Tune in tomorrow

Tune in tomorrow folks for the continuing adventures of Saxon at the national YSA conference. Which workshops will he attend? Will things go okay? Will he explain why he's now talking about himself in the third person?

Tune in tomorrow and find out...

Manchester YSA Conference 2009: Saturday morning " Classy classes"

When my alarm went off the first thought that flashed through my head was more or less the same one that I get every year. " argghh, it's 7.30am on a Saturday morning, why am I paying to get up at 7.30am on a Saturday morning!" My second thought was to get out of bed and stop complaining otherwise I wouldn't get any breakfast.


I ran into J alfred on the way back from breakfast, which would prove amusing later as he started to have the same conversation with me to my complete and utter bafflement as he hadn't woken up properly at the time he first ran into me and had thus forgotten the conversation.

We headed over to the main centre for the devotional. In a good change the devotionals had been reduced from a hour to 30 minutes which made them much easier to listen to. In my defence it's been four years and those seats still aren't anymore comfortable!

In another change as well as running activities on the Saturday there were also running a series of institute workshops and showing films in the hotel they have on campus which you could go to instead of the activities. Bro H was going to be teaching the first lesson so we decided that we would give that a go.

We headed over to the hotel and were immediatly impressed with it's classyness. They even had refreshments served in proper glasses, poured from glass bottles. All in all very posh.

I decided for the next session to try the speed dating activity. Now it was broadly along the same lines as last year. A question was flashed up on the screen, you asked each other about it and then someone moved on depending on what the screen then showed " Move if your wearing a watch etc"

Rather then being in pairs this year you were in groups of four which made it a lot easier ( and more fun) however the sheer number of YSA who turned up for this workshop/session made it very hard to hear and you had to DO A LOT OF SHOUTING! Which isn't really the best way to introduce yourself to people.

However I did meet a YSA who will be attending Leicester Uni this year which means that the numbers of YSA in the stake will be going up by at least 1 come September.

I also met the former Elder Boyd who had just returned home after serving in our ward, so he was attending conference as a 'civilian'. Which meant he looked strangly scuffy, almost like he was going through some sort of rebelliousness.

Still it had been a good morning and I was ready for the fun and games that the afternoon would bring.

Manchester YSA conference 2009: Friday night " Arggghhh"

So after settling in and choosing to be brave and try one of the food places across the road from the campus I was feeling much more positive. Well in my defence it's very hard to maintain a positive attitude after being stuck in a traffic jam for a hour and a half on your own! I headed across to the main centre to see what was going on.

Now last year we had a sorta fair ground theme going on. This year well I'm not entirely sure what kinda theme was going on. But to be fair I didn't pay massively close attention to some of the drawing activities spread out on tables as I was too busy looking to see if I could see anybody I recognised, being acquaintances from last year or friends who might have decided to come anyway.

As the night wore on I started to get a bit concerned as I didn't see anyone I recognised. I know that I went last year and made friends but there were some people I sorta knew to form a 'in road' in to introducing myself to people. I did start to wonder if I was going to have to be 'really forward' and just start interjecting myself into conversations.

Eventually I ran into a girl I knew from Nottingham and one of the students from Loughborough but they were busy with their friends so they couldn't chat for long. It was at this point that the first 'act' started performing. A dance troop doing a number from..... HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL!!!! Arggghhhh!!!! Not that anything but that........ ( yeah I'm not a fan of those films)

There were some other performances including a bollywood themed dance number

So I was starting to wonder that maybe my bravery coming by myself last year had turned into stupidity by coming by myself again and trying to suppress that niggling little voice in my head that was telling me things weren't going to go well. When ( this girl has the best timing) Travellers friend who I had met last year ( in the massage class) appeared. It's amazing how quickly things can brighten up when you see a friendly face who greets you with a smile, gives you a hug and is glad to see you.

I then ran into a guy I had met last year which also helped as we caught up and he then started to introduce me to a lot of his friends and this guys friends circle is significantly larger then mine!

The opening exercises for the conference started and it was impossible to deny the great spirit that seemed to fill the room at this point and it certainly gave me a boost. I decided to head back to my room after the opening exercises as I had a feeling I was going to need all the sleep I could get ( and I had remembered a extra pillow for the first time in three years!).

I was walking back through the car park when to my great surprise I had to run into J Alfred (social's brother) and his girlfriend who I shall give the code name Miss Swan (I’ll be really impressed if anyone figures out why I've given her that name as it's along the lines of the in depth reasoning behind drats codename) who had decided to come to conference which meant I wasn't the only person from our side of the Stake yah!! Then in one of those great coincidences that only seem to happen at church activities, a girl who studies in Nottingham but used to live in Leicester came along at that moment, so the four 'leicesterites' had ended up meeting randomly in the middle of the carpark on the complete off chance.

I was getting ready for bed when I looked at the schedule for the first time and I noticed something in the schedule. No massage class!! Now despite the initial problems in last year’s class I had always attended them because they were a lot of fun and it was great way to 'break the ice' as it were when you meet new people.

So that would meet I would have to fall back on my personality and wit (or at least half of it) when trying to meet new people and impress them...............

hmmm, if that's all I've got to go on I could have a problem here...... :-)

Manchester YSA conference 2009: Friday afternoon ' getting there'

Well it was time, the time that I've been yammering on about for the past few months. Yes conference was finally here and it was time to hit the road.

I decided to repeat what I did last year and set out at around 3pm as this time worked last year, it enabled me to get there in plenty of time and get settled in before things started.

However nobody seems to have told the rest of the traffic that fact as there was a lot of it around. A heck of a lot, even more then you would expect for a bank holiday. I got stuck in a huge great traffic jam. Which was annoying as I had nobody talk to but it did enable me to sing along to the radio in my usual tuneless way with out annoying anyone.

The only thing that makes a long traffic jam where you stuck in a car by yourself worse is being stuck by yourself in a traffic jam and it starts to rain. Yes it seemed that the weathermen had not stuck their head out of the window when forecasting the weather for the weekend. I tried to be cheerful and hope that the weather would improve and we would get the sun we were promised but I was already starting to wonder.

When I finally got to Manchester I made a error somewhere and missed the right turning which lead me into a bit of a tour round Manchester as I tried to find my bearings and the campus. I suppose it was yet another example of how satnav can be useful in certain situations( somewhere in the depths of Luxembourg Engineseer begins his I told you so victory dance).

Still it wasn't as bad a case of getting lost as my first conference and I was only delayed about 20 minutes after basically driving round in a huge circle to get back where I needed to go. I did wonder if it was a good sign to see a group of campus staff getting a boat out of a shed on a trailer and filling up scuba tanks! Did they know something about the weather we didn't?

