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!!