Thursday, July 14, 2005
Adventure 29: 14th July 2005
"Rule no.1 never pay for anything....", lo all, not particularly eventful few days, but I'll do my best...
Friday 8th July 2005:
09:00: Work again, damn it, I really have to give this thing up. The Grand Wizard had asked me to provide him with a document of deliverables for the Blueprint project I've been working on, by the end of the week. I've duly obliged but he's now off for just over a week, so my efforts, once again would seem to be in vain. I email the skunkmaster, just in case he feels like taking some of Tom's "work" on... Fortunately he's said he'd look at my document and review it, that's the last I'll ever see of it I know.
10:00: Ah triffic, some more internal spam, some of it is awe inspiring it really is. Apparently there's a power cut at Horrorgraphics and it's taken their network out. I could get enthused by it but....no...
11:00: I've begun doing some work on the Blueprint stuff. I'm doing a course on SQL server, called, "teach yourself SQL server and remember a few years back when you did ASP's", it seems to be the only way to get training at Don't Be Daft international.
12:00: Just goes to show how wrong you can be... I get another internal spam message, except this time it's actually for me. Apparently my Inside Information skills aren't all they could be and therefore I need to waste, sorry spend 2-4 hours learning that I shouldn't send sensitive information about the company I work for to our competitors. If only I'd known !! To be honest if I did decided to send sensitive information to our competitors 1. I'd have to known who our competitors were, and 2. I'm likely to be doing it because I want to, it's not that likely that I'd inadvertently discover who our competitors are and then find some sensitive information to send them...they really don't think I have anything better to do, do they ?
They could train me for the skills needed to do my job, Inactive Refectory, SQL server, Windows or even linux, but no...inside information...I despare....
14:00: Back from Lunch, Bailout is looking a bit peaky, well if peaky means planning your Sky+ installation for the following Monday. He's still committed to coming in most of next week even though it's his last, fairly unbelievable really but he obviously wants to leave on a good note...ha! fat chance ! We're already deciding what cock ups we can attribute to him, most of them if the truth be known ;-)).....
Saturday: 9th July 2005:
Mandy has been "persuaded" to go to the Richard Aldworth summer fayre, by her Mum, which means I'm left on my own. I've various assigned jobs to do, and there was a suggestion that I could consider cleaning out my car and washing it !!! Wash the car ????!!! I have staff that do that.. I potter about for a bit then I can't take it any more. The rubbish outside the back door needs doing so I trundle it through my oh so tidy garage (Mandy's good like that), and attempt to open the door. Nup, bins are in the way again (Mandy's really bad like that). So I walk through the house and around move the bins out of the way and open the garage door.
The Spiders run about at the sight of daylight, "oh so bright...quick run, hide...".
The rubbish is now away and I'm feeling better about myself...then I walk past my car, which seems to be getting darker as the days and weeks pass. It's no good, that "you could always clean out and wash your car..." is nagging in the back of my brain, funny how they can nag you even when they're not there.
I find a bucket in the garage that has some sort of dusty, spidery gunge in the bottom of it, empty out the contents, some gardening gloves, a stone and some seceteurs, the floor of the garage seems a perfect place for them...
I fill up the bucket with far too much washing up liquid, in fact I think there are now more bubbles than water but hey it all looks good. I discover a large spounge that I bought some time ago in a fit of madness, specifically for washing cars, it's about 8ft long and 4ft wide and you can do a whole care in one wipe !! Now wouldn't that be a top invention ?
I set to work, it's only when you start washing that you realise how dirty the thing actually is. This is quite good, as it's fairly impossible to miss bits.
I'm reminded that I could have been really evil and simply driven up to Sinsberry's car park, as some bright spark has started his own manual car washing business, every time you park some oik virtually acosts you and says "want yer car washin' mate", sorry but they want to wash my car ? I'm tempted to say why would I let you any where near my car, when the last time you were near one you were trying to force the window so you could go joy riding in it....so I don't, I just stare back at them distainfully and walk on... any how so that's a no go, I like my paintwork I really don't want them ruining that....
