I have a Journal...

I got published

2009-01-30T19:01:44Z

Admittedly it is only a small woodwork magazine, but it came as a bit of a shock.

The editor posted to a woodwork forum and asked if anyone was going to an auction near to me at the beginning of the year. I figured that it would be a good chance to have a look at a proper auction, so I went along and took the camera. I took a few photos and when I came home I wrote up the experience and sent emailed it off to him.

He liked the photos and asked for a hi-res set on CD which I sent him. I was just expecting him to use my stuff as reference material. However when my subscription copy arrived today I found that he has used the full text I sent him as the whole article and even credited it to me in the title.

After a long day at work that really made my day.

meeting madness

2008-12-01T15:23:24Z

It is only Monday but by midmorning I already had 28 meetings booked for this week ...

I only work 37.5 hours a week.

And people here wonder why nothing ever gets done...

A walk in the woods

2008-11-18T21:36:33Z

As I am sure that most of you will know, heraldis ran the Bristol half marathon this year. After much whining about how I never have time to go to the gym, I finally accepted that running can be done at any time and does not cost anything (both good points when you have two kids). So in September I decided to have a go at running. Now I have not done any exercise in the past seven years and the last time I ran anywhere was when I was forced to do the cross country run aged 15 ;)

It turns out that I quite like running, it is calming and theaputic. I get to spend time completely alone and after I stop I feel really good. After the first couple of weeks I bought a decent pair of shiny white and silver road running shoes.

This weekend I decided to have a run in the woods, now as it has been raining and there have been a lot of leaves falling, and as we live on the side of a bloody steep hill this was somewhat of a change of pace for me.

The trouble with running in the woods in autumn is that the leaves fall onto the trail and they cover up all of the deep puddles and thick mud. My shoes came back a significantly different colour than they went out ;)

The run was onyl 2.5 miles, but I found out today that the first part of the run up the hill (the first 11 minutes) is also the start of the "Dursley Dozen" which make me even more impressed of the people who can run 12 miles up and down the hills around here.

It may have not been the longest or the fastest I have even run, but it was certainly the hardest run I have done. It was also the most fun. I think I shall be back in the woods when I can get out in the daylight.

She did it, Yay!!!

2008-09-14T16:25:08Z

IMAGE_005
Originally uploaded by frugal10191

After much stressing about injuries and how little training she was able to do, heraldis ran the Bristol Half-Marathon and completed it.

A huge hug to her for managing to run 13 miles, and a big thank you to everyone who sponsored her to do it.

The endorphins have now run out and she has gone upstairs to pass out ;)

A new phone while waiting for my new phone

2008-09-03T13:16:51Z

Every one at work is getting a new phone this month at work, however the keyboard on my treo died over the weekend (to much abuse being in my pouch at GenCon i think). I figure that they wil not replace my phone as I wil be getting my new one in two weeks. So I phone them to see how long I have to wait.

It turns out that they are still obkiged to replace my current phone. They no longer have any treos so I have a shiny new SPV for two weeks until I get my shiny new Diamond Touch.

I have got it to talk to LJ and it has 2.5g, but the interface is clunkier and the keyboard sucks. But at least in two weeks Heraldis can have a shiny new phone ;)

And yes I am writing this from the phone during the worlds most boring all day meeting...

Ebony and Ivory

2008-07-17T21:15:35Z

I got home from work this evening and R quickly dragged me into the dining room to show me "the new thing".

I had completely forgotten that cold_hayley had offered her piano as she wanted to make some space.

I must confess that I have never really thought about a piano, but now that we have it, it seems quite at home in the dining room. I think it might have something to do with the fact that the previous owners had a piano just there ;)

My obsessive side now wants me to clean it an polish it until it gleams. I was even wondering if we have any Brasso for the hinges. Anyone got any good ideas to restore 120 year old varnish...

Giving Blood

2008-07-15T09:46:38Z

I am currently sitting in a lorry trailer in the office car park queuing to give blood. So I thought I would see how the Live Journal Mobile thing worked on the phone.

4:43 a new record for me, especially as the lst time the poor lady had to hold the needle in place as every time she let go the blood stopped coming out ;)

Everyone in the office is now engaging in friendly one-up-manship comparing how many times we have each given blood. I am quite proud of the fact that I have now given more blood than my dad has used ;)

Culture Shock.

2008-06-12T19:27:52Z

Last night we had a parents evening at the school R is going to go to in September. It was all a bit strange.