I arrived and collected my keys in a totally different registration process for the fourth year in a row ( maybe it's like a rule) and was a bit dismayed to see that we had gone back to wristbands again for all conference attendees. I much prefer passes around your neck as you can take them off when you shower unlike the wristbands which quite frankly get annoying. Plus also at the end of the weekend you can keep them as a memento without having to cut them off your wrists!

I also found that they had swapped the guys and girls halls again so I was in different halls to the set I've been in the past two years. I then discovered that I was in fact in the furtherest room in the furtherest possible hall from the car park. Which did start to get annoying as the weekend wore on.

Still I was there, I had arrived and as I started to get my stuff settled in my room I pondered what the weekend would bring. As the saying goes " There was everything to play for".

I'm back

Yes folks I'm back from conference and you know what that means? Yes it's time for my usual in depth epic series of blog posts reporting everything that went on over the weekend.

So grab a drink, sit back and make yourself comfortable. Your gonna be here for a while.

Cut Transmission

Yes folks, it's time! I will shortly be getting in the car and will be Manchester bound as I head out to this years National YSA conference.

I've spent most of the morning running around trying to get everything ready and I'm 99.9% sure I have everything ( i even remembered to throw in a extra pillow).

So see you next week for a full report of how the weekend went.

Later folks!

An annoying state of mind

I'm kinda stuck in a annoying state of mind right now. A " Where the heck did I put that?" kind of state as I try to find everything I need to take with me tomorrow.

Yes after months of waiting conference is finally here and I will be rolling out tomorrow for Manchester ready for a weekend of fun and games.

My goals are relatively simple ( like me) for this year.

1. Make some new friends/aquaintences
2. Try not to put my foot in my mouth by saying something stupid.

Right now I don't know which will be the harder goal to achieve :-)

Of course as I have previously warned ( unless they've suddenly got free wi-fi there) this means that there will be no posts for Saturday or Sunday and probably not Monday although that will depend on how tired I am.

The usual in depth report will appear next week. Be sure not to miss it!

Right that's all for tonight folks. I've got to go and remember where I put my spare batteries for my camera.

Later folks!

Well this just made my day

Regular readers will remember that for about half of June and all of July I was on secondment in one of my companies retail stores. It was a really fun experience and I learned loads. I also built and helped paint lots of bitz for use in the store. Now among these items were some conversions for a 'map' system that lets people run campaigns, so every battle they fight counts towards something etc. The Map consists of hexagon tiles that can be combined in lots of different ways

Now to be honest I hadn't been giving them much thought until I discovered today that they have been actually used as a example on a website of how to convert these tiles. Some of my efforts are below.

and here's a close up of a geothemal power generation facility.

Now I know they look small but remember these maps are supposed to represent entire worlds.

the other thing is that I converted these 'buildings' out of other bits and pieces. For example the cylinder storage tanks were lights off a building.

I also painted them and yes I know the paintings not pefect but I ran out of time in the store to do all of the finishing touches.

Now I'm sure that some of you might be wondering why I'm so happy about this but trust me, it made my day!

Oh happy day

Oh happy day! We've finally had some good news in the media today. Big Brother will be coming to a end! At last! Of course there is a small downside in that we're going to be stuck with one more series before the axe falls.

But seeing as I don't watch it and what seems like most of the country doesn't watch it either it's a small price to pay I guess.

I did see a related story that apparently the 'housemates' were given a task to do something entertaining and the moin entertaining it was the bigger the reward. Now I think that goes to show the amount of desperation the program makers have right now if they have to ask the housemates to do something entertaining. I wonder if they had to say 'please' at the end.

The radio also seemed to find somebody as equally silly as the guy yesterday who was talking about downloads to talk about car insurance. He claimed that yes he did drive without car insurance and he knew he should have it but he thought it was okay not to as he knew how to drive. By that logic nobody should have car insurance!

Although I can see why the number of under 25s without car insurance is on the rise even if I totally don't agree with it. The car insurance costs for under 25s especially if your a male can be somewhat horrific. When I was 21 I would have had to pay £1300 a year just to get third part insurance!

Well the start of conference is now only 2 days away. I'm starting to get that excited/nervous feeling you get before a big event. I just hope the weather improves. If it doesn't I'll just take Grumpys golfing umbrella, I suppose that would be one good way to get to know people. Walk them from the halls to activities.

anyway,

Later folks

Do we really need to be told that?

With conference only three days away now, we seem to be getting almost constant barrage of emails from the organisers either trying to promote activities ( why I have no idea as most people who are going have already decided to) or reminding us of and I am hesitant to use the term as it sounds too strict "the rules".

Todays email was all about dress steandards. Now a basic email about the standards would have been fine, possibliy a mite annoying but it still would have been okay. The fact that they decided to add things to the list including a indepth description of what does and does not constitute Sunday dress seems just a bit conderscending. I'm hoping that this isn't a indication that they will be 'clamping down hard' again this year. If anything will spell the end of the national conference it will be negative word of mouth and treating YSA with the same strictness as youth is what seemed to cause a mini-exodus after the conference two years ago.

Not that I'm saying YSA shouldn't obey church standards, oh no. It's more that you need a different approach when running conferences for adults ( in physical age rather then mental in some cases :-) compared to ones for youth.

Still I'm just going to choose to hope that I'm reading far too much into this and the email was just down to over enthusiasm rather then strictness.

I had to laugh at the radio today, they had a chap on who admitted to illegalling downloading stuff off the internet. He said that although he knew it was a crime he was going to keep doing it as he didn't think it was a crime......
Good luck with that defence in court matey

Apparently in the debate in the USA over healthcare reform plans some opponents have been attacking obama by using the NHS as a example as why national healthcare didn't work. Our PM has fought back againist these attacks by posting 'twitters' in defence of the NHS. That's right he's twittering about it. Well there was a story in the press today which will probably end up being used as a 'example' in the US, as a man collapsed with a ruptured appendix three weeks after having a operation that removed it. Yes you read that right. Somehow they thought they had removed his appendix but hadn't.

But the story gets better as the hospital seems to be in need of a better PR man as well as the statement they released was
"'We are unable to comment on individual cases. However, we would like to apologise if Mr Wattson felt dissatisfied with the care he received at Great Western Hospital."
I can't think why this man might feel dissatisfied. Can you?

anyway,

Later folks

Millennium

drum roll please.....

Yes after 999 posts I've finally hit the magic number. This is the 1000 post on The Gumblings of a geek.

Of course now I've written that the only thing that springs to mind is the line that one of the fish says after escaping from the Dentists in Finding Nemo.

