Bye, bye now

Well in just three hours and twenty minutes ( at time of writing of course) 2010 will be coming to a close and we will be welcoming 2011.

Of course some places in the world have already welcomed in 2011 which means they are now in a different decade to us ( don't think about it too much you'll probably get a headache :-)

Although as Grumpy pointed out when they invented GMT time as the "central time" for want of a better term, why did they come up with a system where some of the world was ahead of us in time. Why wasn't it worked out that everyone was behind us?

I'm sure mind you there is some indepth technical reason as to why this is the case but I can't be bothered to think of it right now as I'm too tired!

Well one thing we'll have to welcome in the new year is a 3.5 pence rise in the price of petrol with a fuel duty hike and the VAT rise combined! That means the average price around geektown will be 1.28!

Of course I also couldn't welcome in the new year without my final day of work, which turned out to be a much harder slog then I anticipated with my patience once again being tested to the upmost!

Still I don't have to worry about that again until Tuesday.

I suppose all I have left to do now is to draw a close to another year on The Grumblings of a Geek by thanking all of my regular readers and wish you a happy new year and may 2011 bring you all you desire.

Later folks

Someone didn't think that through

With New years fast approaching there has been a steady increase of adverts on the TV for slimming products, i.e diets, supplements and fitness DVDs as many peoples thoughts turn towards new years resolutions.

Well we saw a advert last night for one of those yoghurt things which are supposed to help digestion. They were produly announcing their new slogan of " Out with the old, in with the new".

Five minutes later Grumpy and I were still have a very childish fit of the giggles. As we had both seen the unintential funny side of that slogan.

Mind you what wasn't funny is that whoever came up with that was probably paid more money for it then I earn in a year!

Well one more day before I have to go back into work. For the sounds of things there are no local New Year eve church parties this year so it will probably be a night at home unfortunatly.

C'est la vie I suppose.

Later folks

umm hello??

Okay, I'm not what you can call easy to miss. So it's somewhat annoying to go into a a shop and not be acknowledged by the staff or asked if I need any help.

It's even more annoying when you go into a shop wanted to buy something specifically and they don't ask you if you need help.

It's even worse when you actually go into the shop twice and they still don't ask if you need assistance!

Yes I didn't have a especially good day shopping even if I did manage to get the two dvd's and CD I was after, as I have decided that it was time to join up with near enough eveybody else and get a mobile phone that can actually access facebook and the internet at large. Even if I barely get any calls or text messages these days at least I can access facebook and see what everybodys doing.

Or at least I would be able to if the shop assistants hadn't ignored me. grrrrrr.

I'm making the most of my break right now as I only have to go into work on Friday and then I don't have to be back in until next Tuesday. For a week of lates, followed by another week of lates.

Although to be fair the second week of lates is my fault as I swapped with one of the girls who due to bad timing would have ended up with three consecutive weeks of lates over christmas and the holidays and into new year and so she was pretty much done in and to cut a long story short I am a sucker for any damsel in distress :-)

anyway,

Later folks

Better Watch what I say

Well I better watch what I say from now on as there have been two recent additions to the sphere of Blogging.

Grumpy now has his own blog which you can find here ( see I've told people now you don't have to keep remind me) His blog is called Musings of a YAP. What's a YAP? Well it's in his words a Young Aged Person as he refuses to accept that he's a OAP.

Secondly Tap Dance has started her own blog as well Rambings of a Grandma can be found here. She has literally only just started mind you so there is only one post right now, and that's just of a photo. But there will be more posts soon.

Later folks

everybody loves a slinky

At least someone likes the snow

What you don't want to see when setting off for work

The scene that greeted me last Wednesday morning when I was leaving for work.

Do we have enough ice?

This is a picture of the icecle that is hanging off the roof outside of TapDances back door. It was almost as big as some of my Nieces and nephews!

Twas the night before Christmas

It's been a busy week, really really busy. Work as you can imagine has been totally manic especially with us finally joining the rest of the country and getting some heavy snowfall on Wednesday which meant three of the team were stopped from getting to work at the worst possible time.



So between that and the overtime I've been putting in I've been pretty much ready to drop when I've got home, which is why there's been no posts for a little while.



Still that's over now, it's Christmas eve and as I type this I can see out of the office window past the illuminated tree Grumpy has in the window into the dark outside and seeing all of the snow outside it's hard to deny that the christmas spirit that I haven't been feeling that much this week is coming back really quickly.



The other thing to note is unless we have major thaw over night we're actually going to have a white christmas! Yah!



Tomorrow morning will probably be spent in the usual way, getting up late, having breakfast, opening presents, watching the Muppets christmas carol and then dinner!



So I hope where ever you are readers that you have a very Merry christmas and Santa brings you all of the presents you want.



Later folks!

Office organisation

Tis the season not to be merry, tra, la, la, la......

I knew this week was likely to be quite tough with the run up to christmas and all. What I wasn't expecting was to find my patience being tested to the utmost less then a hour after work started and I still had the rest of the shift to go!

The only plus point and I hesistate to call it a plus point is that everyone else is exactly in the same postion, all finding their own ways to make it through the week. Not to sound cliched of course but it is one of those times when teams all come together and you look our for your colleagues and help where you can as even the smallest thing can help lighten a big burden.

