Manchester conference 2010 Saturday morning: Not a chance

It's kind of ironic that you spend all of the money to go on conference and you choose to be there yet you end up having to get up earlier then you would usually on a Saturday.

Still at least you get a nice hearty breakfast to make up for it. If it really took your fancy you could have a full english fried breakfast, toast and ceral.

Not that, that took my fancy. I simply settled for some bacon, sausage and some bread to make a nice bacon sarnie, complete with a glass of milk. I was amused to see that that resturant I was in was very full for 8am on a Saturday morning. However I know from long experience that, that wouldn't last as the weekend wore on.

After breakfast it was straight back to my room to get ready for the day ahead. I decided to leave myself a whole 15 minutes to walk across campus as I didn't want to rush. I headed out with high hopes for the day and immediately stopped at the door to the hall.

There was a problem.

It was raining. A lot! No problem I thought to myself I'll just get the umbrella but there was problem with that plan. After four years of bringing it and never needing it guess what I had gone and done?


That's right, the umbrella was nice and safe two hours drive away in geektown. Say it with me everybody


D'OH!!!!!


So it was less of a walk, more of a very quick walk across campus as I tried to stick to as much cover as possible.


The morning devotional was okay, if extremely uncomfortable as they hadn't put out any chairs so we all had to sit on the floor of the sports centre, which is okay for ten minutes and then you feel your legs slowly starting to go to sleep.


After the devotionals it was time for the workshops. First up was the Going for gold workshop.

It was run by a church member from Ireland who is a professional athlete you made history by running in both the olympics and para olympics in beijing. Whilst running in the para olympics he won two gold mdels and set four world records!

Next up was a physio workshop run by the expert in the picture above, whose posing here with her assistant George. Who is the perfect assistant according to her as he never answers back.

It was a very interesting workshop as she was teaching us ways to sit properly and minimize back pain etc. She was amused when she was getting us to practice the stretches at the number of what she called " Ahhs and oohs" coming from people. As she deemed it, we were all in our 20s so we shouldn't be having those kind of problems with our backs!

The third workshop was supposed to be one on "current affairs" although when I got there and waiting round for a bit no one seemed to be running it and it seemed to consist of writting your views on a post it and sticking them to the wall.

Exciting as this was ( that's sarcasim by the way) I decided to head over to the Institute workshops to see what was going on over there. However they were all full to bursting and the "cinema" was full as well. So I decided to have a look at the church bookshop and what they had to offer there. I had bought some cash with me in anticipation of this moment and I was keen to see what DVDs they had to offer and had wanted to get a couple. However the cheapest one was a copy of Singles Ward at £20!

As good as it might have been to get several DVDS there wasn't a chance I was going to be able to get them as I didn't have that much cash on me.

So slightly disappointed I headed back to my room to wait the 15 minutes or so until Lunch.

But still it had been an interesting morning.

Welcome video from Friday night at Manchester 2010 conference

make sure you put your sound on so you can hear the music!

Manchester 2010 Friday evening: So, WHAT??

So, I was at the university, and it was time to check out my room. Which had, wait for it...... Two pillows! For like the first time ever, although no soap. Which made me wonder if they had some kind of bizare supply limit and if different items were different points. But then why would a small bar of soap have the same value as a pillow? Still with a chemists across the road it wasn't going to be a issue.

Once I had unloaded the car it was time for important things! I.e getting some food as you don't get a meal on Friday night.

I decided to with tradition and go to get some food at the same place I have every other Friday night I've attended Convention. KFC. And by that I mean Krunchy Fried chicken one of the number of fast food shops just across the road. Admitially it's not as good as the real thing, but it's not bad, especially when compared to some of the other food shops.

So quick stop back in the room to freshen up and it was time to wonder back over to the armitage centre to see what was what for the Friday night.

What was what was remarkably varied.

If that makes any sense.

There was minature golf, a inflatable volleyball court, a inflatable large scale table football

and a pedestal thing

where you swung a giant ball trying to knock other people off.

But that was not all, there was a act called the "Saxman" who basically played his saxophone along to a number of well known music tracks.

Then there was this other act who were singing about well something. To be perfectly honest I didn't have a clue what they were singing about as they were rapping and the music was so loud I could feel it pounding on my chest....
( somewhere on the other side of the world Elder Johnson senses a distrubance in the force! Old joke from my first year of conference, check the posts using the label)

I found out the next day they were apparently rapping about Jesus. If they say so.

