Another Week - more troubles - nothing changes!

What has happened this week?

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If I say "nothing much" again people will start to think that I am losing it in some way.

As I sit here on an early Sunday morning, looking out of the window to see a dull, cloudy dawn break over the leaden Scunthorpe skies, it still seems that the US/UK governments have troops already in the Gulf and "by god we're going to use them". Even the joint appeals of 1 million protesters, and the heads of two major British Churches seem to make no difference to Mr Blair, the relentless progress towards Armageddon continues. When will Bush and Blair realise - their own people don't want this, this time they don't support them - IT IS PLAIN WRONG. I know Sadam is evil, but there are many "Dictators" around the world who are equally as bad - and our countries supply them with arms - where is the balance.

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Over the week I have come across several articles on Google's purchase of Pyra Labs. This is of particular interest to me as they run blogger.com which was my very first blog site, and it is one of the few weblogs that I still use.

If you click on this link and it will take you to one of the articles (the Guardian to be precise). This sort of thing usually encourages two forms of activity on the Internet:

1: Other "large" companies follow suit and start to buy up other companied running similar services ( and I have already read a story of Microsoft already investigating this sort of option)

or

2: The infamous "other large Companies" sit round waiting to see what everyone else does and then nothing happens.

I hope this purchase brings a little bit sparkle to Blogger. Over the last few months it seem to have lost out to the other blogger systems - I do find that it is the hardest of my weblogs to use direct (I use wblogger writer to post from), the worry is what the others may have to to keep up if Google start introducing other services?

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There has been two themes to work this week, slobbering dogs and SMT. Every house I went to (or so it seemed) had a slobbering dog. This , I find , harder to deal with sometimes. If the dog is vicious (or large and growling which is the more common) you get the owners to lock them in another room. Slobby dogs are actually quite pleasant, nice dogs - but you tend to know what will happen when you get the phrase " they ever so nice with visitors - they only want to say hello". Next thing you know you have a small to medium sized dog licking your ear - Ugggghhhhhh.

SMT is the bonus/incentive scheme that I was discussing last week. It would appear that thing between BT and the Union have come to some what of an impasse. The Union have sent everyone a letter stating their case, and BT continue with the "come to us and everything will be wonderful" stance. Now, to me at least, BT has shown the scheme in it's true light. For the type of job I do, I could never make anywhere near the "promised" payments, and going on what has happened with other schemes' and projects in the past, all that would happen is that it would end up with the boss saying "your not trying hard enough" (a common answer to the ill's of the firm at the moment - everything would apppear to be the Engineers fault)

So I have withdrawn from the scheme and joined the Union side - if that's the right way to put it. Something has to be done to bring, what initially was a good idea with achieveable goals, back to something I could support (we've also put in for a pay rise and the BT offer was awful - co-incidence?)

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Friday night was brill - in the end. Several weeks ago, "she who must be obeyed" volunteered me to be transport for some of the Scouts who were going Ice Skating.

Ian, he's the Scout Leader, has a good system.The week before the School Holidays, instead of having a normal Scout meeting, he takes them out for a treat - and this time it was to be skating.

After a short drive to the rink at Grimsby - most of the boys (17 in all) where excited, but apprehensive - this was a first time trip for many. All the way across, Liam had been pestering for me to go skating, but I didn't really fancy the idea, and because of the rush, I hadn't really sorted anything anyway. Anyway we got there a early so we had to wait for 10 minutes for the Rink to be ready. The lads got their boots and and were ready to go - right on the start button.

To my "surprise" Liam asked "can my Dad skate?"

"Sure! " came the answer "what size boot does he take?"

Apparently, I later found out, because it was a group booking, there were so many "free" passes for the supervising adults - and we had enough adults for them all to have ago.

I've never been on the Ice (apart from snow on the path) before and expected to step onto the ice and slip straight onto my bum.

Staying up-right, obstacle one was overcome. Next was to move forward. Slowly but surely, I managed forward motion - I actually got quite quick. Problem 2 - stopping! . Never did get the hang of this. I either stopped skating and slipped to a halt, or then crashed into the side boards. It was proving a little difficult, at first, to skate and supervise. Liam was having the same trouble as I , although we only got 5 sets of wet bums between us - which for a first go I didn't think was to bad.

