Monday, June 27, 2005
Adventure 27: 27th June 2005
"Yeah but where's me bloody chair ???"...yup it's that time again.. not only have I been restructured, yet again - frankly that'd be enough for anyone, no no, we've moved too.
I'm now on the ground floor, block A with a window right behind me. The view is something to behold, a concrete pillar and a little bit of grass ! Not for me the delights of a view straight in to the canteen (there was a reason I went home for lunch!), nope just a crappy desk to try and fit my hordes of technological gadgets and gizmo's on.
Friday 24th June 2005: 20:00:
Just a quick note to finish off Friday, Mandy informs me that Jack needs a Tudor house built, this weekend. Hmmm 48 hours, still Rome wasn't built in a day.
Saturday 25th June 2005: 09:00:
Packing up the car so Mandy can take Jack to a car boot sale and earn us some serious cash from our junk. I've been watching the lunctime edition of "Car Booty" where they always seem to make in excess of £200 - £300, so hopes are high.
10:00:
Drop Ryan off at stage school and then have dilemma...do I go to cashbase and buy materials for Jacks house, or go home and chill out for a couple of hours....hmm tough call.
Back home, watching something on the telly, did some tidying and the washing up, the tennis will be on in a bit, so I check my mail and my downloads, wander in to the garage, wander out of the garage and discover that I'm tinsy winsy bit bored....
12:00: Pick Ryan up and we then wiz to cashbase for some MDF for the house that Jack didn't build.
12:20: Make Lunch
12:40: Set to work on the house...Basically a Tudor house I discover is two boxes on top of each other, the top box being a bit larger than the bottom one...easy enough...
16:00: Made the two boxes, after breathing in lots of MDF fibres, I'm feeling fairly pleased with myself, if not a little bit weasy.
16:30: Mandy and POD are home looking knackered. I helpfully and expentantly ask, "so how much did you make ?", "well, not bad, about £40", hiding my disappointment at the prospect of having to go back to work on Monday, I smile and say "pretty good", should keep us in milk and petrol for about a day....
16:45: I show Mandy the two boxes that is the Tudor mansion and she's impressed, which is good, she did slide in there with "I was hoping you'd cut some windows and a door...", but quickly follows that with "I'm sure we could paint them on..."
Sunday 26th June 2005 10:00:
I do some browsing of the web, and discover that Tudor houses aren't square !!!
Luckily the bottom of the house is only held together with panel pins so I quickly half the length of the side panels. Unluckily, I zealously glued the top box together with "No More Plaster" and it's set and virtually unmoveable. I prise it all apart with a screwdriver, so some more side panels to make then...!
12:00: Two hours on and it's made, the roof is just two bits of MDF nailed together at right angles to each other and this sits quite nicely on top of the top box giving a proper roof effect.
Mandy is again impressed, and Jack is fairly impressed too (not easy to do that, whilst still watching the telly).
16:00: Off over to Mandy's Mum and Dad's, Dave 'Spitfire' and Olly 'Feedingofthefivethousandwasmyidea' are having a housewarming barbeque, it would make sense then to put the bbq inside me thinks !
16:30: We're about to go off and play cricket, so I ask Mandy if she knows where my brand new 20 billion mega pixel, zoom in zoom out, camera is, "No, I don't remember taking it out of the car", so I send Ryan off to the car to try and locate it. He comes back empty handed, well not strictly empty handed, he has brough the empty camcorder bag back! I say to Mandy again about it, "well I don't remember taking it out of the car and I've looked in here, it must be home", funny coz I distinctly remember putting it in the boot of the car, but I accept her version of events since mine could have been last week.
16:35: Cricket is in full swing, well there's a lot of swinging and not much in the way of cricket going on but still. The Sunbathers are sunbathing, miserable lot, but we've stil got enough for 9 a side which is good enough. I'm out square cutting as per usual, and my teams score is 53 all out.
Dave's team is next in and they rattle up 58 all out so they're the winners.
18:00: Back to Olly's for the BBQ, all I can say is Dave will be eating BBQ left overs for some weeks !!!
Monday: 08:40:
Yup it takes me 10 more minutes to walk to my desk than before. I must bring that up as a "my contribution", I could save the company 10's of pounds. I'm met with my crate filled to overflowing (so much so I had to borrow a bit of space from Brentboy). Fortunately the "removals" people have moved my screen (20" flatpanel) and my PC and plugged it all in, which was nice of them. Well it would have been nicer if they'd actually plugged the right screen keyboard and mouse into the right PC but hey I'm just being picky.
09:00: Unable to contain my excitement or last nights dinner I head for the loo, that's about as graphic as I'm going to get so don't be too scared to read on. Needless to say when planning a move of any type 'movee comfort' is a top priority. Always pack the kettle and toilet roll last etc etc. So imagine my horror to discover there's no loo paper !!!! I would say "ARSE!" but that would just be too ironic.
09:10: I shuffle myself round to the next cubicle, having first checked that no one else was in the toilets, and manage to find some paper, thank god for that eh ?
Then I come out and wash my hands, then to dry them, ah, no paper towels and the hand dryer looks ready to electrocute some poor innocent guy who's just washed his hands and can't find any paper towels to dry them....
09:40: My unpack is in full swing, there are far too many power leads and cables generally, but they've given me 8 power sockets to plug it all in to.
09:50: More or less finished now, and I've only had two fags....
10:00: I noticed some time ago that my beloved is missing. My comfy chair with it's tilt and swivel and extra padding has vanished into the ether, even though I labelled it with about 20 labels...not good....
11:00: Dierdre Largebottom, has responded to my plea for help (my chair) by bringing down a similar one. She says that she wasn't sure what I meant by cream so she's brought down a biege one instead, good thinking. Still this chair isn't bad, got quite a bit of padding and it's got a tilt which was the main thing for me. I can't put my feet up and have a snooze in the afternoon's without a tilt mechanism.....
12:30: Lunch ! - A buffet lunch has been provided, because we all turned up in a different location, wahay !, I pass and go home for my bacon sandwich.
13:30: Centre of bleeding Excellence !!!?? I don't know what the excellence bit refers to but I've just overheard Mike Takanap, telling Judy Knockerty, how installing applications that talk to a central server is the best bandwidth friendly way of using the said application..nnooooooo, no, I think you'll find using an application that's more bandwidth friendly period would be the best route....
13:40: I've just been acosted by this really old geezer, could be my grandfather, turns out he's drawing charactures of everyone. According to the rulez of characatures you can change the colour of someone's hair then, either that or he only had a black pen !!....
