I want to get on

And I don't mean the world, I'm still trying to get off of that.

It does not matter what I try and do something stands in my way and when I do get my neck in front, something sneaks round and bites me in the arse. The latest problem is another computer one, its not a biggy, but it just a pain. Got all the web hosting moved, started to get things sorted and then found out one of the photo hosting packages which we intend to move expires earlier than I realised, so now I am up against getting the gallery moved as well. So there is no guessing what has happened is there, yep there is a problem setting up the new gallery, like I say it is not a major problem but it just one thing after another and it starting to wear me down.

We had a major discussion a couple of weeks ago, regarding holidays and for one reason or another I have already taken three weeks of my holiday and feel as though I have not had a holiday. For one reason or another I have not had that time when you lay back and think sod it, it is my holiday and I am doing nothing, I was always doing something for somebody else.

On a better note (and only just) it was weight in night to night and for the second week running I lost weight. Ok it was not earth shattering amount but it was a loss and I am now at my lowest weight I have been since starting  Slimming World over 12 months ago. Just got to keep on the straight and narrow for the next 6 days (he says sitting eating chocolate chip cookies!!).

Update......and if I am not frayed enough, I come to post this and the system errors out on me, so 20 hours later I can now post it....................

Day dream believer

Monday, first day back after the holiday, I did not want to get out of bed. Tuesday, I was a wake at around 4-00am and got up at 5-10am followed by along drive, Wednesday was another long drive, Thursday several short drives and a day when I never got any of the jobs finished I wanted to. Friday was the day we played hunt the e-mail game, oh the joys of work.

When you have one of those long drives, have you ever thought what you would do if you won the lottery, you dream about telling the boss what he can do with his job, the new house, sorry I mean mansion you would buy, deciding whether to buy a Bentley or Aston Martin and then realising you can buy both, the year long world cruise, the days spent on a sunny island paradise beaches and not having to lift a finger for anything. Once you have exhausted that episode of your dream, your mind scales the dream down to something a little more realistic and you start trying to work out how much money you would have to win just so that you could pack up work pay the mortgage and any debts off and still maintain the same standard of living your have now. Where would you invest the money to get the best return to keep you out of employment and become a person of leisure.

By the time this little episode of your dream has finished you move onto the fact of whether you would be happy if you won that sort on money. We have all seen the stories of what happens to some winners of large sums of money, those that go completely off the rails, to those that claim that they will continue to work 40 hours a week and it won't change them. How many long lost relative will come out the wood work, old friends you have not seen since you left school start to contact you and expect you to splash the cash in there direction not to mention the pleading letters that find you despite the no publicity clause. 

By now desperation is setting in you start trying to remember if you checked the last lottery tickets you bought. Is the next lottery a roll over? Have I bought a ticket yet whats day is it, must remember to buy a ticket on the way home. 

You are awaken from your long drive induced day dream by your aching legs complaining as you try to stand as you get out of the car, the dreams fades fades from your mind as the reality of several hours of impending work now face you.

Several hours later and many degree tireder you return to the car and start your journey home and slowly but surely your mind slips into that day dream mode again, only this time what are you going to dream about, the blonde in the bar or the rock star in front of 70000 people.......................

We saw the Red Sparrows!

It is my pet name for the Red Arrow's, it come's from a birthday card many years ago where I was told I would get a fly past in honour of my birthday by the Red Sparrows and there on the page were nine red sparrows in "V" formation. Well yesterday the Red Arrows were displaying at Swanage as part of Carnival week. So we went over to see them fly and made our way up the hill above Peveril Ledge to watch them. The Red Arrows main display area was over Swanage bay which is right in front of the towns beach while the hill we were standing on was on the west side of the bay about 100ft+ above sea level. In some parts of there display they overfly the hill where we were standing and it was as though you could reach up and touch them they seemed that close. On one occasion I looked back in-land just in time to see one head straight for us (heading back out to sea), I caught him on camera but the picture does little justice to how low he was when he flew over the hill. The picture I have enclosed show one on the Arrows flying back across the hill toward the town, the blob in the front of the picture is a persons head so you can see they were not that high (compared to the height you would of seen them on the beach below).

Due to the amount of traffic we encountered on our way over to Swanage we decided to take advantage of the park and ride service which is run by Swanage Railway. We parked at Norden (which is the limit of the line) which is about 1 mile past Corfe Castle. We had to pay £2 to park all day which I thought was good but the £25 return for two adults and a child I thought was a bit pricey (£27 total) I would of expected to get a refund on purchasing the train tickets for the parking. The distance is only about 6 miles from Swanage to Norden, the return journey back from Swanage to Norden was standing room only until we got to Corfe Castle. But it was enjoyable trundling along the track pulled by steam engines, including get a face full of gunk from sticking my head out the window as we traveled along. More information regarding the Swanage Railway can be found here

Finally today I got the kites out again and went for a fly, only time this week been able to, the winds all week have been climbing into the high 20's, low 30's during the afternoons. To-days flying was curtailed by rain (and my parking ticket was about to run out) so we packed up and came home, just checked the winds now and they have hit the high 20's again since we have been home. While those sorts of speeds are nice on an open beach it can be a bit lively on our little bit of grass where we fly.

Returning to my comments on Friday about "1and1", they are certainly making life difficult, first they cancel my cancellation, a badly worded button on there web site makes it look like you need to click it and then when you do you find out that you have canceled your cancellation and have to start over again. I have now re-canceled my hosting with them and my web sites are now un-contactable while they move my DNS settings which will take god know how long. It just goes to prove that cheapest is not always the best.

Wasting my time

Don't you hate it when a company can not follow simple instructions, it is bad enough that there web site won't allow you to do what you want and you have to phone up customer services (at your cost), who then pass you on to another department. Then when you explain exactly what you want the incompetent call centre staff still gets it wrong. But that is only half the story, once they realised they got it wrong there was nothing they could do to correct it, I had to wait for the changes to go through the system before they could be corrected.

Ok before I loose the plot completely this is what I am on about, I have three web sites and I wanted to change the settings on one of them (I won't get techy with you about what I wanted but it was straight forward requirement), being unable to find where I needed to change the setting on their support web page I phoned the web hosting company up and told the call centre girl exactly what I wanted, she then passed me to another department and I explained again what I wanted. Somewhere between the two call centre people I spoke to, they managed to remove the web hosting on one of my other web site so it was not visible from Wednesday afternoon till sometime last night\early this morning. During this time I have spoken to other call centre staff in the UK, the USA and the Phillipines and despite there international workforce they have failed at offering the most basic level of support.

The name of this incompetents company is "1and1", it is not only the fact that they got it wrong but the fact that they were unable (or unprepared) to correct the cock-up they made. So I have spent the last 36 hours sorting out a new web hosting package for all three of my web sites. I am not moving away from "1and1" solely based on this cock-up, I was considering moving away from them anyway in the next 12 months (which in part was what the change I phoned up about was for, tidying up loose ends ready for a move) as they do not offer the service I wanted at a reasonable cost, but having had this problem thrust upon me now, is the straw that broke this camel back.

Midges

Better known as mosquito, I hate them, I was been bitten raw by them last night, I have about 8 bites on my face, one bugger even bit me on the lip. I have large swollen lumps all over my face, hands and ankles. I normally get the occasional bite during the summer, but last night the little bar stewards had a summer feast and I was main course. I would not of minded but it seem that I was the only victim (the wife got got by a couple of bites). I have spent the day rubbing cream on me swollen lumps to stop irritation.

We spent the weekend at Essex Kite Park (South End on Sea to be exact), the weather was OK and the company was great. But the wind did not want to co-operate and blew through strongly from varying direction and in gusts which made flying difficult to dangerous.

When we go away to these type of do's we normally borrow a motorhome and this time was not exception. I normally have a choice and pick a good one but I can honestly say I hated this one because of one thing, the sleeping arrangement. It was not because the double bed area was only marginally bigger than a single and we (the wife and thee) had to sleep in separate beds, no it was because the bed was not long enough, I am only 5' 7" and I could not stretch out length ways without hitting something. At least tonight I can sleep in my own bed without hitting my head or stubbing my toe.

