Most of us already know

I saw a new items when I logged onto the net today saying that scammers have been using the forthcoming deadline for taxes to send out lots of fradulant emails to con people into giving them their card details.

However the tax service is not along in suffering this. Our company has also been the subject of several scam emails and I have lost track of the number of people ringing up to ask if they really have a package or if they should open the attachment. Now I can understand people checking as I've seen some of the spam emails and they look remarkably authentic.

What baffles me is the people who proceed to argue with you that the email isn't fradulant and they should try opening the attachment. If your going to ring up to check to see if a email is genuine why would you then argue with the person at the company whose telling you it isn't.

Even after eight years in customer service new things always come along to keep baffling me.

Celebrity ended on Friday. Hurrah. It was also the last one ever Double Hurrah!!!

Grumpy has been out all day so Owen has been steadly getting more and more concerned. He's currently sitting in the hallway staring through the glass in the front door waiting for Grumpy to get home. It's quite sweet actually when he does that.

Opposed to the really annoying pacing back and forth he normally does like a anxious parent waiting for the teenager to return home.

anyway,

Later folks.

Not quite the result I was hoping for

As regular readers will know I have been doing some painting for the past few weeks with the intention of entering my first painting competition as a 'civilian'.

Well the painting competition was today and I did get my mini army finished in time to enter and I came second.

Out of two entries.

D'OH!!

Well to be fair the other guys army was better painted and I knew I was pretty much finished when I saw that he had scratch built display bases for each of his squads which were ruined buildings with slots to put each fo the models in.

Oh well, onwards and upwards as they say, hopefully I'll have better luck next time.

Asides from that excitment it's been a pretty quiet day. I did realise today that I've just had my third months pay from where I now work. It doesn't seem like it's been three months since I've started there. It also means that I'm halfway through my probatation as well. Eeek!! Six months seemed like such a long time when we started.

Anyway,

Later folks.

We can see clearly now....... the back door is open

Our cooker has just about had it. After nearly a dozen times of having to screw the oven door back on, grumpy decided to finally give into the inevitable and buy a new one. The last time we had to try this was on Saturday evening which lead me to ponder how exciting our lives were by scrabbling around on a kitchen floor on a Saturday night and why were we doing this.

Grumpys response was to comment that it was obivously down to us having a screw loose :-)

Which thanks to a burst of eagneress has sat in the Kitchen waiting to be fitted tomorrow and lead to all sorts of problems trying to get in and out of the kitchen.

However that has meant that Grumpy has decided to try cooking things using the 'top oven' in the cooker which still works. However it has been a long time since we ever used it as a oven rather then as a grill which lead to a somewhat expected result.

Mainly a smokey filled ground floor of a house, a open back door and a vain attempt to waft some of the smoke out before it set the fire alarm off, whilst Owen looked on baffled and worried that this meant there would be no chip night.

Work was very good, after a stirling ( yet modest effort honest :-) I managed to surpase all of my targets for the month which I was very pleased with and thought it was good place to finish for a holiday.

The shifts patterns for the rest of Feb were published as well and I found that I will be soon facing my first round of early shifts ( but hey it means I get to finish at 4pm) and my first saturday shift as well. I don't mind the Saturday shift much as during that week your other shifts are increased by half an hour which means you only have to do a half day on Saturday which is pretty cool me thinks as it still gives you the other half of the day to enjoy.

anyway,

Later folks!

Every silver lining has it's cloud

I like many people have discovered that the benefit of having a Wii is that you do get just a bit of a work out with some of the games, I'm sure that there will be a inevitable purchase of Wii Fit at some point in the near future but as usual I digress. Anyway after finding a love of my latest toy I have overdone is just a touch and now my shoulder is hurting just a bit.

Okay well rather a lot but I was trying to appear all manly and stoic and I'm now realising that I'm failing badly.

However it's not my left shoulder as those of you who know I'm left handed might suspect. Rather it's my right shoulder as I've found that I absolutly suck when trying to play Wii games left handed. I was surprised to find this and a bit baffled. Does anyone have any suggestions as to why I find it easier use my right hand instead of my left when I am left handed?