It's also been very cold, we might have had no snow but the temperature dial was almost down in double figures again this morning which makes getting out of bed even harder!

Still there's now only four days to Christmas!

Yah!!!

Here's hoping that my store of goodwill won't be totally empty by then.

Later folks!

So thats a no on the snow day?

Well the countries in dis array, roads are blocked and airports closed with thick snowfall everywhere.............

Well not quite every.

Yes folks the weather null zone which seems to surround Geektown is part to full power as we seem to be about the only place which hasn't had snow over the past few days.

Although it's been cold, very very cold. In fact when I left for church the temperature dial in Grumpys Car was at a impressive -8! The temperature only got all the "way up" to -2 by mid day. So the central heating has been cranked up all day.

Church was very good today, even if we didn't have a Sunday school teacher. I don't know what it was but there seemed to be more of a Energised spirit for want of a better term through out all of the meetings.

Well even though we didn't get any snow I know a lot of other places have which means one thing and one thing only.

We're going to be having a very interesting week at work.

Still they've declared it non uniform all week which will be good and after Friday I only have to work one day between Christmas and New Years. Granted it is New Years eve, but it's short opening hours and I'll be done by 4pm. So that still gives me plenty of time for.....

well I have no idea yet, I guess I'll just wait and see.

Later Folks!

Leicester YSA The next generation

Time for that other Christmas tradition

We went out for our YSA christmas meal this week and no christmas meal would be complete without that other christmas tradition.

Taking a picture of the food for Nemesis.


Now you probably noticed that it isn't very christmassy! Well theres a good reason for that as there was a mix up in the booking and the harvester couldn't give us the christmas menu.

Not that anybody complained as the meal was free after all.

Out with the old

Here is my old bedroom door. In case any of your are wondering the large plain patch is down to a time when there was some muck on my door. Tap Dance decided to use a cleaner to get rid of said muck which proved to be highly effective. It totally got rid of the muck.

And as you may have noticed it also got rid of some other stuff as well :-) And why am I showing you a picture of my old door?

Well because I have a new one ( it's been a long day so my inspiration is a bit lacking right now just in case your wondering why I'm talking about doors)

And mine isn't the only door which is new. All of the upstairs doors have been replaced which means the landing now looks a lot bigger.

Also it's now obivous it needs redecorating asap! I guess I know what we'll be doing in January!

Later folks

This season Owen will mostly be wearing

Unexpected bonus

We got a nice surprise at work today when we all received Christmas hampers! As you can see from the above pic it there was a lot of nice stuff in there....

and some haribo ( kidding, just kidding).

Grumpy was especially impressed with it, because at the very least he'll be getting the wine, the tea and the champagne truffles!

Still it was a nice surprise to cheer up a otherwise rather hard day.

Christmas Tree oh Christmas tree!

I was only trying to help

First off a Random and somewhat puzzling thing I have noticed when it comes to facebook status updates. I do a update saying I'm fed up and in need of a hug I get nothing, zero, zilch nada. No comments from anyone.

I do a update saying how I hurt my knee and shoulder when Owen pulled me down a frozen slope Sunday morning and I get two likes from people.

So it seems that people don't notice if I'm depressed and in need of a hug but like it when I get injured?

I think that might be a thread I really don't want to pull at.

Work today was, well it was pretty much insane. One of the girls on my team had a particuly difficult morning and looked to be on the verge of tears. I decided to try and cheer her up and went and got her a cup of tea and her favourite choc bar as a surprise to cheer her up. At which point when I gave them to her and explained why I had got them for her, she promptly declared she was going to cry and rushed out of the office leaving me standing there with a couple of glares from people who obivously wanted to know what I had done. I tried to vainly mumble a excuse before realising that I probably wouldn't win and just resorted to muttering that one phrase that all men will have uttered at somepoint in their lifes
" I don't understand women"

Joking aside I did feel really, really quilty until she came back and assured me she was okay. The guy who sits next to me couldn't resist the urge to tease me about it for the rest of the morning saying I had nobody to blame but myself for feeling guilty if I would go around and upset girls by giving them free chocolate.

anyway,

Later folks

Wild cards

Just when we thought things couldn't get any more busier or "interesting" somethings come along which has thrown a complete set of wild cards into the mix at the worst possible moment. Still at least it means work is never dull and seeing as we can't really sit under the desks all day and ignore the phones ( but that would be good) we'll just to have to look on it as a good learning experience.

Speaking of learning experiences out printer has currently packed up. But not in the sense of it can't print anything, more like it won't print anything and had a falling out with the computer as the computer has suddenly started to insist that the printer is no longer connected even when it is!

So I'm kinda trying to fix it without giving into frustration and throwing the darn thing out of the window. Or againist the wall. Or smashing it with a hammer, or generally just destroying it in whatever satisfying way occurs to me at that moment in time.

The temperature has risen a lot today, there was even a rumour we were no longer in minus figures. This means that the snow has gone but according to the weathermen the cold snap will be back next week. If their right.

and lets face it their usually not.

Anyway

Later folks.

Not Mine but still good

okay so this is the original photo taken by me of Owen and Grumpy

and this is what you get after my Brother has some free time and an art program.