" Now what?"

Yes I admit I've probably kinda dropped the ball by failing to come up with some sort of uber mega all singing all dancing blog post to commerate this auspicious mile stone. Maybe I'll come up with something better for 1500.

Of course if any of my readers who are bloggers themselves want to help mark this milestone by giving me shameless shout outs on their blogs to help generate some more traffic this way please feel free :-) I know that sounds totally desperate but at least I'm honest about it :-)

I have been giving some thought to you dear readers, namely my 'regulars' who are the vocal minority and the silent majority as I was looking at google analytics to see what search terms might have lead people here.

Now some were expected, such as grumblings, geek grumblings, mormons, Leicester mormons.

Others were not such as Deffkopta debate, philiamonic dining rooms, Jesus army cult ( which post linked to that?) and the most long winded " I knew everything by 20. By 40 I knew that I knew half as much as I thought I knew when I was 20."

The top ten countrys for vistors in descending order are, Spain, Brazil, Germany, France, Belgium, Australia, Canada ( wasn't expecting that), Luxembourg, the United states and the UK.

Blogging has proven to be an interesting experience. It's a shame it wasn't around like this when I was at uni, I would have had more then enough interesting topics for blog posts each day living in halls of residence :-)

It's also proven to be a interesting way of meeting new people as well.

Anyway I'd like to say thank you to all my readers are still with me, I know I ramble at times.

I'd like to say welcome to any new readers, long may you continue to visit ( and leave comments :-)

If anyone has any suggestions for future blog posts they would like to see, or subjects or more of anything I've already written/talked about let me know. I'll see what I can do.

Tune in again folks for post 1001.

Later!

wondering minds

I've been having a lot of random thoughts running through my head today.

Firstly why is it that I'm so adept at putting my foot in my mouth sometimes it's not one foot I manage to get in thre but two.

Secondly why would our local clothes store put the ladies toilets in the mens section of the shop? Is it bad design? A hold over from a previous store layout? Or some sort of clever marketting tool which is so clever it's far, far beyond me.

Thirdly I noticed that peopled were still shaking the hands of investigators at church today? Does the ban on handshaking not apply to them as their not members or are a lot of members just very forgetful and forgot the ban.

Fourthly, why do I have all of these random thoughts running through my head today?

Who knows? Coz I certainly don't and it really has just been one of those days.

The start date for the new insitute course has been announced as the 23rd September and for the first time it will be at the Loughborough chapel. Which will make it a heck of a lot easier to get, cheaper too. Although of course with the randomness of the traffic system around here although it will be easier and cheaper to get to it won't be quicker.

Go figure.

We're going to be having some activities this September as it will be the 40th aniversary of the formation of our ward. Apparently theres going to be some sort of fireside about the history of the ward which will no doubt feature lots of the photos taken when the members were constructing the chapel. Yes that's right, the members actually built the chapel. Not that we would be able to do that these days. We'd probably make some health and safefy person faint in shock at the mere suggestion.

well it's back to work tomorrow after my week off. It will be a shorter week then usual as I have taken Friday off as that's when I will be travelling up to conference and yes it looks like I will be going it alone as it were. Oh well. The one thing I must remember to do is to take a extra pillow with me as I say that every year and always forget.

So with the conference next weekend we have reached that point of the year where there will be the only planned/intentional break in blog posts. So from Saturday through to Monday evening there will be no posts. It will probably be Tuesday before I post my usual in depth epic series of blog posts detailing all of the highs and hopefully very few to no lows of the weekend. So make sure you tune in then.

Later folks.

I've had better trips

The day could have started better.

Firstly the shower head has started leaking which means a lot of the water which should be coming out of the nozzles has started leaking out of the pipe. I then discovered that my alarm clock has broken. Or to be technical the power lead has broken, it's just suddenly broken off. A almost straight sheer through the cable bizarely.

But I was soon on my way as I was heading up north to see my sisters and their extended families for a get together to get some 'official' family portraits done. Grumpy had kindly let me borrow his car as he was off into Nottingham to take part in some NHS style survey.

All was well until about a junction await from my Sisters when I started hearing a odd noise, a really loud noise as it so happened. I eased off the gas and the noise started to die away, my first thought was the engine was acting up and Grumpy was never going to let me hear the end of this. I decided to get off at the next junction and stop to have alook as it didn't seem that bad. Of course it was this precise moment that I saw something in the rear view mirrior fly off from the car and disappear which made me realise that it wasn't probably the engine and that stopped straight away would be good. I pulled onto the hard shoulder, carefully got out and moved to the opposite side of the car to see if there was anything obivous.

What I did see made me utter one or two very bad words indeed. It wasn't the engine, I had in effect lost the rear tire on the passenger side as it had blown out/shredded itself. How the tire was still on was my first thought, my second thought was how the hell had it not thrown me out of control going at speed on the motorway and my third thought was now what!

Fortunatly I had my breakdown details with me and quickly called them up. I could have tried changing the tire myself but the damage looked so bad I wanted some experienced eyes to look at it first. The repairman turned up pretty quickly and changed the tire and found the culpript for the damage. A huge nail sticking out of the tire on the side facing into the car. His guess was I had picked up the tire and it had deflated the tire quickly enough so when the inevitable blow out came the pressure was low enough not to affect the vehicles handling which meant my luck was definatly in today. He got the tire changed very quickly and a bit more fearlessly then me as I would have jumped everytime a lorry went past.

After moving off somewhat nervous of any odd sounds the car was making I did make it to my destination without anymore trouble. Which gave me a chance to look at the tire again and ruminate on my lucky escape. Of course it did mean that I had to then go and find a garage quickly to get a replacement tire sorted as there was no way I was making such a long trip back without a spare. I had given the fates more then enough opportunity to mess with me today.

It was at this point whilst at the garage that I discovered that the tires on Grumpys car as they are somewhat larger then the ones on my little KA and more 'top of the line' as it were, also came with a top of the line price tag. £92 for one tire! Although that price did include a environmental 'green cost'. Yes because after charged me £86 for a new tire, a valve and to balanced the wheel they then charged me £6 to get rid of what remained of the old tire and no doubt make themselves look good as they were 'environmental'. I did wonder if it was a flat charge or if it was a sliding scale and you would have to pay more for a intact tire.

The picture taking was already, if complicated with so many of us. As regular readers will know I don't like getting my picture taken at all. I'm one of these people whose convinced that they never look good in a photo no matter what.

The trip home was much more uneventful ( apart from what I think was a near suicadal owl), however I was quite tense as I was listening for any unusual sound that the car might make.

