Just thought I would have another theme change. Wanted something a little cleaner for a while. It is strange. There are about 50 themes, but a lot of them are quite sameish. I don’t like the photo themes or the very dark ones. Some are very cluttered, and I think this one is quite good.
Month: January 2010
A nice day
Youngest was on his respite day today, so me and Mrs H got to go out for the day. We had a nice walk round the lake in Roundhay Park, then onto The Roundhay Fox for lunch. Then a bit of shopping and back to pick the lad up. He’d had a good time too. I had a nice pint in the pub. A Scottish ale called ‘Bitter and Twisted’ … kind of fitting, I think.
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Not a lot
I just realised today, that I’ve worked for the same service now for 20 years !!! Of course, the job has changed a lot, and I suppose I have too. It’s funny to think, that out of all the people that worked there when I started, there are only 5 of us left. But what is scary is that in 10 years time I will have retired !!!!
Another thing that amazed me was that this blog has been going almost a year. I did blog for a short while on Windows Live Spaces, but never got any hits, and before that I had a blog on Google Blogger, but that was just tiresome (I hear it’s better these days). Then I found WordPress and nearly 300 posts later, I have not looked back. I said right at the start, that I may need to blog on a theme. Well that has not happened, but I could say, that is ‘work in progress’. My stats have gone a bit wild today. I average between 3 and 6 views a day, but today I hit 28 views. Well pleased.
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Colleagues … what to do with them ?
I have to say, that possibly one of the downsides of working for a Local Authority, is that getting rid of ‘dead wood’ is damn near impossible. People can be totally incompetent, and they seem to be untouchable. It’s everyone elses fault that they are useless. It is all put down to ‘a training issue’ and management has not trained them properly. Well that is the case sometimes, but when some takes a shortcut to allegedly save time, after being told not to, then that is not a training issue. That is a disciplinary issue !!!!
The council is looking to save money by cutting back on recruitment. Better way …. sack the crap and employ quality staff.
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Almost there
The title of this post refers to my attempt at making hummus. It all started, when Mrs H found a bag of dried chick peas, that we had in the cupboard. She was all set for throwing them out, and like a fool, I suggested that I make hummus. Sounded like a good idea at the time, but the reality of overnight soaking and then 2 hours of boiling put a bit of a damper on it. Then, lo and behold, she finds a tin of chick peas that need using up. So I used them. As I say, it was almost there. I downloaded a recipe from the BBC website, and followed it as closely as possible. Result……too much garlic, as that was all that we could taste. Better luck next time.
Made a bit of a pig of myself at lunchtime!! I had eaten my sausage rolls and Peperami by half past 11, as I wanted to drive out to shops. After buying some new paint rollers, I though a quick pint would be nice. And it was, but the problem was, that I was feeling a little peckish. So I popped into MacDonald’s. I only had a cheeseburger and small fries, but felt a little guilty afterwards.
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It’s only Tuesday …
Today was one of those strange days. I seemed to be doing a lot of work, but did not seem to have done much. Not a lot to show for the effort, if you know what I mean.
Mrs H got the wallpaper for the downstairs today. £16.00 a roll !!!! I’m going have to make sure I don’t make any foolish mistakes. I remember once, doing a whole wall upside down. Not entirely my fault as one of the rolls had been rolled the wrong way. If I had not have used it first, I would have noticed.
I think Leeds Utd may have blown their automatic promotion. Three league defeats in a row, and now Norwich has gone top. It will be difficult to pull back from there, and there are a couple of potential hard games coming up. I’m thinking Carlisle and Huddersfield.
Youngest is still only on 1/3 of his medication. He was not very happy yesterday, and was still a bit off this morning. Seems happier tonight, but not like he has been over the past week. Must be something at school or on the bus.
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Well pleased …..
The computer task I had scheduled to run as a test, this morning, went without a hitch. The routine started, did what it had to do and finished. A couple of things were different from the usual, but it is nothing untoward. Part two of the testing will happen next week. I have set the routine to run at 1 minute past midnight on Monday morning. If all goes to plan, and I don’t see why it should not, then our notices will be ready for printing when we get in.
