I should not let this bother me, I should not let this bother me

Okay I have to admit that I've been quite lucky with comments that people leave on my blog and I haven't had any bad ones. However I did notice one that somebody has left on this post " come to the geek side" that has been annoying me for a large part of the day and did make me wonder if I should switch to moderated comments. I've decided that I'm not going to do that yet and hope that this nasty comment
" Too many cookies make you fat. Are you fat? Also this blog is really sad, i feel bad for you."
is the last one I get for a while. As the saying goes everybody has a right to their opinion but if your going to leave a nasty comment on someone's blog and only sign it as anonymous, that does display a lack of courage to stand behind your own opinons. I will ignore this comment and just hope that the rest of you don't find this blog sad and feel bad for me.

Right, rant over....


It was one of those days today which made me wish I hadn't given up caffine. The day just seemed to drag on and on and it was so quiet and hot in the office, that combined with looking at a computer screen did mean I had to go and get some fresh air mid afternoon as I felt my eyelids growing very heavvyyyyy.......

Despite that what really made me happy today was on the way home, the sun was so bright I actually had to find my sunglasses out of the door pocket and use them! Maybe spring really is here after all!

Engineseer dropped his car off earlier as he's off out of the country for a week or so visiting his parents so he didn't want to leave his car unattended on a main road. Grumpy did jokily ask if Engineseer had kept a note of the mileage. At least I hope it was a joke!

I've spent a large part of the evening sorting through stuff from the garage as their running a swap shop at work as part of the celebrations, at least it will be a chance to exchange some stuff I'm not using for some stuff I will.

anyway,

tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station.

The force was not strong with this one

(I Saw this in the news today).

A Star wars fan got a big surprise when he was attacked in his garden by Darth Vader (yes you read that right). Jedi Master Jonba Hehol, better known as Barney Jones a Hairdresser from Holyhead, who founded the first-ever British Jedi church was giving a interview in his back garden when ‘Darth’ dressed in his trademark helmet and a black bin bag leapt over the garden fence.

Due to his lighsaber being either broken or in for repairs, Vader proceeded to lay about his opponent using a metal crutch, whose Jedi Powers proved to be sadly inadequate for the task of defending himself from vaders attack.

After beating Master Hehol, Vader then proceeded to assault the Camera crew and a hairdresser. The report doesn’t specify why he decided to go after the hairdresser, maybe he thought they were responsible for Leia’s hairdo’s.

Master Hehol, was unimpressed by the revenge of the Sith.
"This wasn't a joke. This was serious," he said.

Police are investigating a claim of assault. Can you imagine when they had to make the call to report this? The police must have thought it was a wind up!

Whoops

Well when I got up this morning I was very surprised to see that the weather had completely changed from last night. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. I had just finished breakfast and noticed that there was a text message on my phone from Engineseer. I read the first part which asked me if I was okay, when lead me to wonder if there had been another earthquake in the night that I had slept through. I then read the second part of the message which asked if I had remembered to put my clocks forward. Clocks forward? Whoops.....

Yes so rather then getting to church in time for the start of sacrement I actually ended up getting there for the very end. Well hopefully this will be the last time I make that mistake.

As it was the 5th Sunday of the month the relief society and priesthood had a joint lesson. The bishop opened the lesson saying that Brother england would be talking about a very important subject that we should all be doing. I turned to Engineseer and stated that if this lesson was going to be about home teaching I would probably burst into hysterics. Brother England got up and announced that the lesson would be about visiting and Home teaching. At which point I let out a laugh which i tried to hide by trying to turn it into a fake coughing fit. The trouble was the first five minutes of the lesson sent me into a giggling fit which I just couldn't stop and I thought I was going to have to go outside. I just couldn't help it as he was coming out with lines like " Your lists are important, you should get to know your companion, I know some of you might have problems going out teaching, speak to your leaders if your having problems they will help". Mind you the whole EQ presidency was released today and the new EQ president called. Brother england finished the lesson saying if the priesthood had any problems with our lists we should go and speak to him.

So I went across to speak with him with Engineseer and explained that I was still waiting on a list. Mentally I was comparing the list of excuses I usually got. his response,
" Sure I've got your new list here"
Wait what?
" I'm sorry that sounded like you said you had a list for me there"
" I do" and with that he gave me my new hometeaching list and companion details. I'm sure I must have stood there for a couple of minutes with my mouth open in shock.
Yes geek fans you have read all this correctly. After many months of waiting my faith in Brother England was not misplaced and I now have a HOME TEACHING LIST!

Engineseer, photoshop and cordelia were all most impressed and surprised too. Of course Cordelia had other problems at that point as one of her nieces had called Engineseer by her boyfriends name and when Engineseer pointed that out, the niece had decided that meant Aunt Cordelia now had two boyfriends!

It's just gone 7pm as I sit here writing this and the most obivous change of the clocks going forward is the fact it's still light. Hmmm, maybe spring is almost here after all.

tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek channel.

For the greater good

This is one of the other armies I've been collected for 40K. These units are from the Tau, who in the background to the game are a 'young' race compared to the other races in the universe who have been fighting for over 10,000 years. The Tau have a philosphy called 'for the Greater good' and have been described as somewhat 'naive'. These are crisis battlesuits. So called as because they are highly mobile and armoured teams of these suits respond to 'crisis' on the battlefield.
These guys are the firewarriors. The rank and file of the Tau Fire caste armies. I have painted this squad up to respent a honour guard who escort an etheral, one of the Tau's honoured leaders.

This is a unit of drones. ( the black things their on are flying bases). Able to fly and equipped with twin linked rifles, The Tau make extensive use of drones to back up their armies because unlike the human armies the strategy of attrition is unknown to them.
This is a devilfish. the standard Tau transport vehicle. The Tau are a highly technological race and are constantly refining their technology and developing new weapons and technology to add in their struggle for the greater good. This is in a direct contrast to the Humans who view technology as something of a dark art and the techology they do have are remanants of a more glorious age.

And now for something a bit different

Just to prove that my geekyness is still at near maximum levels I thought I would post a photo of one of the models I've been working on recently. This is a Baneblade. The largest model I've ever put together and painted.
I put the pen lid next to it so you can get an idea of it's size!

oh lookit, pictures

Just for a change and as I've got nothing better to do right now I thought I would post a couple of photos. This photo is just to show you how crammed full of frog spawn our pond is right now.
Our old back door. No longer needed, it served it's purpose well..... quite what we're going to do with it now is a question we haven't quite answered yet :-)

Wet and windy

I'm currently sitting at the computer in the office looking out of the window watching the absoultely awful weather outside. Not that I can see that much as it's very dark and with nearly everybody else on the road out for the evening it all seems quite dark and foreboding. But I'm here in the light and warmth listening to chicane playing away so it's actually quite peaceful and calm. Which has lead to me thinking, which I know usually never ends well but we'll get to that again in a moment.

I actually got up quite late this morning and was woken up by Grumpy in one of his cheerful moods and I mean that non sarcastically. Of course with him being retired he can get up any time he wants during the week and has lost the knowledge of how nice a lie in on a Saturday is!

It was actually not that bad weather wise this morning, but around lunchtime it started to rain and hasn't seemed to stop since. Shopping wasn't that bad even if I did have to spend lots of time searching the fridge section to find meat that didn't have a use by date of Monday!

I spent a large part of the afternoon searching through the garage sorting through all the bits and pieces of models I have in boxes because as part of this big birthday celebration they are having a 'swap shop' at work. So I guess I'll see if I can swap some stuff I don't want to stuff I do.

I watched the remake of Charlie and the choclate factory tonight, which was okay but it's definately not as good as the orginal.

If any of you have a chance head over to Nemesis's blog, as her latest post is really quite thought provoking . One of the comments did catch my eye partly for the right and wrong reasons of couse as someone did say
" The fact of the matter is, there isn't someone for everyone. At least not here in this life."

Wait thats the part of the comment I was trying to ignore, otherwise it might depress me.
This was the part I was going to comment on;
" I'm sick of hearing that women are too unapproachable, or that women hold completely ridiculous standards for the person they want to spend eternity with."

