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Today had one of those moments that just make you smile. Moments where you hope the outcome will come out just as you imagine in the darker parts of your mind.
So I had finished in Sainsburys and I’d made it back to the car. A couple of rows opposite me there was a Fiesta with a couple of kids in it. A brother and his big sister. I’d guess that nether of them were in double figures. The sister was sat in the front passenger seat, and see was having a disapproving strop moment. This was because her little brother was in the driver’s seat. Well not quite. He had one leg and most of his body out of the car window. But his legs were too short to reach the ground. So he’s teetering on the sill. He eventually clambers back in. They have a little scuffle and he tries his “Dukes of Hazard” maneuver again. Lightning fast, his sister gives his arse an almighty shove. BOINK! Out he goes, sprawled on the ground. She laffs her head off. Locks all the doors and closes the window. I left giggling as she taunts him through the window.
Got sent out to a retail site today. Had to rebuild one of the computers, so that left me with a bit of time to take in the environment I was in while the PC did the automated reload thing. So up on one of the shelves were some DVDs.
Now what the hell is “Romancing The Stone” doing in amoungst that lot?
That reminds me. I found a photo I took a couple of weeks ago. Who one earth goes on holiday with a pink wheel barrow?
Ok, I was on the last service station of the M4 in Wales, so I suppose I really shouldn’t be that surprised.
Strewth! It’s September already. I find it hard to believe that this much of the year has flown past already.
There still isn’t a great deal to write about. Work continues to be work, with it’s usual ups and downs. In this sensitive age, I’m extremely hesitant to write anything much. Even relatively anonymous and innocuous comments can be easily misconstrued. So the safer option is to not write anything at all. So this kind of leave sod all to write about. As for my day to day life. Well what the hell am I doing any different from any one else? Life is still filled with the weird an unusual going’s on. Last Saturday on my way over to Swindon, I was overtaken by a motor bike. The pillion passenger was dressed in a dalmatian jump suit. Made me laff. Just wish the guy had some of the stick on furry ears on the helmet. Would have topped the look off nicely I feel.
Today took me out to Hereford. How come they have never built more than one bridge? Ok so there are two bridges in Hereford, but only one of them seems to get used. But all the traffic through or across Hereford all congests in the centre. How the hell can that have been a good choice for a road network? Would building a couple more bridges on the outskirts really cost that much? Probably. Who knows?
With the kids back to school the roads have become the scary domain of the elderly again. Drive slow to start with. Slow down for corners and on coming traffic. Indicators are optional or misleading. Staying in lane never reallyan option for them. Today seemed to be filled with a hand full of near misses. I’m very glad I’ve got insurance. Since January 27th I’ve driven 26,378 miles. Which reminds me, I’d better book the car in for another service soon. Considering how long it took the hire company to organise the last one, I’d better start proceedings off earlier than last time.
Just got to make it through this week and I can have some time off. Really looking forward to it.
There isn’t that much going on in my mind at the moment. At least nothing of interest, or anything that I feel compelled to write about at least.
Life is ticking over quite nicely all in all. Work is work. The rota continues on. I got through the last long stretch. The four days off after 10 in a row always tend to be filled with a lot of sleep and all the little chores that I feel I have no time for in the normal run of things. So the fish tank has had a clean out. The fish seem happy about that. I’ve pushed the hoover about a bit. I’ve even given some thought about the holiday into Europe. Looking in to it a bit more, I’m beginning to wonder if I have bitten off more than I can chew? I mean, three destination. All by road. Nearly one and a half thousand miles. the cost is beginning to worry me. Can I really afford to do this? Along with the fear of the unknown. The language barrier. Hum. Should I be a little more conservative in my approach? But shouldn’t a holiday like this be a bit more about adventure?
The problem of a life that is structured and built around routien is that it gets out of it’s comfort zone very easily.
Time off. A great thing. So what better way to spend a Sunday than doing something a little different.
An unfinished project is that of recording replacement sound files for the “Announcer” in the game “Team Fortress 2″. I ran out of steam on this a long while ago. So I’ve been meaning to put the nice condensing microphone my brother got me for Christmas to good use. So I finally got around to ordering a microphone stand last week. Today I’m feeling some what verbose and thought I’d better make a start or trying to make some proper recordings, rather than using the little microphone on the end of my head set. So 170 odd files later and all I’ve got to do now is upload them and let Mode Seven know where they are, he being the co-conspirator in this particular endeavor.
In other news, my friend Earthy is in the process of ordering a lot of computer parts for his upgrade. And in the modern spirit we’re recycling. So that’s Junta’s old motherboard has been brought out of mothballs and Deadly Avenger has a graphics card that will come in handy. So hopefully in a little while Earthy will have a working rig again. As his current rig has decided that no output on the AGP socket is the way forward. Bloody frustrating. But not for long. It’s daft how I can get genuinely excited about a upgrade. And it’s not even mine! Well that’s geek tendencies for you.
