Project:365 (Prequel #3) - Carsington

Decided that the family needed some fresh air today, so we headed off to Carsington. The kids took their scooters and we treed along the side of the water. The weather was quite foggy, so there weren't that many people around - it was good to sweep the cobwebs away and feel like doing something slightly more energetic that raising the hand to the mouth!

We stopped off in Ashbourne on the way back home and mooched around the sales.

Project:365 (Prequel #2) - Christmas Day

Christmas Day over and it was brilliant. The kids didn't wake up too early after we'd been tracking Santa all day on NORAD tracks santa. We opened most of our presnts, then Mum & Dad came round. We had beef (not turkey) this year and Dad had arranged some party games. He produced some more fireworks. Aftre the second was was discharged (at about 5:45pm) a disgruntled neighbour, who stayed in the shadows at the bottom of the garden (so we don't know who it is), became very aggressive and threatening - Happy Christmas to you too!! We had to call off the fireworks, as we felt things would turn nasty. that kind of drew the evening to a conclusion really.

Tracking Santa

We're all here tracking santa here

Weather

I'll be glad when I don't have to drive in all this fog the UK seems to be suffering at the moment. It has been days of unbroken thick fog which is destroying the plans of many travellers for Christmas time (but us hardy contractors need to battle the weather to get to work!)

Picked up on this great Flickr slideshow of a blizzard with proper snow - not the slushy stuff we get here.

Is Locke, Ben's brother?

Well thanks a lot Mark!! Not only did you get me back into watching LOST (which I've caught up with now) but you also pointed me to the SKYONE podcast aired after every show. They have now filled my head with theories that I'd not thought of (or never would have), the finest being that Locke is actually Ben's brother. WOW! Episode 6 was great, and as there is a break in episodes (startup again in February), there was a cliff hanger.

Also immediately following LOST was the prequel for 24-Day 6, which got me hooked straight away, you can't beat a bit of Jack getting tortured action. Looks like its going to start on Sundays at 9pm in January - right before LOST when it restarts - that'll be inducive to getting to sleep then!

Project:365 (Prequel #1)

I have decided that I'm going to post a few prequel episodes of Project:365. I will be doing some pretty good stuff before the beginning of the year (well certainly more interesting than the daily mundane stuff that will probably get posted when I get started proper).

Last night 21 of us went into Birmingham to watch a production of Guys & Dolls, which was great. Joe McGann, Nigel Harman & Bonnie Langford were the named stars, but all of the cast performed very well. It was an insight into what can be done with a professional company as there where a lot of great dance numbers too (and some nudity whichwas nice). Tasha & Jane, who will be in another production of the show after Christmas also enjoyed it and didn't come away feeling depressed (which I was a little worried about). Best part for me was Rocking the boat, closely followed by Luck be a lady.

Before we went to the show, we had another great meal at the big wok - not as busy as the 2 previous occasions I've visited.

As a bonus, we sat across from David Bradley, who plays Argus Filch in the Harry Potter films.

Early Morning People Watching

Down at Gatwick (after a bad drive in the dark & wet) for hopefully the last time on the current training schedule. I think that there is going to be some more next year that I might have to get involved with.

Listened to some good iLife Zone back issues on the way down this morning, and sitting here in Costa Coffee at North Terminal I feel embarassed typing on my old Compaq Armada running Win2K, rather than a slick and sexy black MacBook!

My challenge of producing the family video for New Year is actually going OK, and I think I might actually do it on time. Got through and edited another heap of clips last night.

Tasha has excelled this weekend, in completely re-decorating our bedroom. Most of the work was done on Saturday, which left yesterday for her to go buy some dressings. My solution of glue, seems to be working for holding the curtain rail to the roof of the bay window.

Anyway must get back to some people watching, before heading over to set up my presentation equipment. I have some goals (tasks that occur regularly) which I want to start the new year with, and I need to think hard about setting realistic but challenging targets for.

Christmas Dinner

The Chancers Christmas Ball

Great to see all the chancers on Saturday night, thank you to everyone that made the effort to travel from far and wide to join the first ex-Siemens-now contractors get-together. Plenty of good chit chat about Gordon Brown's announcement and how it affected different people, and also the lastest romours with the folk that are left in Coventry, both Siemens and Silvertech. As usual far too much food was consumed at the Big Wok (after eventually getting in after they lost our booking!). After another visit to a very crowded Apple store with Mark, I think I'm warming to the black MacBook more. We'll wait and see what happens after Christmas.

Christmas tree went up at the weekend, which was a great event as always. Nate is really excited this year, now that his going to pre-school he knows what is going to happen. Only one bauble casuality this year too, but we have vowed to get some new ones after the season is over. Had a great afternoon over at my Aunty Sue's, much good banter. Can't beleive that its a year since we were last over there.

See all my photos from the Chancers meet here

Christmas Bazaar

Some of the 400 muffins Tasha has made for the bazaar!! As well as a lot of large cakes. She hopes to sell them all in record

The problem with big breakfasts

I was done at a training centre near Brighton this morning. Got up at 0345 to start driving. Horrible weather and a big accident (which hadn't cleared when I came back), meant it was nearly 4 hours in the car - a small hire car. At my destination I fuelled myself on a big breakfast, only to find out that the training centre also offered a very high quality free lunch as well. Two very square meals and the early start, meant I was pretty drowsy on the way home (another 4 hours in the car), so I stopped at the services, reclined the seat and played an energergiser Pzizz - the rest of the journey was fine!

The business became fully VAT registered today, so will definitelt be up and running for the right date now.

Got quite a bit of web work on now, so its busy in the evenings too at the moment. Hoping to get 2 sites finished by Christmas, and another just into the new year.

Was contacted about this pucture today. Its been short-listed for the latest revision of the schmap guide for York.

Farewell Trapper

Well Trapper is off to roll in a lot of money soon, so we took a trip out to aspects contemporary Indian cuisine in Enderby for some nosh. Great lunch and good banter, Steve Dunn also met up with us there. Much talk of contracts new, with Steve and John and renewals and Ltd companies from Dan & myself.

Looking forward to meeting up with the other fully paid up members of the chancers at the start of December.

Just filling some links in and I found these hits for Steve Dunn - LOL

Belly full of Thai food

Down at Atkins in Epsom at the moment, things going well (much better than last time). The business is in the final stage of being set up now so hopefuly will be fully operational by the middle of December - and the orders have started to come in. I'm hoping that some diversity will come along with that too, to make things a little more interesting.

Caught up with a load more TWiT stuff on the mammouth journey down here this morning, and hopefully going to have enough material for the journey home tomorrow. I'm hoping to finish by lunchtime - so should be on the road soon after. Been given a "death trap" of a car to come down in though so will have to take things steady!

A belly full of Thai food, and early start and a queued up Pzizz, mean that I shall be a sleep in no time.

Update - did get away for lunchtime - horrible drive home made pleasant with another great chat with Mark - can't wait to see him in Brum

Wacom Volito 2

For my birthday I got a Wacom volito 2 graphics tablet. It came with 2 lots of free software ArtRage 2 and Funhouse. Mark was raving about ArtRage so I thought I'd have a quick go.

In an everyday matters kind of way, I thought that it would be a really good tool to create a quick sketch everyday (no paint to dry etc).

Some of the features of the software are great - I know what Mark means when you could sit there for hours just knocking these things out.

Its children in need day today. At work a playstation was set up and it was £1 for 2 laps on GranTourismo2. It probably cost them far more contractors standing around waiting for a go though!

