Dog

I'm coming under some intense pressure lately from Harriet for us to get a dog. My instinct is 'no way' I don't want to share my life with an animal. I've been clear on this for years. I've listed the reasons over and over and I'm convinced, but part of me is aware that maybe my logical objections can't overrule the natural event of having a dog in the family. My case wasn't helped much by us going over to my parents tonight and meeting my brothers new puppy who is staying with them. A black labrador puppy undeniably cute. I wonder is my argument crumbling?

Hospital

Back to hospital today to follow up my kidney stone situation from Feburary. The appointment letter did not indicate what was planned for today. I spoke with the consultant then he sent me off for an x-ray. His tone suggested he thought the stone has probably come out but he will write to me once he has seen the x-ray. So no real progress today.

Pembrokeshire Holiday

Broadhaven,
originally uploaded by Tingy.

A great holiday last week in Saundersfoot, Pembrokeshire. The weather was kind and we got lots of beach action in. The kids had a great time. Took the Playstation for lots of Lego Star Wars play at the end of each day. Once the kids were in bed the TV was dire, especially S4C.

A School Day

Today revolved around Bearwood school. The kids went into school and Jacq and I followed into Dylans class. We had agreed to help set out seating for Dylans sports day but before that we got roped into doing some reading with the kids. It was sweet being able to sit in the corner of class and observe as Dylans school day started. Chairs setup, the sports day began and Dylan got a 2nd place in his team relay race. Putting the chairs away was even harder work, thankfully Steve stayed back and helped me and Jacq. Back home I sorted out some work admin then we went out to lunch at Pizza Hut. Mmmm... melted cheese. From there we went to the swimming baths to watch Harriets swimming gala. Wow, the noise! The kids were lifting the roof off the place, shouting and screaming for their friends. Harriet came 2nd in her race. I was very proud. Back home for a quick cuppa with Zaida then back to school to collect the kids. Hurrah, school is over, it's holiday time!

Rest Day

A fifteen hour day yesterday down at the new T5 terminal at Heathrow airport. What an amazing sight it is seeing this huge building coming together. It's still a long way off complete, but so impressive with the innards exposed. I've never been so impressed by the sheer nuts and bolts of a building construction.

The meeting that I had agreed to attend at Cov today was cancelled so the planned 'rest day' could be considered precisely that. Harriet was off school with an upset stomach. We popped over to Jims to collect Jacqs mobile that she had left there yesterday. Called into WHSmith to pick up some comics for the kids and a book for Jacq for the forthcoming holiday. I'm sorted with the latest copy of The Wire still unopened on the shelf. Got down some bits and pieces from the loft ready for the packing and sorting which will probably commence this evening. The big question is of course, should I take the laptop? Probably not. It would be a good idea to have a break and maybe concentrate on just listening to some stuff and maybe make a few notes.

Acrobat

Monday on site I at least had something to do. With testing and handing-over to Trapper, I actually had quite a busy day. Came back home in the evening in time for an hour with the kids.

This morning I went into town for an Adobe Acrobat training session. Met up with Phil and Dave in there. Glad I went, learnt quite a bit, hope the use of PDF technology could be engineered into our processes. Need an early night tonight as I have to be down at the BPA Heathrow T5 site by 8:00AM.

On Site On Sunday

Still here. System still standing. Sun is shining. Wind is blowing. Not much to do. I've a few mods which I'll implement later.

On Site On Saturday

Had an earlier night last night than the night before but it seems I missed out on some good gossip from Dave A. Oh well, a pleasant evening all the same with my swim length totals reaching new heights and a chat with Neil in the bar. He's one of the good 'uns.

Hopes are high that the server problems on site are gone. Time will tell. Dave, Adrian and Deiter are leaving site with Gordon staying back to babysit. No site tasks for me so far today. Hoping to do a few mods tomorrow in readiness for some testing on Monday. For some reason it seems that webmail is not being blocked on the site network. Bonus. Nice to have Gmail running again.