Mind you hurt shoulders and using the wronghand weren't my own problems today. We're having a 'motivational' buffet at work tomorrow where each team is responsible for a certain food group and everyone on that team is expected to bring some of said food type. Our team has been assigned savouries and when they told me that my mind when totally, totally blank. I couldn't for the lift of me think what savouries kind of good were.

Maybe I'm getting old.

There's no quote of the day today rather a quote that anyone whose ever been in customer service and had one of 'those' kind of customers whose said this wishes they could answer truthfully
" I've been a bit of a idiot haven't I?"

Well it's one more day to the weekend and then my week of holiday.

Yaah!

Later folks

Positive thinking brings...... crazy people?

After listening to Grumpy ( which I'm sure he would say is a rare thing) I decided to approach work with a different positive attitude. I know htat doesn't make much sense but it's hard to describe.

Anyway I digress, this slightly different attitude to positive thinking did bring positive results with regards to my targets. It also had a slightly unintended effect as well as I seemed to get a lot of crazy people as well. So much so I was wondering if one of the senior staff had pressed a button to send all the crazy people to me. Still I suppose it's all good practise.

Quotes of the day
" No, no, no. Lutterworth is not a town in the UK it's a country."
" It's the size of a small child"
" It's the size of a extra value bag of sugar" ( she didn't specify if it was tesco or asda mind you :-)

So only two more days then I get my week of holiday which if you haven't picked up on already I'm really, really looking forward to. We also have another dress down day on Friday for Charity. Although that did make me realise that I am completly comfortable now with having to wear grwon up clothes to work. It doesn't bother me anymore.

Wait, you don't think I'm finally becoming all mature and grown up now do you? :-)

Anyway,

Later folks.

keep on moving, always moving on

I'd be lying if I said that today has been the best day in the world. I would have to say it ranks among my top two worst days since I started me new job as it just seemed today that everything went wrong and nothing went right. So I was feeling pretty darn low by the end of day.

Of course part of the problem might be, well me as I have been pushing myself very hard to meet the targets and I've made probably the bad error of comparing my progress to the others from my training cohort. Grumpy had to once again point out that I was being too hard on myself and unlike the other two I haven't had any experience of this particular kind of work before.

Another part of the problem might be that I am more then due for a holiday as I think it's probably been in the region of five months since I've had a 'proper' holiday from work. So I might just be a bit tired.

Who knows, coz I don't.

Anyhow, it's institute tomorrow which should be fun. I can already imagine the reaction from most of them about the price rise for conference.

Marvel seemed to have released a pretty pointless new picture from Iron Man 2 which simply shows Tony stark sitting in a racing car. But we already know that from the trailer!

If there's any indication about how quickly the audience for Heroes has evaporated in the UK it's that the new series has started to be shown late on a Saturday night on BBC 2. A bit of a jump from it's heyday of 9pm on a Wednesday night.

Still some sci-fi is better then none I guess as there's not a lot else on TV right now.

anyway,

Later folks.

All on my own again

Well they've just announced the prices for this years YSA conference on facebook ( see we're all down with the kids into the 'in' things year man) and I'm fairly certain that there is a very high chance that I will be going on my own again as most people last year used the price as an excuse and the prices have just gone up again. By £20!! So the 'early' price will be £139 and the 'full' price is £149!

It's inevitable that their will be some very unhappy people about this. But I'm not going to let it deter me. I've suffered prices rises before and I'll take them again. The weekends usually prove to be more then worth it and I have every belief that this year will be no different.

There's good news and bad news for Scully today David Tennant wise. They have released a DVD of his version of Hamlet but his new pilot for American TV looks set not to be picked up into a series.

I decided over the weekend that as it had been a very very very long time since I had treated myself to anything special I would join the herd as it were and copy what the rest of the cools kids are doing... No not watching glee, rather I bought myself a Nintendo Wii with four games, two controllers and some other bits and pieces for a rather good price. So for asides from Sunday when I was feeling rather under the weather and spent a large chunk of the day in bed I've been having fun playing Wii sports and quite frankly really confusing Owen into the process. Even Grumpy has been really enjoying playing the games. Table Tennis is his favourite and the cycling well the least said about that one the better.

