People can be such wankers

I had to tell some high up guy at work off earlier in the week for giving out his username and password for a system to someone. It wasn't even anyone internal. He's a salesman and he replied with some crap about how I've got no idea and I should start trying to help him sell stuff rather than fucking around doing nothing all day and generally making his job harder.

It took all my will power to simply show the email to HR rather than go talk to him cos I reckon I might have ended up taking a swipe at him cos I was that angry. They've had a bit of word with him and will have a more formal word on Monday. I told them that I don't want to do anything really formal where he gets a warning or something but I said to make sure he stays well clear of me for a few weeks so that I don't have the opportunity to lose my rag while its still fresh.

I ended up taking yesterday off work cos I was still so pissed off and couldn't concentrate and typically he called me up to apologise. I just let him talk and then said "Whatever, I'm off work today" and hung up. I then sent HR a text reiterating that he needs to be kept away for now. What a twat!

Listening to: Nowt
Back: Ok(ish)

Still busy, busy, busy

Well, Ive not posted in a few weeks and quite a few things have happened. I really should get into the habit of posting at least once a week so that I don't have to write so much at once ;-)

Firstly, we've had some other people put in an offer on our house and we've accepted it. Its a girl who'll be living on her own and her Dad is going to pay for the house to make sure it goes through quickly for us.

Secondly, the people up the road on Savick Way that we were gonna buy a house from have been playing silly beggers so we sacked that house off and we had an offer accepted last weekend on a house on Lea Road. We had to extend our price range buy 15K but its worth it cos its a nice big house with a big garden and all that. Hopefully everything will go well ("Touch wood") and we can be in around June time.

Thirdly, the clutch started going on the Punto and we decided en ought was enough with it and went and traded it in against a new Citroen C1 for Deb. She really loves it and so do I cos it was cheap and is cheap to run!

Finally, my work laptop kinda died and I've spent since Thursday night trying to get a fresh install of XP and everything else on it but its proved really hard cos the CD/DVD drive in it doesn't work anymore. Long story short, I've managed it cos I'm blogging from it now but its been a real pain in the arse.

That's it, I've typed too much!

Listening to: Nowt
Back: So so

Busy, busy, busy

Well, here I am blogging at ten to eight on a Saturday morning cos I'm working. I've been archiving data in our databases for 2 weeks now and I'm determined to have it finished this weekend for two reasons. One, it's boring as hell and two, I need to do some real work cos I've got so many deadlines coming up.

I've finally been given another developer (in the loosest sense of the word). Its a lad who's worked for the company longer than I have and he had a stint on the software development team about 4 years ago but had to move jobs in a company wide shake up. He's mainly been doing this and that all round the company for about 7 years. So, he's not brilliant and seems to find it hard to actually remember what I ask him to do but he's been doing two days a week for me since Xmas and now he's gonna do full time as of Wednesday. I'm hoping that he can really get into it doing it full time and start to improve. I'm really hoping that he's more of a help than a hindrance!

In more good news, I think I've got the go ahead to hire a new "real" developer which will be pretty damn good even if I don't have the time to interview people at the moment ;-)

Mom seems to be getting better. I've been speaking to her every day and she sounds a bit better every day although I still think she's trying to rush things like she always does. I just hope she starts to take things a bit slower and not let herself get run down all the time.

Suf and Marc are coming round at lunch time to watch United against Liverpool. If United win today then I really can see us winning the league. Come on United!

Listening to: The woos
Back: Not too bad

Mom has pleurisy

Mom ended up getting taken to hospital in an ambulance on Sunday night with suspected pleurisy and possible heart problems. She was admitted and thankfully all the tests for heart problems came back negative. She does have pleurisy though. She was discharged on the Monday and has a load of pain killers and has to take a few weeks off work. It may be a severe chest infection but at least that's all it is!

We had some people come to view the house yesterday afternoon. Dunno whether or not they'll put an offer in but they seemed to like it. They were here for an hour!

Bought a new laptop with Vista on a couple of weeks ago. Its the dogs bollocks and I really like Vista. I'm still transferring everything from Deb's current laptop to it and also I'm gonna move all my "home" stuff from my work laptop onto and use the work laptop solely for work.

