Didn't really need to know that thank you

Well the warmest day of the year dawned all too early this morning as it had been quite a restless night for me as probably like most people I kept waking up of the heat and humidity and when I wasn't waking up I was having some darn weird dreams, as I don't think you would usually find the muppets clear a space craft with a group of space marines.

I'm really, really not liking this hot weather.

Trying to get out of the road this morning was interesting as yesterday they resurfaced it however because of the hot weather the tar hadn't tried so there were stones flying everywhere. And if that wasn't enough I was dumbfounded to see that they have put up a sign on one of the lamp post warning people to keep to 20 mph in our cul de sac because of the loose chippings. Why they thought this was needed I have no idea as our road is tiny, you barely make two mph went backing out of the driveway and leaving. If I tried to do 20 mph I would be in the kitchen of the house across the road in under a second!

I wish they'd credit some of us with intelligence.

Work at my secondment was once again very interesting and quite successful today which I was feeling quite pleased about. I was also feeling quite pleased about the AC units in the shop. Even so I was drinking fluid by what I can best describe as darn near the bucket full as I put away at least 2 litres of water at a minimum, I basically lost count after after the third bottle full.

Coming home was a a slightly distrubing experience as I ended up stuck on a seat with a pair of old people in front and on the seat behind me who seemed to be intend on hitting all of the old people stereotypes you can think of. The ones in front were talking about their health problems quite loudly and the ones behind were talking about what one of their grand daughters had been getting up to and their views of young people as a whole. Needless to say neither conversation was one I especially wanted to hear.

Anyway,

Later folks!

Where has all the common sense gone?

It's been the hottest day of the year so far so of course I'm sure that most people did what most people here in the UK do when it gets hot and humid. Spent most of the day moaning about it. To be fair howevert I am also in that group as I do not enjoy hot sticky weather like this in the slightist. Heat I can deal with, it's the humid 'closeness' which drives me battey.

We went into loughborough early as I had to go to the post office as it was time to give the government some more money for the privilage of driving my Car. Yes it was time to get another road tax disc ( the MOT is also due this month) however due to a appalling lack of common sense in the post office it turned into a bit of a slog in a building with no air con!

Usually when you get a MOT certificate from the garage you get a nice computer print out on a green form. However the last time I had a MOT their printer had broken so they issued me with a hand written one on a red form and although it said emergency MOT certificate they assured me that I could change for a green one at a later date or just leave it as it would be okay for the whole year. Indeed six months ago when I got my last tax disc it was no problem. However this time was someone different as the lady behind the counter seemed totally unable to grasp the fact that it was okay that the form wasn't green and started to argue with me that it wasn't a MOT certificate and that the sentence on the top of the form that sent it had been issued as the computised tester was down meant that I had only a 'partial MOT' certificate which meant it had only passed in certain areas and not the areas which required a computer to test.

By this point I was getting very hot and very annoyed with this women and tried to tell her politily as possible that she was wrong as there is no such thing as a 'partial' certificate. The MOT is basically a car safety check and they won't only test half the things. She proceeded to tell me with her best condescending smile that she was right and I was wrong. I then explained that they had accepted the certificate last time and it was fine then. She then gave me a look like I had insulted one of her children and said it couldn't have been as it wasn't a valid MOT certificate and the title " Emergecy MOT certificate" meant it was only valid in emergency situations when the full testing couldn't be done.

By then I was ready to start banging my head up and down on the counter as I wondered if this women could hear herself or if she was some form of advanced robot. Usually I try to be very sympathic towards people in customer service as I know what it's like to be in their shoes but this women had somehow managed to exhaust my patience. I decided to go for difficult and told her that seeing as it had been accepted last time and the garage who were very well experienced in what was and was not a valid MOT certificate said it was fine could she double check. She glared at me and said she would have to check in the book and walked off. I refrained from making any jokes about the bible.

She came back to the counter two minutes later and started talking to the trainee who she had been well training and started to tell him how to issue a tax disc without talking to me which let me quickly realise that I was in the right and she had been very very wrong. Which almost cheered me up enough to not feel annoyed over having to pay the government more money just for the privilage of driving my own car!

We got home from shopping to discover we couldn't get into the road as some work men had turned up to re surface the road. On the hottest day of the year! That planning went well! Of course it wasn't tarmac they were laying rather those bits of stone which is probably a lot cheaper as they use cars to compact it down for them. Grumpy was most annoyed as we had to park out on the main road and thought it was bad that they hadn't given us any warning.

We got in to discover they had, sort of. They had sent us a leaflet to give us advance warning of the work to tell us it was starting on Monday and it arrived this morning which was Monday morning. D'oohh! The leaflet then told us that the road was going to be resurfaced and then waffled on in great detail about how great the council and goverment is by investing in road. It then told us that to find out the exact time of when the road would be surfaced and access to our house wouldbe restricted we could ask any of the workmen on site.

However we live in a cul de sac which has seven houses and the road is so small one lorry will fill it up. So it wouldn't have mattered even if we had gone to ask the workmen on site when they were starting as they started as soon as they turned up meaning that the road was blocked anyway. Again D'ooh! I'd think you'd agree.

Well it's the start of my second week of secondment tomorrow. It should be interesting.

Later folks!

Who am I? Where am I? These aren't my shoes?

When I woke up this morning I had what can best be described as a 'moment' when I couldn't for the life of me be sure of what day it was. Or as Grumpy put it 'your body clock wasn't just screwed up it was in pieces'.


Still after breakfast I was feeling much more alert. And by that I mean I could at least remember what day it was if nothing else.


Getting outside I noticed the first problem of the day. Not only was it hot it was sticky, very, very sticky. That's the main problem we have with British summers, it's not the heat per say it's more the very unpleasant stickyness that can result from the humidity. In fact they've issued a heatwave warning for this week with tempatures supposed to be getting up into the 30s.


This also lead to my other problem of the day, as during my secondment I've gotten used to standing on my feet for the whole day, even when painting! Painting whilst standing is a skill though I will not be using at home. When I sit down it's break time, so sitting in a very warm chapel listening to people speak it meant my eyes were starting to feel very very heavy and I spent a large portion of the rest of the days services trying to keep my eyes open. Fortunatly I didn't sucumb like one elder who in the EQ lesson made the mistake of leaning his head againist the wall whilst we listened to a recording of a talk and was asleep inside a couple of minutes.


We spent most of the afternoon walking Owen who still runs around in this heat like a complete nutcase. However the fields are now full of very tall crops so he had to run through them in leaps. So it is extremly funny to see him disappear into a field and then see this little head with flapping ears appear over the top of the crops as he runs around.


Owen nearly bit one of our home teachers this evening, as when you meet a new dog your supposed to offer them the back of your hand to sniff and this usually calms them down. However in Owens case this sends him berserk and he snaps the person. Our Home teacher forgot this from last time and offered this hand again. Fortunatly Grumpy had a firm hold of Owen and was able to yank him backwards just in time. We don't know why this sets Owen off, something must have happened to him long before we got him from the shelter.


I've seen the trailers for two interesting looking movies. Now the first is The Invention of lying starring Ricky Gervais. Now I'm not usually a fan of Mr Gervais but this film looks like it will be fairly funny ( if he keeps away from the low brow humour) and is basically about a man in a world where everybody always tells the truth discovering he can lie.

the second film was Daybreakers and is about a world where nearly everyone has been turned into vampires, so their all essentially immortal. The handful of humans remaing are harvested for Blood but they are running out and when their gone the vampires will starve. One vampire searching for a substitute is contacted by the Human resistance who have a plan to save the Human race. Several things have me excited about this film, firstly the case Sam Neil, William Dafoe, Eathan Hawke and others. Secondly it contains ideas that were first used in ultraviolet a vampire show on channel 4 that sadly never made it beyond one series and lastly the budge which is rumoured to be only in the 20 million dollar mark. This means that it's much more likely to have a strong story rather then relying on effects. But I guess we will wait and see.