I had a complete fit of the giggles when I saw this for the first time. He's called it ET Bone Home

Almost tropical

Everybody was in a great mood this morning a work as it was so much warmer then it has been outside. It was all the way "up" to -3. Which is a bit of a stupid statement if you think about it as it's still really cold, but compared with yesterdays dip into double digits it very postively warm.

With several countries across Europe on Bank Holiday today we had a much quieter day and some valuable time to get caught up. Of course this probably means we'll get totally slammed tomorrow but c'est la vie. It's almost Christmas, so being busy goes with the season.

And we're also getting another dress down day tomorrow which is great as that means with the standard dress down day on Friday we don't have to wear our uniform for the rest of the week and I don't have to iron any more shirts for the rest of the week either! Which admitially won't save me a massive amount of time but at least it will save me the hassle.

and even the smallest piece of good news is always welcome.

later folks

A first I could have done without!

Well we had something which I'm 99% certain we have never had before in Geektown. The temperature plummeted so badly last night it actually got into double figures.

Which meant de icing the car was even more of a nightmare then yesterday. I decided to try the de icer and immediatly gave up when it didn't make a shred of difference. In fact I think it may added to the ice.

I also had to wrap up rather warmly as it was so cold as well. I put on my usual shirt, a jumper, then my suit jacket, then my winter coat with a hat and gloves and I was still cold! My teeth didn't stop chattering for quite a while. I was just glad my coat isn't white otherwise I would have been doing a darn good impression of the mitchelin man!

This extreme cold meant I was even more gobsmacked when I got on the minibus to see one guy get out of his car in just a short sleeved shirt! I couldn't believe how anyone could only be wearing a thin shirt.

Still the cold has had one plus side in that we're getting another non uniform day tomorrow as it's a lot easier for people to wrap up warm in their own clothes as opposed to their uniforms.

One of the guys from our team is extremly on eedge right now as his wife is pregnant and he due date was today! He's twitching everytime he hears a mobile or the bosses phone go. But you know he has good reason, it's going to be a very testing and emotional time.... fortunatly his wife will be there to help him through it :-)

anyway,

Later folks.

Congratulations Nemesis!

For those of you who haven't visited her blog in a while now might be a good time to go and visit Miss ( or should it be Mrs now?) Nemesis's blog. As she has someone she wants to introduce you to.

Okay you might wonder what this picture has to do with anything. Well nothing at all but it's the best one I have of her.

What do you get?

If you store your drinks in the garage and you then get the first time you have ever gone into minus doubles figures on the temperature scale.

Well pre iced Diet Pepsi for a start

and lets not forget what happened to the bottles of water I take to work.

Thats pretty darn cold

Having to de ice the car first thing in the morning is nothing new. I've done it umpteen times before and no doubt will do it umpteen times again in the future.The journey to work has often started with the smell of de icer in the morning.

What I haven't face before is ice on the inside ( yes the inside!) of the windscreen that was so thick I had to use the scraper on it! The outside was even worse and took nearly 15 minutes of de icer and scraping to clear.

Still despite the rather icy start to the morning it wasn't that bad a day over all. In fact for a Monday it was postively easy. Which has left me with the lingering worry that maybe we're being lulled into a false sense of security for the week.

But even if that happens, c'est la vie. It's almost christmas and things are bound to get busier. And a whole lot more difficult if this bad weather keeps up. But again if that happens it happens.

later folks.

funny

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Well you know what, we might actually be getting near to Christmas. Even with all of the snow it hasn't felt that christmassy but as it's December we've starting singing christmas carols at church and what do you know? It actually started to feel like Christmas is almost upon us.

Of course this christmas feeling could only lead to one logical outcome.... and that is going into the loft to get all of the decorations down. Which is a lot easier to do now we've had boards put down up there, well at least in the sense of accessing the loft. The main issue I've been facing is trying to figure out where everything is and whats in what box!

It was a bit of a nightmare trying to get to church this morning as despite the large amount of thawing yesterday, temperatures plunged back below freezing last night which meant there was a awful lot of ice. Rather then having to first worry about defrosting the windscreen I had to worry about defrosting the door so I could get it open!

Which is probably a issue I'll have to face tomorrow as I'm on early shift this week.

Oh well, c'est la vie!

Later folks

From one thing to another

Well it's finally stopped snowing. But that's only because the temperature has gone up so it's been raining instead. Which although helping a lot of the snow to melt has kinda made things a bit damp and depressing. Granted the snow was cold and a absolute pain to drive in but at least it made things look pretty.

And that paragraph once again proves that no matter what the weather is like here in the UK we will never be satisfied with it.

I've spent most of the last couple of days christmas shopping and I'm glad to say that I have all but finished. Although my current problem is where to store everything as there's a fair bit.

Although my christmas shopping yesterday was interupted when the whole shopping centre had to be evacuated due to a car fire in the multi story car park!

Also I saw what most be one of the weirdest franchise style shops ever. It's basically a shop where you can go in and get a foot massage. I'm sure your thinking that's not so weird in fact it might even be good after a long day of shopping. Well you haven't heard what does the massaging yet. You go into the shop, you put your feet in a tank of water where a shoal of fish then basically eat the dead skin from your feet. And this massages you feet apparently.

A couple of thoughts spring to mind, firstly who put their feet into a shoal of these feet and discovered this and secondly who saw this and thought wow that would be a great thing to operate as a franchise/chain of shops. I've never seen the shop have more then one or two people in it. They would probably make more money from charging the people who looking through the windows to watch.

