Just finished doing stuff that needs to be done this weekend, shopping, mowing the lawn and taking stuff out to the caravan. Now the rest of the weekend can be what it should be, lazing around not working :-) .
Typing this up on my wife's laptop which is kind of weird after having used mine for so long. It seems to be working out ok so far but I've not actually tried doing much work on it yet. I think I'll give it a go at work Monday and see how it turns out. Still, seems strange using someone elses computer to do stuff even if I have infected this mac with windows.
Warm weather has finally made it here which means shorts and tshirts for me and bikini tops for my wife around the house. I like this kind of weather. Not too hot but not bloody cold either. Just a shame it carries on warming up through the summer to silly temperatures, we should be able to hold it right here for the next 6 months.
Pondering what to do for the next couple of days now. I've arranged my wife's birthday present for when we go away for the weekend which given that it is over a month away is forward planning for me. I generally don't organise things as far in advance as my wife does and can often do things in a last minute panic. Most of the time stuff does get done though.
I'm also trying to get the last of our trip to England sorted in my head so that I can finish up the reports I was doing. It is also amazing how many people have just started talking to me about the frigging wedding just because I'm English. I don't really care about it, a couple of rich people got married, big whoop.
Right, off to do something to amuse myself now, back later with some more waffling about stuff.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Friday, April 29, 2011
Argh annoying stupid people
Ok, time to rant about something specific but god damn it stupid people annoy me and make my life so hard sometimes. First a little background to understand why I'm so annoyed. A lot of the time when coding you simply need to know if something is true or false, enabled or disabled, yes or no. You get the idea. Now the negative of these (false, disabled, no) is always always a zero value and following that the positive (true, enabled, yes) is always 1. This makes things simple and you can check thing very easily.
Guess what someone did. They defined their own type where they have enabled being 0 and disabled being 1. So now we have a case in the code of enabled being equal to disabled where different types are used. It looks fucking stupid and is confusing as hell to read. To make it worse we can't just change the wrong type values to the right way around since they are being stored in the permanent configuration in already released code. If we want to fix it we need to write an additional upgrader to the configuration to fix this mistake.
Just another case of someone's stupid shortsightedness that causes me more work dealing with this crap after people have moved on. This is just a simple one to do with a simple yes/no value, you can imagine what kind of shit people think up that you can see is downright dumb with a moments though. With that I'm now going to write some more code to deal with this stuff. *grumble grumble grumble*
Guess what someone did. They defined their own type where they have enabled being 0 and disabled being 1. So now we have a case in the code of enabled being equal to disabled where different types are used. It looks fucking stupid and is confusing as hell to read. To make it worse we can't just change the wrong type values to the right way around since they are being stored in the permanent configuration in already released code. If we want to fix it we need to write an additional upgrader to the configuration to fix this mistake.
Just another case of someone's stupid shortsightedness that causes me more work dealing with this crap after people have moved on. This is just a simple one to do with a simple yes/no value, you can imagine what kind of shit people think up that you can see is downright dumb with a moments though. With that I'm now going to write some more code to deal with this stuff. *grumble grumble grumble*
Head swirling
I'm in the middle of coding an important part of the project I'm working on at the moment and my head is juggling a dozen different interaction that take place at once. It is making my head swirl a little bit so I decided to step away for a second and waffle on at this here blog thingamajig.
Almost done setting up my wife's laptop for me to use and work from home. I still need to get one more thing working that is giving me trouble and is kind of vital to get working since without it I won't be able to actually connect to the servers at work. If it doesn't go then I may need to get a new laptop which is not really something we should be spending money on just yet given we have to get Boots through his permanent radioactive iodine therapy for his thyroid problem as well soon.
Should get the final pieces we need for the car today, the brake controller and adapter plug/wires to connect it up. Then I get to try my first real bit of work on the car that I'm going to do myself, hooking up 4 wires underneath the dash of the car to wire up the controller. It shouldn't be too bad since there are guides online on how exactly to do it complete with pictures. Also if I mess it up then I won't do any damage to the car itself which is also a relief.
Right, back to coding and working before doing another interview today and then getting out early to take the wife to get her stitches out.
Almost done setting up my wife's laptop for me to use and work from home. I still need to get one more thing working that is giving me trouble and is kind of vital to get working since without it I won't be able to actually connect to the servers at work. If it doesn't go then I may need to get a new laptop which is not really something we should be spending money on just yet given we have to get Boots through his permanent radioactive iodine therapy for his thyroid problem as well soon.
Should get the final pieces we need for the car today, the brake controller and adapter plug/wires to connect it up. Then I get to try my first real bit of work on the car that I'm going to do myself, hooking up 4 wires underneath the dash of the car to wire up the controller. It shouldn't be too bad since there are guides online on how exactly to do it complete with pictures. Also if I mess it up then I won't do any damage to the car itself which is also a relief.
Right, back to coding and working before doing another interview today and then getting out early to take the wife to get her stitches out.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Now I'm really old
Just had a thought. Was talking to this guy I interviewed earlier asking him about his background and realised I was writing programs for fun on a computer 6 years before he was born. Yikes. For a junior position though he was a good fit and very keen which is not always something you see. He is just looking to expand his knowledge and work around cool stuff so we shall see what the other guys thought of him during the debrief in a bit.
Hello shitstorm
Gah, hate it when I walk in to work and there is already some pile of steaming crap for me to deal with. Guess what happened today?
Still, after spending an inordinate amount of time getting windows up and running on my wife's mac laptop I've brought it with me today to see if I can get everything else I need to work from home going on it. So far so good but it is starting to buckle a bit under the strain.
Now if you will excuse me I need to go sort out the crap left behind by someone who left the company. Luckily we had two new people start last week and I have two more interviews this week so we might actually be back up to full strength soon.
Still, after spending an inordinate amount of time getting windows up and running on my wife's mac laptop I've brought it with me today to see if I can get everything else I need to work from home going on it. So far so good but it is starting to buckle a bit under the strain.
Now if you will excuse me I need to go sort out the crap left behind by someone who left the company. Luckily we had two new people start last week and I have two more interviews this week so we might actually be back up to full strength soon.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Still kinda bummed
Been gloomy all day so far after getting that news this morning. I did manage to get some productive work done so far though and ordered the parts to attach the brake controller to the car so it has not been a total loss of a day. That and a game I ordered that was on sale the other day turned up today as well so I've got something new to try out when I get home. Not that getting home and being with my wife isn't enough :-) .
Tried out the cereal mix again today and the official verdict is that it is a delicious mixture. It will be my staple breakfast for a while now. I get in to these phases where I will eat one thing lots and lots and lots over a period of months then I will switch to something else. For lunch at work 95% of the time I will have a chicken salad sandwich, I have it so often I just need to walk in to the cafeteria (such as it is) and ask for a sandwich and they know what to make.
Have to go attend another meeting now so until next time when hopefully I'll feel a bit better about things.
Tried out the cereal mix again today and the official verdict is that it is a delicious mixture. It will be my staple breakfast for a while now. I get in to these phases where I will eat one thing lots and lots and lots over a period of months then I will switch to something else. For lunch at work 95% of the time I will have a chicken salad sandwich, I have it so often I just need to walk in to the cafeteria (such as it is) and ask for a sandwich and they know what to make.
Have to go attend another meeting now so until next time when hopefully I'll feel a bit better about things.
Health stuff
Been looking at health stuff this morning with the news I got. Looked at a link my wife sent me last night http://www.ahrq.gov/healthymen/prevent.htm and a few other things. Also found an amusing quiz which I actually got 9 out of 9 on right here . It includes a phrase "growers and showers" which is a wording for something I was aware of but just didn't know had a phrase associated with it.
Being sorely tempted by a laptop at the moment as well, down to $1000 from $1500 during a sale which ends tomorrow. Really shouldn't be spending the money but given the mood I'm in I'm still tempted.
Being sorely tempted by a laptop at the moment as well, down to $1000 from $1500 during a sale which ends tomorrow. Really shouldn't be spending the money but given the mood I'm in I'm still tempted.
