Wednesday, April 27, 2005
Adventure 21: 27th April 2005
"I mean how do you lose an entire PE kit ?..." Hi folks, it's, yes, another Tuesday. I can't help myself really, I mean what else am I supposed to do when your boss, his boss and his boss are all out on a two day "jolly" business trip to Paris and Amsterdam ? With MFI I hasten to add...of course MFI don't have any offices in Reading now do they ? Reading isn't like a 15 minute drive away now is it ?!....and I get £7 a month...
The week so far has been fairly eventful, Monday saw the introduction of a new member of the Don't be Daft team, namely the MyTob virus.
Monday 25th April 2005: 07:something:, It's Monday, grrrreat, my day starts with a bang since, the lift Ryan normally gets to school is going to be done by me today. The Mum of his friend who normally takes them all (poor cow), is apparently on a course for today, so this means that I have to try and become conscious enough to drive them to school for 08:20. This isn't so much of a problem since I have to be at work at 08:30 and it's on the way, but it does mean that I shall be turning up at work early for once, something that is bound to cause shock and confusion amongst many of my peers.
08:31: The Brentboy is in and he's not well, coughing spluttering sneezing and generally spreading his germs as far as the eye can see, which since he just sneezed in my face, isn't particularly far at present. Our latest addition to our team, Corvette Driver, is also in and also infected, I'm drawing no conclusions from this fact or the fact that Judy Knockerty is also sniffing and beginning to sneeze. Looks like Brenty's been a busy boy, if you catch my drift and not his cold...
08:40: "ssssh Bit of a panic on, we seem to have a virus outbreak", Brentboy explains, still at least the top technical team are on to it. A team that consists of The Grand Wizard himself, Pascal Scurity, Security Manager, Mark Pasty, and curiously enough Mark Bailout. The Grand Wizard has busied himself by trying to track down "the source" of the outbreak, me thinks shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.... Still at least they're keeping us the real techno wizzes, in the loop....NAAAT! I look at the firewall log which has now stopped since there's soooo much traffic, generated by the virus. I did offer to print out the section of the log which would identify those PC's that were infected, but clearly after 15 years in the industry I really don't know what I'm talking about and I'm summarily ignored.
It's like a little club, the AV protection league, and if you're in you're in and if not you're not...I did think about asking Bailout if he'd checked the backups but I can see he's far to busy, being the only technically capable person in the new "Virtual team". The day comes and goes, and by
17:15 my new finish time (well what do you expect for £7.00 a month ?) , is upon us, I leave the wizard, staring intently at his screen and sighing every now and then...ah the pressures of being the top guy...
Tuesday 26th April 2005 08:30: Back to normal today, haven't got to take the kids in so I got my 10 minute "re-sleep" Brentboy is curiously off sick with his cold and it's just me and Corvette and the grand Wizard who hasn't actually made it in yet. I'm expecting the usual unprovoked, "I was here until xx o'clock" (what does the ' mean in that, note to self, look that up) xx being at least an hour later than he actually stayed. I sent the grand wizard a plan for actions that he needed to consider and approve, but since he's still busy with the Virus, I've not had and I'm not hopeful I'll get a response any time soon.
10:30: I recieve a reply from GFY about an issue with their antivirus software Download Youmustbejoking version 6.01, which really annoys me. Add each site that has Java and InActive X content to the exclusion list, mmmm, of course of the billions and billions of web pages out there I know a. which of them have Java and InActive X content and b. which of our users are going to want to use them, a point I make with some vigour to their support desk.
11:30: It's very very quiet, I think the grand wizard has nodded off at his keyboard or worse, he's snuffed it...I say worse....
12:30: Lunch, Mandy is all enthused and chatty, she's decided to start redecorating Ryans room...da da dada!!! His room is a bit of a mess, primarily because he's picked off half the border and he has a tendancy to "practice" his golf swing in his bedroom, much wall filling to follow.
13:30: Back to 'The Tomb', Quiet Rob is no where to be seen, Invisible Wednesday Dave likewise (he's only visible on Wednesday's so I thought I'd name him appropriately). 14:00: We're advised via internal spam, that Diana RamRod, (a large and scary ex East German shot putter) will be visiting our desks, giving them all Red stickers !!! Worse still filing cabinets will be given Blue stickers!!! How the cold winter nights must just fly by in her house. I haven't decided whether I'm going to try and swap them about yet, but I probably will !!! It beats bloody documentation.
