Just a quick one

(best Dr Nick voice) Hi everybody!

It's just a quick blog post as I have been extremely busy all day and I'm just about to head out to a New years eve party in Leicester. Yes I've been invited to a party. I feel so popular all of a sudden :-)

I will write more of todays goings on tomorrow. Which is a sentence that sounds a lot more deep and meaningful then I was expecting.

Well tomorrow is a start of a new year and a new decade. Although I didn't match last years total number of blog posts ( 415 vs 443) I still managed to do the equivilant of more then one blog post a day which considering that November was more or less a write off for blog writing isn't bad at all.

I am still deciding on my new years resolutions or I may just follow the new 'in thing' of giving up on giving up! I.e not setting any. I guess we'll see.

So I guess all that's left is to wish all of you my loyal readers a Happy new year and I hope that 2010 will bring you everything you want.

And for all of you spammers who seem to have recently found my blog please feel free to go away and never come back.

Later folks!

Strange days

Just when you couldn't think that things would get any stranger low and behold they do! Lets put it this way there are more contenders then usual for todays quote of the day;



" It's a standard box size"

" The ones where trains come, yes?" ( said in response to a question of which train station they were at)

" It's a standard laptop with a 13 inch screen. It measures 10cm by 10cm by 5cm"

" but why do you need tracking numbers to track a parcel?"

" But why do you not have a full and detailed list of services offered by your competitors to give to any customers who wants it?"

" But why would customs be suspecious of a diamond ring with gold band I said was £20?"



Anyway,



Later folks.

Don't say the Q word

It's been a slightly weird day as work was different to how it has been in the sense that as we're between Christmas and new year there is a inevitable drop off in demand. However we were all very, very careful not to say the Q word as we all knew what would inevitably happen if we did. It would be like saying macbeth in the theatre.

You just don't do it.

Two contenders for todays quote of the day
" Well it's the size of the standard jacket size he usually wears"
or
" Well their boots, which means it's as long as my knee height"

The Day of the triffids adaption last night was very good if a little strung out. It could have probably lost 15 minutes or so with no real impact to the overall story. There were some program makers who seem to have remembered the old adage that less is more and it was only towards the end of the program that we actually say some 'full' close up shots of the triffids. Up unto that point we had been treated to quick glimpses or long shots.

Yes the idea of meet eating plants that can move is far fetched but if you can get past that it was a good program. The 2nd part is on tonight and hopefully it will maintain it's high quality.

It's been very cold today, despite the weathermens prediction for lots of snow to hit the midlands, that good ole weather dead zone around geektown seems to be holding and the most we're forecast to get is sleet! Not especially exciting I know.

Well I've got one more day of work this week before I'm off again for four days. Life's tough init ? :-) I will then be starting 'normal' shift patterns which will be interesting.

Anyway, that's all for today as it seems that my technical experience is needed again as Grumpy has a question about something. Hopefully it's not about how to turn the printer on and off again.

Later folks.

Back to it

Well after three days of fun and games over christmas it's time to get back to it as it were as I'm back to work tomorrow.

Still I can't complain as I have had four days off, well okay I could complain but it would make me sound a bit childish and a bit sad. and lets face it I'm sad enough already :-)

I got lots and lots of nice goodies from santa and Tapdance and Grumpy on Christmas day, including so many books that it should keep me going until at least midway through January. Well I do read rather quickly after all.

The first part of the Doctor who two parter was okay, I think it can be best summed up by one review which said it wasn't a dream but it also wasn't a nightmare. Still I am hoping that as they've set all the plot points up the second part should be really, really good.

Tap dance and I spent the weekend up north as it were to see some of the extended family. They've had significally more snow up there, then we've had down here around geektown but the weather service is promising more snow later this week, so we might well have a a 'white new year'.

Grumpy and I spent today going into Derby to the large shopping centre they have in town. I made good use of some of the vouchers I had been given to get a CD, three DVD's, including Chuck season 2 and the Big Bang theory season 2, and four new books including one that has been written by one of the guys I used to work with. I was supposed to be getting a free copy but as it's been out for more then three months and I offically left my last work two months ago, I decided that it wasn't likely to happen. Plus they were having a three for two offer in waterstones. So with the new pile of books I got today I'm probably going to be set for reading until the end of January now.

It was odd in waterstones as I saw the section of books that are produced by the company I used to work for and when I saw that one was misprinted my first reaction was still " I better mention that at work" despite it being two months since I left. I suppose some habits are hard to get rid of after almost five years.

Still, onwards and upwards as they say. Musn't dwell.

Thats all for today folks. The new day of the triffids adaption is on so must dash.

Later!

One more day to go

Well there will be a lot of excited people tonight, struggling to get to sleep until the day they've been waiting for finally arrives. Yes there's only one more day to go until....... the first part of the Doctor who specials.

Oh yeah and it's christmas too :-)

It was rather nice having a lie in this morning, even Owen seemed to be mindful and didn't make a sound, so I woke up when I wanted to not before.

However I was aware that it wasn't going to be a peaceful day as I had to brave Loughborough to get a couple of last bits and pieces.

Luck was on my side though as it wasn't anyway near as busy as I was expecting it to be. That's not to say however that it wasn't packed and the large amount of ice still around made it just a tad difficult getting from place to place.

I spent a large chunk of the rest of the day wrapping presents as I had been somewhat slack in wrapping them. Still their now all done and our tree does look rather cool with all the presents around it. Owen has been observing us for most of the day with a look of bemusement and seems to be trying to figure out what us humans are up to now.

Anyway, I'd just like to wish all of you, my loyal readers a very happy christmas and I hope that you will get everything you want tomorrow from santa.

Later folks.

All together now

(in best fake scottish accent) Freeedddooommmmm!!!!!!!

Okay well only for four days and it's a touch over dramatic but it's still four days work free.

But I did have to get through one day of work today to earn this respite. To my surprise it was a lot easier then I was expecting although that did seem to be more luck then anything else as everybody else seemed to be getting the difficult customers.

I was pleased that the gift I had bought for our teams secret santa seemed to go down very well indeed. I recieved a giant Simpsons mug and key ring which has a picture of Homer and Spider pig on. All together now
" Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spiderpig does"
It seems that somebody on the team has got my measure rather quickly/

Todays quote of the day
" But why does a box which is twice as big costs twice as much?"

As well as the new Doctor Who on this christmas, they will also be showing a special TV edition of the production of Hamlet that David tennant starred in as well. So all in all it's shaping up to be a good christmas season of TV.

Engineseer will shortly be back in the country for a flying visit, but not as flying a visit as Travellers, who I will only get to see once due to various running back and forth I will be doing as she's back off to Thailand very quickly.

I'm choosing not to dwell on why so many of my friends seem to end up living in other countries. I'm sure it's just a co-incendence ;-)

Engineseer and I are hoping to get in a game of 40k while he's here because it will proablybe the last chance I have in a while to beat his tau ( oh have I started trash talking him on my blog as well? I think I am :-)

With the end of the year fast approaching I realised that I seem to be finishing the year in a somewhat upbeat and optomistic mood which is surprising considering whats happened this year. Maybe it is optomism or maybe I've just been pushed towards being miserable so far I'm now coming back the other way.

Still whatever it is, lets hope it stays around for 2010.

Later folks.

Time and type wait for no man

While what seems like the rest of europe looks on in bafflement at the chaos the snow is causing in the UK that good old weather dead zone which covers the centre of the country and seems to be centred on geektown is doing it's usual bang up job of keeping whatever weather the rest of the country as far away as possible.

We seem to be about the only place which doesn't have snow!

Although I know a lot of people are having problems with the snow I couldn't help but have a little snigger about two items on the news. Eurostars explanation for their technical problems is that they have had the 'wrong type of snow', and that it was basically too fluffy. Which sounded rather funny coming from a straight faced PR man trying to explain that trains had been stopped by fluffy snow.

Then there was a PR man from a town down south trying to explain the problems they have been having on the roads and that the roads weren't gritted. His defence was that the problems were down to it " Snowing at the wrong time". Because it's well known that snow usually falls at precisely schduled times doesnt it........ oh wait.

Well only one more day of work before my christmas break. I can't wait!

Todays quote of the day
" But why do you need to know when it's ready to collect"

I've seen the trailer for the BBC remake of Day of the Triffids which will be showing over christmas. It looks really good. Although I fear it will be rather overshadowed by the two part Doctor Who special where David Tennant will be bowing out as the Doctor.

I can't believe that their making us wait a week between the episodes. Their so meeaannnn!!!!

Anyway,

Later folks!

A moment of silence

Grumpy and I decided to take a little trip out to borders this evening before it closes for the last time tomorrow. However when we got there we discovered that the local people of leicester had obivously been aware of the closure for sometime as the place had been more or less stripped bare. There was only a very bad selection of books left and there were already starting to take the shelves down in large parts of the store.