Bad news
Just got some bad news from my old school friend. Seems his lymphoma has been changed from stage 3 to stage 4 with some spots in his bone marrow. SHIT. Obviously this lessens his chances of pulling through which is kind of getting me down. Not how I wanted to start the day but what can you do. I can only hope for the best for him.
In order to try and cheer me up I'll post a great picture of Lucy I took the other night.
In order to try and cheer me up I'll post a great picture of Lucy I took the other night.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Do what I ask people
Grrrr, found out today I'm missing one vital component in order to tow the caravan. As part of th tow kit installed I was told the brake controller would be hooked up. Seems they didn't supply one so I need to get one fitted. All the wiring is there but nothing is connected to it.
The brake controller is kind of important, it tells the trailer to apply the electric brakes when slowing down. Without it the trailer is just free rolling. Luckily I found this out before we have done any long trips although it shows how bloody good the brakes on our SUV are since it stopped when doing the test tow with no struggle. That is over 10000 lbs of weight being brought to a stop, a heck of a lot of mass to slow.
Still I shouldn't have to be dealing with this if the fucking dealer had installed what I asked or told me up front they couldn't supply the brake controller.
The brake controller is kind of important, it tells the trailer to apply the electric brakes when slowing down. Without it the trailer is just free rolling. Luckily I found this out before we have done any long trips although it shows how bloody good the brakes on our SUV are since it stopped when doing the test tow with no struggle. That is over 10000 lbs of weight being brought to a stop, a heck of a lot of mass to slow.
Still I shouldn't have to be dealing with this if the fucking dealer had installed what I asked or told me up front they couldn't supply the brake controller.
Generous
Since my laptop is dead my wife donated her laptop to me (since she has her big desktop machine that she mostly uses at home) for me to use when I need to work at home. We spent a bit of last night getting the laptop up to date with the latest Mac OS X since it was a little out of date after not being used much recently. That took only 2 hours, one DVD and about 1.5Gig of patch downloads.... Tonight will involve setting up boot camp and loading windows 7 on it (blasphemy to my wife) and seeing if I can get it to run everything I need to work from home. The development environment we use takes a lot of oomph as it were to run which is why my dead laptop was a pretty beefy one at the time (and still is really, just a few years old).
Almost managed to fail at having breakfast this morning, I only had a little bit of cereal left in my boxes here at work so it ended up being a mixture of honey nut cheerios and cocoa krispies. It came out surprisingly tasty, I may try it again tomorrow when I get some new cereal.
For the last week I've been playing Portal 2 which is a very very good game. It was so good that once I finished it (took about 10 hours) I then went through and played it again. The humour in it is very well done and the puzzles, although not as difficult as the first game, are fun to solve and don't overly rely on one solution type. They mix things up continuously through the game so it doesn't get stale and repetitive. I even did a little bit of the coop mode split screen (since the PSN is still down) using two controllers to try that out. I recommend this game to anyone who has a device capable of playing it.
Going to go sort out a birthday present for my wife now since that is coming up fast and I have a good idea for a change of something nice to get her. And if my wife reads this (which I know she will at some point today), no I won't give you any hints as to what it is.
Almost managed to fail at having breakfast this morning, I only had a little bit of cereal left in my boxes here at work so it ended up being a mixture of honey nut cheerios and cocoa krispies. It came out surprisingly tasty, I may try it again tomorrow when I get some new cereal.
For the last week I've been playing Portal 2 which is a very very good game. It was so good that once I finished it (took about 10 hours) I then went through and played it again. The humour in it is very well done and the puzzles, although not as difficult as the first game, are fun to solve and don't overly rely on one solution type. They mix things up continuously through the game so it doesn't get stale and repetitive. I even did a little bit of the coop mode split screen (since the PSN is still down) using two controllers to try that out. I recommend this game to anyone who has a device capable of playing it.
Going to go sort out a birthday present for my wife now since that is coming up fast and I have a good idea for a change of something nice to get her. And if my wife reads this (which I know she will at some point today), no I won't give you any hints as to what it is.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Feck and Trip report part 4
Looks like the laptop is truly dead, the only way to replace the video card is to replace the whole mother board. Quickly looking for a replacement and it comes out to somewhere in the $600 to $800 range just for the motherboard. I know my laptop was a decent one but wow that is steep. Not to mention since the videocard in the laptop was known for failing (a fact that came to light about a year after I bought the laptop) then there is no guarantee that it will not fail again. Bugger.
Anyway, on to better things, the continuation of my trip report. Weird that is has been almost two weeks since we've been back and I'm still writing this but we've been busy with stuff. We were on Friday, a day we decided to go to the beach since it was yet another lovely day and it wasn't too far to go (25 miles or so).
Since we had four people and a baby in his car seat we took two cars to get there since there was no way we were going to fit in to one car. With everything finally ready (it takes a while to get everything together to travel with a baby) we set off. Getting there was relatively easy, we just set the GPS for the town the beach was in and once we got there followed the signs for the beach. We even got parked right by the beach since we were there early enough before the car park filled up too much. We got a good spot away from most people and staked our claim with a huge blanket.
It was a good few hours at the beach all together. We had food, building sand castles with a bucket and spade, ice cream, paddling in the sea and good weather. Our nephew got a little gripey after being happy because my mother in law decided to try and put a jumper on him to keep him warm even though he was perfectly warm enough. Yeah, a lot of what she does is like that, take something calm and peaceful and turn it in to something worse. Still it made me realise that having a baby would be a constant interruption to whatever you are doing.
I suppose here I should pontificate a bit on what having a child would do to us. I still see it as a good thing but I'm not sure we could cope with it. Having a child takes all of your time, especially early on. We've become comfortable with just us, for almost 20 years it has just been the two of us (plus cats for the past 11 years) so I don't think we could deal with the change. It is like anything really, if it happened (which it won't realistically) we would cope but it is not something we are going to do. I have accepted that and am happy with it, I just wish I had not put us through this with how my feelings bounced around on the subject. I miss the fact that it didn't happen but can accept the choices we made. So there we go, no big life realisation really, just learning to cope with how things turned out and to be happy together as we are.
So, back to the trip stuff. I would post some more pictures here but considering they are all on my laptop and the only other way to get them involves emailing them around or grabbing them from an unfriendly website I won't bother. You can just image a nice beach with the 5 of us on it :-) .
The rest of the day went by quietly, a bit of shopping, time at home, dinner and then another early night since we were worn out again with the days activities.
I'll try and make the next trip report post sooner, hopefully this week won't be quite so busy with stuff going on.
Anyway, on to better things, the continuation of my trip report. Weird that is has been almost two weeks since we've been back and I'm still writing this but we've been busy with stuff. We were on Friday, a day we decided to go to the beach since it was yet another lovely day and it wasn't too far to go (25 miles or so).
Since we had four people and a baby in his car seat we took two cars to get there since there was no way we were going to fit in to one car. With everything finally ready (it takes a while to get everything together to travel with a baby) we set off. Getting there was relatively easy, we just set the GPS for the town the beach was in and once we got there followed the signs for the beach. We even got parked right by the beach since we were there early enough before the car park filled up too much. We got a good spot away from most people and staked our claim with a huge blanket.
It was a good few hours at the beach all together. We had food, building sand castles with a bucket and spade, ice cream, paddling in the sea and good weather. Our nephew got a little gripey after being happy because my mother in law decided to try and put a jumper on him to keep him warm even though he was perfectly warm enough. Yeah, a lot of what she does is like that, take something calm and peaceful and turn it in to something worse. Still it made me realise that having a baby would be a constant interruption to whatever you are doing.
I suppose here I should pontificate a bit on what having a child would do to us. I still see it as a good thing but I'm not sure we could cope with it. Having a child takes all of your time, especially early on. We've become comfortable with just us, for almost 20 years it has just been the two of us (plus cats for the past 11 years) so I don't think we could deal with the change. It is like anything really, if it happened (which it won't realistically) we would cope but it is not something we are going to do. I have accepted that and am happy with it, I just wish I had not put us through this with how my feelings bounced around on the subject. I miss the fact that it didn't happen but can accept the choices we made. So there we go, no big life realisation really, just learning to cope with how things turned out and to be happy together as we are.