Now I for one haven't heard anybody say that. In a lot of case I think the flipside is true. I think the problem is more on the girls part, the church have these incredibly smart, beautiful, funny women and then you have us guys who can be a bit more variable say we say and we told we supposed to marry one of these women. Us, be worthy enough to marry one of them, are you joking?. I'm sure every guy at somepoint has heard the song that Turk sang in scrubs
" Not going to happen, so not gonna happen".

Of course a lot of guys can get over this very quickly and get married. Of course some of these lucky guys are also the ones who have absolute belief in themselves and no fear whatsoever of voicing their opinions or asking a girl out. Now for the guys among us who are little more lacking in the self confidence this can be a help as it shows us what girls like and a hinderance as you feel your never going to be like that. I'm also sure that none of those types of guys were ever told by the young women in their ward
" We've decided only one of you is worthy enough to become a husband, the rest of you should become used to being alone for the rest of your lives"

Now grumpy has asked previousily why don't I just act like one of these guys who are full of self confidence as they seem to succed and get married. A couple of points, firstly all of these guys are Rm's and seem to use that a pass badge to marriage. I'm not and I know that is a big minus in a lot of peoples eyes and I guess I'm going to have to deal with that. I made my bed now I'm lieing in it. Secondly although some of these guys are extremely likeable, others are just not, especially one guy who's just got married who actually said, and this is a direct quote not mine before anyone has a go at me
" Any guy who is in the church and doesn't go on a mission is retarded"
And at the time he said it, I think Engineseer was very worried I was going to deck him. Okay right sorry off track....

My point is I'm not one of these massively self confident guys and will probably never be, but I've just realised I don't mind. It's not me, I couldn't do it, bouncing around all over the place, totally non self concious. I'm me ( much more a introvert then a extrovert) and I'm just going to have to hope that, that girl is wrong and there is someone out there for me. I may not have an encyclopedic knowledge of the scriptures, I might not be in a clique, I might be rubbish at playing politics and I may be a total geek but I'm me. I need to stop being so hard on myself. This is who I am,Take it or leave it :-)

tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station

you never know I might actually get a hometeaching list tomorrow,

.
.
.
Well it could happen!

tis the two days of rest

It's the weekend, again but I don't knw if it's because it's been one of those weeks it's very hard to raise any enthusiasm about it. Maybe it's it's also to do with the fact I have no money till next week. Arggghhhhh!!

Oh well, at least I'll have money again next week.

They've got the basic framework for all of the walls put up now for the new people moving in. They'll be putting the panels up next, which hopefully won't take htem too much longer as the hammering and sawing is starting to get somewhat annoying.

But thats work and I guess I should try and avoid thinking about that till Monday and concentrate on the weekend. I'll probably spent most of my time doing nothing constructive but at the very least thats means I'm consistant. :-)

later!

Haven't they got something else they can be doing?

Asides from bugging me. Yes geek fans I have one of those incredibily frustrating days at work which was totally a catch 44 situation. It's like a catch 22 situation only twice as bad. As much as I like school Holidays and the clear roads into work that result I will for one be heartly glad when the kids go back to school and have something else to do with their time.

I did realise at work that I still haven't got my tankard for being thre for five years. Hmm I just hope that it's not going to turn up at the same time as my home teaching list otherwise I might be waiting a while for it.

Well only one more day until the weekend, yahh! Of course it's a light shop weekend again as I don't get paid to next week boo! And of course I need to think about putting the car in for a service shortly, which is always worrying as historically I tend not to have the best of luck when my cars have been serviced. The garage has a worrying tendancy to find things wrong!

tune in tomorrow folks, same geek life, same geek station

later!

That doesn't really inspire confidence

Well it was a little louder then usual at work today as they started to put the wall up. Cue lots of drilling, hammering and sawing as they started to put up the new wall and knock through a couple of old ones. As part of the process of putting up the new wall they've put up a frame work first. However it didn't really inspire confedence when they tried to put one of the supports in and it was too short. So either they had mis measured or it says something about the levelness of the ceiling that we didn't really need to know.

I had lots of the exactly same email to answer today and I wish I could go into more detail but as it's work stuff I can't. I'll leave you to try and puzzle that one out. Suffice to say some people just have far too much time on their hands.

Interesting news today. Apparently a research project has discovered why a lack of sleep makes women more grumpy then men. This means that women have another excuse now as to why their grumpy and men have another thing they shouldn't say to a upset wife " Your only grumpy because your not getting enough sleep".

No instititute tonight as we've broken up for Easter. Engineseer did talk getting some people together to go to ceroc, but it looks like they didn't happen. Or at least if it did happen he forgot to tell me. Either option equally as likely and to be honest even if they did go it may have proven to be a blessing in disguise as the whole geek thing is probably bad enough at putting girls off with out me displaying the fact I can dance about as well as the incredible hulk walks " Urgh rhythm make me move". Mind you maybe I should give ceroc a go one of these days as Technik can dance pretty well now and before he learned ceroc he used to dance the way virgil tracy walked.

Of course with no institute on a Wednesday the BBC decide to go and change torchwood to a Friday night instead. Argghhhh...... But they have started showing the new series of the apprentice instead. Which I did like as the absolute muppet who I was looking forward to see getting cut down to size was the first to get the boot. It is fascinating how someone can be that successful and smart and still be a complete failure as a Human being. Of course the depressing thing is as he is so successful he probably gets all the girls *sigh*

Best line of the evening from the Big Bang theory
" No one who is that attractive can be that good at video games"

anyway, It's late and it's time to go to bed,

tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station.

Well he's going to be in the doghouse for a loonngggtime

Well I saw a interesting story in the news today about a man who is going to be in the doghouse for a longtime and will prove that some men can sleep through anything. A Man slept through his wife giving birth in the bathroom and was eventually only woken after by the babys cries after the mother bought the baby into the bedroom. Even then it took five minutes before he woke up. So at least thats a story most married men can try using if they ever get into trouble with the wifes, " Well at least I didn't sleep through you being in labour" Of course if you do try and use this as a excuse don't blame me if you get into a lot of trouble...

Well the kids were still off so it meant a clear run into work, Yah! However it wasn't a especially fast run into work as I did get stuck in a 10 car queue behind what seemed like the worlds slowest tractor. Why is it farmers seem to insist on moving tractors during rush hour anyway.

Work wasn't as bad as I feared but not as good as I hoped for. Still I was able to work my way through most of the pile of work which had accumulated which wasn't too bad and the day passed pretty quickly. Well either that or the fumes from industrial glue the builders were using was having a greater effect on us then we realised. Apparently the real fun begins tomorrow with all of the hammering and sawing as they start to put the wall up. Oh joy, maybe I can find some excuses to have meetings outside of the office!

Anyway I'm still busy painting my new models. I realised I have a lot less time then I thought to paint the things, so it's going to be a bit of rush to get enough of them finished in time to use.

so later everyone,

same geek channel tomorrow, same geek life

Come to the Geek side. We have cookies...

Well if there's one downside to Bank Holidays it's that you have to go back to work the next day! But then again we don't have much choice in the matter as there is that pesky rule that companies actually like you to turn up to work before they'll pay you. And of course the other problem is that I don't know if the kids in Nottingham will still be off school, so do I leave at the usual time or leave a bit earlier to try to get to work earlier and tackle five days worth of work in one day. Decisions, decisions.

The latest episode of Torchwood was great. It had Flashbacks to how each member of the team joined up. Everybody else in the team got captions like 5 years ago, 3 years ago, 21 months ago etc for their flashbacks. Jacks flashback read something along the lines of 1,392 deaths earlier. He, he, he. His flashback went back to Victorian times and featured two rather interesting employees of torchwood back then. Although these two characters did say something which made me wonder if Queen victoria had written something else into the founding charter of torchwood asides from the Doctor is a enemy of the British empire. Speaking of Doctor who the new series is supposed to start soon. The adverts look great.