Despite this somewhat sorry scene I was able to find a few gems in amongst the dross and came away with 5 paperbacks, one hardback and a DVD for only £15. Not bad going, even if it is bad that borders is going!

We also discovered soemwhat bizarely that the petrol is Leicester is somewhat cheaper then that in geektown. Six pence cheaper to be precise. Which doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, how can 20 minutes travel result in a change of six pence!

Today's quote of the day is a tie between the following two.
" It's the size of a shoe box........Long pause........ that's not much help to you is it?"
" It's exact size is about a third the length of a cricket bat and twice as thick."

Well I have two more days of work before I get a long weekend as it were from Friday through to Monday before having to go back to work for two days next week. We're going to recieve our secret santa presents on Wednesday, I just hope I got the right thing for the person I was given, I tried to go with as 'safe' a option as I could, but regular readers will no how irony likes to mess with me sometimes.

anyway.

Later folks

Ard Boyz, Ardy Boyz whatcha gonna do?

I actually found myself doing some painting this afternoon which is the first time in a little while that I've felt the urge to pick up a paintbrush. My local shop is running a painting competition in January so I've decided to give it a go and enter. As I'm now allowed to enter as I'm no longer a staff member, plus it will be a lot less embrassing if my entry gets slammed as a civilian rather then staff.

So here's the first part of my entry. A squad of so called 'ard boyz', as they like to to wear rather a lot of armour. To try and make them stand out I had a rummage in my good ole bitz box and converted these models.
This is only the first stage of painting, so they should ( hopefully) look a lot better when their finished. After these guys are done I've got another squad of boyz, three bikes and a trukk to finish for the competition at the end of January.

Think good thoughts for me folks. I'll post some more pictures when the next units are done.

Stay safe out there

After avoiding what looked like four bouncers dressed as elves, suffering getting walloped by a trolley twice, smacked by at least a dozen shopping bags, enduring one of the strangest additional sales attempts ever ( If I've just bought a car tax disc why would anyone think I would want a mobile top up), been soundly defeated by ice holding one shopping trolley to another and thus displayed a less then impressive level of strength in a public place, then getting shoulder barged into a bed display did make me wonder if I should go somewhere safer...

Like the middle of the motorway.

Yes twas the last saturday before christmas and althrough the house not a creature was stiring as they were all in town doing last minute shopping.

To say Loughborough was packed would be a bit of a understatement.

Still despite the massed hordes I was able to get my shopping done.

I've now just gotta wrap the things.

Despite it being another two months before my old company releases a book I haven't read in some form or another, I did know that they were releasing some books today, one of which I had read a early manuscript of. I hadn't read it since I gave my initial feedback and was interested as to how it might have changed. Although I had read it and despite the fact I wasn't going to be getting a free copy anymore I decided I was going to buy a copy anyway, as I wanted to satisfy my curiosity/

Unfortunatly I got to the shop too late and they had completely sold out! I wasn't too impressed and my mood wasn't helped but the staff members admitance that he had a copy of the next book in my old companies best selling series which isn't released till March april time and was throughly enjoying it. Although I was tempted to quote stewie griffin at him
" You will rue this day. Well go on start rueing!"
My annoyance vanished pretty darn quick. So what if I'll have to go back to get it. It's only a book, and as for the other book. Well I knew that people who still work for the company would get to see books long before we 'civilians' do. I'll just have to hone my zen len powers of patience and get used to have to wait.

Around last christmas Woolworths disappeared from the high streets, this year it is the turn of borders. Yes it seems that all attempts to save it have failed and it will close in the UK at least for the last time on the 22nd. So if you live near one in the UK I would pop in asap as it won't be there much longer!

Anyway,

Later folks!

Better then nothing

It was once again rather cold this morning. Fortunatly the ice on the car was thicker which meant the de-icer worked a lot better, which sounds strange but it did.

I was more worried however that I would have to face a repeat of what happened last night when exiting the staff car park. As when I got to the gate, when you have to press a button to be let out I found out that my window was iced shut. As you have to get quite close to the stand to be able to press the button, there wasn't a whole lot of room to open the door, and try and squeeze round it to push the button. I'm not sure who I provided the greatest entertainment too, the person in the car behind or security who probably watched the whole thing on the cctv!

Todays quote of the day
" I know where it's going but I don't know where it needs to be collected from. Is that a problem?"

Well it's now the weekend which means it's the last weekend before christmas which I'm sure will mean that the shops are going to be totally packed! Oh well maybe the cold will persude a few people to stay home.

Question of the day I couldn't answer very well
" How does de-icer work?" my response " It melts the ice"

Random question of the day I would like answered
" Why will our office radiator work or the hall radiator work but both won't work together?"

Random thought of the day
" Is the new fiero roche advert where they use the greek gods false advertising? Or are they saying the greek gods really did make that choclate?"

Later folks.

The sky is falling

The weather must have heard me complaining yesterday as it was rather cold this morning when I got up. Not only that the car was iced up. Not thick ice mind you, that really annoying thin kind of ice that seems to resist de icer forcing you to search for a scraper.

It did snow today and almost approached blizzard level of snow at one point, but it didn't last and the ground was too wet for it to settle properly. Now if I had been off work I would have been disappointed, but as I was working I was rather glad as long term readers know my reasons for not liking icey conditions in the slightist!

We were also given our 'names' for our teams secret santa today. I thought last years was hard and I had known the person for several years, now I've got to buy something for someone I've barely known for three weeks and I've barely spoken to them at that! I'm just really worried I'm gonna commit some huge faux paus but getting them the wrong thing.

Todays quote of the day comes from one of my colleagues which was delivered in a deadpan voice in answer to another colleagues questions of where was all the snow coming from?
" The sky"

I've just seen the trailer for the new Iron man movie. It's aweeessssoommmmeeee...........
I can't wait for May.

Well it's Friday tomorrow. Which means another dress down day ( we're having them on every Friday in december) and it also means just one week till Christmas.

Yaah!

Later folks!

so near yet so far

Despite the warnings of lots of snow and really cold temperatures what did we eventually get? A rather wet nasty morning as it turns out. Not nice at all, especially as I seem to have picked up yet another cold.

Yes a cold, you might remember them before the days of swine flu when it was okay to have the sniffles without it being something that could wipe out mankind!

Okay a little dramatic but you get the idea.

Bad weather aside it was a really, really good day today at work. Everything went really well and after three weeks I'm starting to feel a lot more confident then I was, in my knowledge and my own abilities to do this job.

Grumpy also pointed out that I seemed to be developing thicker skin as it were and didn't seem to be letting things bother me. Well it make be that or it's more a case that I've just learned to accept that there are somethings I can't solve and just need to move on and forget them.

Quote of the day comes from the staff canteen when one person looked up to see the latest timbaland music video on the TV
" When did lenny henry release a single?"

anyway,

Later folks.

All I need now is a cat

Do you expect me to talk?
no mr Saxon I expect you to..... answer the phone.

As I've now been assigned a desk a work, I had a egonomics check today ( I don't know if I've spelt that right) which was basically a assessment to see that I was 'sitting' at my desk correctly. What I didn't realise was that the 'average' office chair is only designed for people who are about five and a half foot. Which meant that I was getting all the support I needed from my current chair ( learn something new every day). So I was issued with a new chair which is pretty cool and did make me feel slightly evil villianish sitting in a chair like that. I was then even more surprised to find out that this isn't my 'final' chair and was just meant as a temporary replacement as they will be ordering me a new chair as they didn't have any of the correct sized chairs for people who are six foot.

The women who came to do the check also rearranged my desk, including raising the monitor in a way that did make me wonder if it was really a transformer. She seemed quite amused at my bafflement to the whole egonomics process.

Quote of the day,
" It's the size of a piece of paper"

I've just seen the trailer for the new sherlock holmes film. I have to admit that it's piqued my interest slightly. It looked much better then in the first trailer. But I still don't see Grumpy going to see it.

Apparently it's supposed to snow tomorrow. But then again this is a forecast by the same weatherman who had forecast a heatwave all summer long, a cold winter, a mild winter, then a cold weather. I'm still not convinced that they don't just roll a dice to come up with the weather sometimes.

Stealing something is not smart. Using your own car to steal something is even less smart. Using your own car complete with personalised number plate is so less smart then smart, it's on the other side of the planet from smart. So I was somewhat amused to see a guy end up in court today for just that. But if you can afford a bmw why would you want to steal something anyway?

bordom, a need for excitment and being a bit of a muppet are three reasons which spring to mind.

Later folks.

