You'd of thought that I'd of had enough of catastophies this year, what with all the plumbing disasters and what not. But no, more were going to be piled my way.
This time rather than one centered on the house, instead this time it's the car! I was driving to my parents house on Tuesday night when I began to notice that there seemed to be a lack of power fmro the engine. This sort of thing is really noticable in my car as it doesn't have a lot to begin with. So when you lose some, you begin to think somebody has nicked your engine and replaced it with a sewing machine!
Anyway, as I got closer to york, a light began to flash on the dashboard. Not a red one, but a Yellow one. Looking in the owners manual when I reached my destination revealed that this light stands for "Engine Malfunction" - I greeted this news with the obvious cry of "No duh" and then a long groan. The manual says it should be driveable as long as it flashes and doesn't stay on all the time. Guess what it did when I tried to leave my parents house.
Yep you guessed it. So I had to call out roadside assistance (free while the car is still under warranty). The guy came out and said he couldn't fix it by the side of the road, but it looked like only 3 of the 4 cylinders were actually working. So my car has been taken to a garage in York and I now have to wait for it ot be fixed. In the meantime I have a borrowed car, but it's a hassle I could do without at the moment.
Next weeks, week off from work can't come soon enough!
And now for a confession. Yup it's another song which I shouldn't like but do. I personally blame Radio 2, but there you go.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Twelve of Twelve
Ding Dong merrily on high, it's Twelve of Twelve time again. I know it's july, but should be able to sing Carols all year round... well, maybe those that don't actually mention christmas. I mean we are now over halfway through the year, it's only just round the corner. Yes, it's a very big corner, but I have a v. good imagination. Which is also a curse, good imaginations mean you can conjure up images no matter what is described, which is not necessarily a good thing.
But hey who needs an imagination when we have pictures...
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1. 07:20 Approx
It's 99.9% finished. About a fortnight ago myself and my dad undertook the final task of fitting the floor to my new bathroom. It took us just under 2 days to fit it properly, so finally the upstairs of my house no longer looks like a building site. The only thiung that needs finishing is a little bit of edging where the bath meets the floor.
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2. 07:45 Approx
This is the lawn outside the front of my house. Well I call it a lawn, I don't know if it qualifies as such anymore. IT's more weeds and moss rather than grass. At least it's still vaguely green. It's also short as I managed to cut it last night before it rained.
This is the lawn outside the front of my house. Well I call it a lawn, I don't know if it qualifies as such anymore. IT's more weeds and moss rather than grass. At least it's still vaguely green. It's also short as I managed to cut it last night before it rained.
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3. 07:46 Approx
This is my backgarden. As you can see I didn't get chance to cut this last night. If I'm not careful it'll become a Jungle before I turn around twice. Then I'll have to evict the gorilla's beforeI can cut it again.
This is my backgarden. As you can see I didn't get chance to cut this last night. If I'm not careful it'll become a Jungle before I turn around twice. Then I'll have to evict the gorilla's beforeI can cut it again.
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4. 08:20 Approx
A package arrived on my desk this morning, it contained this. It is a map of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. We have maps of the different countries we have customers in, on our walls. Except we realised that we didn't have one of Holland, which is odd as we are a Dutch company. So I went on ebay to remedy the situation. This is our second map as somebody pinched our first one!
A package arrived on my desk this morning, it contained this. It is a map of Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg. We have maps of the different countries we have customers in, on our walls. Except we realised that we didn't have one of Holland, which is odd as we are a Dutch company. So I went on ebay to remedy the situation. This is our second map as somebody pinched our first one!
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5. 11:25 Approx
This is my savior on warm days as the office doesn't have air conditioning. Unfortuantely the lead on it isn't very long so it sits quite close to my desk. Plus the only settings it has are:
1. Gale Force
2. Hurricane
3. Look out Dorothy I'm on my way to Oz.
If I have it pointed at me, all the bits of paper get blown around my desk. So it has to be pointed away from me and I just get the draught it creates.
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6. 12:00 Approx
It's medication time. This one pill allows me to have a meal without ti causing me too much pain later in the day. So I have to take it 3 times a day, preferably half an hour before meals. I have an alarm which comes on my phone to remind me as I have a terrible memory for such things. I also have an alarm that reminds me of twelve of twelve time as well.
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7. 14:30 Approx
I'm working int he workshop testing various bits of machinery this afternoon. This is a finsihed machine with all of it's painted panelling. Would you believe this is the most popular colour we sell. Just once I'd like to see one a more interesting colour. The most interesting one I have seen is painted cream, orange and brown, to match the room decor!
7. 14:30 Approx
I'm working int he workshop testing various bits of machinery this afternoon. This is a finsihed machine with all of it's painted panelling. Would you believe this is the most popular colour we sell. Just once I'd like to see one a more interesting colour. The most interesting one I have seen is painted cream, orange and brown, to match the room decor!