And to stay on all things geeky, I've got a new favourite show at the moment. " The big bang theory", which is really funny. The lead characters are as probably as geeky as me, can be as socially inept when it comes to romantic oppotunities as me and are a heck of a lot smarter then me. Of course I do have the advantage over them of being real. Or am I??? Wait, wait not going to get onto a meaningless ramble about the meaning of existence. Mainly because I'll have no idea what I'm talking about.

Well after looking through the news it appears that the following is what the media thinks is news worthy. Pamela Anderson apparently wore a dodgy dress, and seeing as I have very little dress sense I can't really comment on this one. Jade goody from big brother apparently got involved in a fight in a club, I really don't know why we can't do a special reverse big brother for her and the other annoying contestants who don't seem to know that their five minutes is up. We vote them into a house with no cameras and no door out and leave them there? Anybody go for that?

Also in the news, apparently having a big handbag could lead to back problems. Must remember that bit of information, Jessica Alba is apparently finding it hard to be pregnant with twins ( pregnancies hard? wow I'm sure nobody knew that before), Madonna has a fitness guru, Anna friel had a cigarette while having lunch, Kate moss wore a wolley coat and apparently much to the BBC's surprise a lot of people have objected to a plot shown before the watershed of a man being put into a coffin and buried alive. So there you have it between the pointless, the blinding obivous and the we didn't really need to know that or care about that, that's what some news outlets have decided is news worthy today.

To quote G'kar from babylon 5

" Weep for the future, weep for us all"

later

Wherefore are thou hometeaching list?

Now I would say that this is getting beyond a joke but we passed that point long, loonnnggg ago. For those of you who haven't guessed, another Sunday has come and gone, another sunday without a hometeaching list.

In the news today, a psychiatrist has claimed that internet addiction is a serious public health problem and should be recognised as a clincial disorder. Great, so we now all have an excuse next time someone accuses you of spending too much time on the internet :-)

Well it's strange to know that I don't have to get up for work tomorrow and don't have to go back to Tuesday. Yah! Of course this does mean that when I go back on Tuesday I will have 5 days worth of emails to do instead of the usual 3 but not much I can do about that until Tuesday, so I'm gonna try not to think about that.

I spent a large portion of the afternoon sticking some models together. I'm going to try to work through what I've got before I get anymore. It's going to be interesting to see if I can stick to that. I was a ble to give Photoshop's lad some models to help start off his collection. See another potential member of the geek order.

Yes everyone, Come to the geek side!..... we have cookies :-)


Tune in tomorrow, same geek channel, same geek life,

later!

It's c-c-c-c-cold!

Well it appears the weathermen were right (for once) and the cold weather they predicted has arrived. It's actually been snowing today, not in great amounts mind you but it was still snow!

Nothing really to report from doing the shopping today. Apart from I had to make it quite a light shop as moneys getting a little tight with it being a 5 weekend month.

Well church tomorrow. Church on a Sunday, big surprise I know! Mind you what will be a even bigger surprise will be I actually get a home teaching list tomorrow. I will be tempted to laugh very loudly in a really subtle attempt to make a point if the EQ Pres asks about our home teaching figures.

I know, I know. It will never work.

me be subtle?

later!

Busy doing nothing and I feel fine

It was great this morning as rather then having to get up to the sound of a alarm, I could get up well pretty much whenever I wanted.

Despite the lazy start to this morning I have been working hard to try and be constructive. I spent a lot of time going through my book collection and trying to organise it. My collection is well pretty darn huge at this point which did lead me to a conclusion which I didn't want to face. I've got two choices at this point, I can either get rid of something else so I have enough room to put a new bookshelf or two in or I'm going to have to get rid of some books. Neither option especially appealing to me as I am a terrible hoarder and I find it really hard to part with stuff. At much as I don't want to I'm going to have to make my mind up soon.

Grumpy did make a comment the other day that I appear to becoming much more interested in history at the moment and seemed to be reading lots of history books. Looking at the books I've recently read and my collection he's probably got a goodpoint. I think I said something back along the lines of " Well I have got a degree in it" which lead to a 'Wait I do have degree in it' moment for me. It's going to be six years in August since I left uni which is a scary thought.

As we've had a important 'milestone' as it were coming up at work soon I spent most of the afternoon gluing some new models together, or at least I was in between glueing my fingers together, if I get round to it I'll post some pictures. Well at the very least it will spare you some more of my ramblings :-)

That does remind me, I still haven't had my tankard from work. I guess I better chase that up.

It seems that the constant playing of 'rockstar' on the radio have finished finally. and it's now been replaced my two songs. The first is 'scream' by timbaland, which is just annoying. Although it does seem like the stylists for the video for the two females singers were having a bet.
" Lets see what the least unsexy thing we have in the way of clothing that we can add to her outfit and put her in that."
" I've got a balaclava here "
" Perfect, that will do"
Seriousily, it doesn't matter how hot the singer is. Balaclava's are not sexy. The second song is the new madonna song. Timbaland pops up in that one too. I don't know if I've missed a new rule that says songs can only be cool if he's in them. But Justin Timberlake is also in as well. Don't know why he's there either. Maybe they were going for a tree theme?

I've just finished watching the latest episode of torchwood and it was great. One of the best if not the best of the series. And Gwen finally gets something to do apart from being a damsel in distress. Now I know Drat prefers Hannah from Primeval, but I'm a much bigger fan of Eve myles. Who you can watch as a actress and not wonder sometimes where the other six are and if she's going to burst into song.

It seems like we might finally be starting to get some good movies on at the cinema. I've just seen the trailer for the new incredbile hulk film which look sooooooo much better then the last one. I was thinking that good movies at the cinema, will enable me to get out more. I then saw a scene in the trailer and my first thought was " They've ripped then straight out of the ultimates series one" my second thought was " That proves I have to get out more!"

By the way if anybody knows what I'm talking about there I will be very impressed.

Institute graduation ball this year should be interesting. Apparently different parts of the ball will be organised by different stakes and you know what they saw about things organised by commitee. Also the theme of the ball will be the 1960s. Yes you read that right the 1960s, era of peace, grooving and free love.
Are you all getting the same feeling that I am that someone didn't think that one through?

Tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station.

The weekend starts now!

Well it's been only a four day week for work and I don't have to go back to work till Tuesday. Yeah! I do like Holidays, especially ones where you get them off anyway and they don't come out of your holiday allocation.

Work was well a lot of work today for want of a better term. I had to help move a whole load of stuff, books, games, bookcases etc here there and everywhere. So I was feeling shattered by late afternoon. But it was nice to see the office looking all tidy and my desk looking organised (for once).

I also get the house to myself tomorrow as Grumpys going out for the day. I'm going to try and do something constructive and as anyone who knows me can tell you I'm very trying.....


wait a second......

Well I guess we should have seen it coming

Well unlike the past two days there was a frenzy of activity in the office today, mainly because the estates department finally let us know when we needed to clear half of the office in ready for the wall their going to be putting in. And when did we have to clear it? Well today as their going to start building tomorrow. Forward planning going as well as ever I see.

It was a interesting day in the sense of how much stuff we found at the back of shelves, in the depths of cupboards and the corners of drawers etc. Of course we didn't need any of the stuff we found but then again I guess that's always the way. You can always find something when you don't need it.

The TV is still broken which is starting to get annoying, especially for Grumpy. Also half the curtain rail for the windows in the lounge has broken so we can only hang half of the curtains at the moment which looks a little bit strange to say the least. hmm there seems to be a running theme developing here.

Institute was fun and that's the end of the old testament course too so yah! We were setting the tables up at the start of the class when I noticed one of the guys wasn't helping. When I queried why he said he was too small and skinny to help put the tables up as when he tried to help last week he had hurt his arm. I pointed out that if he didn't help he would start building up his muscles, the following exchange then went along roughly these lines
him: I have tried to put on muscles but I never can
me: Okay
him: No really I do try, I eat and eat and eat and can never put any weight on.
me: That's not something to complain about
him: no it's really bad I can eat whatever I want and never put on any weight it's terrible
me: Yes, I'm feeling real sympathetic that you can eat whatever you want and not put any weight on ( yes there was a touch of sarcasim in my voice here)
him: well it is terrible
me : yes I'm sure, and you might not want to mention that to the girls
him: Why
me: As I'm sure they wouldn't be terribly sympathic either.