Focus, Focus, Focus

As I'm now 'officially' in a team at work, I now have my 'own desk'. Fortunatly unlike a lot of customer service places I don't have to share it, so it's all mine. However I did notice something this afternoon that was somewhat distracting. My new desk now faces the window which brings a perfect view of the sunset. And it was a awesome sun set this evening which was very distracting as I just wanted to take time to watch it. Previously it's either been the case that the sun sets when I'm at work when I can't see it, or set when I was driving home so I didn't have time to watch it. But now, now I get a perfect view. I just hope they don't decide to swap desks on me otherwise they might well have to drag me from it!

I spent the evening putting our christmas decorations up and there's nothing like getting into the christmas mood like sitting in the dark watching the lights on the tree and in the window. It was a very cozy feeling. Even if Owen has looked extremely baffled all night and was remarkably unsettled by the sight of me up in the loft. He actually ran off downstairs which is quite unusal for such a inquisitive dog!

The quote of the day had to go to this one
" the package is as wide as my hand"

The bad taste award of the day has to go to a drinks manufacturer who have created a ice cube tray that makes little ice Titanics and icebergs. The packaging for the ice cubes reads
" 'Ice ahoy! Gin and Titonic is guaranteed to be an unsinkable addition to your next party.
'This reusable ice tray contains four icy Titanic ships and four menacing icebergs. Pair them up in your mixed drinks and re-create history. Go ahead...sink another round!"

anyway,

Later folks.

On and On

It's hard to explain but there was a real sense today, when I got up of the year is coming to a end and that in a few short weeks we'll be into a new year, 2010! Yikes! I know I say this ever year but I'll say it again. Where the heck has the year gone? It doesn't seem longer then a couple of weeks ago that we started 2009.

Although lets face it, the events of 2009 will be sticking in my head for rather a long time to come.

We still haven't put our christmas decorations up yet but we have decided that we will do so tomorrow. You see this is what comes of having only men living in a house. It takes ages to get anything done!

Although there's no way we'll be matching the neighbours efforts as well to say their houses are brightly lit would be a understatement. Just looking across the road I can see three illuminated santas, two christmas three's and a bell, not to mention a whole lotta lights. Oh and a snowman.

And that's one of the more understated efforts at house decoration that are on display are round the estate.

Well it's Monday tomorrow which means another week of work and and a week containing what I'm sure will be many, many, many 'opportunities' to face and overcome.

anyway,

Later folks.

English?

I wondered if there was a sign today that I am getting old as whilst christmas shopping I looked at the list of items that my nieces and nephews want for christmas and I had to wonder if what my youngest niece wanted was actually written in English. Now usually I can understand a lot of stuff and chatter away about stuff that the average non geeky person will not understand in the slightist, but the list of items had me stumped. I finally had to ask one of the shop assistants if she could translate and point me in the right direction. She did so with her kindest smile which seemed to say " you obivously don't have kids do you? Otherwise you would know what this was wouldn't you?"

It was extremely busy in town but as Grumpy was away for the day I wasn't in a rush and was able to take my time. Or at least as much time as you can take in shops packed full of christmas shoppers.

After much pondering I also decided to attend a author signing event of one of the newest releases from my old place of work. I know some people might be baffled at the amount of contact I still have with my old company as most people when their made redundent thats the last they have to do with them. But in my case I was working for the people who made my hobby, so I would have to give up my main hobby to have no contact and that's not something I want to do. I enjoy my hobby too much.

Anyway the signing was fine if a little strange to be talking to a author from postion of fan boy/civilian as opposed to a member of staff but hey I guess that's something I'll just have to get used to. Besides at least I know have a new book to read. Besides at the rate I'm reading these days it might even last me a whole week.

Asides from that it was a pretty quiet day. It was cold though and apparently their forcasting very cold weather this week which doesn't fill me with a sense of happyness as regular readers will now all about my ( I would say understandable) adversion to driving in icey conditions.

anyway,

Later folks

No! Really?

Sometimes a news story comes along that makes me stare in disbelief, especially if it seems to have come from the scientists and researchers of the we've got nothing better to be doing university.

Todays case in point.

Ever since the start of the credit crunch thereh as been a whole load of adverts around for companies who will buy your unwanted gold and send you some money. You get rid of gold your not using and get cash back as the meerkat would say " Seemples!"

Not quite, apparently according to those pesky researchers always hot on the trail of the next big blinding obivous fact after a extensive study they have found that these companies who buy the gold.......... wait for it.......... Are not giving people the full retail value of the gold they send. In some cases less then half the price. My what evil companies, how dare they attempt to make money themselves. Why aren't the papers full of this story, you can imagine the headline
" Commerical companies in attempt to make profit shock!"

oh wait.......

Two classic quotes from work today
" It's about the size of two small jars" but this was beaten by " It's not antique it's vintage"

Well it's the weekend again and after this weekend there's only one more to go until Christmas! I tihnk I'm going to try and hit the shops nice and early tomorrow before it all turns into a complete and utter scrum!

I'm also trying to keep from reading my latest book in one go, as it's from one of my favourite authors whose rather slow at writing. It's over a year between books and that's only if you count books from the spin off series. If you only count the main series books the gap is almost four years!

Anyone would think it takes a long time to write a book!

Oh wait...

I think after getting the shopping done and out of the way I will try and do some painting this weekend as I haven't done any in a few days and don't want to get too out of practise.

Well it's not like I've got anything better to do.

Later folks

Gremlins in the works

Sorry for the lack of blog yesterday folks but a bunch of technical gremlins decided to come to stay and proceeded to take out our broadband connection.

Fortunatly we managed to get it fixed this evening after talking to a surprisingly helpful technical department at our service provider. Grumpy had tried ringing earlier in the day but had become confused at the terminology so decided to wait for me.

Which was probably a good thing as when I tried to explain things last night it ended up with me demonstrated a 'analogy' using the door to the dining room.

It also confused the heck out of Owen who I'm sure must have wondered if I had in fact finally gone nuts.

It's also been a couple of rough days at work. I'd be lying if I didn't say that my confidence has taken a little bit of a battering. This is not a easy job, far, far from it. However I was able to 'regroup' as it were this afternoon and have a long internal monologue with myself ala scrubs.
Yes I know, otherwise known as talking to yourself, where I basically told myself to relax and remember something important. I'm just out of training and got another five months to go on my probabtion. Yes I should be aiming to get everything right but it's okay if I'm not perfect. And if I keep comparing myself to everyone else I'll probably go screamingly insane inside a month.

Another thought occured to me on the bus on the way back to the car park. Not to so immodest but I wondered if the other problem might be that I was so used to being so good at my work for so long I've forgot how not to be perfect and can accept that I may not be.

I'm just going have to knuckle down and make sure I learn from all of the 'opportunities' that come my way and make sure they don't happen again.

It's going to be a long six months.

Probably for the best

It may just be my log in but if not I forsee a lot of people sitting around in darkened rooms rocking back and forth nervously unsure of what to do with out their fix.


Am I talking about drugs? Far from it, I'm talking about something else which is far more innocent looking but will snare the unwary with it's addictiveness. Yes the game Farmville on facebook appears to be down, gone, disappeared into the depths of cyberspace...... the fall of mankind is sure to follow.


Of course it could also be a sign that I spent waaayy too much time playing that game and that I could be doing something far more constructive.

Richard branson revealed his new spaceship today which will soon be taking paying passengers into space. Apparently good old Arnie unveiled the spaceship although I'm not sure having a man who made his name for being famous for blowing stuff up in movies was the best choice to reveal a spacecraft.

The third series of the Big Bang theory is due to start shortly which I can't wait for. However knowing my luck it will probably be on Wednesdays! Still Institute is due to finish for Christmas this week so that will at least give me a chance to see a few of the episodes if they are indeed going to be shown on a wednesday.

I have to admit I'm find it a little difficult to get in a christmasy frame of mind right now as it doesn't seem like it will be Christmas in only 18 days. I suppose that's in part because things have been rather here, there and everywhere over the past couple of months there hasn't been that real sense of build up I usually get as Christmas approaches.

Still here's hoping the Christmas mood kicks in soon.

Later folks!

Duck and cover

Regular readers will now by now that I really like to keep up to date with the latest news, be it technological, political or entertainment news. Plus with the benefit of having a near photographic memory for useless information I find it very easy to keep up todate with many things.

Of course certain news items tend to draw my attention more then others. Anything related to a TV show I like will go up the list of must reads pretty quickly, plus anything related to the church usually merits a must read. This was how I was pretty up on what happened with the whole proposition eight thing when a lot of other people in my ward didn't have a clue what it was all about.

So when I saw a article about the TV show big love and the phrase " is going to cause no [small] amount of controversy.” I already had a feeling where this was going.