In our travels to Essex and back we had the joys of the M25 car park. On the way up it was delays at Chorley Wood road works (going clockwise) but that was nothing compared to the tailbacks going anti-clockwise J14 to J5. On the way home the tailback were again in the Chorley Wood road works but this time the tailbacks were not helped with two broken down vans in the roadworks, one behind each other!! I am not sure which stretch of road I hate most the M25 or the M1, fortunately I don't have to travel either very often and I will do what I can to avoid travelling on either if I can.

Computers

Computers, they annoy me no end, but its not only the computers themself's but the complete IT industry and I work in that industry, if I am fed up with it how does the normal guy  put up with it.

Here an example, I bought a new computer for work, it was delivered straight from the factory as opposed to being in storage for several months first. During setting it up I was unable to get one of the options to work. So I ended up e-mailing the support desk with the details of the problems and all the relevant version details of the software. First reply said if you go here and look here you will find the option you require, well they were wrong the option was not there. So I emailed back and stated that their suggestion was incorrect and listed the options I had when I went to the place they suggested and again included all the relevant software version. Next reply stated if you have version x.y or lower then you need to install the latest version z. Had I not told the manufacturer twice what version of software I have in the previous two e-mails? Not only that there were no instruction on where or how to download this software so off went another e-mail to support requesting help again. This all took over a week and it not exclusive to just this manufacturer, you buy a new PC and the first couple of hours is spent updating the installed software.

Now would we stand for this if we had purchased a new TV, it was not working correctly out of the box and we had to update it before we could use it correctly?? I don't believe we would so why do we accept it for PC's?

Then we move on to the operating system on these PC, there are 100's of operating system, most will know Windows XP or Vista, some will know Apple OSX and the an even smaller number will know (the various version\distributions) Linux. While it is fair to say that the majority of users will be using windows based software they are also the one who face the biggest job keeping there computers up to date and protected compared to those using OSX or Linux but to use one those two operating system your knowledge of computers tends to be greater. If you don't update and secure your computer you will fall foul of those that take pride in hacking\infecting your PC. Then you will need more in depth knowledge to get out of the mess you are in.

I could go on and on about this and bore you all to tears, but the point is that with the technology we have available today we should not have to spend hours of our time and money updating our PC's. The IT industry's is to busy protecting it own little corner of the market and would rather rip its customers off rather than sit down with fellow IT industry manufacturer and sort these problems out.

New arrival

We had a new arrival in our family this week, a Mac book. You are probably wondering what I am on about, well were a family of four and between us we have 4 Pc's, 3 laptops and now a Mac book (and that does not include work PC or Laptop). The Mac book is for the daughter, she has been using an old HP for the last couple of years and with the intention of starting University in September she decided that she wanted a new laptop. For the past 2 years at college she has been using Macs so decided that what she wanted (plus they are seen as cool and trendy). I have had a play with it but I am not sure what to make of it yet. While we were in the shop I loved the large 24" iMac, I could even sense my bank manager squirming as I had ago on one!!

Well I said family of four above but the youngest member does not have his own PC at present, he just finds one not in use and uses that one. But he is about to get the HP laptop. Most parents have so many questions about giving young kids PC or even access to one. When we gave our daughter hers first PC it lived in her bedroom we gave her rules about what the type of web sites she could go on and sign up to and warned her that if we found out she had been places she should not that would be the end of her PC and to be honest it has worked. When she got the laptop (she was 16 then) the rules were relaxed a bit.

I forgot I had started this on Saturday, so I will now finish it on Monday........

Well after some trials and tribulations I got the laptop setup for our son. When we told him he was over the moon. He has been told the rules and responsibility that comes with the laptop, so lets see if he follows his sister example.

The weather around here on Saturday was lousy all day, which was handy as it allowed me time to get the laptop sorted. Sunday started damp and grey and improved as the day went on. I had thought about going flying but with the gloomy start I decided to give it a miss. Stayed in and watched the F1 Grand Prix at lunch time and then grabbed the camera and headed off to the flying field as the weather had improved to a sunny but gusty windy day (well afternoon). I was quite surprised how quiet it was down at the field, only a couple of local flyers out.

Managed to get a few of Alex's and a young lady friend who was trying kite flying for the first time and in the gusty winds on Sunday that was no mean feat. In fact she did very well, she got a few bruises for her troubles. The picture (on the left) is simply looking over the young ladies shoulder looking up at the kite. Quite happy with this as it was simply a case of hold the camera down point it up to the sky and click.

There was a young lad down there I had seen in the past, I think last time I saw him he could hardly hold a small kite, but Sunday he was flying a large LEI kite (same size as Alex was using), so he has progressed well over the last year or so.

Looking forward to the weekend as we are away to Essex for the weekend and then I am on holiday the following week.

Finally it was weigh in night tonight and yes at last I have got the hump of my back, I have lost a total of two stone at last. Been trying to get to this mark for ages, so I am one happy bunny.

I feel grumpy

Not sure why but I feel grumpy, maybe it is because of work today which was a lot of going from a to b and back again then on to c. Maybe because I am tired, I have not slept well all week, been awake early for the last three morning (4am-ish) and then don't get back to sleep any sense until five minutes before getting out of bed. Apart from all the driving today I was trying to configure some new kit, the manual while well written just does not tell me what I need to know, so I have emailed support and there another job which I can't finish.

I have lots to do but don't have the get up and go to do anything at the moment, going to try for an early night tonight, see if I can get some sleep. Have a load of jobs around the house that need doing so I need to find some energy from somewhere.

 
Been playing with some of the pictures I have taken recently (one of the job still have to do). Here one of the motor bikes from Poole Quay a couple of weeks ago. I liked this one as it had that old school chopper look to it. Unfortunately you have a near zero chance of getting a clear shot, there will always be other bikes, people or large shadows 

Well my red bits have calmed down since Sunday, I was not looking forward to Tuesday when I had the wear trousers to work (worked from home on Monday so wore shorts) but in the end it was not to bad. Had one of those slow boring drives home, just no clear section of road to get me foot down and get going.

Just been exploring my blogger account and found links to other peoples blogs, god do I feel depressed now. They are all so dam interesting and here me bleeting on and on about me. Think I need to go and have a re think sometime over the next few days

Not a happy bunny!

Today was weight in day, and my weight has shot up again. Looking back at my progress my weight is up and down up and down but I just can not get past this block. I tried to eat everything correctly last week, because of the weather there were lots of salad, snacks were fruit, cold potatoes or boiled eggs. I have started eating yogurts which I am not a great fan of to make sure I stay away from the wrong foods. But it all seem to be for nothing. I am so frustrated, I know when I have had a bad week and eaten things that won't help my weight loss but I really felt I was doing right last week. But if history follows it path, next week will be a reasonable weight loss and won't have eaten anything different this week than I had eaten last week..........

For the past few days I have been moving one of my web site to a new sub domain, I decided that funding three web hosting packages was getting costly, so now that one of the web sites has moved I can cancel that hosting package. Then I will move the other web site to another sub domain. Once that is done I will sort out photographic hosting, that four gallery worth of photographs to sort out. So there a bit of work to do and hopefully at the end of it I will have saved some money some where along the line.

My knee's and shins are still a tender pink colour, they are still fairly sore, being rubbing lots of moisturising cream into them, should be interesting tomorrow when I have to wear a pair of trousers to work (the joy of working from home, I can get away with wearing shorts).

Let hope tomorrow morning is a little less chaotic, phone system crashed and the lines handling the Internet crashed as well and all before by 9:30am this morning. Like I did not have anything better to do on a Monday morning.........

I'm glowing

Been out flying today and I have this little red glow around me, my forearms and legs have that glowing feeling.............maybe I should of put the sun cream on. Apart from that I had a good fly, typical wind start of low and so I get a big kite out and as soon as I am flying the big kite, the wind picks ups and its back for a smaller one. Even had a flypast by the red arrow this afternoon (flew out of Hurn on their way to Goodwood Festival of Speed). Emergency service were kept busy today, first the air ambulance flew in (helicopter landing pad about 1/2 mile away) and then 30 minute later the coastguard helicopter landed.