Tap Dance has even had a go when she popped by to visit. Her favourite is the sword fighting but she gets rather into it and you have to make sure your a long way away when she starts flinging that controller around. I just hope she never plays it againist my niece who is the most 'active' wii player in her family or we could be looked at some destroyed houses.

anyway,

Later folks.

Not a setup

Before anyone asks this photo was not a set up in the slightest. Just to give you a little back story Grumpy had answered the phone and as because we were in the midst of a move round and there was no chair near the phone decided to lie on the floor whilst speaking. Owen was somewhat bemused by why Grumpy was on the floor but then decided to copy him by lying on his back as well. This was sufficiently funny to prompt me to go and grab my camera and I arrived back to see Owen suddenly place his paw into Grumpys hand all of his own accord.

Owen really is a funny little dog!

Painting update

As long term readers will know I am currently in the midst of painting up a 'mini army' for entry in painting competition. Here is a picture of the 'full army'
They've all have their 'basic' paint scheme and I'm now going back to finish off all of the 'details' and highlights. Hopefully I will get done in time as I've only got a week before the end of the competition.

Eek!

Resisting temptation

It was one of those afternoons at work today, not one of those 'funny' kind of afternoons mind you more one of those incredibly frustrating ones where everything seemed to be such a slog and you have to fight the temptation to start banging your head on your desk.

Which I felt like doing after explaining to someone for the 9th time that it was the correct infomation.

I dunno maybe he thought after saying one thing eight times in a row I would change on the nineth.

Still theres only one more day until the weekend and there's a big multi-stake YSA activity in Nottingham tomorrow which should be a lot of fun. Plus I only have one more week of work to go before my week of Holiday which I am really, really looking forward to. It's been a long time since I had a proper 'week off'.

Despite all the doom and gloom predictions about the snow returning it hasn't. At all, not in the slightist. Which probably means that all the councils now have stupidly large piles of salt and grit they don't need to use.

C'est la vie I guess.

Later folks!

Past the Mid point

Well It's Wednesday evening which means I am past that hardest part of the week, the " Mid point" where last weekend seems long gone and the next weekend seems so very far away. From here on in the weekend will be getting closer.

Despite the inevitable mid week low point I have to admit that I'm finding the late shift quite interesting. With the inevitable slow down of calls as our closing time approaches your actually able to have brief conversations with your colleagues which means I have started to finally get to know some of my team mates a little better.

Most of them seem to be quite bemused that my last job involved little toy soldiers and didn't quite seem to understand how I was in that and ended up in my new job. Sometimes I do wonder myself as well.

But I digress ( as usual) it's time for todays quotes of the day

" It's the weight of a standard laptop"

" Gibraltar is a town in spain"

The downside of lates is that I couldn't go to institute tonight as by the time I finished even if I had gone straight to the chapel I wouldn't have got that to catch hardly anything of the lesson.

I think Grumpy might have been a bit dissapointed as when I got home not only did I fail to notice that he had fitted a new toilet seat to the toilet I also failed to notice that he had replaced the light on the landing. Cue much grumblings about not having his hard work appreciated.

My entry for the painting competition is going very well and I should post some pictures tomorrow of the work in progress.

I have noticed that Grumpys new computer seems to have taken a bit of a dislike to facebook for some reason as it keeps refusing to work in certain places. I did notice that I've also lost a friend on face book. However as to who it is, I have no idea because as I have over a hundred friends ( not that I'm boasting or anything) it's very hard to remember who was there to begin with. Which then makes me feel bad as someone's gone but I can't remember who. Even though they did go without telling me. And now I'm waffling again.

anyway,

Later folks!

I'm good but not that good

I spent most of the last hour of work trying to figure out how precisely I or we , or my department is supposed to let someone know there is a problem before we know there is a problem.