Listening to: Q.O.T.S.A - Lullabies To Paralyze
Back: So, so

Down at Beaver's In Castle Donington

I am currently sat in Beavers front room on my todd doing some work while everyone else sleeps. Stu and Lawson have come down as well. I was originally supposed to have Friday booked off work as holiday but ended up cancelling that and working the morning even though I'd already done my hours for the week by Thursday evening and now I'm working whilst I'm at Beav's as well :-(

Me and Beav went out into Derby last night and Stu and Marc pussied out because they were being mard arses. Got in about 1:30 in the morning so I've not had much kip but its right.

Not had anyone look at our house since that twat pulled out. Hopefully someone will soon.

Listening to: Nowt
Back: Sore(ish)

Guy pulled out of buying our house

The guy who was buying our house has pulled out and did it in a really twatty way! The estate agents called us yesterday to let us know and told us that apparantly the guy new on Saturday but was scared to tell anyone. Some bollox about his parents were going to give him the deposit but changed their minds. I spoke to him on Saturday as well to give him some good news about how short the chain was going to be and he knew then but didn't say anything to me. I mean shit happens and it wouldn't have bothered me if he'd been honest from the start but what he did was really low. Ggrr!

I got a new trial chair yesterday lunch time. Its £300 instead of £500 but I've given up on it already cos its just making the middle of my back so sore cos the back of the chair really dips inwards about half way up.

Listening to: Auf Der Maur
Back: Sore (new trial chair's fault)

We accepted an offer on the house

We've had one person come to view the house since we put it on the market last Monday, he came for a second viewing on Friday and put in an offer on Friday evening. We had a think about it and although its low compared to what we put it up for, its higher than what we though we'd get before the house was valued so we accepted it. Also, for all we know, no one else might even view the house for another month let alone put in an offer. Here's hoping that nothing goes wrong along the way!

Went out yesterday afternoon with Brev, Suf, Marc and Banksy. It was a good afternoon but I'm not half paying for it now with my back. Its shit that I can't go out that much anymore cos I know my back will be killing me the next day :-(

Listening to: Placebo - Wihout You I'm Nothing
Back: Hurting quite a bit

Mario Kart 64 rules

Downloaded Mario Kart 64 for the virtual console on Friday night like I said I was going to and you forget how much fun it is. We played it with the Gamecube controllers that night but Deb got the classic controllers when she was in town yesterday so we'll be playing later today in wireless comfort.

Also, I've just found out that Diddy Kong Racing has been released for the DS which is pretty cool.

Listening to: Linkin Park - Meteora
Back: Sore cos of poker night last night

Mario Kart 64 On Wii VC

Woo hoo! Mario Kart 64 is out for the virtual console on the Wii so I'll be buying a couple of classic controllers for it and buying the game cos the battle levels on it are much better than on Mario Kart Double Dash on the Gamecube and more importantly, Deb will play on the 64 version.

Listening to: Kasabian - Empire
Back: Not too bad

What a week

Since a last wrote a week ago quite a few things have happened!

We've decided to move so we've spent a lot of the week doing things round the house to get it ship shape and we had our first estate agent round to value it today. He valued it at 133k which is more than we were expecting but as we want a quick sale he said to put it on for just short of 130k. He said that the house should sell quite quickly cos its really well done up but some of that will just be sales crap. We've got 2 more estate agents coming round tomorrow so we'll decide who to go with on Sunday and probably tell them to get it on the market on Monday.

We've also found a house we want to buy which is literally about a 30 second walk from the house we're in now. Its a 3 bed detached house with a garage that's been converted into another room and it has an extended kitchen. Its already really well decorated and it would be fantastic if we got it. As soon as our house is on the market we're gonna put in an offer for it.

The new mattress overlay and pillows seem to be doing the trick and I've got a £500 super chair on trial which I've had for a few days now and can keep until mid next week. The chair is making a massive difference to my lower back pain but is making muscles up towards my shoulders really sore but that's probably just cos my body is adjusting to sitting so differently (i.e. properly).