Souvenirs

Just spotted this great post on the Flickr Blog

Wife Stripping

Well with a title like that I expect this post will have a few hits, but it was a manic night last night. The decorator said he was coming a few days early so we ended up having to accelerate the prep. work. Some of the plaster came away during the day, so I had to replaster some of the wall and then carry on stripping the wallpaper. Finished at about 10pm last night, but there is still a bit more to do tonight. Obviously, as it was Florence's room we had to set her up in the living room to sleep, which meant no PC use.

34 Today

Its been the best birthday I've had for years today. Normally I open the presents with the kids (if I'm at home) then its just business as usual. Today I took the day off. I did the present opening thing, then off they went to school & my Mum's and Tasha & I spent the day together. We went into Derby and went to all the shops you can't go to with kids, and had lunch at Pizza Express from the new Italia del Nord menu. Had a bottle of wine then went and did some more mooching. On the way home got a phone call from the garage - my car was ready (after extensive work to rear suspension, front roll bars, front brakes, cam belt, service & MOT = £720). Ouch.

Got home and Dad had bought some really good fire works, so we let them off.

So here it is....

Its 12th November, the night before my birthday and I've just heard the first playing of Merry Christmas by Slade. This coupled with the Christmas decorations that were up in Llandudno makes it seem that Christmas gets ever closer. Perhaps we need Thanks Giving in the calendar, to distract us from Christmas.

Busy weekend, but very productive. Tomorrow not going into work.

New beginings

Well I'm now a director of a company - which is nice! Decided to stop pratting about and be dynamic about the whole situation and get things done.

After reading Mark's post I realised that I've just been journalling with my last few posts, which is great if you lead an interesting life. Quality is the key.

The recent podcasts by Merlin Mann & David Allen over at 43 Folders have been a big inspiration and using the wikibot thing has really sorted my GTD and got it back into shape. I have regained my trusted system - and I think mark has too.

Great to chat again tonight and really looking forward to the meetup at Christmas.

PS - Merlin likes moo too

Weird Science

Two bits of weird science.
1. There is a direct relationship between the amount of alcohol consumed and the number of sausage & egg McMuffins required the following morning to ease the hangover.
2. Florence ialways catches a sickness bug about this time of year. Normally she misses out on one of her friends birthdays, but this time we've had to cancel her own.

Saw Steve Dunn at lunchtime, was great to catch up with him (and the last of the Cov gossip!). Lots of good advise about limited companies (cheers Steve)

Had a great Friday night with fireworks supplied by Colin, cake by Tasha and danger by Martin & myself. Tasha cooked a big pot of chilli too. Maea came over and it was really good to see her with Florence again.

Saturday (Florence's birthday) was busy, after she opened her presents, she went off to ballet - then straight to a go-karting party! In the evening Tasha & I went to the mellows annual dinner dance. Had too much vodka (hance the mcmuffins) and then was up in the night a few times with Florence - tiredness setting in now, but Mum & Dad are over shortly to deliver presents for Florence.

Chester Return

Got back from a well deserved break to Chester. After a little annoyance of the roof (that we resently had repaired) leaking, we had a fantastic time. A quick repair was made using a tarpauline which seemed to do the trick for the rest of the week.

We went to the zoo - one of the best ones I've been to, the kids loved it. Loads of really good enclosures. We also did the blue planet aquarium which was the first time I've been to one of the walk-through tunnels. Cheshire Oaks (and the credit card) took a bit of a hammering, but we got some good buys - and managed to start the Christmas shopping. We also decided to take the short trip into North Wales and go to Llandudno (and we got our fix of fish & chips on the beach!)

Used the time to sort my GTD out a bit and caught up on some missed Podcasts - generally quite productive.

I want a Mac!

Forget all the fancy advertising that apple pumps out, just listening to a few episodes of MacBreak weekly has me hungry for all kinds of apple products. In fact I need them all - and would sPC tomorrow.

Looking forward the holiday big time now - the long hours have really caught up with me.

Meant to ring Mark tonight, but ended up leaving work early and its been a whirl since I got home. Hopefully catch you online, but if not have yourselves a great holiday too.

Hot Spot

Blogging from a T-mobile hot spot at the airport - nothing much doing, because our line is running sweet. Had far to many beers last night. Require sleep badly.

Hard Day......Hard Night

Hard day on site, followed by a hard day in the bar at the hotel! Generally a good was had today, very sucessful - but boring because nothing was happening. Finished shift at 2130 and found a couple of colleagues in the bar. 6 bottles of Corona, 1 Thai Green curry and a bloody mary later I'm in my room trying to but together a post!

MOO cards

After receiving our FREE moo cards, we decided to order a couple of boxes. The first was for me, the second was just cakes, and Tasha is going to use them to promote tashascakes.com. Also spotted this from Cory D.

When on site I tried blogging by just writing to a text file when I can, then copying it into Blogger dashboard. Picked up a good tip though, if the first line of a text file is .LOG - whenever the file is opened, the date/time information is written as the next line.

16:32 10/10/2006
Just started shift again. Managed to get some lunch (breakfast for me) at the local Beefeater - and was very surprised at the fantastic food and service. After lunch thought it would be a great idea to try and get a power-nap before heading off for the airport. BAD IDEA - I now feel even worse. I'm hoping that this will wear off (especially after some caffine - which so far today I've avoided). I'm definitelty not going to do caffine (in any form) after midnight tonight, to see if that aids my sleep.

00:30 11/10/2006
It always amazes me how many conveyors they get into a baggage hall. Its a real labarinth and is reminicent of the scene from Toy Story 2! Still a construction site, where I'm working so very noisy, dirty and hot & sweaty. I think that the heat is coming from the huge ammount of temporary lighting that has been installed and the general lack of air circulation.

03:20 11/10/2006
On the home stretch of the shift now. Just started the lines back up and running, first bag due about 4am. Can't do any intrusive works now.


21:58 11/10/2006
Had a great night (well mornings) sleep and felt really quite refreshed, we had a good lunch again and a wee swim/suana session. I think that the good night was down to the 2 stage attack I made during the evening
1. No caffine (in any form) after midnight
2. Ordering a beer when I got back to the hotel (at 5:30am), which I received a very dirty look from the night porter for

Did some "tax-free" shopping airside today and got hold of some new earphones. Had the Shure ones in my hand, but when I reviewed the technical information (which didin't mean much to me). The far cheaper Senheisser ones were better. Got some discount as well as the tax-free thing too!

Spent a lot of time humping bags about for trials, which gave me a bit of a work-out. Back home Friday.

Ghoster

Worked a ghoster shift last night` should really ahave been a late shift, but we were on a roll so ended up doing nearly 18 hours!!! Thats a good thing about working here, there is an abundance of good coffee at unusual times!

Managed to change to the Copthorne Hotel as well, which is far more comfortable. Will try the gym out later. As with all the night shifts I've worked, I get home and I'm buzzing, so never sleep properly - managed about 5 hours of restless slepp, but fell OK at the mo (maybe get some more later before heading in to site).

Plenty of productivity last night - hopefully the testing tonight (with ATKINS) will be as good.

Using my mobile phone as a modem again, will have to see if it is as cheap as I hope, or whether I get stung big style.

It was Mark who inspired me into writing posts again, he gave me the heads up on MacBreak podcast, which I listened to on the way down. Great stuff and the geek chats through the headphones, might keep me ticking along.

Its been a while...

I've been working away the last few weeks. I started by being in Epsom, which proved not to be the easy visit that it was billed to be. I needed to spend a few extra days down there but got the issues resolved. From there I went straight to Gatwick, which is where I should be now, but they were slightly behind too, so I've been home this weekend (probably have to work next though). It seems very strange being at the airport again, as though I'd never been away - but its been about 10 years. It was also weird being away from home, as its really been the first stint since starting at ALSTEC.