Two bloody hours later I'm nearly there...just the wheels to do. I've decided that since they have a habit of ripping the skin from my hands, I was going to use a dustpan brush. Whata mistaka to makea, I'm now covered in wet black stuff, so I revert to the skin shredding...
I'm just finished and Mandy's back from the fayre with POD. They've got a couple of bits but nothing to write home about.
Sunday 10th July 2005:
We decide to go to Peterton's Park, our local theme park. I'm not entirely sure what the theme is, but it involves an owl I gather. Mandy has packed up the picnic, the flask etc, It's left to me to assemble the in car entertainment, a pair of LCD screens and an in car DVD player. I can't work out how two sets of headphones can possibly work with one headphone socket on the dvd player, but I sort of get it working with a socket doubler and we're just about there.
The kids have selected 6 DVD's for the journey, the park is about an hour away so clearly they're gonna get through them.
We're driving along and I'm fairly interested in how it's working for them, the sound apparently isn't that great and there's a bit of whinging involved... about 20 minutes in to the journey and it's all gone quiet in the back. Either one of them has fallen asleep or something else has happened. "Ryan, hows the DVD player working ?" I ask, "Yeah fine ", he replies, " how's the sound now ?", "yeah it's fine, I plugged my headphones in to the headphone socket on my screen and it's fine", DOH!!!!
Monday 11th July:
09:00: It's bloody monday again, I think there should be a moritorium on mondays, we seem to have them for everything else...
10:00: I begin working on the blueprint project, it's a web based application, so I need to rediscover how I extract information from a SQL server database and display it on a web page, lots of web searching will now ensue...
11:00: Yahay...one of my innocent searches has managed to throw up an ASP+SQL server script generator program, and even better it's free. This is the bees banana's (if bee's had banana's) and has saved me a whole load of grief and time, not that I'm telling anyone that, just think how good I'm going to look when I complete this months ahead of schedule..god I'm good....
Friday 8th July 2005:
09:00: Work again, damn it, I really have to give this thing up. The Grand Wizard had asked me to provide him with a document of deliverables for the Blueprint project I've been working on, by the end of the week. I've duly obliged but he's now off for just over a week, so my efforts, once again would seem to be in vain. I email the skunkmaster, just in case he feels like taking some of Tom's "work" on... Fortunately he's said he'd look at my document and review it, that's the last I'll ever see of it I know.
10:00: Ah triffic, some more internal spam, some of it is awe inspiring it really is. Apparently there's a power cut at Horrorgraphics and it's taken their network out. I could get enthused by it but....no...
11:00: I've begun doing some work on the Blueprint stuff. I'm doing a course on SQL server, called, "teach yourself SQL server and remember a few years back when you did ASP's", it seems to be the only way to get training at Don't Be Daft international.
12:00: Just goes to show how wrong you can be... I get another internal spam message, except this time it's actually for me. Apparently my Inside Information skills aren't all they could be and therefore I need to waste, sorry spend 2-4 hours learning that I shouldn't send sensitive information about the company I work for to our competitors. If only I'd known !! To be honest if I did decided to send sensitive information to our competitors 1. I'd have to known who our competitors were, and 2. I'm likely to be doing it because I want to, it's not that likely that I'd inadvertently discover who our competitors are and then find some sensitive information to send them...they really don't think I have anything better to do, do they ?
They could train me for the skills needed to do my job, Inactive Refectory, SQL server, Windows or even linux, but no...inside information...I despare....
14:00: Back from Lunch, Bailout is looking a bit peaky, well if peaky means planning your Sky+ installation for the following Monday. He's still committed to coming in most of next week even though it's his last, fairly unbelievable really but he obviously wants to leave on a good note...ha! fat chance ! We're already deciding what cock ups we can attribute to him, most of them if the truth be known ;-)).....