Smileys - a continuing quest completed?

        

Two early postings in one day - must be getting good at this - LOL.

It would seem my quest for more emoticons for this weblog is coming to an end (I suppose).

       

I found a good package from a nice lad called Glen at DarkProject Studio's, his work is copywrited but it's worth the visit to his site , and an e-mail to ask permission. It'll be a case of "see how we go" but I think I may have sorted my smiley problem

       

I'm on the two,week days, off as part of my work rota (the "buy out" for being allowed to train for fitting BT PC's). I wouldn't bore you with the rota details (mainly because I'm not sure I know how it works sometimes - its a good job it's copied out on the wall calendar - )

Anyway - this week is a "working Saturday" week, which is still taking some getting used to.

Anyway, today is day two of those days off and , hopefully, will be a lot better than yesterday ended up being.

There was actually a plan for yesterday (and today for that matter ) mainly involved trying to clean the house (no kids and no wife you see - kids at school, Cathy at work and everyone out of the way, so to speak), and the main focus was to be the back room / dining room. This room has always been a general purpose room - homework on the desk ( and drawing ) ironing, reading, playing - the full gamut of family activity ( and it's handy for the kitchen too - plenty of biscuits - )

Anyway first action (after a quick visit to the local DIY store to check the availability of nail packs for my new nail gun), was to move all the accumulated clutter out of the way. That done, it was time to move the furniture round in the room, as it's existing positions where not really making the room that usable. Bad move - as soon as I moved the desk - it disintegrated into a pile of pieces. The next hour was taken with a credit card rush to MFI to buy another replacement desk. Another hour to build it, and several more minutes cleaning up the mess. Dinner time came and went. Cathy then rang from work to see how I was doing. The tone of your voice is often a giveaway to how you feel, and Cathy could tell mine was right fed-up. So I re-told the story of the the day so far.

"What did you buy another desk for?" - came back the question.

"Because Laura does her homework on it, and I draw on it (when I can)" - came the reply

"I wasn't going to replace that desk when it broke" - came back the reply

Now I was totally fed-up. Never mind it was to late to take them back (flat-packs never go back in the box once you've built them - ROFL) And to make it worse - the harder I tried to get the job finished - the more needed doing.

Anyway, yesterday was also my Mum's birthday. And , as the Kids had their own cards to give, we went over to Mum's to say happy birthday. From there we arranged for "tea" to be delivered - in the form of a Lasagne, a garlic bread and a couple of Kebabs.

The fare from this takeaway is usually top notch - but last night it was awful - the perfect end to a crummy day.

Just a quick Comment
Monday, February 17, 2003

How can the UK news networks make a whole days news out of some thing and nothing.

Today has been "C" day - that is the start on congestion charging in the center of London.

I think this is a brave decision for Ken Livingston and his administration, someone has to "take the bull by the horns", but the whole day has been taken up by it.

I realize it has, possibly, got nationwide implications, but today, it just sounded like a lot of southerners wittering and whinging about how they have to pay another tax - etc. etc. etc. But they are happy to take the subsides to build new houses in the south and south-east , whilst the bulldozers are to flatten houses in the North (although there are plenty of homeless people at this end of the world to)

It just tees me off that everything seems to go first to the South, and then if there are any scraps left, it slowly moves North. I suspect that there are many Scots that feel the same way .

Its as thought there hasn't been anything else happening in the world. And , I know , that this sounds like a moan - which it is - but this is the way I feel at this point in time. The country, apparently, is about to go to war, but the main news is that a few Londoners may have to put their hands in their pockets - how sad.


current mood: annoyed
current music: No Music - Just the BBC News

A Weekend Resume

Here we are , on yet another Sunday morning (can anyone see a pattern yet). In the next half hour I will have to wake Liam up so that he's ready for Football training (there's no actual match this week - so Liam gets to keep his Man of the Match trophy for another week.