We found out on the Monday that the "saxMan" had actually been really impressed with the YSA dancing and jumping around to his music because he said and I quote
" He didn't realise people could have fun like that still without drinking".

Pretty soon it was time for the opening exercises and the usual " welcome video" which I always look forward too as the guy who does them has a fantastic taste in music, he always goes for real awe inspring/gives you goose bumps it's so epic kind of music.

The rest of the opening exercises were pretty good too :-)

I walked back to my room feeling pretty happy. I had already made two new "friends" at this point. Although technically I suppose I should only count one as the other one I had kinda met via facebook. I had seen others from Leicester around but they were off in their own little groups so I hadn't spoken to them too much.

anyway, the signs were looking good for a good weekend.

Manchester conference 2010 Friday afternoon: Here we go again

Well after weeks, nay months of waiting it was time, time to load up the car and depart into the great wide yonder...........

Okay I'm making it sound a little bit more dramatic then it actually was but you get the idea. Despite early pessimistic signs there were several other people from Leicester stake attending, but they had decided to go in their own groups which meant that once again I would be making the trip by myself.



Which to be perfectly honest was very frustrating as I would have given anything for a passenger or two as events are much funny when you have someone to talk to. Still Grumpy put it perspective by pointing out that it wasn't the first time I had done the trip by myself and it wouldn't be the end of the world.



As I set out I was quickly glad for one thing I had done differently this year, as I have managed to get lost in Manchester serveral times now ( that one way system is awful) I asked to borrow Tap Dances Sat Nav. What I didn't realise however was she had one of the all singing all dancing ones ( not literally of course as otherwises that would be a little distracting for the driver) which actually gave you updates on traffic. Not that it told you that of course up popped this little red square with a picture of a car which if you pushed told you there was a traffic jam and gave you a option for a detour which I decided to take assuming it would just be a small detour around the traffic.



( of course the other wird thing with having to push the red square to get the information is that the Sat Nav voice actually tells you when you set out not to use it whilst drving. So do they expect you to pull over and use it?)



Anyway as it turned out it wasn't a small detour. Not by a long shot, it actually took me off on a magical mystery tour of the countryside which got me a bit nervous because if the satnav had decided to break I wouldn't have had a clue as to where I was!



I think I ended up going through macclesfield at one point.



However the Sat Nav did a sterling job and got me to Manchester bypassing two major traffic jams that I would have been otherwise been sat in for a very long time. Although it did take me to the far side of the university campus to where I needed to go and then seemed to get very annoyed with me for not listening to it.



I got there round about 5.30pm to find a long queue of YSA in the main centre waiting for registration to start. So I joined the queue and we waited and waited and waited. I had the misfortune of being stuck in front of one YSA who just couldn't stop moaning about the wait and that we shouldn't have to wait this long as registration was supposed to have started at 5pm. He seemed full of righteous indigination in that he had to wait, as of course it was him and him alone who was forced to wait! Finally someone pointed out to him that the reason we were having to wait was that although they had given a start time for registration that were obivously anticipating MMT ( Mormon Mean Time) because when do people turn up on time to church activities!


I got my key, went back to the car to grab my bag and went to look for the hall I would be staying in. It was at this point I looked at the key and had to surpress a groan as I recognised the name, it was all too familiar.

Yes I was in the same hall as last year. The one furthest from the activities " arrggghhhh!!!!" Not again! Well there was anything I could do about it and besides it would give me some good exercise.

Are you ready for a story?

Are you ready for a story? If you are you will want to make yourself comfortable, grab a drink and sit back and relax making yourself comfy as you may be here a while.

It's time for the epic tale of the national ysa conference 2010.....

I'm back

Well I survived another conference and once again have returned to geektown. Be sure to tune in tomorrow when I will post the first in depth reports.

I'm too tired to do it toda.y It's been one heck of a long weekend!

Later folks

Now that's just bizare

When I got up this morning it was cold. Surprisingly cold, however there was nothing compared to when I left work, it was actually cold enough that my teeth started to chatter. I even had to turn the heater on in the car to try and war up.

It was one of those moments where you look up into the sky and ask the weather what it thinks it's doing. We're still in August, that's August as in part of summer! Summer as in sunshine and whilst I don't want boiling hot temperatures a temperature above that which will set your teeth chattering would be nice as you only suppoed to be getting that sort of temperature in Winter!

