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.