Made the most of the weekend, got back in plenty of time to go pick up the kids from school which was great. Generally had the busy weekend of ferrying around to parties, ballet etc, but managed to get some time down at Fradley this morning. Had the afternoon to myself on Saturday, so did the PC deed that I've been meaning to do for a while, and upgraded. Added another 512MB RAM, 250GB HDD and gave it a good clean. Found out why its been stopping too (finally!) - might be useful for Mark. The processor fan unclips to reveal the heatsync. This was clogged full of dust at the core (it looked fine when looking at the fins from the outside). Cleaned out all the crud and rebuilt the PC, with a clean install. Seems a much better beast now.

Waiting for a call from work to confirm that I'm on nights next week. Think I'll drive down in the morning, and try and get some rest and chill out before starting work at 7 ish.

Glad to be back on line - even for a brief time.

Late weekend roundup

Well another busy few days. Went out for Jack's leaving/birthday do. Great night out made even better by the fact that the restaurant we went to, Enrico's, is run by the couple that we used to dine with at their old place (and we didn't realise they'd got this new one).

Saturday afternoon went to the football with Nigel, much better game than the last time we went together. Would have been nice to come away with another 2 points though. In the evening we returned to Pascal's for the long awaited Gill & GJ birthday meal - as ever beautiful food.

Sunday we were off to Matlock and Gullivers Kingdom - which was a fantastic day out and the kids could get on everything - we didn't have to queue either.

Since going back to work its been busy, preparing for the SCADA tests next week and site commissioning the week after. Had a particularly sucessful day today, getting the last (and the most tricky) test completed.

Went out with Martin and Clive last night for a Mexican at Pepitos.

The Schwag man cometh!

Yep, for the first time in a few months, the schwag man has delivered some booty. Its better for me that ValleySchwag only send out when they have some gear (rather than every month). Now its a random thing so, its a surprise when the beast arrives!

After Mark's headsup yesterday I checked out this post from Cabel on the new Nike iPod attachment. I need me one of those! He also raved about the latest iTunes, which I also installed. I am loving the interface, especially the summary page. Not really explored all the new features yet though.
Been feeling a bit rough this week, picked up a bit of a cold (probably becasue of lack of sleep). Feeling better than last night though, so hopefully get my taste fully back before we hit Pascal's on Saturday!

Great banter with Mark on the way home, for nearly the whole journey, miss those chats - but thats why I upped my phone tarrif.

Tasha has been in the wars this week. Whilst snacking on popcorn the other day, she bit a kernel and busted a tooth - which she had fixed today. Yesterday she pulled her back again, but thankfully that seems to be getting better, so its not as bad as last time.

Composite

Following on from Mark's great composite image I decided to get my arse in gear and put together the one I took on holiday. Not sure about it, it seems to be high in contrast. I think I need a full tutorial from Mark.

Another great week had!

Friday night went to watch Tasha's fantastic production of Godspell. Mesmerising performance and as many people reviewed a "performance worthy of a professional stage". Because of the young cast there was a teriffic amount of energy on the stage. With the venue change (due to the fire at the Brewhouse) - it meant that there were only 4 performances - as Saturday was already booked. Although the show was the best of the week according to Tasha - there were plenty of sad faces at the end, knowing that they wouldn't be doing it again - it was a strange mix of emotions.

Saturday was Fi's 18th birthday party which was held at the new Burton Albion Stadium. Great night, and one of the cast had brought the soundtrack with them, so several numbers were recreated. During the evening Jack's leaving do was arranged, so that means I'm out all next weekend too.

Thought that Sunday might be a bit restful, but not really - Florence got invited to a bowling party late on Friday, so we had to go a get a present, then take her to the bowling alley. Several gardening chores, and delivering all the show things to the next directors for Guys & Dolls.

Had a great night with Martin last night. We had beers, curry and a movie - it was good to catch up, I miss them being around next door. From what he says they should be back up here by the end of the month. Bit of a late night, as Tasha didn't get home until 1ish. A boozy night, with 4.5 hours sleep and a FAT to get through at work, has meant a lunchtime of comfort eating!! Out again tonight and Saturday night as well - not sure the Thursday, Friday, Saturday thing has happened since we had kids!!

There has been much talk of money in the office today, one guy showing pictures of a property he has in the US, 8 bedrooms (you get the picture), as well as the normal flurry of text beeps at 9am for payments. Martin is always up for a good money spinning idea, and I think that the best one of the moment is the patent to MP3 compression . It appears that some bright spark requires paying for every technology that decompresses MP3 files into audible sounds. Now how many MP3 players are there in the world? Theres also always good money banter walking with Trapper at lunchtime (no gym today as he's still recovering from his helter-skelter injury). John was saying that if he spends an extended period on his next assignment he could talk about the assignment total in substantial fractions of million, and could potentially semi-retire on completion. Its a nice thought, but I'm still heavily into the balancing of home life ethic and would rather be very comfortable and take 12 weeks holiday a year than stinking rich and not know my kids (extreme but possible, the damage would be done by the time you retired).

Read a good post and a chapter in Ready for Anything about getting things out of your mind - brain dumping. Spent some time going through a list of triggers to try and get things down on paper again. Felt much better for the experience. I'd let the GTD thing slip since before the holidays, and its only now that I realise what it truely does for me - de-stress. I'm not sure I'm going to subscribe to the whole exercise, but certainly the triggers list every now and then will aid in dumping the mind of clutter. After my 7 habits phase as well I like to think that I'm at a stage when I can see benefits in running both methods.

Fresh Start

Florence started back at school today, with her new bag and gear that we bought in France. I always remember the first day back at school (especially secondary school), when you'd got your new pencil case and new bag (in my case one of those rediculously large head bags). Although she has really enjoyed her holiday I think that everyone is ready to get back into the daily routine of going to school.

Tasha had final dress rehearsal last night for Godspell, which went really well. Even though Tasha has seen the production at least twice a week for the last few months, she said that everyone really came together last night and the emotion and dancing were creating a real buzz. I can't wait to see it on Friday (and might have to go earlier in the week too!), the snippets that I've seen were amazing.

The main shock news for me is that Steve Irwin has been killed whilst filming a stingray. I don't normally catch a lot of news so that first I heard about it was when the flood of JPG joke emails came in (which made no sense to me obviously), and then later on Flickr I saw some testemonials. I didn't watch him regularly but I was always impressed by his enthusiasm for wildlife and his keeness to educate.

As Tasha is out all week with the show - I've arranged a curry night on Thursday with Martin, was only saying to trapper the other day how long it had been since I had a cuury

My big fat greek weekend

Went out for Amanda's leaving bash at the greek restuarant on Friday night. Originally only Tasha was going but we managed to get a last minute baby sitter. Really glad we did as it was a great night. the end of it was a massive 70 person plate throwing in the road outside - brilliant!! loads of wine and great banter with great friends. However in much need of a red bull the next morning, god knows what was in the wine, but the head ache I had was really really bad. Friday was also the day that I took our caravan to be serviced, it was the first time out in lumpy for a tow, since the new clutch was fitted - everything went OK, just hope that they can fix everything for not very much money!!! Went to the dentist in the afternoon.

Saturday, we mainly just chilled out, knowing that Sunday would be a big day. Tasha's long rehearsal. As assistant director she had to be there really early this morning and I don't think she'll be home until 11ish tonight. We popped in very briefly and everything seemed to be going fine.

Normal chores for me, with a drink and some TV, hopefully catching Tasha when she gets in, if I've not passed out - back to the grind tomorrow and show week business.

Looking forward to Fi's 18th party next weekend with the same croud as Friday night - should be another good one!!