Depending on who you ask the school was either an old secondary school or a hospital, but it has now been converted into a primary school. This means that it is massive. You could easily fit my primary school (including the playgrounds and sports field) into the main building. The school is so big that the breakfast/after school club is in it's own building

I think what threw me most was the amount of technology. They have better presentation facilities in the classrooms than we have in our office. Interactive whiteboards that you can draw on and manipulate things on, as well as hook up to a laptop as a giant screen. A computer room with newer computers than anything we have in our office. There were also lots of interactive things for the kids to do whilst learning. They had a separate music room, they get taught French from age 7.

It was very weird sitting on the chairs in the main hall being talked to by the headmaster, I kept getting flashbacks of primary school assemblies (everyone sat cross legged on the floor except for the top year who got chairs at the back). Being shown round by these very well put together 10 year olds all of the parents in our group spent as much time comparing this school to their own. As heraldis pointed out,it is remarkable how times have changed but things still remain the same. Our parents used wipe clean slates to do a lot of work on, we used paper, but our children will use small wipe clean white boards - the modern slate.

Despite the lovely premises, the cool gadgets and the lectures from the head, governers and the PTA, the most reassuring thing was that the kids were well mannered, well spoken, intelligent and they genuinely seemed to enjoy the school and the teachers.

The only point that annoyed me was the way that they gradually bring the kids into the school, for the first three weeks they do a half day,after that they might do a half day and lunch, then they might start to do the whole 8:50 to 3:15, just so they do not get scared by the separation from home. R currently does 10 hours a day at nursery three days a week, if anything going and doing 3 hours at school and the rest at home is just going to confuse he more than going straight into school full time.

Time to grow pointy hair

2008-06-10T13:50:08Z

We had a new CEO six months ago. As expected after being in the job for six months he has to move everyone around in order to justify that he is improving on the last one (which won't be hard).
So they are going to cut between 0 and 8 people from our area, but they are also going to create 5 new management positions. As our team is one of 4 to be split in twain I am in a really good position to get one of them.

Applications of Gravity no. 137

2008-05-31T17:59:32Z

Today the kids discovered that if they take the push along fire engine up to the top of the garden and face downhill they can get up a fair speed until they fall off ;)

I was expecting floods of tears when the first one fell off at speed, but instead there was gales of laughter and then they immediately started to drag it back up the hill again.

I really hope that they get a decent fall of snow one year. The garden is made for sledging.

It's funny... in an "oh my god!" kind of way...

2008-04-09T12:20:15Z

http://www.amazon.com/Playmobil-3172-Security-Check-Point/dp/B0002CYTL2/

Boxes

2008-03-15T11:25:45Z

For christmas heraldis bought me a book on making boxes. I said that I wanted to make the first three simple boxes in the book before summer. Well, I have manged to make the first two boxes from the book and a small commission from H.

The first one is a simple lid that drops on and lifts off, the second one has a sliding lid. the third box was meant to be a match box for reenactment, but I made it a little too big and the matches rattle around too much.

The next box is currently a piece of yew firewood that the previous owner of the house left ;)

The year starts not with a bang but a whimper...

2008-01-01T11:00:46Z

... and the whimper was "It's only 7:30, daddy has only had 4 hours sleep. Can you please go back to bed?.." ;)

Fortunately as we had cold_hayley and giantitp around last night and their kids stopped over here I had two ready made child minders so that I could sit very quietly and nurse cups of tea and watch the inexhaustible energy of children in envy ;)

Here is wishing everyone a better year than they had last year, no matter how good last year was.

Early New Years Resolution

2007-12-29T23:13:16Z

I know that it is not New Year yet, but unless I do this now I am sure that I am going to forget to do this, and I figure if I write these down in public it might give me an incentive to get off my backside and do something ;)

Two resolutions this year:

1 - Interact more with the kids. Feeding R with cake and as much food as we can get in her has helped her sleep in until 8-9 most mornings recently, this plus trying to actually interact with her (rather than stick her in front of CBeebies at 6:30 and then fall asleep on the living room floor because I am too tired to cope with her every morning). Reading them more books, taking them for more walks, not trying to convince them that they really do not want to do painting becuase I can not be bothered to clean up after them, it all seems to be working, they have both been far better behaved recently.