Anyway,

Later folks

And still the snow falls

Here comes the snow....again

Visitors for breakfast

View from my window

And still it snows

Well that stopped being fun pretty quickly

I awoke this morning to find it had been snowing all night and was still snowing. Now I'm sure that if I had, had the day off or it was the weekend I would have been delighted, as I would have been able to go out and play in the snow.

However I didn't have the day off and it sure as sure wasn't the weekend. Which meant I had to face the drive to work and all of the stresses that entailed. And there was a lot of stress as there was a huge traffic jam. It took me nearly 45 miniutes just to get out of geektown and the journey to work usually only takes 15 minute all told!

In fact I barely managed to make it to work in time for the start of my shift so the rushing round and the fact I was very wound up from driving in snow ( my least favourite conditions) meant I was somewhat tense before the day even started.

Suffice to say it wasn't the best of days and coming home in the even worse driving conditions didn't help, especially when I came into the estate and came across a road which was quite literally a sheet of ice!

And to add to the fun according to weather reports things are supposed to get worse!

Oh well, I'l just have to take things nice and slow and hope I don't get so tense that my shoulder freeze.

Later folks.

Better then the weathermen

With the weather being what it is, most people have to look up the weather report to get an idea of what's going on.

I don't. Well at least not during the working week. As we get regular updates at work as to what the weathers doing in certain areas. In fact it's better then the usual weather reports as it's much more up to date.

Joking aside the reports have actually been quite interesting today (for once) as you were able track the status of the snow showers as they've moved on over the country, and you could see how it was slowly moving down the country.

Mind you the reports also proved what I've always said about the weather deadzone surrounding geektown as the snow quite literally seemed to go around us on it's way down south!

Okay in hind sight maybe it wasn't the most interesting thing in the world but sometiems when a Monday morning rolls round at work you just have to find interesting things where you can.

anyway,

Later folks

D'oh!

It was rather cold last night. In fact so cold I had some Ice form on the inside of my bedroom window. Which was somewhat puzzling at first until I happened to put my hand on the top of my radiator and realised that it was stone cold.

Yes, Mr Observant here had failed to notice that the radiator had steadly been getting colder from the top down. Basically it had rather a lot of air trapped in, but no problem all I needed was to put the radiator Key, let the air out and bingo one hot radiator and one warm room.

Easy right?

Yes, very easy indeed.......... If you actually have a radiator key. After a long search which may have involved one or two sear words as I proceeded to turn the house upside down I had to conclude that our radiator key has disappeared somewhere into that great mysterious location that houses the spare back door key, My phone charger and Grumpys gloves and one of his slippers. We don't know much about this location, only that it must exist outside of time and space as it can never be located and every house seems to have one.

Fortunatly Tap Dance had one we could borrow so I now have a nice warm room once again.

I am starting to feel a little left out on Sunday nights because as I don't watch the X-factor I have now idea whats going on with the show so I can't join in with the flood of status updates from everybody giving their views on the show. Maybe I should try and come up with some sort of generic status updates
" I pleased/unhappy that whichever contestant has been portrayed as villian by the media this week has been voted off/survived for another week".

Well it could work.

Anyway,

Later folks

There's that snow

Well I woke this morning to find it had snowed. Yah!!

Well actually not so much as we had only gotten at most a few cm's which quickly melted in most places as the day wore on. Not that Owen minded of course as he thought all of the snow made his morning walk terrific fun. He was so happy when he came back, that whilst he was wagging his tail so hard his hips were moving as well.

The town was quite packed today as a lot of people seem to be starting their christmas shopping. In a effort to beat the crowds I'm taking Friday off to go and do most if not all of my Christmas shopping. I just can't decided whether to go in Leicester, Nottingham or Derby.

Our team at work is going out for a Christmas meal this week. Admitially not to the most christmassy of venues ( it's a curry house) but it will still be fun to actually go out for a meal with some people. We'll just have to try and find something else to talk about asides from work though.

Which will be harder then it sounds because a lot of other stuff you could talk about, we already talk about at work anyway. Although we could always talk about Misfits and the x-factor some more.

Not that I watch x-factor mind you but I am wondering if I should start simply so I don't feel left out on a Sunday evening with everyone else posting status updates about how much they disagree with the latest result.

Anyway,

Later folks.

It could work

Now unlike a lot of Judge Dredd fans I thought the Dredd Movie was actually okay. It wasn't a masterpiece and lets face it, it was certainly never going to be Oscar worthy, but right up until the point that Dredd took his helmet off it was pretty much classic dredd.

For those of you who actually have lives outside of Sci fi and ever wonder what the big issue with the helmet removal was with Fans, basically Judge Dredd never removes his helmet and on the handful of occasions where he has you have never, ever seen his face.

It was after he removed the helmet that things went downhill pretty fast but there was more down to a important thing called a sensible plot being missing from the film. But as a generic action style film to waste a little time when you have nothing better to do it ain't half bad.



So I was intrigued to see this picture surface recently from the new Judge Dredd film that has quietly gone into production in South Africa. This is the new Dredd and you can almsot hear the knifes being pulled and the torches being lit as fanboys start to scream about the changes to his uniform. Still I think it's a good sign and gives a indication that these makers will stay a lot closer to the "Dredd" that we all know and love.