Now for those of you who don't know Big love follows a polygamist family in Salt lake city utah. The family are supposed to be " Mormon Fundamentalists", who aren't part of the 'mainstream mormon church" who everyone know and commonly refered to as Mormons. I'm sure you can already see why some people get confused because you have two groups of people who both call themselves Mormons no matter how much the producers claim they try to make the differences clear. I remember when the first series was shown in the UK and the barrage of media articles that resulted. However it didn't last long as Big Love only managed one series on our TV before disappearing, never to be seen again not even on digital freeview channels. Which is quite an impressive feat considering what is shown on some of them. TJ Hooker repeats anyone? No me neither.

Right where was I? Well apparently the show caused ructions in the last series when they recreated part of a church 'ordinance' but the producers still claimed that they were still making the difference between the main church and offshoots clear.

Well they seem to have totally abandoned this claim for the new series based on a quote from a producer about one of the male characters getting a boyfriend. The quote was as follows
" But attempts to “pray the gay away” are just the tip of the iceberg. “There’s a provocative nature to what we’re doing,” Olsen suggests. “It’s more than just the Mormon culture. We’re highlighting certain aspects of the church’s relationship with its gay members that I think, as the story unfolds, is going to cause no [small] amount of controversy.”!

Now of course I could be wrong but that doesn't really sound like their still trying to make the difference clear anymore does it? Especially with what happened with Proposition eght still fresh in peoples minds.

Now at the end of the day is this likely to make a whole lotta difference here in the uk? Well no seeing as we don't see the series but I just found it annoying in the sense of, if you're going to use cliches abut the church in attempts to win ratings at least admit it.

Although this has reminded me of what happened when I was taking my GCSE's. One day there were a whole lotta girls coming up to me and having a go, while a lot of guys were congratulating me. It took a little while to figure out what the heck was going on. Apparently one of the history teachers was telling people that Mormons still practised polygamy. In the next class one of the girls challenged him on it and he insisted he was right. Until she pointed out here was a Mormon in the school at which point he changed was he was saying pretty darn quickly. That history teacher was also partially responsible for me ending up having to give a talk to my english class but thats a story for another time.

anyway,

Later.

Keep rolling and go down swinging

I think this is one of the most restarted posts I have ever written. I must have started this post and then restarted it seven or eight times by this point.

It's not been down to having a writers block mind you. If anything it's the complete opposite, I seem to have too much to say but I just can't think of the best way to say it.

I've just had a load of thoughts that have been buzzing around my head since church this morning. For some reason I found church a bit flat today and uninspiring. I don't know why as I usually like testimony meeting but today there wasn't some quite 'there'. I know that sounds somewhat vague but that's about as close as I can get to putting my 'finger on it'.

But then again that sense of uninspiredness may also have been down to another couple of issues that I suddenly realised have been bugging me and I had failed to realise what they were until today. I'm still mulling them over right now in the hopes that I will come up with a solution.

So this will only be a very short post for today. Plesae tune in tomorrow when I hope I will make a lot more sense.

Later folks.

Somewhat confusing

Although it was fairly cold today it was also sunny. Really, really sunny. In fact so sunny I wished I had taken my sunglasses out with me as it was quite difficult to see at somepoints which is somewhat bizare considering we're now deep into winter.


Most shops have now fully launched themselves into their christmas 'mood' so there's lots of tinsle, shiny lights and christmas music seemingly everywhere. Although it depends on the store and how 'big' the store is as to how good the christmas music is as it seems to go from really cheap muzak style songs from covers to the 'genuine' christmas songs that we all know and love and are utterly fed up with by about two weeks into december.


Apparently there are rumours that the new film by James Cameron is going to be the most exspensive 'flop' ever. I'm going to try and reserve judgement until I see it but I have to admit I was amused by the films new nickname " Dancing with Smurfs". That's in reference to the blue skinned aliens in the film in case any of you didn't know and were wondering how the heck Smurfs had anything to do with this.

I always find it a bit awkward near to christmas as there's usually lots of stuff in the shops that I want to buy, but I know I shouldn't as someone might buy it for me as a christmas present. But then of course if someone doesn't buy it I buy not be able to buy it until the end of January. Now admitally this isn't the biggest problem in the world " Oh no I have to wait a month to watch a DVD I might only see a couple of times and then leave to gather dust on the shelf" ( yeah like that doesn't happen with the DVDs you buy) and was more of a problem previous years as there was no point asking for the main thing I wanted, i.e hobby stuff as there was no point as I got such a huge discount. I decided eventually that I was probably spending waaayyyy too much time thinking about stuff like that and should probably just not buy anything and save my money.

Still I was able to see quite a lot of cool books that I do want, because after a long drought of books a whole load have been released at once, including a new book by Alison weir who is one of my favourite historians. Which is something I hadn't expected because I only started reading her books to find out more about the tudors after watching one episode of "the tudors" which was the first and last time I watched that show. I've also seen a couple of other good history books as well but I'm not sure how many to ask for as the trouble I have these days is finding enough time to read. Which is bizare as considering the amount of time it usually takes me to finish a book, it's not like I need several days to finish one.

anyway,

Later folks.

A little earlier then usual

In a change to the past few years rather then having a christmas meal at the stake centre where the boys and girls take it in turns each year to cook for the others, this year we had our institute christmas meal 'out'. We went to a local carvery which made a interesting change as it felt very 'different' to our other christmas meals.

It was also one of the only times when you would see Bro H in a pub as well. Also somewhat bizarely our group was the loudest group in there. Which did make me imagine a headline along the lines of " Mormons loudest group in pub shock! News at 11!"

Of course it wouldn't be the christmas meal with getting the standard picture of the foot for Nemesis.

The budget also stretched to desert as well. It wasn't a bad meal at all. Especially as we didn't have to pay for it :-)

Later folks.

More Mekboyz mischief

What happens when you need a model and you don't like the 'official model' that is produced. Why you make one from bits of other models of course.

Take the base of a warbuggy
take a really big gun

Add some wheels, some crew and a few other bits and pieces

repeat as many times as needed then add sand

Then add some paint. Hey presto the start of your very own big gunz battery.

Latest mekboy creations

Long term readers might remember my post from a little while ago about turning a model of Wall E into a ork "killa kan". Well since leaving my last job my enthusiasm for modelling as been somewhat lacking, which although annoying it was according to Grumpy understandable.

However in the past few days I have felt my enthusiasm returning in part I guess as painting and modelling is still one of the best ways I have found to unwind. Below is a photo of a some of the first conversions I have been working on.
For those of you who hadn't guessed this are once again conversions based on Wall E. I'll post some more pictures one they are finished and painted

Caption competition

You know how this works by now. Leave your suggestions for a caption to this picture!

High energy

Grumpy was worried the other day that I was already loosing my enthusiasm for my new role as I seemed to be a bit down when i came from.

That's far from the case, is what more a case that I am finding the pace of the work a bit tiring. My last job to be honest wasn't the most highly paced job in the world. My new job is very much the flipside of the coin pace wise, it's fast , high energy and constant which is still proving to be a bit hard to get used to. Despite my best efforts some habits are hard to shake, especially when you've been doing them for almost seven years.

Not that I'm not making progress in getting used to it ( if that makes sense). My caffine intake has dwindled to almost nothing and I haven't had any chocolate in weeks. Plus I'm drinking a lot of water each day which should be doing more good then the coke I used to have.

We were assigned our teams today and to be honest it was a touch anti-climatic as we're all going to be staying with the same team we were training with. We should get assigned our permanant desks tomorrow as it's our last 'proper' day of training. I feel that I am grasping the systems now quite well and probably as well as I could be but not as well as I would like. Once again that's probably my weakness of being my own worst enemy as nobody can beat me up like me when it comes to little errors I should just forget.

Still my new found sense of optimisim ( still hanging around somewhat to my surprise) is trying to steer me away from this. I've only just finished my first month, I've still got five to go before my probabation ends. I've still got lots to learn but lots of time to learn it in and get it right.

now if only everything else in my life was that easy.

Later folks.

Picture it

Somewhere over the Swiss alps a ballon is rapidly loosing height. Two of the four passengers will need to go over the side to save the others. Which of this passengers will make this noble and willing sacrifice? Well in this case none of them as Homer Simpson and Cheryl Cole join forces and gang up on the others tipping the queen and Santa claus over the side.

The latest twisted reality tv show? No even more strangly it was a exercise in a training sesson this morning. Each of us was assigned a character and we had to argue why we shouldn't be turfed over the side. It was give Santa claus and and you may have already worked out I wasn't especially successful in saving Santa.

I still maintain I would have survived if Cheryl cole and Homer hadn't ganged up on everyone else. Which is a sentence I'd never thought I'd write.