So, back to the trip stuff. I would post some more pictures here but considering they are all on my laptop and the only other way to get them involves emailing them around or grabbing them from an unfriendly website I won't bother. You can just image a nice beach with the 5 of us on it :-) .
The rest of the day went by quietly, a bit of shopping, time at home, dinner and then another early night since we were worn out again with the days activities.
I'll try and make the next trip report post sooner, hopefully this week won't be quite so busy with stuff going on.
Sunday, April 24, 2011
Dead computer
Seems the videocard in my laptop died sometime last night. It works fir a bit then the screen gets lines all over it and then goes black completely. It works for a bit if I let it cool down but it needs to be replaced. Damn it.
Time to see if I can replace it or I need to go more whole hog with a new laptop. Hopefully the former since it will be much cheaper.
Time to see if I can replace it or I need to go more whole hog with a new laptop. Hopefully the former since it will be much cheaper.
Friday, April 22, 2011
All complete
Well, here it is. The complete caravan all hooked up and ready to be driven for the first time. It was easy enough although you could tell all that weight was back there when driving around. I only scraped the bottom of it slightly pulling out of the place we got it from as there was a steep slope to the road. Now we are ready to go places and stay in style and luxury.
Thursday, April 21, 2011
The strange things you find out
Some strange things come up in conversations at work sometime. Talking at lunch with some people we were discussing the new guy who started here this week. He has this strange indentation in the middle of his forehead that looks a little strange but whatever. The people in our group went out to lunch on Monday to welcome this new guy to the group and to get to know him and each other.
As we went out it was raining slightly so this new guy ran to his car to get a coat with a hood. The rest of us, given that it was California rain and therefore barely making things wet, just casually wandered along wondering why he was dashing off like that. It turns out, as discovered from a conversation on the way back from lunch, he is very susceptible to colds and so forth if he gets wet. Why you ask? Apparently he has a chunk of his skull missing from an accident earlier on in his life. Clearly he doesn't mind talking about it since the dent it causes in his head is very noticeable and people obviously ask him about it every so often.
Still, there we go. The totally random things people bring up about themselves that make you realise we all have something strange about us in one way or another even if it isn't completely physically blatant as it is with this guy.
As we went out it was raining slightly so this new guy ran to his car to get a coat with a hood. The rest of us, given that it was California rain and therefore barely making things wet, just casually wandered along wondering why he was dashing off like that. It turns out, as discovered from a conversation on the way back from lunch, he is very susceptible to colds and so forth if he gets wet. Why you ask? Apparently he has a chunk of his skull missing from an accident earlier on in his life. Clearly he doesn't mind talking about it since the dent it causes in his head is very noticeable and people obviously ask him about it every so often.
Still, there we go. The totally random things people bring up about themselves that make you realise we all have something strange about us in one way or another even if it isn't completely physically blatant as it is with this guy.
Still busy
Seems to be a never ending pile of work and stuff to do at the moment. Today started off with even more work for me to do after working from home for two days. Still other than waiting a lot the doctor visits the last couple of days went ok. My wife did feel a bit sick after the minor surgery yesterday and something from that is making her itchy but from what she says she is not in too much pain.
Today the car is in getting the tow hitch installed so we should be able to try out towing the caravan this weekend in preparation for our first tentative trip in a couple of weeks. We are also looking at some more trips later next month especially if we enjoy out first trip. Exciting times etc.
Ok, to let you know how busy it is here today, I started typing this at 9:33, it is now 10:16 and due to interruptions this is as far as I have gotten. ARGH.
So with that annoyance of actually doing work I now have to go do an interview. Sigh.
Today the car is in getting the tow hitch installed so we should be able to try out towing the caravan this weekend in preparation for our first tentative trip in a couple of weeks. We are also looking at some more trips later next month especially if we enjoy out first trip. Exciting times etc.
Ok, to let you know how busy it is here today, I started typing this at 9:33, it is now 10:16 and due to interruptions this is as far as I have gotten. ARGH.
So with that annoyance of actually doing work I now have to go do an interview. Sigh.
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Waiting again
For the second time in two days sitting here waiting on a doctors office for an hour past the appointment time. Kind of depressing how much if our lives is spent this way. Surely not all doctors are this late? I can't think of one who is ever on time other than our GP who never seems to be busy.
Strange start
Mixed start to the day today. Woke up early as usual but since I'm working from home today decided to stay in bed for a little bit. Had a very very very nice time with my wife (twice) and just cuddled with her for a bit afterwards feeling like the luckiest husband in the world.
I then get up and see an update from my best friend from school. His lymphoma hasn't spread to his bone marrow luckily but it is at stage 3 in his abdomen so he starts chemo the second week of May.
As I said some good and some bad to start today.
I then get up and see an update from my best friend from school. His lymphoma hasn't spread to his bone marrow luckily but it is at stage 3 in his abdomen so he starts chemo the second week of May.
As I said some good and some bad to start today.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Trip report part 3
Ok, after two long days my wife and I are finally rid of my parents and safely resting in Kent. We had a good long sleep in the place we were staying at, however we had no car having been dropped off the night before by my sister in law. According to her husband it is a short walk across a field to get to their house so we decided to do that in the morning to go and get breakfast at my sister in law's house.
Little did they tell us that they are at the top of a hill and the place we were sleeping at is at the bottom..... Not to mention the diagonal path across the field was gone since it had been plowed and seeded so we had to go the long way along the edge and find the path leading to the back of the houses. A nice trog up a hill and through some unknown pathways, just what you need first thing in the morning before breakfast when you are starved and have a wife whose surgery scars still can't be stretched too much.
We did get to my sister in laws house ok though and had breakfast. It was then my wife and I's turn to take our little nephew out on our own (with mother in law in tow unfortunately) to do a bit of shopping and get a couple of things. I had been looking forward to spending time with him since he is generally a happy little chap, being 3 months old and mainly in the eat, sleep and poop phase of babyhood. We got the car seat all set up in my mother in law's car, the doing of which involved removing an entire back seats worth (seat to ceiling) of crap my mother in law had decided to bring with her, we are talking blankets, boxes of random shit and other odds and ends that she travels with for no good reason. Then with everyone safely strapped in our trek started.
I should describe my mother in law's car here now. I drive a nice big Volkswagen SUV, roomy and reasonably large with a biggish engine (especially for England). However my mother in law has a 1.1 litre Suzuki Alto, basically a small tin can with an engine. It was my first time driving in England for quite a while, including driving a manual car but it came back to me pretty easily. We had to drive down those same fun narrow country roads, through another village, wait at a train crossing (more on this later) and headed off to the local Tesco supermarket to get some food and supplies.
Upon arriving at the supermarket (which I somehow found from memory having last been there 6 years ago) we noticed something odd. For some reason there were a lot of people standing around outside seemingly just milling about. Strange we thought. As we got a little bit closer we could hear it. That shrill sound of fire alarms going off. Oh dear.
With that sight and sound to greet us I turned the car around and we headed off to another supermarket we knew about nearby, the good old local "the Asda" (think a supermarket chain that ended up being bought by Walmart and you get the idea). We got there with no problems and I actually managed to get the car up to 70mph despite it's best efforts to impede my lead foot.
One good thing about parking at supermarkets it that in England they have "mother and baby" parking to make it easier for people with children to get their kids in and out of car seats and have parking near to the entrance of the supermarket. Using our nephew to take advantage of this we unstrapped him from his seat, got him in to a shopping trolley and headed in.
We immediately managed to get annoyed by my mother in law who decided that she must have a sun hat. She does this every time we are anywhere and I'm sure she has a collection building up in a spare bedroom at home. After spending an inordinate amount of time of her trying on various hats (including the complaining that there wasn't a mirror to see how it looked despite there being one at the end of the aisle) we finally got on with the actual shopping we went there for.
