A better day than the other two this week, but then could things get any worse? Its been a bit of a roller coaster, busy busy busy, but things have been achieved. The phrase of the day has to be "reflect and review" in terms of achieving what we needed. But hey, enough work, what about the play?
Already getting far too excited about going to alton towers. Has been at least 2 years since I last went, so there is Air to revisit, and the new ride that takes you from 0-100mph in just over 2 seconds!!! Apparently that was as fast as they could design it without people blacking out (people being the overweight joe publics that go to AT). Have a funny feeling I'm gonna get there and regress to a 12 year old kid and start running round like a loon, whether this is a good thing or not I'm not quite sure, we'll have to wait and see...
Have discovered a fantastic rose wine that sainsbury's are doing for a very reasonable £3.99 at the moment. Tried it on the recommendation of an old friend, now own half a case, nuff said! For anyone who cares its the Cote du Rhone rose. Light, but full bodied with a reasonable level of fruitiness and not too sweet, I'll let you know about the hangover tomorrow as I "accidentally" drank half a bottle tonight with dinner. Honest, its not my fault, it just slid down a little too easily.
Have set myself the challenge of learning all the info behind the lyrics to "we didn't start the fire" by Billy Joel, purely because I know its all about the second half of the last century and it'll be a novel sequence to learn stuff in. Apparently the song is chronological, but I've found a good website that links each item in the lyrics to a library of information. If nothing else at least I'll learn something! If you fancy joining me on this journey try http://www.teacheroz.com/fire as a start point.
Got my election ballot paper through the post today too, along with about a million leaflets for all the parties at the same time, me thinks the posty is getting some big back-handers that he's not telling people about! Suffice to say, I won't be voting BNP, they appear to have assumed that noone has a brain! All I need to do now is find a witness to sign my vote...
Yet again I've stayed up too late, but like they say, work hard play hard. Its Thursday tomorrow, I shall have to get my boogie board out!
Hmm, another long day, which didn't help as I was already irritable and tired. A day of graft, graft and a little humour, but things progress. Finally got away at 18:15, but at least it means tomorrow morning will be a little less hectic, something tells me we're going to need that time, have one of THOSE feelings. Can't quite put my finger on it though.
On the interesting side, have booked a long weekend away! AT ALTON TOWERS! Not staying in their hotel though as its extortion at £490 a night for two people! Have managed, with a little help from a certain someone to find a travel lodge nearby in a town I can't pronounce (ideas welcome) called 'Rugeley'. Now all I have to do is find it, which I've no doubt will be a mission as its about 3 pages of multimap directions. There may be hope though as its quoted on the AA directions as a landmark when travelling through the city, so it must have a big sign or something, please!
Got annoyed at the website trying to book it as when it spannered out cos I hadn't given it an alternate phone number (apparently my mobile isn't good enough!) it reset the dates for today rather than the ones I'd chosen. So had to go through the rigmarole of cancelling the wrong booking and making the new one. This should have been easy, except they don't tell you how to cancel anywhere easy to find. You have to go to a link on the email, then through another 3 pages before you can finally sort it out. Fortunately I realised I needed to cancel straight away and had all the stuff handy, heaven help me if I'd realised later and had to find the 3 different numbers I needed to type in!
Overall though looking forward to the break, if you can call all the driving/running round that, but it'll be fun to say the least!
Other news is that salaries have been reviewed and it's gone up, the question is... Is it enough?! Judging by the office some people are unhappy, not sure what to make of mine. Will have to have some very delicate, subtle conversations tomorrow. Both of which, as some of you will know, are not my strong points! Oh well, its not like I'm going to quit and they do ahve me over a barrel really, because if I do I owe THEM money for all the sponsorship! :-S
Midweek tomorrow, the intention is to get to the end of it, and then ride the crest of the work wave all the way to the weekend!
