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.

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!

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.

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.

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????