Well whats happened over the last few days, well work came and went as usual, the weather has cooled down a bit, still sunny and hot but the close muggynest has gone thankfully.

I have found a new band to follow, after watching Glastonbury (the joys of iPlayer)  I decided to look at Pendulum, bought there "Live at Brixton Academy" CD, pretty good value by today standards, 16 track CD plus 19 track DVD of the same event. Not a bad CD, may look at purchasing another CD of there's when I come across some more of there work (don't think their target audience is an old fart like me!)

Decided that we are not going to do Eastbourne Extreme event this year, so we are are going to goto Southend instead, they have an event on the same weekend and we are on holiday the week after so there no rush to get back so we can have a long weekend.

Thankfully the tennis finish today (or has already) I just can't see what the excitement is, it is not like we are any good at it.

I hate Tennis

What is it about Tennis and Wimbledon that get everybody going, is it because there a so called Brit (so called because he claims to be Scottish) in the semi finals, do all the men go wonky at the site of women in short skirts or maybe they can remember their adolescent where they had the picture on the wall of the female tennis player walking away from the camera lifting her skirt to reveal the naked bum beneath? Maybe the women have a thing about men in tight shorts that grunt.

Nothing bores me as much as watching tennis. I think it comes from when I was a child and we only had a TV that had BBC or ITV (southern as it was then). When Wimbledon week came round the kids programmes would get moved to BBC2 and I would miss my favourite kids programs (did not like ITV kids programs a part from How!). I will be glad when Sunday finals have come and gone regardless of our Brit\Scot winning of losing.

While were ranting at sport I hate lets move onto football, it must be to most over rated 90 minutes in the world, 22 prima-donna's prancing around for an annual salary that would keep a hospital wing open or double the police on our streets.

So now you are probably asking whats sports do you like, well lets start with Rugby Union, they play hard and they get hit hard and then get up and carry on playing, not like there football prima-donnas who would be rolling around on the floor crying. I enjoy most motorsports, particuarly Speedway, 70mph without brakes inches apart from one another, thats takes skill and guts.

Let move on to the weather, its hot, its damm hot but it is the muggyness that is getting to everybody. Yesterday it was cloudy until early evening and we had a couple of hours rain as well. But now the nanny state has taken control, telling us when we should go out in the sun, advising us that we should wear light loose fitting cloths and possibly a pair of shorts. Exactly what are building site workers (there are many others but builders will do for now) that have to have every bit of exposed skin covered, wear safety hats, safety goggle, safety foot wear and safety gloves as well, can they go home early when it is to hot??

Common sense has lost its place

Damm and blast

Had my hopes up that tonight I would of got my 2 stone weight loss, but in the end I stayed the same weight as last week. What made it worse was there is another guy in the same group tonight and he only been there 6 weeks and has lost over 2 stone to date. It all down to me so I can only blame myself, onward and upwards as they say.

I have just joined Facebook, I am not sure what to make of it at the moment, only joined as some family friends really nagged me to and I thought why not (I have had many people suggest I join in the past but never saw the point). All I can say at the moment is it has not got me excited yet.

Decided to finish writing this in the morning (5-30am), just been watching the foxes in the garden, you see so many things at this time of the day you don't see during the normal hours of the day. I quite often see a heron flying around when I go out to the car at this time of day, never seen it during the normal hours of the day. It is normally quite cool but this morning the heat is still horribly close and sticky, the English weather, were never satisfied are we.

 

Ouch that hurt!

I realised today that you should never leave the driver side sun visor part way down when you get out of the car because it don't have hurt when it smacks you in the eye when you get back in the car. I must of screamed loudly, even my 9 year old son was concerned I had hurt myself, ended up with a ice red mark at the corner of my eye.

I remembered why I hate Windows Vista this morning, I booted up the laptop as normal and everything seemed to boot OK but then when I tried to click on any of the desktop icon I kept getting a window pop up offering to install a program. The program in question was installed months ago and was un-related to any of the program icons I was clicking on. So I decided to reboot, bad move. The laptop rebooted to a completely new desktop, apparently it could not find my profile so had given me a temporary one. Well after a couple of hours hacking the permission and I managed to get my own desktop back minus some setting. Not the way you really want to start a Monday morning.

Should of gone to the slimming weigh in tonight but we remembered that there was some doubt about to-nights meeting due to other commitments of the leader. We had no calls or text to say it was on or not so we decided to give it a miss and will go to a meeting at another venue tomorrow night. So I have another day to wait to see if I can get beyond the weight loss I am stuck at, won't say what it is until I get past it, think tomorrow might be a starvation day.

Missing in action again

The title say it all really, had a majorly crap week and writing the blog was just not top of my list of thing I wanted to do. Thing have got back on track in the last couple of days, reality bringing us to our senses for once. 

Despite how my week went worked seem to tick along quite nicely which was just as well as I don't think I could of handled both giving me major grief.

I have been trying to get into Glastonbury on the TV but I just can't seem to, not sure if it the stress of the past week or the groups I see on TV are just not hitting the mark but I am struggling to be interested.

Went to Cardiff yesterday for the British Speedway Grand Prix, while I enjoyed the racing I certainly was not comfortable being there because of the past weeks events. Was not happy to see a bunch up during the event and not the one seen by TV viewer across Europe but the one in the crowd. While I don't not what caused it but certainly drink was a major factor. 

Must say for a major event and venue (Millennium Stadium) like this the sound system there was crap, it was extremely loud to the point everything was distorted, the band they had came across really bad due to the lousy sound system, the PA kept cutting out, all in all not a very good advert for the event or the venue.

The event was sponsored by Rockstar Energy drinks, now I never put a lot of faith in these sort of high caffeine drinks. But as we were leaving the Stadium they were giving cans of it away. So I took a complimentary can. We left the car park at 9-00pm and as we drove out of the city I drank my can. I got home at 11-45pm and did not feel tired. I sat there unwinding till 1-00am when I thought that if I go to bed I will fall asleep. At 2-00am I decide that these hi energy drinks do work...........

Well it seems that last weeks problem took more out of me than I realsied has I have very little more to write about.

Its Monday

The alarm went off this morning but my body refused to move, just as well I was working from home today. Yesterday BBQ went well considering the sun legged it once I had got the kids paddling pool out. The friends daughter and my son eventually made it in to the pool by late afternoon. Although I cooked all the meat on the BBQ we ended up eating the meal indoors as it had become so gloomy outside. Considering things were a little strained yesterday the BBQ went quite well.

At work BT confirmed they have eventually sorted all out phone lines out that were hit by lightening, only taken like 5 days. Managed to get a fair bit done to day, went to collect a parcel from the local branch only to end up having to replace a load of phone wiring after the fax machine gave up the ghost.

Had some good news from work today, we are no longer owned by the Italians, the management bought us out so we are back in British hands, I hate to think what we have spent and lost in fruitless venture over the past few years.

Talking of pointless ventures it seems that some supermarkets have taken it upon themself not to serve adult buying alcahol if they are accompanied into the supermarket with their underaged son or daughter. This is dispite the fact that the alcahol is for the adult and dispite the fact that a parent can legally buy alcahol and give some to their son or daughter providing they are over the age of 5

Well it is an early start for me tomorrow so I am going to have an early night

After 37 years

I got something today I have not had since I was about 12, a pair of Converse basketball boots. My daughter and son got them for me as a father days gift after a very subtle hint earlier in the year. I ended up getting my third choice as the previous 2 were not available in my size, they are pretty much the traditional style, in black.

Not only did I get the Converse's I also  got a Build a Bear Teddy Bear sporting a "World Best Dad T Shirt". This bear comes in a box like a pet carrier and is big enough to carry a small dog in. I guess that why I was given it today as they were unable to smuggle it in the house without me seeing. Makes a change from the normal best dad tea mug!!

Well the kite flying never happened today, early rain shower along with wind that was marginal and verging on the wrong direction just made it pointless in trying. If I had of gone I would probably ended up being wound up by a miserable day.