Wednesday 27th April 2005: 09:00:Ahh Wednesday, this can mean only one thing, INIVISIBLE DAVE!!! He only comes up for our Weekly meetings, yeah the weekly meetings we haven't had for two months, still he seems happy enough. I've got lots of bits and pieces to do but not anything worth thinking about.
11:00: The grand wizard makes an appearance. He's being really chatty at the moment (not). He does at one point get up and go around the team (Brentboy excluded since he's still off "sick", bloody malingerer!!) asking "Soooo, hows it goin'...". All apart from me now I know that just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
13:30: Back from lunch, and it's like a bloody party going on, InvisDave, Quiet Rob, and Corvette are all chatting vicifourously and then looking over their shoulders, yup it's a Team Moaning.
14:00: I get an attack of conscience, I decide to do some work. After the debacle of the Project initialisation document, where I had t write a document, documenting that I was going to write a document, documenting the things we could (but won't) do for the Overdone office storage situation, I decide that perhaps without being prompted or the project being approved and mainly because I've got sod all else to do, I decide to do the document that documents the options we've come up with.
15:00: I'm deep in to this now, quiet Rob, keeps trying to distract me, but I'm unswung, "Option 1:Put in new file server with more space..." yup that should do the trick. I did tell them all about WAFS (wide area file servers) but I'm not confident that we'll be implementing, given the grand wizards, "we're not doing WAFS" comment in my right ear'ole just after I suggested it. I've no doubt that it's "THE" solution, but since he doesn't understand it and since we can't buy it from Insult International, I guess we won't be buying it.
16:30: Nearly finished, I've got 4 options an introduction, a conclusion, I just need to format the document and it's done.17:00: What's this, the grand wizard is putting his coat on, I ask InvisiDave what the score is, "apparently he's off to Amsterdam", now I thought he'd been and come back but no apparently not. It has to be some kind of a record, he's managed 3 whole days without saying a word to me...still I'm not complaining....
Thursday 28th April 2005: 08:30: T minus 2 days and counting, can't say I'm looking forward to my B'day, but I can't say I'm not, on the one hand I'm a year older (36 gulp, one world cup away from 40) and on the other I get PRESENTS!!!!
09:30: Still no Brentboy, I'm thinking of sending out a posse to find his body.
10:00: Do a bit of helping with quiet Rob, on the messaging anti-spam issue. Judy Knockerty, has found a new victim, sorry person to project manage, Bob is her new favourite, Brenty's not going to be happy when (sorry if he comes back). I've been "invited" to a meeting with Martin Snooze, and Microshaft, who are apparently going to try and convince us to run our core 24x7 applications on their operating systems. The fact the vendor supports and recommends running it on UniTrix, speaks volumes and I point this out in the meeting. "Sorry but I'm not sure what you mean", pipes up some overpaid, overweight, second hand Microshaft car salesman, "well the fact they don't mention a unitrix vendor, i.e. Moon, PH etc, it's more a case of "don't use Microshaft" in my book", he seems suitably put in his place, since he thinks I'm joking (always a goood sign). The meeting drags on for an hour and a bit while they try and convince Martin, that really it's not his nuts that are on the line if he gets it wrong, he's not looking too convinced. I mention the fact that these applications are Orable backended, and that I've had all sorts of issues with Orable on a Winblows back operating system...."ah", he pipes up again, "have you considered running this app on a WeeBle database ?", "yes we have and no we're not" is the almost unanimous response. The meeting then finishes, typically with them promising to send both Martin and Myself reams of information about how good they are, I was only there because a. the grand wizard couldn't be arsed to attend and b. he was in Amsterdam, being jollied by MFI.
12:00: Spending the day checking things, has it's benefits, I've checked all sorts of things in my quest to try and not do anything today.
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Back again, looking at not doing very much again...
The day basically peters out from here, looks like I suceeded in my quest.
Friday 29th April 2005:
One more day to go, Mandy is more excited than I am and keeps saying things like "it's your birthday tomorrow" in really excited tones, I do my best and I am looking forward to it, but I can't get that excited about it.
08:30: In work, shock horror, hold the back page, Brentboy is back!!! Clearly he's read in here how, Judy Knockerty is falling out all over Quiet Rob, (he wishes) and is here to put a stop to it.