My optimism might be foolishly misplaced but I guess we'll see in 2012 won't we?

So wheres our's gone?

Well we were all mentally prepared for this huge snow fall. this massive amount of snow that would cause travel chaos and make the job of getting into work very hard.

And what did we get??

Nothing. Nought. Zero. Zilch Nada..

Yes the weather deadzone that surrounds geektown and the surround area seems to be working at full force as we didn't see a bit of snow.

Of course saying that I might be proven totally wrong overnight and we could get a huge amount of the stuff dumped on us as it has gotten very cold all of a sudden and the cars were iced over by 8pm!

I have a feeling it's not going to be fun job de-icing in the morning.

Still freezing temperatures and potentially frozen fingers aside there's only one more day to the weekend. Which is always good.

Somebody at work today pointed out that it's a month to christmas, even if the spirit of goodwill seems somewhat lacking as our workloads are on a noticable climb. Still it's proving to be a interesting challenge and at least it's never boring.

Of course with christmas on the way I'm having to turn my thoughts to the tricky dilema of what to ask for. After I left GW I thought this problem would ease but it hasn't as their prices are too high now for a "small" christmas present. So I guess I'll need to ponder what might I like or indeed need right now.

anyway,

Later folks

ngghhhh

Yes with the temperature dropping and snow apparently supposed to be arriving any time now the inevitable has happened and I've suddenly developed a absolutly stinking cold as if from nowhere.

So I'm going to deal with it in the stereotypical grown up male fashion.

Stagger round the place ,let out pitful groans and generally act like I'm dying whilst I drink as much lemsip as possible and try to stop stiffing every two minutes.

Yes a man in the grip of man flu is truly a pitiful sight.

Anyway it's been a week of somewhat random occurances, at the top of the list of random things;

Random discovery of the week goes to the fact that since we've had it redone the Bathroom is now the warmest room in the house.

Random thing of the week which I shouldn't snigger at but did, when it was announced that the game that we were playing after institute for the activity was called " Pass along the clap".

Second random thing of the week which I shouldn't snigger at but did, when in the middle of the game Physics stated that he had just given one of the girls the clap.

Random good news of the week was that next year we get another bank holiday.

Random religious questions of the week I was unable to answer " Why did God only rest for one day after creating the universe, why not two?"

Random question of the week I wished I could have answered honestly
" Just how stupid do you think I am?"

Later folks.

Not quite the word I would have used

We were a bit surprised this morning when it was announced that the priesthood would be singing a musical item. Mainly as no one had told us this before hand. Which would have been bad enough if it was a hymn that everybody knew. However it wasn't, it was a hymn deep from the depths of the hymn book that are intended for Male voice choirs.

And finally to cap everything off we had no one on the piano to accompany us. I think the first verse can be best summed up by the words of our Sunday school teacher " It was certainly unique".

It's probably the last time the music director will let the priesthood sing without making sure we've had weeks of practise.

It's been a bit cold today as Grumpy decided to paint the windows in the Kitchen meaning he's had to leave the big window open all day as the paint drys. Well at least he did it today and not later in the week as their forcasting some heavy snow falls.

Which should making getting to work fun.

Anyway,

Later folks.

Any suggestions for captions?

Bouncy Night

It might not have been the most well attended stake YSA event ever but it was most certainly one of the most fun filled.

Already bored with it

Unless you've been living under a rock, in the desert or which ever cliche place you can think of that doesn't have communication with the outside world you would have heard about the royal wedding that will be happening next year.

and quite frankly I'm already bored with it.

It's just in every news media it seems that everything is about this darn wedding. Yes I know it's important and is this major news story and we might even get a bank holiday out of it but is there something else people could be talking about?

And I'm perfectly aware of the irony of talking about the wedding to point out that it's all people seem to be talking about.

Anyway we have a rather different YSA activity tomorrow, depending on who you ask it's either got the name " bouncy night" or " bouncy randomness". Basically we're going to the chapel for a evening of food and fun and games using a bouncy castle and a bouncy slide. And to answer the two most obivous questions, the castle will be inside and no I don't know who came up with the idea but we're running with it.

anyway,

Later folks

Ice, ice, ice and frost

We've had a couple of very cold days, so that coupled with the early start has meant I've been coming out to the car each morning early to scrape the thick ice off the windows.

Of course with ice comes to the tension of driving because as long term readers will know I'm more then a little nervous about driving in icy conditions ( and have good reason too!)

There's no way round that though, so all I can do is take a deep breath and just take things nice and slow. Seeing as I have to go to work after all as they have that pesky rule about actually expecting you to turn up before they'll pay you :-)

It's also been a couple of odd days at work as it's been very busy, but no as busy as it usually is. Or to put it another way we've had less to do but it's taken more time.

If I'm making any sense whatsoever.

So it's wednesday tomorrow which I have no doubt with have the stereotypical mid week slump. But hey after that it's only two days till the weekend.

Later folks!

Crash, bang, wallop

Here is a picture of a crash between a tram and a bus in dublin

Now see what it says on the side of the bus :-)

Useful for something

I was quite pleased this morning that I was presented with my first opportunity to help out somebody from church with the knowledge from my new job. Now I say new but I guess it really isn't anymore as I've been there a year but I digress.