I'm now on the ground floor, block A with a window right behind me. The view is something to behold, a concrete pillar and a little bit of grass ! Not for me the delights of a view straight in to the canteen (there was a reason I went home for lunch!), nope just a crappy desk to try and fit my hordes of technological gadgets and gizmo's on.
Friday 24th June 2005: 20:00:
Just a quick note to finish off Friday, Mandy informs me that Jack needs a Tudor house built, this weekend. Hmmm 48 hours, still Rome wasn't built in a day.
Saturday 25th June 2005: 09:00:
Packing up the car so Mandy can take Jack to a car boot sale and earn us some serious cash from our junk. I've been watching the lunctime edition of "Car Booty" where they always seem to make in excess of £200 - £300, so hopes are high.
10:00:
Drop Ryan off at stage school and then have dilemma...do I go to cashbase and buy materials for Jacks house, or go home and chill out for a couple of hours....hmm tough call.
Back home, watching something on the telly, did some tidying and the washing up, the tennis will be on in a bit, so I check my mail and my downloads, wander in to the garage, wander out of the garage and discover that I'm tinsy winsy bit bored....
12:00: Pick Ryan up and we then wiz to cashbase for some MDF for the house that Jack didn't build.
12:20: Make Lunch
12:40: Set to work on the house...Basically a Tudor house I discover is two boxes on top of each other, the top box being a bit larger than the bottom one...easy enough...
16:00: Made the two boxes, after breathing in lots of MDF fibres, I'm feeling fairly pleased with myself, if not a little bit weasy.
16:30: Mandy and POD are home looking knackered. I helpfully and expentantly ask, "so how much did you make ?", "well, not bad, about £40", hiding my disappointment at the prospect of having to go back to work on Monday, I smile and say "pretty good", should keep us in milk and petrol for about a day....
16:45: I show Mandy the two boxes that is the Tudor mansion and she's impressed, which is good, she did slide in there with "I was hoping you'd cut some windows and a door...", but quickly follows that with "I'm sure we could paint them on..."
Sunday 26th June 2005 10:00:
I do some browsing of the web, and discover that Tudor houses aren't square !!!
Luckily the bottom of the house is only held together with panel pins so I quickly half the length of the side panels. Unluckily, I zealously glued the top box together with "No More Plaster" and it's set and virtually unmoveable. I prise it all apart with a screwdriver, so some more side panels to make then...!
12:00: Two hours on and it's made, the roof is just two bits of MDF nailed together at right angles to each other and this sits quite nicely on top of the top box giving a proper roof effect.
Mandy is again impressed, and Jack is fairly impressed too (not easy to do that, whilst still watching the telly).
16:00: Off over to Mandy's Mum and Dad's, Dave 'Spitfire' and Olly 'Feedingofthefivethousandwasmyidea' are having a housewarming barbeque, it would make sense then to put the bbq inside me thinks !
16:30: We're about to go off and play cricket, so I ask Mandy if she knows where my brand new 20 billion mega pixel, zoom in zoom out, camera is, "No, I don't remember taking it out of the car", so I send Ryan off to the car to try and locate it. He comes back empty handed, well not strictly empty handed, he has brough the empty camcorder bag back! I say to Mandy again about it, "well I don't remember taking it out of the car and I've looked in here, it must be home", funny coz I distinctly remember putting it in the boot of the car, but I accept her version of events since mine could have been last week.
16:35: Cricket is in full swing, well there's a lot of swinging and not much in the way of cricket going on but still. The Sunbathers are sunbathing, miserable lot, but we've stil got enough for 9 a side which is good enough. I'm out square cutting as per usual, and my teams score is 53 all out.
Dave's team is next in and they rattle up 58 all out so they're the winners.
18:00: Back to Olly's for the BBQ, all I can say is Dave will be eating BBQ left overs for some weeks !!!
Monday: 08:40:
Yup it takes me 10 more minutes to walk to my desk than before. I must bring that up as a "my contribution", I could save the company 10's of pounds. I'm met with my crate filled to overflowing (so much so I had to borrow a bit of space from Brentboy). Fortunately the "removals" people have moved my screen (20" flatpanel) and my PC and plugged it all in, which was nice of them. Well it would have been nicer if they'd actually plugged the right screen keyboard and mouse into the right PC but hey I'm just being picky.
09:00: Unable to contain my excitement or last nights dinner I head for the loo, that's about as graphic as I'm going to get so don't be too scared to read on. Needless to say when planning a move of any type 'movee comfort' is a top priority. Always pack the kettle and toilet roll last etc etc. So imagine my horror to discover there's no loo paper !!!! I would say "ARSE!" but that would just be too ironic.
09:10: I shuffle myself round to the next cubicle, having first checked that no one else was in the toilets, and manage to find some paper, thank god for that eh ?
Then I come out and wash my hands, then to dry them, ah, no paper towels and the hand dryer looks ready to electrocute some poor innocent guy who's just washed his hands and can't find any paper towels to dry them....
09:40: My unpack is in full swing, there are far too many power leads and cables generally, but they've given me 8 power sockets to plug it all in to.
09:50: More or less finished now, and I've only had two fags....
10:00: I noticed some time ago that my beloved is missing. My comfy chair with it's tilt and swivel and extra padding has vanished into the ether, even though I labelled it with about 20 labels...not good....
11:00: Dierdre Largebottom, has responded to my plea for help (my chair) by bringing down a similar one. She says that she wasn't sure what I meant by cream so she's brought down a biege one instead, good thinking. Still this chair isn't bad, got quite a bit of padding and it's got a tilt which was the main thing for me. I can't put my feet up and have a snooze in the afternoon's without a tilt mechanism.....
12:30: Lunch ! - A buffet lunch has been provided, because we all turned up in a different location, wahay !, I pass and go home for my bacon sandwich.
13:30: Centre of bleeding Excellence !!!?? I don't know what the excellence bit refers to but I've just overheard Mike Takanap, telling Judy Knockerty, how installing applications that talk to a central server is the best bandwidth friendly way of using the said application..nnooooooo, no, I think you'll find using an application that's more bandwidth friendly period would be the best route....
13:40: I've just been acosted by this really old geezer, could be my grandfather, turns out he's drawing charactures of everyone. According to the rulez of characatures you can change the colour of someone's hair then, either that or he only had a black pen !!....
Friday, June 24, 2005
Adventure 26: 24th June 2005
"another restructure ? How quaint...." Lo all yup it's only been four days but hey I've got stuff to write. Yes 6 months on and another restructure (reorganisation) is upon us....
Monday: 21st June 2005
08:20: Dropped Ryan off at the ASTOB lights, then returned home.