In many ways, as I have probably said before, nothing out of the ordinary has happened this week - work wise at least. Had a bit of a training course mid week , but nothing that exciting.

We took my Mum to a "Family" wedding in Lincoln (UK) yesterday (Saturday), where we were the taxi. Whilst Mum was at the wedding, we had arranged to go see our friends (and god son) at nearby Nettleham. It was nice, steady afternoon. We went to pick Mum up about 7 o'clock. It sounds like things didn't quite go to plan, but everything was OK in the end.

This is going to sound really sad. As I sit here typing, I can also sit and watch several episodes of Transformer Armada on Sky One. I wanted to do that yesterday, but Laura came down and "wittered" me into changing channel to Nick Junior amongst others (Kenan and Kel - UGGGGGGGHHHHHH - "I can't stand it" -LOL). Sad, I know, but I do like cartoons. Transformer, Scooby Doo, Wacky Races and the like. And it isn't just the cartoon I remember as a boy ( and my lad would say they had only just invented the wheel them - LOL), but some of the new ones too. I don't know what it is - I like them, so I watch them.

Just a quick question - does anyone else have finger ache after Inter netting for a while?

I suspect that I'm probably sat in the wrong position or what ever, but over the last few weeks its seems the ache come on all the earlier - I don't know if things are getting worse - or if it's just a "flu ache" - I have a cold for a wee while - but it doesn't seem to ache the same way of that makes sense.

It would appear that I am some what of an idiot ( Not a new comment to those who know me).

The Avatar pictures I have been using are not "innocent" or "anonymous" as I thought.

I should have expected something - with there being X-men and Pokemon amongst the other pictures but it looks like someone is awake. Below is a copy of a posting from one of my other blogs (many thanks to Sio Ma for taking the time to reply - hope you don't mind my "putting you in lights").

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Prima Donna ( sio_ma) replied to your Blurty post in which you said:


A Mid Week Thought


Hi All - hope everyone is Ok (although I know some are not). From my Xanga daily subscription list, it is very apparent that the winter bugs are having a right go at the minute.

Most of the people I have come across at work are either suffering themselves, or they know of someone who is.

In a way this is a sort of interim entry. Not really a lot to say at the minute, but I'm on my own for now as Cathy and the Kids have gone to see a play at Liam's School

. From what I hear the latest Incentive scheme at work has been kicked quite clearly into touch - the BT higher ups will not be very happy. I can't say that I am. The last few week have been an utter bog up. To be fair to BT (to some extent) they have continued with the line they have consistently followed - they want the scheme and, of course, they have continued to promote it - it's the Union that has teed me off. The Executive initially recommended acceptance of the scheme. A Special Conference changed that .A Ballot was then arranged with the Union now recommending that members NOT accept this. The ballot result, so I hear , is a definite rejection. Now, if what we were told at the beginning of all the trials, amendments and the like, is that the scheme will be dismantled and they will start again from scratch.

Can't see that happening. Me, I'm just teed off with them all

Going back to my weekend entry - promised to post several avatars - one of which looks a little like me. Can you guess which one it is?

Is it Harry Potter? - LOL

An Old English Gent ?

or

Is it Professor X?
Their reply was:

Subject: About the pic heads
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Well the first one is not Harry Potter. I forget his name, just remember he is one of the characters of a Japanese comic and cartoon - Slam Dunk.

The second one... also forget... but a Kongfu fighter in a Japanese cartoon.

The third one... same as the second one.

Sorry, I really forget their names and can't help you much. Anyway, I can search for you if you really want to know.
You can view the thread starting from this comment, or view all comments to this entry.
You can also reply at the webpage, 

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The original reason for the post - which one do I look like? If you hadn't guessed - I am an older version of the "Harry Potter" look a like - even down to the glasses. I couldn't quite believe it when I saw the picture, scary or what.

It's Sunday Again

Here we are, early Sunday Morning, and that's another week over.

Firstly I have found some additional "Smileys" that I can use on my Xanga Site, in fact, when you look hard enough, you find that there are loads. Mind you, I suppose I shouldn't sound so surprised, you search for anything on the Web these days, you almost invariably end up with thousands to results.