The next ten days see another long stretch ahead of me as I enter the ten in a row section of my rota. Although it may not be that bad. The work load has been a lot lighter since the Football world cup came to an end. So the next few days may be fairly straight forward. However as most of the schools in the land have finally broken up, I may find trying to get around becomes a bit of a challenge. Time will tell.
Right, I’d better see how the upload is going.
DIY is a dangerous pass time.
So a day off. YAY! A nice long leisurely lie in and then I found myself tinkering with my PC. I’ve been trying to get TF2 to run over my network. The off-line practice is all well and good, but there are no achievements. So I got around to creating another Steam account and downloading the dedicated server program. All kinds of fun. But my BT home hub keeps resetting it’s self. This drops the connection and causes no end of trouble. if I do manage to get it working, then I end up with no access to the load out option. So I found myself this morning experimenting with a hub. After trying various different things with wires all over the place I came to following conclusion. I’ve no idea what is wrong. Running the game as just a LAN game is all well and good, but the server can’t talk to Valve, so not secure. Or something like that the error message was saying. As soon as a connection to the outside world was established, all would be OK for a couple of minuets then there would be the “click” noise from the home hub and that would be your lot. Something has changed since about two updates ago that my home hub doesn’t like. Sod it, I’ve no idea. Might be time to change to new black home hub.
So with all that teckie debris cleared away it was off to Bristol to run the gauntlet in Ikea. it’s a strange place. i tried using the short cuts through the show rooms, but still managed to get lost and double back on myself. So especially miffed when I got to the self service area and found the shelf I needed was back in the show rooms. I felt like a salmon swiming up stream going against the flow of numerous members of Joe Public. I eventually found what I was looking for the the help of a friendly assistant. Had a random moment of comedy on the way out. A woman with a strong Afrikaans accent was showing her two kids where Johannesburg was on the map, and explaining that is where they lived. One of the little boys than commented that the humongous map would come in handy for Geography home work. he had one of the thickest Bristol accents I’ve heard in ages. Made me smile.
So shopping complet, there was the joys of trying to get a shelf fitted to the wall. A bit of modifications was needed. So this did require a trip to B & Q to get some cutting disks for the dremmil. As is normal for my life, I stopped in on the Doctors to get my eye looked at. Apparently it’s OK, I’ve just got to see if it gets any worse. If it does, then it’s off to the eye specialists. OK, slightly scary.
So cutting disks in hand it was back to hack the shelf down to size and then fit the thing to the wall. I’m slightly prone to over engineering things. So in true style, there is now a shelf capable of supporting a load that will not actually fit on the shelf. May be the fixings I used were a little over kill, but you don’t want the shelf to fall down now do you?
A chilled evening. Chatted to a friend on the phone, seems like his PC has died a death. So I’ll be popping round his in the future to drop off another mother board for him. He’s got most of the bit’s he need for a new rig. Just needs a PCI-E graphics card and a processor for it. The graphics card is kind of sorted out. So it’s down the the triangle. What? Don’t know what I’m on about. There is a triangle for life. It’s got three criteria. Good. Fast. Cheap. You can have two out of three.
So here we are again.
I hadn’t realised it had been so long since I last wrote something in here. The day to day going on activity of my life has become very routine. Nearly stagnant. Work continues at a good pace. The work load is still constant, so that is a good thing. In fact things seem to be getting a little easier, but perhaps that is probably me just getting used to the new way of doing things since the change over from one employer to another. On the surface nothing has changed. I’m still doing the same work for the same customers and talking to the same people. So all that really changed is I’m paid by a different company on a different day. And the dress code has changed. Most of the other changes are purely administrative. But i had a review a couple of months ago and it went well. Looks like I’m keeping up to speed on things. The only saga has been trying to get the company car serviced. Thankfully that’s all sorted now. the complication was down to the fact that I have a temporary hire car until the new feet of vehicles is sorted out. So the would be normal process doesn’t quite apply yet. But with time it will. the end result so far is that the car has had a service and is is in good condition.
Driving has been a little odd of late. It’s probably down to the increasing number of tourists. But I seem to be encountering more and more “Dick Turpin’s” of late. had one today. The stretch of road between Gloucester and Ross On Wye. Found my self behind an elderly couple. Usual thing. Couldn’t maintain a speed. Slowed down at the site of a corner or on coming traffic. Seemed to have difficulty staying in the lane. So when an open stretch of road presented it’s self, I decided to overtake. No on coming traffic. Great visibility and road conditions. An easy overtake maneuver. But some how this really upset the old man driving his little green Korean car. Much flashing of lights and hand gestures. I still can’t figure out what had got his knickers in a twist.
Well summer is definitely here. And with in a couple of months I get to go on my hair brained scheme of traveling in to Europe. The plan is quite simple. Go visit the places that Gloucester is twined with. So that will be Gouda in Holland. Trier in Germany. And Metz in France. I’ve never left England, so this is going to be a bit of a daunting journey. I recon I can easily travel 400 miles or so in a day. So I’ve got 3 weeks of work. So I’ve got plenty of time to take things easy and see the sights. may be pop in o some other places along the way. So sooner or later I’ve got face facts that I really should be getting organised. Book ferry tickets. Sort out accommodation. Figure out a rout and time table. Really looking forward to it.