Crazy, crazy, weather.

And of course the old adage held true. It was my last day of work before the weekend so it went absoultely crazy. Yes there might be a lot to do but you certainly never get bored.

anyway, it's off up to Manchester tomorrow. So be sure to tune in Monday for the usual indepth conference report.

Later folks.

It's time to bang your head on the desk again

If there's one small downside to my new job is that's it's more then likely that no matter how hard you work, how quickly you zip through your files answering queries etc, you will finish the day with more files then you started out. For example I started with 48 files today, closed 58 and ended the day with 59 pending. It can be a touch dishearting especially if the day has been very busy like today and it's at moments like that it can be tempting to revert to that old stereotype of banging your head on your desk!

Still no point dwelling as no matter how much you do or do not dwell or it the work will still be there tomorrow, so there's no point letting it ruin your evening.

There's only one more day before convention! Yaah! They have published the schedule for the weekend and it looks interesting. Although I have noticed that there is no massage workshop this year. Which is a shame as it had been the best way to meet new people :-) But I suppose in hindsight I'm surprised it's survived as long as it has as I'm sure a few people were surprised to find a massage class at a mixed YSA event!

Although apparently at work they are still working on getting the massage ladies to come back on a regular basis. Which I hope happens, as if it doesn't I think I might need to go and find a local massage therapist ( professional before I get any comments) as I'm having some problems with my left shoulder at the moment which don't seem to be getting better as it's quite stiff and sore. Although my right shoulders fine, I guess my left is sore due to two things, one I'm left handed so I use that arm more and secondly I fractured my collar bone when I was younger after being knocked off my bike and my arm was in a sling for three months.

Big brother has finally finished. Hurrahhh!!!! It was won by some women I've never heard off and if I'm lucky will never hear of again.

Unfortunatly we now have to suffer two weeks of " Ultimate Big Brother" as they've stuffed a load of ex house mates from previous years back into the house.

Maybe if we're really lucky they'll leave them in there for good.

Well we can hope.

Anyway

Later folks

Mmmmm cake

Although there is no precedent for it, I decided to keep the tradition of taking cakes into work for all the members of my team to mark my Birthday. Fortunatly Tap Dance was nice enough to bake some for me, which went down very very well with the rest of my team. Or to put it another way if she took orders for baking Tap Dance could probably make a lot of money very quickly indeed.

As I had to use the coolbag to take the cakes in we discovered mid morning that a passenger had hitch hiked on the bag. It was a spider, a very very large spider. Which prompted a lot of girlish mini screams and frantic backing away and calls for help, for someone to get rid of such a awful thing.

Fortunatly the girls on the team came to the boys rescue and were able to get rid of said spider :-)

Anyway,

Later folks.

Who doesn't need a evil twin?

The company I currently work for is somewhat larger then my old company. Which means you will get a lot of people with the same name. For example there are lots of Alisons, Louises and James to name a few.

However I was somewhat surprised to find out recently that not only has another " saxon" joined the company. He also has my surname as well and to make matters even more interesting he even has the same intials as me because his middle name

Which as you can imagine has caused some confusion when people have been trying to email him when using the companies email address book.

I'll admit that it is a great way to learn new information about other parts of the company but it gets somewhat annoying when you have to tell the same person for the third day running that they've sent their email to the wrong person.

Maybe I should ask IT if they can set up a animated response for me with a sound file so I can send it back to the person and it plays in the best obi-wan voice possible
" This is not the saxon you are looking for. Move along!"

There's four days to convention/conference/what ever the official title is now and we're getting lots of last minute emals including one asking every attendee to bring a torch, a woodern spoon and a pair of sunglasses. But no explanation as to why?

I don't know if I should be intrigued or very worried.

Work was very good today, it was surprisingly easy to get back into the swing of things ( hope I'm not getting lulled into a false sense of security mind you :-)

anyway,

Later folks!

But would any man be brave enough to use it?

Our Sunday school teacher today mentioned that her Husband had found a scripture whilst reading for this weeks lessons which he thought was quite amusing and I think she said that he thought it was a good one for married men.

The scripture was Proverbs 5: 19
" Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe; let her breasts satisfy thee at all times; and be thou ravished always with her alove. "

There was a few comments from the girls about this as you can imagine. I decided that discretion was the better part of valor and simply decided not to make any outlandish comments about this.

