Aaaarg!

So post tilers comes the tidy up, bleah, no time to blog today til now and then I should be tidying up......

In the Beginning was the Word and the Word Was Blogger

Download the word add in for Blogger at last. Start to play with this post. Dunno what's going to happen but might be quite a nice tool for work if it works. Much support and gentle constructive criticism today from Sally as I struggled with Job Descriptions. Ended up staring at the buggers for ages, making the odd amendment and worrying about the whole gig. Warned Pete West what I'm up to and why. Nice fella, promise to send him them as soon as I can. Visit from Hannah and Tracy on their way to pick up Andy. Nice to see the pair of them, Hannah is getting big and can't be that far off crawling. Not long 'til Tracy is back with us. Home and the tilers are still doing their stuff. If anything the house is a bigger mess than it was. Monst fed up and lets me know repeatedly through the day, and again and again when I get home. Goes with the territory I guess. Great delight another post from the Wild Man of Wivenhoe. As ever an entertaining read. Go and check it out.

Strange Memo

Had a memo about absorbant rolls which tells me that: The recommended rolls are new products available from NHS Logistics, they are more absorbent and are less expensive than the current products in use. Great, I'm so pleased to know that. It's almost as good as HAZ(98)6 simply titled 'Exploding Cider Jars', a circular of which I often think fondly....

Rockin' with Rita

Apologies about the title but it was always a Fuzzy Fave and it's about the only Rita reference I've got other than Jim's secretary.... Still positive vibes to those that find Rita has an impact on them. Keep watching NOAA for the latest I guess. Blog wise I guess Sci-Guy is the place to go. It interests me that McLuhan's global village is increasingly a reality. I increasingly find myself concerned with matters elsewhere on the planet because through the power of blog it appears in my aggregator like magic. Got to be a good thing. Definitely an increased impact of the internet though because no matter how much I expose myself to conventional news media it never has the impact of the personal on me. Latest on the tiling is there with us 'til Friday, the house is full of dust because they've been cutting inside, shite from storage areas is stuffed wherever it can go and Monst is in military style despair at the state of the place while I maintain my usual ex-student, nah! This is tidy attitude. Maybe it's just a bloke thing. Meanwhile I begin to superficially dig into Job Descriptions for later discussion with postholders as we get them right for the AfC folk so they can't screw up where we're at. 'Waiting for the Love Bus' from the JBC (which gets its first proper listen through this morning and appeared from Germany yesterday - a bit of an Elevators vibe in places I thought, nice) and Death Cab for Cutie's 'We Have the Facts and We're Voting Yes' keep me going. The latter taking me to a particularly happy place which is nice and a contrast to my vibe over the JDs. Somewhat shocked yesterday that Nicola hadn't realised that I'm as much subject to AfC as anyone else around this place. Maybe I'm not giving off enough vibe that I am as concerned about it as everyone else. Library folk, feedback please. Today is Christina's first day back at Library School. So those of us that have been there send positive vibes her way. Me I'm glad to be out of it. Anyway not to Christina, see I remembered! Bad news for Dave, no joy in the Hope job. I know start the beat myself up routine about this. Need to chat through what we can do to support preparation for that sort of thing more.

Asda Price

Sent out for a dustpan and brush and that other key Glaswegian staple, ginger (not the spice but pop, or more specifically as far as Monst is concerned, Irn Bru). Asda a delightful place fails to supply the Bru, but does deliver some Old Hooky. I also land a dustpan and brush, nice.... Er, maybe not.

AfC 'n' Stuff

AfC drives me nuts. The side effect of the sesh with Elaine the other day is I know that the job descriptions that the AfC people had are old, innacurate and just plain wrong. Sally most helpful with guidance from job matching and I revisit the correct job descriptions to doctor them before I resubmit again. I wouldn't mind but I know that HR are on lots of overtime over AfC at the moment and they still succeed in fucking up. Not good. So sweet smile on face, mutter at computer, some righteous indignation in my head and once more we submit. Plus side is better more accurate JDs. Home via Pizza Hut, run away from the takeout to Borders, bump into Gail Campbell who earlier in the day had donated a new mode of transport to the library, a banana guard. Nice twist on the theme from Gail but it looks positively perverse. I do wonder if the bend on a banana is consistent enough to fit into the device consistently. Got to say for me one of the current benefits of Regatta (if short term bonus' for me because they're due to move again soon) is the proximity of Gail and crew. Always helpful and fun and fine people. Tilers make some progress but gonna be around 'til Friday. Still the bathrooms that they've worked on do look better, so that's a bonus.