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This week has been a struggle, for the last few days at least. It's been a case of the Sinus's. It appears to be OK this A.M. (although the inside of my head feels "raw" -- everything smells wrong, odd), but yesterday was defiantly the worst . Blurred vision, head pain that puts a migraine in the shade (and I have had them too - so I know how they feel). You don't know whether to stand up, sit down or lay down. The feeling of pressure on the inside of your head is something else - it's very hard to liken anything to it - anything that bad you wouldn't want to know about in the first place. And then the rawness (if that's a word), a sore, edgy pain that goes with it all. Well at least that's now gone.

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Myself, and my lad Liam, hopped on the old bike, and cycled back to the Decorators shop, Sinus's and all - LOL, to order the wallpaper that I and Cathy had seen the other day. As we had to order the paper ( they only keep a limited number of the more "common" (sounds bad that ?) rolls) - we got them to put by the paint and paste we also required (* have you tried to carry 5ltr of gloss paint on the handle bars of your bike - it's no fun). It'll be a couple of days before they get them in - but as we don't need them for at least a week it's not really a problem.

Today is, yet again Football day. Liam's team are playing at home today - but it looks like it will a miserable day. It's absolutely throwing it down now as I look out of the front room window. I hope it gives way in the next few hours else everyone is going to be very, very wet.

Emoticons part 2

In my Xanga Blog, I left a message about the use of Smileys (and I'm still trying to workk out of to do the same on these blogs). On Xanga , when you construct an entry, there are about a half-dozen smileys you can add to that entry. But there are many more icons out there.

I would like to thank loopdeloup and marion for their kind responses (thanks for the codes for the icons by the way) about my Xanga and emotiocons question - it was most revealing. Will Xanaga be allowing us to extend our range a little in the future ?


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The main reason for the question was that other sites I have used have a larger range of emoticons (even my own bulletin board, c/o php.com, has access to a fair range of emoticons), and , although I don't use them to a large extent, there are sometimes when, to emphasis a point, an range of emoticon's would be very useful .

However don't do what I did this A.M.


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Hotbar - it puts its program everywhere - and without asking

In an attempt to add a few extra smileys and the like, I saw an advert on a web site along the lines of "Do you want to add extra -----" you know the sort of things. Anyway , as it as , on the face of it, an addition to your e-mails, I pressed the OK button. The Install dialogue came up, and I never notice it mentioned Hotbar. I've tried hotbar before and its OK but since I never really used it - I uninstalled it. Anyway back to the story. The program installed itself. I started up Outlook and there was the Hotbar menu - again it was OK. I never though anymore of it until I opened one of my document folders - there was hotbar installing its self into my ordinary folders. I fired up IE6 - there it was again. Hotbar has installed its self everywhere. I wouldn't mind - but I never agreed to anything other than installing in Outlook. I've left things as they are for now - but anyone else out there beware, be sure you want Hotbar to install its self into everything - moan over!!!


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Now I know why I hate Decorating

Don't get me wrong - I don't really dislike decorating per-say. I prefer the actual act of putting the paper and paint on the wall - it's the art of picking and shopping for your "bits and pieces" that I really hate.

"do you like this?" - " that's nice!" - "you can not be serious", and that's before we get to the wallpaper.

Normally my self and Cathy have slightly different view on what we want to do. This, as it turns out is not such a bad thing as, when we do come across something we both like it usually works quite well - but it usually after as series of that wall paper is a slight shade to dark,that paper is a shade too light, that one won't go with the Hamster.

But today! - today was something out-of-the-ordinary.

The story is this. We are having a new built in wardrobe fitted soon and as such the bedroom has to be re-decorated ( that fact that , given half a chance, it should have been decorated several years ago is yet another story). First store we went into was a dead loss . The next in line was actually the carpet store. Not only did we agree on one shade of carpet - but three, and we were able to pick one to purchase. The next was to visit a local, small, decoratoring suppliers - you know the one - this is were the local decorators go for their "bits and pieces". We had to look through several pattern books without success - but then it happened again - we both picked a set of papers that went with carpet.