I actually got round to downloading the pictures from Tuesday night Bike night, from the camera's this afternoon, just got to go through them and do the processing 

Well I guess you have noticed the site has changed, while I liked the blue site is was..............to blue, so I have gone for something that a bit brighter still keeping it simple, must remember to feed the fish

For the third day

I have had more run ins with BT today, the third day running, the latest cockup up is one of there best. One of the lines that was faulty was our fax line so we report it as a fault (bear in mind that we still have outstanding faults on other lines still). The engineer duly arrives and we show him where the socket is and he sets about his repair. Later he calls one of the staff over and shows him the phone ringing when he calls it and the member of staff can here a dial tone on the phone, problem fixed..............er no. Later in the day the manager tries phoning the fax machine, the line rings but the fax machine is doing nothing, maybe the fax machine is dead, so we put a phone on the line and call it, still nothing but the number is ringing on the phone. So the manager dials out from the phone to another phone in the office and then does a 1471, surprise surprise the number he is dialing from is not the number of the fax line but another line in the office. When we inform BT of this they turn round and tell us there is no line fault and to re check our equipment..............

Turns out to not be a good day in the office today, there some paperwork which should of been handed in last week and I only get told today about it.

Well tomorrow is Saturday and a day of rest and relaxation, yeah right, no lie in as I have to take wife to work then its back home to pick the kids up and go shopping. Then it back to pick the wife up from work then a bit more shopping and then hopefully a bit of kite flying late afternoon early evening, let see how it pans out.

Not again...........

I have been dealing with my least favourite company today BT, I just can't put in to words how much I despise that company, they have a monopoly on the telecoms industry in this country and they are allowed to get away with what they want. Just trying to get anything done is hard work, one of our office has had major telecoms problems since the storms on Monday night (lightening hit the cable between the telegraph pole and the building). Will they send an engineer out to resolve all our faults, no we have to list every fault and they will assign a single engineer to each job, but how do we know if the line is working or the phone itself is dead, they are so hard work.

I had the joys of working from home today, did think about going outside and work from the gazebo but the wind got up and wind & paperwork don't mix to well. Not only was on the phone to my least favourite company but every phone calls I got seemed to arrive at the most awkward moment, just as I was going to the loo, just as I was about to have dinner, just as I was going out (to the local branch to drop some paper off), getting paranoid that they have a cctv watching me.

Thankfully it is Friday tomorrow, been thinking all day to day was Friday, (probably because I thought yesterday was Thursday). I keep checking the wind as I want to get my kites out over the weekend, Saturday afternoon is looking the best day between the two. Got a BBQ to do Sunday afternoon, the weather looking good, sunny and warm just the damm wind in the wrong direction.

Managed to sort out the mobile broadband on the laptop tonight. Now I have working mobile broadband dongle on my Linux powered laptop. I had a thought the other night about when I got my new phone and Mobile broadband dongle. I am used to going in and there being a host of paperwork to sign, contract, direct debit mandate etc., but we signed absolutely nothing, 3 separate contracts and not a single signature was given, I was always lead to believe that you had to sign for thing you have on contract?

Sorry!

I have not done the motorcycle pictures from last night, been watch the Speedway on TV which which over ran by about an hour due to having to carry out track preparation due to the rain. It was not a bad meeting with a 5 man home team (two riders injured in the first couple of races) managing a draw against a strong 7 man team. Tomorrow probably going to work from home, I can get more done working from home, less interruptions from people coming into the office, now if I could get a way with switching the mobile off..........

Work was interesting today, more and more problems falling out the wood work, while they are not my problems they have ended up on my desk for me to sort out as nobody else has the ability to do it. Had quite a bit to do and ended up working till 7, only stopped as my dinner was ready.

Been playing with my new phone, starting to get the hang of it, bought a memory card for it yesterday only to find that it came with a memory card, I was told it did not so I never bothered to check. Got a few things to try to get the mobile dongle to work on the laptop but I have not had the time.

Had a falling out with the daughter earlier on, she was acting like an injured prima-donna so she had to be brought back down to earth. She eventually apologised before making her way to the local A&E department. That girl has a season ticket for the place, although it has been about 4 months since she was last there. Normally it her wrist (as it this time), either falling over on them or running into things. Just a bruised wrist and cracked bone in the elbow, not sure if she just bandaged or plastered, she is not saying and she is still on her way home.

Who thinks of these things

So the latest brainwave from the government is that we all pay 50p per month per phone line to the government to give everybody a 2mb broadband connection, what a pile of poo that idea is. Excuse me for asking but where is the profit that BT has been making for years with its near monopoly of the UK telecommunications network. BT fed it fat cat directors and it share holders and now have the government having a whip round so they can upgrade there rural network to provide broadband for all.

I am not against everybody having broadband access but there are two point I will make, 2mb (the government target is UPTO 2mb) is not fast and will leave those that can only get this new government supplied link sat on the broadband cycleway while the rest of the country trundles of down the dual carriageway. While most of the UK's broadband enabled users trundles along the dual carriageway, the rest of the worlds broadband users are whizzing around the autobahn.

Why should those that have already borne the cost of being early adopters of broadband have to pay for BT to enable its remaining exchanges. In the past where broadband was not available companies have had to pay extortionate amounts for BT private circuits. BT should be forced to go to the open market to borrow the money and take some form of tax break, against the money they have to borrow to make it look nicer.

If hearing about the 50p levy was not enough today, this was followed up by British Airways asking its staff to take between a week and a month salary holiday, e.g. still come to work but we won't pay you. Now I don't seem to remember any headlines in the past where British airways offered there staff a extra months pay because they had made so much profit, once again the fat cats are left to lick the profit cream.

Apart from my rant, my day went quite well today, jobs I had to do were accomplished without a problem, I scored a morale victory at work today which was a nice feeling and we managed to get down to the bikes tonight and it was packed, certainly the most I have seen down there. Will process the pictures I took and get them up on a web site somewhere.

Well that did not go to plan

Tonight was weigh-in night for the diet, let just say I am back to playing the human yo-yo's again. After last week and getting within spitting distance of the 2st lost mark, it all now a distant memory and my diet is back on the drawing board. I just can not consistently lose weight. Currently sat here hungry and wondering what I could eat and fortunately daughter comes in from work and hands me a fruit salad pot (fresh), they had reached their expiry date so they were selling them off, 10p each, that fill a hole.

Work came and went in its normal fashion today, I only exist when there is a problem or somebody wants something. Off to head office tomorrow so that should be fun.........not. Will try and do it SAS style, in and out again before they even know I was there.

Spent the evening trying work out how to use my new phone, it like having a new PC but with a screen and keyboard a couple of inches square. Got all the basics working, just got to sort out the more advanced bits. My next job is to tackle the modem on the laptop, really want to try it now but I know if I do I will be sat here for another couple of hours playing and I have an early start tomorrow.

Tomorrow night is bike night on Poole Quay so weather permitting I will be going down for the first time this year so I may have a couple motorcycle pictures tomorrow.

Opps I forgot

I was to busy watching the Le Mans 24 Hour race to write my blog last night, just love that race, I did not even realise that it was on this weekend. One day I will fulfill the promise I made myself and go to the event.

Did very little Saturday, went to the company BBQ in the evening. Nearly never got to the BBQ because some silly women thought she would pull out of the lay-by in front of me to see if my brakes worked, thankfully for her they did. Did a bit of window shopping earlier in the day and that was it, rest of the time was spent watching Euro Sports Le Man coverage, makes for a pretty boring blog!!

Part 2
Well that was an expensive shopping trip, had to go to Sainbury to pick up a couple of items for the evening BBQ we were intending to have, so why did we spend over a hour and a half in the 3 mobile phone shop and walk out with 2 new phones and a mobile Internet dongle??

I am now sporting Nokia's version of the Blackberry (daughter nicknamed it a nokaberry), don't have a clue what button to push but hey. Wife has a new Samsung, the one she wanted as well, decided to get a the 3 version as it was free with her chosen call plan, when she questioned Orange (her existing supplier) about one, she had to upgrade her call plan and pay for the phone, her new 3 call plan is cheaper than she is currently paying on Orange and has more call time and unlimited text. Best of all these phones work in the house which Orange don't.