It wouldn't have ended well.

Still it goes to prove that old adage right that you really do learn something new everytime you read the scriptures.

I spent a fair amount of time playing with my new camera, taking pictures in the garden testing out it's new settings. And theres rather a lot of them to be honest. I guess I'll just need to keep practising to become more familiar with them. And once I have got the software installed to upload the pictures I will post them here.

Well it's Monday tomorrow which means it's back to work time. However the week will be a little shorter then usual as I have taken Friday off as that's the day I will be heading up to convetion and I have also booked next Tuesday off as well as I always said every year that the next year I would book the Tuesday off after Bank Holiday to "recover" and this year I actually did it!

Anyway,

Later folks.

29 years and one day

Yes good ole Father time has kept on his relentless match and as of yesterday I was officially another year older. Although I can say with total conviction that although I may be another year older I am still certainly none the wiser.


I received a new camera which has more then twice the megapixels of my old one, some vouchers, some money, and two books. One of which which was gotten for me by mult-task and Bishop Mechanicum and is now sitting on my shelf taunting me to read it all right now! Which I want to, but also don't want to as their particular author writes infuriatingly slowly! There was a space of five years, yes FIVE YEARS! between this book and the last one.

I also had one of my nieces and nephews stop by to drop off the present from their family. Even though I'm getting old, Uncle Saxon still scored some major coolness points by not only have wii motion plus controllers, but having the black ones, complete with black nunchuks and to cap off the coolness also having a the Black Wii instead of the white one.

However Uncle Saxon then proceeded to loose all aquired coolness points by loosing at Mario Kart to my nephew, not by a little but by a lot. In the sense that every race he came first I came last! I was loosing so badly that he actually started to consol me by apologising for being so good at the game and that it was okay to be bad as some people just couldn't grasp certain kinds of games.

Although the consoling soon stopped when he put on Wii Sports to play baseball and found that he couldn't beat me at that! Or at least couldn't beat me as badly at that. ( I still lost mind you)That was the point that the excuses started that he was out of practise on the baseball and that was the only reason he wasn't doing better.

Well it's back to work on Monday. Somebody asked me if I was dreading the huge pile of work that would have built up in my absensce. However there won't be any because due to the nature of the job the queries couldn't wait a week. In most cases they couldn't wait a day, so they would have just been shared out amongst the rest of the team.

It probably means that either irony or karma take your pick will balance things out and hit me with a load of tough files come Monday morning.

It could be worse. I could be on the late shift as opposed to the 9am.

This time next week I will be at the national convention. So at always this means there will be a break in postings from the Friday through to the Monday. When you can rest assured you will get the usual ( in probably more depth then needed but c'est la vie) posts described the highs and hopefully little to no lows of the weekend.

Later folks

Not that I'm condoning this

Now you would think that if you gave into the temptation to throw a sickie from work you would think of a few things ahead of time. For example you wouldn't go anywhere near your place of work, you wouldn't go into a town nearby where you might run into somebody you know from work and so forth.

And you certainly, certainly wouldn't say throw a sickie, to go on a national televised talent show, whilst wearing your costume from work would you? Because that wouldn't be a good idea at all would it?

Well somebody forgot to tell one lady just that and as you can imagine she's now in just a teeny tiny bit of trouble.

Latest science news, apparently the moon is shrinking! Or at least that's what the headlines are screaming. But before you start running about screaming that the sky is falling there's one bit of information that you need to know. Yes it may be shrinking, but not at a rate of what you could call especially fast. Apparently it's shrunk 300ft in the last 800 million years.

In finance news, it seems the top experts are keeping themselves occupied with a very important question. No not why petrol is still so high ( 115.9 in geektown right now) or why a 15 minute drive would get you into a area where petrol is 4 pence cheaper. Now the big question which everyone is debating right now is why is a average jar of Marmite more exspensive then a gallon of petrol. I have no idea who is doing this study but I have a fairly good feeling it's coming to you from the experts of we've got nothing better to do university.

Anyway,

Later folks!

Look after the pennies

Grumpy and I were planning to go into Leicester today when he had a brainwave. He had a lot of coins hanging around the place, mainly 1pence and 2 pence coins that he had been saving up in two pringle tubes ( and no I don't know why pringle tubes). Usually he would have to count them out and put them in bags before he could put them into the bank.