09:00: Fact is Brentboy is only here because it's halfway between his home and the pickup point for his son, who he's got this weekend. I'm not hopeful that much work is going to get done.
10:00: GFY, Nonsense and ITSY seem to be behaving themselves...I get an email from NoSpine, and decide to read it. It's all a bit technical and is about SVDL (shared virtual drive library), now not even I'm understanding it much so I ring Copper Nitrate Centre and ask Rich, the flash in the, pain, he'll know, he sold it to us.... ok so he didn't know, but he did say he'd find out, "gimme 2 minutes and I'll ring you back..." well 2 minutes is actually a Rich 2 minutes which translates to "if yer lucky", apparently today I'm not ;-).
14:00 Katy Shark, comes round and stops ! Brentboy and me going for a smoke sacre bleu! She does one of those "I'm going to give you both a big hug" type motions which to be honest is a little scary.
14:15: Turns out that there's another problem with the poxy. A website she's recently updated, isn't being updated, so the change she made, hasn't been made and consequently she's a bit hopping mad. "What's the URL", I ask ?, "What do you mean", she asks, ok we've got ourselves a level, "what address are you trying to get to", "I'm not trying to get to an address, I'm trying to load up this page", "which page" I try again, "go to http://www.somethingcompletelypointlessthatgivesyousomemeaninginyourlife.com ". I load up the page, sure enough it all works fine.
14:30: We've toddled off around to her PC so she can show me the terrible things My terrible proxies are doing to her website. It's all a bit odd, the change she thought she'd made hasn't been "applied".
14:45: I make my excuses and go for a smoke.
15:00: Dunc, Britney, Stradders is in the frame now, prodding and poking things and generally being a nusiance. "The only thing we haven't done is restart the www service, because there are several live and very important websites attached to the that server....ok so you've restarted the web service...". This is the man who's so in to change control it's untrue, any changes in status or content or anything else for a live system has to go through change control...well apparently not on this occaision.....
Saturday 30th April !!!!! MY BIRTHDAY !!!!
09:00: Now normally my birthday means one very nice thing, namely that I get to have a lie in, which I sort of do, but Ryan has stage school and I have a hair appointment, at "The Dogz Bollox", so I clamber down stairs semi conscious to find a hug wrapped up box in front of me, and the kids and Mandy all looking particularly pleased with themselves.
I open it up and no not the pipe and slippers I was hoping for, but a nice wharfdale 5.1 surround sound home cinema system BAAARRRRGGGAAAIIN!!!
There are loads of cards most of them have money in them and there's even one from my Dad, who's memory for things like birthdays isn't the best lets be honest. Good job I emailed him two weeks ago and told him when it was, that's all I can say.
10:15: Just dropped Ryan off at stage school and I made my way to the hairdressers. Apparently Mandy has arranged another treat for me, namely having my hair done by the "Junior Stylist", who's a quite pretty 17 year old...just think a 17 year old running her fingers through your hair...heaven, I'm in heaven.... About 45 minutes later and she's nearly done. There does seem to be slightly more hair on the floor than usual, but since I can't see anything without my glasses and since she's still running her fingers through my hair I can't really complain now can I ?
11:00: All paid up and back at home. Dave, Spitfire Nomad and Olly Feedingofthefivethousandwasmyidea, or the mother and father in law as they're better known, are on their way.
11:30: They're here with curiously large package for me. I don't quite understand but I open it regardless and to my delight and surprise, it's the DVD recorder, I've been banging on about for what seems like ages. Apparently Mandy had pre-bought it so the money I've been getting in cards all day and I've been worry whether I'd have enough to purchase the recorder is actually going to pay her back if you understand that.
12:30: This is a fact that Ryan really doesn't understand and seems to think isn't fair, I don't particularly care, since I've got the kit I wanted and even better I haven't had to go shopping to get it !!!
14:00: Dave and Olly have gone now, and I've got a couple of hours until my Mum and Stepdad, Jim turn up. Sooooo what to do.
14:30: Ok the skybox, the old DVD player, the video sender, and the old video recorder are strewn across my living room floor and I'm desperately trying to work out how all those cables and more importantly their plugs managed to get through the tiny hole I made in the back of the cabinet.