08:30: Got back Mandy is trying to coax Jack in to getting ready for school, he's not having any of it.
Skip forward
14:30: An hour and half before my interview with Sing! Direct, getting ready, the office is in Reading so, I've been trying to decipher various map web sites, autoroute and Sisterinlaw directions. Reckon I know where it is but you can never be too sure.
15:30: Get to the office half an hour early, which was pretty good, so I find a convienient place to park up and listen to Tim Henman's first round wimbledon match on the radio. Radio tennis is really bad, it starts of ok, "first serve to the forehand side..." then rapidly decends in to unintelligible chaos as the rally gets going, finishing up with a much calmer, "forehand winner down the backhand side"...any how he had us going for a bit but scraped through in 5 sets after being 2 sets down, something tells me it's not going to be his year this year.
15:50: I make my way to Sing! Direct's office, parking in the visitors car parking spaces, the car is telling me it's 30.5 degrees but thankfully even though I'm suited, my air conditioning is working at full pelt.
15:55: I open the door and nearly faint from the temperature change, put on my Jacket attempting to do so while the car door tries to split me half and then make my way to "reception"
15:58: I've taken a seat Dale Chip (an american I'm sure) is running a bit late, so Tom Bodger his network guy and prospective staff member comes and meets me. He's a northerner probably mancunian and I can tell by his attitude that he's really pleased to see me. He obviously has a problem shaking hands since it's one of the limpest hand shakes I've ever had.
16:05: Peter Niceguy, comes too and this is a much more hearty hand shake, they buy me a cup of canteen coffee that I swear has been heated on the hotplate for at least 24 hours if not longer. We sit down at a table and chat for a bit.
16:10: Dale Chip (very american) makes an appearance and apologises for his tardiness.
16:45: He's still quizzing me, about my management style and my background. We get to a natural end and he then tells me that Vincent Froggere, the IT director will be interviewing me next (a frenchman) Dale also tells me that he's Canadian (for some reason).
17:45: Man I'm desperate for a leak, Vincent is nearly done, he just now has to find the HR director who'll also be interviewing me, this is mental, I've been here now nearly 2 and half hours.
18:30: Finally make my exit from Sing!, they should give me the job just for putting up with the interview in my opinion.....
Tuesday 22nd June 2005:
Another interview today at 2pm, I say interview, this is more a "chat" at Simon's firm, Invasive Networks.
12:45: I make my way to Thatcham where the interview is and get there by 1:30pm so I sit in leisure centre car park for 20 minutes, which is just down the road.
15:30: The interview didn't go well, they're looking for more skills than a. I have and b. I'm likely to have ever. The one thing I've never done in my career is specialise in any particular area. Most of what I know is learned on the fly because I've had to, so answerring fairly technical (well for me anyway) questions about HSRP and Layer 2 protection and 802.1x etc, is a struggle.
16:00 I leave Invasive fairly disillusioned with the whole process, having been made to feel inadequate, something I object to quite a lot. Perhaps going for an interview at a Network Engineering firm was a mistake, since I've never claimed to be a network engineer and it'd be just the same if I went to a garage for an interview as a car mechanic.
Feeling fairly pissed off I return home....
Wednesday 23rd June 2005:
The grand wizard is being very chatty and bouncy, he even asks me if I enjoyed my two days off in the sun, yeah like he doesn't know why I was off...
13:45: Back from Lunch and the wizard calls us all together to say that we will be called in to a meeting with the Skunkmaster from about 3pm onwards. Rumours are abound about why, but since it's individually, I'm guessing it's not the same chat for everyone.
15:00: Corvette is first, she's in there about 20 minutes or so. When she comes out and we interogate her it turns out that she's just been told what she needs to concentrate on objectives wise. Rob has already gone in and then it's my turn....
16:00: I sit down with the Wizard on my right, the Skunkmaster begins, "as you know Paul when project clearasmud was done, we said we'd review things and I can tell you that we've been doing that for the last 5 months or so.." so basically they've been reviewing what they did at the last restructure, since the last restructure, "we've decided that Wizards team will be disbanded, He'll keep corvette, but you, the brentboy and silent Rob, will be moving back in to Service Lackofdelivery, Invisi-Dave will be moving into Martin Takeanap's team in the Centre of Excellence" centre of excellence ? What about Don't Be Daft is excellent ? Whatever it is it's in the centre I guess and Dave will be there...I point out to the SkunkMaster that this would be the third restructure within the last year and that kind of gives the impression that they're clueless, something we kind of knew already....
They can't tell me who my boss will be as there is some redundancies and frankly that job is up for grabs...now then I'm sat there with 16 years experience, 10 of those in managing a team such as the one I'm going to be working in...what do you have to do to progress your career at this place ? Perhaps it's golf, I really should look at learning how not to play this game and let your boss win, then just maybe my career would take off...I think I'll have to take the bull by the horns on this one...
Good of Bill Zunpronoucable to make an appearance / send an email saying "hi!" and welcoming us back...still I'm sure he has his reasons....
Thursday 23rd June 2005:
Nothing much happening today, apart from us all trying to stick unsticky stickers to our kit in the vein hope it might be relocated to the right desks when we get moved over the weekend....
Monday: 21st June 2005
08:20: Dropped Ryan off at the ASTOB lights, then returned home.
08:30: Got back Mandy is trying to coax Jack in to getting ready for school, he's not having any of it.
Skip forward
14:30: An hour and half before my interview with Sing! Direct, getting ready, the office is in Reading so, I've been trying to decipher various map web sites, autoroute and Sisterinlaw directions. Reckon I know where it is but you can never be too sure.
15:30: Get to the office half an hour early, which was pretty good, so I find a convienient place to park up and listen to Tim Henman's first round wimbledon match on the radio. Radio tennis is really bad, it starts of ok, "first serve to the forehand side..." then rapidly decends in to unintelligible chaos as the rally gets going, finishing up with a much calmer, "forehand winner down the backhand side"...any how he had us going for a bit but scraped through in 5 sets after being 2 sets down, something tells me it's not going to be his year this year.
15:50: I make my way to Sing! Direct's office, parking in the visitors car parking spaces, the car is telling me it's 30.5 degrees but thankfully even though I'm suited, my air conditioning is working at full pelt.
15:55: I open the door and nearly faint from the temperature change, put on my Jacket attempting to do so while the car door tries to split me half and then make my way to "reception"
15:58: I've taken a seat Dale Chip (an american I'm sure) is running a bit late, so Tom Bodger his network guy and prospective staff member comes and meets me. He's a northerner probably mancunian and I can tell by his attitude that he's really pleased to see me. He obviously has a problem shaking hands since it's one of the limpest hand shakes I've ever had.