Oh to have that problem to moan about!


tune in tomorrow, same geek channel, same geek station.

later!

Deafening silence

Traffic seemed a bit heavier on the way into work this morning and I soon saw why. A set of traffic lights on a busy interesection had broken. However obivousily realising the potential for 'disaster' as it were several policemen had turned up to direct traffic. Rather them then me as I wouldn't want to be standing in the middle of the A6 High vis jacket or not.

I got to work remarkably quickly, which leads me to suspect that the kids in nottingham must have started their easter term early. Not that I'm complaining of course.

Work was, well I suppose the best phrase to describe it was " Deafening silence". It was just so quiet in the office, everybody seemed so focussed on what they were doing and not talking. Of course everybody else has the advantage of being able to listen to music whilst working, which I do not!

The book club also visited today, so I was able to get a lovely history encyclopedia for a tenner, which has a RRP of £30. Not too bad me thinks.

Traffic was horrid whilst trying to get home, with a jam the length of the A453. Which mant I had to go on a magical mystery tour of the countryside in a attempt to get home. Which actually worked quite well, as I was only half an hour later then usual in getting home.

I think both Grumpy and I are starting to suffer withdrawal symptoms from having no telly. What did people do before tv?

Well it's the last insitute of the course tomorow night. So it should be interesting especially if convert actually turns up. I have a feeling things are about to get loud!

later!

Going nowhere fast

Well maybe it's just me, but putting in temporary traffic lights on one of the busiest intersections in the local area during the height of rush hour doesn't seem like an especially bright idea. Unfortunately nobody told the guys who are doing the roadwork’s those facts, which lead to me being delayed 20 minutes by being stuck in the huge jam created by these stupid temporary lights. By luck the rest of the way into work was clear so I wasn't late. But let’s face it; it didn't put me in the best frame of mind by the time I pulled up in the car park at work.

Well it was a fairly quiet day today. I'm not sure if I can get used to the idea of Mondays being quiet but far be that I should look a gift horse in the mouth.

When I got home, I got to see our new door and windows for the first time. (I might post photos of before and after if I get round to it) They look quite nice, so maybe Grumpy has some taste after all :-)

On the downside today, the TV seems to be on its last legs as the screen now flickers constantly with a worrying buzzing sound from the back of the TV and the colours going too. So we haven’t used it since. Grumpy's not impressed as it's now just outside warranty and is bemoaning the fact we didn't get the extended warranty. Although I'm sure it's a case when you pay for an extended warranty you'll never need it and if you do pay for it you never use it. I guess we'll have to go and see Blackwidow at his work to see if he can help fix us up with a new one. That is if Engineseer every remembers to text me telling me when he's working, HINT, HINT ENGINESEER

It's been an interesting day for news. The guy who discovered the wreck of HMS hood has just discovered the wreck of HMAS Sydney, so hopefully they'll b able to figure out some answers to that mystery, which has always intrigued me. A man who emigrated to Australia is selling his whole life on eBay! I wonder how much he'll get for it and apparently Easter is supposed to be very cold with temperatures reaching -8 in some places. Okay admitally that last one wasn't so much interesting as a bit depressing but after what seems like weeks of hearing about trials of murderers seemingly every other day, even the news that the temperatures going to get very cold seems better!

Anyway, tune into tomorrow same geek life, same geek station.

Later!

hmmmm

I've just found this article on the Daily mail website. It appears that in the latest BBC drama they have changed the 'position' in which Jesus was crucified to make it and I quote " "historically accurate" as possible" based on new research.

and of course they obivousily felt by making this statement that they hadn't caused a big enough row as they have also faced claims of trying to exonerate Judas, Pontius Pilate and High Priest Caiaphas in the programme. Programme-makers have portrayed them in a sympathetic manner, claiming they have been dealt "a raw deal" by history.

Words fail me.

No worries, He's armless enough

Well the yucky weather is continuing as it was raining quite badly when I woke up this morning. Hmm with all this rain and wind anyone would think we're already into summer :-)

When I got to the chapel this morning the car park was surprisingly empty. It was also quite empty in the chapel as well. I have no idea where everybody was as it's not a bank holiday weekend or anything this weekend.

In Sacrement they announced that it was RMcR's last week as she gets married next week and people should take the chance to say a final goodbye to her. Now based on that statement you would think she's moving to the other end of the country or leaving the country but no. She's actually moving to Leicester. Which is hardly a long distance away. One of the new Elders gave his testimony this morning, followed by Cordelia giving a talk. Which was very good. The final speaker was a visitor from the High council who had 30 minutes to fill. When starting to explain that he bought the love of the stake president then realised that he didn't really needed t have said as the stake president was sitting right behind him at that point.

We were moving downstairs to Sunday school when I noticed O and a lot of the other young men in a group by the front door. The next thing I noticed was that O was waving what I took to be a water pistol around, but he quickly hid it behind his back making me realise it wasn't a water pistol. As it was see through I wasn't that concerned and guess it would be something like a BB gun. I simply walked past them and stated to O
" If your hiding it behind your back there's no need for me to say anything is there"
He started muttering something under his breath which I guessed was unlikely to be flattering. I caught with Engineseer and he confirmed O had a BB gun.

We had a substitute teachers today, and we were waiting for some latercomers to arrive when DB came through the door holding O's gun. On seeing our looks he said he had taken from O.
me: " Which twit has given him a BB gun"
DB: " Well I encouraged him to buy it"
me " Well I guess that's that question answered
DB: " Well I.. well, shut up"
He really needs to work on his art of response. As he hasn't improved from last time .

Mf's boyfriend wanted a look at the gun and handed it back to DB, both were being quite careless about pointing it at other people. MF pointed this out and DB assured her that there was a safety. Still MF made it clear that if he shot he with a BB, she would kill him and to be sure I'm not sure if she was joking or not.

At the end of the class O was at the door immediately demanding his gun back from DB. Db refused which lead to O wanted to know why. I pointed out that it was a Sunday, he was in church and shouldn't have a gun with him. At which point he turned and walked up off the corridor doing a childish voice going, " I'm Mr Saxon( of course he didn't say saxon, rather my real surname), I tell young men what to do, meh, meh, meh, meh ( for meh = think sound that scooter from the muppets makes)"I simply turned to Engineseer and stated
" I would say something else to him, but I refuse to have a battle of wits with a unarmed opponent"

Photoshop was teaching in Priesthood and I'm afriad that I have no shocking news to report. I did not get a hometeaching list yet again. I'm sure their going for some kind of record.

After church I noticed DB had finally given O his BB gun back and he was wondering around with it in his hands. ( apparently he gave it to a mate at one point he thought it would be funny to shoot Photoshop's lad J in the knee). The most shocking thing I found was that nobody seemed to batter a eyelid at a youngman waving a gun, (yes I know it didn't look real but that's not what I'm gettng at. ) around in the chapel. However I did see Gadget, Photoshops, Mechanius's and Techniks brother appear to have a quiet word with him at which point he put the gun away in his bag.

Photoshop did ask O later why he bought the BB gun to church and he said he had forgotten it was in his bag and he had slept at a firends house the night before. No explantion as to why he had to get it out of the bag though.

Convert actually came to church today, which was interesting.. I did try to speak to social but she disappeared again at the end of church like she always does these days. I wish she would come back to YSA activities or at least start talking to use again. I and everybody else miss her being around.

anyway, grumpy and I spent a lot of this afternoon cleaning the house. Apparently we're having a new front door fitted tomorrow as well as some new windows. Should be interesting to see what choices he made.

Monday tomorrow. Lets hope it's a easy one.

Tune in tomorrow, same geek life, same geek station!

later!

Yuck

After much consideration I have decided that there is only one word that can describe the weather this afternoon and that is " Yuck". Not highly orginal I know but after a afternoon of grey dull skies and persistant drizzle I really couldn't think of a better word.