Monday, never a good day. Always lots to do, never enough time, lots of start of the week problems etc... This was combined with the need to get all the steelwork marked out as we'd finally had enough dry weather that the foundations weren't under water. Not too bad you say. Well you'd be wrong! Poor planning by managers changing what bits they were doing next meant all the good work done alst week went out the window as we were back to square one! CHEERS BOYS! So to cut a very long story short, I was still at work at 19:45 tonight.
Normally I wouldn't mind this, but its monday and I needed to go shopping, so by the time I got home it was 20:30. Now considering I live 30 minutes from work, you do the math on how long I was in Sainsbury's! and no, I didn't ramraid it! Had to resort to fish and chips for dinner as I was too knackered to cook, maybe I should charge it to expenses! Pay raises are out this week, mine better be good judging by all the effort I've been putting in, especially since someone with a desk not so far from mine got 14% the lucky git!!!
Anyways, beds a calling me, promise I'll post something exciting tomorrow, honest my life isn't all that dull!
Have just had the living daylights scared out of me by a wee beasty! I think its dead, via the use of a slipper. Either that, or its run off to hide in the corner where I can't get it. If it comes back for round 2 I shall have to use the hammer!
So then, an update from the last few days, cos I've been either too drunk/hungover/lazy to write one.
Friday mainly involved a fun day at work, though it seemed to consist of me getting covered in stuff in a comical way! One being the tomatoes from someone elses cooked breakfast that I was carrying for them, though they did buy mine so I cant complain that much. The second being mud as I was trying to clean mud off some concrete foundations so I could mark some lines down. Suffice to say really my fault. I said,
"Turn on the compressor!"
when it should have been,
"Turn on the compressor gently"
As it was it went on fully blast and fired compressed air into the large muddy puddle in front of me. Thankfully it was a sunny day so I dried of quickly, but I had two of the labourers try it later on in the day as I didnt fancy getting the car all mucky (on the inside at least) during the drive home!
Friday night got pissed at a black adn white party, good fun had generally, though I have an extremely colourful wardrobe, so finding something black and white was a little difficult. Plus a felt like a bit of a fool as I looked like my mum had dressed me! and it was 1988 all over again!
Saturday, was to say the least hungover! Watched qualifying (GP for those who care, for me its a religion!) and was generally lazy, but did some paperwork I had to.
Today went and fetched my car from where I left it on friday, which meant a lovely walk in the glorious sunshine. I still cant explain why I was the only one in a T-shirt and everyone else had a jumper on? :-S thought I was meant to be the soft southener? Also watched a thrilling GP. All I can say is Michael and the boys are back! Well done on the 13th to 2nd place, bring on Barcelona! We'll beat Fernando at home! And to quote Mark Blundell "Ferrari have pulled a VERY large rabbit out of the hat, in fact probably the biggest one I've seen in years!" And that was on prime time Sunday afternoon TV, priceless!
Rented the Bourne Supremecy to keep me out of trouble tonight, good film, but I'd recap with the Bourne Identity first if I were you as they are quite well linked. Also had a crazy convo with the woman in the video shop (which is actually fully automated so she's a bit of a 5th wheel). She was just shutting (but its 24hr so I didn't have to go) and started talking to me, despite the fact that I was trying to choose a film. Told me all about her problems for 5 minutes, then left. THEN came back as I'd distracted her so much she'd forgotten her bag! OOPS! Must just be me!
We then had the following conversation:
Her: SO what are you up to tonight?
Me: Er... Watching a DVD
Her: Oh, yeah. Quiet night in then?
Me: Yeah, work tomorrow and all that, plus I'll have to bring it back after, so it'll keep me off the beer!
Her: Good idea, wish my boyfriend was more like that, I'd love a night in with a movie for once.
Me: Er... Yeah it can be nice.
Her: What was I doing?
Me: Getting your bag.
Her: Oh yeah! You're ok though? Know how to get out and choose a DVD and all that?
Me: Yes, fine.
Her: Right, going this time, see ya
Me: Bye!