Now I should definitely mention here English food, specifically the foods we have been missing living in the US. Before we traveled to England my sister in law gave my wife access to her online food shopping account and my wife went through and found and bought a whole bunch of food. She managed to get us all sorts of things we had been pining for and wanted to eat when we were there. One of these things is something my wife loves called Faggots which she was planning to have for dinner that night. I on the other hand am not so keen on them so we got some nice Salmon to have. Since we were there we also availed ourselves of some lovely British chocolate. During all this time our nephew was having a grand time and behaving himself nicely despite the warnings from my sister in law that he was a grumpy bugger :-) .
We got the shopping done just in time for our nephew to require feeding so we set him up in his car seat again and fed him before setting off back to the house. Once we got back the rest of the day was fairly quiet, I played in the garden with their dog who was overly attentive of me and we did some washing.
When I say washing I mean lots and lots of washing. We brought two suitcases with us, one of which was completely full of clothes we had bought for our nephew. We had so much that we used space bags to suck the air out of and compress the clothes down to try and squeeze them all in. The final pile of clothes that we had unpacked was huge, it towered above my sister in law as she sat on the sofa and looked at them all.
The evening then passed fairly quietly as my brother in law came home from work, food was scoffed down and we collapsed for the evening. We attempted to watch a bit of British TV but we were all fairly worn out so we said our good nights and headed off to bed. Well I had to drive down the road a little bit to where we were staying but you get the idea.
Next update we will cover the cool day out at the beach we had on Friday and the other stuff that went on including the eating of more delicious food. Also to be covered is how much we enjoyed being with our little nephew and how it made me feel about children (the whole not having kids thing).
Little did they tell us that they are at the top of a hill and the place we were sleeping at is at the bottom..... Not to mention the diagonal path across the field was gone since it had been plowed and seeded so we had to go the long way along the edge and find the path leading to the back of the houses. A nice trog up a hill and through some unknown pathways, just what you need first thing in the morning before breakfast when you are starved and have a wife whose surgery scars still can't be stretched too much.
We did get to my sister in laws house ok though and had breakfast. It was then my wife and I's turn to take our little nephew out on our own (with mother in law in tow unfortunately) to do a bit of shopping and get a couple of things. I had been looking forward to spending time with him since he is generally a happy little chap, being 3 months old and mainly in the eat, sleep and poop phase of babyhood. We got the car seat all set up in my mother in law's car, the doing of which involved removing an entire back seats worth (seat to ceiling) of crap my mother in law had decided to bring with her, we are talking blankets, boxes of random shit and other odds and ends that she travels with for no good reason. Then with everyone safely strapped in our trek started.
I should describe my mother in law's car here now. I drive a nice big Volkswagen SUV, roomy and reasonably large with a biggish engine (especially for England). However my mother in law has a 1.1 litre Suzuki Alto, basically a small tin can with an engine. It was my first time driving in England for quite a while, including driving a manual car but it came back to me pretty easily. We had to drive down those same fun narrow country roads, through another village, wait at a train crossing (more on this later) and headed off to the local Tesco supermarket to get some food and supplies.
Upon arriving at the supermarket (which I somehow found from memory having last been there 6 years ago) we noticed something odd. For some reason there were a lot of people standing around outside seemingly just milling about. Strange we thought. As we got a little bit closer we could hear it. That shrill sound of fire alarms going off. Oh dear.
With that sight and sound to greet us I turned the car around and we headed off to another supermarket we knew about nearby, the good old local "the Asda" (think a supermarket chain that ended up being bought by Walmart and you get the idea). We got there with no problems and I actually managed to get the car up to 70mph despite it's best efforts to impede my lead foot.
One good thing about parking at supermarkets it that in England they have "mother and baby" parking to make it easier for people with children to get their kids in and out of car seats and have parking near to the entrance of the supermarket. Using our nephew to take advantage of this we unstrapped him from his seat, got him in to a shopping trolley and headed in.
We immediately managed to get annoyed by my mother in law who decided that she must have a sun hat. She does this every time we are anywhere and I'm sure she has a collection building up in a spare bedroom at home. After spending an inordinate amount of time of her trying on various hats (including the complaining that there wasn't a mirror to see how it looked despite there being one at the end of the aisle) we finally got on with the actual shopping we went there for.
Now I should definitely mention here English food, specifically the foods we have been missing living in the US. Before we traveled to England my sister in law gave my wife access to her online food shopping account and my wife went through and found and bought a whole bunch of food. She managed to get us all sorts of things we had been pining for and wanted to eat when we were there. One of these things is something my wife loves called Faggots which she was planning to have for dinner that night. I on the other hand am not so keen on them so we got some nice Salmon to have. Since we were there we also availed ourselves of some lovely British chocolate. During all this time our nephew was having a grand time and behaving himself nicely despite the warnings from my sister in law that he was a grumpy bugger :-) .
We got the shopping done just in time for our nephew to require feeding so we set him up in his car seat again and fed him before setting off back to the house. Once we got back the rest of the day was fairly quiet, I played in the garden with their dog who was overly attentive of me and we did some washing.
When I say washing I mean lots and lots of washing. We brought two suitcases with us, one of which was completely full of clothes we had bought for our nephew. We had so much that we used space bags to suck the air out of and compress the clothes down to try and squeeze them all in. The final pile of clothes that we had unpacked was huge, it towered above my sister in law as she sat on the sofa and looked at them all.
The evening then passed fairly quietly as my brother in law came home from work, food was scoffed down and we collapsed for the evening. We attempted to watch a bit of British TV but we were all fairly worn out so we said our good nights and headed off to bed. Well I had to drive down the road a little bit to where we were staying but you get the idea.
Next update we will cover the cool day out at the beach we had on Friday and the other stuff that went on including the eating of more delicious food. Also to be covered is how much we enjoyed being with our little nephew and how it made me feel about children (the whole not having kids thing).
Plan coming together
Just finished working with the guy at work who is going to make my life easier. My plan for automatically generating thousands of lines of code with no errors is coming together nicely.
In other news doctors really do need to get their arse in gear and make appointments on time. I took my wife to her appointment for 8:45 this morning, the office having opened somewhere around 8:00 to 8:30. She didn't actually see the doctor until 9:55, what the hell? 10 minutes later she is done and we are out of there after waiting another 15 minutes to get the prescription and test sheet from the receptionist. A serious waste of our time considering he never really does anything other than require he sees my wife to see that she is still healthy.
In other news doctors really do need to get their arse in gear and make appointments on time. I took my wife to her appointment for 8:45 this morning, the office having opened somewhere around 8:00 to 8:30. She didn't actually see the doctor until 9:55, what the hell? 10 minutes later she is done and we are out of there after waiting another 15 minutes to get the prescription and test sheet from the receptionist. A serious waste of our time considering he never really does anything other than require he sees my wife to see that she is still healthy.
Monday, April 18, 2011
Cat picture
Just about to grab some lunch but decided to post this cat picture I grabbed last night. The girls were having a cuddle moment together. You can really see how much bigger Lucy is getting compared to Daisy in this one.
Trip report part 2
Let me see, where was I? Ah yes, just finished having dinner with the family and gone to bed for the night. It was 10pm which meant I had survived the jet lag tiredness ok. However come the next morning my body decided it hated me and I awoke at my usual time of 4am. Even with the freaking time zone change I still decided to wake up early, how annoying is that?
The plan for the next day was to be driven to my sister in laws by my parents, have lunch and then spend the rest of the time in England with my sister in law. It sort of worked out like that but there was a bit more activity than that. Since we were in England my wife really wanted to find a good pair of wellington boots to bring home with us since the selection we've found in the US hasn't been that great. We drove in to the town I grew up in to check out the shops at the mall. It was kind of weird seeing how things have changed and the town I knew is quite changed from what I grew up with. To give you an idea of the kind of place it is now see wikipedia or for a more realistic view the urban dictionary since it has become a real chav town now. It is a strange kind of town, before the 1950s it didn't really exist and then it was a planned town where a lot of the people who lived in the run down areas of London were moved to. One of those people was my father whereas my mother lived on a farm in the area. So you have this relatively new town with a lot of old buildings dotted around the area (see Worth Church e.g.).