As you have have guessed it rapidly turned into " one of those days" today. As you will see from the veritable bounty of quotes of the day

" If I'm sending to Canada do I need to put USA or Canada as the country in the delivery address"

" I don't have the address but I know the road name starts with a C and it's in London. Does that help?"

" It's not a big box or a small box it's a middle sized box"

" It's going to a little compound off the main road. Is that enough of a delivery address or do you need a postcode?"

" It's going to the country of Africa I don't know the town. Africa isn't a country. Yes it is. No it's a continenant. Really? ( this was from somebody who worked at a school. Hopefully not in the geography department.

We're supposed to be getting snow again tomorrow but depending on who you believe it will either be really, really heavy or quite light and disappear really quickly.

Based on the weathermens previous efforts you might not wanna place any bets.

Later folks!

Flying on Auto

I felt more tired then usual this morning when I got up, when my alarm went offwhich was strange as I was getting up later. In fact I was feeling half a sleep which is why it took me until I was half way through brushing my teeth to realise that it was still quite dark for so late in the morning and that I couldn't remember turning my alarm off and in fact had my alarm even gone off?

As you may have already guessed my alarm hadn't actually gone off and it was still two hours before I had to get up. D'oh! I guess I must have just been operating on good ole fashioned auto pilot. Still at least I was then able to go back to bed for two hours before my alarm actually went off.

Still the moment when I finally had that moment of dawning comprehension midway through brushing my teeth must have looked pretty funny. Good job I'm not in a reality show like the Truman show. At least I think I'm not.... starts to look around for hidden cameras.

It's been an interesting if long day. The late shift wasn't as bad as I was expecting as time passed rather rapidly. Which was good. I would have hated to be stuck there watching the time tick up away, minute by oh so slloooww minute.

which has happened some days.

Two quotes of the day

" It's the size of a argos catalogue"

" I don't know the address but I do know it's 10 minutes from the M42. Does that help?"

Somebody has asked me if I am making the quotes of the day up. To that I can say a resounding no, not in the slightist. They are all 100% genuine quotes.

anyway,

Later folks.

Here comes the snow again..... maybe

Well the weathermen have checked their charts, looked at the satelittes, rolled a dice or whatever it is they do and predicted that the snow will once again be making an appearence later this week.

I once heard someone say that you can tell that your getting old when snow stops being fun and starts being annoying. Having to drive through snow and not being a teacher so I don't get snow days off plusnot having any kids of my own to play in the snow with I'm sad to say that the snow has reached that stage of being annoying.

Of course if it happens to snow in the first week of February it will probably go right back to being fun as I do have that week off.

Well I have my first week of late shifts to contend with this week. Well late is a relative term as it;s only from 11.30am to 7.30pm. It could be a lot worse I suppose. According to the advice I have been recieving from the 'veterans' there the main problem in the last hour is usually boredom. But I guess I shall see for myself tomorrow what Lates will bring.

Plus I get a lie in which is always good.

Later folks!

Yuck, Yucky and Yuckiest

The snow is gone, hurrah! However in it's place we now have rain, lots and lots of rain. It's that really nasty kind of rain which is just a light drizzle which gets blown right into your face. Of course it could be worse I suppose if it was any colder it would be snow and we would be right back to sliding all over the roads again.

It's a english thing, we're never happy with the weather.

Even Owen seems to be getting fed up of the weather. He's spent most of the day curled up next to the radiator when he wasn't watching Grumpy with bafflement trying to figure out what the new bins Grumpy bought today were. Which I can kind of understand from his point of view because three shiny metal cyclinders must look awfully confusing.

I was right about the release of the books today so I now have some new reading material. If I can find the time to read though as I don't seem to have much time for that these days. That said however I am on lates next week which means I will have some time to do some reading in the mornings. If I get up mind you and don't just use it as a excuse to have a long lie in :-)

I've spent most of the afternoon doing some model making. It took me a while but I figured out how to convert a engine so that my new ork trukk now has a jet turbine intake.

Yes, yes I know I may need to get out more, or less depending on your point of view.
anyway,

Later folks.