Site Stuff

Came down to the Grain site yesterday. Problems with servers. Lots of Siemens bodies on site. Today a German specialist has arrived. Let's hope he can sort things out and then everyone can calm down. I've had a few bits to keep me busy. Good chat in the bar last night. Gordon from the Manchester office is a sound guy. A very useful person to know.
Prior to Grain, I was up at the Mersey BPA site which was a busy day but I'm happy to report that I managed to make time to grab myself another pair of Vans. 75 notes down to 30, top bargain.

Coffee Morning

0517_101753.jpg,
originally uploaded by Dylzuzu.

Dropped the kids off at school then myself and t'wife headed up town for a stroll. Picked up some couscous and olives from the Selfridges deli for my lunch. A tall Americano and carrot cake in Starbucks whilst looking out over the bullring (see photo).

Happy Birthday Dylan!

Dylan is 6 today, Happy Birthday Son! He got us up before 6 this morning to open his presents. He's been looking forward to his electric guitar for ages. We've kept a few prezzies back for a mini-party tonight for just the four of us. It's been party season lately. The weekend just gone had a school friends party at the Wacky Warehoue on Saturday, then a cousins party at our house on Sunday. We then went to Warley Woods to enjoy the sunshine, although I didn't get to play with the kids much as I was helping Jim walk there and back. Hopefully Steve K uploads his photos to Flickr so I can blog them.

Went into work yesterday to do some paperwork then over to site in the afternoon. Good to catch up on the work gossip. Looks like a project has landed that I can take on. Need to convince my boss that it's just a one-man-job so I can have the freedom to work on it at home. Hmmm... the summer working from home, sounds like a good plan.

Sunshine At The Edge Of The World

A sunny day today on site and busy with various testing activities which makes the day go fast. So nothing to complain about I guess. The landscape around here has that 'edge of the world' feel about it. I like it. Must try to remember my camera for the next shift down here as I've seen a few opportunities for some industrial vs wildlife shots.

Having internet access down here on site sure does help to feel connected to my normal life via emails, blogs and news sites. I'm not suffering from those 'isolated/offline blues'. In fact I feel quite serene. Which is nice.

A Good Thing Or A Bad Thing?

My new site colleague is not very happy being down here on site which is perversely making me more chipper. Site goes at it's own pace and I just do bits that I can when I can. Phoning back into the office it seems that there's still no real co-ordination within the project. A juicy rumour I've heard could spell a sideways move for my manager which could be a good thing. But I guess, depending on who we get, it could also be a bad thing.

Making Room For A Microwave

So Saturday was a weekend in one day. The morning swimming lessons were fun. Dylan and Mitchell were split up by Keith to stop them playing about during the lesson. Cue much banter between the two families about the 'bad influence' of the others son! In the afternoon Harriet and I played a bit of frisbee in Warley Woods. The wind made it a quiet a challenge. Dylan basically just threw himself around on the grass for fun. Watched 'The Terminal', which was nice.

Sunday was a work day. Down on site by lunchtime. The handover didn't ammount to much. Things still seem quite quiet. By myself in the hotel and a book during the evening meal. Reading Stuart Maconies Cider WIth Roadies which is very entertaining. Suprised to see that he still lives just around the corner from me in Quinton.

Today I'm trying to get a handle of the progress of the job on site. Throwing out duplicate snag lists, updating change logs, generally being a bit pro-active. If nothing else it's helping to make the day go faster and the job seem less daunting. Phoned Jacq at lunchtime to learn that our fish died this morning. Poor old fishy. Oh well, as Jacq said, at least we've got room for a microwave now!

Friday Is My Saturday

My two days off are Friday and Saturday so I've declared today my Saturday. Does that make any sense? No matter. Home from site last night in time to hang with the kids, put 'em to bed then pop out to vote. Later I opened my post, an Edirol PCR-1 midi controller. Been wanting one of these for ages. Sold a bunch of CD's to justify it and now here it is. Fiddled a bit getting the drivers set up then I was away playing with the Operator synth within Ableton Live. Sweet Lordy! It was LOTS of fun. Stayed up too late. When I finally took the headphones off, one of my ears actually ached!