However he knew that the place we were going to had a coin counting machine. You just put the coins in, it counts it for you, you get a receipt which you can either redeem or use off your shopping. The Machine takes ten percent of the total coinage mind you, but still all in all a much quicker system then having to count coins into little bags right?

Ummm usually.

But it turned out Grumpy had rather a lot of coins.

A heck of a lot.

In fact he had over 1000 2 pence coins alone!

So it took a little time to put them all in the machine.

Still at least we got the recipt from the machine eventually which he was able to use as money off the clothes he had bought. Which cheered him up a bit as he didn't seem too happy that he had never spent so much on clothes in one go before.

Mind you he wasn't alone in that as I spent a fair bit as well, for some bits such as a new coat, new trousers, some shirts and other bits and bobs.

We noticed on the way out that there was a very frustrated woman standing in front of the coin machine whilst a staff member had the front open obivously trying to fix it. Grumpy asked somewhat worried if we had broken it. My response was to tell him to keep walking!

anyway,

Later folks.

If there's not a book on this I'm sure there soon will be

If you go in any book shop there's usually a section which groans under the weight of multiple volumes detailing to do pretty much anything in the world, as well as "rules" for all sorts of situations/jobs/clubs etc.

There seems to be one of these books for anything you can think of. Heck there’s even Mormonism for dummies!

And no it’s not a Sunday school manual!


One thing I noticed there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast guide to the etiquette of using facebook. I mean anyone can log into facebook, apparently one in thirty of the worlds population does and it’s now grown into this huge international “ you must have” Kind of thing.

I know I’m rambling a bit now but bear with me. I am getting to a point here.

Specifically what are the rules for certain situations such as Friend requests. Who should you ask to be a friend? Does somebody from Work count as a friend? Does somebody from church who you might rarely speak to count as a friend? Fine neither of you talk to each other but would they be offended if you don’t ask them to be a friend?

Likewise do you accept Friend requests from anyone even if you haven't seen good ole john since Primary school and even then you only sat next to him for two days whilst somebody else was sick but it obviously meant a lot to him as he's sent you a friend request. Or is there a minimum standard you should apply. Does a person have to know you a set amount of time before you should accept a request

Also what do you do if you get a friend request from someone who knows you and has mutual friends but you can’t for the life of you place them as it were? At least if you run into somebody like that in the supermarket you can fake your way through a conversation that of course you know who they are.

Ummm not that I’ve done that at all.............. Honest : - )

Plus what happens if you see someone you consider a friend whose sent Friend requests to everyone else you know but you. What do you make of that? Get offended? Wait for them to send you a Friend request? Send them a Friend request?

Getting someone on your list is only half the battle. Keeping them is a whole other story. Especially as you don’t get a notification if someone removes. So what do you do if someone removes you as a friend? Do you quietly accept it? Do you decide that they must have their reasons and quietly moan the loss of a friendship as it is consigned to the depths of history.

Or do you send them a email filled with righteous indignation demanding to know why they don't want to have you as a friend anymore, and informing them that you're very angry about this even if you've never spoken to them since accepting their request and only occasionally pay attention to their status updates. In fact you’re so angry that you will send them another friend request just so you can remove them from your list! Yes that will show them.

For something which is so easy to log into it’s so hard to master. It's all terribly vexing isn't it?

Anyway

Later Folks

Not heard that in a Sunday school lesson before

" well that's the way we drew it when we taught Santa"
came the comment from one of the girls in our YSA class today who was helping to teach the class after she had finished drawing a picture related to the lesson on the blackboard.

Cue a couple of baffled looks from other members of the class along the lines of " Did she really just say what we think she said?"

However it wasn't as crazy a comment as it sounded as there is a investigator who actually is called " Santa". Although I'm sure there were one or two double takes elsewhere when the elders reported this as well.

The sacrement talks were very interesting today. The theme was unity and all of the speakers were really good. Although the last speaker had a bit of a unique problem. Usually the microphone problem is that the smaller speakers shall we say have to pull the microphone down to be heard. The last speaker was so tall even with the microphone full extended it only came up to about his chest height!

anyway,

Later folks!

Decisions, decisions

Grumpy is currently looked out of the window somewhat worried. It's time for Owens walk and he can't decide if it getting dark outside due to the time or the dark rain clouds overhead. I pointed out that it was likely six of one, half a dozen of the other as the clouds look very full. Grumpys response was that they shouldn't be as they've been dropping enough.