2 down, 2 to go

Well we're already two weeks into the new year and in only another two January will be over. Time certainly does fly when your having fun/working hard/ doing not much at all ( delete as applicable to you:-)

Well the weather is finally breaking as we had a lot of rain today which did a good job of getting rid of most of the lingering snow. Of course their now warning about the risk of flash flooding in a lot of places and lets not forget that their forecasting even more cold weather to come as they reckon this weekend will be the last 'warm' ( probably going to be a relative term) weekend for a while.

Lets hope that the weatherman are forecasting with their usual accuracy.

The break in the weather has meant that a lot of people have got back to work over the past couple of days which has meant that things have got really rather mental. We took just under 3000 calls in 2 and a half hours today! They have also decided that it was time for myself and the rest of my training cohort to go onto 'standard' release. Which basically means as soon as one call ends, if there's another person waiting they'll come through to you straight away. No waiting, you just hear the beep that announces the call and away you go. Again and again and again!

It's a very challenging job, but it's also a lot of fun. It's certainly been stretching me and has let me develop some new skills very quickly. Not least of which is being able to maintain a zen like sense of calm despite the urge to feel completly exsparated!

However that is work and that's for the week. It's the weekend now which means two whole days just for me.

Later folks.

Points of view

My new chair at work has arrived. It is rather cool although it does look huge. But even with the large size it does look impressive, all I need now is a command deck, a brave crew and a spaceship to go with it and I'm all set.

The strangest thing was that the woman who sorts out the chairs and assesses everybody was surprised at my surprise as to how quickly they sorted this out and that they paid to get me a new chair. It couldn't have been cheap and mine was one of of at least six new chairs for employees to arrive and each one was different so we're talking serious cash outlay here. She explained that it was important to make sure that every staff member had a chair that supported their backs sufficiently which is why it was worth the investment. She then asked if people had been as surprised when they got egonomic checks at my last company. I didn't mention that I had never had a check like that at my last place or a check that my chair was okay. In fact I think everybody only had standard chairs. She'd probably through a fit if she ever went there. She's a nice lady but a bit scary when she finds something she doesn't like. She's very adept at the 'stern school mistress' kind of voice.

Quote of the day
" I've told you the town, why do you need more precise address details for where you need to collect from?"

Apparently there have been a couple of hundred complaints about the Doctor who special on New years day. It's been accused of being " Anti-ginger".

Some people really do have too much time on their hands.

Well it's one more day till the weekend. We're having a dress down day tomorrow for charity, all the funds will be going towards the earthquake in hati.

Then on Saturday I think ( and emphasis think) there will be some new books released by my old company, one of which I proof read. So I might go and buy those, after this book there's one more book that I proofed to be released and then that will be that. I will have no more fore knowledge of forthcoming books, I will have to wait with the rest of the civilian population to find out whats coming.

Although the trouble with waiting for a release date is that I know just how far in advance the books are finished and printed. Gaah!!

Still it will be another good chance to practise my new zen like powers of calm.

anyway,

Later folks.

Quotes of the week

I've had once of those days and right now feel throughly, throughly exhausted. So I hope you'll forgive me that there won't be a proper well thought out blog post for today. More a list of the quotes of the day that I was unable to post last week due to computer problems.

" I have a error on my system, I can't remember what the error was and have now shut my system off so can't check what it was, but can you tell me how to fix it?"

" I have this right and you have it wrong. My bag only has two dimensions no bag has three dimensions"

" It's the size of a small bag exactly"

" It the size of a gym bag"

" Why would I know the address I'm sending it too."

" It's going to Sri Lanka and it's the city of nepal in katmandu" ( look up a atlas if you don't get that one)

" It's a packet. It's not big, it's small and mobile phone sized."

" It's not a building it's a house"

" Why couldn't they move a van that was stuck in a snow drift?"

" I know it's non hazardous I just don't know what it is."