Saturday: 9th July 2005:
Mandy has been "persuaded" to go to the Richard Aldworth summer fayre, by her Mum, which means I'm left on my own. I've various assigned jobs to do, and there was a suggestion that I could consider cleaning out my car and washing it !!! Wash the car ????!!! I have staff that do that.. I potter about for a bit then I can't take it any more. The rubbish outside the back door needs doing so I trundle it through my oh so tidy garage (Mandy's good like that), and attempt to open the door. Nup, bins are in the way again (Mandy's really bad like that). So I walk through the house and around move the bins out of the way and open the garage door.
The Spiders run about at the sight of daylight, "oh so bright...quick run, hide...".
The rubbish is now away and I'm feeling better about myself...then I walk past my car, which seems to be getting darker as the days and weeks pass. It's no good, that "you could always clean out and wash your car..." is nagging in the back of my brain, funny how they can nag you even when they're not there.
I find a bucket in the garage that has some sort of dusty, spidery gunge in the bottom of it, empty out the contents, some gardening gloves, a stone and some seceteurs, the floor of the garage seems a perfect place for them...
I fill up the bucket with far too much washing up liquid, in fact I think there are now more bubbles than water but hey it all looks good. I discover a large spounge that I bought some time ago in a fit of madness, specifically for washing cars, it's about 8ft long and 4ft wide and you can do a whole care in one wipe !! Now wouldn't that be a top invention ?
I set to work, it's only when you start washing that you realise how dirty the thing actually is. This is quite good, as it's fairly impossible to miss bits.
I'm reminded that I could have been really evil and simply driven up to Sinsberry's car park, as some bright spark has started his own manual car washing business, every time you park some oik virtually acosts you and says "want yer car washin' mate", sorry but they want to wash my car ? I'm tempted to say why would I let you any where near my car, when the last time you were near one you were trying to force the window so you could go joy riding in it....so I don't, I just stare back at them distainfully and walk on... any how so that's a no go, I like my paintwork I really don't want them ruining that....
Two bloody hours later I'm nearly there...just the wheels to do. I've decided that since they have a habit of ripping the skin from my hands, I was going to use a dustpan brush. Whata mistaka to makea, I'm now covered in wet black stuff, so I revert to the skin shredding...
I'm just finished and Mandy's back from the fayre with POD. They've got a couple of bits but nothing to write home about.
Sunday 10th July 2005:
We decide to go to Peterton's Park, our local theme park. I'm not entirely sure what the theme is, but it involves an owl I gather. Mandy has packed up the picnic, the flask etc, It's left to me to assemble the in car entertainment, a pair of LCD screens and an in car DVD player. I can't work out how two sets of headphones can possibly work with one headphone socket on the dvd player, but I sort of get it working with a socket doubler and we're just about there.
The kids have selected 6 DVD's for the journey, the park is about an hour away so clearly they're gonna get through them.
We're driving along and I'm fairly interested in how it's working for them, the sound apparently isn't that great and there's a bit of whinging involved... about 20 minutes in to the journey and it's all gone quiet in the back. Either one of them has fallen asleep or something else has happened. "Ryan, hows the DVD player working ?" I ask, "Yeah fine ", he replies, " how's the sound now ?", "yeah it's fine, I plugged my headphones in to the headphone socket on my screen and it's fine", DOH!!!!
Monday 11th July:
09:00: It's bloody monday again, I think there should be a moritorium on mondays, we seem to have them for everything else...
10:00: I begin working on the blueprint project, it's a web based application, so I need to rediscover how I extract information from a SQL server database and display it on a web page, lots of web searching will now ensue...
11:00: Yahay...one of my innocent searches has managed to throw up an ASP+SQL server script generator program, and even better it's free. This is the bees banana's (if bee's had banana's) and has saved me a whole load of grief and time, not that I'm telling anyone that, just think how good I'm going to look when I complete this months ahead of schedule..god I'm good....
Friday, July 08, 2005
Adventure 28: 8th July 2005
“Where is the Centre and what’s Excellent about it ?....”