Birmingham...again

Well I'm off to Brum again today, the 3rd time since Saturday, for my IET C.Eng interview. We went in on Monday to have some lunch (at Cafe Rouge) and to get some presents for the new arrival in the street. Of course we found it hard to resist a good mooch around the ground floor at selfridges, where they have this jelly bean man. Restricted ourselves to 4 doughnuts from Krispy Kreme too!

Working from home this morning for a couple of hours then Tasha is dropping me at the station for the hop to Birmingham.

Well Florence's ankle needed some dressing this morning, but throughout the day she has been able to put more and more weight on it. We went over to Tasha's mums today. It was great to see Dan, Karen & Lauren too. We managed to get dates sorted out to go and visit them.

We then went over to Janice's for their 60th birthday bash.

Tasha is out on the lash tonight - it might be a late one!

An hour after eating a Chinese meal you could eat another one...

... or so they say. Well, certainly not for me last night - the Chancers went to Birmingham for the first get together. Met up with Adrian and Trapper as they who were in town early.

Mark met us in the apple store in the bullring, and we had a great 1/2 hour of geeking (John and Adrian had gone for their first drink by this stage). After that we wandered around New Street and stumbled on a german wine festival, and enjoyed a glass of red. Geoff and Chi phoned, so we set off back for the station to collect them.

We all called in on the Ikon gallery, which was a first for me, but won't be the last, before meeting up with the others in a pub near the canal. After some more drinks we ate at the big wok. It was busy but unlike similar places I've visited, the food was varied and abundant.

I ate so much that the train journey home was pretty uncomfortable!!

The clan had all been to Jean & Melvyn's and Florence had sprained her ankle (hopefully nothing more serious).

Thanks guys for a great afternoon!!

Chores

Had a productive day from start to finish today. Testing is going well especially after Peter and I discussed the philosophy - I was trying to get too much working. A more basic approach is required, and as soon as I got that in my skull things speeded up.

General good karma tidying and installed new power management for the desktop. Caught up with LOST, and cleared my inbox - after the backlog when the router fried.

Had a great talk with Mark on the way home. He is obviously feeling the same way in upping the level of photography being done. Looking forward to Saturday, MP3s, geeking and a good catch-up. Do I take the camera????

Old Street roundabout comp-1

Old Street roundabout comp-1,
originally uploaded by BombDog.

Bombdog has been at it again. Fantastic image composite. This is part of the Parkour group, go check it out here group.

Back on line

Never thought I'd miss the internet (especially having done without it on holiday), but when there is a PC there with a fried router....

...anyway, its all OK now.

I'm back!

Well back in the UK after a fantastic break in France for nearly 3 weeks. It all started pretty badly, with the clutch failing on our tow car the day before we were going to leave. After speaking to a varied amount of people (some cowbows and some who obviously knew what they were on about), it appears that our car is known for getting through clutches. I rang the caravan club to see if they could offer any advice. As we'd taken out some comprehensive travel cover with them, they could supply a hire car equivalent if they couldn't get it fixed. By 4pm (16 hours until we wanted to set off), we had decided that it was not possible to repair the car in time, so a hire car was arranged, but it was coming from London over night and wouldn't get to us until 10am at the earliest. This news was both a relief (that we were going to get away) and also a frustration, as we wanted to leave at 8.30. We checked that we could change our ferry if we needed to and then waited. Practical the hire company were brilliant, and they delivered the car, a very luxurious Nissan Pathfinder and we got it loaded up, hitched and we were on our way just before mid-day. That meant we had 4 hours to get to Dover, which in turn meant no stopping on route, if we were to meet our ferry.

We made it (with minutes to spare), and as we sat and had our first French beer that evening, Tasha's dad said "Well, you are here, on the ferry that you booked as planned". It was true, although it had been stressful.

The rest of the holiday was a breeze in comparison. There was a lot of long day driving, to get to the Dordogne, but it was all worth it - and the in-car DVD player that we bought helped no end with the boredom for the children. Straight back into work yesterday was a shock to the system, but a little French wine on the return home, just made the holiday feeling trickle back into the system for a while.

Of course now the taks of getting our original car repaired is upon us!

We were all very grateful to Simon at Practical in Leicester, and Will at the CC Travel line for getting us on hoiliday.

Fine food, wine, the apple store & fires

All in all an exhausting weekend.

Tasha & I enjoyed a fantastic night out at Pascals at the old vicarage, great food and a beautiful bottle of wine.

Today we headed off for our child free day at the bullring. Had a look at the apple macbook in the apple store and was almost won over. I also went and had a look at the ultra portable Sony range in Selfridges. Torn.

On the way home we passed a steam rally at Barton, one of the competitors was trundling down the road, setting fire to mthe hedges as he passed!

Driving Practice

Had some idea of how much driving I'll need to do when I go to France. We are planning on about 300 miles a day, in 2 steady 3 hour stints. Today I went to Heathrow and back (via Leicester) a total of 240 miles - but I was being the wheel for about 7 hours! Had to go for a secirity check and photo (took about 20 minutes).

Feel drained

Have been asked to revamp the pre-scholl website. Have some good ideas, will post links when I get into it.

Looking forward to our pampering weekend. Holiday planning on Friday night. Florence the party animal taxiing on Saturday, with a meal at the Old Vicarage in the evening, then the Bullring on Sunday.

Trading a paper clip for a house

An interesting experiment

Zidane

I've always had a lot of time for Zidane, I've watched games when he's played for Juventus, Real Madrid and France and thought that he was genius. After a minor holding incident last night in the World cup final (Zidane's last game for his country) the Italian defender said something that made Zidane flip and he head-butted him in the chest. Non of the on-pitch officials saw the incident and at the moment its thought that the 4th/5th official saw it on the video monitor and reported it to the referee. This goes against the FIFA philosophy altogether - but the resulting red card was the right decision. Zidane had no place on the pitch after that, and he went down in my estimations. The red card came in extra time, after he had nearly got his country into the lead, Viera and henry had should be substituted and if it was going to penalties, you'd want Zindane there. It did go to penalties and France obviously lost, the Italians put away some great penalties.

Old fashioned service

We had our 4x4 serviced this Saturday. I'd been told that its best to get it serviced by specialists as there are numerous other things that need checking. The garage that we bought the car from, didn't inspire confidence, so we decided to go to a local independent. Frankerbrook Garage, near Belper was where we decided and it was very good. Its the kind of service that my Mum & Dad would have raved about, very pleasant. Everything was fully explained and I felt very confident about all the work. They managed to sort out a couple of niggling things too. The drive home from Belper felt great, a new car!!

On the flip side of that, I waied in all day for someone to come round and collect something they'd bought of eBay from me - no show. I wish people would just let me know they don't want stuff. Would have been a completely wasted day apart from the Wimbeldon final - wish was a good watch. I thought it was going to be a complete white wash, but Nadal finished strong.

Last night saw Italy through to the world cup final. To be honest that was a bit of a shock to me, I thought that Germany would do it. If they had it would have been the 8th time they'd reached the final, more than any other country.

The space shuttle mission final took off yesterday too, it seems that some foam came off this time too, but the astronauts are performing several new techniques and tests to check for external damage.

We got sent home from work at lunchtime today, due to a huge powercut in Leicester. there was a pretty violent storm, with heavy rain and lightening for about 45 minutes, the result of which was a powercut at 1030. John and I went to the sports centre and the power was out over there too, all the traffic lights etc enroute were down. Aparently a main line took a direct hit.

Florence got her first 2 swimming badges tonight for 5 & 10 metres. I've not seen her swim for ages (due to not normally being home from work), she has really improved over the last few weeks and is gaining a lot of confidence in the water. We're all very proud of her.

Arranged the shareholders dinner at the vicarage, the final part of hopefully a great weekend.