Yes folks, it's been another day of rain, rain and a bit more rain. If the weathermen are to be believed ( and I'm sure this is the one time they'll have actually got it right) we're actually going to have this weather through to October! Summer is over early this year or so it seems.

But then again I suppose if we were having a really long drawn out summer with high temperatures every day we would only be moaning about that as well.

Anyway,

Later folks.

Well I guess it makes sense to them

It's been another wet and cold day. In fact so wet and miserable that I had to find out my winter coat to wear to work otherwise I would have ended up very wet!

And sitting in work wet is never a good thing.

I've also somehow managed to aquire a new nickname thanks to BB. She and one of her friends have started calling me "Dad".

No idea why.

I guess it makes sense to them.

Anyway, I've finished my last day of work before my holiday which means I have a whole nine days before I have to go back to work again.

I think the best way to describe that is " sweet!"

anyway,

Later folks

4 down, 1 to go

It's been raining a bit today. Well saying a it's been raining a bit is a bit of a understatement really. It's been absolutely throwing it down in a good old fashioned kind of rainstorm that we haven't seen in a long time, complete with thunder and lightning.

The storm also demonstrated that the design of the building at work means that when it rains really hard, it echoes. A lot!

Which is quite distracting when your trying to concentrate.

I've only got one more day left this week before my Holiday next week. And suffice to say this week has proven that old theory I have that the closer you get to your holiday the more difficult the "opportunities" fate throws into your path at work.

Grumpy is quite into Family history at the moment and seems to be discovering more and more things about his side of the family every day. For example he's found that his Great-great-great-great-grandfather was chancelor of the exchequer!

Anyway,

Later folks.

Witty Signs

Sign over a Gynecologist's Office:

"Dr. Jones, at your cervix."

**************************


In a Podiatrist's office:

"Time wounds all heels."
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On a Septic Tank Truck:
Yesterday's Meals on Wheels

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On a Plumber's truck:

"We repair what your husband fixed."

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On another Plumber's truck:

"Don't sleep with a drip. Call your plumber."

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On a Church's Bill board:

"7 days without God makes one weak."

**************************

At a Tyre Store

"Invite us to your next blowout."

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On an Electrician's truck:

"Let us remove your shorts."

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In a Non-smoking Area:

"If we see smoke, we will assume you are on fire and take appropriate action."

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On a Maternity Room door:

"Push. Push. Push."

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At an Optometrist's Office:

"If you don't see what you're looking for, you've come to the right place."

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On a Taxidermist's window:

"We really know our stuff."

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On a Fence:

"Salesmen welcome! Dog food is expensive!"

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At a Car Dealership:

"The best way to get back on your feet - miss a car payment."

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Outside a Car Exhaust Store:

"No appointment necessary. We hear you coming."

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In a Vets waiting room:

"Be back in 5 minutes. Sit! Stay!"

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In a Restaurant window:

"Don't stand there and be hungry; come on in and get fed up."

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In the front yard of a Funeral Home:

"Drive carefully. We'll wait."

**************************

And don't forget the sign at a

RADIATOR SHOP:

"Best place in town to take a leak."

**********************

Sign on the back of yet another

Septic Tank Truck:

"Caution - This Truck is full of Political Promises"

From High hopes to low depths

I was trying to be optomistic. I'll say that now. I was really hoping that I would be proven wrong and faith would be rewarded.

But it wasn't!

And what has caused this woe and lamentation I hear you ask?

Why the second episode of the Deep. It seems that as the film Ghost ship bought together the worlds dumbest salvage crew ( what do you mean what was the Marie Celestie?) the Deep has bought together the Worlds dumbest scientists.

Marvel at a crew who can go from dissecting a rabit to dissecting a human being and being able to tell what killed him in a few minutes. A crew who forget that putting two people in a one man submarine will do things to it's buoyency, a crew who can identify that a underwater craft larger then anything seen in Human history is not only Human built but also Russian simply by looking at the welding!

Well you get the idea.

I've recently started watched Babylon 5 again. Why? Maybe Because it was a great series, because it was one of my favourite tv shows when I was a teenager, or maybe because you can now buy each complete series for only £13 in HMV which is less then one of the videos of two episodes for the series cost.