So I’ve finished a 10 day stretch. Really looking forward to a lie in. Be nice not to wake up to an alarm clock. So some domestic chores and than i think a trip in to Bristol to have a look around Ikea. And then go and see friends over the weekend.
So there you have it. Work is all ok. Alive & well. An adventure awaits.
One of the consequences of shift work is the feeling of being out of sync with the world. After the ten days in a row I tend to feel very frazzled. And then I tend to cram a lot into the following four days off. So what has been so exciting that I’ve neglected writing this?
Well there is the saga of trying to get the company car serviced. I’ve tried on several occasions to get the car serviced. The last attempt was Thursday just gone. So the first time there was no availability with the particular garage that the hire company uses. The second attempt was done on a Saturday and the single individual from the hire car company wasn’t working, so couldn’t authorise the work. And the third attempt fell in it’s face when the garage chain the hire company uses lost my booking. So I’ve left it to the company that manages the company fleet to sort out. So far haven’t heard anything back. So I’ll make some enquiries on Friday.
On a much happier front, I got to meet up with one of my sisters on Saturday. We met up at a pub on the outskirts of Swindon and had a bloody good chat and a catch up. So that was a really nice way to spend a Saturday afternoon.
Other than that, my time off was spent in the usual manner of catching up on my sleep. Doing one or two domestic chores. And generally taking things easy. Shame the kid from next door but one is proving to be a troublesome teenager. Found two sheets of mirror glass smashed over the car park. No witnesses. All that indicates that it’s him, or at least that the debris originated from his property, is the fact that one the pieces of glass hit the tarmac end on and embedded a bit. So that gives a point of impact and then it’s just a case of looking at the spread of debris. Not a lot you can do really. I can’t legally brain the kid. the police won’t be interested. And the kids Mum, well she doesn’t want the 14 year old. So all I can think of doing is spending out £250 on a private security camera system and getting the relevant data protection act licence. But in all honesty I’d rather spend the £250 on something more fun. But do I want to continue cleaning his crap out of my car park? Oh the joys of dysfunctional teenagers.
Right, I’d better get a wiggle on. Work starts in a few minuets. I wonder where I’ll be sent today.
I’m Shattered! I’m finally on the last day of my 10 in a row. My thinking feels so fuzzy. I think I’ve driven over 1,500 miles and probably done 68ish hours in the last 10 days.
So looking forward to a day of tomorrow. Definitely having a lie in.
It’s that time I dread. The long stretch of the rota. Monday had been a great day. Nice and quiet, but Tuesday was determined to make up for lost ground. The jobs through the day had been nice and straight forward, but as I was on standby I get to do the out of hours software clear down for one of the company’s retail customers. In this case it was a retail site in Cardiff. So I got to the site for a couple of minuets before 8:00pm and went and said hello to the manager. Unfortunatly they were having a stock take at the same time, so that split there consentration some what. So it wasn’t untill gone 9:15pm when Icould finally make a start on clearing down the tills. It was a couple of minutes later when i found that till 2 had a problem. After trying to get the thing to load to the default screen I opted for the old favorite of “Turn it off and on again”. This didn’t work. The till then took half an hour to try and re-index every last file it had. After half an hour it failed and rebooted it’s self. Again it tried to redo the indexes. another half an hour passed and again it failed and rebooted.
Not a happy bunny at this point. The help desks have closed. And Tech Support closed up shop ages ago. So with no one to ask for advice, I needed to come up with a plan. Sod it, lets reload the till. This process involves getting a floppy disk in to the back office PC. Which has been very neatly installed in to a rack cabinet. And to make life interesting the back of the PC faces out and the cables have been neatly tie wrapped in with zero slack on them. So the only method to get the floppy disk in is to sit on your arse and reach under the shelf the PC is on and try and get the disk into the slot. What ever you do, do not turn off the PC.
So the disk goes in ok, and I run the utility needed to make a rebuild disk. Back to till 2 and give it a whirl, nothing. It ignores the floppy drive. Reboot and try again. Nothing. Drat! Back to the office with a fresh floppy disk. Fumble blindly for the floppy drive, run the utility and back to the till. Nope, it reads the disk but it doesn’t like it. Back to the office again, grope around in the cabinet and make another disk. Yay! This one works. Reload the till. Patiently wait for the till to get all the data off till one. Once that’s finished, I can then run the clear down on it. Talk about a long winded method. With till two all fixed up, I clear down till 1 and run the end of day. Hooray! I’m finally finished. With the various forms filled in and exchanged it’s 23:09 when I finally leave the site. So it’s gone midnight by the time I get back home. Thank Betsy for the 11 hour rule.
Oh, the million pound note? Yes, one of the members of staff gave it to me “As payment for my hard work”.
Apparently they had some religious guy in handing them out. Doing the good work of Jesus by tempting the sinner with spoof money. And the back of note went on to talk about sin, hell and redemption. I was some what amused to find that I have sinned quite a bit.
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