Later folks!

All outta sync

Well my first week of my secondment is at a end and it's been a very interesting week. It's very different from my usual job and it's a lot harder then it appears at first glance but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

What is has reminded me of however is the one thing that I used to dislike about shift patterns rather then a Monday to Friday 9 to 5 is that it's very easy to loose track of 'week days' and 'weekends'. When I went to collect my car last night I was surprised to find one of the gates to the car park closed early and I couldn't figure out why they would close it early on a Thursday. It took me a few moments to remember that it was in fact Friday so of course it shuts early!

I'm sure I'll get used to it. Probably just as it finishes but I'm sure I'll do it :-) Of course I will still be getting a 'weekend' as I'll have Sundays and Mondays off apart from the one weekend Engineseer will be in Town and we're going to a airshow.

anyway, that's all for now folks, I'm off to rest my feet, have a nice cold drink and watch the TV.

Later folks!

Not much else to say

I'm sure any of you who have not been living under a rock or as a hermit in a deep dark cave would have heard about the main news item today, well pretty much everywhere. The death of Michael jackson. Now I'm not going to go on about his life, certain events etc as they will probably be covered in much more and much better detail by those who are better at writing then I am. You have to admit that his music was certainly unique and there will not be another artist like him. I think most people will probably remember where they were when they first heard the news.

I was just backing the car out of the drive this morning and turned the radio on to catch the end of one of his songs. My first thought was, oh there hasn't been a michael jackson song on the radio for sometime and that's quite a old song as well. It was at this point that the presenter came on and gave the news.

It also reminded me about the death of Princess Diana as I remember that well as Tapdance and I were in the car backing out of the drive ( what is it with that driveway, is it fated?) on the way to church and Grumpy had happened to leave the radio on the night before so it came straight on with people talking about the crash.

Asides from that the day has been pretty quiet. Work was good and very fun. I hate to sound like a broken record but I am really enjoying myself ( even if my feet sting) as it's a real challenge.

anyway,

Later folks!

Extra Time

I've found myself with extra time going to and from work this week when I can think and ponder as it's a lot easier to do waiting for a bus or sitting on a bus as opposed to when your driving yourself and have to concentrate on all those pesky things like watching the road and changing gears etc.

I've noticed that the bus stop I have to wait at to catch the bus on the way into town seems to be on a popular route for people jogging/walking/ stumbling along looking for all the world like their about to go into cardiac arrest any second. You never see any runners who look happy do you? Even those runners who actually run as opposed to jog always look throughly miserable.

I'm also getting to quite like travelling on the bus. It made me realise that it's probably not a case that the UK has a rubbish public transport system, it's more that the public transport we have is totally in the wrong place to be useful to a lot of people.

It's been another rather interesting day. Things are starting to get easier but it's still hard to remember everything that I should be doing. It is a challenge but it's one I am throughly enjoying!

I had my lunch outside as the basement was kinda full, not with stock but with sand as one of the guys had been sanding tables and as sand is not a good ingredient in sandwiches I decided to go and eat in the main square in the town centre. It was very nice and the sun was shining as I found a nice perch on one of the seats. It was very different watching the world go by and seeing the people playing in the fountains. It looked like a lot of fun and if I wasn't working I probably would have gone for a paddle like everyone else. However my peaceful lunch was then rudely interupted by a not very nice fellow who decided to sit next to me whilst talking with a friend and then proceeded to blow lots of cigarette smoke in my direction. As I didn't want to smell like a ashtray for the rest of the day I decided to spend the rest of my lunch walking around, doing some window shopping.

anyway,

Later folks!

Owww

One thing I was 'warned' about before I started my secondment was too make sure that I had some nice comfortable shoes as lets face it being on your feet for 7 and a half hours is somewhat different from sitting at a desk in front of a computer.

Still my feet didn't hurt so bad yesterday and they seemed fine today until I sat down on the bus to get back to HQ where I parked the car ( Yes I know it's complicated but it's cheap) and then it was just " Arrgghhhhh who replaced my feet with two feet shaped bits of pain" I am assured that in a few more days that should pass as I start to build up a tolerance.

The other interesting thing ( well it's interesting to me) is that my appertite seems to have disappeared during the day now, I struggled to finish my lunch yesterday and reduced it today by half and still struggled. However I am drinking a lot instead maybe that's because I'm on the move darn near constantly on maybe it's because it is quit close and hot this week whos knows? What I do know is that I'm very grateful for the stores AC.

I'm also having lots of fun as this secondment is proving to be far more of a interesting challenge then I first expected. There's a lot to learn and although it may be easy to do so it will be difficult to master in such a compressed space of time. But I'm looking forward to it.

anyway,

Later folks!

To the frontlines

Well it was day one of my secondment today. It was a little strange going to work but being able to get up later then usual, but then my internal clock will be all over the place by the end of the six weeks.

It was also very hot this morning. The real kind of sticky hot that means your sweating almost as soon as you get up. Which was not a nice feeling in the slightist. Still the advantage of going in slighter later then usual was that there was no traffic which I was glad of as this is not the sort of weather that you want to get stuck in a traffic jam.

Being in the store was interesting. There's a lot to learn and to be perfectly honest it's a lot harder then it looks. But it was fun and it will be a interesting challenge over the next six weeks.

I've been watching the news this evening and the row between us and Iran seems to be descending into a almost childish tit for tat. Last week Iran accused us of being Evil and we apparently lodged a formal protest which at the time I wondered if it would be something along the lines of " Uh-huh you are!", now Iran has expelled two of other diplomats and we are expelled two of theres. so I'm wondering when the hair pulling will start and the accusations that some one stole somebody elses marbles!

However one thing that struck me of really funny ( abet unintentially) was that Iran has accused the UK of being behind the civil disruptions there and it's all some part of a evil plan on our part. Evil plan? Our government can barely stop fighting among itself, barely agree on anything and most members of the public won't trust MPs farther then they can throw them and they think this is a government who is capable of co-ordinating a plan in secret to distablise another country! Whatever!

Later folks!

so near yet so far

Well transformers 2 or transformers Revenge of the Fallen to give it the offical name certainly wasn't a bad sequel. It was a lot of fun but narrowly missed out on being as good as the first. Why? Well it seems that the movie makers suffered from the same problem the makers of spiderman 3 suffered from with villians. They simply tried to stuff too many characters into the film.

Take the autobots for example, out of the characters from the first film only optimus prime and bumblebee recieved any real screen time. Ironhide appeared from time to time and I can't remember hearing ratchet speak once. Of the new autobots Sideswipe was more of a special effect then a character, Arcee was a complete waste with no explanation of why she could seperate into three bikes and the less said about the twins the better.

However despite this transformers was still a lot better as a sequel then spiderman 3. The effects were amazing and the plot was a lot better then some reviews have given it credit for. If there is a third film I think they need to remember that less is more and concentrate on turning some of the special effects into characters.

Very quickly

Just a quick post to say that I'm off out to see the new transformers movie. I'll let you know tomorrow what I think of it.

Asides from that the day has been pretty quiet. I've been keeping myself busy well doing nothing if I'm honest.

My first day of my secondment is tomorrow.

I can't wait.

Later folks!

The longest Day

I'm looking out of the office window as I read this. It's ten to ten in the evening and it's still very light. Apparently today is the longest day of the year after today the nights will draw in and it will start to get darker. Still it will be a little while before it starts getting dark real early so I guess we should just enjoy the rest of the summer. Especially as the weather service is forecasting a rather hot heatwave this week with temperatures around 30C. I wonder if I should try convincing Grumpy to lend me his car this week as it has proper AC as opposed to the KA where the AC is when I role down the windows!

Church was busy today as there was a wedding yesterday so as you can imagine there were a fair few extended family members still hanging around. The YSA class was also a bit unbalanced as the guys for once significantly outnumbered the girls!

