I'm having the most frustrating time - a book which I have just finished moved me so much that I tried to look up it's subject on the internet and for once I got a big fat nothing!

The book is called The Field of The Star written by N Luard and it's about a journey he undertakes to come to terms with his daughter wasting away from HIV/aids. I don't cry at soppy movies but I cried when I read the account of her death, very moving and she seems to have been a wonderful role model for strong independent women but there's no sign of her in cyberspace.

Anyhoo, the weekend, well we went to see SWAT which was surprisingly good, planted some more sunflower seeds cos the birds ate the last lot. Sunday afternoon was great, we got the hammock out and took it in turns to laze around in it while the other did garden stuff.

Naughty me I introduced C to the Virgin Mega Store in The Gateway downtown, they have a really clever idea in there, most of the music is stored as MP3 and you can take a CD to a listening post, scan it and listen to the tracks before you buy it. Now all they need to do is let you select your 14 or so tracks and burn it onto a CD for you. That would really piss off the RIAA who C thinks are devil spawn and I agree with him. What the kids are doing now is no different to taping the top forty on Sunday and giving it out in the playground on Monday morning.

I came away with a Robbie Williams CD that I used to have on tape (it got lost in the move - the first one) and listening to it now I know one of the things that really annoys me about US radio stations - all they play is this soft guitar stuff - very samey and you can usually set your watch by the times they play certain tracks. Give me the Euro stuff any day. I've decided that clearchannel radio should be re-christened radio bland - cos that's what it is.

C and I spent the majority of our weekend on the bike. Saturday was the beemers triathlon - not normally the sort of event that C would go in for. Me, I prefer cross-country running but this was something else. Instead of Run, Swim and Bike it was Bike, Shop and Eat! We arrived at the assembly point and duly put on our contestant numbers. It didn't take long to get to the BMW store which opened 30 minutes early so we could shop in peace. C bought a hydration pack (finally!) and a cap which I'm going to send to R and M in Holland tomorrow. I didn't buy anything - this time. We left earlier than the other contestants ( no time limits) and took the long way over to Tooele ( To - wil -la )

The club were meeting at the brewery on the edge of town ( I like these guys!) Small meeting - we came 2nd in the biathlon and apparently that bought us a free lunch. Had an interesting chat with a south african couple and after the meeting C bought a neck cooler (again finally! I've been telling him how great my cobber is but not letting him borrow it) I'm not too jazzed about the glorified water bottle - we ended up going over to REI and buying a couple of bits and pieces to canalbilize my old camel bak - cos the bite valve doesn't work as well as a Camelbak.

After dinner we went to the early show of Bad Boys II (yawn!) I didn't hate it, but the first one was way better!

Sunday was another early start, we wanted to get out before it got too hot. This time we went out towards Mirror Lake Highway, you have to pay a fee cos it's Forrest Service land but it was worth it. The ride took us up to over 10,000ft - I have a new job - taking pictures over C's shoulder, it was only a crappy little re-usuable camera but the results were pretty good. We arrived in Evanston, Wyoming for lunch at the slowest Burger King this side of the pond (it made the one in Reading town centre look speedy) then headed home - via a few rainstorms - which sting! C fixed my watch and we got the pics developed. If we go cross-country touring we need proper saddles. I don't have enough padding!

So this'll be Friday then - what a week, I lost one pt job, got another and then got the other one back. Confused - er yup! See it started like this - on the fieldtrip - on the way back I got told that I've been removed from the payroll (so no logging these hours then) I wasn't too fussed 'cos I needed to put in some volunteer hours. Tuesday I had the face-to-face interview for the other job and got offered there and then - subject to a board decision - not bad!

C finished up the fence - we got some stuff to weave through it at the weekend - which sounded a bit heath-robinson to me. I couldn't get my stuff to thread properly and C thought I was deliberately messing it up - so I told him where he could stuff it and left him to it. I was pretty annoyed with myself - cos I couldn't master a simple technique. Well guess what, it turns out it wasn't my fault C came and apologised to me yesterday, seems that the roll I had was wider than his and he was having similar troubles!!!!!

I also planted a bunch of sunflower seeds on Saturday and bugger me they're up already - about half an inch high and their function is to cover the back fence.

Now I don't normally comment on current events but one has me fuming at the moment. Kobe Bryant - the man who thinks it's OK to cheat on his wife ( and possibly raped a young woman)- hell he's admitted he cheated and she's still sticking with him - how daft is his wife? The trust thing in a marriage is very important if one or other partner breaks that trust, it is not going to come back in a hurry.

And lastly - I'm currently looking for a new e-mail program, the only way I can look at my hotmail account is through internet explorer - it won't work in Netscape anymore. Strange that seeing as hotmail is a microshaft program and netscape isn't hmmmmm. Propriertory software - I think so!