I got home okay glad nothing else untoward had happened.

It had been a long day.

Later folks!

Running about

It's been a bit of a funny day. As I'm out and about tomorrow as it were, we had to do the shopping today and it always feel weird not to do the shopping on a Saturday as Loughborough seems far too quiet.

The weather was also acting funny as it was changing from clear, to overcast to raining at what seemed like the drop of a hat.

We currently have some visitors as we're looking after Tap-dances two birds whilst she's off up north visiting two of my sisters. Owes found the whole thing some what strange and bewildering as we're not sure he knows exactly what to make of them. I also think he's getting a bit jealous as well as Grumpy has to spend sometime sorting them out each day and to stop Owen frightening them keeps him out of the room.

There was a YSA stake activity tonight which was supposed to be a BBQ. Unfortunatly the activity can best be described as DOA as only three people including myself turned up. We decided that it wasn't worth opening any of the food K Mcr who had organised the activity bought and put it back in the boot of her car and decided that we would go to Frankie and Bennys instead. Her family will probably be eating hotdogs and burgers for sometime to come.

So although we didn't do the activity it turned into a very nice evening as we had a very nice meal and had a lot of fun talking. Plus it made me look good to the casual observer as it would have appeared I was taking two women to dinner at once ;-)

Aspiring Angel was the third person who came which was very nice as I haven't seen her in ages so it was good to catch up.

It was sad nobody else bothered to turn up though. I think we need to get something sorted out somewhere as we never used to have these problems getting YSA out to activities.

but anyway that's a problem for another day.

Later folks.

Volume 3

Well I have done something very constructive this week. I have finally finished writing and putting together volume 3 of my 'series' You Still Aren't Married. Which are basically books containing the very best photos I have taken over the years at various YSA activities.

For those of you who can't remember or are late comers to the blog here are pictures of what the first volume, a gift to Engineseer looked like. Now Volume 3 is intended to be a 'generic' edition in that anyone who is or was a member of Leicester YSA in some form or another and wants a copy can have one. Unlike volumes 1 and 2 which will remain one of a kinds as they were meant as gifts. I know there were two of volume two but lets not spilting that technical hair again shall we?

The new volume will cover 2006 to 2009 and has the following chapters ( the names have been changed on this list to reflect codenames but are the 'proper' names in the finished product.

Prologue
Chapter 1: The YSA in Bradgate Park 2006

Chapter 2: Nemesis's Leaving Party September 2006

Chapter 3: Chineween

Chapter 4: Cordelias's 21st Birthday Party 2006

Chapter 5: The YSA Christmas Party 2006

Chapter 6: The 2007 Institute Graduation Ball

Chapter 7: The National YSA Conference 2007

Chapter 8: Travellers Birthday Party

Chapter 9: Non-spilters wedding

Chapter 10: The 2007 YSA Christmas Party

Chapter 11: New Years Eve YSA party 2007

Chapter 12: The 2008 Institute Graduation Ball

Chapter 13: Not Applicable

Chapter 14: "All Good things" Engineseers leaving party 2008

Chapter 15: Under new Management

Chapter 16: Last ever Friday forum Oct 2008

Chapter 17: The 2008 YSA Christmas Party

Chapter 18: Loughborough

Afterword

Yes I really have taken that many photos. I've just got a couple of technical things to tweak then I will be ordered a copy. Once it arrives I will post some photos and anyone who wants one if you let me know, I'll tell you how to get one.

To quote the meerkat

'seemples'

later folks

Another year older if not another year wiser

Yes it's finally here. My birthday. Which means I am another year older if not another year wiser.

I've also been told that this means I am only two years away from the next 'milestone' which is a somewhat depressing thought but hey I have two years before that 'milestone' rolls around.

Anyway I'm just going to relax and enjoy the day as I'm about to go out bowling ( well I haven't been in ages), followed by a meal at Frankies and Bennies then a trip to the borders book store to see what I can get to add to my ever growing collection of books.

Later folks!

I don't know if they've got it

I was somewhat bemused to see that they are planning to fast track a Battlestar galactica movie for release in cinemas as the series is over basically. It had a definitive ending and I warned for a moment if we would end up with a movie 'set in the past' of some major event/plot twist that the characters involved in said event would never mention again for the rest of the series.

erhhh no.

The fast tracked Battlestar Galactica movie will actually be based on the original show not the remake. Now some smart executive somewhere probably thinks this is a good idea but no one has obivously bothered to tell him that there were some major differences between the two shows and a healthy fan base for the remake will not translate into lots of people going to see a movie based on the original series.

But then again I suppose it does fit the pattern for films at the moment which are either remakes, reimagings, or based on some old tv show that only rabbid fans remember. I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed and hope for the best.

You might remember me mentioning that show in the states called Defying Gravity. Well apparently it's ratings are tanking in the states and it's in danger of being taken off the air. Well I was kinda expecting that to happen as you did have a show that wasn't geeky enough to keep the geeks and not greys anatomyish to keep all greys anatomy fans. It might have also something to do with the fact they are trying to massively stretch out the storyline. The BBC docudrama it was based on managed to fit in a whole trip around the Solar system in two one hour episodes. Defying gravity is still not at Venus yet and it's already four hours in!

Come on Stargate universe, hurry up and get on our screens we need a new decent sci-fi show!

I've spent most of the day cleaning up through various boxes finding all sorts of bitz and pieces that I've been using to see what models I can construct. I'm not doing too badly as a matter of fact, I've managed two squads of marines, a squad of terminators, a chaos lord and I'm now off to see if I can manage a battlewagon too.

Later folks!

If you go into the depths today

I've just heard that Cordelia has managed to write off her car (again). I'm guessing hse must be okay or at least fairly okay as she has been on facebook to announce it. As to what happened, I have no idea although I suppose it could always have been the same thing that happened to her first car. She claimed that a tree jumped into the middle of the road .

I've spent most of the day taking it easy, sorting through some various bits and pieces and trying not to loose my brain to the evils of day time TV. Although before anyone gets worried I have not been watching anything like jeremy kyle, Ricki lake or one of the 101 other daytime chat shows that seem to inhabit the free view channels. More the repeats of star trek, ds9 and voyager that are shown during the day on virgin one.

Well conference/ convetion ( i can never remember what we're supposed to call it!) is just over a week away now so I suppose I better start figuring out where we put the suitcase last time we used it. It's probably in one of three places, unfortunatly all of which will take a significant of time and effort to get into, not quite on the level of a expedition into the jungle but probably close.

What can I say, there's two men sharing a house together. What else can we do but firmly embrace the male stereotype of being rubbish at cleaning.

anyway,

Later folks!