It was also announced that as the students have gone home for the summer we're unlikely to be having YSA FHEs for the rest of the summer. Which is a shame as I was enjoying them. Hopefully we will still continue with some activites as it is summer and we might even be able to do some activities outside if the nice weather continues.

It's going to be odd tomorrow as I have the day off because as my secondment starts this week I will be working from Tuesday through to Saturday. So essentially I'm getting a extended weekend.

I got Grumpy a special edition of the complete stories of sherlock holmes for Fathers day. He seemed to be very happy with it even if he thought the first story was a bit ironic and he's now tempted to ask the Home teachers if they want to read it next time they come. His sense of humour is still as twisted as ever.

anyway,

Later folks!

Whole lotta bottle

I was woken up bright and early this morning. Unfortunatly I wasn't planning to wake up quite that early on purpose however. A bunch of crows had decided to peach on the roof and were crawing away at sunrise which as we're almost at the longest day is a time in the morning I do not want to see if I can avoid it.


Sometime later but still rather early for a Saturday morning we had our breakfast and the first task of the Day was to drop Owen off at the kennels as we were going to be out all day and probably most of tomorrow. It wouldn't be fair to leave him on his own for that long plus we probably wouldn't have much of a house to come back to after he finished venting his displeasure.


Not that he was pleased to be in the car mind you and he went really berserk when we got to the kennels at least until we put him in one of the kennels then walked away at which point he started crying. Which meant it was very hard to walk away as we could still hear him crying even when we got out to the car park.

So onwards into Loughborough. We had a lot to do and little time to which to do it in. As I'm going to be in retail for the next six weeks I don't know for definite as of yet when I will have my days off. So I decided to 'stock up' on frozen and non perishable stuff this week. This meant that due to the special offer in Morrisons that I won't to take care off we ended up with a lot of bottles of drink. A whole lot. Which was amusing as the look on the face of the girl at the checkout was priceless.

Maybe she thought I had a serious caffine addiction!

Getting home we quickly put the shopping away as we had to depart posthaste! We would have have been on the road sooner by Grumpy managed to for get his hearing aids so I had to wait whilst he ran back into the house to find them. Now something like his keys, wallet or phone I could have understood but his hearing aids? Maybe he thought I was just been very quiet.

( best american narrator voice) Meanwhile in Loughborough;
Tap Dance was having her own problems, she had discovered that one of her tires were almost flat. Now from what I was able to later pick up it was slightly more serious then a mere flat tire as it was almost worn through and cracked or something. Now I'm so that my description can't be more technical then that but when it comes to car my technical know how is somewhat lacking. The last time somebody asked me what kind of engine I had I could only reply one that goes when you put petrol in it. So she headed off to the tire place to get a new tire.

Now Back to our heroes

We were making good time on the journey even after passing through the 12 mile stretch of road where the speed limit has been reduced by 50mph whilst the motorway is widened. However due to government cut backs this is the only part where it will be widened, which means that that section will probably be okay but some nasty bootlenecks will result going into and coming out of this section. As Grumpy needed something to eat we pulled in quickly to a service station to get some food and got some weird looks from the people behind the counter as they probably don't see many people in suits on a Saturday.

Meanwhile back in geektown

Tap Dance had managed to get a new tire after getting there just in time. Although it was closing the guy took pity on her when he saw the state of the tire. Although running late she was now on her way. Or so she thought. She got to the top of the road when her clutch went with a nasty screeching sound. Calling out the AA she realised the inevitable that baaring a miracle she wasn't going to make it to the baptisim in time.

Back to the Grumpy mobile

Although we still had plenty of time as we had stopped for dinner we weren't going to get there as early as we had thought. This meant that speed demon couldn't meet us to guide us to the chapel which meant it was going to be down to my memory to get us to the chapel even though I wasn't totally sure of the route. Based on my current run of navigation 'lapses' I had the horrible feeling that this wouldn't end well.

However my navigations skills seemed to have been recharged as I was able to guide us straight there with no problems. At which point we found out what had happened with Tap Dance! The service was lovely especially whilst we were waiting for my nephew and Mechanicum to get dry after the baptism, the primary children sang a selection of songs. One of my nieces starting getting really into the singing and during the song " follow the prophet" she started swaying from side to side and swinging her arms in time with the music. My youngest niece also decided to go up and sing but thanks to the high wall at the edge of the stand all you could see was this pair of a hands and her head.

In the mean time back down south
Tap dance wasn't going to let a mere thing like a broken/undrivable car stop her. She managed to somehow find a hire car company that still had a car avalabile. However as it was a brand new contvertable they tried to charge her a obscene amount of money for it. She managed to talk them round and got another car which was so huge it verged on becoming a van.

Up North panic beckons

The baptismal service had just come to a end when we discovered we had a serious problem. Mechanicums and Multi-tasks youngest son, my youngest nephew was missing. Somehow in the few seconds no one had a eye on him he had vanished in that way that young children are so adept at doing. We had a quick scan of the building and couldn't find him, we then checked out side and there was still no sign of him. We started to get worried and everyone there started to search. I started to sweep the chapel room by room and there was still no sign of him and as the minutes ticked by it was hard not to feel a rising sense of panic. I was worrying and it was at this point that all sorts of bad case scenarios started to flick through my mind as I'm sure it was going through other peoples minds. We had a young lad missing with a chapel that had a main road on one side, a motorway on another, and fields on the last side.

Fortunatly just as a call was being made to the police somewhere in the region of 15 to 20 minutes after he was last seen a call came through from a adult who had accompanied a group of the kids as they had gone to search up a track which ran past the chapel. They had found him and he was okay. Somehow he had walked a long way. Over a mile which might not sound a lot but for someone his size was a very long way. Or as one of the kids put it " He was over the hill and past the bridge!"

When he appeared back over the brow of the track carried by one of his brothers he decided he wanted to walk and first talked to Mechanicum before walking calmly into the car park to Multi-task she said something along the lines of " There you are" his very calm matter of fact reply was " I went for a walk" all multi-task could think to say at this point was " Yes you did" probabl wondering whether or not to hug him or tell him off.

I have to admit I had been getting very worried so I can only imagine how worried Mechanicum and multi-task had been. Stil the main thing was it had a happy ending even if my nephew is probably going to find it impossible to disppear from his mum or Dads viewpoint for quite sometime.

We went back to Speed Demons for some food and well a general get together. I doscovered that my nieces and nephews favourite game now involves running a 'resturant'. Which I was informed I had to order from ( rather agreesive sales techniques in this establishment) I chose a pizza delight for starters and a squidgy pizzia for main course ( I was curious). My 'waiter' then proceeded to tell me that both dishes were infact the same single dish but I would be charged for two courses ( they must had a awesome profit ratio in this place). For desert I chose choc fudge surprise, the surprise turned out to be that there was no fudge, rather a piece of choclate, a ice cream cone and a doughnut. I was then given a empty cup and told that was my drink and I could have two refils to the same level as the drink was orginally. I was then informed that my meal would cost £30. Sure the food was a bit unique, rather plastic and there was agresive salesmanship but you have to admit that there profits must be awesome.

Most of the people left, including Mechanicums clan just minutes before Tap Dance arrived. She actually saw Mechanicum and clan at the traffic lights and was frantically waving at them but wasn't sure if they noticed as she was in a rental car.

We got home just before 10pm and found it quite odd to come in and not have Owen not charge straight at us.

anyway,

Later folks!

Lets have a good old fashioned panic buy!

In a example of how not to run a successful strike a group of workers who walked out on a unsuccessful strike not only failed to get what they wanted, a huge 900 of them were fired as well. Now I don't know the full details as in a rare event I haven't been keeping up with this story as I've had a lot more things on my mind today however what I do know is what happened. As these workers were working at a oil refinery a lot of people jumped to the same conclusion. Petrol was either going to shoot up or run out so what was needed? that's right a good old fashioned burst of panic buying.

With my wonderful timing I had to get some petrol on the way home as well lets face it cars tend to work a lot better with petrol going through the engines rather then thin air. I had to try three petrol stations in sucession befre I finally found one that didn't have cars queuing back onto the roads or the pumps were empty.