Nemesis's friend who is studying over here in the UK, now I call her Nemesis friend as I don't really know her well enough yet to give her a nickname. See there is a method to the codenames on this blog, it may be simple like me but there's still a method.

and I'm digressing yet again.

Well she needs to send some stuff back to the USA and I was actually able to give her advice! Not only that I'm going to be checked some stuff up at work and then letting her know what she needs to know in order to get her stuff into the USA.

So not only was I able to answer her questions I was surprised at how well I could answer them, with a certainty that only used to be matched by my knowledge of Space Marine power armour.

I feel so grown up.

Of course this conversation only came about as the YSA were chatting during Sunday school during a unscheduled break in our lesson when the teacher had to go and change her Daughters Nappy. And at least it was something else to talk about asides from how much we hate the new classroom.

Yes, after many years the YSA Sunday school class has been demoted upstairs and now meets in the front foyer. Which although is technically the front of the building most people consider it the back as the car park entrance where everybody comes in, is usually what most people consider the front. It too has a foyer both upstairs and downstairs where a new couch has been put in as part of the YSA outreach centre. So we have a front and rear foyer technically even though it will depend on who you ask as to which foyer is which.

Confused? Try meeting in the building.

I got home a little earlier then usual from church as I didn't have to give Physics a lift home as he was going to walk with a group of students. Not that I blame him at all as if I had the choice between Female company and my company I too would plump for the female company.

Which although sounds bad and that I need to work on my social skills or get out more... or less.... you get what I mean.

I was in the midst of cleaning blitz this evening when I got the feeling I was forgetting something. And for once the feeling was correct, I had actually forgotten something. Of course irony being what it is, it only came to me aproximatly one hour too late.

I forget the CES broadcast at the stake centre. D'ohh!! I didn't get any text messages mind you asking where I was which leads me to a number of possible conclusions. I'm going to get my wrists majorly slapped at the next presidency meeting, or nobody noticed I wasn't there, or nobody cared I wasn't there. All three each equally plausible. Of course a fourth explanation is that nobody from the presidency was there which means we're all going to be in a lot of trouble at the next meeting.

Random thought of the day was about the remake of the planets of the Apes movies. And no it wasn't about the plot which I still don't get. If the planet was unihabited, and the apes were the descendents of the apes from the ship, and the humans were the descendents of the humans from the ship, where did the horses come from?

Later Folks.

Engrish2

Engrish

Never heard that before

As it was the 11th of November today at work we took part in the 2 minute silence at 11am. However there was something very different about this rememberance today.

Basically the first floor of the building at work asides from entrance and exits is totally open plan, which means there is a lot of background noise, noise that I had never really noticed before today. But when it hit 11am everything stopped. The phones were turned off, there was no speaking, no tapping of keys or any other sound asides from the light hum of the computers which was something else I had never noticed before.

It was a very profound silence, which is a bit of a cliche but it's the only phrase I can think of to explain it as it really did focus your mind on why we were having the silence.

It was also a farily quiet day all round as several european countries actually have the 11th November off as a bank holiday ( that was news to me!), which enabled most people to clear a lot of files and more time to work on some files which were proving stubbornly difficult to close.

The weather is now fully into winter mood wit ha awful lot of rain and wind this evening. It's a bit depressing! Even Owen is fed up as he spent most of the evening curled up in his basket. But I think he's also fed up as the bad weather means he can't go for very long walks at the moment.

anyway, one more day till the weekend.

Later folks!

Aces High

It's been another very cold day. And of course that could only mean one thing.... yes it was blinking hot in the office all day as they had cranked the heating up way too high! It seems to be a rule with well pretty much any office that most of the time the environmental systems are always doing exactly the opposite of what you need them to do.


Well at least it wasn't raining all day like yesterday! That really was depressing.


Tuesdays are always a very quiet day when compared to the rest of the week. Why? Well thats something we're never too sure off but with the run up to Christmas starting we're really not going to complain about any sort of quiet periods as we aren't probably going to see too many of them until the time between christmas and New years day.

Speaking of not complaining, I found myself with a free night tonight as our meeting was cancelled at the last moment. I'll admit that I may not have used it as constructively as I could have done but sometimes it's just nice to relax and do as little as possible.

anyway,

Later folks

And that will be winter kicking in

Well it's been a miserable day today weather wise. It quite literally did not stop raining the whole day and to add to the fun there was a rather nasty cold wind blowing as well! Grumpy and Owen came back from their morning walk before I left for work and to say the pair of them were a little wet would be a massive understatement!


It was also a extremely busy day at work today as two of our team were off ill and Mondays are a busy day anyway. Which meant all of my speed typing ability, time keeping and general all round problem solving were being put to a huge test.

Driving home wasn't fun, as being on the late shift it was very dark by the time I had finished and there was lots and lots of surface water around. Fortunatly for a nice change all of the lunatic drivers seemed to be off the roads ( maybe they were busy getting their tea :-)

anyway.

Later folks

I remember those days

I was sitting at the back of the chapel next to photoshop today when his youngest lad slipped and smacked his head hard on the woodern pew with one of those thumps that makes every adult wince. He was a bit teary at first but all it took was a quick rub on his head from his Dad and he was quickly on his way, playing spaceships with his lego.