Well it's Sunday tomorrow and although I'd like to think that with Bro England on the case I might actually soon get a home teaching list after several months of them not giving me a list, it's hard to remain positive about this. Of course I could be totally surprised and them actually give me a list and a new companion but I guess we'll just have to see what tomorrow brings.

Well shopping was the same old, same old today. Nothing exciting asides from having to queue 20 minutes in Iceland because they only had one till open, on a Saturday no less!

anyway, be sure to tune in tomorrow same geek time, same geek channel for hopefully some slightly more interesting stories.

later!

It's the weekend

Well another week of work over and done with etc, etc. and now on to the weekend. Yaahhhh!!! Someone however did mention something at work that I had completely forgotten about, teh fact that we get good Friday and Easter Monday off. Which means long weekend next weekend. Hmm all that time to be even less constructive then usual :-)

Well after whats seemed like weeks of news about murder trials, assaults etc, finally some good news. That 9 year old girl who had gone missing in Yorkshire, 24 days ago has ben found alive. Which quite frankly is more then most people were expecting at this point!

Grumpy has finally got round to having the back door fixed. By having it replaced ( don't ask me I just live here). So rather then a wooden door we have one of those PVC style ones with a cack handed way of locking as well. Never mind at least we don't have to walk round the house to get to the garage anymore.

I do feel sorry for the latest shuttle mission commander. Not only has he been given a complicated mission everything seems to keep going wrong for them at the moment. Well at least the ATV mission seems to be going to plan.

We had cassarole for dinner tonight wich was a pleasent surprise. Now all I've got to do is to get Grumpy to learn how to do shepherds pie and Spaghetti and w're all set.

later!

It's all so quiet

It was one of those days today at work. A lot of people were out of the office and those that were in didn't seem to be doing much talking. So at times it really was a 'deafening silence'. But hey on the plus side it allowed to to concentrate and gets lots of work clear. Which gave me more time to sort through the sample copies of our books we have in the office. As part of the big move around we're having, the editors are moving so they've been clearing out their shelves. Now I can't be sure but it seems like they have 'Mary poppins' shelves as I can't think of any other explanation for the sheer number of books which appeared from their shelves. Of course they didn't need most of these books which meant I had to sort through most of them to try and figure out what to keep in the office and what to book back into stock. Well at least it meant I didn't have to answer emails for a while.

The website for the YSA national conference has gone live. If I get my form in before the end of May I'll save £21 on the full price. Which is great. They also seem to have learned from last year and got the forms out nice and early. This should mean that there are lots more early registrations this year.

It looks almost certain ( can never be too sure what fate has in store) that I'm going. Engineseer might or might not go depending on if he's on a mission by this point, and I guess we'll have to see about Fraggle. If both Engineseer and Fraggle do come I guess it will be geeky roadtrip time once again! I have already booked the geekmobile with Grumpy for that weekend. Fraggle you'll have to let us know what your plans are. Maybe we'll go to a real extreme and see if we can actually get some girls to join us. No wait, lets not start talking crazy now :-) Well whatever, you can be sure that I'll keep you all up to speed with the plans.... It's not like I have many more interesting things to talk about :-)

anyway, not much planning for this evening. I guess I'll sit back and either read a book or watch a TV. Well it's not like I can go hometeaching can I?

later!

They giveth and they taketh away

Well I caught a break today. Well not just me, all other motorists caught the same break, but lets not talk about them :-) Yes the government has decided to not increase the fuel duty by 2p. Well not until October anyway. Of course being a church member has it's advantages too as the government has raised duties on booze and cigarettes which doesn't affect me in the slightist. Of course the money I save there might well be needed if the cost of oil continues to sky rocket, but I guess theres not a lot I can do about that. Unless I turn into a evil meglomaniac and take over the world..... Hmm there's an idea.

Well the amount of work I had waiting for me wasn't too bad, surprisingly enough. So I was able to work through it pretty quickly and help sort out some stuff for the office move around. We've managed to stockpile an amazing amount of useless stuff in the office.

Anyway institute tonight was interesting. We've only got one more 'night' of this course then we break for easter. The easter break is surprisingly long this year, three whole weeks. What are we going to do with our Wednesday nights? Any suggestions?

I had to stop via tescos on the way back, as we were out of fillings for sandwiches and so forth. See as well as washing, cooking, cleaning and hoovering, I can also do the shopping, ironing and am or at least used to be as I haven't had chance to practise in a while, very good at giving shoulder and neck massages. I may be a Geek but I am multi talented.

anyway, asides from all that it was just one of those days really.

See you all tomorrow. Same geek life, same geek channel.

later!

Now what?

As I was half expecting I still woke up this morning at 7am. However after lying there for nearly fifteen minutes I finally managed to go back to sleep for another couple of hours (shameless lie in I know). So when I finally got up I was faced by that same question faced by a lot of people when they have a day off. Now what do I do?

It's ironic isn't it. Workers spent a lot of their time bemoaning all the time spent at work and wishing for more free time. When you do get a day off, what happens? You don't know what to do with yourself. argghhhh!

Anyway, I suppose the best way to describe today, was busy doing nothing. As I spent a lot of the day doing lots of little random odd jobs aroudn the house. I was even able to put on several loads of washing ( yes thats washing as in laundry, well trained aren't I? I can also cook, clean and hover) and put them out on the line as the weather null zone seemed to be holding around geeksville as there were blue skys and sunshine today.

But the day seemed to pass all too quickly, any soon it was time for tea and time to head out to the fireside in Coventry. I managed to blag a life with Engineseer and we headed out nice and early to try and be there in plenty of time.

Which for once proved to be a rather good bit of planning as we ran into a huge traffic jam and came to a complete stop or there abouts as at one point we managed to move less then three car lengths in twenty minutes. I'm sure Engineseer could go into lots more detail on his blog if he gets round to updating it HINT, HINT ENGINESEER!

I'm subtle at giving hints aren't I?

We finally managed to break through the taffic jam and somehow we managed to make it to the stake centre in coventry with five minutes to spare. We did have to pass a gentleman on the road outside the stake centre who had obivousily been drinking and was shall we say, using the wall as a restroom. Engineseer had noticed this guy when we had got out of the car and said noticing people doing stuff like that was almost like a radar sense to him after working so long in his generic high street resturant. My response was that he should really try and develop a radar sense for something else.

I was again struck by the size of the stake centre in coventry as it seems so small now and seemed much bigger when I was a kid, but as Engineseer quite rightly pointed out last time, I was also a lot smaller when I was a kid too. The whole cultural hall was full of chairs when we got there but was still sealed off from the chapel as there wasn't another people there at that point to warrant opening the curtains. Although they did open them later. Engineseer did comment that he wondered if Elder Scott was still coming if the hall would have already been full, and I found it hard to disagree with him.

Despite this there were still a healthy number of YSA there, in a interesting mix of clothing to the usual suits and sunday Dresses, as many people had obivousily come straight from work and had no time to change.

Eldar Johnsons wife spoke first, followed by a musical item by two girls from Birmingham stake which was just wonderful and you could really feel the spirit. The Talk by Elder Johnson was very good and was about covenants. All in all it was a wonderful fireside and I felt glad I had made a effort to go by taking the day off.

As we were speaking to people afterwards I realised that I didn't know anybody from outside of our stake in our region, ( our region Fraggle, not the whole of the UK, we haven;t forgotten you) which is probably not helping in expanding the social life or dating possibilities I must admit. Most of the girls in our stake know me too well, so we're all in the depths of the 'Friendship zone'. So I guess making friends outside of the stake should be a goal to work on.

We had to run back to the car at the end as it was raining very hard and it was extremely windy as well. We had a call from Black widow on the way home who did mention that the stormy weather had finally hit geeksville. However by the time we arrived home it had seemed to disapate. Which did leave us wondering if the weather null zone around here is situated on the town or me??

Yes have you may have guessed with just Engineseer and I in the car, the conversations were somewhat geeky and getting strange towards the end.

However if the weather null zone is situated on me my powers might be weakening as the weather is getting worse outside. Grumpy however hadn't noticed a thing. Well the man did sleep through a earthquake.