Managed to get the grass cut this afternoon but somewhere along the lines I lost a couple of hours, as the aftrnoon ran away from us, we cooked the BBQ in doors as parts on the BBQ were in the dish washer being washed and the dishwasher was not due to finish until 6:30, so we sat down to an indoor BBQ and watched Madagascar 2 on DVD. Not as good as the original (when is the follow up ever better??) but still not a bad film.

Spent the evening learning the feature on the new phone and trying to convince the USB dongle to work with my Laptop (it does not run Windows or OS X), so far not succeeded yet.

It nearly did what it said on the tin

Well I was out in the field this morning literally, sorted the jobs I needed to do, watched the sales team lecture, had a 5 minute budget meeting with one of the directors and got my invite to the BBQ tomorrow night. I then legged it to the safety of the local branch before any more bosses turned up.

My retreat from the show ground (or field as I call it) was short lived as I had to take some brochures and paperwork to the show ground. Once at the show ground I saw little point in going back to the branch so I headed for home. Spent the afternoon testing a terminal which was supposed to be dead but was very much alive.

This evening we went down to Poole quay for the quay for my car event, they choose a type of car every week and then invite owners of those type of car down to the quay for the night. Tonight's chosen car was the Mini including the newer BMW Mini's. I will post some pictures later but I have not taken them off the camera yet.

Tomorrow I am looking after my son in the morning, dropping him of to his mother at lunch time when she finish work and then it is the company BBQ in the evening. Winds look pretty crap for flying this weekend so it looks like the kites will be staying in the bag again for another weekend.

Sunday yet to be decided.

Don't think I should eaten so much

Its the other half birthday today and I got her what she wanted which were tickets for the Speedway Grand Prix in Cardiff in July. I was told I only had to get her a card for today and that was it. So that's exactly what I did, so why at 5:30 tonight was I being asked

"where are you taking me tonight?"
"No where" was my reply
"oh I thought you were going to surprise me"
"I did by listening to you and only getting you a card!!"
"oh"

It soon became obvious that a meal out was going to be required, so we duly booked a table at a local Indian. After 26 years together this was to be our first Indian meal in a restaurant. We have had take aways from the same place so we knew the quality of the food should be good. I well I am glad to report that we were not disappointed. I am sat here bloated by my meal tonight, can't remember what I had but it was very nice, and I must admit it was very mild for a medium curry. I was also surprised to see how busy the place was, there was a party of 12, a party of 4, another couple and ourselves which made the restaurant 2/3rd's full.

Work was almost a quiet today, I had a meeting this morning about data links and phones and that over ran by 1.5 hrs. Then I need to get some software and instruction over to a user by 3:00pm (this was at 1:30pm), but once that was done the main bits of the day were out of the way. Tomorrow I will spend my morning in a field upgrading laptops and installing mobile broadband. The reason I will be doing this in a field is the company is having its annual show and it the only time I can guarantee all the staff and laptops being in the same place at the same time, just hope it is sunny.

Not sure what I am doing at the weekend, hopefully I will get the kites out, weather looks OK, but it depends on the wind.

Why do we drive?

Are motorist the most persecuted people around? Our local council have just introduced a new parking enforcement vehicle, nothing new there you say accept this one is fitted with a camera mounted on the roof that will drive around the local area looking for parking offenses. When it finds a parking offense it will photograph the offense, send you a photograph of the offense and charge you £70 for the privilege. OK so the parking in some area is bad, but I bet it won't be enforcing parking regulation where it is needed like out side a couple of local school where the pavement and junctions themselves are used as parking zones. The police have given up trying to enforce the law (they were there to stop obstruction not the parking as the council look after that) and when they were there they booked one car for parking at a bus stop, problem was the buses stopped going up that road 3 years prevoius.

The council are not being honest, they were reported in the local paper as saying they have a new vehicle, singular, funny how I have seen three of them in the area for the past month or so.

Now we have fuel prices going back up again, fortunately the local petrol station is one of the cheapest in the area, unfortunately it is also a scammer's paradise, they have had the bank machine scammed and the local paper was full of reports last week of local people having their card being scammed in the petrol station.

Once upon a time diesel was cheaper than petrol, then a couple of years ago diesel was about 12p dearer than petrol, now currently at the above station it is 1p different (in favour of petrol). When I was up country in the week I saw diesel for £1.08 per litre (and it was not a motorway services), I filled up at £1.04 per litre, the local above is £1.009 a litre

Then we had Jeremy Clarkson passing comment of the traffic in our area, I would totally agree with him. I can drive 38 miles from work towards home in 30 minutes, it then takes me another 20 minutes to do the final 6 miles. If you want to get to "a" to "b" then you have to take the back roads which ends up adding more miles to the trip. The wife can get a bus to and from work, the bus stop from home is within 100mtr of our house and probably the same at work, So why does it take over an hours to get the bus home. Talking of buses, they are frequently late, often they are cancelled, the bus driver drive aggressively, don't bother to even try to get in the bus stop just stop anywhere within a 100yd radius of the bus stop and the best bit of all, some of them can't speak in English!!

I'm starting to rant , so I better stop...........

Old Funnies and why do I bother

Flicking through the TV channels tonight I came a cross an old comedy series, "On the Buses", it that old it was in black and white. The acting was appalling, the story line was appalling but still I laughed. I can remember watching it when I was a kid (started in 1969). It was fun while it lasted.

Work came and went, I woke up early or at least I thought I had and while I laid there trying to decide if to look at the clock to check the time and possibly leave even earlier, the alarm went off, so I had no choice. I managed to get the jobs I needed to get done quite quickly for a change. Still no answers to the questions I raised over two weeks ago which is seriously peeving me off.

Why do I bother, why do I bother to explain things to people, why do I show an interest in other people, why do these people listen and say they understand and then do the complete bloody opposite! Its at times like this that I really wonder why I bother, I put all the time and effort in to sorting out and arranging things then I just get kicked in to touch, why?

Yay good news

My weight is on it way down again (well it was last week but only by a small margin) but this week I was a couple of bags of sugar lighter. I had to fill out a food diary for the past week, you do it as you eat something so that way you don't forget what you have eaten etc. They give you this small poxy A5 bit of paper to write all the details down on, so they were a little surprised when I turned up with 2 A4 sheets of paper. I looked at the diary tonight when I printed it of and thought I would have gained with what I had eaten, thankfully I lost and lost well.

I think writing down everything you eat focuses the mind to the point "I can't eat those chocolate biscuit as I will have to put them on the list" sort of thing. Well I hope that it anyway as I am doing another diary this week and I have set myself a good target for next week (less than I lost this week but I am not very good three weeks running) which if I achieve I will then hopefully be the lightest I have been since I started this weight loss campaign and maybe, just maybe hit the 2st lost marker.

Work was the same boring drudgery today, as usual I don't exist until somebody want something. Had a call regarding a problem first thing this morning, told them I would not be able to resolve the problem over the phone, they have an alternative system to use for now. I might be able to get to look at there problem tomorrow if I get time, failing that it will be Wednesday.

I must admit I am bored to death with this European election and MP's expenses fiasco. The simple fact of the matter is, if it was me or you fiddling our expenses then we would be sacked, regardless of the fact we offered to pay the money back, but if you are an MP you just get told off. Then they wonder why nobody votes for them in the election and everybody is voting for the BNP, so who do you want to run the country, a thieving scum bag or a racist scum bag??

Do as I say not as I do

Went to the tip this morning with the remnants from yesterday clean-up, like many tips now a days there a bin for lots of items and a large horse shoe shaped wall to throw the rubbish over marked of in zones (garden waste, wood, metal etc.) where everything else goes. Well we were down to the last box and other-half ask one of the workers where to tip the box of rubbish, "can't tip that over there (the wall), I will take it for you" so he promptly take the box and walks 10ft away from other-half, looks in the box has a quick rummage and them promptly throw the box over the wall, though about shouting to him that you can't do that!