Which made me remember the days when I was that young and no matter what you hurt all it took was a quick rub, a hug or a kiss to make it better and everything was okay. If only things were that simple when you become an adult. Now you even bang your head slightly and your left moaning about the pain for ages, or gain a splitting headache for the rest of the day!

I've got a busy week this week chirch wise. It's FHE tomorrow, Monthly presidency meeting for the YSA on Tuesday, the weekly meeting and institute on Wednesday and we're supposed to be doing a service project on Thursday!

Something seems to have gone a touch wrong with the planning somewhere me thinks!

Well it's Monday tomorrow which means another week of work, opportunties to be solved and all round fun and games. I'm on lates which means I will get a nice lie in everyday. So yah!

anyway,

Later Folks.

Could have lived without knowing that

We were slightly perturbed at work to find out that apparently one of the bombs that were discovered last week was defused with only 17 minutes to spare ( which sounds like a lot but when you think about the total travel time was nothing at all). Now no one has said which bomb this was, it could have been the one which was across the road from us or it could have been one of the ones in the USA but still the possiblity of being that close to one that could have gone off. Because as far as knew it was a failed bomb ( as in it hadn't gone boom).


Unsurprisingly it did spark another round of what ifs. What if it had gone off? Would a bomb that size have done anything to our building etc? However the conversation didn't go on as long as you would think because I think most people realised that there was no point dwelling on the what ifs, because if you do always look for the worse case you might as well stay at home hiding under a desk. There are somethings in life you just can not control

I thought after several weeks I might get a real proper saturday morning lie in today. Then I remembered that once again I would be denied as I had to go in and help clean the chapel as it was my "assigned" turn. Previously they had asked for volunteers before they announced they were switching to assignments as it would be easier for people to plan ( I.e not enough people volunteered I bet). It was someone long and tedious as the our chapel was quite big! The only thing I found amusing was due to my attention to detail I was finding the places that had been skimped on in the past ( I.e top of door frames and windows) as people only cleaned the bits they could see!

Meanwhile Grumpy has kept himself busy most of the day by fixing and painting the window sills in the bathroom which now look pretty darn good as they match the rest of the bathroom, as he got rid of the last of rubbish that had been left from the building work down the tip yesterday, he just has to finish the door frame and the bathroom will be complete.

Just in time for us to start on redecorating the hall :-)

Later Folks!

365 days

This morning I went into work and logged on for my start of my shift as normal. However it wasn't a normal day as there was something different about today. As it was approximately one year ago today that a very different saxon, a rather nervous, somewhat confidence battered Saxon had entered the conference room which is directly above my Desk for the first day of training for what should have been a temporary three month job.

What have I got from my year at my new job? Well lets see, CIS Status, a NVQ, over a dozen self taugh courses complete, two security certificates, a company award. a promotion, more substantional pay increases then I had in the past seven, a lot more money, shortened journey time to work and lets not forget a rebuilt self confidence and self belieft in myself.

Even if I have to go to work in grown up clothes :-)

Somebody asked me if I miss my old job and occasionally I do. But far less then I used to. A year is a long time. Even the things which I found hurtful, the ignoring of my emails, not sending me copies of the books I proof read etc don't really bother me anymore. What happened, happened. No amount of wishing or thinking will change that.

If I'm brutally honest I'm probably in a better place then I was. I've accomplished a lot in the past twelve months that I'm proud of.

May the next twelve months be as equally productive!

Later folks

Putting to good use

Thanks to the complete lack of trick or treaters this year we found ourselves with rather a lot of chocolate to get rid of. Fortunatly Grumpy let me take it into work for the rest of my team who were rather please to get a nice huge pile of sweeties which were most importantly free!

Which did a lot to help some peoples morale as it was a especially hard Monday morning with our patience be tested to the utmost for the first couple of hours.

Fortunatly after the mess of Fridays evacuation we were handed a lucky break. Nearly three quarters of european countries were off on a Bank Holiday today which gave us valuable time to get things back under control after the almost total loss of the day on Friday for work purposes.

We've had the electrician around today doing the last couple of bits of wiring that need to be done in the Garage. He's just got to come back and rewire the phone connection for us, as the wire for reasons best known to the last owners went right up the stairs, around the hallway and around each door before finally coming into the office. Of course with the building work on the bathroom it had to be pulled off the wall and has remain drapped over the bannister ever sincer ( we keep leaving in fear that Owen's going to chew on it!) Instead the electrician will be feeding it up through the floorboards directly into the office which should make things just a little bit easier.

With the sort out of the airing cupboard contents finished ( with a lot of help from Tap Dance a lot of stuff ended up in charity bags!) we're going to be going out to buy some new bits and pieces and the weekend ( only after I've finished helping to clean the chapel mind you) We only need to get the shower mounting put back in and the new doors fitted upstairs and all of the major stuff will be finished. We'll then get onto the really fun stuff and the hall is now in need of redecoration and the bathroom door and windowsills need painting again as well.

That should be more then enough stuff to keep grumpy out of trouble :-)

Anyway,

Later folks.

Well it was technically a lie in

Well the clocks went back last night/early this morning which meant I got an extra hour in bed, so I techncially had a lie in. Or rather I would have if I hadn't still woken up at 7am! Gah!