Who ya gonna call?

Ah what could make me more happy then waking up on the first morning of a weeks worth of holiday at a time of my own choosing and not dictated by the blare of a alarm? Why waking up on the first morning of a weeks worth of holiday at a time of my own choosing and not dictated by the blare of a alarm to the announcement that one of the first games I ever got as part of the my modelling hobby is being re-released in a new limited edition to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the original launch.

Space hulk is back!

Now for those of you who aren't complete geeks and probably get out once in a while your probably wondering what Space Hulk is. Well it's a board game between the good guys ( the space Marines and the bad guys Genestealers. The genestealers inhabiate space hulks, collections of lost space craft that are pulled together. If the genestealers reach a human world they will enslave the population and surfice to say the end result isn't good for the humans.

Simply bombarding the hulks isn't a option, many continue long lost technological secrets which man of the 41st millenium are desperate to recover. Enter the Space marines, genetically engineered warriors, they only send their finest warriors clad in their heavist terminator armour to clear the hulks.

But a hulk is a nightmarish maze and the terminators will have to face the genestealers, bio engineered killing machines who can punch through armour with their claws like it was paper in close quarter fighting (think the fighting from the aliens film). Man meets alien in a desperate combat that will decide the fate of a world!

Yes, I know I'm getting stupidly excited over a boardgame but I had the first edition and this new edition seems like it will a lot of fun.

So asides from that and spending most of the day wishing that the 5th September will get her much quicker I haven't been up too much, just taking it easy basically. Oh and stopping Owen from trying to 'bury' his new bone. As he doesn't go in the garden he's being very creative. We've already had to rescue the bone from the gap between the cushions on the settee, from behind the TV and from the laundry basket. But my favourite had to be when he pulling up the rug we have in the lounge, put the bone down, put the rug back and then pulled a stack of dvds down then pushed the dvds over his bone before casually walking out of the room trying to look innocent whilst Grumpy and I looked on more then a little bit surprised.

anyway,

Later folks!

I kinda understand

In the very best spirit of " never give up even if it is pointless" I decided to make one final attempt in our Sunday school class to encourage people to go to the national conference as there's just enough time to rush a form in if somebody really wanted.

To no surprise from me what so ever nobody was interested. Although the new girl from Oz did admit that she had a choice between going to eqypt and going to the conference and had chosen Eqypt. Now to be fair even in my " I'll keep promoting conference till I make you go insane coz I think it's great" opinion I kinda understand where she's coming from as if I had a choice like that I would probably have gone with Eqypt as well because lets face it, it will probably have better weather.

So it seems now ( asides from any information that I don't know and lets face it what I don't know could fill several dozen books) that I will be the only YSA making the trip to conference from this side of Leicester stake. Which in turn means another long car trip by myself which on the way up there is not so bad coming bad is usually when it sucks as you want to be able to talk to somebody, swap stories of the weekend, gossip..... Wait did I say gossip? Church members never gossip they simply sometimes pass information among themselves which others might find interesting and or useful.

Of course I could just be being a touch pessimistic and I do end up with some passengers from Nottingham stake, which would be nice as it would be a way of meeting some new people before I even arrive at conference.

If not, well I managed to tackle the conference alone last year, I'm sure I can do it again this year.

I hope.

We had two really good lessons today at Church. The Priesthood lesson was on friendship in the church and the teacher was really good. The Sunday school lesson was really good as it was on sealing and temple marriage and the teacher got M r ( formly M Y) to come in and talk about she prepared for a temple marriage. She talking about a lot of things and to be honest I won't describe them here as I think it would do her words a deservice to paraphrase them as there was something that really touched me and it was just so powerful. In fact I felt myself getting a bit teary at what she said. It was just one of those lessons that I think will stay with me for a long time.

I spent some of this afternoon helping Grumpy with some of the Family history and entering it on the computer. there's been a surge of interest in our family history from well the family. As we have a scanner we've also been scanning some old photos in and having a well quite a interesting time really.

We also had the home teachers come round this evening and for some reason Owen just went berserk! When they first arrived he was jumping up at the door and boosting himself up so high I was sure he was going to crack his head on the ceiling! When they came in Owen just starting barking so we had to sit holding onto him until he calmed down.

Nutty dog!

Well no work for me tomorrow as I have next week off, so I get a nice lie in. But it won't have too much of a lie in as I have a plan to do something constructive.

Honest!

Later folks!

High tech low tech

When I write my blog at home I tend to use the computer in Grumpys 'office' which is at the front of the house and the way the computers set up it allows me to see out of the window. I was just about ready to start writing todays post when I noticed that it was getting very black outside. Some rather nasty black clouds have just arrived so theres probably a good chance it will rain any second, but when they did arrive they formed a near perfect line so there was this shadow which was rolling along the ground, sort of like the effect in independence day, without the fire and alien ships of course. It was really quite bizare.

I didn't get my usual long lie in this morning as I had to get up as the windscreen guy was due from anytime after 9am. However to give him his due he turned up relatively early (1oam) and got it fixed quite quickly and did a great job. His mix of tools was quite amusing as there was a curious combination of quite high tech looking gear and some rather low tech gear including a razor blade and a lighter.

The weather has also been unsettled all day as it's been threatening to rain most of the day. Which meant I had to carry my coat around whilst shopping as it was too hot to wear it but it was too likely to rain to leave it in the car because if I had I'm sure it would have rained. And rained pretty darn hard too!

I was quite amused to see a headline on cnn's website
" Britain seizes control of islands off coast of florida"
My first thought was, have we invaded? Has brown taken the criticism of the NHS in the USA badly and got fed up of twittering about it?

ehh no.

Apparently we're just taking over the government due to corruption issues.

On the islands not the UK.

I'm contemplating using a idea which was suggested to me by another gamer. He calls it a 'guilt list', apparently you make a list of every model you have that's unpainted and you set yourself a goal to cross a certain number off the list by painting them before you can buy anymore. Which is actually a interesting idea because if theres one affliction tabletop gamers tend to suffer from it's " Shiney new army syndrome" where you basically see a new model and want to buy it because it's new and shiney. Pretty much self explanatory I suppose :-)

Anyway, this is my 990 post which means only 10 more to the big 1000.

Later folks.

Not a good way to start the day

There are some sounds that the instant you hear them you know either something bad has happened or is about to happen, because you know that hearing that sound is never good. You tense up and wait for the other shoe to drop to see just how bad the thing is thats just happened.

So it was this morning as I was leaving Geeksville, a lorry came the other way and I suddenly heard a low crack. I wondered briefly what it could be as I was changing gears at the time and had sudden visions of the car giving up the ghost by letting the clutch fall out but then I realised that it was a glass sounding crack and that probably only meant one thing.