Youngest is not very happy tonight. Mrs H said he was upset when he got home, and that he had been upset on the bus. We are guessing, as he cannot tell us, that someone on the bus is causing him a problem. Of course, the escorts can’t say what upsets him, just reports that he is out of sorts. Mrs H is seeing his teacher tomorrow, so may get more of an idea. Could be the length of time he is on the bus that’s the problem. It is silly really. We only live a mile and a half away, but he has to go by the school transport because there is nowhere to park to drop him off.
I uploaded a video, to Facebook from the gig on Saturday night. Looks quite good, and already B** tagged his flatmate in it. Well pleased ……
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Shattered ….too old for this
The gig at The Albion was really very good. A lot better than I anticipated. There was an exceptional atmosphere, and I enjoyed the night very much. I was really impressed by one of the artistes, Jess Gardham, a singer songwriter from York. So good, I bought her CD.
I suppose, that the only thing that possibly spoilt the evening were the local trolls. But then again, it’s their local, and they were just enjoying themselves in their own way. A late night though. It was a quarter to one when I got into bed, and was made worse by the fact that the youngest had been awake at 3am on Saturday morning. He did go back to sleep at times, but you tend to sleep with one ear open, listening out for him.
An interesting day at work tomorrow. The software we use, has a routine that is supposed to be automatic, but needs to have someone logged into the software, to start the routine. Well we are trying to use a ‘scheduled task’ to run the routine. The software house has told me how to run it, so fingers crossed it all goes according to plan. It will make the whole process a lot easier. It can be run very early in the morning, when nobody is working and in theory run faster. Watch this space.
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A long week
Youngest only on a third of his medication again, and everyone seems to be coping okay. Now here is an odd thing. His consultant, an expert (?) told us that there is no problem if we do not give him his medication, as it is not the type that has to be given. However, the doctor at school is of the opinion, that we should only reduce the dose gradually ! Who is correct ?
The eldest is coming home for the night tomorrow. We are both hopefully going to a gig at a pub in the next village. There are four acts, and one of them is a local girl, that we both know from the drama group. I hope he does not think I’ll be going early doors. I was thinking of going around 08:30pm, and stopping for a couple of hours. I have the feeling, he may want to stop until the very end, and then some. Would not be at all surprised if I come home on my own. Mrs H will not be pleased at that !!
Mrs H’s dental pain seems to have eased a little today. At least she doesn’t look as ill as she has done for the past week. I reckon that by the end of Saturday night, the pain will have receded into a dull background ache.
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No let up ….
Mrs H still in pain, although I think we both slept a lot better last night. She said that she only seemed to wake up once. The trouble I’ve found, with dental pain, is that it is so intense, that you don’t really notice that the pain is getting less. Then, you wake up and it’s just a background ache. Mind you, I have never had the trouble or pain that Mrs H has, when she has had invasive dental treatment. Even when I had all my top dentures fitted and eight teeth extracted, the only pain I had lasted a couple of days.
Youngest seems to be doing well with his medication reduction. He has only been having a third of his daily dosage, and he seems to be quite settled with that. I don’t know how school is coping with it. They have not indicated that there is a real problem, except that he seems to take a long time with his lunch. They should see how long it takes at home sometimes!!
Now, here is a ball ache, Microsoft Internet Explorer !!! even thought I never use IE, I have to apply the latest patch. This will fix the ‘vulnerability’ that allowed the Chinese to hack Google. The problem is that IE is so deeply embedded into the Windows operating system. I can see the next ‘Patch Tuesday’ will try and get me to install the latest version, IE8.
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Not good….
Mrs H is not in a good way. She has got an infection where her tooth was extracted last week, and the pain killers are not doing a thing to help. She’s been given more antibiotics, stronger ones, but they will not really help with the pain. By my reckoning, it will be late Friday or even Saturday, before the pain starts to improve. Looks like she is in for a bad night again.