" It's the size of a book"

" It's a moses basket so it will be baby sized"

" It's the weight of two DVD's"

" Is Singapore in North or south Korea? I was never good at geography" ( no kidding)

Later folks,

Comings and Goings

I was more then happy today to recieve my 'official' security pass which comes complete with a giant picture of yours truly across the front. Not that I was happy as I had a picture of myself, I rarely if ever like photos of me, I'm one of these people who firmly like to stay behind the camera. No, I was more happy as it felt like another layer of securness to my new job, due to the amount of time and effort that has to be put into making these passes. They wouldn't give me one if I was say on thin ice. ( and that will hopefully be the only weather related pun I use for the near future) Despite being there for almost three months I can't help but feel a very small twinge of anxity if the team manager comes to speak to me. (It's not as bad as it was and I guess it will fade in time. )

It was a interesting day, especially as some of the girls in our team were in a slightly mischevious mood and kept playing jokes on people. One of the guys went on Lunch and came back to find that his desk had been rearranged to be the exact opposite of how he had left it. Monitor facing the back, keyboard and chair upside down, phone on the left instead of right, etc, etc. It was funny as he came back as the whole team watched on tenderhooks for his reaction. He actually walked past his desk once without clocking what happened! Before finally realising and standing there with what can be best described as a dumbfounded look.

Most people in our team do have a very dark and black sense of humour, but that's what you need to survive the job, otherwise you'd probably be driven mad and be out on the runway barking at the planes.

Okay a somewhat unlikely scenerio I'll admit but it could happen :-)

I've heard that one of my nephews has finished the Lego car I bought him for Christmas and was proud to say that it looks like a " Solicitors car". Now quite what a solicitors car looks like I have no idea and it has prompted some conversation between Grumpy and myself as we've been trying to figure out what a Solicitors car would look like. Any suggestions anyone?

Anyway,

Later folks,

I pity the fool

Well the internet hasn't been exactly lit up by the trailer for the 'new' a-team film which has been released. I just have this feeling that it just won't be able to compare to the original. For a start everything looks too high tech. You don't have high tech with the a-team you have innovation, you have invention and you have stupid bad guys who once they've captured the a-team proceed to lock them in a shed full of mechanical spare parts and welding equipment.

Mini rant aside I am more then prepared to be proven wrong on this.

Well my new all singing, all dancing (well maybe not all singing all dancing but it would be fun if it did) chair arrives at work this week. I still feel that I should get a cat as well though. It made me realise that it's also been three months since I started at my new place, and almost four since I was let go from my last job. It's bizare as it seems so long ago that I used to work there now, almost unreal in a perculiar I'm not making much sense right now kinda way :-)

I mean I don't even find it funny anymore when somebody says do-do. :-)

It was rather difficult getting to work this morning as none of the roads on our estate were gritted at all last night, which meant they were basically solid ice. In fact the ice was so thick it made the roads look like they were flooded as opposed to iced over. It took me nearly 30 minutes to get to the main road thanks to ice and traffic when it should only take 3! As long term readers know I really do not like ice for obivous reasons. So I was more then a little tense when I finally got to work. Fortunatly I had a very good day which helped me to relax rather quickly.

I could really, really do without any ice tomorrow. So here's hoping.

anyway,

Later folks.

Possibly, maybe, perhaps.

After spending most of the week without a computer I have found myself using my Nintendo DS a little more then I have been. Which although good as I'm now using it more it also bad as I've managed to become addicted to the new Blood Bowl game ( A fantasy version of American football, mytical creatures, lots more violence, but probably more intelligence interviews post match). I managed to run the battery down on my DS in record time as I've been playing it so much.

Grumpy has been slowly getting used to the new computer although he came downstairs to get me this afternoon explaining that the computer had frozen 'just like the old one' which got me more then a bit worried. Was there some sort of machine curse centred on Grumpys office? Ehh, no. What had in fact happened was the batteries in his wireless mouse had run out.

It's back to Institute on Wednesday as it starts again after the christmas break. It will probably be a little harder to get there now as I'm on shift patterns. This week won't be too much of a problem but I don't think I'll be able to make it next week when I'm on lates. As I wouldn't be able to get there until at least 8.30 which seems a bit pointless for only 15 minutes of lesson.