Well back to work tomorrow. Lets hope theres not too much for me too do.

See you tomorrow. Same geek action, same geek channel.

later!

Well so much for that

It seems that the weather null zone around geeksville is continuing to hold. Nearly always, the rest of the country might be suffering one form of weather. We seem to end up with something completely different. Today, everywhere else gets storms, gales, tons of rain. I look out the window at work this morning. Blue sky. This is a weird place to live sometimes I tell yah!

Well work was quiet today. Too quiet. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get used to it being this quiet. Of course I have the feeling that Wednesday will more then make up for it as all the emails and work that comes in tomorrow will be waiting for me when I get back. C'est la vie I guess.

They have started the first of the move rounds at work. It's like a giant sliding game puzzle. You have to move one thing before you can put something else into it's sport from another location. You just have to hope when it all stops everything is where it needs to be.

I got home to find Grumpy had already finished his dinner as he was going out to his course. I was taking my dinner out of the oven ( sprouts with baked potato again, Don't ask me I'm not the cook) when I noticed that something was missing. I quickly found the chicken pieces which should have been on the plate still in the tray in the oven. I pulled the tray out and was bemused to find that there was twice as much chicken as there should have been. I stuck my head round the lounge door and asked Grumpy, who looked baffled for a few moments, then the penny dropped. He had forgotten to put the chicken on his plate and forgotten all about it. I suppose thats easy to do, it's not likes he cooked dinner or anything oh wait...

Well It's my day off tomorrow. Yah!! Whats the betting I still wake up at 7am and can't get back to sleep?

Oh it looks like the government will still be putting that 2p a litre rise in fuel duty in the budget on Wednesday. Seriousily where is all the money their getting from the petrol tax going?

anyway.

later!

Now are they still right or did they get it wrong?

Well weathermen are known from time to time to get the weather wrong. Sometimes by a little bit and othertimes they can be as far out as they can possibily be. I'm unsure at the moment as to whether they are right about this storm which is supposed to be heading our way. As despite the warning to stay inside and avoid unnecssary journeys the weather has been fine tonight. Which means one of three things, they were wrong, irony decided to take a hand in the proceedings as I had decided not to go to the CES broadcast based on this warning, oh it's just the calm before the storm (literally). However it might well be the latter option as it's currently very quiet outside and I mean can hear a pin drop quiet. No wind or anything. So if the weathermen are right we're probably going to get hit overnight. Which if is happens is probably going to make getting to work rather interesting in the morning.

Church was well...interesting. Sacrement got off to a very bad start as three quarters of the people went off the hymn number on the board and didn't listen to what the bishop said which was totally different hymn number. It didn't help it was a less well known hymn as well so it sounded like there was a grand total of a dozen people singing. Not the sort of start to go along with the bright sunshine we had this morning. The theme this morning was Mothers as Mothers day was on fast Sunday. R McR was the first to speak. I didn't realise that her wedding is only two weeks away. Unsurprisingly I haven't got a invite. Well I didn't get one to JF's wedding either and both of them seem to be in the same 'clique' for want of a better term.

Sunday school was fun too, especially as Physics was in one of those moods and it was just infectous which did set me and Engineseer of making lots of jokes as well. Some of the highlights were Physics making a joke about how it was painful to be a man and jewish and accussing DB of being prideful ( of course DB had just be showing pictures to everyone of a personalised number plate he had just bought for his car that costs £600. He's seemed shocked that people thought he was showing off. can't imagine why people thought that). The funnist part of the lesson had to be when the teacher spilt us into two groups and said one side of the class was 'good' and our side of the class( consisting of myself, Engineseer and Physics) was 'bad', still coming to church but clubbing, drinking, different women every night etc. She asked how we felt about that how bad did we feel ( or words to that effect) My response ( as I was also in one of those moods)
" The geeks finally have the girls, we're happy"
she got a bit flustered at that point and said no what would we do to solve these bad feelings and the knowledge that we had done something wrong. Physics response;
" I'm sure the drink would help with that"
At which point the teacher got a bit firm and said if we were drinking, taking drugs, clubbing, different women every night etc what would we do at church to help put ourselves back on the right track.
Our groups response to that, was if we were doing all that the chances we were still coming to church would be very remote anyway. The teacher then realised she was fighting a loosing battle as we were in one of those moods with this line of questioning and quickly moved on.

I did go into some of priesthood but as I was taking Grumpy out to dinner I had to leave early. I got a text from Engineseer though to say someone in the Eldars quorum lesson had actually used the quote " With great power comes great responsibility" It was probably a good job I wasn't there otherwise I would have probably collapsed into hysterics. It did make me think of a slightly different version to the spiderman song,
" Elder man, Elder man, does whatever a elder can"

Oh and surprise, surprise, no hometeaching list. Again. Engineseer helped me corner the EQ president to ask him about it. He said that they were reworking the lists and they should have it done shortly. Engineseer took that as a good sign, me being slightly cynical ( no really) did point out that, that was the fifth time I've been told that their 'reworking the lists and it should be done soon'. However there was a more hopeful sign as Bro England came to ask a couple of questions about what nights I would be avalabile to go hometeaching. So I'm hoping if he's now helping rework the lists something will actually get done.

Anyway, that's all for now. Tune in tomorrow. Same geek action, same geek channel.

That's assuming we haven't been blown away.

later!

Twas a somewhat dark and a little bit stormy night

Well it looks like the bad weather might be starting a little early as it was quite windy and wet earlier on tonight. However that seems to have died down and it's calm. A little too calm if you ask me, I think it is very much the stereotypical calm before the storm. Weathermen have actually advised people to stay in tomorrow night and not to make any unecessary journeys. So that puts paid to going to the CES broadcast tomorrow night. I'm going to follow the experts advice on this one. Better safe then sorry as the saying goes.

Well shopping was the same old, same old. Asides from it being a little bit cheaper then usual as Grumpy wants to go out for lunch tomorrow as it's his Birthday. I know it's a Sunday but it's only once a year and it is his birthday.

Talking of Sundays, anybody want to take a bet that I'll get a hometeaching list tomorrow? No? yeah me neither.

later!

Feeling sleepy

Well the weekend's here and not a moment too soon. I had one of those days today when I was feeling tired and just couldn't stop yawning. Of course normally something with sugar and caffine would help but of course as I've given them up ( why is when I'm tired I can never think of the good reasons for giving them up) I wasn't going to be getting any help to stay awake that way!

Well Work was quiet and I was able to get a lot done. So much done I actually ended up having completed everything so ended up creating point of sale packs for one of our distributors. Which isn't as exciting as it sounds, it was basically putting stuff in envelopes.

Well I'm fairly certain this weekend will be back to the same old same old. Of course it is Grumpys Birthday on Sunday, but I've already got his present so I don't have to worry about that. I suppose the only two things I have to think about is first, trying to do something constructive with my time and secondly hoping that this huge storm which is supposed to hit the UK on Monday misses us . The wind is supposed to get steadily worse as the weekend goes on. Of course that's probably not going to affect me too badly as once again as nothing is going on, I'm probably going to be firmly house bound all weekend.

" A Social life, a social life my Kingdom for a social life!"

I'm taking next Tuesday off work. There's a big fireside for YSA down in Coventry and we have to get there quite early and there's no way I could make it if I was at work. Plus I suppose it's as good an excuse as any to take a day off. The Speaker was supposed to be Elder Richard G scott ( he's somebody from quite high up in our church for those of you who are not LDS) however he's ill so he's place has been taken by Elder Johnson from the local area Authority. And yes it's that Elder Johnson from the YSA Conferences. I have to admit I did have a small flicker of unease as he has proven in the past to be a very 'variable' speaker but I'm going to hope he will be in a good mood rather then in one of his 'odd ones'

and it will be of no great surprise to anyone for me to say that I will probably blog all about it... Hey I'm nothing if not predictable.

later!

mad motoring

I'm not in the best of mood this evening. Mainly thanks to a complete idiot of a van driver who came very close to colliding with me after the twit tried to overtake five cars, that right five cars, on a hill, which had a blind corner. When seeing a truck coming the other way rather then doing the sensible thing of pulling back to the right side of the road he simply decided to floor it in a effort to overtake me as well. Leaving me no choice but to slam on the brakes and for want of a better term 'dodge him' (literally) as he cut me up as he came back onto the right side of the road as he realised that playing chicken with a lorry that was incredibily close to showing him what a bad driver he was, was not a good plan.