At the next set of traffic lights a quick scan of the windscreen found what I was expecting but hoping I wouldn't find, a nice big chip at the bottom of the windscreen almost smack back in the middle. It was in a infuriating place a well, a mm lower and what ever it was would have been deflected off the wiper blades.

So I continued onto work, trying vainly to remember the number of the windscreen people and failing but somehow remembering all the horror stories from the adverts of how peoples windscreens cracked because they had a chip and didn't get it repaired and it cracked because they accelerated/braked/used their heaters/ went over a bump. Now you need to do at least three of those four to drive so I was slightly nervous whilst driving, but felt better as according to all the adverts they could come out to work and fix it at a time suitable for me.

Well as it turns out all those adverts are pretty much lies! After getting through to the insurance company I found that the earlist they could come would be Monday, I then asked if they could come to the house and do it and the earlist time they had was tomorrow, she explained that they had to book the appointments in advance which is why he couldn't do it the same day. I managed to bite my tongue and not make some saracastic comment apologising for not planning to get my windscreen chipped in advance!

Oh and the 'at a time convienant to me' is a appointment window which is a mere four hours long!

She also kept asking if what I thought caused the damage. Was it a stone? A bit of gravel? A piece of metal? a piece of the truck? a piece of rubbish? She seemed to be working her way through a script which to be honest she probably was but do they seriously expect people to know precisly what hit them? I had a momentary urge to be sarcastic as the list continued and tell her that it was actually caused by a orbital barrage from a alien spacecraft.

I resisted as I had a feeling that this woman probably didn't have a sense of humour.

And all this happened before 9am and the 'official' start of my day!

Still asides from this it turned out to be a quite nice day, particuly as people seemed to have that 'Friday feeling' especially with some of the conversations that started. There was one that started over a misunderstanding between the words sic and sick and their meanings. Plus there were lots of jokes to do with eighties celebrities for some reason. But that may have been prompted by the latest trailer for the new eddie murphy movie which gives away pretty much nothing about the plot and looks more like he's just lost his mind.

anyway, it's the weekend now and the start of my weeks holiday. Which means only two weeks now until conference and a mere six days to my birthday.

Later folks!

Looking for the right words

It's been a bit of a strange one today as it has been one of those days. But it's not been one of those days which you know exactly why it's been one of those days as it can be traced back to a certain event. It's been one of those days where you know it's one of those days but you can't put your finger on precisely why.

Now I know looking back on that paragraph that it is rather close to making no sense whatsoever or it's making me sound like I'm about to totally loose the plot, put on a tin foil hat and go and wait outside for the aliens to come visit but again in as it's just been one of those days I'm really struggling to find the right words to describe it.

It probably doesn't help that grumpys computer seems to have developed a interesting quirk this evening of not being able to keep up with my typing. I'm not sure why that's the case and I really hope it's not because the darn things having a meltdown.

still only one more day until the weekend and the start of my week of holiday. I'm just hoping that the good weather will choose to stay around and that irony won't decide to lend a hand by making it rain the entire time.

anyway,

Later folks

What's good for the frog

Well I suppose we shouldn't be that surprised. The crazy frog released his own song after appearing in adverts so it was only a matter of time before the meerkat released one.

Yes Aleksandr Orlov, the slavic upper class talking meerkat of the compare the market insurance adverts is apparently going to be releasing his own song.

For those not in the know, Aleksandr appears in the adverts complaining that people are swamping his website comparethemeerkat.com searching for cheap car insurance when they should be going to comparethemarket.com . He then usually finishes the adverts with his catchphrase, seemples! usually after going to great lengths to point our peoples mistakes, the latest of which involves him putting on a puppet show to try and get his point across!

If he does release a song my guess is "seemples" is probably going to be part of the chorus.

Speaking of adverts, apparently according to the latest new one to grace our screens what women really want is not flowers when you turn up to collect them for a date, but rather mascara so they can have increase the length of their eye lashes. Although the women in the advert only seems to be there for her looks as her acting was so woodern you would have trouble telling her apart from a tree.

the birthday present for my friend has arrived and it's awesome! I won't say what it is, in case she reads this and that would kinda spoil the surprise wouldn't it?

16 days to conference, 8 until my birthday. Not that I'm counting or anything :-)

I am taking next week off though from work as I thought I needed a break after several very busy weeks with my secondment and the forthcoming busy period we're about to go through at work. Plus it is my birthday after all and I know of few people who want to work on their birthday if they can avoid it.

anyway,

Later folks!

No comment

Like most of the other people in the UK all I know about next to nothing about this years big brother. Although I was amused to learn the nickname of one of the housemates was nicknamed halfwit, which in itself is a quite amusing description of a housemate but when you put it in the headline I saw it in
" Halfwit up for eviction from Big brother house!"

it's even funnier!

The great train robber Ronnie briggs mere days after being 'released' from prison on compasionate grounds, as he was so ill he was supposed to be near deaths door or something has made a miraculous return to health as according to friends, his freedom gave him access to reserves of strength he didn't know he had.

Excuse me whilst like a fair chunk of the british public I remain somewhat sceptical.

A cargo ship has apparently disappeared in the north sea, triggering a huge search. A comment on one news site suggested that maybe the coastguard were as bad as finding things as the police when looking for stolen cars. Obivously missing the point that a cargo ship happens to be just a little bit bigger then a ford escort!

According to the TV adverts today it's possible to wake up teenage boys with the smell of toast, kids are not worried by a talking eight foot tall carton cow and somewhat worryingly neither are the parents, there are such things as ninja ducks but they are only interested in cleaning toilets and 'oh yes' the church hill car insurance adverts can get even more annoying.

anyway

Later folks

When a plan comes together

I have to admit I'm feeling pretty smug right now and also really hoping that pride is not going to come before a fall here, but I digress. The birthday present that I was creating for one of my friends is due to arrive tomorrow and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it, plus volume 3 of the top secret project is also coming along really, really well. So well I hope to send it off to the printers soon.


I'm also having great success with my latest modeling project as well, especially as I've improved my skills with green stuff. Which for the non geeky among you is a form of modelling putty. Basically it comes in a strip of two colours blue and yellow and you mash them together to 'activate' it and start using it to model with. You can tell when it's ready to use as it will be.... yes you've guessed it green. The stuffs easy to use, difficult to master.


The weather has once again been a rather changeable thing today with bursts of sunshine intermixed with rain pretty much the entire day. Which is somewhat depressing as I wish it would just pick one type of weather and stay with it!