No doubt there will be fireworks all over the US today, but the heat is coming from the weather over here. In the new office there is no air conditioning, in my car there is also no air conditioning. I went swimming yesterday lunchtime, and within minutes of getting dry, was drenched again.

The drive home was hot too - made more irritating by my card getting a random authorisation check at the service station and I ended up speaking to someone on the phone for 10 minutes, with a huge queue building up behind me! Got home and was issued with a cold Stella, from Tasha, and the BBQ cooking some mackerel.

Have decided that it is the time of year to do my life laundry thing again. I've pretty much sorted my GTD life out now, and have settled on using good old text files for all my lists (this actually works a lot better than I thought it would). I keep them on my pen drive so that they are portable between work and home. I found that when I truely wrote down all my projects and next actions that there was too bigger turnover of paper to keep things together in a filofax (unless you do the 1 item per page thing).

Started watching the tour last night. Think I will be able to catch up with much more of it this year as it is on TV at a better time for me.

Weekly roundup

A really busy week on all levels. Started to get involved in a few more projects at work, which is good because all elements of boredom have gone. John and I got into going to the gym together, which works really well. We've booked a squash court next week.

More people are leaving work. Rumours abound, both from people at Coventry and backing up by people at my current assignment that more interviews are being set up. Adrian managed to bag his project too, so there are only a handfull of folks left. Big news to is Dr Simon from Manchester has also quit.

Had a great weekend at the South Staffs Strawberry Rally at Haywood Park Farm. Fantastic "heat wave" weather, with not a drop of rain and read hot temperatures (good practice for France). We arrived Friday tea time and got the BBQ sorted straight away. Up to go fruit picking at 9ish the next day and got a good booty of raspberries and strawberries (and picked up some graet homemade ice cream to go with them). Went into Stafford town centre late morning for a mooch around the shops and had lunch out at Bella Italia. On the way back to the car indulged in some chocolate fountain bits and pieces. Got back in time to listen to the football on my new DAB radio. Had another BBQ.

Disappointing! I thought the critism targetting at Sven was a little harsh, after all it wasn't him who missed all the cahnces on goal, the penalties or stamped on someones knackers.

Switched over after that and was cheered by the tennis.

Sunday saw some more fantastic weather and another trip for fruit booty, gooseberries, starwberries, raspberries, tayberries and red currants were had (and eaten). Tasha sat outside and did some dance work for this ebening's rehearsal, then we packed ourselves up and came home. Next time we sit on those chairs, we'll be breakfasting in France (which is a great thought). Got home and rounded off the weekend with another BBQ.

Rough as a badger's arse

Thats how I feel today -all self inflicted unfortunately so sympathy is non-existent! It was the auction of promises yesterday. Tasha was doing the cateering, so she was out most of the day preparing for the expected 100 guests. This was my first auction as a bidder (and I was also one of the lots for a full bike service). The idea is that folk turn up, eat and drink for an hour or so then then try and make pissed people buy things. I got away lighty (I think) I won 4 lots, and only spent £100 - but I got a family ticket to Heights of Abraham and a cave tour, Family pass to twin lakes, Ice age 2 gamecube game (one of Dave's lots) and tickets to see Leicester Tigers vs The Barbarians next year. The lot I was really after was the japanese meal, but that went out of my zone. The other popular lot out of the 93 in total was Tasha's cakes - which went up from the £57 winning bid last year to £70!!

I can't remember much about getting home, and I appently had a conversation with Tasha when she got back, which I have no recollection of. Couldn't even face a hangover curing big mac at lunchtime (which I was VERY disappointed about). I'm too old for this shit!

Friday was a good day at work, I've been given another task to perform, so I've plenty to keep me occupied now. Although the SMS message didn't work from Brookson this week I did get paid, which was VERY nice!! I got the complicated company shareholder pay slip the following day as well. Dan and I flew over to Coventry at lunchtime to see John at the cocked hat. Must have been everyone thats left turned out. Good to see folk again. Also had a great chat with John on the way home.

A night of 2 halves

Colin, Martin, Tasha & I all got together to watch the game. We had loads of beer, papa chips and good banter - as well as a pretty good game of football. They were good bits and bad bits. The result got through to the next round finishing top in the group, but a win would have been better, and it was on the cards right up until the last minute. We had 13 bets on the game and none of them came in!!

Martin got home to find water pouring down the interior walls of the house. The header tank for the hot water system broke and water was gushing out, mainly into Archie's room. Everyone was OK, but the damage is quite extensive. The insurance bods have been there all day and are coming tomorrow too. they are saying that the whole interior needs re-fitting.

Had some good comms with MArk, Steve and John today. Sounds like the deal at work is going through this week. Just before I left I was invited to a meeting, where it seems I'm getting some other work (software) - which could be interesting.

Build up footy

Invited Martin & Colin round to wathc the footy tomorrow night with us. Stopped off on the way home for beer and papa chips.

Went for another swim at the pool down the road from work (remembering my goggles this time). Managed to get 900 metres done in my time (about 25-30 minutes) which I was quite please about. Its my Gym induction tomorrow.

Work went quite quickly today, after speak with Mark W I actually had enough to get my teeth into all day. Trying to get my personal laptop PSU PAT approved for use, but the chap didn't get it done today. So that I can have an excuse to use Photoshop to improve some of the images I have for my training presentation.

Weekend

Finished my first week as a contractor intact. Got my hours emailoed on Saturday Morning, getting timesheets signed off on Monday, looking forward to the getting paid bit on Friday!!

Very busy weekend, after the usual ballet thing on Saturday, we went over to see Tasha's Dad, who has bought a new SatNav - very cool. In the evening we watched "Batman Begins", which was very good - really enjoyed it. Sunday, I had a real surprise for Father's Day and got a big pepper grinder (like in the restuarants), very cool. We went over to see Dad who seems a bit better. The decorating is coming on too.

Got back and we wnet to IKEA and bought some bathroom cupboards (just like the kitchen ones expect not as deep), that coupled with us finally ordering the new floor, should finish that room off!

England through to the finals

England won through to the last 16 in the world cup today with a win over T&T, I was able to watch the game as I had a new digital ready spanking aerial fitted. I also got a new SKY digibox, which after a lot of fuss getting the card re-authorised and the firmware updated works just fine. I have all my media channels back!

Engineering manager was back in today so had a sit down with him and came out with a bit more direction on what I shall be doing. He revealed a master plan that sounds very good work wise for me and might be very lucrative.

Looking forward to getting my first time sheet in tomorrow though.

Mark's fortunes had a rapid positive turn and he too has handed in the notice. I think that Adrian might be early next week too.

Dull Day

It started out a really dull day and after a short walk to the butty van I was trying to think why I was getting so worked up about it. I'm getting paid a lot of money to sit on my ass. The unfortunate thing is that web access is restricted - so I did a lot of GTD re-work, and felt a whole lot better by home time. Hopefully as people come back to the office after a week of meetings on site I will be given something I can get my teeth into.

Disaster strikes at home - the SLY box is not working, not even the trusty power down thing works, its knackered.

New Starter

Yesterday was a complete mind f@@k with a lot of downloads from people, introductions and inductions. That over today I could actually get my teeth into something. Although I've not been given a formal task as yet, I'm building up to produce and deliver a training programme (I think). A similar course for another system is already in exisitance so the headings are already done.

On a GTD note, I'm still not sure what I need in my system at work to be efficient. I don't want to be taking too much stuff with me, I don't want to store things at work (in case I move on) but equally I don't want to be without things. I'd like to get down to not taking a bag with me.