Going to Chris's tomorrow to watch the United game against Pompey in the FA Cup and then we are having a poker night afterwards. Should be good fun. Deb is going to see the Rocky Horror show in Blackpool with Gen and Gill and a few others.

Listening to: Kasabian - Empire
Back: Not too bad

Frickin weather

The weather here yesterday was awful. It was so windy! The wheelie bin was emptied in the morning and I was having lunch and I saw the wheelie bin fly past the window. I went out to get it and found the outside of the house in a complete state. The gates on the drive had been blown open and one of them pretty much torn in half. A fence panel had snapped and the recycling bins were all over the place. I fixed the gate, couldn't do anything about the fence and I put everything that could possibly blow away in the shed. What a farce!

I bought a memory foam mattress overlay and memory foam pillows the other night and I'm really glad that I did. I know my physio recommended them but I didn't think they'd be as good as they are. When I'm lying on my back I can really tell that its being supported better and consequently I'm waking up less sore in the mornings.

Listening to: Puddle Of Mudd - Life On Display
Back: Not too bad

Need to ease my back problems

I saw my physio today and we took kind of a back to basics approach where I had a load of questions written down which she gave me answers to. The upshot is:

• I don't think I'm even gonna talk to the back surgeon cos I just don't want surgery.
• I don't have to wear my shoe insert things any more (unless my back gets really bad cos I stopped).
• I found out that my exercise ball thing is no where near pumped up enough and I just need a 65cm one. I also got a list of exercises to do on it.
• I'm gonna buy a TENS machine
• I was looking into buying some really special Tempur mattress or mattress cover but they cost £1600 or £800 respectively and my physio said that Dunelm Mill do a similar mattress cover thing for only £100 so I'm gonna go pick one of them up tonight
• I'm ok to let mom to give me a Swedish Massage once or twice a week cos it will be good for me
• I'm gonna be trying out the Alexandre Technique

I'm feeling a lot better about trying to sort my back out and hopefully it will all work.

Also, I lost 3 pounds last week on my weight watchers thing and I still haven't sorted out my pile of paperwork!

Listening to: Breeders - Last Splash
Back: Sore

New years resolutions etc

Well, we're 10 days into the new year and I've started the weight watchers points scheme in an effort to lose the stomach I've grwon over the past fews years since I've not been able to play sports anymore. Seems pretty sad saying I'm on weight watchers but I like the fact that I can eat whatever the hell I want as long as I stick within my points balance. I've been doing it since Sunday and its a real ballache at the moment having to calculate points for every meal but I figure it will be a breeze once I've got all my regular foods on there.

Another resolution is to sort out the office/playroom so that its not always such a mess. I'm gonna do this by using all the storage we have properly and try to keep on top of things like filing letters and paperwork when I get them. Unfortunatly I have about 3 months worth to sort out first :-(

Listening to: Q.O.T.S.A - Lullabies to Paralize
Back: Sore

Back at work (at home that is)

Well, I started back in work yesterday albeit from home and in some ways I'm doing better back wise than I thought I would be but in other ways its pretty shit. I'm ending up having 2 hour lunches at the moment so that I can have a bath to ease up my back a bit and combining that with walks on the travellator etc it makes for a bloody long day!

I've just finished setting up a base build of a new Linux box which is running Fedora Core 6 with Xen virtualization. On top of that its running to further Fedora Core instances as virtual machines. Performance seems pretty damn good and one virtual machine will be used as a web server and the other as a MySQL server.

Its taken me longer than I thought it would (I started well before Xmas) cos so much is different under Linux than it is under Windows but I godda learn it at some point.

Listening to: Foo Fighters - In Your Honour Disc 2
Back: Pretty sore

Happy New Year

Just a quick one to say that it was good fun last night at the Lovell party and we saw the New Year in well.

I feel a bit delicate today but so what. Last year is over and hopefully this one can only be better.

Come on United against Newcastle!

Also, this was posted from my PDA phone thing.