16:00: Mum and Jim are now here, and I've only got the home cinema system sorted. Still gives me something to do tomorrow I guess.
17:00: We sit down for dinner, which is difficult to describe, since to accomodate all our tastes Mandy has done several. The piece de resitance, is to be honest her home made lasagne, made from impregnable pasta sheets, I opt for the spaghetti !!
19:30: We're off out with Lynne and Colin bowling, Mum and Jim are baby sitting the kids. The least said about the bowling the better, suffice to say that I spent both games wondering around trying to find a ball that I could bowl in a straight line, and failing miserably.
21:30: We're back home, much to the surprise of my Mum, but then since we're not exactly clubbers (well not at my age), and everything costs a fortune, that's not a major surprise.
Lynne and Colin are coming in for coffee and a chat, and we talk the night away until 1am.
Monday (Bank Holiday) 2nd May 2005:
Took the kids to see Hitch hikers guide the galaxy today, which they seemed to enjoy. Mandy "wanted" to do some painting so I took them both.
Tuesday 3rd May 2005:
Back at work and I can't wait until I get home. Liverpool V Chelsea in the 2nd leg of the champions league semi final. The score so far is 0-0 so a win will do us. Unfortunately a score draw will put chelsea through.
Wednesday 4th March 2005:
I discover today that we won the lottery on Saturday (well 4 numbers is better than none, and when I say we, I actually mean Mandy!!) She's decided to go all out and go on a mad spending spree, to buy a quilt cover she's liked for ages, whoopee do!
Thursday 5th March 2005:
Two things to report today, General election and my PDR. The PDR lasted 3 hours coz the wizard couldn't shut up, but was filled with all the usual drivel about performance, projects and stuff.
The general election was interesting, Labour won their 3rd term with a 66 seat majority, Michael Howard basically said he was going to step down as he was too old now but the tories made massive gains across the board which as a true blue was fairly interesting. I stayed up watching this until 3am, so I am now a little knackered.
Friday 6th March 2005:
The wizard, his boss and his bosses boss are all off on another jolly (The wizard I think is at a funeral so not that jolly!) so it's all fairly relaxed. I managed to apply for several jobs and I wait to here what will happen. Got an email from my oppo at my last job saying he'd got himself a job, one I'd sent him (coz I'm nice like that) so all in all since my birthday things have been pretty good. I'll expect the water tank to burst this weekend just to make up for it all....
The week so far has been fairly eventful, Monday saw the introduction of a new member of the Don't be Daft team, namely the MyTob virus.
Monday 25th April 2005: 07:something:, It's Monday, grrrreat, my day starts with a bang since, the lift Ryan normally gets to school is going to be done by me today. The Mum of his friend who normally takes them all (poor cow), is apparently on a course for today, so this means that I have to try and become conscious enough to drive them to school for 08:20. This isn't so much of a problem since I have to be at work at 08:30 and it's on the way, but it does mean that I shall be turning up at work early for once, something that is bound to cause shock and confusion amongst many of my peers.
08:31: The Brentboy is in and he's not well, coughing spluttering sneezing and generally spreading his germs as far as the eye can see, which since he just sneezed in my face, isn't particularly far at present. Our latest addition to our team, Corvette Driver, is also in and also infected, I'm drawing no conclusions from this fact or the fact that Judy Knockerty is also sniffing and beginning to sneeze. Looks like Brenty's been a busy boy, if you catch my drift and not his cold...
08:40: "ssssh Bit of a panic on, we seem to have a virus outbreak", Brentboy explains, still at least the top technical team are on to it. A team that consists of The Grand Wizard himself, Pascal Scurity, Security Manager, Mark Pasty, and curiously enough Mark Bailout. The Grand Wizard has busied himself by trying to track down "the source" of the outbreak, me thinks shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.... Still at least they're keeping us the real techno wizzes, in the loop....NAAAT! I look at the firewall log which has now stopped since there's soooo much traffic, generated by the virus. I did offer to print out the section of the log which would identify those PC's that were infected, but clearly after 15 years in the industry I really don't know what I'm talking about and I'm summarily ignored.
It's like a little club, the AV protection league, and if you're in you're in and if not you're not...I did think about asking Bailout if he'd checked the backups but I can see he's far to busy, being the only technically capable person in the new "Virtual team". The day comes and goes, and by
17:15 my new finish time (well what do you expect for £7.00 a month ?) , is upon us, I leave the wizard, staring intently at his screen and sighing every now and then...ah the pressures of being the top guy...