She goes to leave, thinks and then goes behind counter to finally get bag!
At this point I finally got back to choosing my DVD, something I'd intended on taking me 5 minutes, not the 20 I'd now spent in the store! Was definately one of those weird conversations that are just awkward from start to end, the second half being totally pointless, think she was just embarrassed about leaving her bag.
Anyway, work beckons for another week, but the weekends are looking like fun for the next few weeks, plans are afoot!!! :-D
Today did not start well. It was cold, frosty and I was running 5 minutes late! got in the car, driving down my road and some idiot RETARD pulls out without looking meaning I end up at 45 degrees in a lovely skid despite the ABS! Lovely. They then proceed to get out of the car and start yelling and trying to blame me, despite the fact that they had clearly come out of a side road, complete with give way signs! FOOL! Suffice to say I utilised my right foot and left them standing shouting at thin air.
The day did however improve rapidly. The sun came out and I should have taken a deck chair to work and got a suntan. As it was things to do, but managed to escape on time to head back to Newcastle for my meeting with el presidente. This went surprisingly well, I'm getting quite good at going and talking to complete randoms and managing to network effectively. Got some emails and the presentation and questions were actually rather interesting.
Then had to trek back to Durham, past home! got there and did a bit of setting out in the sun and then called it a night on time for once! UNBELIEVABLE!
On the run back though things all went a bit wrong. There I am thinking that for once I'm gonna make it back in time for the simpsons and over the traffic alert I hear that someone has caused a 5 car pile-up on the A1 which I'm travelling on. DOH! As it turns out though the traffic wasn't too bad and I caught the second half, but not after giggling with mirth. Having had the person this morning abuse me I made a note of his number plate... And who was in the middle of the pile-up? :-) How ironic!
Roll on tomorrow, thats what I say, mainly cos its Friday.
"Work for the man, do the best you can, and make it to the weekend!"
Today has been a rather odd day to all intents and purposes. The job I'm on at the moment stopped for "a general tidy up". This means everyone on site stopped building things and went on what I can only describe as a giant litter pick! Though the items are a little bit different from your local park, where you're unlikely to find bits of steel reinforcing bar, lumps of concrete and timber etc... This meant I had a day of sorting paperwork and completing all those little tasks that you put off because they're all a bit dull. This lead to the expected boredom associated with tedious jobs and a day that dragged all the way from 8am to 5.30pm. I swear its never felt SOOO long!
I suppose whilst I'm here I should give a general update from the last... er well 22 months, how embarrassing! Graduated twice since then and am now living in Newcastle (well Gateshead, but it sounds cooler) having departed the centre of the universe (being claudestreet). With the life of studenthood behind me the days are filled working for the man to get that all important paycheck at the end of the month, but the life of an engineer is nothing if exciting.
Highlights from the last 22 months include being in and out of various relationships, moving house twice, a sly week away in France skiing, the arrival of my company car and placing a vast number of miles on it and all the other general mayhem that is my life!
The main thing bugging me right now is my property managers. The roof leaked a tiny bit on friday due to all the rain, so duely told them, but as yet noone has been out to fix it, despite me leaving keys at the estate agents! Grrrr! This does not bode well, given that I asked for a backdoor key when I moved in and still dont have one 7 months later! To cap it all off the council are now getting arsey about me leaving my rubbish out in binliners as I can't use the wheely bin as its in the back garden that I cant get to!!!
Strop over, I should credit ed for his awesome skills in helping me get back to posting, both on the technical side and the motivation! BIG UP! I may have to ask him to reopen the comments section though, as otherwise noone will be able to talk back, though this is assuming anyone wants to!
Roll on tomorrow, I have a chance to meet the ICE president at a Q&A session at newcastle uni, knowing my luck I'll probably spill coffee down him!
Back again, from a new city with a new way of life! Which hopefully involves regular posting and if you're lucky some interesting stuff! But as always it'll be hit and miss service as usual!