Anyway, bit of an aside there, back to the shopping. We did look around a bit to try and find some good wellies but had no real luck. As I said seeing how the town has changed was weird but we did find a lovely dress for my wife and some good greetings cards since a lot of the ones we find in the US are pretty crap. Once shopping was completed we headed off to my sister in laws. This meant surviving more of my fathers driving but it was motorway most of the way. Once we got off the motorway though we got in to the typical country roads you find in England while making our way to the small village my sister in law lives in. We are talking single lane roads where if you come across another car coming the other way one of you is backing up a bit to find a slightly wider bit of road in order to pass one another. The driveway at our house is wider than most of these roads.
Still, we made it to the house with no real problems courtesy of a GPS and got out and greeted the people there. Waiting for us was my sister in law, her husband who we were meeting for our first time, our new nephew and unfortunately my mother in law. To say my wife and her sister are continuously annoyed and aggravated by my mother in law would be an understatement so it was annoying that she had decided to spend the week there. We got there just in time for lunch and since the weather from California had followed us from England it was a lunch out in the garden with all 8 of us. The original plan then was for my parents to drive home then but my lovely new brother in law, being the generally polite person he is, invited my parents to stay for the dinner out we were having that day which they obviously accepted since they could spend more time seeing me and my wife. However my wife has never gotten along well with my father, he is a person who can really lack tact and humility a lot of the time and it winds her up to no end. I've become numb to it having grown up with him but can understand how my wife feels. It doesn't help that he really didn't ingratiated himself with her early on before we were married by offering to pay off the wedding if she didn't want to go through with it..... yeah really.
Anyway in order to escape my parents for a bit my wife stayed with her sister for a few hours while I and my parents went to where we were going to be sleeping whilst we were in England since my sister in law doesn't have enough room for everybody to sleep at her house let alone the fact that our nephew still wakes up a lot noisily during the night. This place is a converted stable/barn kind of thing which is now a self catering lodge kind of thing. To get to this place though you go down an even narrower road, this one was so narrow the middle of it had moss growing in it since you had about 6 inches of space to either side of your car so there was no way for anything to actually run down the middle of the road.
The afternoon then passed fairly peacefully with general lazing around and napping taking place before we went out for dinner that evening. This is where my mother in law managed to start her reign of annoyance. The place we went to dinner in was a nice restaurant in the next slightly larger village over. Once we had gotten there my mother in law decided she did not feel well, didn't want anything to eat and my sister in law had to spend 20 minutes driving her back to the lodge. Once past that though we had some good food and my father managed to virtually monopolise the conversation with my brother in law with a game of one upping one another about stuff.
Once dinner was over we crammed in to my sister in laws car, said goodbye to my parents and got driven back to the lodge before collapsing in to bed exhausted again. I should mention here though the most important thing about the evening, the fact that my wife was the most gorgeous person there in one of the dresses she had brought with her to wear. She looked absolutely great and brought a big smile to my face. I was proud to be married to her.
Until the next update then when I detail the first day we had where I managed to get to spend a decent amount of time with our nephew and loved every minute of it.
The plan for the next day was to be driven to my sister in laws by my parents, have lunch and then spend the rest of the time in England with my sister in law. It sort of worked out like that but there was a bit more activity than that. Since we were in England my wife really wanted to find a good pair of wellington boots to bring home with us since the selection we've found in the US hasn't been that great. We drove in to the town I grew up in to check out the shops at the mall. It was kind of weird seeing how things have changed and the town I knew is quite changed from what I grew up with. To give you an idea of the kind of place it is now see wikipedia or for a more realistic view the urban dictionary since it has become a real chav town now. It is a strange kind of town, before the 1950s it didn't really exist and then it was a planned town where a lot of the people who lived in the run down areas of London were moved to. One of those people was my father whereas my mother lived on a farm in the area. So you have this relatively new town with a lot of old buildings dotted around the area (see Worth Church e.g.).
Anyway, bit of an aside there, back to the shopping. We did look around a bit to try and find some good wellies but had no real luck. As I said seeing how the town has changed was weird but we did find a lovely dress for my wife and some good greetings cards since a lot of the ones we find in the US are pretty crap. Once shopping was completed we headed off to my sister in laws. This meant surviving more of my fathers driving but it was motorway most of the way. Once we got off the motorway though we got in to the typical country roads you find in England while making our way to the small village my sister in law lives in. We are talking single lane roads where if you come across another car coming the other way one of you is backing up a bit to find a slightly wider bit of road in order to pass one another. The driveway at our house is wider than most of these roads.
Still, we made it to the house with no real problems courtesy of a GPS and got out and greeted the people there. Waiting for us was my sister in law, her husband who we were meeting for our first time, our new nephew and unfortunately my mother in law. To say my wife and her sister are continuously annoyed and aggravated by my mother in law would be an understatement so it was annoying that she had decided to spend the week there. We got there just in time for lunch and since the weather from California had followed us from England it was a lunch out in the garden with all 8 of us. The original plan then was for my parents to drive home then but my lovely new brother in law, being the generally polite person he is, invited my parents to stay for the dinner out we were having that day which they obviously accepted since they could spend more time seeing me and my wife. However my wife has never gotten along well with my father, he is a person who can really lack tact and humility a lot of the time and it winds her up to no end. I've become numb to it having grown up with him but can understand how my wife feels. It doesn't help that he really didn't ingratiated himself with her early on before we were married by offering to pay off the wedding if she didn't want to go through with it..... yeah really.
Anyway in order to escape my parents for a bit my wife stayed with her sister for a few hours while I and my parents went to where we were going to be sleeping whilst we were in England since my sister in law doesn't have enough room for everybody to sleep at her house let alone the fact that our nephew still wakes up a lot noisily during the night. This place is a converted stable/barn kind of thing which is now a self catering lodge kind of thing. To get to this place though you go down an even narrower road, this one was so narrow the middle of it had moss growing in it since you had about 6 inches of space to either side of your car so there was no way for anything to actually run down the middle of the road.
The afternoon then passed fairly peacefully with general lazing around and napping taking place before we went out for dinner that evening. This is where my mother in law managed to start her reign of annoyance. The place we went to dinner in was a nice restaurant in the next slightly larger village over. Once we had gotten there my mother in law decided she did not feel well, didn't want anything to eat and my sister in law had to spend 20 minutes driving her back to the lodge. Once past that though we had some good food and my father managed to virtually monopolise the conversation with my brother in law with a game of one upping one another about stuff.
Once dinner was over we crammed in to my sister in laws car, said goodbye to my parents and got driven back to the lodge before collapsing in to bed exhausted again. I should mention here though the most important thing about the evening, the fact that my wife was the most gorgeous person there in one of the dresses she had brought with her to wear. She looked absolutely great and brought a big smile to my face. I was proud to be married to her.
Until the next update then when I detail the first day we had where I managed to get to spend a decent amount of time with our nephew and loved every minute of it.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Trip report part 1
This is probably going to take me forever to type up so I have no idea when this will appear. Obviously as you are reading this it is up but for me this is starting Sunday morning. Quite a bit happened on just over a week so lets start with the traveling to England shall we?
For once we were flying a different airline than we usually do, normally we would take Virgin Atlantic for a trip back to England since they generally were the cheapest and also have better planes with more in flight entertainment to keep us busy. In fact when we moved to the US we used them and booked a premium economy seat to treat ourselves a little bit. To our surprise when we did actually fly out we got upgraded to first class, not sure how that happened but it was the comfiest flight I've ever been on. Pity the flight we took a couple of weeks ago wasn't like that. I think it is safe to say that our experience in the airport was better than on the actual plane.
We got to the airport early enough to check in and get the best seats. In fact we got there so early that they couldn't check us in yet since they didn't know the seating layout of the plane they were going to use yet. 30 minutes later we actually checked in and got the emergency exit row seats, not for the leg room but for the fact that you have nobody in front of you leaning their seat back in to your face. We had one flight once where the seats were so close together when the guy in front leaned his seat back it knocked my wife's drink over. Not to mention later on he managed to throw his seat belt behind him and hit my wife on the head with it, he was a total twat and Canadian to boot. Anyway, this flight was alright, we flew British Midland International since it was so much cheaper than the next one we could find. Even then over 60% of the ticket was taxes and fees and not the ticket, flying is getting stupidly expensive.