Numbers wise today I have noticed that I have 15 posts to go until I hit the magic 1000 posts today, 18 days to go until conference and a mere 10 days to go until my Birthday.

anyway,

Later folks!

well d'uh!

I think the award for the most 'well d'uh!" story of the day which I saw online was a article where somebody was complaining that for the new film 'jennifers body' staring Megan fox that the marketing people were obivously not trying to find the best marketing strategy and were simply trying to market the film based on her looks. The thing which prompted this rant was the films poster ( see below).

I would say that if their aiming for the male audience they've probably already found the best marketting angle? Wouldn't you?

Don't shake it

It's been a very nice day as the sun has been blazing away all day, in fact the day would have been almost perfect if not for the humidity. I know, I know I'm never satisfied am I? It rains I moan, it shines I moan.

But to give you an idea of just how hot it was today when I got into Grumpys car after church the temperature display was only a mere 39! It made me very glad that I was using his car to get there and back today I can tell you.

We actually had a teacher in Sunday school! Yah for organisation! We've also gained a new YSA member ( I think I'm not totally sure) as a girl from Australia has moved into the area as she's working over here till next March. It's always good to get new YSA.

Mr Modesty ( or AF as he was known) as gone on Holiday for a month to France. Obivously taking a page out of physics book he has a train ticket which gives him travel all over the network and will be going where ever he wants to for the next month ( again assuming I understood it correctly). It must be nice to be able to go off for a holiday for a whole month on a whim.

Due to the swine flu 'epidemic' that is still either dying out/ under control/ raging out of control and we're all doomed, depending on which newspaper you read the stake presidency has introduced some new rules until further notice. Where as the catholics have stopped taking communion we will be not shaking hands until we're told otherwise. So whether this means we have to do short but friendly waves or we just have really awkward starts to conversations who knows.

anyway,

Monday tomorrow so the start of another week of work and any all the opportunities that brings.

Later folks!

Lying around

What's the main benefit of getting Saturdays 'back' as a day off? I get my saturday morning lie in back. Woo-hoo!

Although it wasn't as quite a long a lie in as I would have liked as Owen decided to play his favourite game of dropping toy down the stairs then charging down after it. It was even more annoying then usual this morning as it was using his new boy which makes a squeaking sound and it still made a squeaking sound when he dropped it. I would blame the person who bought him that stupid ball but I won't.

Mainly as that was me.

Oh well at least it keeps him occupied.

The weather has finally turned nice and it's been sunny all day. In fact so sunny that we were able to leave our coats at home when we went shopping which even though we are in summer has been a rare occurence the past few weeks.

Although after getting used to Nottingham, I have now realised so badly the selection of shops in Loughborough sucks! Oh well at least we have a comic book store even if 'House of Heroes' isn't quite on the same scale as 'Forbidden planet'.

Yes I really am that geeky.

Only twelve days to my birthday now when I will be another year older but almost certainly not much wiser :-) and three weeks to this years ysa conference. Nottingham stake are just hanging in there with having the most YSA going. Seeing as I am going to be the only person going from leicester I did send a note through to one of the girls in Nottingham offering car space if any of their ysa are struggling for lifts. Well it would be a good way to get to know new people and the worst thing they can say is no.

I spent a large chunk of the afternoon cleaning out the cupboard under the stairs. Don't ask me why I started to that I just suddenly had one of those random moments when the mess in there started to really annoy me and I wanted it cleaned up. Which it is now plus theres enough room to stand the ironing board up without have to worry about it falling back on top of you.

So that's probably about 5% of the house now tidy 95% to go.

Oh well, what can I say, as two men living in a house Grumpy and I seemed to have firmly embraced the male stereotype. I.e we're really bad at cleaning!

Anyway,

Later folks.

Another caption competition

You know what to do.

time for a caption competition

Leave your suggestions for a caption in the comments field

What to do, what to do

Well it's the end of another week and I'm going to have to get used again to having Saturdays off! I know it's such a hard life isn't it.

On the plus side the weather might and I emphasis might have just taken a turn for the better as we've had sunshine for most of the afternoon. Now if only it can hold out until the Ward BBQ tomorrow.

Theres a new advert on the TV for a new chinese sauce from Uncle Ben's. If you believe the advert it's very useful if you ever have a group of chinese stereotypes decide to drop by for dinner.

In a case of you couldn't make it up, the actor who is the 'star' of the adverts on TV that tell you how to avoid swine flu and spreading it around has himself just caught swine flu. So he's either really unlucky or just didn't take his own advice.

Grumpy is a bit annoyed at the governments plans to do away with free bus pases for some OAPs. He can't understand why the government is going to do away with one of it's most popular iniatives. And I have to say I agree with him, it's not so much a case of shooting yourself in the foot as taking it off with a chainsaw.

He also was unhappy with Midsummer Murders on Wednesday saying their now getting a bit unbelievable. Only now? Remember this is a county where if I remember correctly has had over 200 murders in about ten years and the only reason the lead policeman is still in his job with one of the worst murder rates in the country is that his clean up rate must be the best in the country. Lets not forget his wife who might as well be called the Angel of Death because whenever she turns up for any sort of social function you can be sure someone's about to die!

I've found the inspiration I was searching for so it's just a short post today as I have a idea, I have a plan and a box full of bits so I'm off to build something.

Later folks!

you never know

Driving home through the rather heavy rainfall this evening I realised something. A band called JLS ( yes boy bands might be back in vogue, run now! Run for the hills! warn the people! Save yourselves!) has recently released a cover of Rhianna's song Umbrella, and what happened when that song was released the first time round? Oh yes near enough a whole summer of rain and now a cover is released and it starts raining again.

hmmmmm? Yes it's a reach but then again so are all the best conspisary theories. So if umbrella has the secrets of causing rain what sunshine would bring sunshine? Any suggestions anyone?

It's a moment of a lifetime for those of us in the UK tomorrow or at least a moment of a century because it will be the one time every hundred years when the numbers of the time and date will make a perfect sequence. What time am I talking about why 12:34:56 which as it's the seventh of august makes the full sequence 12:34:56 07/08/09.

Slightly random thought for you to bear in mind tomorrow. What will you be doing at 12:34:56? answers in the comments section please :-)

The latest series of big brother limps on un-noticed on channel 4. Nobody cares!

Jordan continues to act like well Jordan. Still nobody cares!

Cindy crawford goes on a cruise. Nobody cares!

Do you see a pattern developing in showbiz news today? I get the feeling it's been a bit of a slow news day and their scrabbling for stuff to fill the gap. I was half expecting another news story about Brad pitt and Angelina jolie taking their kids to mcdonalds again or to put it another way
" Celebrities eat like normal people. Full shocking story inside!"