Tuesday 26th April 2005 08:30: Back to normal today, haven't got to take the kids in so I got my 10 minute "re-sleep" Brentboy is curiously off sick with his cold and it's just me and Corvette and the grand Wizard who hasn't actually made it in yet. I'm expecting the usual unprovoked, "I was here until xx o'clock" (what does the ' mean in that, note to self, look that up) xx being at least an hour later than he actually stayed. I sent the grand wizard a plan for actions that he needed to consider and approve, but since he's still busy with the Virus, I've not had and I'm not hopeful I'll get a response any time soon.
10:30: I recieve a reply from GFY about an issue with their antivirus software Download Youmustbejoking version 6.01, which really annoys me. Add each site that has Java and InActive X content to the exclusion list, mmmm, of course of the billions and billions of web pages out there I know a. which of them have Java and InActive X content and b. which of our users are going to want to use them, a point I make with some vigour to their support desk.
11:30: It's very very quiet, I think the grand wizard has nodded off at his keyboard or worse, he's snuffed it...I say worse....
12:30: Lunch, Mandy is all enthused and chatty, she's decided to start redecorating Ryans room...da da dada!!! His room is a bit of a mess, primarily because he's picked off half the border and he has a tendancy to "practice" his golf swing in his bedroom, much wall filling to follow.
13:30: Back to 'The Tomb', Quiet Rob is no where to be seen, Invisible Wednesday Dave likewise (he's only visible on Wednesday's so I thought I'd name him appropriately). 14:00: We're advised via internal spam, that Diana RamRod, (a large and scary ex East German shot putter) will be visiting our desks, giving them all Red stickers !!! Worse still filing cabinets will be given Blue stickers!!! How the cold winter nights must just fly by in her house. I haven't decided whether I'm going to try and swap them about yet, but I probably will !!! It beats bloody documentation.
Wednesday 27th April 2005: 09:00:Ahh Wednesday, this can mean only one thing, INIVISIBLE DAVE!!! He only comes up for our Weekly meetings, yeah the weekly meetings we haven't had for two months, still he seems happy enough. I've got lots of bits and pieces to do but not anything worth thinking about.
11:00: The grand wizard makes an appearance. He's being really chatty at the moment (not). He does at one point get up and go around the team (Brentboy excluded since he's still off "sick", bloody malingerer!!) asking "Soooo, hows it goin'...". All apart from me now I know that just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they're not out to get you.
13:30: Back from lunch, and it's like a bloody party going on, InvisDave, Quiet Rob, and Corvette are all chatting vicifourously and then looking over their shoulders, yup it's a Team Moaning.
14:00: I get an attack of conscience, I decide to do some work. After the debacle of the Project initialisation document, where I had t write a document, documenting that I was going to write a document, documenting the things we could (but won't) do for the Overdone office storage situation, I decide that perhaps without being prompted or the project being approved and mainly because I've got sod all else to do, I decide to do the document that documents the options we've come up with.
15:00: I'm deep in to this now, quiet Rob, keeps trying to distract me, but I'm unswung, "Option 1:Put in new file server with more space..." yup that should do the trick. I did tell them all about WAFS (wide area file servers) but I'm not confident that we'll be implementing, given the grand wizards, "we're not doing WAFS" comment in my right ear'ole just after I suggested it. I've no doubt that it's "THE" solution, but since he doesn't understand it and since we can't buy it from Insult International, I guess we won't be buying it.
16:30: Nearly finished, I've got 4 options an introduction, a conclusion, I just need to format the document and it's done.17:00: What's this, the grand wizard is putting his coat on, I ask InvisiDave what the score is, "apparently he's off to Amsterdam", now I thought he'd been and come back but no apparently not. It has to be some kind of a record, he's managed 3 whole days without saying a word to me...still I'm not complaining....
Thursday 28th April 2005: 08:30: T minus 2 days and counting, can't say I'm looking forward to my B'day, but I can't say I'm not, on the one hand I'm a year older (36 gulp, one world cup away from 40) and on the other I get PRESENTS!!!!
09:30: Still no Brentboy, I'm thinking of sending out a posse to find his body.