The weather has been struggling to make up it's mind today with intermititant snow showers all day. Although the snow does seem to be melting, but depending on which news service you believe it will either continue to melt or we will be getting another 8 to 10 inches of snow depending on where you live in the UK.

But then again this is being forecast by the same weathermen who forecast a hot summer and a mild winter, so I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Later folks.

It's Dead Jim

Greetings,

Sorry for the lack of bloggage this week folks, Grumpys computer in a fine display of irony decided to change it's status to what most IT engineers would call " Kaput". Yes it died in spectacular fashion, scrambling the display on the screen before steadfastly refusing to turn on.

And of course irony was certainly not done with us as due to some network problems we had a few weeks ago, our ISP had 'secured' our wireless network. A little too well as it turns out as we couldn't even use a laptop to connect to the internet.

Of course if the computer had decided to die last week we might not have had these problems with Engineseer around to help but of course that's why they call it irony. It wasn't going to crash when we had a skilled IT Engineer here now was it?

So we now have a bright new shiny computer with Windows seven, which probably means I'll be spending the next few weeks answering questions from grumpy every few minutes. I'll also be spending the next couple of days retirieving all of the files that Grumpy wants from our backups. At most we've lost a couple of weeks of files if that. See al that hassle of doing backups is worth while.

We've had a lot of snow this week and most of the country seems to have ground to a halt. Prompting a whole lot of comments from Grumpy every time news reports come on about the weather that " We never used to have these problems when I was young!". Admitally it is starting to become a bit of a joke especially with the grit supplies for the road, most councils are now running out and will be rationing supplies but most fear that they will run out before new supplies get to them! So driving this week might well turn out to be a interesting challenge.

They haven't gritted any of the roads round my house at all, so with so many cars traveling back and forth the roads are starting to become pretty much pure ice! I am keeping my journeys to a absolute minimum right now as you can imagine, cause I don't like the ice.

Anyway,

Later folks.

Walking on Thick ice

It may have been that I'm feeling optomistic, it may have been that I have finally found the ability to retreat to my happy place when needed or it may have just been the extreme cold had finally managed to penetrate my thick skull but I found it easy to feel a zen like state of contentment whilst I was waiting for the bus this evening.

Not that the day has been perfect mind you. The rather thick covering of ice over the car this morning was somewhat annoying, mainly as I had become so focused on trying to scrape the ice off the car I hadn't noticed how painfully cold my fingers were getting. Still as they say " Once hands frozen, twice remember to wear gloves". Okay maybe they don't say that, or maybe George bush did I can't remember.

Asides from a couple of minor hic ups during the day, work went very well, even with having to get used to being on a 'grown up shift'. I'm starting to feel a lot more secure there, heck my desk even has a desk mascot now. It's a little hedgehog that Santa bought me :-)

So this i suppose in part explains my state of zen whilst waiting for the bus to take me back to the car park. I think I'm now quite settled again, after the turmoil of the last few months. I know I can do this job and I do have the skills. Although somewhat unsurprisingly having a encyclopedia knowledge of GW background not the greatest help outside of GW. Who'd thought? :-)

Of course I could be counting my chickens too soon as I still have four months to go on my probabation, but lets keeping thinking those good thoughts every hey?

Todays Quotes of the day
" It's as heavy as my wedding ring"
" I don't know the delivery address. Is that okay?"
" It's teddy bear size. By that I mean it's big and light"

Random request just in case anyone can help, I really, really really want to get the theme music from the Earth to the moon series to put on my Ipod but it's not on Itunes and it seems that the only CD it's contained upon was only released in the states. If anyone has any idea where I might be able to download it, I would really appreciate it.

We took down the christmas decorations today which was quite sad as the house now looks all boring without the pretty lights. Owen was highly interested in the whole process as firstly he's a nosey and secondly it means he can now get back up on the windowsill into his usual guard postion so he can see whose approaching "his" house.

anyway,

Later folks,

Getting back into it

It's been a odd couple of days. I suppose the best way to describe it as being in a sense of limbo. By that I mean we're in a New Year and Christmas is over but the new year hasn't 'really started'. I.e going back to work or school etc.