2 - Make three wooden boxes by summer. heraldis gave me a voucher for a box making course with Andrew Crawford for christmas and I want to make the most of it by actually making a few boxes before I go along. Of course this will mean freecycling the dining table, futon and two sofas in the garage, then cleaning and repairing all of the tools that have rusted after five years of exposure in the leaky old garage, then I can see if I remember any woodworking skills other than chopping firewood ;)

Reindeer get short shrift again.

2007-12-25T00:29:29Z

Once again the poor reindeer get short shrift. The overweight alcoholic geriatric inept cat-burgler[1] gets a nice mince pie and a glass of whiskey, the nine poor reindeer who carry him around the world have to share a single carrot. (heraldis says that she is not leaving out nine carrots for the reindeer ;)

The presents have been wrapped, the mistletoe has been hung and the turkey has been stuffed. Google Earth says that Santa has passed over already.

Merry Christmas to those of you who celebrate it, and have a nice quiet day for those of you who do not.

[1] Well, he goes around studying his targets making lists then once a year breaks in and then foolishly leaves things behind.

I ate cake mix and now I am going to die...

2007-12-23T22:17:41Z

Or at least says modern health concious thinking. Apparently every egg sold is packed full of enough salmonella to kill a small city. I think I must have hallucinated all that cake mix I ate as a kid.

Anyway, it is M's birthday so I have been baking him a cake. In ten minutes it should be cooked, then I have to wrap his presents while it cools, and then ice it.

heraldis is out with cold_hayley and giantitp performing carols at the Old Spot (in exchange for free beer I think).

The future really isn't that bright

2007-12-14T12:00:29Z

Ah the joys of the Orange Christmas gift, the delicious expectation of disapointment. and once again Orange managed to live up to our expectations of disapointment.

They announced (quietly) in September that this year there was a budget of £47 per head for Christmas that was to be spent however the directors felt appropriate. Our director decided that as they have to pay 60% tax on gifts to staff that they would part fund a team meal to the tune of £16 (announced after we had already booked and paid for our meals of course, so now we have to claim it back). This leaves £19.38 after tax.

What could you buy fo £19 (remembering that you can claim the VAT back). A nice bottle of whiskey or port; a gift voucher for about £20; a 4Gb flash drive; a couple bottles of nice wine.

What did Orange buy for £19 (ex VAT): a half bottle of the same wine that everyone said was undrinkable when they gave it to us last year, a small box of chocolates and a small box of cookies. Cost to buy in Tescos about 7 quid.

You would think that after the debacle last year that they would have at least changed supplier to someone who was not going to shaft them so obviously.

Top 100 best places to work here we come...

Christmas meme

2007-12-13T13:08:11Z

As I am in a strangly festive mood. Stolen from elfinessy:

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate?
Hot Chocolate (never tried Egg Nog).

2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree?
Santa wraps presents (and occasionally sits on the living room floor with a bottle of red wine on Christmas eve putting the ones together that will take too long to do on Christmas morning).

3. Coloured lights on tree/house or white?
Coloured. I try to make the tinsel and baubles complement each other (last year was all red and gold).

4. Do you hang mistletoe?
Sometimes for new year.

5. When do you put your decorations up?
as a kid it was always on the first weekend in December, then the weekend I came home from Uni, then the day I came over for Christmas. Now they go up sometime around the weekend before Christmas. This year they will most likely go up this weekend as the children are away).

6. What is your favourite holiday dish (excluding dessert)?
Turkey with pigs in blankets and lots of roast potatoes.

7. Favourite holiday memory as a child:
I used to have a stocking that was hung on the door handle when my parents went to bed. At about 2am I would go and get it down, have a look inside at all the little toys and then read one of the Beano or Dandy annuals from cover to cover. then I would put it all back in the stocking and put it back on the door handle until 8am when I was allowed to get up and wake up my parents.

8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa?
Some time near the middle to end of primary school. Of course I did not let on to my parents in case the presents dried up ;)

9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve?
No. Traditionally we always wrapped presents on Christmas Eve. There was a rota as we would one by one go upstairs with the big bag of wrapping paper and then bring all of the presents down and hand the bag to the next person

10. How do you decorate your Christmas Tree?
Lights, then tinsle, then baubles. There is now a tradition that every year the children get to go to John Lewis and pick a new Sparkly for the tree (R has great taste in christmas decorations).

11. Snow! Love it or Dread it?
Love it. As a kid I was always disapointed when there was no snow at christmas. R and M have never seen real snow and are really confused about the Christmas stories they read where it is always snowing.