I got home to find that the printer wasn't well printing and Grumpy was also unable to turn it off. After much consideration and attempts at trying to fix the thing I was stuck for a answer as I couldn't even try turning it off and on again as the on off switch wasn't working. Finally inspiration struck!

I pulled out the plug and then put it back in and hey presto one fixed printer. If only all problems in life were as easily fixed as that.

It wasn't as cold today but it was rather wet. I'm not fond of it being wet or cold but at this point I just wish the darn weather would make up it's mind. It's getting annoying.

anyway,

Later folks.

Finishing Touches

Looking back on this the first week of the last month of 2009 from somepoint in the far future, I will probably look on this week as a week of endings.

This week is the last week of my training and starting from next week I will be assigned to a new team. I don't know yet which team I will be assigned to or if I will be put in a team with any of the others from my training cohort. I could very well end up by myself. It's that kind of exciting/nerve wracking feeling, as I will shortly be dealing with the christmas rush as well as getting to know new colleagues whilst still learning. I'm certainly not confident/stupid enough to think I know everything yet.

The second reason why I will look on this as a week of endings as I finally recieved the last bits of paperwork and other bits and pieces from my old job. Which I kinda guess because the official 'end' on the almost seven years I spent there even though I officially ended there a month ago and left the office for the last time almost two months ago. It wasn't as weird as I thought, as I guess I've gotten used to what happened. Time and the world have moved on, there's no point on dwelling on it. I've seen what happens to people who were let go from that company who can't let it go. It ain't pretty.

Even if it's very weird to see photos from the office on facebook. A new one went up today and my first thought was " Oh you can't see my desk" then of course I thought, no wait it's no longer my desk. I also noticed that when somebody asked me about my old job today I used the term they rather then we.

Anyway, moving on.

We had a sharp frost this morning which meant another frantic search high and low for the de-icer which took me a long time to find. Mainly as th last time I used it I actually put it in thec ar so I'd know where it was, then promptly forgot where I put it. Even with the de-icer it took a long time to clear the windscreen. One of the guys at work said he had used boiling water to clean his windscreen and seemed surprised when we told him you should never do that. He then proceeded to ask lots of others and seemed even more surprised when he got the same answer from everyone.

The weathermen are forcasting a mild winter again but I'll believe that when I see it or in the case of the weather right now " Hear it". ( it's raining so I can hear the rain hitting the window even though it's dark outside.....dark at night what are the odds.)

Based on some comments I've recieved from people in relation to a post from a few days ago it seems that my superhero alter ego superpower would be to leap out of bed in a morning in a single bound, Monday mornings would be kryptonite, the chink in my armour would that I don't know everything at my new job yet, I'm a womanizer and I speak like Duffman from the Simpsons. I guess that would make me Saxon Man and I would have to speak in the third person.

Saxon man says he wouldn't be the best superhero but he would still be great..... oh yeah.....

Later folks.

Sure as Sure can be

Theres been two main things about today that I've found annoying. Firstly it's got even colder and I don't like being cold. But we have managed to sort out the automatic timer on the central heating so at least it comes on and warms the house up before I get up in the morning.

Secondly it's certainly been 'one of those days' when everything seemed to go well if not wrong, not right. Or to put it another way I seemed totally unable to catch even the smallest of small breaks.

I think though I'll just follow Grumpys advice in this situation, as well as my new attempted optomisitic outlook and just forget it and move on. Onwards and upwards, forwards not back, looking to the future, insert generic inspiring cliche here etc.

I have to admit that I am finding it easier to maintain a optomistic attitude more of the time ( no really) but in a way it's down to my new job in that if I was to get downhearted and pessimistic I would find it very difficult to turn it around as the workload is just so constant. I would probably just spend me time hiding under my desk.

Or to put it another way I tihnk I'm getting better at not dwelling on anything that goes wrong or anything I can't change.

In geek news Torchwood is coming back. Yessssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Woo hoo! Awesome! It's great because it would have been so mean to leave it where they did at the end of season 3. Although it does mean that there will be new team members. Although I don't know if people should forgive Jack for what he did at the end of season three. Making a heavily pregnant women walk up a very tall hill is not the sort of gallant thing we should expect from Captain Jack harkness.

Although I'll love to see if Torchwood will be 'out in the public view'as it were or if they have to come up with one heck of a explanation as to why theres now a giant crater in the middle of cardiff.

We have our institute christmas meal on Friday. In a serious break from tradition we're actually going out for a meal. Whether or not this is down to the fact that Brother H had some spare budget or the girls just didn't want to risk the guys cooking is still a matter of debate.

Anyway,

Later folks.

Well at least it's later then the shops

I was a little surprised this morning to find we were singing Christmas carols in sacrement. I know Christmas is fast aproaching but we're not even in December yet! Well if we've started singing Christmas carols at Church I'm sure the relentless barrage of christmas songs on the radio will start any day now.

All the talks were given by the bishopric this morning which was different but we were worried when one of them started their talk but basically saying we should blame the bishop for him speaking. Now I could be wrong but I'm fairly certain that starting a talk bytelling everyone who to blame for you speaking is not the best way to create a impression.

Our Sunday school lesson somehow took a rather large left turn into talking about politics. No, I have no idea how we got to that point either. But at least for the first time the classroom was actually warm as opposed to the corridors being boiling hot and the classroom doing a good impression of a block of ice.

As it was the fifth sunday of the month our final lesson was a joint between relief society and priesthood as was about 'relationships', between members of the ward as opposed to couples. There was a story using a analogy about people giving away " Warm and fuzzy's" which made others feel good before a evil witch tricked them and so from then on they only gave away " Cold and prickleys" I think the point of the story was that we should all be warm and fuzzy towards each other. It was at that point that the teacher asked for suggestions as to what were the most important things in forming relationships. Physics wanted to put his hand up to say " Warm and fuzzys" but photoshop interjected before he did and told him he should be more precise. Which of course physics being physics he immediatly decided to be and started asking what scale of temperature he should use to measure " Warm and fuzzies", how they would be stored and what their relation was to Cold and prickleys material wise.

Fortunatly Photoshop gets physics sense of humour.

Physics has also started to nickname me " Womanizer". When I asked him why he said it was because I had, had more girlfriends then him. But then added he was more successful as he had got a 100% success rate from the efforts he had put into dating. I pointed out that he had told me he hadn't had any girlfriends, which he confirmed and said that proved that he had got 100% success rate from his efforts he had put into dating, which was no effort at all.

So we had philosphy, dating tips, politics and discussion on the material properties of things which didn't exist. Church is always more fun when physics is around.

anyway,

Later folks.

Look to the skies

I remember someone ( as to who it was, I can't remember their identity has lost since been lost to the mists of time) once making a joke that they reckoned that the weathermen only guessed at the weather and must never stick their heads outside when they do so because if they did they would be accurate a lot more.

I was reminded of this comment as I read a article in the newspaper which weatherman have predicted that we will continue to have a very mild winter. Mild? They call this mild? When it's been so cold we had to put the central heating on at 3pm then crank it up by 4pm as it was getting cold. This is there idea of mild? What's their idea of a cold winter? The Day after tomorrow!

Okay so today hasn't been anywhere close to the Day after tomorrow but it's been very cold indeed, a your feet remain cold all day kinda cold.

Apparently the bookshop borders has had to call in the recievers which is not good as there my favourite bookshop! If they go under that will leave only Waterstones which although okay are not as good store for store as borders are/were. Delete as appropriate depending on what happens.

Asides from the cold weather it's been a bit of a non descript day really. I've just generally been taking it easy and enjoying having a day to myself to do what I please.

Anyway

Later folks

Cut from a Different cloth

One of the strangest thing I've been getting used to over the past couple of weeks is the 'difference' in the customer base I now have to deal with. The basic customer cliches and stereotypes that I've dealt with over the past seven years are still present but in my new role I'm finding some new ones, plus there always seems to be slight variations on the old cliches as well.

It's proving to be a interesting learning experience.

That's assuming trying to get the hang of everything doesn't send me bonkers first.

Apparently we're going to be seeing the mid season of finale of Flashforward in the UK before the USA. I was really interested in the series when it started but now, well it's starting to feel really long and drawn out. I think the decision to expand it to a full season of 20 episodes is having a rather negative affect on the show.

From what I read Stargate universe seems to be developing okay. However the chances of it appearing on a terrestial TV channel seem slim to none! But at least they show chuck on Virgin one so there's still something scifi based to watch.

Speaking of things to watch it looks like my next big challenge will be to persude Grumpy to buy a new DVD player as the old one seems to have completely packed up for no obivous reason whatsoever.