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8. 15:25 Approx
This is a coffin loading machine. It was designed by our French subsidury and does exactly what it says on the tin. It pushes coffins into the machine so the operator stay away from the hot chamber and also doesn't hurt there back.
8. 15:25 Approx
This is a coffin loading machine. It was designed by our French subsidury and does exactly what it says on the tin. It pushes coffins into the machine so the operator stay away from the hot chamber and also doesn't hurt there back.
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9. 16:30 Approx
Do you remember this? This is the anaimal machine fom my last twelve of twelve. Except it's much more further on than the last time you saw it. IT know has most of the electrics and the gas/air pipe work used during the combustion process. You'll notice it is a nice shade of dark blue. This is the standard colour for our incinerators.
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10. 17:30 Approx
This is my meal for this evening, our lovely canteen lady made the sandwiches for me as I knew I would be working late. It's a Thursday so I have Tai Chi this evening and I travel there straight from work.
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11. 21:05 Approx
The aftermath of another intense T'ai Chi session. This fine Chap is Frank one of the characters in the group. Lobar (our instructor) is in the background, he's not posing, but looking for his keys in his pockets. Let me tell you after tonight I was just one big sweaty mess.
11. 21:05 Approx
The aftermath of another intense T'ai Chi session. This fine Chap is Frank one of the characters in the group. Lobar (our instructor) is in the background, he's not posing, but looking for his keys in his pockets. Let me tell you after tonight I was just one big sweaty mess.
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12. 21:45 Approx
This is the view from the bottom of the hill, rather than the top of the hill for once. It's also a view that is going to change in the near future. A company is proposing to install 80 metre high wind turbines on the moor opposite my estate. Now i'm not against wind turbines, but I'm interested to see how the landscpae is going to change in the near future when the turbines go up on the moor.
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Bonus Pic: HOT
13. 16:55 Approx
This is my bonus picture for this week. Unfortunately we didn't have any lit cremators in the workshop today so you have this! This is a gas burner which we use on our standard machine. It gives out a much bigger flame than your standard oven, the flames can reach upto 3ft long. They are cable of heating a machine up to a temperature of 900 Celcius and beyond (given enough time).
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And that's it for another month. That's 6 down, with 5 more to go (one was missed). Hope you've enjoyed it. Maybe one day I'll down one without pictures of cremators in it. It'll most likely be a weekend ;-)
If you have read all of this and have no idea why I did this, then pop over here and read Chad's blog.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
I am Here!
A plane old title, that seems innocucous at first, but actually came to mind as I was thinking about something I watched the other day. It's just that it was the last line from one of my favourite anime films (this one) and I was reminded of it while scrambling round for titles for this post! (I originally had some joke about "I can't believe it's not butter".
Isn't funny how the mind works...
... Let me rephrase that isn't it funny how my mind works. ;-)
Anyway there has been quite a bit going on since my last post so let's play catch up.
Last week I was working on site, but with one small difference. The site was actually only 2 miles further away from my house than my office. So for once, I wasn't living out of a travel inn and could instead commute from home. Although the hours each day were still long and it would of been nice if someone else was cooking my evening meals. Oh and I say commute, on somedays I was actually closer to needing an inflatable dingy to reach my destination.
I was driving along a country road coming back from the crematorium and I was thinking to my self "Funny I don't remember this bridge being here?" thinking I was just crossing a swollen river. Then it dawned on me, there wasn't a river anywhere nearby it was actually 2 farmers fields that were under a few feet of water and if it wasn't for the stone walls either side of the road, then my car would have been under a few feet of water.
Yikes!
That wasn't the only stress caused by the rain last week. Part of the new installation was on the roof. Can you guess which muggins was on the roof for over an hour (in the Torrential rain - worthy of the capital letter) checking the electrical wiring when we discovered a problem? Yep that was me. I was wearing my full waterproof gear and I still came down looking like I'd gone for a swim with all my clothes on.
Trust me to be working on the roof, in a month that contains Glastonbury, Wimbledon and the British Grand Prix. It's obvious what the weather is going to be like!
Luckily there was no need for any weekend site work so instead I could devote yet more time to my bathroom! As they say in the movies "It won't be long now" and it won't. The floor is finally fitted. It took 2 of us most of saturday to fit the laminate flooring and it looks much better than I though it would, which to my mind is a definate bonus. We bought the flooring in boxes of 5 planks and it turned out I needed 6 to do the floor. Typical.
But then I had a brain wave and on Sunday we used the remainnig planks to create a matching panel for the side of the bath. So we are entering the final phase. All that needs to go down is the beading to go around the edge of the room (to hide the gaps) and it will be essentially finished. Okay so there will be a small amount of accessorising to do, but that'll be an as/when job.
