I’ve felt horrible all day. I hope i’m not coming down with something! I have too much work to do.
I awoke insanely early (for a Saturday) and after getting convinced to go back to sleep (from halfway around the world!) I somehow managed to end up asleep until mid-afternoon.
I got up for a few hours but i’ve now given up again and gone back to bed. I’m not winning today!
I may be a little bit behind the times but today was the first time this year I saw the Coca-Cola ‘Holidays are Coming’ ad.
It’s officially Christmas!!
Shit! I missed the Thanksgiving NFL. I completely forgot it was on and I missed the entire first game! I was watching the stupid UEFA cup instead!
During my rant earlier I forgot to say Happy Thanksgiving to all you Americans reading this!
I hope you’re all having a great weekend
Borrowed from my favourite non-traditional student.
1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?
Gift bags! I’m useless at wrapping.
2. Real tree or Artificial?
Normally artificial as our dog would hit the tree with her tail and send bits everywhere! This is the first Xmas without her so we might go for real
3. When do you put up the tree?
Around the start of December
4. When do you take the tree down?
Around my Mum’s birthday which is Jan 6th
5. Do you like eggnog?
I haven’t tried it.
6. Favourite gift received as a child?
The one that sticks in my mind was my first mountain bike
7. Hardest person to buy for?
Everyone! I am useless at this present buying thing.
8. Easiest person to buy for?
Probably my brother
9. Do you have a nativity scene?
No
10. Mail or email Christmas cards?
Cards. If it has to be email it will actually be a typed message
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received?
Hmm. A torch?
12. Favourite Christmas Movie?
I don’t really have one…
13. When do you start shopping for Christmas?
I haven’t yet. I need to get my act together and come up with some ideas!
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present?
Not that I remember
15. Favourite thing to eat at Christmas?
My Mum’s amazing dinner. Pringles. Chocolate. Everything basically! Since we don’t have Thanksgiving over here it’s really our one time of the year to go all out food crazy.
16. Lights on the tree?
At least two sets
17. Favourite Christmas song?
Fairytale in New York
18. Travel at Christmas or stay at home?
I much prefer to be at home
19. Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer?
You know Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixon, Comet and Cupid and Donder and Blitzen, but do you recall the most famous reindeer of all? (And no I didn’t look it up!) (Is it cheating if I leave Katie’s answers here?)
20. Angel on the tree top or star?
Star
21. Open presents Christmas Eve or in the morning?
Always in the morning
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year?
The insane amount of people going shopping
23. Favourite ornament theme or colour?
White lights and silver.
24. Favourite Christmas dinner?
Turkey. Again we don’t have Thanksgiving so this is the time of year it appears.
25. What do you want for Christmas this year?
Everyone keeps asking me and I don’t have an ideas to give them. I think I may be getting a Colts jersey though!
26. Who is most likely to respond to this?
Whoever wants to
It took me forever to take out all the strange American spellings in this!
The power in our house tripped during the middle of the night.
No idea what caused it but the end result is the power supply unit (PSU) of my main desktop PC now being non functioning.
This really doesn’t amuse me much. It’s about the only part on a PC I have no experience of replacing!
Meh. Today was going so well too.
So now we all know what the secret meetings yesterday were about.
In an IT department of about 30 people roughly a third are being made redundant. They are asking for volunteers but if no one comes forward they will be forced to pick.
Most other people will have to reapply for their jobs, with the exception of about 5 people… including me. I somehow escaped.
It’s fair to say that everyone was a little distracted and that not much work got done today. Everything should fall into place in January so then we will know who is going.
Other than that it’s not been a very exciting day. I have another big project that I am working on at the moment so that has recently taken off and is now taking up the majority of my days. How successful it will be with all the upheaval that is happening remains to be seen.
I wasn’t happy when my alarm went off at 6.30am this morning. I was more away than I thought I would be, but it’s still a good four hours earlier than I have been waking up for the past week.
I had 37 emails this morning when I arrived at work. Not too bad I thought by normal standards. By the time I had worked through them I was left with 9 that actually needed me to do anything about them. Managed to get that down to about 2 emails by the time I left for the day but I think I would have finished if I hadn’t had to spend all afternoon in a freezing meeting room talking about things I already know about. I hate pointless meetings.
Something is going down at work and I can’t quite work out what. A lot of meetings are going on between staff and HR and no one is allowed to talk about what they contain. As far as I know I am one of the few people (I only know of one other) not involved in these meetings. I haven’t quite decided whether or not this is a good or bad thing. I’m currently working on the theory it’s probably nothing to do with me so I should quit thinking about it. Still, it’s no fun not knowing!
People at work also annoy me. When i’ve been off work for a week it’s quite important that I sit down and read my emails and see if there’s anything urgent that needs my attention. Therefore I would appreciate it if you fucked off and stop asking me to do stuff right after I get back!