Well apart from the tip the only other thing we did to day was to go shopping only to be confronted by the stupid Sunday trading law. The store opens at 10:00am but you can't pass through the till until 10:30am. We got there at about 10:05am (straight from the tip), by 10:20am we had finished shopping and were queuing up with the other 60 odd shoppers waiting to go through the till. Apparently they have timed locked tills that won't process anything until the designated time (in this case 10:30) so there we stood 60 odd shopper waiting for the time to go by. As 10:30am arrived and the till burst into live there was a murmured cheers from those waiting in the queue.

The day after the night before

The calm I spoke about yesterday has returned, it was broken earlier today but an agreed calm has now once again settled upon the house. Apart from that it has been a fairly mundane day, nothing exciting has happen so that makes for a rather random post for today.

Yesterday I had an attack of the road rage, I had picked up SWMBO from work and was driving home. We were having a heated exchange as I was driving, and as I approached a set of traffic lights I missed judged the traffic and ended up sat in a yellow box area. This box area is opposite a bus stop and allow traffic traveling in the opposite direction to pull out round a bus if it is at the bus stop. So as you can guess, while I am sat in the yellow box area a bus stops opposite me, que jerk in four wheel drive pulling up behind the bus and then start gesticulating to me about my "past times activities" and my parentage. Normally when I meet somebody like this I just ignore them and salute as I pass by, but under the circumstances of my heated exchange, the window came down and there was a brief exchange of our beliefs about each other. Now the total time for the bus stopping and then moving on again was 20 second, in fact I was moving as the bus moved off, so what was this guys problem, yes I got it wrong but it was not as though I held him up for hours?

Won the lottery last night, a whole £5.60, at least it was a £1.10 profit, last week we had all 6 numbers on the Saturday lottery, just not all on the same line.

Been looking forward to taking part at an event in July, normally take part, help out and photograph the event. Well last night they announced the camping details for the event, we are camping of the display site. Now that not particularly a problem accept that the site has no facilities, is sandwiched between two main roads and it close to the town centre. So it is not the best location, I am not the only one to complain about this and I am currently waiting to see if they will book us into another site. While I know I have the choice to go at another site, at the past couple of events we have all camped together so you have one big party so booking in on your own means I would end up missing the party. Whether I go or not is currently open to debate.

Earlier today we had a clear out in one of those corners of the house that rarely see the light of day, tomorrow we have a couple of large boxes and bags of rubbish and some cloths to take to the rubbish tip. We also have room under the stairs now!!

It is currently issing down outside so that means by Wednesday next week I will need a combined harvester to cut the grass

Missing in action

Anybody that follows this written twaddle will have noticed that I have been missing for the past few days. Well the ultimatum I mention in earlier writings raised it head earlier in the week, even worse I was working several hours from home when it did. So not only did I have a long to think about it I had to finish work first.

When the ultimatum was set there was an agreed action if certain things happened, well the things happened but the agreed action was denied, I tried to fight my corner but at the end of the day I am all out of fight. I have been fighting this battle for to long and I am ready to throw the towel in, I have had enough. I would of thought that my intention would have been greeted with joy but no in fact quite the reverse, apparently they thought I was joking........

I am well past joking and I am well past fighting, currently there is an air of quiet over the house (providing you don't include Dire Straits and Sultans of Swing coming out of the PC speaker), the first time for several days. Not only that I am bl**dy tired, a 4:30am start for work and two 2:00am bedtimes this week plus the above does nothing to calm the shattered nerves. I don't know what the out come will be, only time will tell on that one.

There was a surprise at work in the week, all I can say is there has been a bit of a management change and once the feet have settled down under the desk I may find help in my corner. Apart from that it was the same old drudgery, 5 minutes jobs taking hours, long jobs taking 5 minutes and the normal bit where nobody knows the IT department exists until something is broke, then they know where you are.

Tuesday I am determine to get to the the Poole Quay Bike night that (as the name suggests) take place on Poole Quay every Tuesday night. For various reason I have missed all the other so far this year. Normally get over a 1000 bike on the quay of all shapes and sizes. I'm not a bike rider but it never cease's to amazes. They close the quay from early evening and then just start parking the bikes up along the quay and they are there until around 9:00pm, cost nothing to come and look and all money raised goes to charity

I'm sinking

I am sinking, I am just not moving along anymore, I have just stagnated, my "get up and go" was last seen walking hand in hand down the road with my enthusiasm. I am fed up with moving goal posts, being put under the spot light and being told "no your not" it just really getting to me.

I was at the diet club tonight, got on the scales, well it was a loss but not a big one but a loss none the less. Problem is I have stagnated (there that word again) and don't seem to be able keep moving onwards in the right direction.

Everything I seem to touch just gets so far and stops I just can't seem to get to the end of anything, it is really starting to annoy me.

I can't get my head round writing anything else to night, I have written lots already and deleted as it became an incoherent rant.

To day was cool

Cool as in it was not as hot as yesterday, trying to do the gardening yesterday was murder, had I known it was going to be cooler today I would of left it till today. In contrast to yesterday today was a totally laid back day, laid in bed till late (late for us), then went and did a bit of shopping and then back home to just sit around in the sun.

BBQ today instead of the normal Sunday lunch and a bit of a paddle in the paddling pool we were given, took ages to clean (its has been sat out side all winter) but once it was filled with water son enjoyed himself. By the end of the afternoon I had to go and lay down as I had a stinking head ache and ended up falling a sleep for a couple of hours.

Daughter asked me to look at her college project she was writing, there was a problem with the layout format. 2 hours later and numerous software updates to her laptop she now working on finishing it by lunch time tomorrow when it has to be handed in. Why do student always leave it till the last minute??

Well its back to work for me tomorrow, and I am not really looking forward to it, going to work from home to lessen the blow. Then it is an early start and head office on Tuesday, which should be fun.............NOT

To much of me?

I am still not sure what I should be writing in a blog? is it a diary of my days, my observation through my day or do I choose a random subject and start writing about it. Even here I assume that I should write something everyday (I missed writing last nights blog so I am writing this Sunday morning), may be I have not been writing long enough to develop a style yet?

Well I am going to have a whinge about one of my pet hates, other drivers. You know the ones, they drive the car that is not fitted with indicators, the driver that approaches a junction and sit in the middle of the road with no indicators so that you have to guess which way they are turning. The person who forgets where the accelerator is and drives slowly on clear open roads. Drivers who don't know how to go around a round about properly, this one I probably hate the most. You approach the roundabout you get into the correct lane you enter the roundabout and then another driver on the inside or outside then tries to drive through the side of your car, I am not talking about the boy racer or the sales exec. in the BMW who thinks the road is their personal race track (they are in a league of their own), these are just your normal everyday drivers who don't have a clue what they are doing. Yes we have all visited an area we don't know and we don't know the exit we want, but you can't tell me there is one of those along side me on every roundabout everyday??

I was reading a forum the other day and in one of the replies the writer stated that the police do not park on double yellow lines unless they are attending an incident. Well I can take you to a road where every Monday to Friday a police vehicle will park on double yellow lines at around the same time every day and he is not attending a "police incident". Add that to the police keeping to the speed limit (when not on there way to an incident), well I followed a police car along a stretch of dual carriageway well above the speed limit, there were no lights, no siren, no indication from the police car that I should stop speeding. It would have been an interesting conversation had he pulled me over.

Speed cameras, on the whole I agree with them but I believe they are used far to much to increase revenue rather than stopping speeding motorists. The static ones for the most part are placed in the wrong places. Traffic lights should all be fitted with the camera to detect red light jumpers. I find that some driver will drive through a red light at every set of traffic lights I stop at now a days.

Well that my starter, I will return later today with the Sunday night write up.

We got to the beach early

It was hot today, damm hot, I got up this morning and the sky was clear blue and not a cloud to be seen, a pointer of how the day was to continue. After dropping the wife at work and doing a couple of chore around the house I decide it was time to take my son to the beach. Now my son is not a great beach lover, he likes going to the beach but to sit there build sand castle and take a dip, that not is cup of tea. So I planned a nice long walk along the beach and paddling around ankle deep water in the process.