The weather was interesting today as it was having another burst of totally failing to make up it's mind. There were bursts of sunshine, cloudyness and rain which seemed to repeat in a totally random way for most of the day.

Work was busy as I was mainly focussed on getting everything cleared to ensure that was nothing remaining as well it will be six weeks before I'm back in the office after all. Still I managed to get everything done which was my main concern. My first day at my secondment will be next Tuesday and I can't wait. It should be fun.

Tomorrow will be quite busy as we'll need to get the shopping done and then we'll be off north as one of my nephews os gettong baptised. Which is starting to make me feel old as I'm sure it's not eight years ago that he was born. I'm sure someone has miscounted somewhere :-)

Later folks!

Almost worth buying just for that

As many readers will know i have been toying on and off with the possibility of buying satnav for my car and whether or not it would be a worthwhile investment. Well one thing that almost and I emphasis almost sold me on one potential sat nav today was that you can now have Homer Simpson as the voice of your satnav one of the clips to show what he sounds like when you have reached your destination says
" You have reached your destination and you can hold your head up high as you are a genius!"

Well one of my day of work remains until the start of my secondment and it's a slightly weird feeling knowing that although I will be travelling into Nottingham for six weeks it won't be to go to the office. But I don't mind as I'm really looking forward to this. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.

I've also finally found some inspiration for my next modelling project which is good. However I still haven't found any inspiration for what to say on Sunday. Hmmmm.... Going to have to ponder on that one.

anyway,

Later folks!

It's not like most people don't know who I am already

The High Court in London has ruled that bloggers have no right to privacy under British law since blogging is essentially a public rather than a private activity. The case was brought by The Times newspaper after it discovered the identity of a blogger in the police service who wrote the popular NightJack web page, which was awarded the Orwell Prize for political writing in April. Apparently it is now worried that thousands of bloggers will abandon their blogs as their anonymity is no longer preserved. This might both me if I didn't already know that most of my regular readers know who I am anyway as I either gave them the link or they found it on facebook so it's not like I'm trying to keep that secret

In another case of people taking things far too seriously an advert for Diet Coke staring Duffy has escaped censure after it recieved several complaints, not about the fact that the singer ducks out of a concert, not that she sings whilst riding with such intensity it's unlikely she could have kept it straight or even the fact that she rides through a supermarket scaring the heck out of shoppers. Nope the complaints were on health and safety grounds that when she was riding through the streets she didn't have a light on reflective clothing ( she obivously didn't need it when she was inside the supermarket as it has lights). The Advertising agency rejected the complaints on the equally bizare ground that the sequins on her dress could be counted as reflective clothing.

There was a charity book sale at work today and I took the very hard decision ( well hard for me) to have a quite significant clear out of my books shelves. Now in this case significant is a relative term as it didn't make my difference but I still managed to fill two large boxes and one large bag with books and needed the trolley at the other end to get them into the office. Mind you a majority of my books were left at the end of the day showing that maybe my taste in books isn't so great. But rather then bringing them home again they will be going to a local charity shop. So I have a touch more room on the shelves but knowing me it won't be long till I fill the space again.

and probably get a urge to read the books again I've just got rid of :-)

Institute was good tonight and it was officially the end of a era as when Instutite starts again in September it will no longer be at Leicester, it will be held at the Loughborough chapel. Which will make getting to insitute faster, easier and cheaper! Three points I always like to hear in the same sentence.

I've two days left before the start of my secondment next week. I've almost got everything cleared so I've only got a couple of items to finish plus my yearly appraisal tomorrow and then I'll be ready. I've got that really excited/nervous that you get before starting a new thing, feeling about the secondment. I have a feeling it's going to be a really interesting six weeks.

But before that I've got the shopping to do, another nephews baptism and the seminary graduation to speak at on Sunday to welcome the new graduates to institute. I'm not sure what I'm going to say. I suppose I could always try and give my remarks by the medium of interpretive dance. I'm not sure Bro H would improve but I'm sure they would remember it.

No?

Oh okay then, I'll just wait for inspiration to strike.

Later folks!

922

It's not the most intelligent thing in the world to go and break the law on purpose regardless of how 'minor' some people might see the crime. I wonder just how dumb you would have to be to go on a national radio show and admit to breaking the law. As in the case of the real genius who was on a news program on the radio this evening. The subject was illegal downloads, he freely admited to doing it and said he would keep doing it.

Yeah that was.... not so smart I'm sure you'll agree.

The weather seems to have settled again for the moment as it's been fairly nice all day. No scary hail showers for a start. If it keeps like this for the rest of the week I wouldn't mind. It's not too hot or too cold, it's juuusssttt right.

and I appear to have started talking like goldilocks.

It's the last institute of the summer tomorrow. I have a feeling it will probably be quiet again, even more so then usual now Physics has gone home for the summer.

Transformers two is out this Friday. Yaaahh! Although I still need to go and see the new terminator film, so little time so many movies to see.

anyway,

Later Folks

Gosh darn and blast it

I'm sure if he hasn't seen Drat will not like the bit of news that I'm about to impart. ITV is about to become more of a pants free zone that it has been as Primeval has been canceled! And not only has it been cancelled it ended on a cliff hanger. We will never know what happened to the team or what the brilliant idea what team member had to find the others scattered through time.

Yes sadly primeval has joined the ranks of other TV shows where the ending will be for ever un resolved. Terminator the Sarah connor chronicles, pushing daisies, Dark Angel, Dark Skies, the 4400, Jericho, Now and Again, Dead Like me and angel to name a few of the TV shows that have suffered this unfortunate fate.

It's a shame as Primeval had really started to live up to it's potential this series and was much better then Robin Hood. I suppose the best we can hope for is that they keep the series alive as books, one of which will hopefully give a resolution to that cliffhanger.

The weather proved to be a bit variable today. It started off very sunny, then got overcast, then rainy then sunny and then.....

Well I have to admit I've never been scared before driving but the weather on the way home freaking even me out as it started to rain very, very hard and it then started to hail. Hard. I men I have never seen hail this hard or prolonged before it was bouncing off the car and causing a tremendous racket, almost like someone holding up a rattle to each ear. The windscreen misted up, the roads were flooding and I could barely see and had to drop down to under 20 mph! I started to wonder at one point if the windscreen was going to crack, the hail was smacking down that hard.

I've not been as glad to get home as I was this evening for a long time! But even then I got soaked running into the house.

It then suddenly stopped and it's now blue skies again.

This weathers really rather strange.

Anyway,

Later folks!

Church history plaques in preston

If you click on the photos and open them at full size you should be able to read what they say.

The old stomping grounds

As those of you who have waded through yesterdays posts now on the way back from Preston on Saturday I took the oppotunity to visit my old university. Edge Hill. Here is part of the main building. The main building is arranged in a H shape. This is the part that runs 'across the middle'.

This is Eleanor Rathborne my hall in my third and final year. It's been seven years and the place has not changed.


The room which has the dream catcher and spiderweb in the window, well that was my room.

This is Willow, my hall for the first year and part of my second year. The open window ( the second one on the right from the big windows i nthe middle) that was my room in my first year.

Finally this was the cottage where I lived for part of my second year. The first window you can see along hte long side of the house, well that my room during my much shorter then expected time there.

The case for Sat Nav grows ever stronger

We got back to the temple to run into some of the YSA from Nottingham stake. I hadn't realised but the dividing line between temple districts runs along the edge of Leicester and Nottingham stake. We're in the London Temple district and their in the Preston one. Although if they hadn't been there I'm sure we would have run into someone we knew as that always seems to happen whenever you go to some church site.

We decided to head back south although in trying to get back on the M6 we ended up going north somehow so I had to do yet another 180. We now know what junction 31A looks like! Just in case anyone cares :-)

I realised that we would be passed relatively close by to my old uni and Physics and Y were gracious enough to let me make a short detour so I could go and have a look at my old campus.

