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.