I heard a great response from the writer and creator of Torchwood about some of the events ( still not going to say in case people haven't seen it) that happened i nthe last series and some fans very vocal reactions to it
" If they don't like it they can go and watch supernatural!"

anyway,

Later folks

Nag, nag, nag

Although I am looking forward to the conference at the end of the month I am starting to get just a litttlllleeee fed up of the constant emails they keep sending out to people who have signed up to any sort of email list either via the church or facebook reminding us that the conference is coming up and there's still time to apply to go.

I really want to send them a email back saying " I'm coming already, so stop nagging me!"

I will also not let my suspecious nature dwell on why the organisers of a conference that they said was almost full up a month ago are still sending out lots of emails begging people to come.

The weathermen once again proved this money that they don't seem to stick their heads out of the window when forecasting the weather as the report on the radio said there was a chance that there would be some light rain. Whilst I was struggling to see through a rain lashed windscreen and making bow waves through the water on the roads that were more akin to those made by a destroyer rather then a KA.

Still it brightened up this afternoon and we got some nice new books in at work. So I'm off to do some reading.

Later folks!

Decisions, decisions

I'm currently finding myself once again searching for inspiration for my next modelling project. I know I want to do something and make it impressive but I just don't know what to do! Despite spending a large amount of time looking round the shop at work there was nothing that really grabbed my attention. I suppose I'll do what I always do in this situation and that is go and read a history book and hope inspiration strikes soon!

I'm throughly enjoying the drive to and from work at the moment because as all of the kids are off school and are thus probably busy driving their parents or babysitters mad the roads are extremely empty. I do so like the summer!

I was really rather happy today to learn that the problems with the cast of futurama have been sorted out and it seems that all the original cast will indeed be returning.
Y'aaahhhhhhh!!!!!!! does happy dance
Theres no way the series would have worked without the original cast.

I'm starting to setttle back into life in the office, the one thing that is still bugging me as it were is how quiet it is to the shop. No music blaring away and no loud shouts from gamers as they play gamers and curse the dice when it doesn't deliver at a critical moment. We had one guy who threw 48 dice and didn't roll one 6. I'm sure that violated the laws of probability so badly that a hole in the space time continium appeared somewhere!

Latest big brother update..... it's apparently still on and myself and most of the population couldn't care less!

anyway,

Later folks!

Opposite expectations

Well it was back to the office today and as it turned out I had the opposite problem from what I was expecting. I thought with sitting down all day after six weeks of being on my feet at all times I might start to feel very sleepy. What actually happened was that I had great difficulty sitting still as I seemed to have lots more energy then usual so I decided to stay away from anything caffine or sugar based in case I start bouncing round the whole office.

HMV who must be the only major dvd/cd sellers still around on the high street have started a new loyalty card. You know the type, for every £1 you spend you get 1 pence on your card. However they charge you £3 to buy a card, which means you will have to spend a mere £300 before you start to make any 'profit' from the points your will be collecting.

I heard of a new sci-fish series starting in the USA called " Defying gravity " which was inspired by a BBC 'docufiction' series called Voyage to the planets. However looking at the series website by hopes for a serious sci-fi series were dashed by the following blurb;

Four women and four men hurtle through space with nothing to do for six years and eight billion miles, except maybe solve a powerful and awesome mystery. Maybe, just maybe, some of them will even hook up. How cool is that?

Like, is this like spacecraft like crewed by like American stereotype like teenagers?
but then again I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything else when the show has makers who used to work on greys anatomy and desperate housewives. I suppose this show was best summed up by a review that I saw that stated it's not sci-fi enough to keeps the geeks attention and not romantic enough to keep the attention of the Greys anatomy fans.

I guess I'll just do what most geeks are doing sit back and hope whatever show is going to assume the mantle of BSG Will be along soon " Come on stargate universe our hopes are riding with you"

This evening I went over to the PGs as they were hosting a YSA barbacue and it turned out to be a very enjoyable evening. Even if they don't have tomato ketchup in their house. Shock, horror, insert steretype surprised cliche here

Of course with a group of YSA the conversations did take a slightly random turn. If I followed things correctly Mr Modesty is going to go on a pretend super fast date with LPG. His sister will be marrying five different swedish nuclear mastermind expects just in case she ever wants five nuclear reactors and I've been written off when it comes to the dating scene as Social was only giving dating advice to Mr Modesty and not to me as she either thinks I know it all or has written me off. Mr Modesty assured me that he thought it was the latter. Oh and Mr Modestys other sister will live forever as she has a lifeline on her palm which is so long it comes back across her palm.

Of course I could have got this all wrong but to quote Jon Stewart
" It's on the internet?? Then it must be true :-)"

Later folks.

MIA

Last week at church we were missing somebody with keys to let people into the building. This morning we were missing something else important, Bread for the sacrement and this little fact wasn't discovered until almost the start of the service. Meaning that somebody had to tear home quickl to get some and then race back leaving the bishop to 'wing it' slightly as he had no idea when it would arrive.

Well at least he didn't try any standup.

We were also missing a teacher for Sunday school as well. I think this is the second time in three ( or was it four) weeks that this has happened. Which isn't good to be honest. I decided to go into a 'adult' class along with traveller. I'm not sure what the others eventually ended up doing, they might have gone into another class or decided to stay there and play spirtual hangman.

It was Travellers last Sunday today as she's back off to Thailand. Which was strange i nthe sense that it doesn't seem like she's been here that long before she's off again.

Weather wise it's been fairly sunny all day which was nice. With any luck it will continue to stay sunny for tomorrows YSA BBQ.

We can but hope.

Well it's back to the office tomorrow, which should be interesting ( in a good way before anyone says anything). Although I have a feeling that most of the morning will probably be spent going through six weeks worth of emails.

anyway,

Later folks,

They think it's all over

Well as I said yesterday today is officially the end of that. Yes my secondment has now officially ended and I will be back to the office on Monday and trying to get used to being able to sit down all day again :-) It is going to be very strange going back as the six weeks of my secondment doesn't seem to have been that long as the time seems to have gone very quickly but it also seems like a very long time since I've been in the office if that makes any sense whatsoever.

Despite my best hopes the weather decided not to co-operate today ( the one day I didn't take the umbrella no less) and it decided to rain for pretty much the entire day whilst remaing somewhat hot and sticky which I suppose was a reminder that we are actually in summer whether it seems like it or not.

Well it's now August which means the national YSA conference is only a month away and my birthday is also only 19 days away. Which means I suppose I better think of what to ask for.

anyway,

Later folks