We are encouraged to use lotus notes, which I've never used before. Its a little more than outlook (although it has the same basics) I understand that its easier to add things too. The new system certainly has a lot of custom database to access for holidays etc etc. All the calendars are shared too, and its tied into the resource calendar for the rooms, so when you arrange a meeting you can see who is available and what room you can have.

Well must continue with the Brazil game.

A busy weekend, especially considering that I'm officially unemployed! We had the Rolleston Community day on Saturday - fantastic weather and there was a flyby from 3 WW2 planes. Sunday we went swimming again and then we went to Colin & Lisa's for a great BBQ for Morgans 2nd birthday. As usual great food!

Cakes in the kitchen

...always signifies an occasion at work. Today its the start of me saying good by to all at the Coventry office. Tasha has (as ever) done me prowd and come up with a handsome trayfull, 1/4 of which went as soon as I walked in through the door. The weather is beautiful too, which I was outside!

Wormington seemed to have a few problems yesterday, which was a surprise as I thought it was all done bar the shouting. Today is the deadline for the information supply require for the make and break meeting tomorrow.

Spoke with Dan yesterday who has now received his first pay packet - looking forward to that happening to me in a week or so's time!

Squash

Finally got to play squash again last night, now that Stubbs is back from Slovenia and I'm back from Winchester. Sounded like he managed to have a good time over there (despite being away from home for so long) and he had some very funny stories to tell. Obviously I let him win squash!

The office is very quiet today, but had a good google chat with trapper, seems there is a big Wormiongton "make or break" meeting this Thursday, which should be interesting. Mavis is out of the office today (as are beardy, steve, dave, lionel etc etc)

On the trawl did bump into this, but better still - this is gadgetry gone mad (and I like gadgets)

Back in Town

Back after a week away. The weather started poorly and gradually got better - but in our holiday tradition managed to avoid getting wet. The day that it rained was spent on the Churnet Valley railway, and it only seemed to shower when we were on the train! The site that we went to was brilliant (somewhere to remember when we're all tall enough for Alton Towers), there were some other children there that meant ours were entertained. As well as the steam railway we also took a trip to Poole's Cavern which was really good. The day that we got back was a bit of a heat wave (as has the whole weekend). Tasha has been away on her NODA course this weekend, so we've been completely on our own. It sounds like shes had a great time. While we were away I received all my contract details through the post from Brookson and NES, so it really is all systems go now. Got all my timesheets and expense forms so it really seems like its VERY real now! Can't wait to start. Trapper had his interview with ALSTEC, but they thought he was after permanent, and told him that they didn't have any immediate positions for contractors - so it look like he just missed out. That coupled with Mark not getting an interview is a real shame. It would have been cool to see all those redundancy letters being handed in! Florence is finally starting her swimming lessons this Wednesday, she seems to have been on the waiting list forever - I'm really glad that its starting before we go to France, she will enjoy the onsite pool a lot more if she has that extra confidence. We went swimming this morning and she is doing really well anyway. We also removed the stabilisers off her bike and she was cruising down the hill at the back of the house in about 1/2 an hour!! All in all a busy bit VERY enjoyable week.

Big Brother

Despite my best efforts, I am finding myself getting dragged into watching big brother. It goes the same way each year. I see a bit of a preview or read in a magazine. I think what a bunch of tossers, I'm not watching that. Then Tasha will watch it and I just get dragged in. There seems to be some devious people in there this year (as well as others which seem to be real air heads)

Resigned

Handed in my notice yesterday, with a hope of starting my new contract on June 12th. MOST people have been very supportive, although others are being arseholes. Head spinning, hopefully be able to settle my thoughts during my visit to Leek.

Massive Kebabs

We all just had huge kebabs from Winchester. Man they were really good, especially the whole chillis. I had the healthy(er) option of chicken, which must have had 3 whole chicken breasts in it, salad, those lovely chillis etc. Robin had the same but with Doner meat. Mike however asked for "the special", it arrived in 3 containers. The 1st was about 12" square and had doner meat, chicken breasts, lamb chops, shish kebabs and a salad, he then had a portion of chips and 2 pitta breads. After 1/2 hour of snaffling, he was defeated and there was still loads left.

Just packing up now, realising that I'm not actually going to get much time at home. Will need to leave the house at about 9am latest tomorrow, then I'm off to KHE on Sunday. I decided to take Adrian's lead though and went for the evening flight rather than the lunchtime one, which will give me a few extra hours!

Tonights work has gone OK, managed to get all my mods done on the UNITs and they're all in ready for a big compile later.

Early start means early finish

After speaking with Mark this morning I decided to come in early today, so that I can get aware a head of schedule later - it also means that some good comms can be had with the day shift boys.

Mike's new brakes in his car didn't work to well last night, as I found his car had run into mine overnight in the hotel car park!!

Rumours from last night are false and it seems that the sale of our business is going through. However had an interesting conversation with another agent this morning, who basically offered me an interview with the purchaser directly!! We are being catious as we've been told that blogs are being watched on the subject!!!

The penny has dropped

....with the managers on the project and they finally realised that things are behind schedule. Panic set in rapidly and they asked us to work the weekend. I obviously declined due to my interview and Mike declined due to the fact that he doesn't give a shit! They have come up with a plan so that it will be in "some kind of shape" for Monday morning. I think that doing this to save a bit of face now is daft (and potentially dangerous) but hey, I'm the code monkey on this one!

Google Notebook

Just set up Google Notebook and it seems pretty good. obviously its not got all the features of OneNote, but I like the fact that its all online and accessible wherever there is an internet connection.

Also just spent some time applying for a couple more contract positions. I think that it is for Dragon as its an LNG project based in Middlesex.

Swapping hotels

Left in no-mans-land this morning, when I had to check out of one hotel and into another (with a 4 hour gap in the middle). Managed at least to get my car parked, with all my gear in it, so that I could walk around Winchester. I walked a long way. And then walked some more.

Had a phone call to say that a chap from Booth Welsh would ring me to talk about work. The offer was OK (if it was for a local firm), but I don't really fancy the weekly commute to Scotland, or the commissioning periods offshore in the Arabian Gulf. I've got some more "irons in the fire" though, so hopefully things will come good by the end of the week.

John seemed to have a good day at interview too.

I'm actually sitting in the workshop all by myself tonight, not sure where everyone is, bu I have managed to get my del.icio.us tags done and catch up on the Google Reader feeds, wonder if I'll be able to afford this when I'm contracting (or more importantly the new house required to accomodate it). Not really one for Star Wars stuff, but I thought these bookends were really cool

On the night shift..... oh yeah on the night shift!

Back down in Winchester on nights again. Slow start to the week, getting to grips with the final mods required to the UNIT machines.

On a personal note am well into switching my on line tagging links back to del.icio.us, and I have an interview on Friday!! The logistics of getting there are a bit tricky, but not beyond the realms of possibility.

Pajama Game

Got home around lunchtime, so while the weather was still good went to the Jinny for lunch. First time we've been since it has had the new people and it was fantastic.

Tasha chilled in the garden while I sorted out my shit from the week.

Went to see Tasha in the Pajama Game in the evening with Sue, Louise and Sara. One of the best Mellows productions I've seen. I know that I'm biased but Tasha was REALLY good, and she got some good lines in the excellent review in the paper

"...Mike Storr as the jealous time & motion man and Natasha Ingham as the secretary whose saucy teasing of the menwinds him up give great performances. Natasha excelled not only in their duets, but also in song and dance ensemble scenes..."

Tasha had some really funny bits which she pulled off and the audience was great last night so there was the interaction in the right place. It might be a different story this afternoon when I go with Florence because

1. A lot of the younger members went out on the lash last night
2. The audience tends to be filled with pensioners, who don't get the jokes and fall asleep in the dark, warm theatre
3. It saturday afternoon, so its the 5th time they've done this!
   