Which means that with all of the dusty work over and done with, this weekend has become my summer cleaning weekend for the house. Everything is going to be sorted, recycled, dusted, cleaned, washed and generally tidied ready for company the following weekend.
Is it possible to crank up the excitement any further. Let's see shall we...
If you're wondering what has taken up the rest of my time in the last fortnight. Well I have finially applied to go back into uniform as part of the ATC. After filling out the forms (including a security questionnaire with the question - "Have a been part of any attempt to overthrow the legitament government of any country") I got a date for the next stage. An interview panel!
Which happened on Monday this week. The interview was scheduled for 8:45 pm, but didn't end up starting until 9:15pm. It is a panel of 3 senior officers frm the wing asking questions to assess your suitability to go back into uniform. I had applied to become an Adult Sergeant (the lowest adult uniformed rank) and so was asked standard interview questions (who, what, why) as well as the ATC setup and the dreaded "Scenario" questions.
I got:
(i) What would I do if someone came upto me and said they'd seen Joe bloggs taking £10 from the tuck shop?
(ii) What do I think of the Wing Alcohol Policy?
That 2nd one was a really toughie, but in the end...
I passed! Which means as long as my paperwork goes through (takes about 6 weeks), I'll shortly be wearing a uniform.
Needless to say there will be pictures of me i my uniform and the finished bathroom, shortly!
Isn't funny how the mind works...
... Let me rephrase that isn't it funny how my mind works. ;-)
Anyway there has been quite a bit going on since my last post so let's play catch up.
Last week I was working on site, but with one small difference. The site was actually only 2 miles further away from my house than my office. So for once, I wasn't living out of a travel inn and could instead commute from home. Although the hours each day were still long and it would of been nice if someone else was cooking my evening meals. Oh and I say commute, on somedays I was actually closer to needing an inflatable dingy to reach my destination.
I was driving along a country road coming back from the crematorium and I was thinking to my self "Funny I don't remember this bridge being here?" thinking I was just crossing a swollen river. Then it dawned on me, there wasn't a river anywhere nearby it was actually 2 farmers fields that were under a few feet of water and if it wasn't for the stone walls either side of the road, then my car would have been under a few feet of water.
Yikes!
That wasn't the only stress caused by the rain last week. Part of the new installation was on the roof. Can you guess which muggins was on the roof for over an hour (in the Torrential rain - worthy of the capital letter) checking the electrical wiring when we discovered a problem? Yep that was me. I was wearing my full waterproof gear and I still came down looking like I'd gone for a swim with all my clothes on.
Trust me to be working on the roof, in a month that contains Glastonbury, Wimbledon and the British Grand Prix. It's obvious what the weather is going to be like!
Luckily there was no need for any weekend site work so instead I could devote yet more time to my bathroom! As they say in the movies "It won't be long now" and it won't. The floor is finally fitted. It took 2 of us most of saturday to fit the laminate flooring and it looks much better than I though it would, which to my mind is a definate bonus. We bought the flooring in boxes of 5 planks and it turned out I needed 6 to do the floor. Typical.
But then I had a brain wave and on Sunday we used the remainnig planks to create a matching panel for the side of the bath. So we are entering the final phase. All that needs to go down is the beading to go around the edge of the room (to hide the gaps) and it will be essentially finished. Okay so there will be a small amount of accessorising to do, but that'll be an as/when job.
Which means that with all of the dusty work over and done with, this weekend has become my summer cleaning weekend for the house. Everything is going to be sorted, recycled, dusted, cleaned, washed and generally tidied ready for company the following weekend.
Is it possible to crank up the excitement any further. Let's see shall we...
If you're wondering what has taken up the rest of my time in the last fortnight. Well I have finially applied to go back into uniform as part of the ATC. After filling out the forms (including a security questionnaire with the question - "Have a been part of any attempt to overthrow the legitament government of any country") I got a date for the next stage. An interview panel!
Which happened on Monday this week. The interview was scheduled for 8:45 pm, but didn't end up starting until 9:15pm. It is a panel of 3 senior officers frm the wing asking questions to assess your suitability to go back into uniform. I had applied to become an Adult Sergeant (the lowest adult uniformed rank) and so was asked standard interview questions (who, what, why) as well as the ATC setup and the dreaded "Scenario" questions.
I got:
(i) What would I do if someone came upto me and said they'd seen Joe bloggs taking £10 from the tuck shop?
(ii) What do I think of the Wing Alcohol Policy?
That 2nd one was a really toughie, but in the end...
I passed! Which means as long as my paperwork goes through (takes about 6 weeks), I'll shortly be wearing a uniform.
Needless to say there will be pictures of me i my uniform and the finished bathroom, shortly!
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