Someone told me that complaining that your feet were cold when not wearing socks is like complaining about the government and then not voting. I don’t much care today… i’m not wearing socks and my feet are freezing!
And don’t get me started on the government!
I had pizza for dinner last night.
My stomach hasn’t remained in one place since.
I’ve lost my appetite today.
It was really good to have a week off. I think this was my first full week since June and between now and then have been a stressful few weeks work wise with some big projects. I really should make the effort to take more time off work since I always end up carrying days over. That’s not going to happen this side of Xmas though due to other projects I have to get done. I know sometimes it sounds like I don’t like my job but I do (mostly). It just takes a lot out of me mentally sometimes… although that’s a thought that makes me feel guilty considering i’m just a programmer and there are other people out there doing way more important jobs.
It really was just a week of relaxation which is exactly what I enjoy from my holidays. I enjoy city breaks etc. (such as my trip to Vegas last new years) but there are times where I want to be extremely boring and spend my days laid back.
Luckily for me, that was how most of the days worked out. Rubbish TV, alcohol and food that was probably incredibly bad for me in a forest, near the mountains miles away from my office.
From what I can remember:
Monday – Chinese (Duck Spring Rolls)
Tuesday – Italian (Spaghetti Carbonara and Garlic Bread)
Wednesday – A Bit of Everything (Onion Bahji’s, Garlic Pizza Bread with Cheese and ribs in a honey glaze)
Thursday – Indian (Chicken Korma)
I’m thinking I need to continue that theme tonight with pizza before trying to make an effort to become healthy next week.
Regular trips out were made to get fresh air, buy more alcohol and buy more Pringles (BBQ FTW). A bowling trip was also made midweek which I did win, although I was a little disappointed with my scores. I started OK, got a little better in the second game and then it all went downhill from there. I’m out of practice! This is probably the first time I have bowled since March.
These things are always over too soon though. I’m always torn going away due to losing the home comforts but that’s measured by the getting away from work and everything that annoys me about everyday life. However two days and I’ll be back in the craziness that is our office. I just hope I can convince this weekend that it wants to go sloooowly.
6.30am on Monday is going to be painful.
Pictures will follow as soon as I am happy with the editing.
I was tagged by Miss Devyl to write 5 fun/interesting facts about myself so here goes:
1) I am (well… was) a trained ear piercer. I had a certificate and everything but haven’t actually put anything through anyone’s ears in about 5 years so it’s probably safe to say I am out of practice.
2) My previous jobs before getting into IT include bank cashier and a jeweller where I specialised in watches and diamonds.
3) I’m hopelessly addicted to technology. I am rarely more than a foot from my phone at any time. Being cut off from the internet wouldn’t amuse me
4) Foods/Drinks I HATE: Tomatoes, Mashed Potatoes, Mushrooms, Cola Drinks (e.g. Coke, Pepsi, Dr Pepper etc.) & Coffee
5) Sports Teams I Follow: Manchester Utd (Soccer), MK Dons (Soccer: My local team), Indianapolis Colts (NFL) and Detroit Red Wings (NHL).
Spend yesterday evening travelling around the Midlands a bit. Yesterday was Top Gear Live at the NEC in Birmingham and after having such a great time last year I couldn’t wait to go again this year. The difference being this time I remembered to take my real camera and didn’t have to rely on a poor camera phone.
The photos aren’t great quality due to the lighting but are greatly improved on anything I managed last year:
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| From Top Gear Live – Nov 16th |
Something strange happened to me yesterday. I forgot to eat. Usually when hungry my body lets me know and I attempt to find something in the kitchen. But yesterday I skipped breakfast (I rarely eat in the mornings anyway. It makes me ill), completely forgot about lunch and then missed getting something to eat in the evening due to seeing Top Gear. I’ll have to try and not do that again. 40 hour gaps between meals probably aren’t all that healthy.
After Top Gear I headed to Leicester for the weekly visit. I figured getting it out of the way yesterday would leave me the entirety of today to be lazy and think about packing for the trip I am leaving on tomorrow. Packing isn’t not something I am usually very good at so I need to give myself a good run at it. I did some this morning and I think I have it mostly covered.
Tomorrow I head up North for four days to get completely away from work. Thanks to the wonders of technology I may be able to post but commenting could be a bit tricky. Pictures and stories will follow next weekend.
After spending most of yesterday just feeling horrible I felt a lot better today. I actually didn’t go into work feeling like complete crap.
Today was especially helped by the fact it was relaxed and I can’t remember my phone ringing once with any sort of problem. I like the days where I get away from the office on time. They seem to happen less often recently and I really need to sort that.
Past the half way point to the weekend now which hopefully means it’s all downhill until my week off. I shall be heading up towards Penrith for the week which is about as far away from work as I can get without leaving the country.
I’m looking forward to not having to deal with people for five days.