Right, rant over. Sorry about that :-)

Well one more day to the weekend. When is the time going? We're already a week into March! It was a fairly quiet day at work, I only had two phone calls. I spent a large chunk of the day working on some new projects and clearing my desk up as it's been a while since I had done it and the steadily growing pile of books was starting to look untidy. Cleaning your desk up is a tedious job but at least it now looks tidy and I now have room for a paint station for when I do painting at lunch. What can I say? I'm a geek. I'm sure regular readers are starting to pick up on this fact :-)

In the news today, the worst storm of winter is forecast for this coming Monday, Petrol looks like it's going to hit £5 a gallon and worst of all RAF personel have been ordered not to wear their uniforms in public in Peterborough after suffering verbal abuse in the street. All serious stuff I'm sure you can agree. However for a lot of websites none of this rates as one of the most important story of the day. No that honour falls to three stories about a ex childrens TV presenter flaunting his body, The duchess of York getting involved in a quite frankly bizare reality TV show and of course where would the media be without good old BS. As in Britney spears who is now the subject of growing speculation that she is pregnant as she has a (and I quote) 'Bulging stomach". Apparently to some people the news that she may be pregnant is more important then anything else.

Please excuse me while I go and bang my head on the desk and worry for the future of mankind.

later!

In a roundabout kind of way

I seem really fated with one mini roundabout on the way into work at the moment. When you come to a roundabout your supposed to give way to anybody on or coming onto the roundabout from your 'right'. However this doesn't when you have a car from each direction come to the roundabout at the sametime, as that means everybody is on somebody else's right, yet you have somebody on your right your supposed to give way too. Confusion always follow until one person decides to 'go for it' and hope that no one else goes for it at the same time.

I had to fill the car up with petrol this morning as the tank was getting very low. Fortunately one of the garages on the way into work still has petrol at 1.02 which is quite cheap as all the ones in geeksville at the moment are at 1.06. I really hope they don't increase the fuel duty in April by 2 pence like they said they were going to be.

It was quite quiet in the office today. My line manager was working from home ( I wish I could do that sometimes) and Ragnar is unfortunately off ill as he hurt his back playing badmintons. RC's comment was that it proves nothing good ever comes of exercise.

Institute this evening and as the eternal marriage course has ended we're on two lessons of the old testament course until easter. For once the class was rather uneven and the guys vastly outnumbered the girls. We were talking about Samson this evening and physics replied in a answer to Bro H " He was looking for a wife" "Aren't we all" I thought until I got a odd sideways look from the guy sitting next to me and realised I hadn't actually thought that and had said it instead! Oh well nobody else heard so lets just keep this between you me and the rest of the internet.

We were in the second lesson I think when Bro H asked the question to the girls what they looked for in their ideal man. My first thought was to go, erm hang on a second eternal marriage course is finished, why are we talking about stuff like this, I wanted the potentially depressing stuff gone! Fortunatly unlike the first time I did manage to keep my mouth firmly shut. One of the girls said that they would like a guy who keeps his promises and will stand by his beliefs and convictions. Which did cheer me up as I was like Yah! that's me I'm like that so maybe's theres hope for me yet.

I got home all eager to watch torchwood but Grumpy had arrived back and wanted to watch a different program at the same time. I decided to be nice and let him watch his. I'll just have to try and catch the repeat next week or off the BBC website.

never mind,

later!

and another review

Well I thought I would try to do a review for a fiction book.

A hymn Before Battle by John Ringo


Humanity is not alone in the Galaxy and that’s the good news. The bad news is their a new nasty alien species around who are over running planet after planet, has a thing for gold and treats any alien races they come across as walking, talking snacks. The only main galactic power to oppose them is run by accountants who can’t kill anything without going into a zombie like state and has a small worker like race who can build almost anything but can’t fight at all. So what this power needs is a new race well versed in the art of war and has the anger, ability and stubbornness to take on these new bad guys and where could they possibly find a race like that hmmm?

A Hymn before Battle is the first book I’ve read by John Ringo and it’s great. He comes up with a very entertaining take on the first contact between Aliens and mankind, (they simply call the world leaders on the telephone) and the problem that Humanity faces is a big one. It’s not simply a case that we go and fight for these Aliens, we have no choice. The Aliens are coming our way and Earth has only five years to prepare before we’re invaded.

The Aliens have the technology but no idea how to use it so it’s up to Mankind to come up with armour, ships and weapons to beat the Aliens back. This is also another entertaining part of the book as the military call in science fiction writers to help in the design process.

Of course as the Aliens are very stingy accountants we’re not getting all this technology for free. In order to raise the funds to buy the technology and weapons for mankind to survive we now have three planets to defend. But as revelations follow it becomes clear that not everything is as clear cut as it first appears and with friends like these who needs enemies.

But then again Earth’s forces are doing quite enough damage to themselves through ignorance, politics and general infighting.

This book is the first in a series so it does end on a very foreboding note. Earth forces may have one the first battles but we certainly haven’t won the war. The Alien technology introduced may be advanced but it’s believable. There is no mega weapon that will be able to win the war and you do get a sense that even if mankind wins the cost will be heavy. There is also a curious ‘backstep’ in our military forces as the bad guy’s weaponry means no aircraft, aerial or orbital surveillance of any kind. Missiles are also out, leaving Artillery as our only ace in the hole. All the fighting in this war will be up close and personal.

Most of this book focuses on one character and I’m sure that the rest of the series will stay focused on his him, his wife and children. A few other characters are also introduced which I have the feeling we will also be seeing more of. Especially interesting ( and humorous) are the ‘rejuvenated’ former military characters who in some cases served in the 2nd world war who thanks to Alien technology are now back to their early 20s and having trouble adjusting to being young again.

I’m interested to see where this series will go. There is lots of potential in this series and lots of areas to explore. I hope the author doesn’t blow it.

Five out of five. A great start to a very promising series.

That other Review

Well I figured I better write the review for this book or I'll never get round to it.

The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir

Well first things first, this book was a easier read then the first book I read by this author. However it is still a quite hard read and as the first book will require a lot of time and focus to read, so don't start this if you want a easy quick read. It's taken me several weeks and as people who know me know, that is a incredibily long time for me.

I found this a much more interesting read then the first book mainly because it went into much more details about Henry VIII's wifes then the first book and the book 'got straight into the action' as it were rather then spending lots of time scene setting which was such a problem in the first book. Both the wives and the politics surrounding each marriage get the same amount of space devoted to them in this book and this really helps the narriative along. You get a real sense of the time and the character of each wife.

As with the first book you will learn a heck of a lot more about the tudors by reading this then in one episode of the Tudors TV show and from that new movie too.

So in conclusion. A very good read, as the author certainly has a gift for making a difficult and sometimes hard to understand period of history come to life.

Blah, blah, blah,

Well it was frosty last night so I had to spend ages clearing the ice off the car. So lets see that makes, ice, wind and a earthquake in the last week. I think all we need know is a hail storm, tornado or snowstorm to complete the set.

Work seemed to be on a go slow day today. I'm sure you all know what I mean, somedays the day flies by and other days it really seems to be going in reverse as theres no way the clock can be going that flipping slowly.

Yes unfortunately folks it's been one of those days where very little seemed to happen so I don't really have anything interesting or witty to say. Sorry.

Tune in tomorrow for a hopefully funny entry, same geekish time, same geek channel.