16:05: Peter Niceguy, comes too and this is a much more hearty hand shake, they buy me a cup of canteen coffee that I swear has been heated on the hotplate for at least 24 hours if not longer. We sit down at a table and chat for a bit.
16:10: Dale Chip (very american) makes an appearance and apologises for his tardiness.
16:45: He's still quizzing me, about my management style and my background. We get to a natural end and he then tells me that Vincent Froggere, the IT director will be interviewing me next (a frenchman) Dale also tells me that he's Canadian (for some reason).
17:45: Man I'm desperate for a leak, Vincent is nearly done, he just now has to find the HR director who'll also be interviewing me, this is mental, I've been here now nearly 2 and half hours.
18:30: Finally make my exit from Sing!, they should give me the job just for putting up with the interview in my opinion.....
Tuesday 22nd June 2005:
Another interview today at 2pm, I say interview, this is more a "chat" at Simon's firm, Invasive Networks.
12:45: I make my way to Thatcham where the interview is and get there by 1:30pm so I sit in leisure centre car park for 20 minutes, which is just down the road.
15:30: The interview didn't go well, they're looking for more skills than a. I have and b. I'm likely to have ever. The one thing I've never done in my career is specialise in any particular area. Most of what I know is learned on the fly because I've had to, so answerring fairly technical (well for me anyway) questions about HSRP and Layer 2 protection and 802.1x etc, is a struggle.
16:00 I leave Invasive fairly disillusioned with the whole process, having been made to feel inadequate, something I object to quite a lot. Perhaps going for an interview at a Network Engineering firm was a mistake, since I've never claimed to be a network engineer and it'd be just the same if I went to a garage for an interview as a car mechanic.
Feeling fairly pissed off I return home....
Wednesday 23rd June 2005:
The grand wizard is being very chatty and bouncy, he even asks me if I enjoyed my two days off in the sun, yeah like he doesn't know why I was off...
13:45: Back from Lunch and the wizard calls us all together to say that we will be called in to a meeting with the Skunkmaster from about 3pm onwards. Rumours are abound about why, but since it's individually, I'm guessing it's not the same chat for everyone.
15:00: Corvette is first, she's in there about 20 minutes or so. When she comes out and we interogate her it turns out that she's just been told what she needs to concentrate on objectives wise. Rob has already gone in and then it's my turn....
16:00: I sit down with the Wizard on my right, the Skunkmaster begins, "as you know Paul when project clearasmud was done, we said we'd review things and I can tell you that we've been doing that for the last 5 months or so.." so basically they've been reviewing what they did at the last restructure, since the last restructure, "we've decided that Wizards team will be disbanded, He'll keep corvette, but you, the brentboy and silent Rob, will be moving back in to Service Lackofdelivery, Invisi-Dave will be moving into Martin Takeanap's team in the Centre of Excellence" centre of excellence ? What about Don't Be Daft is excellent ? Whatever it is it's in the centre I guess and Dave will be there...I point out to the SkunkMaster that this would be the third restructure within the last year and that kind of gives the impression that they're clueless, something we kind of knew already....
They can't tell me who my boss will be as there is some redundancies and frankly that job is up for grabs...now then I'm sat there with 16 years experience, 10 of those in managing a team such as the one I'm going to be working in...what do you have to do to progress your career at this place ? Perhaps it's golf, I really should look at learning how not to play this game and let your boss win, then just maybe my career would take off...I think I'll have to take the bull by the horns on this one...
Good of Bill Zunpronoucable to make an appearance / send an email saying "hi!" and welcoming us back...still I'm sure he has his reasons....
Thursday 23rd June 2005:
Nothing much happening today, apart from us all trying to stick unsticky stickers to our kit in the vein hope it might be relocated to the right desks when we get moved over the weekend....
Monday, June 20, 2005
Adventure 25: 20th June 2005
"Does it sting or doesn't it ?...." Hey y'all, while I've got a few moments to kill I thought I'd deploy another adventure....
Friday 17th June:
Now where did I leave you, oh yeah, so I'd just finished speaking to Quitline Direct about, how come I could get my car insurance sooo much cheaper elsewhere...you saw from last time...Then the phone rings..."Hillo" says a very stern voice (this obviously the customer services person, trained by some remote ninja guru in how to get what they want and make their customers feel all warm an fuzzy), "Can I help you ?", err hang on, she rang me soooo, "well I don't know it depends if you can sort out why I can get cheaper car insurance quotes from your competitors and from your own web site..", "well this is the renewals department....I've got your internet application here" funny I didn't know I was applying for anything (well with them anyway), "you've got here your companies business as security products", "Yeaaahhhs", I respond completely unimpressed at her vain attempt to intimidate me, "Well your renewal states that it's manufacturing!!!", that's it she's got me, damn and I thought I was doing so well, quite what the relevance of my companies business is to my car insurance, considering that it's not rallying or stunt driving, I'm not sure, but she's fallen into my little trap, "yes well my company is Don't Be Daft International, they MANUFACTURE SECURITY PRODUCTS so it could be either", got her, she's on the run now, there's nowhere to hide, when all else fails, get even more stroppy..."well which one would you like it to be ?", ahaa sensing the kill is imminent, "whichever one is cheaper", ooooh I could really go off me I really could, "err, ahem, well we don't operate like that", "well you can seem my point can't you ? I can't remember what I said last year, you need to get your web site sorted out if that's a problem...", I'm really giving her a hard time, serves her right for being grumpy, "You didn't put down the two accidents on your internet application", ooh she's trying, she's really trying..."which too accidents were those then ?","the one in June 2004 and the one in 2001...", "right, well the one in 2001 is more than 3 years ago by my calculation, wasn't my fault i.e. the guy shunted me and neither of these two accidents were on this policy or in the car I'm trying to insure, soooo", "that doesn't matter they're accidents", funny that I remember them being accidents too, of course I was there at the time so that probably keeps it clear in my mind. She puts me on hold, then comes back, reads me the rules and regulations, paying particular attention to the bits about giving false information, then she puts me on hold to talk to the "underwriters", oooh I just can't wait, the suspense is killing me, "hilloo, right I've spoken to the underwriters and apparently the quote is correct £350", "hmmm" I'm keeping her on the edge of her seat now, "ok well I'll have to come back to you about that", I punch in all my details again, include the one accident (2004) that's relevant on the Eunsure site and hey presto...£288, it's a tough call but I decide to go with Eunsure....
Saturday 18th June 2005:
Thank god for that! It's Saturday, no work for the next four days yipply doo dar.