This morning we dropped the kids off at school then I went to get my hair cut. A quick 'number one' later and I met up with Jacq having a cuppa round the corner with Jane and Anna. We all went back into school for Year 4 assembly. Harriet did a powerpoint slide about her beloved Neopets. Had to endure more of Mr Pies poorly played Beatles songs!

Jacq and I then spent a pleasant few hours in Merry Hill browsing the shops. Picked up Simon Reynolds new book Rip It Up And Start Again for a tenner. Spotted the remastered CD's of 'Seventeen Seconds', 'Faith' and 'Pornography'. The classic trilogy of Cure albums. Boy I wanted them all so bad, but at 17 quid a pop it's a bit much really. I guess I need to sell some more CD's.

Dreaming Of Snags

Sitting in the site office. No tasks from the loop checking. Nothing really to do. Timesheets updated. Expenses done. I've started work on a proposal document for the Snags database I 've been wanting for so long. I'm not sure when I would get the chance to knock one up on the Coventry IIS so I might as well get my thoughts down on paper so that I can gather a few opnions. With a document ready, I could put it under a managers nose if the opportunity ever arose.

Grain Again

Back down to the Grain site this morning. Still getting used to being driven by events here on site. I'd prefer to be driving things a bit more myself but I just don't have the info to enable me to do that.

Bank Holiday Weekend

Got home Friday night just in time to catch the tail end of Derren Browns show. Still don't know how he can possibly do some of that stuff. Glass of wine and watched the 3rd disk from the 'Spaced' box-set Mike lent me. Top stuff. Obviously way too late to get to the Apple Store opening tonight in Brums Bullring. Hope to get to it soon.

Saturday morning at the swimming baths as usual. Getting out of the car, Dylan pointed out that he was still wearing his pyjama top! We laughed too much and I had to take him home to change before his lesson. Dave signing up with Force9 got a true bargain as they are not charging for sign-up right now. In the afternoon took Dylan to Arrons bowling party. Evening viewing was 'When Harry Met Sally' a good old rom-com.

Sunday morning at the cinema. Met up with the Tomkins crew. Steve, Jacq and I saw 'Hitchikers Guide' and Mary took the kids into 'Valiant'. Movie was good. Episode III trailer looked great. Afternoon visit from my parents with stories and photos from their recent holiday in London doing the sights. Had a nice stroll and play in Warley Woods. Hope we get more use of this green open space in the coming summer.

Isle Of Grain

So here I am on site. Got a quiet moment and a network connection, so let's blog! Yesterday was a total stress-out for me. A thumping headache from start of day to end.
Got my induction done having travelled down the night before. The safety guy was a complete racist and spent his lecture telling us to shop the foreigners if we see them breaking site rules. Jerk.
Trying to get into the system felt daunting. Adrian had new code to install and was under pressure. Doing mods on your last day on site is a no-no as we all know. But he had to. And guess what? It went badly and he was on site till 7PM getting the system up and stable. Hence I don't fancy doing anything at system level, I just don't know my way around it well enough. Everyone tells me I'm there to support loop-testing but you just can't predict events. We shall see.
Yesterday I was depressed as hell. Today I'm much happier. A swim and a good breakfast set me up right. Haven't actually DONE anything but have been involved in the general flow of the day. Lots of talk about various tasks but all fade into nothing. There always seems to be a reason why something can't be done. I just hope this doesn't build into an explosion of tasks all at once in the future.
Glad to be going home tonight having had a brief taste of site. Baby steps. At least I know what to expect when I return next week.

Sitework Beckons

Well, it's been on the cards for a while and today I have been finally asked to join the Grain project team to help out with some sitework. Jacq not happy about the short notice for this weekend so I've declined that. Although I'm not thrilled about doing site, I'm most definitely NOT stressing about it. Site happens. It's about time I copped for some. So bring on the overtime! 'Ave it!