12. Can you ice skate?
The last time I went was for H's birthday about 5 years ago. I stumble around the edge hopeing that I don't fall down.

13. Do you remember your favourite gift?
As a kid I got a great big set of Techinc Lego. It was a racing car with proper steering, suspension and a gearbox. It was one of the first realistic lego cars. I was soo pleased when I opened the box. I still have it with all of the rest of the Lego.

14. What is the most important thing about the Holidays for you?
These days it is seeing the whole thing through the childrens Eyes, and spending time with friends (the christmas meal as elfinessy's was great).

15. What is your favourite Holiday Dessert?
Christmas pud with Brandy butter

16. What is your favourite holiday tradition?
meeting up with friends for meals and drinks. It is the most active my social life gets all year ;)

17. What tops your tree?
Big star.

18. Which do you prefer giving or receiving?
Giving - assuming that they actually like what they get and are not just being polite.

19. What is your favourite Christmas song?
Anything by Slade (yes I know it is cheesey, but they are such feel good songs), Fairytale of New York

20. Candy Canes! Yuck or Yum?
Quality Street ;)

21. What do you want for Christmas?
I do not actually want anything this year (which is causing H and my parents all kinds of problems). We have a house full of stuff and there is nothing I need. Hell, the M&S vouchers I got last year were used to buy R clothes this autumn.

22. Do you attend an annual Christmas Party?
There is usually a meal with the team at work one lunchtime which I attend, however I do not go to any of the evening parties because they are usually terrible and they do not allow partners to come along where I work and they will not provide any accomodation so you can't drink (which is all there is to do).

23. Do you dress up on Christmas or wear PJs?
Dress up sort of (trouser and a shirt). When I was a kid there were no presents opened until after breakfast was cleared away and eveyone was dressed.

24. Do you own a santa hat?
No.

25. Who do you normally spend Christmas with?
It has been changing every year for the past few years, but we seem to be settling into going to H's parents the weekend before Christmas, and then having Christmas at home with just us and the kids, and then my parents come over for Boxing day. But this year we are being brave and my parents are coming over for Christmas Day and staying for a couple of days.

Christmas Spirit

2007-12-13T12:41:33Z

I am not normally one for festive spirit (I object to being told by society that I am a bad person unless I spend lots of money on gifts to tell my loved ones that I care about them. I spend all year caring about them, and I do not like society spending one day a year caring to justify ignoring everyone for the rest of the year). I can not stand shops creating a festive isle in October, and if anyone at work tries to get me to wear humorous antlers there will be blood spilt.

However this morning R managed to melt my heart. She and M are going away to the grandparents for a long weekend so that

heraldisand I can go out for the night (courtesy of elfinessy and our other great friends who got us a hotel room as our christmas pressent). Before I left this morning, R gave me a great big hug and asked in her most polite voice "Daddy, when you finish at work today can you buy a tree from the Christmas tree shop please", Why" says I. "Otherwise Father Christmas will not know where to put the presents".

Part of me dreads the fact that she now understands and expects presents, but the way she asked was the most angelic thing she has done in a long time.

Of course we have the artifical tree in the outhouse... Well, we have most of the tree in the outhouse. I have this horrible feeling that when we moved I forgot to get the centre pole out of the attic in the mad rush that was moving day... So daddy may well be going out this weekend to buy a tree ;)

Small Victories

2007-12-06T17:23:24Z

As I am sure that most of you know, a month ago a put my back out and was off work for two weeks. I finally had my Workplace Ergonomic Assessment (it took my boss's boss two weeks to decide to sign off the £0.00 cost), where a nice lady looked at how I was sitting and working and agreed that I need a new chair, some monitor risers and a wrist rest.

The worrying thing is that making the company buy me a new chair and some office supplies has been the highlight of my working week, and I feel somehow better that I have cost the company money and that I have forced them to acknowledge that I exist...

Am I a bad person?

Swimming with the fishes

2007-12-02T16:21:00Z

Well, maybe not the fishes, but a fairly aquatic three year old ;)

R has been asking to go swimming for a while, but with me putting my back out, needing to buy a new car and heraldis having a cold from hell we have not been in a position where the other one of us can be left with M.

So today I took R down to the pool for a swim whilst M had a nap. She loves going swimming and I really must try to go more often with her. At this rate she will be swiming widths before she starts school ;)

After a bit of splashing around she doe try to spend most of here time with her feet off of the bottom of the pool and moving under her own steam. Admitedly she does not move very fast, but she does move.