Listening to: The budgies
Back: Sore

End of a shit year

I've not written in a few weeks cos I slipped the disc in my back again a day or 2 after I last posted and this is the first time I've managed to stay on the computer for longer than 5 minutes since then. I was off work the whole of the week before Christmas and I already booked off the 3 days between Christmas and New Year so I'll have been off work for about 3 weeks by the time I start again on Tuesday. I'm really hoping that I can actually manage to do full days cos I can't afford any more time off!

I went to see my spinal consultant on the 22nd and I see her again on the 15th of Jan by which point she should have got me an appointment to see a spinal surgeon to discuss whether I should have surgery or not. I'm not sure that I want to have surgery but I want to find out all the info that I can before deciding.

Koops is getting better albeit very slowly. He'll probably have to have the bandages on for another few weeks but he only has to have them changed every 3 days now and he doesn't have to be sedated anymore which is good.

Mark Lovell is having a big New Year's party tonight but we aren't sure what we're goona do yet cos of the mutt. We're thinking of going to the party at about 11pm and leaving a couple of hours later so that we only have to leave Koopa locked in his cage with the cone on for as short a time as possible whilst still letting us get out to celebrate!

Well, I'm really hoping that 2007 is gonna be a much better year. We're going into it with my back being bad that the dog still injured but we're being positive and working on the principle that it can only get better.

It helps that United are 6 points clear of Chelsea!

Listening to: Kasabian - Empire
Back: Pretty sore

Koopa - Lost, Found & Injured

Not posted in a couple of weeks cos there has been a lot of shit going on and I just couldn't be arsed writing about it.

Last Friday (8th), Deb was out walking Koopa and she was on her way back from Haslam park walking down the path that takes you out to Tom Benson way so you can cross over to the canal. They were about half way down the path and Koopa was still off the lead and he spotted something in the bushes and went after it. Deb then heard a screech of brakes/tyres and a yelp. She got through the bushes as quick as she could on to Tom Benson way but there was no sign of Koopa and whoever may have hit him hadn't stopped.

Long story short, this happened about 3pm, we search for hours and hours and we didn't find him again until about 1pm the next day when someone rang us to say that he was in their porch round the corner from the park. You wouldn't believe how worried we were and then how relieved we were when we found him. He had been hit by a car (fucking twats for not stopping!) and his back left leg is in a bit of a state. He's broken a couple of toes and had most of the skin on top of his foot ripped off. We've had him at the vets Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Wednesday and today. Each time he has to be sedated so that he can have his wounds cleaned and bandages changed.

Koop's is gonna have to have his foot bandaged up for at least another 2 to 3 weeks and he can't go out for walks that whole time. Its a bit of a nightmare having to constantly watch him to make sure he doesn't lick or rip his bandage off and he has to sleep in our room at night at the moment so we can hear him if he tries to take his cone off so he can get at his bandage.

All in all another shit thing has happened in what has been a pretty shitty year. Roll on 2007!

Listening to: Veruca Salt - American Thighs
Back: Sore as hell

Off work for a few days

I'm off work today and Monday and Tuesday of next week. Its my brithday on Monday so I figured I might as well use up the 3 days holiday I had left around it.

Its Doddy and his step Dad's (boyfriend Bill) joint 30th and 60th do tonight. Hopefully that should be good. Its Dave's girlfiend's daughter's 21st tomorrow night that we've all been invited to. Finally, about 20 of us are going out for a meal on Monday night for my birthday.

Its going to be a tiring few days me thinks!

Listening to: The budgies
Back: Ok

The office is so noisy

It's so hard concentrating when I'm in the office. I can't believe how noisy it can get in here. It's even worse now that Suf works here sitting opposite me doing all his phone support.

Also, Jan is still a wanker!

Listening to: The people in the bloody office
Back: Ok(ish)

Frickin Back

My back is killing me! It hasn't hurt like this in something like 3 or 4 months. I'm not sleeping well and just can't get comfortable. Its cos I went to a meeting in Banbury on Wednesday and it was already sore before that and its just got 10 times worse because of it. I pretty much spent 10 hours in a car.

Listening to: Temple Of The Dog - Temple Of The Dog
Back: Frickin sore