The flight itself as I said was alright. The food was a bit tepid, a bit of watery chicken and vegetables for dinner and a rather naff breakfast before we landed. It was an overnight flight but as usual it is pretty damn hard to sleep on a plane with the noise. The entertainment was like 9 channels playing on a loop so you had to catch it at the right time to watch anything which is annoying, not like the on demand stuff with pausing you get on most flights. The flight itself made good time getting to England and we got there earlier than expected and had to circle for 15 minutes or so before they let us land. When we got off we found ourselves at the very end of terminal 1 at Heathrow. I don't know how many people reading this have been to Heathrow but to get anywhere you have to do a lot of walking. I'm talking about 20 to 25 minutes to get to the end of some of the terminals. Guess how far away we were. Yeah, it took us almost 20 minutes of walking to get from the gate we landed at to the passport check point. Luckily there were no queues so we simply strolled through, got our passports scanned and were on our way. Then when we got the baggage claim around the corner we literally didn't stop walking since our bags were right there so we grabbed them and walked right out through customs with no stops. Bascially from getting off the plane to leaving the airport we walked continuously with no stops on the way for 25 minutes. Not bad going really just quite a long way to go. My parents were there to pick us up and off we went to there house.
We had taken off at 7pm in the evening California time and landed at 1pm in the afternoon England time. For us that was 5 in the morning the next day without any sleep and we still had an afternoon and evening to go before we could go to bed and get over the jet lag properly. The drive to my parents house was uneventful in itself, just with my fathers too fast driving, he is in his 60s now and doesn't have the reactions he used to have yet still likes going 80mph plus. I just sat back and tried to take it easy and see if I could see what had changed in England since we were last there. It was still as green as I remember it, something I miss the most about living there. Where we are in California goes all brown in the summer and the only green bits are the hills in winter/spring so it is nice to see a landscape that is green all over.
Once we got to my parents house my wife and I breathed a sigh of relief that my dads driving was done with for the day and wandered in to the house. We had to get the quick tour of the changes my parents have done to the house since we were last there, basically two new bathrooms with some slightly moved walls, new carpet and paint downstairs and a new stairs banister. Nothing really exciting but they had to show us. The afternoon was then spent in taking it easy. Since I got a little rest in the plane (although not sleep) I stayed awake whilst my wife slept for a few hours to try and get over the tiredness and jet lag.
The main reason for us going to England was to see our new nephew so we were only spending one night at my parents house. Because of this my parents invited my brother and his girlfriend over for dinner since I haven't seen him since I last went back to England 5 years or so ago. The food at dinner wasn't great, usually my parents will get in a big Chinese takeaway when we go over but this time my mother decided to cook some fairly dry prosciutto wrapped chicken with salad. Still it was good to be together with all of my immediate family for a change, something my mother really appreciated especially since my brother is going to be moving to Australia at some point in the near future. It was a good enough evening though and we made it awake all the way until 10pm (2pm California time). So we had been awake from 7am one day to 2pm the next, not bad going really.
Seeing my brother allowed me to see the changes in him since I last saw him. Like me he has lost a bit of weight although he has done it by running a lot (5+ miles 3 times a week minimum) rather than cutting down on what he eats. I felt good knowing he is going grey faster than me though :-P . I colour my hair slightly since I only have a little grey up front where as he has it all over now. Also seeing him in a beard in strange, something he has done to make the grey less obvious apparently.
Jeez, this is getting long and I'm only on the first day. It is almost Sunday afternoon so lets make this part 1 and leave it as to be continued after I go make lunch.
For once we were flying a different airline than we usually do, normally we would take Virgin Atlantic for a trip back to England since they generally were the cheapest and also have better planes with more in flight entertainment to keep us busy. In fact when we moved to the US we used them and booked a premium economy seat to treat ourselves a little bit. To our surprise when we did actually fly out we got upgraded to first class, not sure how that happened but it was the comfiest flight I've ever been on. Pity the flight we took a couple of weeks ago wasn't like that. I think it is safe to say that our experience in the airport was better than on the actual plane.
We got to the airport early enough to check in and get the best seats. In fact we got there so early that they couldn't check us in yet since they didn't know the seating layout of the plane they were going to use yet. 30 minutes later we actually checked in and got the emergency exit row seats, not for the leg room but for the fact that you have nobody in front of you leaning their seat back in to your face. We had one flight once where the seats were so close together when the guy in front leaned his seat back it knocked my wife's drink over. Not to mention later on he managed to throw his seat belt behind him and hit my wife on the head with it, he was a total twat and Canadian to boot. Anyway, this flight was alright, we flew British Midland International since it was so much cheaper than the next one we could find. Even then over 60% of the ticket was taxes and fees and not the ticket, flying is getting stupidly expensive.
The flight itself as I said was alright. The food was a bit tepid, a bit of watery chicken and vegetables for dinner and a rather naff breakfast before we landed. It was an overnight flight but as usual it is pretty damn hard to sleep on a plane with the noise. The entertainment was like 9 channels playing on a loop so you had to catch it at the right time to watch anything which is annoying, not like the on demand stuff with pausing you get on most flights. The flight itself made good time getting to England and we got there earlier than expected and had to circle for 15 minutes or so before they let us land. When we got off we found ourselves at the very end of terminal 1 at Heathrow. I don't know how many people reading this have been to Heathrow but to get anywhere you have to do a lot of walking. I'm talking about 20 to 25 minutes to get to the end of some of the terminals. Guess how far away we were. Yeah, it took us almost 20 minutes of walking to get from the gate we landed at to the passport check point. Luckily there were no queues so we simply strolled through, got our passports scanned and were on our way. Then when we got the baggage claim around the corner we literally didn't stop walking since our bags were right there so we grabbed them and walked right out through customs with no stops. Bascially from getting off the plane to leaving the airport we walked continuously with no stops on the way for 25 minutes. Not bad going really just quite a long way to go. My parents were there to pick us up and off we went to there house.
We had taken off at 7pm in the evening California time and landed at 1pm in the afternoon England time. For us that was 5 in the morning the next day without any sleep and we still had an afternoon and evening to go before we could go to bed and get over the jet lag properly. The drive to my parents house was uneventful in itself, just with my fathers too fast driving, he is in his 60s now and doesn't have the reactions he used to have yet still likes going 80mph plus. I just sat back and tried to take it easy and see if I could see what had changed in England since we were last there. It was still as green as I remember it, something I miss the most about living there. Where we are in California goes all brown in the summer and the only green bits are the hills in winter/spring so it is nice to see a landscape that is green all over.
Once we got to my parents house my wife and I breathed a sigh of relief that my dads driving was done with for the day and wandered in to the house. We had to get the quick tour of the changes my parents have done to the house since we were last there, basically two new bathrooms with some slightly moved walls, new carpet and paint downstairs and a new stairs banister. Nothing really exciting but they had to show us. The afternoon was then spent in taking it easy. Since I got a little rest in the plane (although not sleep) I stayed awake whilst my wife slept for a few hours to try and get over the tiredness and jet lag.
The main reason for us going to England was to see our new nephew so we were only spending one night at my parents house. Because of this my parents invited my brother and his girlfriend over for dinner since I haven't seen him since I last went back to England 5 years or so ago. The food at dinner wasn't great, usually my parents will get in a big Chinese takeaway when we go over but this time my mother decided to cook some fairly dry prosciutto wrapped chicken with salad. Still it was good to be together with all of my immediate family for a change, something my mother really appreciated especially since my brother is going to be moving to Australia at some point in the near future. It was a good enough evening though and we made it awake all the way until 10pm (2pm California time). So we had been awake from 7am one day to 2pm the next, not bad going really.
Seeing my brother allowed me to see the changes in him since I last saw him. Like me he has lost a bit of weight although he has done it by running a lot (5+ miles 3 times a week minimum) rather than cutting down on what he eats. I felt good knowing he is going grey faster than me though :-P . I colour my hair slightly since I only have a little grey up front where as he has it all over now. Also seeing him in a beard in strange, something he has done to make the grey less obvious apparently.
