the computer, and generally that time has been just browsing, reading and dropping.

I was away from the computer for so long one friend said ‘me is starting to think you should start smoking again’, I know he doesn’t mean it but I understand where he is coming from. So if I have not been sat at the computer what have I been doing?

This is the really scary bit :

I have not been working so not been increasing my existing residual income.

I have been sorting a few bits out in the garden, finished decking, put up swimming pool for kids (yea completed just before the rain came down).

Spent $$ on stuff for garden but I can’t even remember what we bought.

Oh and looked at buying a Motor Home (RV)  – more to come on this I am sure

After the problems EC experienced last week, and the odd problems like server timeouts it has continued to experience I have spent some extra time thinking about the database system I plan to use.

Apparently EC use a database that is stored  in memory space rather than on the hard drive. I can see that this does improve speed of the database commands, my main concern would be if the server was to crash then all that is stored in memory would be lost.

I have decided to use the same set up that I use with Yzoo/YzooSearch, at its peak it was receiving upto 1 million page views a day, each one requiring at least one database update. It started as will the new site, using a standard mysql database, but as the site grew additional servers where added and used as ’slave’ databases. 2 of the servers also became master/slave servers so if one dies for whatever reason then no data would be lost and on restarting it automatically updates. This is great as ’slave’ servers can be added or removed as and when necessary, but it can become expensive.

There appears to server problems over at Entrecard at the moment but no announcements about any problems on their blog nor forums that I can see.

I had an add that should have ran on the 12th May, and one that should have started on the 13th, both are still ‘approved’ and have not ran.

My inbox shows no new drops on my blog since yesterday evening  GMT.

The counter in the Entrecard page header correctly shows I have dropped on 11 blogs, but the stats on the dashboard and statistics page show I have dropped on no blogs.

I accept server problems happen, and although I hope not to see to many server problems on my new clone, I am realistic enough to realise it may happen but what I don’t want to happen is users are left with no information.

I don’t have the answer at the moment, and this is not a complaint about how EC is run, but there  should be systems in place that monitor the site and backend stuff and notifies someone so it can be checked out and users given information asap.

OK the new EC clone site is still being developed, unfortunately me giving up the smokes has caused a delay. I have spent time doing jobs in the garden to keep me occupied so I am not graving for a smoke, as soon as I sit down at the computer the cravings sneak back.

Thankfully the cravings are not as bad as they was the first week, but I must be honest after two weeks I am still getting them.

As for the new site, what is done and what is needed?

1. Widget is complete, I had to redo much of the code I had done orriginally for improvements but it is done. Unfortunately at this time there is no html only version. I will work on this once the site is up and running.

2. Registration and adding/deleting/switching  blogs is complete, credits are awarded for posts to your blog.  Registration also registers you as a user on the forum with no need to register seperately.

3. Advertising on other blogs is still to be done, this should be complete within the next few days and this will work in similar way to EC, advertisers pays so many credits and the site willl keep a % of those credits, giving the ramainder to the selling blog. Once this has been completed I would like to have a few people to act as Beta testers, who would be interesting in placing a widget on their blog and advertise on other beta tester’s blogs.

4. Transferring credits, this is still something I need to develop but should not be a major task, users will be able to transfer credits to other bloggers, this could be for services provided etc.

5. Membership options, this is something I am still thinking about, the current train of thought is you subscribe to become a ’supporting’ member, for that subscription fee your blog would be advertised (in rotation with others) on the site, and/or you would receive x amount of credits a day. See poll below.

6. Any other suggestions?

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I am really getting pissed lately, when ever I go out in the car, the loose change always falls out of my pocket, down the side of the seat and more often than not under the bloody runners so there is no way of getting it out without dismantling the seat.

Why is it pockets in trousers these days are so shallow? The trousers I am wearing now have such shallow pockets that my hand does not fully go into the pocket.

I used to keep my wallet safely in my back pocket, not any more, If I sit down the thing would fall out and be left on the chair or floor when I get up to leave.

Do designers or manufacturers not expect us to put anything in these pockets? Oh yea there is one deeper pocket, it’s below the knee, it is big, it is deep and has a secure zip on it but you need to bend right over to get anything out.

Is it just me, maybe I am getting old and people just don’t carry money about with them, just a plastic card in their deep secure leg pocket.

I beleive this is a conspiracy between 3 factions,

1. the designers/manufacturers – they benefit from using less material in the pockets.

2. Mechanics, they benefit from having the tools required to easily remove the car seat and get some beer  money.

3. Wives/Girlfriends – they benefit probably the most, as you get in the car it’s ‘give me your change/wallet so you don’t drop it down the side of the seat’, Over the course of a year this can become a right little money spinner for them.

We must fight against this conspiracy, bring back deep pockets.

I have spent this morning trying to figure out why a script wasn’t doing what it should, 3 hours on and it appears to have been a simple typo.

I could screem right now

Someone very smart once said there would not be a black president until pigs flew.

And on Day 100 of Obama’s reign, the outbreak of the swine flu was announced…

With all that’s been going on over the past week, working on new site, quitting smoking etc I forgot to say that DropaHolics has broken through the 1000 blogs monitored.

I must stress, that even with the new site coming, dropaholics will remain as it is for EC users, I will not be altering it in any way for the new site as I hope to incorporate many of the functions of Dropaholics into the site itself.