Hi all, it’s been over a week since my last entry. I’d like to say I’ve been really busy, but as we all know that’d be a complete lie…I am on a mission or a quest though to discover what and where the centre, of excellence is....It would seem that the Centre is distributed, across northern Europe and no one can tell me what's excellent about it...
Just to finish off….
Monday 27th June:
15:00: Bill Zunpronoucable, has called me into his office for a “5 minute” chat, admittedly at my request. I quickly discover that a “5 minute” chat actually means a 1 ½ hour chat, cuh stupid me eh.
The content of that chat centres around the fact that the department as a whole has suffered three restructures in past year, evidence for me that it’s not just the Centre of Excellence section, who’s title has little to do with what they do.
According to Bill though, he’s not the boss, I’m not the boss of anyone and no one is my boss, we’re all the same and we all bring different skills to the party. I don’t remember there being a party, or bringing any skills to it. I look at him incredulously and comment, “I’m sure you honestly believe that” (one too many management training courses imho) “but Bill the people out there aren’t daft, if you’re the same as us then why would you attract a salary many times that of mine ?”. Apparently the answer is simple, it’s not all about money and I’ll probably find that given exchange rates my salary and his are probably similar ( I DON’T FINK SO!)
17:00: I’ve escaped from the Bullsh%t and make it home.
Tuesday 28th June:
10:00: The grand wizard has invited me to a meeting. Excellent, I didn’t have much else on so a meeting is quite something. Apparently the company BobbySands Technology are coming in to talk to us about something. He can’t give me anymore than that because he’s forgotten why they were coming, so I do a quick web look up on their company and discover they do data warehousing management software and other really good stuff. Really good that is if you have a data warehouse and it needs managing, which….we don’t.10:20: One of the quickest meetings in history are over, they asked us if we had a data warehouse and if it needed managing and when the wizard said “err no”…they kind of left fairly hurriedly…
Friday 1st July:
10:00: Doctors today to talk about my ankle which seems to be giving more and more grief, I simply can’t run on it which makes the Monday night game of 5,6,7,8,25 a side tricky.
11:00: Back at work, I was literally in there for about 10 minutes. I told the Doctor, my problems he said “oh” and then referred me to the hospital, cracking !
Saturday 2nd July:
It’s the bleedin’ weekend, it’s also Jack’s school “fun” day, and I have his new bed to make. We bought it from Argosments so I know it’s a. going to be a flat pack though looking at the size of the box in the hallway I’m not so sure, and b. I know it’s going to be a pain.
11:00: I begin unpacking the box…My god there are so many bits to this. Having arranged all the bits in Jack’s room and arranged him in a corner still playing his computer game, I can begin. First things first I unpack the instructions…”Tools required: 1 x Allen Key (that doesn’t actually fit any of the screws) – Supplied, Hammer (not supplied), Bradel – not supplied”, Bradel ?? I don’t know anyone who still has one of those, I’m intrigued as to why. I break open my cordless drill which will now double as a bradel !
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Recommencement of construction….
14:30: I’m in full swing, when I hear Mandy talking to someone…It’s her Mum who’s coming to the “fun” day, apparently though I’m not, pretending to be a bit upset at the prospect of having to carry on making Jack’s bed I trudge off back upstairs….
15:30: Nearly completed the bed from hell, then I discover that the head board kind of only works when you attach it the right way around “DOH!”
16:30: I slide the last draw in and I’m done, Mandy’s just got back from the “fun” day, Jack seems very pleased with the bits and pieces he’s got, especially since most of what he’s got is sweets…
Monday 4th July: (American independence day – good riddance to bad rubbish!!)
It’s all over the papers, and all over the web Steven Gerrard could be leaving Liverpool, his agent has reported to the press, bust ups over him signing a new contract, but I’m my usually cautious, not believing anything one way or another. Chelski, seem to be the favourites, which would be a real gutter, especially since my Step Dad is a massive Chelski fan, I don’t think I could take that much gloating….