The Wormington Night Train

Last night this week for the twighlight crowd. Although I get pretty tired (I seem to still get up early) its been great to get out in the day, the weather down here has been brilliant. Lots of people watching outside the Catherderal today, whilst having my sandwich from James Martin's Deli (and very nice it was too).

Last couple of days Mike had found a golf course that also has a 9 hole Par-3 course, so we've been over there. My game (which is compltely shit) got better by 5 shots today. I've calculated that by the end of next week I should have a clean sheet if I progress at that constant rate!!!

Lots of checking of Google Reader, there have been some mighty posts about productivity.

I have also been busy on the contracting front this week, taking calls from a few agents. John seems to have scored a cool show (interview next week), so hopefully that will come off for him.

Looking forward to getting back home, especially going to the theatre (and having a drink)

On Saturday I went to get my new phone, the first step on the way to independant working, like Mark I couldn't wait to get home and get the shorts on. Unfortunately I'd missed most of the good weather, and the sun went in after about an hour to be replaced by drizzle, which has stayed with us for the rest of the weekend. Watched Assault on precinct 13 last night. Good bits of action, but patchy in other places. Tasha had band call today, and Suzanne came back for a cuppa, good to see that they are quite relaxed ~ big start on Tuesday next week. Spoke with Adrian today at the airport, he's off for another week in Karlsruhe.

Late nights = fat pockets

Had it confirmed today that Mike and I will be working the late shift next week. Generally this will be admin in the late afternoon and then gaining access to the system from around 5pm and working through to the early hours. Just getting confirmation that this is classed as full night shift (so I can get the extra dough!)

Well the busy weekend finished well yesterday. We went for a wander and some coffee at Fradley Junction - got home and ate sushi. Chilled out during the afternoon and Tasha cooked a fantastic chicken and leek gratin for supper. Matrix on the TV, so watched the first half, before retiring for the evening.

Early start this morning, down at Winchester to find Siggy busy compiling (he and Robin were in on Bank Holiday Monday). Not expecting anyone else here for a while.

Lifehacker are running a coolest workspace competition, which has some interesting entries, with some nice kit. Up to now there has been nothing out of the ordinary (i.e. what you can see in the Apple Store), but this really has gone too far! Also on the trawl I found the perfect recipe for cooking rice, now I'm not bad at cooked rice (I get lots of practice as its a staple in our house), but everyone seems to have a different method. Now everyone hotel should have an iPod vending machine, for those times when you think you've packed your charger.

Getting Old

I've not really eaten properly since I went to Germany in Early April. Even when I come home at the weekend, there is some occasion when I eat or drink too much. Since getting back on Friday, I felt rough. I got up on Saturday, with a pain down the right side of my body, from the ribs down. Seemed to me to be intenstinal. It gradually got worse throughout the day. So much so that I was considering seeing if there was a doctors open over the weekend. I checked out NHS Direct and after a short search I figured I had quite a lot of the symptoms of IBS - I figure that it was probably "something I'd eaten", then realised that I'd not eaten normally (and also druk heavily) for the last 4 weeks. After not eating anything other than plain stuff, fruit and indegestion tablets, and drinking nothing but water, I felt almost completely better by this morning. I am going to try not to be tempted by evil food and drink for the next couple of weeks, to try and get my body back to normal.

The weekend is another busy one (for the ladies in the family anyway). Florence started in the next ballet group yesterday, and was then out for the remainder of the day at birthday parties. We managed to get a lot of errands done. Today Tasha is out all day and evening at long rehersal for the pyjama game.

Managed to get a few jobs done and also a bit of photoshop action, its been a while since I did any layer mask work and as I was looking through the latest trip photos this one was crying out to be masked. Must get more photos of Nate wearing his bright red fleece as it makes good foldder for the red rule group on Flickr.

Florence is getting picked up later so that she can go and see a bit of the rehersal and then have her tea with the cast. Just the boys in the house for tea then!

On the trawl, found some tips for using Google Calendar.

Funeral

Today was the funeral of Tasha's grandad, Geoffrey Colin Dyer. He was a very intelligent, witty and musical man. He loved to travel and after retirement, he went on many cruises and became good friends with Richard Baker, the newsreader with their common love of music. In the war he used to write the music for Jimmy Edwards sketch shows.

The occasion went as well as could be expected.

Pearson in typical fashion, hadn't told anyone about todays arrangements, so found myself rejecting mobile calls from the office during the day.

Back down to Winchester tomorrow.

Have managed to pull a few strings and arranged for baby sitters for the show week. Tasha wasn't happy about me making the journey every day (and to tell you the truth neither was I).

Down here alone

Great weekend over, pretty busy throughout too. Saturday filled with chores, Sunday Tasha had meetings about Godspell so the rest of us went swimming. Florences arm bands burst as she was getting them on, which forced her down the route of starting the session without. She was great, and managed 11 widths with just a small tube float - a huge improvement. Nate is getting better each time too. Finished the weekend with the ususal ironing and catching up with 24. A great episode, although if the death count continues at last nights rate, we won't see the end of the series! Read in heat magazine that Keifer has signed for another 2 seasons at $40m. To my mind that could make another 3 after this one and a movie. 24 overload?? LOST season 2 starts in 2 week or so too.

Set off to Winchester early this morning, as I needed to pick up a few things in the office in Coventry on the way down. Arrived at the Winchester test area to find it completelt deserted! Made a few phone calls and it would appear that no-one else is coming till later in the morning, oh well - time to catch up on the news.

Whats that noise, is an article that grabbed my attention in the reading list this morning. Seems that the simple lesson of checking your vehicle before a long journey has been learnt by NASA, on theie next shuttle mission. In my continuing search for the "perfect" note taking method, I came across this too. Happy Birthday Hubble

My Flickr account appears to be getting some good hits lately, and I noticed that using Scout, I have a number one rated image!

Saturday Night Culture

Went to see one of our friends at the Brewhouse Theatre last night. She sang a set of songs from musicals mainly for her 30th birthday. It was a good turn out and the proceeds go to the local cancer trust, a cause that is very close to Heather's heart. Was good to catch up with a few people at the bar after the show too.

Productive day at home, washed the car which got really muddy last weekend, and then serviced a bike (that had been loaned to Tasha). Nate has a seat on the back of it too, so they went out for a quick spin. Not sure I'd like to carry the extra weight of Nate around with me, but Tasha seemed to do pretty well on the test flight. Could be a good move on holiday, just need to get rid of Florence's stabalisers.

Check this story

Winchester working

The pace down here has been quite slow this morning, mainly due to the bottleneck of the ES. But could also be because of the late night of drinking - my mistake was starting (and keeping up with) trapper. Didn't get a good nights sleep, but didn't suffer this morning.

Breaking News!!
apparently there is a delegation of senior Germans coming over on Tuesday, and the word is that "someones head will roll" for the current situation. A senior source has suggested that a lot of very important people are very annoyed with the way that the situation has arisen and been subsequently handled. Due diligence has also started (we believe) and random(?) projects are being looked at. The ones chosen are BAD ones so another word on the street is that they will also pull out by Tuesday.

All in all the middle of next week is going to be very interesting indeed!!

Still its given me a chance to catch up on mail and do a bit of a GTD session. It appears that Steve "forgot" to mention that he actually needs me down here for 2 weeks! At least it should be a good catchup with McQuitty. Because of personal commitments my time down here is disjointed, so it might not seem like the life sentence it is!