Jeez, this is getting long and I'm only on the first day. It is almost Sunday afternoon so lets make this part 1 and leave it as to be continued after I go make lunch.
Saturday, April 16, 2011
Forgot about this
Forgot to mention this earlier but as we were sitting there in the cinema last night watching the trailers for upcoming films one came up that kind of made people do a double take. It is called The Beaver, you should go find a trailer for it and watch it. WTF were they thinking when they made that.
Exciting news
We have a new toaster. There isn't that exciting? Well, I had to open this post with something to get your attention those few of you who read this. In more interesting news last night was good. The dinner we had was far too large portion wise, I finished as much of my main course as I could and my wife barely managed half of hers. Then when dessert came we did our best sharing one, god help us if we had ordered one each. Here are a couple of photos, one of my wife in her lovely dress and one of the dessert after we had managed as much as we could of it.
After dinner we watched the film Source Code, nothing really unexpected in it but still a good film regardless. Nice idea at the end of it spoiler warning of the idea of one reality being able to alter another one and basically effect relative time travel between parallel dimensions end spoiler warning. The name of the film means one thing to me and is used in a strange way to me given my profession but I suppose it sort of makes sense in how they used the words.
My rant post is finally coming together in my head so should be able to write that up soon. It won't be anything earth shattering just something I want to get off my chest. Also I still want to do the full long winded trip report in a bit so I can have everything written down for posterity as it were. It was a good trip, especially getting to see and be with my nephew despite the severe annoyance that my other in law is.
My rant post is finally coming together in my head so should be able to write that up soon. It won't be anything earth shattering just something I want to get off my chest. Also I still want to do the full long winded trip report in a bit so I can have everything written down for posterity as it were. It was a good trip, especially getting to see and be with my nephew despite the severe annoyance that my other in law is.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Quiet day
Not much happened today, got up early to work from home, took the wife to physio and then did some more work. The best bit is just about to happen though, off out for a dinner and a movie with my one true love. Just need to get spruced up a bit and head on our way.
Might actually post something interesting tomorrow given that it is the weekend and all. Lots I want to say as usual just never find the way to express it.
Might actually post something interesting tomorrow given that it is the weekend and all. Lots I want to say as usual just never find the way to express it.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
A brief respite
A quick quiet period here at work so though I would waffle on for a bit for a couple of minutes. Definitely a lot of activity going on in my life at the moment. Finally arranged to get the tow hitch attached to the car, just waiting for the parts to turn up so I can arrange a time to get them fitted. Once that is done we are ready to do our first trip next month. Looking forward to it although a little daunted at driving such a long vehicle and trying to reverse with that big trailer back there.
I think the cats really missed us while we were away, they spent all day yesterday hanging out with my wife and all evening within 5 feet of us at all times except when they needed to eat or pee. Lucy especially climbed up on me in the evening and fell asleep on my chest as we lazed around on the sofa. Cats are incredibly affectionate animals when treated properly, I really don't see how people see them as aloof and not wanting attention.
Going to start the US citizenship stuff very soon thinking about it. Now that our trip is done with we only have just over a year before our green cards expire so time to sort that out. It shouldn't be too annoying, just need to make sure we pass the test and make no mistakes on the paperwork and we will be good to go. My wife is worried about a couple of the potential questions on the test (who a couple of the politicians are like the local representative etc.) but the vast majority of them are pretty damn easy. Knowing a little about the US and you can breeze through it.
Stomach grumbles are starting up right now, time to break out the snack food and do a little bit more work before lunch. Dried pineapple here I come.
I think the cats really missed us while we were away, they spent all day yesterday hanging out with my wife and all evening within 5 feet of us at all times except when they needed to eat or pee. Lucy especially climbed up on me in the evening and fell asleep on my chest as we lazed around on the sofa. Cats are incredibly affectionate animals when treated properly, I really don't see how people see them as aloof and not wanting attention.
Going to start the US citizenship stuff very soon thinking about it. Now that our trip is done with we only have just over a year before our green cards expire so time to sort that out. It shouldn't be too annoying, just need to make sure we pass the test and make no mistakes on the paperwork and we will be good to go. My wife is worried about a couple of the potential questions on the test (who a couple of the politicians are like the local representative etc.) but the vast majority of them are pretty damn easy. Knowing a little about the US and you can breeze through it.
Stomach grumbles are starting up right now, time to break out the snack food and do a little bit more work before lunch. Dried pineapple here I come.
Still busy
Trying to find some time to do a full trip report for out sojourn back to England but very busy at the moment. There are more people leaving and new people starting here at work so all sorts of assignments are being shuffled around which is making my life awkward. Not to mention that more work is being planned already and we still haven't even made headway in the stuff we are actually doing. Fun.
My wife and I are planning another date night for tomorrow night. Another dinner and a movie deal we think. Nothing fancy, just some good food and a film we like the sound of. We are trying to make these at least a monthly thing we do so we can get out and about and spend time with just the two of us. Yeah we do just live together with just the two of us (plus the four cats) but that is everyday, getting out and just being together is important as well.
With that I'm going to get on with some more work since unless I get this crap over with it is just going to annoy me. I'm hoping my stomach gets over the time zone change better today than it did yesterday since I was hungry at all sorts of wrong times yesterday even though my sleep pattern and switched right away.
My wife and I are planning another date night for tomorrow night. Another dinner and a movie deal we think. Nothing fancy, just some good food and a film we like the sound of. We are trying to make these at least a monthly thing we do so we can get out and about and spend time with just the two of us. Yeah we do just live together with just the two of us (plus the four cats) but that is everyday, getting out and just being together is important as well.
With that I'm going to get on with some more work since unless I get this crap over with it is just going to annoy me. I'm hoping my stomach gets over the time zone change better today than it did yesterday since I was hungry at all sorts of wrong times yesterday even though my sleep pattern and switched right away.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
WTF weather
Ok, explain this. I spend a week in England and get 25C and clear sunny days every day I'm there. I come back to California to 12C weather and this morning lots of rain. Did someone switch climates or something?
Still Alive
Kind of an appropriate title for this post I think. We survived the flight back with no problems and from landing to being in the car was less than 30 minutes which is pretty good considering that included the short bus ride to the long term parking.
Been at work for an hour already this morning and catching up on things, still have 20 emails I need to do something from (out of the 360 or so from being away for a week) so today is going to be busy. Also catching up on a few other things and had a bit of bad news. Just found out my best friend from school has Lymphoma after having lumps cut off his thyroid last week. He needs to start chemotherapy in a couple of weeks. Makes this post title even more suitable. Kind of makes me think of this videogame song which unless you have played Portal will be meaningless to you but again, appropriate (ish).
Off to catch up on more stuff, work, bills and that kind of thing. Being away just for a little bit gets things behind so much.
Been at work for an hour already this morning and catching up on things, still have 20 emails I need to do something from (out of the 360 or so from being away for a week) so today is going to be busy. Also catching up on a few other things and had a bit of bad news. Just found out my best friend from school has Lymphoma after having lumps cut off his thyroid last week. He needs to start chemotherapy in a couple of weeks. Makes this post title even more suitable. Kind of makes me think of this videogame song which unless you have played Portal will be meaningless to you but again, appropriate (ish).
Off to catch up on more stuff, work, bills and that kind of thing. Being away just for a little bit gets things behind so much.
Monday, April 11, 2011
Homeward bound
One last breakfast and then we head for the airport and home. Can't wait to be away from the mother in law since she has been a right royal pain in the arse this week. Going to miss our nephew lots though but we have taken over a thousand photos of him and other stuff.
Regularly scheduled long winded rambling will resume once traveling is done with and we are back home. Until then whomever you are reading this.
Regularly scheduled long winded rambling will resume once traveling is done with and we are back home. Until then whomever you are reading this.
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Food
Been catching up on all the British foods I can't get in the US this past week. Feeling a little home sick as well, missing our stuff but also miss a few things about this country. Not enjoying the mother in law though, as usual she is managing to wind up everybody especially my wife and her sister.