We got down to the beach nice and early, when we arrived a sea mist had descended over the beach and you could barely see 40ft away. As we walked to the beach (we parked on a side road to save the extortionate parking fees) the mist began to lift, we reached the beach kicked of our shoes and suddenly found the beach covered in broken shells, ouch.

By the time we got to the water line the mist had disappeared and clear blue sky return, there were very few people on the beach, the life guards were still putting out their flags and other kit. The water was freezing cold when we first entered but slowly as the our feet acclimatised it became more bearable. We even managed to see 6 little hermit crabs (they would all fit in the palm of your hand with room to spare), dear son was worried they were going to pinch his toes. When we reached the far end of the beach we sat and watched some people fishing and watched the boats leave the harbour out to the big wide sea beyond. By the time we had made our way back to the starting point the beach was crowded and still the people were coming onto the beach.

I think the whole walk was about 2.5 miles, add in the distance from the beach to where the car was parked and we are probably looking 3 miles. Not a great distance in anybody book but with my knees a mile stone none the less.

Unfortunately I overlooked one vital thing, suntan lotion, my son has got a very red neck now, his arms and legs are ok just the back of his neck, no doubt he will make me feel guilty about it over the weekend.

I am becoming forgetful so I must be getting old

As I mentioned yesterday I took my son out to the New Forest, went to a place called Wilverly Plain, it is on the Burley to Brockenhurst road. I thought we would take my single line kites out and give them an airing, so I dug them out the cupboard, got a couple of pegs to tie the lines to once in the air, a mallet for knocking the pegs in the ground and then we were off. Arrived without any problems, found a nice spot, started getting the kites out and.............. no lines!! It at about this moment that a little light goes on in the back of my head that says the lines and reel are in another bag in the cupboard that I did not pick up, a few choice words (under my breath so my son does not hear me) and I start packing up.

I remember there was a Revolution Kite in the bag (I won't explain what they are check out this web site: http://www.revkites.com ). Fortunately the lines are in the bag for this kite. It has been so long since I last had this kite out I can't even remember how to assemble it, I eventually get it together and attach the lines. On the launch instead of rising steadily into the air the kite veers off to the left. So I check it all connected correctly (as far as I can remember), try again same thing happens again. So now I check the lines are the same length, they are not, one line is about 3inches long than the others.............it is about now the familiar light in my head flashes on and I can remember the last time I tried to fly this kite, it kept veering all over the place and I gave up. The lines needed to be sorted out and as they were all different lengths (there are four lines on the kite and they all need to be the same length). I did not have the bits I needed to do it with me, so I had to pack up the kite and and return all of them to the car.

We ended up having a walk around the woods, dodging the muddy puddles and muddy dogs (my son attracts dog like a magnet) and was sporting a lovely mud splodge on his t-shirt from a 21 week old Great Dane puppy (looked more like a tiger with the black stripes in it fur). We manged to avoid the two tone muddy and Golden Labrador and the white and muddy Scotty dog.

The days entertainment ended when I had to drive the wife to an interview straight from work, because of the time she got out of work and the time of the interview she decided that she would change her clothes in the car on the way to the interview, its a amazing how many traffic ques you get stuck in at roundabouts and traffic light :)

Why me and to many e-mails

Why me? every time I have a holiday I have every intention of getting out flying (as in kites). It is now Wednesday, and I have yet to go out due to weather or family commitments, looking at the next four days I won't be holding my breath, no\low wind forecast for tomorrow and then in completely the wrong direction for the next three days. I can't bring myself to look at Mondays but I bet it will be perfect!! It is time like this that I wish I lived somewhere like Westward Ho! where the beach is on my doorstep rather than 2.5 hours drive away.

As it was absolutely pouring down today I decided to do a job I have been putting of for ages, consolidating my e-mail accounts. As much as I hate to admit it, I have 9 e-mail accounts a couple of them are old and just used for reference and a couple that just had the occasional e-mail from a mailing list or forum. So today I sat down and started to move forum logins mailing list etc. over to a couple of the e-mail accounts I intend to keep. Hopefully I will be down to 5 e-mail accounts by the time I have finished as well as un-subscribing from 3 mailing lists that I never read. Hopefully my e-mail client will stop creaking at the seams now.

Tomorrow I think I will go for a walk, I had intended to do that today (after deciding the wind was no good) but the rain put pay to that. Will have my son with me tomorrow so will need to make it interesting for a nine year old still thinking where we can go, have to be back by mid afternoon as I have to drive the wife to an interview just as rush hour starts.

We don't help ourselves

I was sat on the beach today and the wind was blowing quite strongly (it was 20 to 25mph while I was there) watching the kite surfer (I was actually trying to photograph them but with the wind buffeting me about and the fact my lens was not big enough........). Anyway one of the kite surfers went to his car and produced a wind meter, what followed next was a failure to read the manual for the wind meter as nobody knew which button to press to get the correct display, but it also revealed another problem, what scale should you display the wind speed in?? should it be as I have above mph, or should it be kph? but as kite surfing is classed as sailing then it should be measured via the Beaufort scale or knots, but then these guys are athletic so should we measure the wind like they do for athletic meetings, meter per second?????

If we are going to measure something that moves from "a" to "b" why do we need so many different scales to measure how fast it moved between the two points?? One of the web sites (its a sailing web site) I use gives me the option to have the wind speed in four different scales (MPH, KPH, Knots, Mtr/s), another web site (general weather) will let me enter the wind speed in one scale and it will convert it into the other fours for me. You watch the weather forecast (well the one I see anyway), the inland wind speed is measured in mph, but when it is measured over the sea it is measured via the Beaufort scale! Why are we trying to confuse ourselves, can't we have one scale that we use to record the wind speed and stick with that??

Unfortunately which scale to measure wind speed is not the only thing we don't learn lesson from. One of the most important aspects of safety in kite surfing is wearing a leash so that if you have to release the kite (let go) it won't blow away from you. You would think that with the kites costing upwards of a £1000 that the flyer's would be ever so keen to wear a leash, well apparently not for one flyer who lost (as in let go) his kite this morning, his kite proceed in the down wind direction (e.g. the direction of the wind), across a main road before impaling itself on a block of flats. Unfortunately I missed the action as I was facing the other way having just received a call on my mobile. First I knew about it was when I nearly got trampled by other kite surfer rushing to the wayward kite fearing there was a kite flyer still attached to it. A few choice words were offered by the would be rescuer concerning the safety of the flyer.

Bank Holiday and its raining

Yes it is bank holiday Monday and its raining but can't really complain and the last two days have been lovely, sunny and warm. Yesterday we made it to the Eastleigh Railway works (which was son surprise birthday present). I must say I was a little disappointed, while there were a lot of train outside the sheds the inside were basically gutted, (British railway, as they were pulled out of the buildings several years ago) when I visited the shed some 20 years ago at another open weekend they were full of carriages and trains in various stages of being rebuilt. I remember seeing a large display about the wheels (the old joke about the wrong kind of leaves on the line) with examples of wheels that had been flat spotted and another machine to look at the wheels for cracks. Yesterday those large empty caverns (with many in need of repair) were full of model railway stalls and memorabilia stalls.

Unfortunately we had to cut short the trip as my knee gave up and there was very little in the way of seating and the other half had the head ache from hell and forgot to pack the head ache tablets. At least we got back early which meant we could lounge around out in the garden soaking up the sun.

Not sure what today hold for us, will probably download the railway pictures from the camera, need to find my knee support that seems to have disappeared and subject to the rain and my knee might go for a wander this afternoon.

Part II

Well the early morning rain was just that, early morning rain, by 11-00am the sun was poking out from behind the clouds, daughter had taken her brother of our hands for a few hours so we jumped in the car and went to Swanage. I found my knee support and wore that for the day, made my knee fill a lot better walking around the town and up the damm big hill we climbed. Not sure why but we climb this hill in the park which takes you up to the cliffs between the coast guard look out at Dancing Ledge and the Durlston. Boy am I unfit (but then I knew that anyway), had to stop half way up, my excuse is it was a big hill.