It's also been a bit bittersweer today as I recieved in the post some sample copies of the last marketing material I wrote for my last job. I had copies of all the others I had done so I was keen to have a copy of the last one and they were kind enough to send me a couple of copies as I wanted to have a full set. Granted I'll probably never use them for anything but it's nice to have them to at least remind myself that I was writing material that was used worldwide. It is a bit weird to think that a project I started and helped define and wrote is and will go on without me.

It seems a lot longer then two months ago when I left the office for the last time. It's not been a easy few weeks but I think I'm now back on the level as it were. The way I've been approaching my modelling has changed significantlly as my hobby has changed from being my job back into well just a hobby.

So my jobs now my job, my hobby is now well just my hobby and I guess I'll figure the rest of my life out at some point :-) I may know a lot but I've still got a lot to learn.

Later folks.

Judge not

We're all quite experienced in judging. Not the kind where you sit behind a big desk in court, rather with simple every day things. Judging how long we need to cook the veg, how much water needs to go in the bath and how long can we lie in bed before we have to get up.

(This isn't a random waltz off onto a tangent already, I am going somewhere with this)

I have been getting experiencing in perfecting my judging skills this week in catching the bus to and from the car park at work. If I judge it too early I'm out of the car too early and have to wait in the cold for the bus to make it from one end of the car park to the other, if I judge it too late I'm left to skuttle across the car park to catch the darn thing before it leaves.

Alas my judging skills are still far from perfect and I find myself shivering whilst waiting for it to arrive most mornings despite my new new winter coat.

Oh well, not really the end of the world is it :-)

It was extremely busy today at work but it was also a lot of fun. I'm really feeling like I'm starting to find my feet and my latest round of stats which showed that yesterday I managed my first day with out making any errors was a real boost.

I did go out hometeaching this evening however despite making a appointment the family we were going to visit weren't in. Which although annoying wasn't the end of the world either. At least we went.

Well one more day until the weekend.

Later folks

Smoking Bright

I feel like I should be writing this post whilst wearing sunglasses as it's rather bright in Grumpys office right now. Mainly because the light blub blew earlier and Grumpy decided to replace it but somehow managed to replace it with one which is a lot more powerful.

So everything looks a bit bright and stark right now.

Grumpy's also just put his head round the door to ask me to keep an eye on the lightshade in here as he's started to worry that the lightblub is so bright it might get too hot for the lightshade to handle!

It's been a long day today. Work was great though as there were a wide variety of things to do and to learn. It was afterwards which was the struggle as my energy levels seemed to go flat pretty darn quickly for some reason.

Which may well be in part to me not being totally used to my new work patterns yet and the fact that the last few weeks have been pretty full on and busy. I'll just need to plan better when to work and when to make time to rest and play :-)

And on that cliche I think I'll end it for today.

Later folks.

Anyone responsible for Health and Safety look away now

Humour searching

I was back in training today ( a day earlier then I was expecting but c'est la vie I guess if you misread your training schedule d'oh!) for the next stage of well training. Not a huge surprise I know that I was in training to receive training. I'm sure you would have been more impressed if I was in training to recieve next weeks lottery numbers but never mind.


So with a lot of new training it's going to be a interesting three days as we'll be once again turning the theory into practise.


Still if my system skills still need working the one thing where I'm doing great in is my customer service skills, which should be the case after almost seven years of practise. I'm just gonna have to work on merging the two together no matter how frustratingly long that might take. But as Drat says every hero needs a chink in their armour so I guess system weakness is mine for now. Granted not as cool as something like kryptonite but c'est la vie again I guess :-)


But if I have a superhero style weakness what would be my superhero powers? Any suggestions anyone? ( nice ones only please :-)


I'm going to have to try and figure out Grumpys alarm clock this morning as he set it on Friday to get up early, turned it off successfully then somehow managed to turn it back on and couldn't turn it off. The things so loud it woke me up at 6am this morning and I spent three fruitless minutes trying to turn off my alarm clock before finally waking up enough to realise that the ringing alarm clock wasn't mine!


Anyway,

Later folks.

Strange but true

As my new job is very target focussed we get a sheet every day which measures us on the previous days stats. I was happy to get that my hard work is starting to pay off finally as the number of errors I made on Friday made a sharp decrease from the previous day. Yes I know it's early but I'm hoping that it could mean that a new 'system' I tried on Friday is working. I guess I'll find out tomorrow when I get todays stats.

It did help to cheer me up enormously as it was a tough day today. So finding out your not making as many mistakes. Strange but true :-) There will probably be more earth shattering discoveries along these lines as the week wears on such as Water is wet and fire is hot.

Stay tuned.

Katie price aka Jordan has apparently left the jungle after being nominated to yet another task on I'm a celebrity ( apparently she has done all of them). Well you know what that see, live by the sword and you'll get nominated to do a lot of horrible things but a british public who don't like you.

Grumpys luck with electronic goods seems to be continuing as the DVD player has stopped working. Of course right at the moment when he actually wanted to watch one of his DVD's. D'oh!

The weather was once again rather yucky today as it rained. Rather a lot. It was one of those days when you feel very sorry for anyone who smokes as you see them outside trying to get in a quick fag break.

It was also a noteworthy date in that today was the day when I offically changed from being a temporary staff member to a permanant one. Yah me! Not that it made any difference in the slightist to my usual work but it was still a nice thing to contemplate.

Oh one last thing before I forget. I appreciate all of my regular readers and commenters and one of the most regular to leave comments is Drat. Well Drat has had some good news recently and has got engaged. So congratualtions to the Drat from the Saxon and just remember once that ring goes on her finger... you'll never be right or be able to win a arguement again :-)

Later folks.

Deep in the Dark depths

I've been sitting in front of the computer wondering what to write for a while now. It's not been my usual problem that I have from time to time of suffering from a complete writers block it' more the exact opposite. I have so much stuff rattling around in my head I don't know where to being or even if it will make sense once it emerges from the deep dark depths of my mind.

Well I suppose I should just try and keep things simple.

Like me.

I've got two more days of 'basic work' before I and the rest of my training cohort go back into training for specialist well training. After that we'll be doing 'normal work' which should prove to be an interesting challenge.

Not that the basic work isn't proving to be a challenge as it's proving a bit hard to get to grips with all of the multitude of bits and pieces, and it was proving to be a bit frustrating on Friday. Grumpy did point out that I was likely being far too hard on myself as nobody going to be perfect after only four days and should just accept that it might take a little while to get everything exactly right.

Speaking of Grumpy his mobile phone has turned up. Huray! Although the circumstances of it's reappearence seem as baffling as those of it's disappearance. It might well turn into one of those enduring family mysteries. Just where did the phone go for a week?

anyway,

Later folks.

Maybe a blood hound would be a good idea

Grumpy is a litte annoyed at the moment as he has managed to misplace his mobile. And by misplace of course I mean that he's lost it somewhere. Of course irony couldn't a miss a opportunity like this so Grumpy managed to misplace it while he didn't have it switched on. D'oh!!

He did ask Owen if he could find it. Owen gave him a look which seemed to say " what am I? A bloodhound?"

It's been another rotten day weatherwise, with it being overcast and rainy, not to mention a little windy near enough all day. Still I suppose we shouldn't complain as at least it's not as bad as it has been in other areas of the uk.

Apparently the latest series of I'm a celebrity is rapidly turning into the 'torture jordan show' as she's ended up doing every trial so far. I guess she should have really expected that was going to happen shouldn't she?

Strangely enough Marmite has been in the news today for two reasons. The first is that they will be releasing a new extra strong version next year. The second is that a petrol station has stopped stocking marmite in their shop after a shop lifter keeps stealing all the marmite they put on the shelves. Nobody knows why he keeps doing these. One theory is that he has a pregnant wife who has some really, really strong cravings.

If she keeps eating that much marmite she probably won't have many taste buds left either.

anyway,

Later folks

Dressing up to dress down

It was dress down and work and it was for charity. Children in need to be precise which for those of my readers who don't know is a big charity event which is held every year nationwide and they do a special broadcast on the BBC all night where people ring in donate etc.

My first thought o nthe bus in the way into the office this morning was " I'm not going to get any cake" as at my old place they always had a cake sale.

Needn't have worried about that when I got to the office they had cake, lots of cake, lots and lots and lots of cake. Well you get the idea. Of course with it always being so busy the only real charge you got to eat anything was during your breaks, so they tended to be groups of people chowing down on cake as fast as possible.

the other thing I didn't realise was that there was a theme for the dress down day which was " Fame" the original not the remake. Most people came in 'regular' dress down clothes but some people took to the fame theme with relish which meant it was difficult to know where to look sometimes.

Plus it did mean I was starting to feel distinctly overdressed which is quite a weird thing to feel on a dress down day!