10:00: Do a bit of helping with quiet Rob, on the messaging anti-spam issue. Judy Knockerty, has found a new victim, sorry person to project manage, Bob is her new favourite, Brenty's not going to be happy when (sorry if he comes back). I've been "invited" to a meeting with Martin Snooze, and Microshaft, who are apparently going to try and convince us to run our core 24x7 applications on their operating systems. The fact the vendor supports and recommends running it on UniTrix, speaks volumes and I point this out in the meeting. "Sorry but I'm not sure what you mean", pipes up some overpaid, overweight, second hand Microshaft car salesman, "well the fact they don't mention a unitrix vendor, i.e. Moon, PH etc, it's more a case of "don't use Microshaft" in my book", he seems suitably put in his place, since he thinks I'm joking (always a goood sign). The meeting drags on for an hour and a bit while they try and convince Martin, that really it's not his nuts that are on the line if he gets it wrong, he's not looking too convinced. I mention the fact that these applications are Orable backended, and that I've had all sorts of issues with Orable on a Winblows back operating system...."ah", he pipes up again, "have you considered running this app on a WeeBle database ?", "yes we have and no we're not" is the almost unanimous response. The meeting then finishes, typically with them promising to send both Martin and Myself reams of information about how good they are, I was only there because a. the grand wizard couldn't be arsed to attend and b. he was in Amsterdam, being jollied by MFI.
12:00: Spending the day checking things, has it's benefits, I've checked all sorts of things in my quest to try and not do anything today.
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Back again, looking at not doing very much again...
The day basically peters out from here, looks like I suceeded in my quest.
Friday 29th April 2005:
One more day to go, Mandy is more excited than I am and keeps saying things like "it's your birthday tomorrow" in really excited tones, I do my best and I am looking forward to it, but I can't get that excited about it.
08:30: In work, shock horror, hold the back page, Brentboy is back!!! Clearly he's read in here how, Judy Knockerty is falling out all over Quiet Rob, (he wishes) and is here to put a stop to it.
09:00: Fact is Brentboy is only here because it's halfway between his home and the pickup point for his son, who he's got this weekend. I'm not hopeful that much work is going to get done.
10:00: GFY, Nonsense and ITSY seem to be behaving themselves...I get an email from NoSpine, and decide to read it. It's all a bit technical and is about SVDL (shared virtual drive library), now not even I'm understanding it much so I ring Copper Nitrate Centre and ask Rich, the flash in the, pain, he'll know, he sold it to us.... ok so he didn't know, but he did say he'd find out, "gimme 2 minutes and I'll ring you back..." well 2 minutes is actually a Rich 2 minutes which translates to "if yer lucky", apparently today I'm not ;-).
14:00 Katy Shark, comes round and stops ! Brentboy and me going for a smoke sacre bleu! She does one of those "I'm going to give you both a big hug" type motions which to be honest is a little scary.
14:15: Turns out that there's another problem with the poxy. A website she's recently updated, isn't being updated, so the change she made, hasn't been made and consequently she's a bit hopping mad. "What's the URL", I ask ?, "What do you mean", she asks, ok we've got ourselves a level, "what address are you trying to get to", "I'm not trying to get to an address, I'm trying to load up this page", "which page" I try again, "go to http://www.somethingcompletelypointlessthatgivesyousomemeaninginyourlife.com ". I load up the page, sure enough it all works fine.
14:30: We've toddled off around to her PC so she can show me the terrible things My terrible proxies are doing to her website. It's all a bit odd, the change she thought she'd made hasn't been "applied".
14:45: I make my excuses and go for a smoke.
15:00: Dunc, Britney, Stradders is in the frame now, prodding and poking things and generally being a nusiance. "The only thing we haven't done is restart the www service, because there are several live and very important websites attached to the that server....ok so you've restarted the web service...". This is the man who's so in to change control it's untrue, any changes in status or content or anything else for a live system has to go through change control...well apparently not on this occaision.....
Saturday 30th April !!!!! MY BIRTHDAY !!!!
09:00: Now normally my birthday means one very nice thing, namely that I get to have a lie in, which I sort of do, but Ryan has stage school and I have a hair appointment, at "The Dogz Bollox", so I clamber down stairs semi conscious to find a hug wrapped up box in front of me, and the kids and Mandy all looking particularly pleased with themselves.