One of my favourite things about the show was the launch sequence for the fighters. Awesome!

The show is also interesting as being a great case study in showing the advances of CGI. Just watch the difference in battle scenes from the 1st and 2nd series and you can see theres a massive difference. Let alone the difference between the scenes in series 1 and series 5!

Lastly the characters were pretty good as well. G'kar was certainly one of my favourites and one of my favourite quotes from him was the speech he gave just after finding out his homeworld had been conquored
" No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power tyrants and dictators cannot stand. The Centuari learned that lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Although it may take a thousand years, we will be free"

anyway,

Later Folks.

Knowing when to stop is a good thing

Unless you'v been living under a very big rock in the middle of a very large desert you can't help but notice that the new "in thing" at the moment in movies is to have movies in 3D. A fact that always amuses Grumpy as he likes to keep pointing out that 3D was the " in thing" years ago. The 3D craze has got to a point that there are some films being released where it states that their only availabile in 2D in selected cinemas

However seeing as the next film to be announced as being released in 3D is a live action version of Yogi Bear, yes that's right the Yogi Bear cartoon you can't help feeling that now would be a good time for film makers to stop, take a deep breath and put their shiny new 3D toy back into the box and only get it out if it would actually add something to the film.

In the news today there was a story about someone who quite their job in what must be a contender for one of the best " leaving with style" stories ever. A Flight attendent after having a argument with a passenger, announced his departure via the tannoy, grabbed a beer and then exited the plane by using the emergency slide.

The BBC have just announced that they will be making a new series of Sherlock holmes but it will be at least a year before any new episodes are shown. NOOoooooooo!!!!! they can't do that, not after the cliffhanger they ended the episode on Sunday with!

Well at least Torchwood should be back on in the meantime.

Speaking of sci-fi things, the next episode of the series " The deep" should be on tonight, it has a lot of slamming from sci-fi websites and magazines. One site only gave it one star! Still it has a lot of potential, lets hope it lives up to it as opposed to going doing the oh so easy cliche route.

Anyway,

Later folks.

It's really rather wet

It's been raining this evening. In fact it's been raining very hard. I got rather wet leaving the cinema after a YSA trip to the movies. So as you can imagine I wasn't keen on the idea of going back out into the rain. Much to Grumpys disappointment as he tried to bribe me into taking Owen for his evening walk.

Speaking of which, We're starting to wonder if Owen is having Anger management issues. He's never been overly fond of the postman. Which is why we had to install a postbox on the wall outside so we could get the post intact and not scattered and hidden around the house. It's also why we have to keep a chair in the hall againist the door to stop him jumping up and scratching the glass any worse then he has done already.

He used to just charge down the stairs barking whenever the postman arrives, now when the postman arrives he grabs the nearest shoe he can find and starts tossing it backwards and forwards around the hallway in a fit of pique. Grumpy rescued a shoe off him the other day just a little too late as it now has teeth marks through it.

He seemed a bit worried when he told me what had happened as he obivously thought I was going to tell Owen off for ruining my shoes.

He didn't need to worry.

They weren't my shoes he had just ruined. They were Grumpys!

It was a interesting day at work, especially as it was the first day at my new desk. It was much more a case of standing on my own two feet as the senior and manager in our department are now on the other side of the department, so it's not easy to ask quick questions anymore.

Still it keeps life interesting.

Four days to go until Holiday time!

Later folks.

All change at the top

It was a bit different then the usual services at church today.

After six and a half years the Bishop was released and the rest of the Bishopric was released at the same time as well.

This lead to just a little tiny bit of a reshuffle in the ward Structure.

The Elders Quorum President is now the Bishop, and the 1st councillor from the EQ Presidency is now the 1st councilkor on the Bishopric. The Ward Mission leader is now the 2nd councillor and the former 2nd councillor is now the executive secretary.

The former 2nd councillor from the EQ presidency is now the new Elders Quorum president and we now need someone else to be called to be the ward Mission leader.

So as you can see it's certainly all change at the top in Loughborough ward. It will be interested to see the changes that will come in the weeks ahead.

Well it's Monday tomorrow, so it's another week of opportunities ahead and I'm on the late shift, 10 to 6pm. Still it could be worse at least it's not 11.30 to 7.30pm!

Plus it's the last week before my Holiday.