We watched the National Television Awards. I have to say, some of the categories seemed a little strange. I mean, since when has Loose Women been a ‘factual’ programme ? It’s an entertainment programme, isn’t it ?
I read today, that you can use Word 2007 as a blogging tool, so I thought I would give it a go. No luck. Message was that I was unable to register my blog with Office. I don’t need it, as this Windows Live Writer, does a pretty good job, but it is always better to have more than one way to do anything.
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Stereo again …
Mrs H bought me the new PC speaker system I wanted. It looks better than the last one and has a much better sound. I can now alter the bass tones, which I was not able to do before. So well satisfied am I.
It was quite foggy this morning when I set off. The A1 access road was really dense, but as soon as I hit the motorway, the fog lifted. It did not make the fools turn off their rear fog lights though. I think it is just laziness. The car was quite frozen too, which was a surprise, because from the living room window, it did not look frosty.
Still having problems with my Asda credit card. I tried to get some petrol yesterday morning, and the pump would not accept the card. It was a good job I had my MBNA card, or else I would have been stuck. I think I’m going to cancel this card. I only got the thing because I could save 2p a litre on petrol and get points. But they stopped the points in 2008, and dropped the saving to 1p a litre last year, so it’s not really worth it.
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Another day over …
Today went without a hitch. Well my day went without a hitch, and at times that is all that matters. Found some cheap speakers in Tesco today. I think mine have gone now. It seems to be just the right-hand speaker that is the problem. One minute it’s working,and the next it’s not. They were only about £10.00 when I got them, so I was not expecting top quality. The ones I’ve seen are half price at £14.99, so I reckon they might be a bit better than the ones I’ve got.
Mrs H started to put the kitchen back together again. We have a problem though. The curtain rail !!!! Two of the three brackets, that held the rail on the wall, broke when I tried to get the rail down. Now, this may not seem bad, but we brought the rail with us when we moved to this house, some twelve years ago. It was a few years old even then, so I think I’m going to struggle to find some new brackets to fit. Looks like it could mean a new rail, and of course, that means drilling new screw holes. The problem with that is, that where the rail has to go, there is very little spare wall to drill, as it is quite close to the ceiling. Such fun.
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Finished …..
I finished the painting around 3:00pm this afternoon. What I thought would be an easy 2nd coat, turned out to be harder than I thought. The areas where the border had been showed a line … the edge of the border. So I needed to give those parts a 3rd coat. Eventually I got finished. Now all I have to do, is put the kitchen back together. That will be fun.
I seem to have a few more followers on Twitter now. I don’t know how they found me, but some of them are local people, so that’s good.
I’m getting a little pi55ed off with the sound on my PC. Every so often, it seems to lose a speaker. It’s not the sound card, as if I use the ear/headphones, then I get stereo. Just seems to fall over on the speakers. I know they were not expensive, but maybe I need to upgrade again. This needs thinking about.
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Painting is such a drag …
The decorating started in earnest today. Those few hours scraping the border off was just the start. Today was painting day !!!!! The ceiling is done. That was not so bad, and I got it done in an hour, but it’s amazing how much wall space there is in the kitchen. I was painting for a good 5 hours, and I would say I have about 92% of the walls covered. Mind you, it is only the first coat. Tomorrow is another day, but I should get it all finished by about 2pm.
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Hard to describe …
It has been a difficult day to describe today. On the one hand, my day has not been too bad, not too much to do, but enough to keep me going. On the other hand, Mrs H had to have a tooth out, and it was not an easy ride. She is in a lot of pain, and it took the dentist quite a long time to get the tooth out. From what she says, the tooth just crumbled, and there are still some bits of tooth in there. She is on an anti-biotic and ibuprofen, so not looking forward to a good night.