It was really odd as it didn't seem like seven years since I was there. It only seemed like yesterday. There are a lot of new buildings now as well as a lake and the campus had been spilt into two but the majority of it was still the same and I could feel all these memories come rushing back as we walked round the campus. Of good times, of friends, some not so good times, some really really good times and just well all sorts of things really. I know you can 'never go back' as it were but standing on that campus the last seven years didn't seem that long and I couldn't help but feel ever so grateful for the time I had spent there. I said a short prayer of gratitute whilst looking over the new lake for all of the good times and the incredible friends I had been blest with over those three years who will always remain very dear to me.

But there's only so much time you can and should spend looking back at the past. It was time for the future and that meant it was time to go home.

Everything went fine until I got to stoke and yet again that blasted system proved to be my undoing as I ended up trapped on a one way system through town that somehow ended up on a country road. Still I managed to keep cool and found my way back to the road I should have been on, wondering the whole time whether I should just accept the inevitable and buy freaking satnav.

Of course getting back on the road proved to have it's own obstacles as there was flipping cycle race on. That's right cyclists on a main dual carriageway which caused great problems trying to get past them.

Still like most problems they soon past and Loughborough came into sight. I dropped Physics and Y home, then in turn headed home myself arriving just over 12 hours after I had first left. My shoulder was seizing up, my foot was hurting and I was tired as anything but I had, had a lot of fun.

A lot of fun indeed.

Later folks

Plan A: Epic Fail.

We arrived into the temple car park finishing a brief discussion on the road that the Temple in on " Temple Way". Physics was wondering if it was called Temple way to begin and it was a lucky coincedence ( imagine if we had been stuck with a road name like heretic hill, Darkness Road or Apostatsy avenue) with or if the name was changed ( apparently the name was changd).

Bro H was there and was wavering us to drive over towards him prompting Physics to ask
" Whose that strange man waving at us?"
" That's Bro H"
" No way is that Bro H, he's not wearing a suit"

Which made me realise physics had never seen Bro H not wearing a suit before. As we were running slightly late Bro H hurried as along and said we could catch a lift with him and leave our car at the temple. Now it was at this point my Plan A failed. I only had enough time to grav my backpack and my sandwiches, I didn't have time to carry the big ice bag full of goodies I had bought with me as part of a cunning plan to try and get to know people from the other stake by sharing out food over our lunch break. It turns out it wouldn't have mattered if I had bought it as we didn't have a proper lunch break after all.

Plan A epic fail! But I'm sure it would have worked if it had, had the chance.

To say we were a bit out numbered by Chester stake would be a understatement. There were three from Leicester, Chester had nearly 25! It was a little embrassing when we had to admit the majority of the class hasn't come .

The tour was quite interesting (photos to follow) we took in such sights as where President Hinckley stayed on his mission, where the first batpisms were performed, the first meeting house, some commerative plaques etc. The town centre was the most amusing as some born again christians got more then they bargained for when they tried to talk to some of the YSA, two testimonies and the start of the first discussion!

I did try to talk to some of the people from Chester. I had mixed success but at least I gave it a try.

We then moved onto the second part of the tour a lovely little village in the middle of nowhere. Bro H did recommend that the guys took a look in the toilets of the car park we all parked in, as it was a converted cattle barn and in the gents they had left the stall partions in place which meant it looked rather unique. He also suggested that the girls should look as long as they checked it was empty first for obivous reasons. I can just imagine if some girls report the day the wrong way to their bishops
" Bro H showed us some church history sites and the inside of a gents toilets."

Finally the tour was over and it was time to go home.

Anything can happen in the next two and a half hours

In yet another cliche moment it seemed like I had barely closed my eyes before my alarm roared into life, blaring it's screeching tones to announce it was time to get up and moving.

I proceeded to do my best impression of a zombie for the next five minutes as I blundered around trying to get some sort of co-ordination going which seemed to be proving a almost impossible challenge. I got a look in the mirror at one point and was mildly disturbed at the totally zoned out/zombie look I seemed to be sporting. Of course if this has been something like scrubs I'm sure my reflection would have started talking back to me laughing saying something alone the lines of " Not a student any more are you? Bright spark. Getting six hours sleep then waking up nice and aleart just ain't going to happen no more"

not that I did that that much when I was a student at uni, honest, no sir, not me, he, he,........

Lets move on quickly.

After getting some breakfast in me I started to feel much more aleart and awake, and was totally awake after taking the ice packs out of the freezer as unsurprisingly they were very cold. It was at this point that I noticed Owen hadn't appeared which was unusual to say the least. As I was loading up the car, he appeared at the top of the stairs, looked down once then disappeared back into grumpys room with a look that almost seemed to say " you might be stupid enough to get up at this time on a Saturday but I'm not."

The first order of business was to choose some driving music... Just kidding, the first order of business was to collect my passengers physics and Y. The next order of business was to decide if it was warm enough to warrent the AC yet as that thing does suck petrol.

Once I had my passengers it was time to be off into the great unknown. Well not that unknown as three quarters of the journey was to be on the route I went to uni. Preston was a little further up then that. All went well until we got to the right motorway junction and after some mis commucation between physics and I we went left instead of right and ended up in Preston rather then our intended destination of chorley which lead physics to observe.
" Oh so the Preston temple is in Preston like the London temple is in London"

Of course irony being irony couldn't pass up the option of messing with me as it would later transpire that the place we turned round was almost on top of our first destination of our tour of church history sites!

After a quick 180 we went back the way we had came, and found directions to chorley when the Preston temple is located. However we managed to go the long way round rather then the short way which meant we ended up five minutes late for the meeting time.

As much as I don't want to admit it

It has been a rather interesting couple of days. So when to begin hmm? Well excuse me if I use a cliches but I guess at the start would be as good a place as any.

The graduation dance on Friday was well, quiet. At my estimate there was somewhere around 45 peoplethere but that included the band and the leaders! The nottingham stake had put on food for a 150 so as you can imagine there was a lot of it spare by the end of the night. Still the girls from Nottingham stake more then made up for the lack of numbers on the dance floor with the sheer amount of energy they directed into their dancing efforts.

Despite my intital fears that I would be the only one from Leicester attending and thus responsible for cleaning up the rest of the stake centre, I wasn't the only one from Leicester. No KMcR turned up and...... that was it. A grand total of two from Leicester. The only phrase that springs to mind about that total is " not so good"

The band was awesome and I even got up for a dance. Yes you read that right I got up for a dance. Only one mind you but still a improvement on some dances I've been to mainly becuase I'm still sure that I dance the way the increidible hulk walks.

Fortunatly at the end they asked everyone to help clean up so I wasn't stuck there for the hour or so I had been anticipated. Whilst cleaning ( yes insights strike me at the weirdest time I know!) I realised that I more or less know nobody outside of Leicester Stake who hasn't been in our stake in some form or another at some point. I'm not sure how I can solve that, I suppose I could always see if other people could introduce me or failing that I could try going back to LDS Linkup. You know the site where all the cool LDS kids used to hang out before the invention of face book. Where you could become friends with your friends ( wait something doesn't sound right there) and try and meet new friends or even new girls and fail miserably as by the time you try speaking to them they've already been bombarded with messages from LDS males who should never ever be let near a computer let alone out of the house. I'm sure Nemesis will agree.

So after the clean up it was time to head home as it was late! by the time I finally got home and threw myself into bed it was nearly 12.45am!

Not usually a problem for most saturdays but I was going to have to be up in six hours. The main thought in my head at this prospect was

arrggghhhhhhhhh

Tune in tomorrow

Hi Folks,

Due to the late night last night and the rather long day I've just had travelling back and forth across a large chunk of the country there will be no full length 'usual' blog post today as I'm really, really tired. But please tune in tomorrow for me bringing you up to speed in my usual mind numbering detailed way of what I've been up to in the past 24 hours.

Later folks!