I remember that I have to send an email to RammedBox, it's another long story that I'll try miserably to shorten. Basically I ordered some blank DVD's, sure enough on thursday they arrived, I unpacked them, then Jumblewoman, Mandy's sister wanted a copy of "Screwing it" a BBC TV series first two episodes that she'd missed, so I slam in one of the new DVD's to discover they're DVD-R and not DVD+R. The difference is subtle and unimportant so I won't bore you with the details, I've much more impressive things to bore you with the details of ! Soo I emailed, more out desperation than hope, customer dis-services, to discover them very compliant, I got an email then a telephone call saying they'd arrange to pick up the "faulty" DVD's, I'd already placed an order for the correct one's so this should be fairly straight forward, no ?, No! Having changed the delivery address to work, coz, there isn't anyone at home during the day, now Mandy's Painting & Decorating business is taking off (quite why she'd volunteer to go an paint someone elses house I don't know). So Friday comes and I explain to reception that a man from Unintellink will be coming to swap them over and I parcel up the "faulty" one's with far too much bubble wrap. Friday comes and sure enough the man turns up and delivers my order, but....doesn't pick up the "faulty" one's aaaagghhh, so I send off my email to RammedBox explaining what's happened.
Friday night I get home, to discover an unintellink card has been posted through the door, I'm beginning to get a bad feeling about this....
So Saturday, I'm checking my mail and sure enough there's one from Steve at RammedBox, saying that yes Unintellink have screwed up and the pick up would happen on Monday, from my house, luckily I'm off but unluckily I'm not in all day....
The last episode of Doctor Who ? series 27 has just finished, what a finish, very impressive and the kids are now outside, re-enacting the episode with a hint of Star Wars thrown in, sort of Dr Who Versus Darth Vader, with light sabres and everything....
Sunday 19th June 2005 (Fathers Day):
Like every father up and down the country, the day breaks, and I lie there and I lie there, nothing, not a cheeky smile, not the sight of Mandy scantily clad in her ironing outfit (bikini top and short skirt (well that's what it was yesterday)), nope nuttin, It's about 40 degrees so I have to get up and make tea, Mandy's head is still, unfortunately welded to the pillow, so she only takes a couple of hours to resusitate....
My card arrives with two 'orrible sprogs' attached to it, "Happy fathers day" comes the somewhat unconvincing chant and they return fairly quickly back to their playstations and computer games. The card contains 3 cinema tickets to see Batman Begins, something I'm most impressed with, only trouble is I've got to find 2 children to take with me, can't think for the life of me, who they would be ;-))
We hot foot it over to Spitfire Dave's (Mandy's dad) to give him his card and Cashbase (aaaghh resistance is futile) vouchers, Jack isn't feeling very well (obviously hasn't had his fill of christians souls this morning).
He's complaining of stinging and burning when he wee's, so we suspect a urine infection.
Mandy phones DontphoneusDocs, and insists that someone see's him, so we jump back in the far too hot, "ooh ow, leather seats"... car and drive over to the hospital. Now given his complaint it's a bit gauling to see that we're asked to sit in the Yellow waiting area !!! A quick sample test later and our fears are confirmed, it's urinary infection antibiotics are prescribed, which ironically are also yellow...hmmmm...is someone taking the (now that would be ironic!! and not to mention a little ridiculous!)...
I note with interest the sign on the door stating that due to an outbreak of something deadly, they're restricting visiting hours.... It also states that children under 12 and the elderly and anyone showing symptoms of the outbroken disease should stay away. Under 12 and the elderly ok I understand, but if you've got it then surely you'd want to go to hospital ? What do you do if you've got an uncurable disease if they won't let you in the hospital ? hmmmm...
NOTE: Dear action filmakers, please...slow down your fight sequences, I thought it was just coz I was old and my eyes were crap, but POD tells me afterwards that he was struggling to understand who was ripping the head off of who, so clearly it's not just me.
The cinema was bursting at the seams...with air...tell a lie there were about 8 of us in there. For some reason on a bright sunny, bloody hot (36 degrees) June day, people don't seem to want to go to the cinema...very odd !! We enjoyed the film anyhow in a lovely dark air conditioned room, and a quick check on the time when we got out reveals that it was gone 7pm !!!??? How did that happen ? Went in at 4:30pm came out at 7:30pm...Monday tomorrow..and a day off !!!
Friday 17th June:
Now where did I leave you, oh yeah, so I'd just finished speaking to Quitline Direct about, how come I could get my car insurance sooo much cheaper elsewhere...you saw from last time...Then the phone rings..."Hillo" says a very stern voice (this obviously the customer services person, trained by some remote ninja guru in how to get what they want and make their customers feel all warm an fuzzy), "Can I help you ?", err hang on, she rang me soooo, "well I don't know it depends if you can sort out why I can get cheaper car insurance quotes from your competitors and from your own web site..", "well this is the renewals department....I've got your internet application here" funny I didn't know I was applying for anything (well with them anyway), "you've got here your companies business as security products", "Yeaaahhhs", I respond completely unimpressed at her vain attempt to intimidate me, "Well your renewal states that it's manufacturing!!!", that's it she's got me, damn and I thought I was doing so well, quite what the relevance of my companies business is to my car insurance, considering that it's not rallying or stunt driving, I'm not sure, but she's fallen into my little trap, "yes well my company is Don't Be Daft International, they MANUFACTURE SECURITY PRODUCTS so it could be either", got her, she's on the run now, there's nowhere to hide, when all else fails, get even more stroppy..."well which one would you like it to be ?", ahaa sensing the kill is imminent, "whichever one is cheaper", ooooh I could really go off me I really could, "err, ahem, well we don't operate like that", "well you can seem my point can't you ? I can't remember what I said last year, you need to get your web site sorted out if that's a problem...", I'm really giving her a hard time, serves her right for being grumpy, "You didn't put down the two accidents on your internet application", ooh she's trying, she's really trying..."which too accidents were those then ?","the one in June 2004 and the one in 2001...", "right, well the one in 2001 is more than 3 years ago by my calculation, wasn't my fault i.e. the guy shunted me and neither of these two accidents were on this policy or in the car I'm trying to insure, soooo", "that doesn't matter they're accidents", funny that I remember them being accidents too, of course I was there at the time so that probably keeps it clear in my mind. She puts me on hold, then comes back, reads me the rules and regulations, paying particular attention to the bits about giving false information, then she puts me on hold to talk to the "underwriters", oooh I just can't wait, the suspense is killing me, "hilloo, right I've spoken to the underwriters and apparently the quote is correct £350", "hmmm" I'm keeping her on the edge of her seat now, "ok well I'll have to come back to you about that", I punch in all my details again, include the one accident (2004) that's relevant on the Eunsure site and hey presto...£288, it's a tough call but I decide to go with Eunsure....