Later!

teamwork

One of dem days

First off, quote of the day from a customer;

" Ah, the Internet. Makes you look twice the fool in half the time –"

Well it's hard to argue with this statement, especially after some of the emails I have to answer. Yes it's a Monday which as some of you are well aware is my least favourite day of the week. Well fortuantely for once my hopes were actually fulfilled and I did have a fairly quiet day. Well apart from a few last minute questions about a competition we've been running. Aparently there also going to be building that wall in the office fairly soon which will probably mean a big change around. Not that we know what that change around will be yet. Based on the last move we'll probably find out what the plan the day before :-) Oh well at least the planning is consistant.

We had chops for dinner which was a nice change. Although grumpy still serves sprouts with baked potatos for some reason. I don't think I'll ever understand some of the choices he makes for dinner but he is the cook so I suppose I shouldn't argue.

It was YSA FHE tonight. Again. In fact it doesn't seem like more then 2 weeks since we had the last one. Oh wait it is only two weeks since we last had one :-) As per usual it was at Engineseers. Black Widow was nowhere to be seen so I guess he was at work. Physics taught the lesson complete with his own unique humour, so it was pretty fun. He served a mission in France, so can speak french (well d'uh!) but is now teaching himself chinese. Using a french to chinese phrase book. This guy is so much smarter then me!

Anyway I've been checking out Photoshops new website (i'll be updating the link on the blog roll for him) which has some interesting links to other members blogs so I will probably be updating my blogs read list with some new blogs shortly.

Anyway,

later!

Dooo yooouuu sppeeaakkk eenngggaaaalllisshhh?

Well Drat made a very good comment on yesterdays post that in the middle of the ramblings that people can understand I use a awful lot of words and terms that people outside of the Church don’t know and will probably wonder if they are actual terms or if I’ve just slipped into techno speak after overdosing on one too many sci-fi books that afternoon. So here is a brief run down of all of those pesky odd terms I use on a regular basis.

YSA= This stands for Young Single Adults. Basically everybody who is in the ward who is aged between 18 to 30 and is not married ( see that’s where the single bit comes in ) falls into this ‘program’. Of course depending on who you ask YSA can mean other things such as Your Still annoying and You still ain’t married?

SA= Stands for single adults. If you reach 31 and aren’t married you move into this group. Which is for singletons aged 31+. So from what I understand the activities can be a bit varied as the attendees are usually anywhere from 31 to 60! As some of you may have gathered I really do not want to end up attending these activities.

Ward= according to Wilkipedia and if it’s on there it must be true, the official definition of a ward is “A ward typically consists of 200 to 500 active church members within an area that is within a reasonable travel time of the meetinghouse. ("Reasonable" will vary between countries and regions.)”

Home teaching = ( quoted direct from the LDS website
”Home teaching is the responsibility of all Melchizedek Priesthood holders and of those who are teachers and priests in the Aaronic Priesthood. As part of their responsibility to watch over the members of the Church, home teachers visit their assigned families at least once each month to teach and strengthen them. Home teachers establish a relationship of trust with these families so that the families can call upon them in times of need.”
So as you can see this is something I am supposed to be doing. Due to the Elders quorum president not giving me a list, I can’t. Stay tuned to this one folks, I’m sure the saga will continue.

Institute= is apparently officially described as a "weekday religious instruction for singled and married postsecondary students." Institutes of Religion are professionally directed by the Church Educational System, the same department responsible for the seminary program and Brigham Young University. In practical terms it’s attended by most YSA.

Okay so there’s a few definitions. I hope that’s made a couple of things clearer. If there’s any others terms you need explaining let me know.

Later!

Guess what everybody??

Well despite my best efforts I was unable to catch the Bishop today before I had to leave so that left me only one option. Trying the Eldars quorum President again and guess what? Yes he still hasn't done me a new hometeaching list ( wow big shock there) and says he's very busy at the moment ( what about the last several months) and he will get round to updating my list and sorting out a new companion for me as soon as possible. Wow I'm getting the strangest sense of deja vu here. I think I'm going to have to try and catch the Bishop next week instead.

Talking of Bishopric's, Mechanicus has just been called to his bishopric as the 2nd counciler. Engineseer wasn't at church today, quite where he was I have no idea but as per usual everybody was asking me where he was. I could tell them where Black widow was, I just had no idea where enginseer was.

We actually had quite a full YSA class today. Traveller was visiting (again) and her brother and his wife were visiting too. I did hear today and anyone correct me if I heard incorrectly that M.Y is getting married. I'm not sure who she's getting married to but with the way things have been going in Loughborough lets face it, the chances are very high it's a American. I still think we need to implement the idea Engineseer and I discussed once about implementing stricter border controls for American YSA lads. " Sorry sir we can't let you into the country please go home and open your ideas and realise how many stunning single YSA females you have over there and date them so you can stop stealing the english ones." Hey it could happen! Well it's just as likely to happen as the aeroplane plan is.

Deep shock in the priesthood lesson today. Photoshop wasn't teaching!(for once as he always seems to be teaching) Fortunately our faith wasn't shaken too much by this surprising turn of evens.

I went over to see Tap dance this afternoon to take her, her Mothers days presents. Grumpy kept himself busy in the garden doing some tidying. He had great fun trying to avoid the frog's. Theres loads of them about at the moment and the pond is now full of frog spawn!

Well I thought as it was the start of another new month it's time to review my resolutions again;

1) Exercise more.
Still going strong. I've started using weights now and some odd thingy mejig which I have no idea what it's called but it helps me do sit ups.

2) loose weight.
Over a stone lost now so I think it's fair to say " Yah me" on this one. It's slow but steady.

3) Cut back on sugar and caffine.
Well I've gone farther on this one and cut out all caffine completly. Which despite having cut back on my intake still lead to some rather nasty headaches. But their gone now and I'm sticking to Lemonade or sprite.

4) Keep the blog more up to date.
At least one post for every day of the year so far.

5) Try and get more people to read my blog and leave comments.
Still making progress here too. As the maps shows I have at least five regular readers. Which is nice.

6) Get Finances under control and start saving.
Still going good here. Finished month with more money then I expected again, so I think I'm on the right track. I think next step is to open a savings account.

7) Try to minimize the amount of time I spend wallowing in self pity.
This one is still proving tricky. Although with V day out of the way this should hopefully start to become easier.

8) Make a new friend.
Well I made two new blogging friends, well there was a third but mike seems to have vanished along with his blog. Where are you mike?? No progress of making a new friend out in the real world so I guess I'll have to keep working on it.

9)Develop a new skill
I'm starting to really get the hang of publisher now.

10) Broaden my history knowledge by studying about the tudors.
I've just finished my second book on the tudors. Review to follow. I did also find a good article on wilkipedia which lists all of the 'departures form history' that the TV show has.

So I think after review it's safe to say I am still keeping my resolutions.

Monday tomorrow. I'm hoping for a quiet day, touch wood ( smacks himself on head)

later!

Well that was different

As long term readers will know so far this year my saturdays have fallen into a depressingly repeative formula this year but not today.

To go with the earthquake earlier this week we have very strong wind and rain last night. Very strong, in fact at a couple of points I thought something was happening to the roof as it was that loud and strong. The roof was fine, however somewhere somehow a power line was not. When we woke up there was no power and the power stayed off for quite sometime. Which meant our standard breakfast was pretty much out the window.

Fortunately the power came back on just as we were heading into town to do the shopping. My first task was to get a hair cut and I learned a valuable lesson. Next time I need a hair cut it will be a heck of a lot easier to take a half day off from work and go and get it done in the week rather then trying to get it done on a Saturday. I was in the hairdressers for a hour waiting for my turn. On the plus side I did manage to get it done and at least my head feels a lot lighter.

I then had to go to look for a motherdays present for Tapdance and a birthday present for Grumpy. Theres something about our extended family which means most of the birthdays are concentrated either near the beginning of the year or near the end of the year. Quite why thats the case I have no idea, guess it's just a family quirk :-)

No fish and chips today either as we had them last night, so I had soup today instead. Which to be honest was quite an interesting change. I then actually managed to get some constructive things done, and still have enough sparetime to do some reading.

So there you have it. A totally different saturday from my usual saturdays. I better be careful if this continues people might actually start expecting me to get out of the same old routines and try new things. And who knows where that will end :-)

later!