Road trip

Well it's off to Preston tomorrow with a stupidly early start for a Saturdy morning ( 7.15am argghhh). Typical the one day of the week I get a lie in and I have to get up early. I wish there was a rule where if you have to get up early on a Saturday for church business you get a bonus lie in on a Sunday as they move all the church services back for you. No ?? Well I can dream can't I?

As I'm out and about tomorrow I took a half day today so we could get the shopping done which was very strange as the market wasn't there. The whole place seemed really empty and quiet. Although the strangest thing of the day was that on the drive home it took nearly a hour due to the traffic. Which seems strange as that means the traffic in the middle of the day is actually heavier then during rush hour. Unless of course it also classifies as a rush hour but would that mean if the middle of the day qualifies as rush hour would the two other rush hours still be rush hours?

That's the sort of question that could make your head explode if you dwell on it for too long.

and here another random question for you. considering what it's used for why is toilet paper so exspensive?

and if case you were wondering where that came from it was one of those random thoughts that popped into my head whilst waiting in the checkout queue.

Anyway,

Later folks!

North and South

As long time readers will know I've been going to the national YSA convention which is held over the August back holiday weekend for the past three years and this year will be my fourth. Now it is looking very likely at this point that I will be the only one going from this side of the stake if not the whole stake. I've just found out that based on the number of current registrations to the conference the best represented stake at this point will be Nottingham. So it looks like we're going to have the two stakes which are at opposite end of the spectrum being two stakes that are next door to each other!

The weather has taken a turn for the better today. It's not been really hot but it has been sunny and quite mild which has been nice. According to the weathermen this nice weather is supposed to stay around until the weekend so hopefully we won't need a brolly for the trip up to preston ( going to have to get up at 7am on Saturday arrgghhhhh!) but knowing what the weather can be like in that part of the world I'm still going to put one in the car just in case.

Now I think that it maybe just maybe it was a slow news day as apparently there was a five minute segiment on the news last night about how Mars will crash into the Earth..... In about three to five billion years. Wow urgent news I can see what that news report required five minutes!

still better then the usual doom and gloom though.

Later folks!

Hail to the bus driver,

It's been yet another interesting day which seems to be the theme of the week as each day has bought it's own interesting experiences and opportunities.

I had to go into Nottingham town centre to sort out getting a travel card for my forthcoming secondment. Parking in the town centre is out as it would cost me a arm and a leg to park there every day. So the easiest, ( read as cheapest) way of getting to my secondment is parking at the office and then catching the bus into town. It may be a little long winded but it will certainly be different.

Buying the pass was a little expensive, as it was nearly £50 but it lasts for a month and is considerably cheaper then buying a return bus ticket every day which would be £3. Which would be £75 for the same period. As you can see no contest.

The only downside was that due to the amount of time it took to get into town and get the pass I didn't have time to wait around and get lunch from any place like Greggs or subways because the town centre was heaving with people.

I'm also going to have to try going on one of the trams at some point as well, just so I can say I have done.

We were very thin on the ground at Institute again, Athena was once again missing. Athena if you do read this drop somebody a email or quick text message to confirm your alright. We're getting worried as we haven't heard from you in a while.

For our activity after class we played a game called sardines. Now for those of you not in the know, Sardines consists of someone running to hide somewhere in the building and everybody else goes to look for them. When someone finds them they join them in hiding. The last person to find the original hidee looses.

Sounds simply enough right?

Wrong as I made the mistake of choosing physics to be the first person to go and hide. He turned out to be the last person to go and hide as we simply couldn't find him. It was like something out of aliens or warhammer with a group of marines sweeping through a derelict spacecraft. We just couldn't find him, we tried everywhere. All that was missing was a scanner and someone shouting either " their coming through the walls" or " Game over man, game over.".

After nearly 20 minutes I tried calling him to find out where he was as we had tried every unlocked room and cupboard and just couldn't find him. The only response I got was " I'm hiding."

I did start to wonder at this point whether or not we would ever find him and if he would ever come out as Physics does have the tendency to a little bit competitive.

Finally he appeared, appearing quite pleased with himself. After a little bit of needling he finally confessed his secret. Although technically cheating he had had hidden in a cupboard and held the door, so when ever anybody tried the door it seemed locked and we thought nothing more of it.

Futurama is coming back! YAAAHH!!!!!!! Apparently the sales of the movies have gone so well, fox have comissioned a new series of 26 episodes to be broadcast next year.

That's not the only thing to be coming back as their planning a remake version of the A-team apparently due to hit the big screen next year. i'm not sure about that, there are some classics that just shouldn't be messed with!

anyway,

Later folks!

And You Thought You Knew EVERYTHING...

Mosquito repellents don't repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito's sensors so they don't know you're there.
Dentists have recommended that a toothbrush be kept at least 6 feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
The liquid inside young coconuts can be used as substitute for blood plasma.
No piece of paper can be folded in half more than 7 times.
Donkeys kill more people annually than plane crashes.
You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching television.
Oak trees do not produce acorns until they are fifty years of age or older.
The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley's gum.
The king of hearts is the only king without a mustache.
A Boeing 747s wingspan is longer than the Wright brother's first flight.
American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating 1 olive from each salad served in first-class.
Venus is the only planet that rotates clockwise.
Apples, not caffeine, are more efficient at waking you up in the morning.
The plastic things on the end of shoelaces are called aglets.
Most dust particles in your house are made from dead skin.
The first owner of the Marlboro Company died of lung cancer.
Michael Jordan makes more money from Nike annually than all of the Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
Marilyn Monroe had six toes.
All US Presidents have worn glasses. Some just didn't like being seen wearing them in public.
Walt Disney was afraid of mice.
Pearls melt in vinegar.
Thirty-five percent of the people who use personal ads for dating are already married.
The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
It is possible to lead a cow upstairs...but not downstairs.
A duck's quack doesn't echo and no one knows why.
The reason fire stations have circular stairways is from the days when the engines were pulled by horses. The horses were stabled on the ground floor and figured out how to walk up straight staircases.
Richard Millhouse Nixon was the first US president whose name contains all the letters from the word "criminal." The second was William Jefferson Clinton.
Turtles can breathe through their bums.
Butterflies taste with their feet.
In 10 minutes, a hurricane releases more energy than all of the world's nuclear weapons combined.
On average, 100 people choke to death on ball-point pens every year.
On average people fear spiders more than they do death.
Ninety percent of New York City cabbies are recently arrived immigrants.
Elephants are the only animals that can't jump.
Only one person in two billion will live to be 116 or older.
Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
It's physically impossible for you to lick your elbow.
The Main Library at Indiana University sinks over an inch every year because when it was built, engineers failed to take into account the weight of all the books that would occupy the building.
A snail can sleep for three years.
No word in the English language rhymes with "MONTH."
Average life span of a major league baseball: 7 pitches.
Our eyes are always the same size from birth, but our nose and ears never stop growing. SCARY!!!
The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
All polar bears are left handed.
In ancient Egypt , priests plucked EVERY hair from their bodies, including their eyebrows and eyelashes.
An ostrich's eye is bigger than its brain.
TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
Go, is the shortest complete sentence in the English language.
If Barbie were life-size, her measurements would be 39-23-33. She would stand seven feet, two inches tall. Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts.
A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
Americans on average eat 18 acres of pizza every day.
Almost everyone who reads this email will try to lick their elbow.

Grumpy asks

Slightly different post here as Grumpy asked me to do this. He's currently watching CSI and moaning that he doesn't think that it's as good as it used to be before Grissom.

He now says that he thinks CSI New York is best followed by CSI miami and CSI now dead last.

So what does everyone else think? Does CSI suck now Grissom has gone?

Reflections on reflecting

As well as my forthcoming secondment we've also been doing a lot of other training at work mainly aimed at team building which has proven to be very interesting. Now I'm sure as anybody who ever worked well anywhere and had training will admit you have instances of good training and some training that doesn't work so well. This is true regardless of where you work.