Walking around Swanage I decided that I don't like those families that walk 5 abreast along the sea front, they wander along two of the kids will be fighting or chasing each other, the mum will be telling little johnny to keep away for the edge just as uncle Roy grabs him and pretends to push him over the edge, the husband is telling the mum-in-law that they don't sell that sort of thing in the shops any more, and the wife telling the husband to not be so rude to her mum and all the while totally oblivious to the obstruction they are causing.

Swanage has a nice little shop (well in fact it is two) Rainbows End, it sells clothing a hippy-ish, goth-ish type for both male and female although it is mainly female. Certainly not cheap but it is the stuff you won't find in the high street shops but when you see somebody wearing it you think I want one of those where did you get it.

We left early as daughter was working tonight so we had to be back to look after son. I was expecting a slow drive with all the traffic leaving Swanage but we flew back without any hold ups. Got home before son & daughter got back and managed a couple more hours of slow roasting in the garden before the sun hid behind the storm clouds, had one lighting flash so far, let see what the night brings.

and so it came to pass

Today was one of those days where you plan out everything that must be done and for the best part most of it did get done. I was awake early this morning, not sure why but the pig impersonation from the person next to me probably did not help. Got up at 7.30am before son left the house with his sister for a shopping trip to Southampton. If I tell him the ground rules before he leaves then I don't have to put up with an agitated daughter phoning up to ask me to talk to son who won't do as he is told.

We never did the weekly shop last night so we went this morning, done all the shopping and back home by 10-30am. Had a cup of tea and then out again looking for one of those items we could not get at the other shops, also spent some time looking at new ovens (one of the ovens in our cooker is dead and it to old to look at repairing), went in to a large national white goods store and they had 6 electric free standing hob\cookers, just 6, if you wanted a range cooker with 3 ovens and 9 gas burners you had a choice of over 12, am I missing something here? Just got to work out when we can afford to buy a new one

This afternoon we cut the grass and erected the gazebo, with the extra bonus this year that it has side panels. Mother in-law wrecked their gazebo last year so they past the side panels they had for their on to us. So now we have a blue and white striped gazebo with green and white striped side panels...............nice.

Sat in said gazebo watching the world go by until it was time to ignite the BBQ. Now I am normally quite good with the BBQ but tonight was naff, it lit and started ok but for some reason I could not get the cooking right, the stuff that takes time to cook was cooking to quick and the stuff that cooks quickly was not cooking, just could not get my act together. Eventually had all the food cooked off and sat down out side to eat it. Once I had finished eating I returned to sitting there watching the world go by when I heard the beep beep of a text message arriving on a mobile phone. This single thing reminded me of an anniversary (which I mentioned a few days ago) I would prefer to forget. I think the actual date is in a couple of days time but the fact was it was the bank holiday weekend. Until that mobile went off I had forgotten all about it, but it was a text message that set the ball rolling 5 days earlier. Well I can't change it so I might as well stop talking about it.

Tomorrow were taking our son out for his final birthday surprise, another early start and pack lunches to make as well, let just hope he enjoys it.

Yeah, it is a Bank Holiday

Its a bank holiday weekend, it is going to be sunny for two of the three days and I also have all of next week off as well, that a nice thought to finish work with on a Friday. Today was a pretty calm day for a change, managed to finish my 4 proposal early, sorted out a PC I was preparing for when I am back at work and only a couple of annoying phone calls and all handled from the comfort of my dining room (which looks more like an office).

Not got a lot planned for next week yet, would like to get the kites out but there is a fair on at the flying field so will have to see how thing go on that front. Will probably take the camera out but not sure where yet. Will be doing the garden tomorrow so that a) it will be one job out of the way and b) assuming it nice weather I will spend it bit of time resting in the garden!!

Sunday I have to get my anorak out the cupboard, I have to admit to being a train spotter in my younger day and still have a passing interest in trains, so with the Eastleigh Railway Works 100 years open weekend this bank holiday and with my sons interest in train it is the ideal place for a day out on Sunday. I will be taking my camera but I think I will leave the little book of train numbers at home :o

And finally is anybody reading my blogs??? a simple yes will suffice beginning to thing I am alone in my own little world

Talked into it again

After watching the speedway on TV last night (British individual finals) and my comments about no hints for her indoor's about a present for her impending birthday, I found myself ordering tickets for the British Speedway Grand Prix in Cardiff on the 27th June. I only started out looking at the prices, then we looked at the family deal tickets, then exactly where the seats were, next thing I know I am being told to put my card details in then I am printing out my order confirmation. How did that happen?? at least it one less thing to think about, I can now think about the drive to Cardiff instead............

Today I decided to work from home (have several proposals to write up). I also needed to post a parcel and thought I would take it over the local post office and post it, only 5 minute walk away. So I go to the post office, I tell the clerk I want it to go first class, he ask me to put it on the scales and I get told it is £2.74p, so I duly go to hand the clerk my company credit card (I had no cash on me and it was a company parcel anyway) and he tells me that they do not accept credit cards, pardon?? You can pay with a debit card, maybe but the money comes out of my account and this is a company parcel (it is only £2.74 I know but, do you want the argument with the company accounts department?). So now tomorrow I have to drive to the local branch and pay twice as much for a carrier to collect the parcel and deliver it. I thought the post office was looking for people to use their services, declining credit card is not exactly going to help their cause is it.

The joy of working from home is you can get so much more done than when you are sat in the office. A morning work at home is like a days work in the office. I have done several days working from home and I have to be honest by the end of the third day I was suffering from cabin fever, the fourth day I just had to go into the office, us human are a social race after all.

I have been known to sit out in the garden in the summer working, taking phone call is interesting as the caller can't quite work out why they can here birds twittering away in the background. I must admit I do enjoy the freedom of working from home. No traffic jams driving into the office, no traffic jams driving home, start early, pop to the shop and finish late.

I am also fortunate that I have two connection to the outside world at home and I can access both companies networks from home as well, at the end of the day there are only a few IT things I can't do from home which certainly make my life easier.

I never get the full story and Mamby Pamby Sports stars

I got asked to collect some IT equipment from one of our branches yesterday, they are having a clear out in one building and the bosses felt it was safer if I collected the IT bits rather than leave it to those clearing the building out. Well I decided to do it today as I am busy Thursday and Friday and on holiday next week. I had intended to get to the branch, collect the bits do a couple of hours work and then drive back to another branch on the way home for a meeting later in the afternoon.

When I reached said branch I was met with a completely gutted office, somebody had forgotten to tell me that they were re-carpeting the entire office today. I eventually found where they had setup home for the day in the building they were going to be clearing out, hidden behind piles of furniture! That's was problem one, problem two was that the equipment I was supposed to be clearing out was newer than the equipment that was in the main office so branch manager wanted to keep the newer stuff and let me take the older stuff, not a problem, except that all the older equipment was in the store room at the far end of the office that they were re-carpeting and the floor was covered in glue!!!

Trying to explain to the MD (who turned up) what I was doing there and the fact that I had to wait until the carpet was laid before I could collect the equipment was fun

The talk at work today was football, when I was asked my opinion about some forthcoming match I expressed my believe that most players are a bunch of mamby pamby overpaid fairies. This was met with a silence which was eventually broken with the question "what sport do you follow then"? That's easy, Speedway and Rugby (union variety). My Speedway comment was met with, "Speedway? that not a real sport", well I may be wrong here but four riders racing around a track at upto 70mph without brakes shows a lot more skill and courage than some guy trying to kick a leather ball into a net and falls over if anybody get within 3ft of him. You watch a Speedway meeting and see what happens when these guys come off their bikes. Nine times out of ten the guy will get up and start to walk back to the pits ready to come out in the re-run. A footballer falls over and he is rolling around like he has just been run down by a herd of elephants.

Ok I will admit some football player have some good ball skills but the way they act in (what is called) the national game, gimme a break most of them are a bunch of prima donna's. If want to a real game with a leather ball then watch a rugby match, those guys play hard and rough and that is part of the game.

Football is all about the look, the adulation and the money, very little of it is about the game.