Is that scary or what - LOL

Monday, February 03, 2003

The Space Shuttle

It is early Monday Morning (UK Time) and the kids are getting ready for school. Life is going on as it should. But the pictures of the Shuttle debris that have been shown over the last couple of days just make the whole thing even more tragic.

Of all the images I have seen these last few days - the two that sum up the whole thing are probably two of the smaller items recovered. A lot of the UK Tabloid papers today are headlining a picture of one of the astronauts helmet , lying in the Texas grass, where it landed, and the worst one for me was the image of one of the mission badges, apparently unmarked. I just looked as though it had just come out of a box, ready to be attached to a uniform, a space suit?.

It was just the view of it looking so pristine (maybe it it was worse than it looked - the camera made it look better?)But it was the thought of what had happened to bring this small badge away from it's owner.

God Bless them all - hero's deserve remembrance.

I also came across this poem from a fellow Xangan:

The latest from Paedansu's Xanga Site!


Forever man has wondered
at the stars so far beyond
To ascend to heights unknown
ever yet a dream so fond
For centuries we always sought
to defy our earthly bounds
So many wished themselves set forth
from these stable grounds
Yet now we find ourselves unfit
to venture among the stars
Our confidence had grown too strong
in the safety of a realm not ours
We must recall the danger faced
before again we seek such goals
And now we pay the price in tears
for the loss of these brave souls

In Memory of the Crew of Space Shuttle Columbia - Febuary 1st, 2003

Posted at 2/1/2003 8:55:29 PM

Liam's football match

Crowle Colts 1 - Park Tigers 3

Cathy took Liam today (I wasn't to well - but that's another story).

The Tigers were away today at the Crowle Colts. Now their field is, from previous visits, a little "exposed".

Cathy tells me that today, it was a little rough. The ground was very boggy and wet. The wind and hail whistled in from the the Thorne Moors - it was awful. But never mind - these are the "benefits" :-) of being a Footballing Parents.

At least things have picked up from the defeats of the last few weeks. I am told that the lads played well - especially concidering the prevailing conditions - and it's good to see Liam come home with a broad smile on his face.

Shuttle Disaster

Have just seen on the news the crash of the Space Shuttle Columbia.

This was heart breaking to watch second hand - but to those who are directly involved, the pain must be unimaginable. My heart goes out to them, there can be nothing I can say that can make anything any better - only family , friends and time will help on that score.

Could everyone please just give a few moments thought and prayer for the families and colleagues of the astronauts involved.

God Bless

I'm "Playing" Again

Have just spent a few hours (now don't laugh - I'm learning - SLOWLY - LOL), trying to attach a bulletin board from phpbb Bulletin Boards. It was one of those things that I have always wanted to alter. When I first built the website I used a free, hosted board via Bravenet.com which was, and still is, a good and useful resource. The main problem is , that , although you do some control over the "image" of the board, I wanted to be able to do a little more (or fiddle with it if you know what I'm like :-) ).

The main reason for doing this is, unlike my Xanga Site, most of the other Blog sites don't have the direct ability to reply to any of my postings. There was always the option of emailing me, but that sort of defeats the purpose of a Blog in many ways. Part of the enjoyment, for me a t least, is seeing what people think of what is posted.

I have had a look on the internet for what was available. World Wide Parents use ezboard - but that seems to be hosted. I had a look at a couple of others - but on the whole I plumped for PhpBB2. After an initial problem with actually activating the board ( and a lot of asking) - soon sorted that though (If you follow suit - don't set a table up on your host to cope with the board, which is what I did, because the board software appears to that for you). This board also allows me to create individual sections for each of my Blogs - so not only can you see the comments for the posting you came to see, but you can also see what else is going on in the smudger Blog empire.

So feel free to give the comments link a click and see what's going on. Tell me what you think?

Mind you - I'll apologize now if any thing goes slightly amiss - As you know I like tinkering - and does anyone remember what happened to my BigBlog Site - LOL