Of course tomorrow I really will be going back to work and I will be on a 'proper shift' pattern as opposed to the training shift I have been on. It's not bad though as for the first two weeks of Jan I am on fairly early shifts, it could be a lot worse. I could be stuck on the late shift and have to work Saturdays as well.

For some reason my ipod seems to be stuck in a depressed mood as I've set it on shuffle songs and it seems intent on playing all of the sad/depressing songs I have before anything else, which isn't what you want when your trying to remain all optomistic.

It's still very cold. My feet have been freezing all day and looking out of the office window I can see that all of the cars are already frozen up. It's always a case of balance these days, have cold feet or increase your carbon footprint by putting the heating on. Decisions, decisions :-)

anyway,

Later folks,

To new Beginnings

I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't seen it ( Engineseer and Scully mainly) so I will try and avoid any spoilers. I've seen the second part of the Doctor Who Christmas special and it was awesome. It was a lot sadder then when Christopher Eccleston left the role but I think we hadn't had the time to really invest in him as the Doctor as we have with David Tennant.

The ending surprised me and although maybe a touch over indulgent it fitted the character really well. I don't know about the new Doctor as it was hard to judge with only a few seconds of screen time but a couple of his lines were quite funny. " and I'm still not ginger". The next series starts in the Spring and I guess we'll see then what kind of successor Matt Smith will be to David Tennant.

Asides from that I haven't done much all day after Engineseer left as I was a bit tired to be honest. I think I slept for most of the afternoon. Not the most exciting way to start the new year but still possibily more constructive then other things might have been.

Till tomorrow folks.

In with a bang

Well as I mentioned yesterday I was invited to a New years eve party in Leicester which made me feel rather popular as it's sad to admit but I can't remember ever being invited to a New years eve party at someones house before.

Engineseer decided to stay in Geektown and come as well although there were one or two logistical problems. It seems his super organisational powers weren't quite up to their usual standards or to put it another way your powers grown weak old man! :-)
There was a brilliant turn out of the more ( how say we say) " Veteran" YSA members of the stake. There was nobody from the younger YSA.

It was a fantastic night and we had a lot of fun. Plus it was a very nice way to see in the new year.

A large chunk of the party was spent on the Hosts Wii gaming console. Most of the time we were playing the rabid rabits game where you had to dance along to the commands on the screen. I haven't giggled so much in a longtime!

We left the party at around 2am which is the latest I have stayed up in a very, very, very, very ( well you get the idea) long time.

Still it was worth it, even if I woke up with a spliting headache after only five hours sleep thanks to Owens tail hitting the dooor.

I just hope that we cn organise more YSA get togethers in 2010 as there were sadly lacking in 2009!

New year new Caption Competition.

You know how this works. Leave your suggestions for captions as comments.

Tau or Orks. Which is better? Theres only one way to find out....

As Harry Hill would say FIGHT!!!

It's been a busy couple of days with it being New years and Engineseer visiting in what is likely to be his last visit for at least two years. Not that he's gone off us of course it's more that he put his mission papers in at the start of December.

We went to see Sherlock holmes at the cinema on New Years eve eve. It was a lot better then I was expecting it to be, to be honest.

On New years eve we couldn't resist the opportunity to get in a game of 40k whilst Engineseer was here. We went to play at Warhammer world which was very strange for me as you can imagine. I realised that it was exactly three months since I had been made redundent, and two months since I had been there for my 'farewell'.

Engineseer is posing here in front of the modest little statue outside the front of the building. (engineseer is the one in the hoody in case you were wondering).
Our respective armies ready for battle. Engineseer directs his troops.

After a hard fought battle it turned out that Engineseer had won. I would like to say it was luck but it was more down to his good army list and his sound tactics. I had fallen pray to shiny army syndrome and taken army that wasn't as effective as it could have been.

Still I will have my revenge! Even it it will be at least two years before I can do :-)