Off work today. Jacq got roped into doing the refreshments at Dylans assembly this morning so I helped out too. The assembly was nice. I'm always choked at these things. Left the school and went to see Batman Begins at the 10:45AM showing. Top movie. Christian Bale rocks. Dark and smart.
Back in the office today after a few days of site. Not much news. Pleased to see that all arrangements are in place for the PCS7 course next week up in Manchester. Looking forward to that. Replacement RAM turned up so my PC will be rocking with 2Gig. Need to get PCS7 installed and get into it. Trashing my engineering drive this afternoon.
After raving about Google Earth the other day, I haven't had much chance to play with it since. Servers seem down all the time. I guess lots of other people liked it too.
Lunchtime I met up with the guy who we sold Dads caravan awning to via eBay. Dodgy dealing in country pub car parks. So I've got a handful of folding to give to Dad tonight when they visit.
Taking tomorrow off without pay. Steve suggested it due to me being on waiting time and having just worked a weekend. Suits me fine. A long weekend before being away on the course next week.
Once again the vast scope of Google activities continues to amaze me with the launch of Google Earth. I downloaded it this morning and am simply ASTOUNDED by it. It's free, it's got the whole world on it, you can skip around the globe exploring, I've hardly scratched the surface. Brilliant. You do need quite a whizzy PC with good graphics and a broadband connection to run it, but so what? I got that. 'Ave it.
I think I've blogged before about a media catalog program by Delicious Monster that I thought looked very cool. Can't find the original post, must sort out how to search my own blog someday. Anyway, this cool program was unfortunately Mac only. Well, hurrah once again for Lifehacker as they linked me to MediaMan which on first view looks to be a very similar thing for PC's and it's free. I've just installed it and it's just the job. Top notch!
This has got to be one of the coolest tips I've ever read! I love to open links in new tabs in Firefox but I hate the way you have to right-click the link and choose new tab from the pop-up. Imagine then my delight in finding this tip whilst browsing through Lifehacker.
I'm loving Lifehacker right now.
Just spotted that Blogger now hosts pictures in the blog. What a splendid idea. So now I don't have to limit my blog pictures to just the ones I post up on Flickr. This is good news. So here's a picture of me at work in the Coventry office some months back taken with my phone. Can't remember who took it. Trapper or Dan I think.
Yet another weekend of site support down in Kent. Drove down Friday night for an early start on Saturday. The shift was uneventful and felt like forever. Got back to my hotel room and promptly fell asleep. Woke up feeling dreadful and hence couldn't be arsed to go for a swim. Back on site this morning and nothing happening that needs my attention. The pipe cooling process continues at its own pace. Can't wait to be driving up home tonight. A weekend sold off for cash. I hope we see the benefit.
Postscript: A desk, an internet connection and hey presto! Lots of blog postings! So at least I feel like I've done something positive in my day.
Playing a Beyblade match tonight with Dylan. My cool blade setup was all black so I adopted a suitable Vader-like voice to intimidate my foe. Alas, Dylan still beat me, 20 to 15. Harriet kept score and made trophies for us both.
Had Seventeen Seconds by The Cure on in the background. One of those albums I can not listen to for years and years and then I know every note, beat and word just as they come out of the speakers.
Managed to screw up my blogger template tonight after experimenting with an RSS feed in the code. So I've had to quickly republish with a standard template which I'll get around to changing and customising over the next few days. Should have made a backup of the layout maybe? Well, it's probably a good thing it's gone as it was overdue a change anyway.
Hadn't heard anything from Mike for ages. He hasn't been updating his blog much but this morning I checked it and he had posted yesterday for the first time in ages! Seems that he has been through a bad down phase but thankfully he reports that he is back out the other side. I called him lunchtime and he sounded in good form considering he'd been in hosptial this morning for his long-awaited procedure. Hopefully he can finally get some relief from his pains and get on with his life. Must meet up soon. Lots to talk about.
Been doing quite a bit of the music stuff lately. Still scratching the surface of Ableton Live and my new PCR-1 midi controller, but having fun enjoying the learning curve. My current musical doodles end up as electro-loop kind of things but in my head I keep hearing Laika / Mice Parade rhythm-driven pieces. I just need to keep on throwing down the beats until it starts sounding like what I'm hearing in my head.
I realise that lately my posts have been catch-up summary style entries. These fail to get the real 'blogging' essence of expressing thoughts and moments. This is because I'm not getting web access until the arse end of the day and all I can think is to report the days events. I've only really thought about this today so I'll try to post some more 'random' things to make the blog more representative of where my head is at.
The weekend just gone was HOT! It was nice to be back in the weekend routine as it felt like ages since I'd seen the kids swimming. Went over to Marys on Saturday afternoon and the kids had great fun with water pistols. Sunday was Fathers Day and we brought Jim over to ours for lunch.
Today I got my belated Fathers Day gift, the remastered Three Imaginary Boys by The Cure. A great package of the album plus a disc of extras. And the best news is that Jacq has ordered me the next three Cure albums, the classic trilogy of Seventeen Seconds, Faith and Pornography. Awesome albums. I got them all already but these versions are extra-special.
Working over at BPA Kingsbury site today and got some good stuff done. Doing tomorrow and Wednesday on site then maybe into the office on Thursday to get some paperwork done. Got a call from the office asking me to work this weekend down on the Grain site. I really don't fancy the gig but I suppose I have to keep on taking my turn. And of course the money will come in handy.
Today I was working at home, which was great because it was such a lovely day. Jacq was working down at school, helping with some science activities in the playground. I got on with some sales support stuff for a few hours. When Jacq came home we grabbed some pizza then went to Ikea. The kids went to Aksa and Sofias house to play after school. I got a haircut, took some garden garbage to the dump then we got the groceries before collecting the kids. Watched 'Empire Strikes Back' then up to bed. It's amazing how into the Star Wars universe the kids are. A busy sort of day and really enjoyable. Now it's wine, beer, bombay mix and telly (plus a bit of blogging).
The lack of posts this week has been mainly down to lack of energy at the end of the working day. The days have been long but the work has been ok. Regular chats with colleagues such as Phil have helped establish quite a positive mindset for me at the moment. Things aren't perfect but I'm looking into the future with expectation.
Down on site at Grain this weekend. The usual mixture of terror (not knowing what to do ) and boredom (having nothing to do). It's a strange situation. Didn't want to do it but don't like refusing and I suppose we do need the cash. I'd rather put some hours in on a job of my own though.
My current computer task is transferring all of my CD based MP3 archive onto my Lacie external drive ready for some serious organising. There's 60 CD's in the archive and it's taking ages. Hopefully completed tonight, currently copying CD #41 across.
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?
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.
