I've moved

I have now moved to http://xendistar.co.uk

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.