Saying that she does also spend a lot of time being 'swooped' along by daddy. After reading grumpyolddog's entry about swimming lessons I thought that I had not swam any side stroke since I was 15, but I spent most of today swimming like that with R hanging onto one arm. We spent about 45 minutes in the pool all in all.

Just as we had got out and dressed, we were sat on the step outside having a post swim treat (GoodyBar and a carton of juice for R and a diet Coke for me). When H and M turned up. M had decided not to sleep so they came to join us. So we went back inside and watched them, however unlike R M has decided that he really does not like the pool. He loves the bath, but screams the moment you try to get him into the water at the pool. So H had to get him dressed again and the three of us watch H swim for a bit before we all came home. Hopefully M will get over his aversion to the pool soon as R gets a lot out of it.

Cheating at Conformity

2007-11-16T20:06:20Z

Today for Nursery R & M were asked to dress as 'badly' as possible. Rowan went in with as many clashing colours as we could find in her now mostly pink wardrobe, multicoloured tights inside out with yellow and grey stripy socks on top, t-shirt inside out and back to front. She was however eclipsed by her brother: Shirt inside out, buttoned up the back, one of R's pink girly t-shirts over the top and a pair of pink shorts over his trousers (tucked into mismatched socks of course).

M won the prize for the worst dressed and received a wooden shape sorter as his prize. His sister of course had to show him how to play with it by taking all of the pieces out and then carefully putting each shape in it's correct hole. M watched her closely and when he was allowed a turn playing with his prize he took all of the pieces out, replaced the lid. Then he looked at his sister, took the lid off and one by one put the pieces in through the big hole in the top, then put the lid back on. then he gave her that look that said "See, my way is much easier..."

What would you do if you could get paid to do anything?

2007-11-08T12:38:15Z

Following on from grumpyolddog's post about what jobs he thought other people should do, and the fact that I have been lying on my back and staring at the ceiling for the past week, I got to thinking.

Rather than the usual: what would you do if you won the lottery, or Dog's what should everyone else do, I have been thinking: If someone offered me the same salary I an on at the moment to do any job I wanted, what would I do? So bumming around the world is right out, it would have to be something that could be considered a job.

Personally I would like to do woodworking. Starting with an apprenticeship and eventually moving on to making small boxes (jewelery boxes, keepsake boxes that sort of thing). I have thought about making furniture, and although I would love to be able to make wardrobes and dressers, they generally involve more than one person. I like the idea of being able to work on something that it wholy mine.

So what would everyone else want to do?

Anyone want to buy a broken car?

2007-11-07T15:06:01Z

After just spending £900 getting the Shogun through it's MOT the gearbox has gone on the Audi.

It went into the Audi dealer for them to have a look at it, and they came back and said "Needs a new ABS management system and a new gearbox". "How much?" "Thousands...".

So it looks like I will be phoning the scrappy and seeing how much tey will give us for a 9 year old Audi with 175,000 on the clock, a brand new turbo and a shot gearbox.

If I am in any condition to sit in a car this weekend we have to go out a buy a new car for heraldis. Hopefully something that does not require huge amounts of repairs every six months.

Still of work

2007-11-07T14:56:59Z

I am still off work with my back. The doctor has kept me on the drugs which seem to be helping. I mentioned the company medical and he sent me straight to the physio.

The physio was a very nice lady who looked at my back, and poked and prodded it - a much better treatment than the "keep taking the drugs and if it's not better in a week I wil sign you off work for a bit more" I got from the GP. She stated that there was not a lot she could do with my back in it's current state and reenforced what I had already been told by the GP and my chiropractor - Stand or lie on my back, do not sit at all. I also have a few exercises to do and I have been told to go for at least one walk into town every day (about 1 mile round trip down a steep hill and then back up again).

She thinks that if I am lucky I might be able to go back to work on Monday, but I will not be able to spend all of it sat down. I have to go back again tomorrow afternoon to see if I am in a strong enough position to be taught how to sit down again.

Spending most of my day lying on my back does mean that I have got very used to drinking tea through a straw ;) R has been a absolute treasure, giving me kisses to make my back feel better, she has also been very gentle about giving me cuddles and ensuring that I get lots of lie downs.

As I was forced to go for a walk to town I decided to treat my self to some rubarb-and-custards in the old fashioned sweet shop in town.