I wonder what the theme will be for the next big charity dress down day which will probably be red nose day. Why Saxon? I hear all/some/none of you cry why are you concerned with that as that's months away and your only there till Christmas. Well not anymore. They have decided to offer me a permanant postion there and I decided to accept the offer. So I am now officially permantly back in employment.

I think that it's a certain yah me! moment don't cha think?

Anyway,

Later folks.

One of those days. Not one of those though, more one of those

I was thinking today,

Yes I know never a good sign or to quote a disney character " A Dangerous pass time I know"

The phrase one of those days is quite odd really. Because there's no real metre stick to define what a one of those days has to be like to be one of those days.

Not to mention everybody has their own definition of what one of those days means to them and because a day is one of those days to one person doesn't mean that it is one of those days to another.

Then of course there's the fact that each person's definition of what one of those days is can also change.

So can anybody know what one of those days truly is? and isn't the truth that every day is going to be "one of those days" to someone.

Confused yet? I know I am

But then again this is the kind of confusing place that my mind can wonder to sometimes as it did this evening whilst I was on the minibus back to the car park. I have had what can be described as one of those days according to my definition of the term.

Difficult customers I can handle easily enough, after seven years I've had a lot of practise at it. It's when I don't know what to doto resolve a situation is when I start to find things difficult as you want to help but you know you can't. Although I think this is something that will get easier with practise in my new role as I start to learn all the nuts and bolts of the new system.

It's dress down day at work tomorrow in support of children in need which means you have to donate in order to dress down which I don't mind as it is for charity after all. One of my colleagues was pleased to remember it was on as when we had the last dress down day he forgot. Although I did point out that it was better to dress up when it was dress down then dressing down when it was time to dress up!

Anyway,

Later folks.

It's funny what you can miss

There's a saying I heard once and it went along the line of, you'll always miss something unless your actually looking for it. I am paraphrasing there because for once my usually good memory has deserted me. It's true of my new company as I never really noticed their vehicles before and now I work for them, I see the darn things everywhere.

Connected with that I've also suddenly woken up to the fact of just how many transport couriers and lorries there are on the roads. It's weird to 'suddenly' see them as they've always been there and it's not like they've just appeared on the roads. Unless we're in some crazy real life version of the truman show but I digress.

It's been a fun day if a very very long one as I spent a lot of the day on the road as it were getting experience of the 'front end of the front lines'.

It was very educational and not just from a work perspective. Seeing the roads from a van drivers perspective rather then a car drivers perspectives throws up all sorts of points that you don't think of as a car driver.

The area we were in had a lot of old builders which had decorative stones which said things like " This stone was layed by Mrs such and such in 1890 whatever" again paraphrasing there if you hadn't guessed. It made me wonder about the history which had gone on in those buildings and just what would the people who laid those stones made of the city today.

Weather wise it was a horrible horrible day, really wet and and windy. On the plus side my new coat was brilliant and I did not get cold at all. So I think I made a wise investment there.

Well I was about due for one.

Anyway,

Later folks.

Sit tall stand straight

Another one of those things that I'm having to get used to at my new job is how I sit. Or to put it another way I'm actually have to sit up and straight the entire time. Mainly because I'm so busy you can't slouch as you have to be alert and focussed 110%. Which of course I know is impossible as by it's very definition you can only give 100% but lets not get into that little debate right now.

I have to admit yesterday my back hurt, today not so much so I'm hoping it shouldn't hurt at all by the end of the week. I also got a good shot of confidence when I recieved my stats for my first day and found that my accuracry rate was at a pretty impressive 96% for my first day. I had only made two errors and both of them were relatively 'simple' ones so I know what to keep an eye out for in future.

In case you haven't guessed I am really starting to really enjoy myself. It's very hard work but it certainly is a interesting challenge.

anyway that's it for today. Yes I know it's a short post but I need to get to bed early as I have a 'trip out' with work as it were tomorrow which means I have a very, very early start.

Later folks.

I see girls

There are always differences between companies no matter how similar the fields their in. There are also a lot of differences between my new job and my old one which isn't surprising considering my old place was about as good a example of extreme niche as you can get. The fact that it's closer, I now get home before 6pm and I have to wear grown up clothes to work are just a few of the differences.

The other difference is the sheer amount of girls at my new place. In fact I think they outnumber the guys which might not sound like a big thing but at my last place the ratio was significantlly in the other direction as the GW hobby has always been a more male dominated place. And that's not being sexist just a simple fact.

I have to admit I found today very hard with it being my first full day on the phones dealing with customers. Despite my new found sense of optimism in most things I was not feeling too good by mid day and was having one of those deeply pessimistic bouts that I have had in the past, Why am I here? Why am I doing this? I can't do this.. etc, etc, etc,etc.

Still by early afternoon I was starting to feel a lot better about things and finished the day feeling a lot more confident with a sense of what do you know? I can do this!

I had a slight detour on the way home to geektown, well I say slight it was into Loughborough as one of my colleagues from the training group was going to wait for a bus but she wasn't sure she had enough money for the bus and it was getting cold etc, so with that deeply ingrained sense of gentlemaness I have I gave her a lift home as there was no way I was going to feel comfortable knowing I had left a lady out in the cold.

Grumpy and I headed up to Leicester this evening as i needed to do a bit of clothes shopping. Yes you read that right I was going to spend money on clothes before I needed to, i.e worn the previous ones out! Shock story, news at 11!

We also popped into borders where I actually managed to find a couple of novels that I wanted to read. I steadfastly ignored the stupidly large section on Twilight. I am so not going to read that series! just because it was written by a mormon!

anyway,

Later folks!

Be honest

No matter how good your intentions it's inevitable that at some point you will find it very hard to concentrate in a church meeting.

My concentration levels in stake conference this morning were not helped by two things. Firstly the sun shining through the side windows at the top of the cultural hall which meant I had to sit at a very odd angle to keep the sunlight out of my eyes. The second thing was the stupidly large box of cookies that two young lads in front of me were chowing down on for the entire session.

It's hard to concentrate when all you can smell is choclate chip.

The new special of Doctor who this evening was very good and a bit scary as well. If there are any parents out there whose children found it hard to deal with statues after watching the episode 'blink' well if you let them watch " Waters of Mars" good luck getting them to have a bath!

It was a intensly thought provoking episode and very intense as well. The scene when the Doctor starts walking away from the base listening to the radio chatter as the colonists start to get infected one by one almost had me shouting at the screen demanding he get back in there and save them fixed point in time or not.

I'm not going to say anymore as I wouldn't want to spoil anything for Scully or anyone else who hasn't seen it.

I really can't wait for the two parter at Christmas.

Well it's Monday tomorrow and my first full week of work lies ahead. I've been contemplating why I found Friday hard and I realised after someone else pointed something out to me that maybe the problem is ( and not to sound arogant or anything) I've spent so long at being the best at something that I've forgotten to accept that I may not be perfect at everything. If that makes any sense.

I'm just going to try and learn from all of my mistakes, move on, not make them again and most importantly not dwell on them.

The last one might be the hardest.

But I guess I'll just have to try and see if this new found optomism of mine will overcome my old pessimism.

Later folks.

Why am I awake again?

I was rather annoyed at myself this morning for waking up at 7am and then trying and failing to get back to sleep. It's a saturday I don't have to be up that early. I shouldn't be up that early!

It probably wouldn't have been that annoying if I had a book I wanted to read but I didn't. I know that say sound strange considering I have several shelves full of books but most of them are history books and I have to be in the right frame of mind to read those. What I need and am lacking it right now is a good novel.

When I had my clear out a few weeks ago ( which I'm contemplating refering to as the great book cull 09 :-) I got rid of most of the novels which had been on my shelves. So with that, combined with it being several months before a new BL book I haven't read comes along and a general seeming lull in other SF books I want to read I'm struggling to find a good novel to buy/read.

Any suggestions anyone?

It's been very rainy and windy today but we seem to have missed most of the storms which were forecast for today. Apparently they've hit more 'down south'.

We were in Loughborough today and the fair was practically empty. Yes it may have been the daytime but it's usually busy then it was. I guess the bad weather is really hitting them this year.

Asides from that it's been a pretty quiet day.

Boring I know but sometimes have a boring day is just what you need.

Later folks.

Smile please

May you live in interesting times

If I remember correctly the phrase " may you live in interesting times" or words to that effect is supposed to be a ancient chinese curse.

And today has certainly been an interesting time.

I was on the front lines for the first time today as it were and I have to admit it was really hard. Especially as I seemed to be stuck getting difficul call after difficult call. Although fortunatly I wasn't the only one finding things difficult as my colleagues were also having problems as well as we all tried to put the classroom work into 'reality' for the first time. We all freely admited afterwards that we were all sure that we had made errors. Still that's part of the learning process, we've just got to make sure we don't do them again.