Tuesday 5th July: It’s bloody official, he’s released a statement saying it was the hardest decision of his life, (yeah, should I get paid 100,000 a week or 120,000 a week tough call that one !). Ryan is distraught, I just hope Gerrard is satisfied.
11:00: Partick, the scuridy manager, asks me to come out and explain how it’s possible to implement an eunsafe solution ‘in-line’ in our environment, since Basra Pentonville, doesn’t think it can be done. He’s not wrong, the only way we could implement this would be to mirror ports and do it in pass-by mode. Hang on a second, why are we even contemplating a system like this when we already have WebNonsense doing exactly the same job ? I ask this and get the response, that he just wants to look at the reporting capabilities of the product, hmmm that’d be those reporting capabilities that he never uses in WebNonsense then. Never let it be said we do everything twice eh!!!
Wednesday 6th July:
08:50: I’m in late, I’m pissed off, I’m now ranting about Steven Gerrard, frankly to anyone who’ll listen, “money grabber…” etc etc…
12:45: The city to host the 30th Olympiad in 2012, will be….London…I’m made up, 7 years away but it feels like we won the world cup or something.
13:45: Quiet Rob has made my day, apparently it’s all been a big mistake and Stevie G, top player, really nice guy is staying at Liverpool, things can only get better…..
Thursday 7th July:
08:50: The worlds gone mad, there are reports coming in of four massive explosions in London, the bastards have targeted 3 tube trains and a London bus, Christ if they wanted the Olympics that badly, then perhaps we should have let them have it…I’m annoyed, mostly because of the senseless loss of life and injury, but also because I now know what my TV is going to be for the next month, endless, documentaries and extended news programmes, how it happened, why it happened, what happened, eye witness accounts, no eye witness accounts and so on and so on and so on, I can’t bloody wait.
09:30: We were a bit worried about Corvette since she’s supposed to be training in London today. My suspicious mind is working overtime, she’s training hmmm…before she went to London no bombs, after, bombs, mmmmm….
Hi all, it’s been over a week since my last entry. I’d like to say I’ve been really busy, but as we all know that’d be a complete lie…I am on a mission or a quest though to discover what and where the centre, of excellence is....It would seem that the Centre is distributed, across northern Europe and no one can tell me what's excellent about it...
Just to finish off….
Monday 27th June:
15:00: Bill Zunpronoucable, has called me into his office for a “5 minute” chat, admittedly at my request. I quickly discover that a “5 minute” chat actually means a 1 ½ hour chat, cuh stupid me eh.
The content of that chat centres around the fact that the department as a whole has suffered three restructures in past year, evidence for me that it’s not just the Centre of Excellence section, who’s title has little to do with what they do.
According to Bill though, he’s not the boss, I’m not the boss of anyone and no one is my boss, we’re all the same and we all bring different skills to the party. I don’t remember there being a party, or bringing any skills to it. I look at him incredulously and comment, “I’m sure you honestly believe that” (one too many management training courses imho) “but Bill the people out there aren’t daft, if you’re the same as us then why would you attract a salary many times that of mine ?”. Apparently the answer is simple, it’s not all about money and I’ll probably find that given exchange rates my salary and his are probably similar ( I DON’T FINK SO!)
17:00: I’ve escaped from the Bullsh%t and make it home.
Tuesday 28th June:
10:00: The grand wizard has invited me to a meeting. Excellent, I didn’t have much else on so a meeting is quite something. Apparently the company BobbySands Technology are coming in to talk to us about something. He can’t give me anymore than that because he’s forgotten why they were coming, so I do a quick web look up on their company and discover they do data warehousing management software and other really good stuff. Really good that is if you have a data warehouse and it needs managing, which….we don’t.10:20: One of the quickest meetings in history are over, they asked us if we had a data warehouse and if it needed managing and when the wizard said “err no”…they kind of left fairly hurriedly…
Friday 1st July:
10:00: Doctors today to talk about my ankle which seems to be giving more and more grief, I simply can’t run on it which makes the Monday night game of 5,6,7,8,25 a side tricky.