If there was a third hand, it would be that school forgot to give the youngest his medication this lunchtime. From all accounts, he was fine, and to some extent his teacher had not realised the he had not had it. This may pave the way to reduce his (our) dependency on it. Especially after the way he was over the Christmas holidays.
Now, looking for a fourth hand, my line manager (aka Spilligoon) was up to his old tricks again. It is my considered opinion, based on previous knowledge, that he hid D***s keys to cause trouble. He has done it before, and it his way of ‘teaching us a lesson’. What an ar*e !!! He will hide the keys, and then humiliate the key holder, until they turn up. Usually on someone’s desk, or in a place where nobody would put them. It is a form of bullying, and it is something that he is known for. One day, it will backfire………
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Warmer ????
Last nights snow did not amount to much at all. There was only about 1/2 an inch, but it was still enough to convince my line manager to dress down again. He’s not worn formal office wear since before Christmas. Tells us, he thinks he might get caught in the snow, and does not want to be wearing his office clothes. I can’t see it matters what clothes you wear in the snow, as long as you are warm. It has snowed for everyone else in the office, and no ones else has dressed down !!!! It’s the normal dress-down day tomorrow. I would not put it past him to wear his suit !!!
All the files I was moving, at work last week got finished yesterday. Touchwood, no problems so far. What I should really do now, is copy those files onto a DVD, then delete them all, but I think I will wait a week or two. I’ll probably end up using a couple of my own DVDs, as it would take too much time and effort to order some. It is not as if I’m short of them.
Mrs H has bought some paint for the kitchen. Looks like I’ll be doing the ceiling on Saturday, and possibly a wall or two. Fun fun fun !!! Living room looks weird at the moment. We have large samples of wallpaper sellotaped to the wall …… just to see what it looks like. This could be a long job. I’ve been having a look at the staircase. Could be that, I will be covering that in wallpaper too !!! I enjoy wallpapering though, much more than painting. I like to get the joins perfect, and usually succeed.
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A little more snow ….
Quite a shock when I went out to the car park at 4:30 this afternoon. We had a light covering of snow. To make matters worse, it was already beginning to freeze on the car. It is now around 10:45pm, and we have a good inch or so covering. It is very thin snow. The type that looks like rain, but it is not washing the snow away.
I seem to be quite tired at the moment. I don’t know whether it is the stress of driving in this bad weather,or if it’s just things in general. Everything seems to be hard work. I’m not depressed, at least I don’t think so, just tired.
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Ice …….
Well much of the snow seems to have disappeared, only to be replaced with with ice ! Here’s a thought, why is it called ‘Black Ice’, when it is actually transparent ? Coming out of the parking area this morning was okay, then I hit the road. That was the first tricky part, straightening up. Then at the end of the road, I began to slow down, well before the junction, but it was very close, and when I dd have to break a little, I felt the back wheels slide. It was all fine then, until I got to the work car park. M*** the handy-man, was at the gate warning people that the car park was very icy and slippery. I don’t know, but it may have been more practical, if he had spread some the grit we have. It does not need much, just enough to give a little purchase. We shall see how the drive home goes.
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Mid-life crisis … what crisis
I am old before my time I think. I downloaded a free music album by (what I’m reliably told) a ‘Grime’ artist call Chipmunk. It seems to be a free sampler album of Rap music. The singer ‘tweeted’ yesterday, that he would post a link to the album (called Chipmunk – For The Fun Of It) Of what I’ve heard, it’s very good. He is a talented singer.
I bought an FM Transmitter for my MP3 player last week. I gave it a try today, in the car, and it seems to work quite well. It means that I can play the music on my phone or MP3 without having to use one of those cassette converters. They did not work too well, and you could hear the noise of the cassette motor, when it was playing. Now everything is sorted.
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OMG !!!! I have a full week to do !
Managed to finally get the borders of the kitchen wall. Four hours of scraping, wetting and four letter expletives later, and the wall is now good enough to start the proper prep. Did I mention that Mrs H wants all the rooms doing ???? I don’t think she means the youngest lads bedroom (at least I hope she doesn’t), but all the rest of the rooms to do have at least one border. I know what you’re thinking, but when we (I) put the borders up, they were the height of fashion, and they do help create a straight line where the wall meets the roof. Oh yes, we are painting the kitchen.