Saturday 18th June 2005:
Thank god for that! It's Saturday, no work for the next four days yipply doo dar.
I remember that I have to send an email to RammedBox, it's another long story that I'll try miserably to shorten. Basically I ordered some blank DVD's, sure enough on thursday they arrived, I unpacked them, then Jumblewoman, Mandy's sister wanted a copy of "Screwing it" a BBC TV series first two episodes that she'd missed, so I slam in one of the new DVD's to discover they're DVD-R and not DVD+R. The difference is subtle and unimportant so I won't bore you with the details, I've much more impressive things to bore you with the details of ! Soo I emailed, more out desperation than hope, customer dis-services, to discover them very compliant, I got an email then a telephone call saying they'd arrange to pick up the "faulty" DVD's, I'd already placed an order for the correct one's so this should be fairly straight forward, no ?, No! Having changed the delivery address to work, coz, there isn't anyone at home during the day, now Mandy's Painting & Decorating business is taking off (quite why she'd volunteer to go an paint someone elses house I don't know). So Friday comes and I explain to reception that a man from Unintellink will be coming to swap them over and I parcel up the "faulty" one's with far too much bubble wrap. Friday comes and sure enough the man turns up and delivers my order, but....doesn't pick up the "faulty" one's aaaagghhh, so I send off my email to RammedBox explaining what's happened.
Friday night I get home, to discover an unintellink card has been posted through the door, I'm beginning to get a bad feeling about this....
So Saturday, I'm checking my mail and sure enough there's one from Steve at RammedBox, saying that yes Unintellink have screwed up and the pick up would happen on Monday, from my house, luckily I'm off but unluckily I'm not in all day....
The last episode of Doctor Who ? series 27 has just finished, what a finish, very impressive and the kids are now outside, re-enacting the episode with a hint of Star Wars thrown in, sort of Dr Who Versus Darth Vader, with light sabres and everything....
Sunday 19th June 2005 (Fathers Day):
Like every father up and down the country, the day breaks, and I lie there and I lie there, nothing, not a cheeky smile, not the sight of Mandy scantily clad in her ironing outfit (bikini top and short skirt (well that's what it was yesterday)), nope nuttin, It's about 40 degrees so I have to get up and make tea, Mandy's head is still, unfortunately welded to the pillow, so she only takes a couple of hours to resusitate....
My card arrives with two 'orrible sprogs' attached to it, "Happy fathers day" comes the somewhat unconvincing chant and they return fairly quickly back to their playstations and computer games. The card contains 3 cinema tickets to see Batman Begins, something I'm most impressed with, only trouble is I've got to find 2 children to take with me, can't think for the life of me, who they would be ;-))
We hot foot it over to Spitfire Dave's (Mandy's dad) to give him his card and Cashbase (aaaghh resistance is futile) vouchers, Jack isn't feeling very well (obviously hasn't had his fill of christians souls this morning).
He's complaining of stinging and burning when he wee's, so we suspect a urine infection.
Mandy phones DontphoneusDocs, and insists that someone see's him, so we jump back in the far too hot, "ooh ow, leather seats"... car and drive over to the hospital. Now given his complaint it's a bit gauling to see that we're asked to sit in the Yellow waiting area !!! A quick sample test later and our fears are confirmed, it's urinary infection antibiotics are prescribed, which ironically are also yellow...hmmmm...is someone taking the (now that would be ironic!! and not to mention a little ridiculous!)...
I note with interest the sign on the door stating that due to an outbreak of something deadly, they're restricting visiting hours.... It also states that children under 12 and the elderly and anyone showing symptoms of the outbroken disease should stay away. Under 12 and the elderly ok I understand, but if you've got it then surely you'd want to go to hospital ? What do you do if you've got an uncurable disease if they won't let you in the hospital ? hmmmm...
NOTE: Dear action filmakers, please...slow down your fight sequences, I thought it was just coz I was old and my eyes were crap, but POD tells me afterwards that he was struggling to understand who was ripping the head off of who, so clearly it's not just me.
The cinema was bursting at the seams...with air...tell a lie there were about 8 of us in there. For some reason on a bright sunny, bloody hot (36 degrees) June day, people don't seem to want to go to the cinema...very odd !! We enjoyed the film anyhow in a lovely dark air conditioned room, and a quick check on the time when we got out reveals that it was gone 7pm !!!??? How did that happen ? Went in at 4:30pm came out at 7:30pm...Monday tomorrow..and a day off !!!
Monday, June 13, 2005
Adventure 24: 14th June 2005
"yeah I know but it's only money...." Hi there, been fer ages since my last post, it's finally become manic from this end....
10th June 2005:
Well it finally happened. Bailout has finally handed in his notice, giving 6 weeks I think was bloody good of him. He's obviously soooo worried about him contractually having to give 3 months, but as I and others explained to him. What's the worst that could happen.
Today is a good day.... since, it's payday and even better because it's also bonus day and add to that it's Friday and you can see where I'm coming from I'm sure. I was informed last week that I'd met all but one of my objectives for the year, my 5 "My Contribution" submissions probably swung it for me. 9.6% bonus was very nicely received ;-))) and boy do I have plans for it...
According to Bailout, the roonstone cowboy and his cohorts want to take a couple of days considering his resignation, hmmm I must admit it's a little puzzling, he's leaving on day x, so what's to think about and why did they mention it to him ?
Saturday 11th June 2005: Mandy and I spent today doing some serious damage to my Bonus, least said about this the better, but I did buy a new digital camera, which seems to be seriously good, either that or my last one was really bad ;-)
In the afternoon we took the kids to Frimley Lodge, to kick a ball about and try and play tennis on their "oh so flat" playing field, lots of chasing after runaway tennis balls was therefore the order of the afternoon, usually I might add by Mandy.
Ryan and I played see how many goals I can score past a 12 year old !!! Which was obviously lots. We stayed there until about 5:30pm then we decided to try and track down a Pizza Hut for dinner.
18:00: Found a Pizza Hut, in farnborough. "Table for four ?" comes the question, for some reason I count us, and yup it's four, very odd. We sit down next door to "Single Dad and son" in front of boys five-a-side football team, with their collective supervisors sat opposite. Table manners are obviously a thing best left to other people this isn't particularly surprising judging by the number of empty Tossweiser bottles left on the "grown ups" table.
18:15: I finish inspecting and rejecting the cutlery, I don't know about anyone else but piece of cheese hanging off fork, isn't clean in my book, but maybe I'm just being pinickity !!