I'm on a odd series of shifts next week, as one of the guys who works in his team has a wife who is expecting, so he need to work as many early shifts as he can so he can park down at the office so if he does get a call he can leg it as fast as possible. So to help him out I've swapped some of my days this week, so I have one day of early shift, then the rest of the week will be mids. Which although confusing is all in a good cause after all :-)

Of course work will probably be quite boring tomorrow ( we hope) after Fridays excitment which has turned out to be perfectly justified as it was really a bomb! Knowing you were that close to a bomb no matter how small is more then enough to give you a little shiver.

I don't know if it's the weather but we have only had one set of Trick or Treaters this year which means we have been left with a massive pile of chocolate. I think I might try and persude Grumpy to let me take into work to give out to the team as it won't be good if we keep it all here for ourselves.

anyway,

Later folks

What do you get?

If you take one Halloween party full of YSA.

Physics and a Elder who should have said no
who were willing to represent their teams in a apple bobbing contest

Which got a bit messy

with apples and water flying around everywhere?

Well you get a whole lot of fun and opportunities for good pictures of course

Not your average Friday

I was a little surprised when I arrived at the car park this morning to notice that one of my team mates who had a car park pass for our main site was in the queue for the car park in front of me. I pondered for a moment, then dismissed it concluding that maybe she hadn't been able to find a car parking space.

I then noticed that the car park was unusually full. Again I pondered then dismissed it, not yet making a connection. I grabbed my bag and got out of the car and wondered over to where the bus arrives each morning. I was waiting there a few minutes before I noticed another guy get out of his car and start walking back to the main building before he paused and started to speak to me
" Are you waiting for the bus?"
" Yes" I replied
" Well it ain't coming" he told me leaving me somewhat baffled and confused, where was the bus?
" Why?" I asked
" Because of the bomb" he told me
" Bomb?" I replied mystified
" Yeah you know the threat?"
I didn't know and he quickly realised this, thus explaining to me what was going on. Half of the airport had been closed meaning that nobody could get to the main building and were thus gathering at the other facility we have at the airport.

So I went into join the other staff and find out my fellow team members to find out what was going on. As you can imagine it was a mega case of chinese whispers and everyone was certain they knew something, but what they knew wasn't the same as what someone else knew.

We were just settling in for a long wait when we were told that the all clear had been given, after the device had been dealt with so off we all trotted down to the main building either by mini bus or catching a lift in a car of one of those fortunate enough to have a car parking pass.

So we were all in the office, signed in, logged in and the phone lines open ( a mere two hours later then usual) and the day began...

and lasted less then five minutes before managers started moving through the offices yelling for us to evacuate the building immediatly, quite literally telling us to drop everything and move. People weren't even allowed to stop and get their cars, I freely admit I felt a trickle of alarm at this point as something was certainly wrong! As it turned out apparently a second suspect package had been found and we were only 400 yards from it apparently.

So following instructions from the ploice we left the industrial estate by foot and gathered at a nearby hotel where a convoy had been worked out to get us all back up to our facility at the far end of the airport. As you can imagine during the walk ( where everybody was trying to stay calm but probably walking a little quicker then usual) there was lots of conversations and obivous attempts to try and lighten the mood as people were starting to become tense and nervous.

The convoy desposited back at the other facility, Where we all had to stay for the next five hours. Whilst the authorities did .... well whatever it was they were doing, we started rolling contingency plans into action. Those who could help did and those who couldn't, well we found whatever secure place we could to stay out of the way.

By the time the 2nd all clear was given and we got back to the office again it was past 3pm! Which was fine for the people on the 8 to 4pm shift! Fortunatly when the phone lines reopened most people were very understanding. However I must emphasis most as not everybody was and many peoples patience was being pushed to the absolute limit.

As I was getting towards the end of my shift I suddenly realised something. It was precisely one year ago today that I had gone into work for my "farewell" in Bugmans bar. A year, it's been a full year! If somebody had asked me then where I thought I would be doing in a years time, being evacuated from a building due to a bomb threat would not have been near the top of possiblities I would have thought of!

When it came time to leave for the day I was amused to notice the number of camera crews who had turned up, they were all set up in front of our building as it was the best place to site their cameras so they could get the reporters in shot with the building where the devices were found across the road behind them.

So as you can imagine today was certainly a lot more interesting then the average Friday.

Obivously today had a happy ending, but as you can imagine there was lots of talks about "what ifs". I'm sure there's not one person who was working in that area of the airport which was evacuated who won't spend at least a little time pondering the what if's this evening.

anyway later folks

Putting the world to rights

Sometimes at work we have really in depth conversations about the latest news, tv show, relationships etc that go on and on, are really in depth and really intelligent.

Today wasn't one of those times.

Among the various topics discussed today we theorised why if wiley coyote can purchase all sorts of things over the phone to help him catch the roadrunner why doesn't he just order a pizza if he's that hungry? How does he pay for everything? And has he been ever able to get a refund?

If you can be damned by association why can't you be saved by association? ( K was especially disappointed by this, he thought that what he would get by being friends with me. he was joking. I hope :-)

Are fox's biscuits really getting smaller or is it just the packaging?

and Is there any team members name that Dee can't fit into a song?

anyway,

Later folks

Books for the modern child