It will seem strange, working a full week. Some departments work a flexi-time system, whereby you can have a day off every week, providing you have the time up. Well I would not get one every week, but I reckon I might make one every two weeks. Saying that though, last year I only managed to have one and a half days in the whole year !
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Saturday and all is well
A good day, all in all. Youngest has been in a great mood all day. No problems and no medication. It is strange, because the weekend before he went on respite, he could not have done without it. Now was that because he knew he was going, and that was his way of rebelling ? The reports we get back, always tell us how he has been, and they don’t mince words. If he has had any bad days, they let us know. Interesting though.
Went to the supermarket today. Just me. Youngest would not go, so Mrs H stopped at home. The main roads were snow free, and the car-park was not too bad, just a bit slushy. What annoys me are the other shoppers. They just seem to get in the way. Many of them seem to think that they are the only ones in the store !!! An example: I wanted to get a couple of light bulbs. I found the aisle where they were kept, but I could not get near them. There was a couple, and what seemed like 8 or 9 kids, all stood there, checking out the bulbs. Why does it take so many of the same family to look at items on a shelf. It was not as if they were young kids, no they must have been between 10 and 18 !!!
Mrs H wants to decorate the house !!!!! We have started today, in the kitchen. We have a wallpaper border running around the top and middle of the kitchen wall. Problem is, that Mrs H wants the border to come off, and the border is washable paper !!!! See where I am going here ? It took 3 hours of scraping and wetting, and there is only half done !!! Not fun at all.
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All’s well that starts well(ish)
My Speed Awareness course went very well. In fact, I have to say, that I actually enjoyed it. The course presenters (is that the right name ??) were excellent. I feel I can name them, as it is highly unlikely that they or anyone on the course will read this. Well done Jo and Gary. It was not what I expected. There was no blame, guilt or fault, in fact we were all made to feel, as if it was just a momentary lapse of concentration. Although, we were left in no doubt, that we had done something seriously wrong and got away with it. Still it’s done, and at the end of the day, I was more aware of the speed I was driving. So job done. Mind you, a couple of the people were real numpties. Some of the things they came out with were quite funny, and some were quite worrying. What I found a little strange, was that fact, that by the end of the course, I was convinced that I knew some of the faces. I probably didn’t, but a couple of faces looked familiar.
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Boring day so far
Before our system upgrade, when a member of staff needed to view a letter that had been issued, the system created a temporary file. These files should have been deleted when the reader closed the letter viewer. However, a bug in the system meant that these files were not deleted. There seems to be about 100,000 files taking up about 2.5gb of disc space. This causes a slow down of the network. I have asked the supplier, if I can simply delete these files? The answer that came back was not too helpful. Basically they did not know. Their suggestion, was to rename the folder, and see what happens!! So I decided to approach it from a different angle. I am moving all the files, that are datestamped upto the end of 2008, into seperate folders for each year. I can then archive them to disc, just in case they are needed. Belt and braces stuff!! As you can imagine, this is taking some time. It is probably a waste of time, as I don’t think these files are really needed.
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…. and it still goes on
The roads were a lot better this morning, but for some reason, very few drivers seemed to want to drive at faster than 40mph ! The M1 was completely clear of snow, and had been well gritted. The slip roads were not fully clear of snow, but the main carriageways were.
Spent most of the evening last night, trying to pack away the Christmas decorations. It is at times like that, when you have to question, why we do it! We spend a whole day putting them up and another day taking them down, all in the name of ‘Festive Cheer’ or something.
I have my ‘Driver Re-education’ course tomorrow. That is if it is still on. I will give them a ring this afternoon to see. It still irks me that I got caught for 6 miles over the speed limit, then you see all te bad driving over the past week.
From the keyboard of Tony 
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