I open it up and no not the pipe and slippers I was hoping for, but a nice wharfdale 5.1 surround sound home cinema system BAAARRRRGGGAAAIIN!!!
There are loads of cards most of them have money in them and there's even one from my Dad, who's memory for things like birthdays isn't the best lets be honest. Good job I emailed him two weeks ago and told him when it was, that's all I can say.
10:15: Just dropped Ryan off at stage school and I made my way to the hairdressers. Apparently Mandy has arranged another treat for me, namely having my hair done by the "Junior Stylist", who's a quite pretty 17 year old...just think a 17 year old running her fingers through your hair...heaven, I'm in heaven.... About 45 minutes later and she's nearly done. There does seem to be slightly more hair on the floor than usual, but since I can't see anything without my glasses and since she's still running her fingers through my hair I can't really complain now can I ?
11:00: All paid up and back at home. Dave, Spitfire Nomad and Olly Feedingofthefivethousandwasmyidea, or the mother and father in law as they're better known, are on their way.
11:30: They're here with curiously large package for me. I don't quite understand but I open it regardless and to my delight and surprise, it's the DVD recorder, I've been banging on about for what seems like ages. Apparently Mandy had pre-bought it so the money I've been getting in cards all day and I've been worry whether I'd have enough to purchase the recorder is actually going to pay her back if you understand that.
12:30: This is a fact that Ryan really doesn't understand and seems to think isn't fair, I don't particularly care, since I've got the kit I wanted and even better I haven't had to go shopping to get it !!!
14:00: Dave and Olly have gone now, and I've got a couple of hours until my Mum and Stepdad, Jim turn up. Sooooo what to do.
14:30: Ok the skybox, the old DVD player, the video sender, and the old video recorder are strewn across my living room floor and I'm desperately trying to work out how all those cables and more importantly their plugs managed to get through the tiny hole I made in the back of the cabinet.
16:00: Mum and Jim are now here, and I've only got the home cinema system sorted. Still gives me something to do tomorrow I guess.
17:00: We sit down for dinner, which is difficult to describe, since to accomodate all our tastes Mandy has done several. The piece de resitance, is to be honest her home made lasagne, made from impregnable pasta sheets, I opt for the spaghetti !!
19:30: We're off out with Lynne and Colin bowling, Mum and Jim are baby sitting the kids. The least said about the bowling the better, suffice to say that I spent both games wondering around trying to find a ball that I could bowl in a straight line, and failing miserably.
21:30: We're back home, much to the surprise of my Mum, but then since we're not exactly clubbers (well not at my age), and everything costs a fortune, that's not a major surprise.
Lynne and Colin are coming in for coffee and a chat, and we talk the night away until 1am.
Monday (Bank Holiday) 2nd May 2005:
Took the kids to see Hitch hikers guide the galaxy today, which they seemed to enjoy. Mandy "wanted" to do some painting so I took them both.
Tuesday 3rd May 2005:
Back at work and I can't wait until I get home. Liverpool V Chelsea in the 2nd leg of the champions league semi final. The score so far is 0-0 so a win will do us. Unfortunately a score draw will put chelsea through.
Wednesday 4th March 2005:
I discover today that we won the lottery on Saturday (well 4 numbers is better than none, and when I say we, I actually mean Mandy!!) She's decided to go all out and go on a mad spending spree, to buy a quilt cover she's liked for ages, whoopee do!
Thursday 5th March 2005:
Two things to report today, General election and my PDR. The PDR lasted 3 hours coz the wizard couldn't shut up, but was filled with all the usual drivel about performance, projects and stuff.
The general election was interesting, Labour won their 3rd term with a 66 seat majority, Michael Howard basically said he was going to step down as he was too old now but the tories made massive gains across the board which as a true blue was fairly interesting. I stayed up watching this until 3am, so I am now a little knackered.
Friday 6th March 2005:
The wizard, his boss and his bosses boss are all off on another jolly (The wizard I think is at a funeral so not that jolly!) so it's all fairly relaxed. I managed to apply for several jobs and I wait to here what will happen. Got an email from my oppo at my last job saying he'd got himself a job, one I'd sent him (coz I'm nice like that) so all in all since my birthday things have been pretty good. I'll expect the water tank to burst this weekend just to make up for it all....
# posted by cre8 @ 2:04 AM 