Anyway,

Later folks

One New team Mascot coming right up

I had to put up with the somewhat surreal sight of a spider hanging in midair today. Well not literally of course but you had to tilt your head in just the right way to see the web. He was postioned directly over the middle of our bank of desks and had managed to construct a web in mid air by running three very long strands from the ceiling, the window and the top of someones monitor.

I'll admit that some of the girls weren't too happy with a spider just being there all day, but it was only a small one and even they had to admit that the web was pretty darn impressive.

It has been a long day today, but I've come to expect that of Fridays in my new department. Still the long days are always balanced by the great feeling of knowing the weekend is just around the corner.

I also had to do some moving around as I've had to change desks as another new person will be joining the team. So like I was the new " Pete" this person will be the new "saxon". I liked my current desk more then my new one but at least I had one very important thought to console me.

I wasn't the only one having to move. He, he, he, he...........

anyway,

Later folks

Knowing the Signs

I've found that I can tell when I hit that definitive point when I need a break. It takes that little bit more effort to focus, keeping my calm takes that little bit more effort, it's just that little bit more difficult to get out of bed in the morning.

I kinda of felt that I hit that point today. Well it was either that or the angry customer who called me a idiot half a dozen times. Yes it was one of those days. Well for the morning at least, it got better in the afternoon at least.

Well at least I only have another week to go before my next holiday break!

It's true that my job has proven to be something of a interesting learning experience and it's not a cliche to say that you do learn something new everyday. And today was no exception as we learned about one of the channel islands called Sark Island which was subject to an attempted invasion in 1990. Not a large scale invasion by any stretch of the imagination as it was mounted by a umployed french physicist who put up signs over night to declare his intention to take the island over the following day at noon. He was arrested sitting on a bench whilst changing the magazine on his weapon by the islands volunteer police constable! I mean failing in your single handed invasion attempt is bad enough but to be stopped by a volunter constable that must have just rubbed salt into the wound :-)

I also found out today that I will be one of the first people to takea new internal training course which sounds very interesting indeed. Plus it will be held off site so I get two days away, whislt the company pays. Sweet!

Anyway,

Later folks!

And todays lessson is.....

Technically pressure is an effect that occurs when a force is applied on a service. Or at least that's what wikipedia defines it as and if it's on wikipedia is must be true.

Pressure is also what you get a lot of at work when the phone never seems to stop ringing, when you've lost several people to sickness when you already have people on holiday and when you seem to have a never ending list of files which try as you might you just can't close.

Yes in case you hadn't guessed it has seriously, seriously been one of those days.

There was a new program on BBC 1 tonight called the Deep. It had a fanatastic cast and it has potential but it was just a little too cliched and I guessed where things were going very on, which was a shame as it had a very very chilling start. Still maybe next weeks episode will improve.

I also caught a bit of the show Mongrels on BBC three but quickly turned it off. It did have a couple of quite funny moments but it's creators seem to have the same problem hat the creator of Family guy did after season 3. They forgot that they can actually write quite funny material without having to be crude.

Anyway,

Later folks

Bring it on

No matter how good your job, no matter how much you like getting to work you're always going to have that " I don't want to get up" feeling when your alarm blares into life first thing on a Monday morning.

Of course it didn't help this morning that I had real trouble waking up, at one point whilst trying to turn off my alarm I actually told it " All right, be quiet already I'm up!" like that would have made any difference at all.

This slight lape may have been down to having not woken up properly or the fact I was trying to remember what I was dreaming about as the last thing I can remember from the dream is someone saying " that's £999.99" and that's all. I have no idea whatsoever what the heck the rest of the dream was about!

Well weird start to the day aside it wasn't a bad day for a Monday.

Anyway,

Later folks.

Coming Round again

Well it's Sunday night which means another weekend has come and gone and the start of another working week will be upon us in a few short hours.

Of course it's also the start of a new Month as well which means my weeks will be full of more interesting opportunities then usual as my KPI's will be measured in full from now on.

It also means that I only have two weeks of work left before my next holiday.

It also means only three weeks to their special time of year when I will be a year old.

It means that there are only four weeks until the start of the National YSA Convention.

It also means that I have been with my current company for nine months now and in only three months, that's right just three months I will have been there for a year.

To use a cliche it really, really doesn't seem like that long.

The latest installment of the new Sherlock holmes was on tonight and was very good. Although there weren't as many quotable one liners as there were in last weeks episode.

anyway,

Later folks