On that note I realised that I'd be doing a lot of driving, so I looked into other means of transport (particularly flying). Nothing. The nearest I got was £746 from East Midlands to Southampton (the expense coming because it goes via Brussels)

Had a goodrummagee round the google reader this morning (and starred a few items), but the highlights are workplace spirituality, the jimi wallet and catching the brain drain.

Am maintaining the Flickr upload (I know its only been a few days)

Return from a break

Well three bits of bad news whilst on Holiday (and today), but thankfully it wasn't about my Dad. He has had a bad back, which might be a sign that his cancer may be spreading apparently, but it seems to be improving, so its a "genuine" bad back.

The first bit of bad news was that Tasha's Grandad past away on Easter Monday. This cut the holiday short for Gill & GJ, but he has been ill for a long long time and it has been very difficult for the family to watch such a healthy, witty and intelligent man deteriorate in such a way. The following day I found I that I was to be deployed down to Winchester to help with Wormington (which is where I'm penning this from). And today heard some bad news from my very good friend. This on top of what is going on with work has really made me think that you can't plan ahead for anything at all. You may as well live life for today and enjoy any opportunty that comes your way.

So I'm not getting stressed about being in Winchester. More later, looking forward to teaming up with Mark next week. Keep an eye out on Flickr for some more pictures (I've got a good ream set up again).

Devestment & Due Diligence

Well the meeting came and went and unfortunately didn't turn into the bloody masacre that I hoped it would become. The chap from the customer is frankly a twat and I had to bite my tongue a few times as he clearly doesn't have a grip on what is going on. I especially like the way he calls our product Siemens 7, and assumed that we would be upgrading to Siemens 8 in th near future!

Basically, he said that they didn't want to go through the process of vetting vendors again, everyone is happy with Siemens and he suggested that there was £6 million plus business over the next few years all with out name on (or not, I thought).

Then our man stood up and basically said that we were being sold, and that there would be a new name above the door, "so long as its not Silvertech" the customer jokingly said ~ Ha Ha how we laughed. Our man did say that the office & infrastructure was part of the deal (i.e. we would keep our building and servers etc) and that they were seeking a buyer who was serious about maintaining the high quality engineering team in tact and not relocating them.

In general it was a good meeting to be in (although there is a higher level customer meeting on Thursday which will be the Yes/No decision), but I gained no really personal information.

Speaking to Dan, there seems to be a very high demand for PCS7 contract engineers at the moment, which is a good feel to have at the back of your mind.

Happy Easter bunnies

I remember as a child watching the TV coverage of the satellite going past the planets, so I thought that the one that starts its orbit around Venus today would send back a few hours of footage. Little did I realise though it actually is planned to orbit the planet for a year and a half. Its studying the green house effect that has happened.

Last night I had to nip into Nate's room before I went to bed. He has now got a new cabin bed, and he loves it. One thing I did notice though was what a horific snorer he is!! Now I occasionaly grunt a little in the night, but I think its more to do with the mothers genes! And heres the proof.

Always good to have a breakdown in team mates so close to a big competition.

I always like the stories about people having mysterious phone/electricity bills after a relatives death etc, but this one takes the biscuit. How exactly do you accrue a $218 trillion bill!!

Looking forward to todays meeting - no doubt an update later

Galaxy to quark in less than 1 minute

Take the journey from the milky way overview jumping in steps of powers of 10 to a quark in an oak leave DNA strand

New Beginnings

Well it apears that you can take the new beginnings thing to a whole new level, but I have had a couple of calls from senior management today basically saying that there are no routes available to people for transfer, as they would like something to sell ~ but that the door is not completely shut. They also let slip that another announcement is due by the end of this week (which is a lot sooner than was released in the "Black Thursday" announcement.

The chap next door to us has dropped the price of the house (he's been trying to sell it for a year). I still feel pretty good though as its still £100k more than we paid for ours 6 years before.

We are still someway behind the US (particularly the bay area) with our wireless take up. But at least it seems common with that of Europe (well Karlsruhe at least). I think it would be great to be able to hook up anywhere, and following on from the great 43folders podcast to be able to check your mail in the park rather than at your desk is a cool idea.

How DO you write a CV?

Back from a great week in Karlsruhe, and following on from the BIG announcement on Thursday, will probably be my last (for Siemens). It was announced that they are selling us off (but they don't know who to).

Busy at the moment trying to update my CV. But I got thinking that last time this was done was years ago, and is it still what people want from such a document ~ is the template now out of date and should I be started from srcatch?

I am looking on one particvular entry ion my in box as fate, but it was basically an introductory job offer. Something I am definitely going to pursue. One of a few avenues I'll take up.

At the moment I'm looking forward to a break over Easter, so I think I will start in anger after that.

I feel sorry for Adrian who is still out in KHE, on his own, with large vessels of beer. I'd be suicidal!!

Books

Was interested to here the other day that HMV are looking to buy Ottakars stores. HMV already own Waterstones, which I like, so I'm hoping that our Ottakars in Burton is changed to a Waterstones. Also there are some terror suspects being held in Burton. It is one of the few stations in the UK that can hold terror suspects.

Managed to improve the code a lot of the F&G system yesterday so hopefully I can step away from that project entirely and enjoy my trip to Germany next week.

Ready for my meeting

I intend to listen to one of my new found brainwave tracks before my meeting, but I also found this article about managing your boss through life hacker, and also found a UK life tools site. Catching up on the news (I don't read a paper regularly) always seems a bit of a chore to me, but now the Guardian have a news podcast.

Relaxed and focussed!

Despite the traumas of today with the Wormington project (none my doing but bad none-the-less), I have indulged in a little bit of brain wave generation following my earlier blog, not tried the sexual profiles yet, but I'll let you know - there were some comments left about these on lifehacker. Whilst compiling has been taking some time, I've done a GTD purge on my tags in MyWeb, and got the total count down a bit. Developed a "daily" tab, which should help me get a bit more organised with my browsing.

UPDATE:

Have just tried out the "sexual simulation" track. The track is 10 minutes long, and I checked out the first minute or so. I tried to relax and closed my eyes. Within a minute my heart rate had increased and I had an uncontrollable grin on my face. I may need to complete my experiments when I have more "private time"!!!!!

Sleep deeply with sexual stimulation

Found this on the daily trawl. We did a similar experiment when we were at college, trying to put our minds in a deep relax state and hopefully take in more revision. Will made a noise generator that did a similar thing.

Long days

Working long days on Wormington at the moment, but at least I can do it from home. The more I get into it the more I realise how much is left to be completed. Spoken to Adrian who is doing the hardware setup down in Winchester today. There is a PDM work shop running at Winchester today for the Wormington team, which Adrian has been told he can't go on!! Madness.

Got my bronze award for blood donation yesterday, which is a good "feel good" factor. As a result missed out on circuits last night, but will probably go down to the one tonight.

The Wormington noose is around my neck

Well I've now been drfated fully into the Wormington team. Confirmation that I have been moved from the Centrica SIL workshop team and placed on the Worminton team came on Friday. I have 1 week to try and get the software for the F&G system in place. Things went quite well on Friday, but over the weekend I came across several sections, which don't seemed to have been worked out very well.

Friday - curry night. First time we have visited Jee-Ja-Jess for ages - and we made up for it, with a great feast. Obviously, most of the weekend was spent doing Mother's day things of one kind or another. After ballet on Saturday, Mum came round (Dad was too ill to come), and in the evening - watched AVP in the evening, which was better than I thought it was going to be. Sunday was busy (for me), as Florence had promised Tasha I'd be her slave for the day! Tried a full meal from our Bill's Food book, which turned out very well indeed. In the afternoon headed out for a mooch around the shops, and bought some shoes. Nate had got up early and with the daylight saving hour lost everyone was really tired. A mountain of ironing to do, but it kept me awake for West Wing and 24.