Of course this also highlighted a small downside to having such a good memory as it seemed keen to replay every error I had made in exact perfect detail on the way home.

Still it's the weekend now and I will follow Grumpys advice of trying to forget about it until Monday morning as theres no point dwelling on things over the weekend.

Surprise, surpise it's raining again and according to the weather reports it will do all weekend as the biggest storms of the year arrive. I guess this means that theLoughborough Fair will be a bit of a wash out ( no pun intended).

Jordan is due to go back into the jungle in the next series of I'm a celebrity get me out of here. Before anyone gets too excited I'm afriad that I must give you some bad news. They won't be leaving her there, she will be coming back to England.

There was a news report yesterday about the first women to join the red arrows (acrobratic display team for anyone who doesn't know). I found it amusing that the news reporters were trying to be as politically correct as possible by listing reasons such as Ingrained prejudice, tradation and g suits not designed for women as all possible reasons why theres never been a Female red arrow before. It seemed like they didn't dare say the other possible reason for why there's never been one before, there's not been a Female pilot good enough before to join.

Anyway,

Later Folks

Just Breathe

I would be lying if I said I wasn't feeling at least a small sliver of nervousness about tomorrow. Not a full blown panic attack of wanting to go and hide under a table whilst screaming that the sky is falling, but theres still a small sense of nervousness there as I will be on the 'frontlines' as it were for the first time tomorrow afternoon and it's going to be tough.

Plus it is Friday 13th and as long time readers will know Irony does like to mess with me something bad.

Still there will be four of us going live at the same time and nothing helps to reduce the scaryness of a situation like not facing it alone. We decided on the best bit of advice for all of us to bear in mind tomorrow afternoon, if something goes wrong don't panic just breathe! then go from there.

It's been raining again quite badly today. I think one of my main tasks for the weekend is to find a decent winter coat to wear over a suit jacket otherwise I can see myself potentially getting very cold and or wet whilst waiting for the buses in the morning and evening.

I've been doing a small amount of model making this week. I've found that I'm slowly starting to increase the amount I'm doing again but I am taking more time with the construction process. Whether it's because I feel I've got time now or more that I'm trying to make things last as it's gonna cost a lot more is something I've yet to decide on.

Anyway,

Later folks.

Technical difficulties

Despite the fact that all of the gadgets we have around these days that are supposed to make our lifes easier we seem to spend more time trying to solve problems with them then we do using them. For example our printer this evening has decided to throw a massive hissy fit and refuse to work for no obivous reason.

Which is more then a little frustrating when your trying to print something off.

The urge to throw it from the window is almost overwhelming right now.

It's been another rather hard day of training as we're into some very complicated stuff right now. I was starting to feel a bit frustrated by mid afternoon with some of it as I was having a bit of trouble trying to get a grasp of it and I did feel like banging my head on the desk in frustration at one point. But I reflected that if I can grap the process of how a Space marine is created then I can sure as hell grasp this.

Maybe there's something to be said for this optomism thing.

anyway,

Later folks

Habit Forming

It wasn't foggy this morning but it was rather rainy. I suppose I shouldn't complain really as it could have been a lot worse and been icey instead!

The rain did mean that I had to judge exactly when to get out of the car and make the dash across the car park to the bus to arrive there in enough time not to miss in and be left in the rain.

Yes I do think too much about some things I know.

It's been another hard day of training today. Fortunatly things are falling into place and I'm not feeling as nervous as I was about going 'live' on Friday even if it will be on Friday 13th. Who planned that anyway?

Whilst listening in on some 'live' calls today I realised how easy it has been to form new habits to replace the old work habits I had from my last place. I now don't even notice that I'm wearing a shirt and tie ( aka grown up clothes) as opposed to more casual clothes.

I did realise this morning whilst trying to find a book to take with me to read on my breaks that it's going to be a little while before a BL book will be released that I haven't read! I think it will be February the 13th before I'll be able to buy one I haven't read. And having to buy one will be a who new and strange experience!

In geek news apparently there's a chance that the character of the Black Cat could be appearing in Spiderman 4. I'm sure there considering the character as she's a well rounded character and not for the skin tight outfits she usually wears.

Well I guess if Iron Man 2 gets the blackwidow good ole spidey can get away with the Black cat.

anyway,

Later Folkd

Misty!

The day started somewhat unexpectly as not only had the car iced over, overnight it was also rather foggy as well. So this in turn lead to a lot of detective work as I tried to remember just where I had put all of my de icing kit for the car in the garage.


I also heard the new britney spears song on the radio on the way into work. I am starting to wonder if she is suffering from the same syndrome that Jordan suffers from, the " Look at me everybody, look at me right now!!!!!!" considering the shall we say subject matter of the song.


It was a very busy day of training as we've got a lot to cram in beyond we move into our first 'real experience' of dealing with customers on the phones on Friday afternoon. And don't worry we're already more then aware of the irony that we will be 'live' for the first time on Friday the 13th.

I have found training on the new system a bit hard to begin with but that's mainly because I automatically keep going to use the same keyboards shortcuts as I've been using for the past seven years and as it's a different system unsurprisingly they don't work.

It was rather foggy this evening as well when I left work but it's a bit easier then normal driving in Fog in that area as your not exactly short of light sources at the airport.

I'm getting to used to going to work now in grown up clothes, i.e shirt and tie. It's also a bit weird at how 'normal' it seems to be there. I thought it would take a lot longer to get used to it. Maybe it's just my new attempts at maintaing a optomistic nature, or just accepting the inevitable and not dwelling on things that I can not change.

It certainly has been interesting meeting and working with people from outside of the 'hobby'. So I suppose you could say that as well as now having to wear grown up clothes, I having grown up conversations.

Wow that's a scary thought :-)

Later folks

Back and Forth

Today has been slightly longer then the usual Sunday as I've ben doing a lot of going back and forth. Back and forth to wakefield to be exact.


My Brother in Law was baptised earlier this week and was confirmed as a member of the church this morning. I managed to make it just in time for the service thanks to what seems like a never ending series of roadworks that are slowly creeping up and down the M1 in what seems like some sort of evil plot by a mastermind who has come up with a evil plot despite having lost the plot sometime ago. What makes said roadworks all the more annoying is that their usually several miles long ( one series is almost up to 20 miles), the speed is reduced to 50 mph and they usually have average speed cameras. Which means you have to watch your speed like a hawk the entire time. But I digress ( nothing new there)


What I hadn't been aware of until Friday was that as well as my Brother in law being confirmed his two youngest children were both being blessed as well. Which made it a even more special day.


Now for all the non church members who are wondering exactly what I'm blithering on about by the term 'blessing' well I suppose the best way to describe it is our equivilant of a christening. Although both of my nieces were 'a bit older' then children usually are when they get blessed.

It was fun spending the afternoon with my nieces and nephews. Although I discovered that one of my nephews was convinced that I was older then his Mum (multi-task) and was shocked that I was 'only' 28. I'm sure there was a compliment in that belief somewhere but for who is another matter.

It's a start of a new week tomorrow which means another week of training which should be fun.

As long as I can remember it all.

anyway,

Later folks,

Not all that bothered

A lot of people are talking about the latest series of the X-factor and why the 'twins' are still in the competition. It is a topic that seems to be generated heated debate and even got a point where the PM event commented about it, obivously to show that he is 'with it'.

Me? Well I couldn't care less as I don't watch X factor and have no plans to start. I used to watch shows like that when the 'in show' was 'Popstars' ( remember hearsay anyone?) but quickly grew tired of them. Some people enjoy watching all of the terrible singers but all I can think is wonder if all of their families hate them as why else would they let them go onto a national TV and humilate themselves. Surely it would have been better to sit them down and just tell them honestly that they suck at singing.

We've had the heating on for a large part of today as dispite the bright sunshine we've have it's been very, very cold. I guess we are into winter good and proper. Still at least with Winter you know your going to get the weather your supposed to. I.e Cold weather as oppposed to the random weather we can get in other seasons.

It was very funny this morning as Grumpy was getting ready to take Owen out for his walk. Owen was getting all excited and was walking around and around Grumpys legs. Grumpy finally told Owen to stop as he would get dizzy or at the very least go the other way. At which point Owen promply starting to pace around his legs the other way.

Despite the fair not starting till Wednesday the first of the rides have started to arrive as the laybys between Geek town and Loughborough are starting to fill up with Lorries.

It's been a interesting afternoon as I've been reviewing my training material. It's slowly starting to make sense but theres a lot to learn. Hopefully when we start our next round of training on Monday it should get even easier as we're moving away from the theory side into the practical side of things.

Should be fun.

Later folks.