18:30: Oh so foreign student waitress comes to our table and takes our order, a meat feast for Ryan and me to share and two individual cheese and tomato pizza's for Jack and Mandy, one a childrens pizza the other a grown ups.
18:45: Imagine our surprise when Mandy and Jack's pizza's turn up and they look identical, size and everything. Apparently they were out of childrens pizza's so Jack's is in fact an adults, yeah right, the old we're out of the smaller cheaper pizza's excuse, unconvinced we tuck in.
Sunday 12th June 2005:
Just a small entry here. You should have seen the size of Mandy's ironing. I say Mandy's ironing coz despite my best unconvincing, "let me give you a hand with the ironing", she's still insistent on doing it all herself, she really is an angel...the type that does ironing.
Monday 13th June 2005:
Back to bleeding work....at least I have something to do this week (next week and the week after and maybe more). I've been tasked with the Architecture Blueprint, which is basically cataloging every bit of kit globally attached to our network (not PC's or laptops). So I spent most of today doing visio diagrams and sodding about with that type of stuff. I also did the agenda and booked the room for Wednesdays latest departmental meeting. All I did was mention that one of the actions for the wizard to do was organise with me a presentation schedule, somehow that meant I had to do a presentation doh ! It took me about 30 minutes to do all the slides for my presentation on the Basingstoke SAN, this should be a real breeze....
Tuesday 14th June 2005:
A quiet but fruitful day today, managed to blag about 2 hours surf time "researching for the blueprint", Corvette seems to have snagged the wizard today poor cow.
Parents evening tonight, grrr, boy do I love teachers. This should be a new experience for us both since we've never been to a "big school" parents evening. It was quite a funny site, all the teachers in the school were lined up alphabetically in the sports hall behind those desks that were too small to do your exams on when you were at school. Ryan was responsible for the teachers we got appointments for so I wasn't holding my breath. First up, ah Mr Flaherty, school drama teacher and curiously enough Ryan's stage school teacher, there were enough "excellents" to sink a battle ship, so we stayed chatting for 5 or so minutes before going to see the next teacher on the list. This was Science, "excellent, a pleasure to teach" came from the Father Christmas look a like, I mean how would you know ?? Next up PE, starting to see a pattern here ? The PE teacher was about 12 years old himself and I'm not altogether convinced he wasnt a student stand in, again all fine here "a pleasure to teach" etc etc. Next up German, so we goosestep over to Ryan's drama teacher, who it turns out really is German !!! Sacre Bleu or the German equivalent. Again apparently top student, very well behaved and has to just has to do a German GCSE. "So where next" I pipe up leaving the beaming German teacher, "no that's it" comes the surprising reply, "what about Maths, seeing as he struggles a bit with maths", "no, his teacher is off sick and the other teacher didn't have any appointments", damn that's a shame, "oh well what about English", "mmmm nope", none of his English teachers are here they're all off. Unimpressed we make our excuses and leave....
Wednesday 15th June 2005:
Not a great deal to talk about here, today consisted of a series of meetings, the first of which I arranged for 9:00am, the Architecture & Technophobes Bi-monthly meeting. I've somehow managed to get volunteered to do a presentation on the SAN. Fortunately my powerpoint presentation is ready to go. It's only Me, Brentboy, Invisi-Dave and the Wizard, Dunc the skunkmaster has cried off something to do with couldn't be arsed and Corvette is under the doctor (funny she didn't mention her boyfriend was a doctor). So we rattle through the agenda (note to self must do the minutes for that), I say rattle when I actually mean labour.
I give my presentation and it goes down fairly well, I mean there were only one or two yawns so that's a good result in my book ;-)).
I get home to discover that Ryan has had "an incident" with a cup of tea, having managed to pour it over himself. He's got a very red stomach and looks to be in quite a lot of pain.
POD is being extremely helpful, only mentioning that he absolutely nothing to do, just the once so far so good.
Bedtime brings it's own share of delights, Ryan virtually crawling up the stairs, wrapped in a blanket for safety. Jack has suddenly remembered that he can't remember any of his lines for his assembly tomorrow. Nothing like last minute nerves eh ?
Thursday 16th June 2005:
The wizard and Brentboy are out, Dave's in Portsmouth and Corvette is still off, so it's just me today. I get in about twenty to nine and leave again at about twenty past nine for Jacks assembly.
Get to Jacks school at about half past and a couple of minutes later Mandy turns up with the camcorder primed and ready to go.
The assembly is excellent, Jacks part is to play a schoolboy version of Chris Tarrant doing "who wants to be a millionaire", lots of laughter and him standing in front of the head mistress, Big G as she's known to many asking her to spell sarcophogus (I'm not sure even I spelt that correctly).
About half past ten I make it back to work, scripting to do and network mapping to sod about at (triffic).
Friday 17th June 2005
Not much happening today, at least Brentboy is in so I have someone to take my mind of things. My mobile hasn't stopped either, I have two interviews for other jobs (monday and tuesday) and a possible third yet to be determined. Then it goes again, it's ripoffline direct, my insurance company. I love these guys, they send me a insurance renewal through for £350, so I hop on to their website and do an online quote and it comes out at £328 !!! like lambs to the slaughter, I do a couple more Indirect Line quote me £325 and Eunsure quote me £210 !!! even better...my email is buzzing with "how come"'s and "why"'s, the guy on the other end of the line says he has to put me on hold and I then speak to someone else, who verifies my car and says because they're busy could someone phone me back, bizarre or what ? They phoned me...Still they can wriggle all they like, if the quote isn't significantly near to the Eunsure quote I'll be going with them I think this year. I just have to work out how to pay for it....
10th June 2005:
Well it finally happened. Bailout has finally handed in his notice, giving 6 weeks I think was bloody good of him. He's obviously soooo worried about him contractually having to give 3 months, but as I and others explained to him. What's the worst that could happen.
Today is a good day.... since, it's payday and even better because it's also bonus day and add to that it's Friday and you can see where I'm coming from I'm sure. I was informed last week that I'd met all but one of my objectives for the year, my 5 "My Contribution" submissions probably swung it for me. 9.6% bonus was very nicely received ;-))) and boy do I have plans for it...
According to Bailout, the roonstone cowboy and his cohorts want to take a couple of days considering his resignation, hmmm I must admit it's a little puzzling, he's leaving on day x, so what's to think about and why did they mention it to him ?