N54 o 00.423' W 002 o 47.286'

Evaluation gig at Lancaster House throws up some interesting definitions and the glimmers of some interesting evaluation methodology. Also highlights a degree of risk of paralysis by analysis. Nice to see some friendly regular faces and new folk too. Notes will no doubt follow when I get a minute to type them up. Nice travel up with Beryl and Sally. Couple of fave people at the event too and nice to see Clare from Leighton again. We swap Crewe horror stories.... Left the Blackberry at work, it rings apparently, find out why when I get home. Ye tilers definition of materials lack tiles. Monst though she'd negotiated for tiles. Result, unhappy Monst. She invokes a quasi-Bagpuss clause, an unhappy Monst is an unfortunate me! We go tile shopping. B&Q fail to provide, Wickes do, so a car full of marble. Marble floors in the kitchen, how decadent is that..... Ring home, check the deal with the old fella. It's depressingly normal. Good news though, he now has a job in Swindon as a result of an old girl he used to work with at Reading College noticing his aplication and demanding him for the job. Oddly enough Oxpens have been after him too. Nice to be in demand! Relief for the old drear who was terrified he was gonna be under her feet all the time. Pleased for him too cause it shows the old codger ain't past it yet.

Tip Me the Black Spot Would 'ee

Nicola reminded me it was International Talk Like a Pirate Day, so I did in parts, but not much, so Avast You Scurvy Dogs, Shiver Yer Timbers and Splice Yer Mainbrace. Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of yoghurt.......... where's that th're moth eaten parrot.... Big Sol is busy sinking the Toffees making the heaf a place hochin with Evertonians look like a safer place to visit. Aaaaaar, the sons of sugar and other stuff that manufactures sweets that rot the teeth out of skulls not crossbones. Much negotiation about how to get to Lancaster tomorrow because Beryl wishes to travel with Sally and myself. Lucky really because I'd forgotten I need to be here to dump Cal in a taxi. So Beryl picks Sally up and ferries her here. We swap cars, following threee flashes of the headlights and head up norf then. Why Lancaster? A day sorting evaluation 'n' stuff.

Home is Where the Satellites Fix

Home and I find the place deserted. Presumably Cal and Monst have gone round to play at Aaron's. Visited by Zoe before leaving Regatta. Nice HV who as HV's do insists on calling me love, darling, sweetie. Must be a result of dealing with little kiddies and cabbaged mothers too much. Makes a pleasant change from the words Helen from Alder Hey is tempted to use following my latest e-mail highlighting the fact she is one of the four sinners still not signed up to the C&M mailing list. She's OK about it but then so am I to be fair. Apparently it's down to her inability to get in to sign into a mailing list. The rest of the world copes but Alder Hey, no way. Probably down to there version of the Minions of Doom, the Diddymen from Hades. Meanwhile I manage to locate home at N 53^o 22.226 W 002^o 50.365 .

N53 o 23.088' W 002 o 58.979' Give or Take 20 foot or so

Etrex arrives and I know where I am, sat on a bench looking at the Mersey, given the margin of error I could be in the Mersey. Delightful, time for a proper play later in the week or tonight I guess.

So lost is now a thing of the past.....

Clipper 05-06

Cal is a miserable bugger at times. Takes a great deal to get him out the house and away from TV, Playstation, Toys etc. Failed to get him to the zoo yesterday, which was a boon because I lifted tiles instead (boon, who am I fucking kidding?) So today was the day, the Clippers were leaving town on their roaund the world race a thing to see indeed. So post homework I bundled him in the car (literally) and off we went to the Albert Dock. Not helped by misinformation from the Beeb that start time was 10.00. We made that, just only to discover that was when the boats left Canning Dock. Quite interesting. Hadn't realised that the boats were sponsored by cities and representing them. So nice to see a fair representation of the planet I've been too with New York, Cardiff (memorable beause I was called an English git by a speccy little Welsh gimp), Liverpool (of course), Glasgow and Durban. Cal admiteddly found the planes fascinating in comparison with the Yachts. They have the clear advantage in his head of being both noisy and able to trail smoke. It was a fascinating event though with Marquees from each city etc. Kinda educational if a little on the cold side. Was odd but the Cardiff crew was full of Irish people. Nice and cosmopolitan. The other freaky thing was the number of medics that were part of the crews. Fine if your injured at sea but trust me I'd rather see a vet! The only downside of the thing was it was a touch parky so we hid in the Tate and went to see the 'Summer of Love' exhibition. It was cool for the art which Cal enjoyed and was great telling me what he liked and why. Also gave us a great view of the start of the race. Nice bit of 'Exploding Plastic Inevitible' which gave me a total Spike from 'Tom and Jerry' 'That's my boy' moment as Cal sat down and chilled to the sound of the Velvet Underground and declared that he liked 'Heroin' as a number. Cool.... Liked the above solution to the fuel crises but not certain it'll catch on..... Guess though it might explain those strange circumstances when you find a tiger in your tank. Meanwhile I got to live life as a Baba Papa in this installation.... Cal quite liked it too, but he really shouldn't have referred to it as a play barn, sure way to upset the gallery...