Fortunatly all of the recent training has proven to be the former rather then the later. One of the main things which seem to have cropped up as it were with regards to me is that I don't explain my thinking and reflecting on this I realised that this is right. I don't do this a lot of the time and I realised that in a way maybe this is because I'm underestimated myself as quite often when I come up with a idea or a suggestion I often think that it's so obivous that everyone must see it which is why I think that I quite often don't explain my thinking. It doesn't occur to me that others might not see it.

So this has given me a good improvement point to work on, I must try to explain my thinking or to put it another way, I need to start at the beginning rather then at the end.

This training also made me reflect on what on my other strengths might be. I suppose that one of my other main strengths is my memory and how it works. Now sometimes my memory is almost photographic and I can pretty much tell you anything from memory, from the the plot of the latest book I've read, to a book I read sometime ago. I can even pretty much remember the exact lay out of each of my halls of residence at Uni, heck I can even remember the layout of the camp I went to as a camp counselor in the USA. But then sometimes my memory seems really bad, like where did I put my keys? Where's my pen? etc, etc.

Of course this reflecting on memory made me remonise about my uni days as it is ten years ago this year that I started uni, yeap it's been that long. I started off in in my first year in Willow Hall, part of the Forest Court group of walls as you may have guessed all of the halls we're named after forms of tree. I was on the top floor, room 35. In our 'cluster' I shared one kitchen with four girls and one guy. It was here that someone was able to guess with in about ten seconds I was a church member as when I was unpacking my food she noticed that I had no alchol.

In my second year I ended up in a cottage about three miles away from the uni. It was a nice house but unfortunatly due to a rather bad falling out with one of my housemates who started to threaten me in a effort to get money out of me I had to get out of there just out of Christmas and moved back into halls of residence. In fact I ended up back in Willow but in room 27 this time. Unfortunatly and to my great regret I can't remember the names of most of the people in that cluster during that time. by the time I moved in they had already been together for a long time and gelled as a group and I just never fit in. It always felt like a room I was staying in rather then a home.

I decided in the third year to go back into Halls and this time rather then ending up in one of the self catering halls with ensuite bathrooms I ended up in one of the catered halls with shared bathrooms. Eleanor rathborne was one of the halls towards the back of campus which was where most of the foreign students were put up. At first I wasn't too keen on the idea of those halls but I ended up having a fantastic time and made my longest lasting friends from uni when I was in that hall.

and on that note, lets leave that trip down memory lane there.

Later folks

Ask and ye shall recieve

Well I got some rather exciting news at work today. Or rather I was able to reveal some rather exciting news. Don't worry it will all get clearer in a second.


Right where was I? Oh yes exicting news, yes after asking if there were any training opportunities coming up I have been given a rather interesting one. From about the last week of June all the way up to the start of August I'm going on secondment to another part of the company to get some experience on how a different arm of the company operates and improve my skills set. In fact I will be going into one of the retail stores which just so happens to be the very stpre where I bought my first model many, many years ( and no I don't one to admit how many I'm feeling old) so in a weird kind of way I will be going full circle.

Of course with this secondment only a couple of weeks away it has meant that things have gone all kind of crazy because as well as my regular work to do, I've got to make sure that all of the projects that I would have done in the six weeks that I'll be on secondment which can be done now are done before the end of next week. So it's going to be a busy few days. Not that I mind as I am really looking forward to this secondment as it should be a lot of fun.

Well it's institute tomorrow and after this there will be only one more lesson before we break up before the summer. Although before that we have the trip up to Preston on Saturday before then. I am hoping that the weather will be a bit better then it has been so far this week as we don't want to be walking around Preston with it raining.

The presenter Myleene Klass managed to get herself into a sticky situation in the USA whilst presenting the US version of I'm a celebrity, she sprayed herself with a insect repellent which was so powerful it reacted with the varnish on her bed frame and glued her to the bed. She ended up having to be freed by hotel staff. Now I know you shouldn't laugh but it's one of those stories where you can't help it. It also makes me wonder just how powerful that insect repellent was!

anyway,

Later folks,

It's not sure

The weather, yes that's right the good old can never make up it's mind English weather has been doing what it does best today. Failing to make up it's mind. It's been a bit rainy, then sunny, then overcast, then sunny again, then overcast etc, etc, etc, I'm sure you get the idea. Looking out of Grumpys office window right now the clouds are looking rater large and black so it's probably going to start tipping it down any second.

it's been quite amusing to watch the government running around today in the wake of the european elections. Listening to some of the politicans yammer on and put their own rather interesting spins on the results you can't help but wonder if their stupid, so up themselves they can't concieve that people wouldn't want to vote or they all just live in just plain old cuckoo land!

It was a interesting day at work. Busy because of all of the stuff that came in at the weekend but it was one of those days where everything seemed to go right and I was able to get loads down. I was feeling quite pleased with myself by the end of the day.

I was amused to read that with the international space station crew size expanding to six full time they've discovered that the main crew table isn't big enough for six and they've had to set another table up in another module. Now with all the money they've spent on that thing nobody was able to figure out that a table was too small? I think the only thing you can say to that is D'oh!

Later folks

It's all a matter of timing

I woke up this morning to find that once again it was raining and raining hard! this meant that the trip into Leicester was 'interesting' as there was a awful lot of water on the roads and of course when there's lots of water and heavy rain, no matter the day lunatic drivers who seem to take no notice of the weather conditions are sure to follow.

Despite my fears about trying to find a car parking space I managed to get to the stake centre just early enough to get once of the last spaces, which was as near to the rearer entrance as it could be, plus it was shaded by trees so I didn't get as wet as I could have done dashing into the building. One thing I did notice was that as a lot of leaves and gunk from the trees had fallen on the path, it was very slippery. I mentioned this to one of the ushers that it was slippery and someone might want to clear it otherwise someone might fall over. He simply nodded and said that they were aware of it and went back to watching the world go by outside of the doors.

The stake conference was interesting as it felt more like a general conference watching everything go on, on the giant screens. Now I saw giant screens , but we only have one at the front of the stake centre chapel. The other two screens consist of a image being projected on one side of the cultural hall and a small TV on the other.

Still the talks were very good and inspiring and I got to see what the inside of the Hyde Park chapel looked like for the first time.

Coming home was even more of a nightmare then going as the rain hadn't stopped and a lot of drains had given up the frankly uneven struggle they were facing meaning there was deep water in a lot of places. The rain started to get heavier as I got closer to Loughborough which meant the driving conditions got even worse. I'm just glad this was during daylight as it would have been a nightmare trying to do it, in the dark.

They've released some trailers for the new stargate series and the reaction from most sci-fi fans has been 'it looks very Battlestar galactica' which is unfortunate but to be expected I guess. the reimagined BSG set a huge mark for new sci-fi shows to live up to. Stargate universe probably has the best chance of reaching this level as to be perfectly honest thers not much in the way of scifi shows in the pipeline right now. I guess we'll see when it premiers in the autumn.

Virgin 1 have been having a special chuck weekend this well weekend to show the whole of the first series again ready for the start of season 2 on Tuesday. And their showing it at exactly the same time as CSI. ARGGHHHHHHH!!!!! Who schedules these things anyway?

Well it's Monday tomorrow which means another week of opportunities ahead which I'm sure will be as interesting as ever.

Later folks

Just downright weird

I woke up this morning to the sound of rain and from the amount of water that seemed to be lying around out side it seemed that it must have been raining all night. It was also very cold, surprisingly cold as a matter of fact. We've even contemplated putting the heating on tonight as it was feeling that chilly.

Now even with the sterotypical english summer weather that seems just downright weird that we're in june and we had to consider putting the central heating on!

The one good thing about the rain was that it made doing the shopping very very easy as most people seemed to have decided to stay home rather then venture out. The market was also half empty as well, not that I blame them as I wouldn't want to stay out all day in this weather either.