Saturday 11th June 2005: Mandy and I spent today doing some serious damage to my Bonus, least said about this the better, but I did buy a new digital camera, which seems to be seriously good, either that or my last one was really bad ;-)
In the afternoon we took the kids to Frimley Lodge, to kick a ball about and try and play tennis on their "oh so flat" playing field, lots of chasing after runaway tennis balls was therefore the order of the afternoon, usually I might add by Mandy.
Ryan and I played see how many goals I can score past a 12 year old !!! Which was obviously lots. We stayed there until about 5:30pm then we decided to try and track down a Pizza Hut for dinner.
18:00: Found a Pizza Hut, in farnborough. "Table for four ?" comes the question, for some reason I count us, and yup it's four, very odd. We sit down next door to "Single Dad and son" in front of boys five-a-side football team, with their collective supervisors sat opposite. Table manners are obviously a thing best left to other people this isn't particularly surprising judging by the number of empty Tossweiser bottles left on the "grown ups" table.
18:15: I finish inspecting and rejecting the cutlery, I don't know about anyone else but piece of cheese hanging off fork, isn't clean in my book, but maybe I'm just being pinickity !!
18:30: Oh so foreign student waitress comes to our table and takes our order, a meat feast for Ryan and me to share and two individual cheese and tomato pizza's for Jack and Mandy, one a childrens pizza the other a grown ups.
18:45: Imagine our surprise when Mandy and Jack's pizza's turn up and they look identical, size and everything. Apparently they were out of childrens pizza's so Jack's is in fact an adults, yeah right, the old we're out of the smaller cheaper pizza's excuse, unconvinced we tuck in.
Sunday 12th June 2005:
Just a small entry here. You should have seen the size of Mandy's ironing. I say Mandy's ironing coz despite my best unconvincing, "let me give you a hand with the ironing", she's still insistent on doing it all herself, she really is an angel...the type that does ironing.
Monday 13th June 2005:
Back to bleeding work....at least I have something to do this week (next week and the week after and maybe more). I've been tasked with the Architecture Blueprint, which is basically cataloging every bit of kit globally attached to our network (not PC's or laptops). So I spent most of today doing visio diagrams and sodding about with that type of stuff. I also did the agenda and booked the room for Wednesdays latest departmental meeting. All I did was mention that one of the actions for the wizard to do was organise with me a presentation schedule, somehow that meant I had to do a presentation doh ! It took me about 30 minutes to do all the slides for my presentation on the Basingstoke SAN, this should be a real breeze....
Tuesday 14th June 2005:
A quiet but fruitful day today, managed to blag about 2 hours surf time "researching for the blueprint", Corvette seems to have snagged the wizard today poor cow.
Parents evening tonight, grrr, boy do I love teachers. This should be a new experience for us both since we've never been to a "big school" parents evening. It was quite a funny site, all the teachers in the school were lined up alphabetically in the sports hall behind those desks that were too small to do your exams on when you were at school. Ryan was responsible for the teachers we got appointments for so I wasn't holding my breath. First up, ah Mr Flaherty, school drama teacher and curiously enough Ryan's stage school teacher, there were enough "excellents" to sink a battle ship, so we stayed chatting for 5 or so minutes before going to see the next teacher on the list. This was Science, "excellent, a pleasure to teach" came from the Father Christmas look a like, I mean how would you know ?? Next up PE, starting to see a pattern here ? The PE teacher was about 12 years old himself and I'm not altogether convinced he wasnt a student stand in, again all fine here "a pleasure to teach" etc etc. Next up German, so we goosestep over to Ryan's drama teacher, who it turns out really is German !!! Sacre Bleu or the German equivalent. Again apparently top student, very well behaved and has to just has to do a German GCSE. "So where next" I pipe up leaving the beaming German teacher, "no that's it" comes the surprising reply, "what about Maths, seeing as he struggles a bit with maths", "no, his teacher is off sick and the other teacher didn't have any appointments", damn that's a shame, "oh well what about English", "mmmm nope", none of his English teachers are here they're all off. Unimpressed we make our excuses and leave....
Wednesday 15th June 2005:
Not a great deal to talk about here, today consisted of a series of meetings, the first of which I arranged for 9:00am, the Architecture & Technophobes Bi-monthly meeting. I've somehow managed to get volunteered to do a presentation on the SAN. Fortunately my powerpoint presentation is ready to go. It's only Me, Brentboy, Invisi-Dave and the Wizard, Dunc the skunkmaster has cried off something to do with couldn't be arsed and Corvette is under the doctor (funny she didn't mention her boyfriend was a doctor). So we rattle through the agenda (note to self must do the minutes for that), I say rattle when I actually mean labour.
I give my presentation and it goes down fairly well, I mean there were only one or two yawns so that's a good result in my book ;-)).
I get home to discover that Ryan has had "an incident" with a cup of tea, having managed to pour it over himself. He's got a very red stomach and looks to be in quite a lot of pain.
POD is being extremely helpful, only mentioning that he absolutely nothing to do, just the once so far so good.
Bedtime brings it's own share of delights, Ryan virtually crawling up the stairs, wrapped in a blanket for safety. Jack has suddenly remembered that he can't remember any of his lines for his assembly tomorrow. Nothing like last minute nerves eh ?
Thursday 16th June 2005:
The wizard and Brentboy are out, Dave's in Portsmouth and Corvette is still off, so it's just me today. I get in about twenty to nine and leave again at about twenty past nine for Jacks assembly.
Get to Jacks school at about half past and a couple of minutes later Mandy turns up with the camcorder primed and ready to go.
The assembly is excellent, Jacks part is to play a schoolboy version of Chris Tarrant doing "who wants to be a millionaire", lots of laughter and him standing in front of the head mistress, Big G as she's known to many asking her to spell sarcophogus (I'm not sure even I spelt that correctly).
About half past ten I make it back to work, scripting to do and network mapping to sod about at (triffic).
Friday 17th June 2005
Not much happening today, at least Brentboy is in so I have someone to take my mind of things. My mobile hasn't stopped either, I have two interviews for other jobs (monday and tuesday) and a possible third yet to be determined. Then it goes again, it's ripoffline direct, my insurance company. I love these guys, they send me a insurance renewal through for £350, so I hop on to their website and do an online quote and it comes out at £328 !!! like lambs to the slaughter, I do a couple more Indirect Line quote me £325 and Eunsure quote me £210 !!! even better...my email is buzzing with "how come"'s and "why"'s, the guy on the other end of the line says he has to put me on hold and I then speak to someone else, who verifies my car and says because they're busy could someone phone me back, bizarre or what ? They phoned me...Still they can wriggle all they like, if the quote isn't significantly near to the Eunsure quote I'll be going with them I think this year. I just have to work out how to pay for it....