11:00: Back at work, I was literally in there for about 10 minutes. I told the Doctor, my problems he said “oh” and then referred me to the hospital, cracking !
Saturday 2nd July:
It’s the bleedin’ weekend, it’s also Jack’s school “fun” day, and I have his new bed to make. We bought it from Argosments so I know it’s a. going to be a flat pack though looking at the size of the box in the hallway I’m not so sure, and b. I know it’s going to be a pain.
11:00: I begin unpacking the box…My god there are so many bits to this. Having arranged all the bits in Jack’s room and arranged him in a corner still playing his computer game, I can begin. First things first I unpack the instructions…”Tools required: 1 x Allen Key (that doesn’t actually fit any of the screws) – Supplied, Hammer (not supplied), Bradel – not supplied”, Bradel ?? I don’t know anyone who still has one of those, I’m intrigued as to why. I break open my cordless drill which will now double as a bradel !
12:30: Lunch
13:30: Recommencement of construction….
14:30: I’m in full swing, when I hear Mandy talking to someone…It’s her Mum who’s coming to the “fun” day, apparently though I’m not, pretending to be a bit upset at the prospect of having to carry on making Jack’s bed I trudge off back upstairs….
15:30: Nearly completed the bed from hell, then I discover that the head board kind of only works when you attach it the right way around “DOH!”
16:30: I slide the last draw in and I’m done, Mandy’s just got back from the “fun” day, Jack seems very pleased with the bits and pieces he’s got, especially since most of what he’s got is sweets…
Monday 4th July: (American independence day – good riddance to bad rubbish!!)
It’s all over the papers, and all over the web Steven Gerrard could be leaving Liverpool, his agent has reported to the press, bust ups over him signing a new contract, but I’m my usually cautious, not believing anything one way or another. Chelski, seem to be the favourites, which would be a real gutter, especially since my Step Dad is a massive Chelski fan, I don’t think I could take that much gloating….
Tuesday 5th July: It’s bloody official, he’s released a statement saying it was the hardest decision of his life, (yeah, should I get paid 100,000 a week or 120,000 a week tough call that one !). Ryan is distraught, I just hope Gerrard is satisfied.
11:00: Partick, the scuridy manager, asks me to come out and explain how it’s possible to implement an eunsafe solution ‘in-line’ in our environment, since Basra Pentonville, doesn’t think it can be done. He’s not wrong, the only way we could implement this would be to mirror ports and do it in pass-by mode. Hang on a second, why are we even contemplating a system like this when we already have WebNonsense doing exactly the same job ? I ask this and get the response, that he just wants to look at the reporting capabilities of the product, hmmm that’d be those reporting capabilities that he never uses in WebNonsense then. Never let it be said we do everything twice eh!!!
Wednesday 6th July:
08:50: I’m in late, I’m pissed off, I’m now ranting about Steven Gerrard, frankly to anyone who’ll listen, “money grabber…” etc etc…
12:45: The city to host the 30th Olympiad in 2012, will be….London…I’m made up, 7 years away but it feels like we won the world cup or something.
13:45: Quiet Rob has made my day, apparently it’s all been a big mistake and Stevie G, top player, really nice guy is staying at Liverpool, things can only get better…..
Thursday 7th July:
08:50: The worlds gone mad, there are reports coming in of four massive explosions in London, the bastards have targeted 3 tube trains and a London bus, Christ if they wanted the Olympics that badly, then perhaps we should have let them have it…I’m annoyed, mostly because of the senseless loss of life and injury, but also because I now know what my TV is going to be for the next month, endless, documentaries and extended news programmes, how it happened, why it happened, what happened, eye witness accounts, no eye witness accounts and so on and so on and so on, I can’t bloody wait.
09:30: We were a bit worried about Corvette since she’s supposed to be training in London today. My suspicious mind is working overtime, she’s training hmmm…before she went to London no bombs, after, bombs, mmmmm….