Primeval ended it's latest series this week ( even though I thought it was going to be last week, stupid Britains got talent!) and it ended on quite a good cliff hanger although if the series comes back for a 4th run it looks like it's going to need a new 'big bad'.

On the plus side the new series of torchwood is due to be shown soon. It's a good show I just wish they wouldn't have so long between series.

anyway,

Later folks!

I think I prefer the hot Sun

Well it a quite dramatic change to the weather from the rest of the week it started raining round about tea time this evening and hasn't stopped! Thunder and Lightning even started at one point although it only did itonce then stopped pretty quickly so that seemed all a bit pointless really.

Anyway, it's the weekend now so two whole days to myself.

Two interesting things I learnt this week, first if your icelandic you can't have dual citzenship and secondly the choclate toblerone can now be ordered in a 10 pound bar. Now that's not 10 pounds in price, that's 10 pounds in weight. It costs £81 in total, so I guess you need to have a real addition to Toblerone to want to buy that, let alone eat all of it.

I don't know if I mentioned this before but my confirmation for this years national YSA convention ahs come through. It's looking like at this point that it will be a definite repeat of last year's convetion is as much I'll be going by myself. But rest assured that there will be a more then in depth report of the whole convetion as there has been for the last three years.

It's our institute class trip to Preston a week tomorrow which looks like it's going to be very small as most of the class said they won't be coming. It looks like it will be just me and physics in the car there and back. I get the feeling I will probably have to bring in the old " What's said in the car stays in the car rule". Although as the tour is only supposed to go on until mid afternoon there might be time to pop into my old uni on the way back and see what the campus looks like these days.

anyway,

Later folks!

Not again, not again........

Step away from the newspaper, don't look at the entertainment news site and certainly stay away from the number 4 on your remote control. Yes it's that time of year again. Big Brother is limping back onto our screens for a 10th time somehow! I really can't believe peopel are still watching it. I think it was sumed up perfectly by a radio show where none of the presenters could remember who won last years series. Nobody cares anymore.

The first call of the day at work was rather odd as when I picked the phone up it turned out to be Bro H! He was trying to get hold of physics as his computer wasn't working and he thought it might have been related to when physics turned Bro H's projector on using a TV Remote. Now quite how physics could have been able to screw up a laptop with a TV remote I have no idea, but then again if there is a way to do this I'm sure physics will find it.

I made sure I did my democratic duty today and made sure I voted on the way home. Rumours of voter apathy if my polling station was any yard stick have been hugely over estimated. The car park was packed and I had to queue to get my ballot paper, then again to cast my vote. We should now the council results tomorrow, the european results on Sunday. The ballot paper for our council was very short, as opposed to the two page one we got for the European elections. I hadn't heard of half of the people on that one!

I also had to help Grumpy out this evening as he got a call from his credit card company who were checking some transactions on his card. Now Grumpy can have trouble hearing people on the phone at the best of times, these weren't the best of times as it wasn't helped by the fact that the operator calling seemed to be intend on hitting all of the stereotypes of call centre operators based in India. As I work in customer service I tend to be a lot more patience with other people in customer service as I know what it can be like to be on the recieving end but even I was starting to loose it when the operator didn't know the difference between transaction and transactions and I had to explain it to him!

anyway,

One more day till the weekend.

Later folks!

This is going to be fun

When arriving at Insitute tonight physics and I realised something. They have replaced the grass car park at the back of the stake centre with a new tarmac one. We had a quick drive around it to see if our intial suspisions were correct. The new car park only had fourty car parking space. Which is significantly less then the grass car park had because lets face it people could just cram as many cars as possible on there.

This means that trying to park at this weekend's stake conference is going to be a rather interesting challenge because you can't really park on the road because of the church on the opposite side and I'm sure the supermarket just up the road will only be willing to put up with so many cars before they decide to start clamping people to make a point.

Of course this could all be one big ruse to make sure that people get there in plenty of time because if your late you won't get a parking space.

Well it's election day tomorrow, I'm not sure whether to go first thing before work or go straight after. I'm not sure it will make much difference but I suppose the most important thing is that I actually go and vote. The interesting time will be Friday morning as we see exactly what happens and if the government will be in as much trouble as everybody says.

It was a lot cooler today which was nice, which agains proves the old adage that we're never happen with the weather. When it's hot we moan that we want it to be cooler, when it's cold we moan that it wants to be hot etc, etc, etc...

Anyway,

Later Folks!

Got to give him points for trying

Hazardous materials data sheet

Resignation

RESIGNATION

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult. I have decided I would like to accept the responsibilities of an 8 year-old again.

I want to go to McDonald's and think that it's a four star restaurant.

I want to sail sticks across a fresh mud puddle and make a pavement with rocks.

I want to think M&Ms are better than money because you can eat them.

I want to lie under a big oak tree and play doctors and nurses with my friends on a hot summer's day.

I want to return to a time when life was simple; When all I knew were colours, multiplication tables, and nursery rhymes, and it didn't bother me,because I didn't know what I didn't know and I didn't care.

All I knew was to be happy because I was blissfully unaware of all the things that should make me worry or upset.

I want to think the world is fair.That everyone is honest and good.

I want to believe that anything ispossible. I want to be oblivious to the complexities of life and beoverly excited by the little things again.

I want to live simple again. I don't want my day to consist of computer crashes, mountains of paperwork,depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, gossip, illness,and loss of loved ones.

I want to believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, mankind, and making angels in the snow.

So . . . here's my cheque book and my car-keys,

my credit card bills and my mobile phone.

I am officially resigning from adulthood. And if you want to discuss this further, you'll have to catch me first,

cause........."Tag! You're it."

You don't say

Now I know that they have to include legal disclaimers in magazines, newspapers and films these days but sometimes the end result can be very funny.

For example at the end of Terminator 3, a move that tells the story of the end of the world and rise of evil machines yet it still has that legal disclaimer " All the characters and events in this film are fictional, any resembelance to real people or events is entirely coincedental".

Which I'm not totally sure but I'm fairly certain the end of the world hasn't happened yet. Or maybe it has and my observational skills totally suck!

It was yet another Hot day today. Fortunatly the traffic seems to be getting lighter as the schools start to wind down for the summer holidays. It should only be another three or four weeks before the roads get very clear indeed.

Institute tomorrow, after that we only have another two classes then it will be all over for the summer. Which will be weird as I'll get Wednesday nights back. I'll probably waste the first couple just trying to think of something to do.

C'est la vie I guess.

Later folks!

The return of the return of the Caption Competion

Most of you should know how this works by now. Leave your suggestions for funny captions for these photos from last nights outing.

Photo A
Photo B

Funny what you forget

It was another Hot day today which reminded me of two things that I seem to forget every year over the winter. First even though my car has fans which are supposed to blow cold air, when you get stuck in a traffic jam in hot weather their not that useful in the slightist and secondly as my room faces the sun all day by the time I get home in the evening it's pretty much like a darn over in there.

Still it was good to get back to work, plus the next one of my project s has arrived from the printers. Which means three have been completed and sent out so far and another two are in the early stages of production. So as you can imagine I'm feeling a little bit smug with myself right now.

But I'm making sure I'm not too smug as I don't want pride to cometh before a fall.

Another sign that summer is now certainly here is the Ice cream man has started coming round the offices. Not in a van mind you as that would be crazy ( and a bit pointless to mention as I'm sure you already figured that out. He's actually a guy from the catering team who pushes round a huge trolley with a giant ice box full of asorted ice cream goodness. Which we try our level best to ignore unless we give into temptation. Which I won't.

Hmmm ice cream...........

Wait where was I?

Oh yes the picnic, ( pics of which you can see below) at bradgate park was a lot of fun. Hopefully if the weather stays good which should be able to go up there lots more this summer.

Anyway,

Later folks!

Picnic in the Park

YSA ponder if they will take part in a game of rounders

Physics ponders his next move

The ruins of Lady Jane Greys house in the middle of Bradgate Park.