Almost didn't eat last night since the place we had booked a table at wasn't open when we got there and only just opened up in time. Nice food though (and the company :) ).
Easy Sunday planned for today before we head back home on Tuesday and back to the hectic life of work and bills.
Almost didn't eat last night since the place we had booked a table at wasn't open when we got there and only just opened up in time. Nice food though (and the company :) ).
Easy Sunday planned for today before we head back home on Tuesday and back to the hectic life of work and bills.
Saturday, April 9, 2011
Time is flying
Can't believe it is Saturday morning already. This trip has been fun (other than the mother in law) and yesterday we took our nephew for his first day out at the beach. Loving being able to spend some time with him, going to miss the little guy. We must demand pictures of him growing up although we have taken quote a few ourselves already.
No idea what this weekend will bring activity wise other than a couple of planned dinners (one out and one big Sunday one) but let's get on with it after breakfast.
No idea what this weekend will bring activity wise other than a couple of planned dinners (one out and one big Sunday one) but let's get on with it after breakfast.
Thursday, April 7, 2011
Still the same
Having a quiet day after a busy few days. Seen relatives, had dinner out, zoomed down single lane English country roads and brought the warm weather with us. The last two days have been great and our nephew is adorable to say the least.
Anyway just saying hello to anyone that reads this, going to laze around in the peaceful countryside.
Anyway just saying hello to anyone that reads this, going to laze around in the peaceful countryside.
Tuesday, April 5, 2011
Made it
Made it safely to England sitting here in my parents house. Not too jet lagged and managing to stay awake since I got some rest on the plane. Just thought I would post to let whomever reads this that we didn't die in a crash :| .
Monday, April 4, 2011
Nearly on the way
Sitting at the airport with a couple of hours to waste before our flight leaves. We have lots of gadgets with us to pass the time (2 iPhones, an iPad, a camera and my DS) not to mention we have each other to natter to. Although saying that we did get an airport employee laughing with us that we were both on our phones and not talking to each other so we joked back that we were talking, we were just using our phones to do it.
Hoping it is going to be a quiet flight but since we got here early enough we have the emergency exit seats with more leg room and since the plane is a 2-5-2 configuration there are just the two of us to ourselves.
Anyway, going to wait some more and stop typing on my phone since I always seem to make dumb typos on this even with autocorrect. More time wasting rambling may occur at random intervals unless the plane goes down in a fireball in which case I would just like to tell my wife I love her.
Hoping it is going to be a quiet flight but since we got here early enough we have the emergency exit seats with more leg room and since the plane is a 2-5-2 configuration there are just the two of us to ourselves.
Anyway, going to wait some more and stop typing on my phone since I always seem to make dumb typos on this even with autocorrect. More time wasting rambling may occur at random intervals unless the plane goes down in a fireball in which case I would just like to tell my wife I love her.
Strangely quiet
It is all quiet here at the house at the moment. We are packed and ready to go, just waiting until this afternoon to drive to the airport to catch out flight to England. Everybody but me is having a nap it seems. I think I'll try and actually rest on the plane this time rather than suffer jet lag once we land. I doubt I'll get many chances to write stuff on this blog whilst in England and I still haven't done that rant I want. Maybe I'll put it together during slow times in England and type it up when I get back. Then again I may just sit down and let it pour out once I have coalesced my thoughts.
Anyway, going to go spend a last few hours lazing around before the joy of spending something like 16 hours traveling. We really need to get around to inventing teleporters, it would make long distance traveling so much easier.
Anyway, going to go spend a last few hours lazing around before the joy of spending something like 16 hours traveling. We really need to get around to inventing teleporters, it would make long distance traveling so much easier.
Sunday, April 3, 2011
I'm still here
Wow, went a whole day yesterday without posting anything. It has been a while since I've done that. Instead I spent the day with my wife having a very lazy day. She did some sewing, I played games, good food was eaten and we finished the day watching a film in bed. Pretty good day all around I would say. I think today will be a bit more of the same although I have to mow the front lawn today so we don't come back to a small forest in a couple of weeks.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Home at last
A mere 11 hours after getting up this morning I'm finally back home and physically totally knackered. It is amazing how much sitting on your arse thinking can leave you drained physically. I feel like I already want to sleep all night even though it is not even 4pm yet.
Just a few things left to sort out before we head off to England now, small stuff like stock up on cat food, pack toiletries etc. Kind of excited for this trip, be nice to see "home" again after so many years.
Just a few things left to sort out before we head off to England now, small stuff like stock up on cat food, pack toiletries etc. Kind of excited for this trip, be nice to see "home" again after so many years.
Can't I get any peace?
Guess what happened. Only 3 hours of work left and suddenly a customer bug that we had been waiting for more information on now has it available. And I need to look at it, it is only 54Megs of text logs files to pore through and try and see WTF is going on. Time to see what I can find in this short time and then GTFO. Doesn't help that I'm fucking hungry right now so I'm going to go get some lunch and mope for a bit :-P.
One more day
Final day of work for a bit today, almost there, just need to hold on a little longer then it is a week and a half off. Think I have managed to get everything off of my plate for now although I know I will have stuff waiting for me when I get back.
Got the caravan insured yesterday so that if anything happens to it either towing it or in storage we are covered. Want to guess how much it takes to insure an almost $22k caravan? Not a lot is the answer. It is only another $47 per 6 months on top of my car insurance, stupid cheap really. We also have pretty much all the extras we need for it, just a couple of small things left to buy and we are set for our trips we have already planned for later this year.
Finished Dragon Age 2 last night by basically killing off half of the main cast of characters, including one in my own party and having another bugger off swearing revenge because of the choices I made. The ending clearly set up the game for more content to come though, probably some form of downloadable add on. I didn't think the game was quite as good as the first one but it did improve on the first in some areas as well. Still well worth playing though.
Kind of tired at the moment, physically and mentally. It has been a trying time this year ("you think?" I hear you say) but I keep going somehow. The thought of getting home to my wife every day helps me get through the work day and deal with crap that happens. Still unsure exactly how we are going to move house at the moment. Once we get back from England if work doesn't give me an answer on how they are going to help me out for a change then it is time to move on to something else. Kind of a daunting thing given how long I've worked here and it may hurt financially in the short term but for the long term health of me and my wife it needs to be done.
Still formalising my rant I mentioned yesterday. It is about something I've already talked about a bit and touched upon but it really is something that gets on my nerves. It may just be my opinion on the subject but I feel strongly about it so I'm going to do it. It will probably end up being a long post (like some of these aren't anyway) but it lets me do a virtual argh scream kind of thing.
Got the caravan insured yesterday so that if anything happens to it either towing it or in storage we are covered. Want to guess how much it takes to insure an almost $22k caravan? Not a lot is the answer. It is only another $47 per 6 months on top of my car insurance, stupid cheap really. We also have pretty much all the extras we need for it, just a couple of small things left to buy and we are set for our trips we have already planned for later this year.
Finished Dragon Age 2 last night by basically killing off half of the main cast of characters, including one in my own party and having another bugger off swearing revenge because of the choices I made. The ending clearly set up the game for more content to come though, probably some form of downloadable add on. I didn't think the game was quite as good as the first one but it did improve on the first in some areas as well. Still well worth playing though.
Kind of tired at the moment, physically and mentally. It has been a trying time this year ("you think?" I hear you say) but I keep going somehow. The thought of getting home to my wife every day helps me get through the work day and deal with crap that happens. Still unsure exactly how we are going to move house at the moment. Once we get back from England if work doesn't give me an answer on how they are going to help me out for a change then it is time to move on to something else. Kind of a daunting thing given how long I've worked here and it may hurt financially in the short term but for the long term health of me and my wife it needs to be done.
Still formalising my rant I mentioned yesterday. It is about something I've already talked about a bit and touched upon but it really is something that gets on my nerves. It may just be my opinion on the subject but I feel strongly about it so I'm going to do it. It will probably end up being a long post (like some of these aren't anyway) but it lets me do a virtual argh scream kind of thing.
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