Like everyone else at this time of year I’ve suddenly contracted an illness.
As a result I’m feeling very sorry for myself today. I’ve dragged myself through a morning at work and after lunch will tackle some more. I hope of disappears before I go away next week
After a traumatic Sunday morning I just about recovered during the course of the afternoon. Football can work wonders to take your mind off disturbing things. I watched the first half of the Colts game before finally needing to get to sleep.
Today hasn’t been great as Mondays go. It’s probably punishment or something for the fact I have next week off. 5 days of pain before 5 days relaxing. It’s keeping the world in balance.
My 45 minute drive to work turned into nearly a two hour journey due to some stupid traffic census stopping all cars. What kind of muppet plans a traffic census for 8am on a Monday morning? Their results will be totally screwed by the fact they held everyone up.
I arrived at the office feeling a little stressed after that and unfortunately it was one of those mornings where no one can leave you alone for 5 minutes. There were constant interruptions and my work probably suffered because of it. I ended up leaving late due to the chaos getting to work.
Maybe I’ll sort these things out tomorrow.
When you’re in a place you don’t want to be with no escape and very little to do what do you do? Blog in my case!
Friday was as quiet as could be expected in an empty office. For the first time in a few weeks I managed to be out of the door at 4pm. Normally something will go wrong and I end up being there until 6 or 7. I feel like I’m winding down for my week off beginning on the 17th. I’ll actually be able to refuse work this week as I won’t be able to fit it in until December.
I needed to get some small things like watch batteries done this weekend. Driving home on Friday night I suddenly found some motivation and got it out of the way there and then. I hate giving up my weekends to do that kind of thing. If I had left it until Saturday morning I would have struggled to find the energy to do it. Plus I would rather spend my weekends when I am not working with the people I care about and when that can’t happen within my own thoughts.
Sundays are not my favourite part of the weekend. It’s time to visit family which usually means being sat in the corner of the room being ignored. You know the one time I decide not to turn up though I’ll be moaned at. I’m not sure how I coped before the invention of the iPhone though. Writing posts like this, reading Twitter and Facebook just about keep me sane.
This kinda sums it up though…. everyone else just left the room and I’m now sat here on my own. I wonder if anyone will notice if I take a nap
There were slightly more emails in my work inbox this morning than I was expecting after taking just one day off. Can they not actually cope without me?
In the end the emails got cleared fairly quickly. I booked various meetings with people making sure the people who wrote nice emails got put at the front of the queue. Those who didn’t had to wait. It’s normally the same people too so I’ve come to expect it.
After a fairly successful morning of troubleshooting (only two people said thank you!) I had quite a frustrating afternoon which involved:
1) A fight with a firewall. It took a few hours but I won.
2) Someone arranging a meeting. And then asking me if it could wait a while when I turned up. Don’t arrange the meeting if you’re too busy!
Tomorrow is Friday and most people are off work. This either means we’ll have a really quiet day, or I’ll spend all my time answering other people’s phones dealing with problems that don’t belong to me. Still, at least I’ll have the weekend to recover.
I finally decided to get up.
Despite going to bed at somewhere around 4am after watching the election coverage I didn’t get much choice in the matter. We have builders ripping out our bathroom today and they never are the quietest of people. I suspect at some point during the football this evening staying awake may become an issue. Someone kick me if I look like i’m falling asleep?
I spent last night watching the election results roll in. I’ll admit I didn’t manage to make it right to the end but after Obama won Ohio and sailed above 200 electoral college votes I took a chance and went to bed. That may have been a sound decision 
So I hope most Americans got what they wanted out of the election and get what they want out of the next four years. I’m not going to say whether the right decision was made or not because i’m in no position to judge your taxes, your healthcare, your hospitals etc. What I will say is there appears to be a lot of people smiling right now!
But for those of you who didn’t get what you wanted out of last night. Remember to vote for me next time
I got zero sleep last night.
Today could be a very long day
Wow. Did anyone see the end of the Brazilian Grand Prix?
They don’t really get any closer than that. Lewis won the championship literally on the final corner of race.
It was a great end to probably one of the best F1 seasons there has been in a while. Roll on next year!
I woke up late this morning and wasn’t very with it for a few hours. I even managed to pull up to the wrong petrol pump when I went to fill up. I realised before I got out of my car and luckily the place was empty. I could fix that mistake with a quick bit of reversing.
Not planning on doing a great deal or the rest of the day. I thought about going to see the fireworks in the city tonight but I don’t entirely feel like it now. I’ll probably just catch the F1 this afternoon and then some NFL this evening.
Now October is out of the way I’m hoping for a quiet week. I have meetings most of the day tomorrow and nothing scheduled so far for Tuesday. Wednesday I have booked off because I think it might be quite an interesting news day and they don’t come around all that often.
It might be worth catching.
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