Pic n Mix

That title will be from the same literary school as Guns n Roses then.

This post contains all those bits and pieces that don't fit anywhere else. A veritable smogesboard of oddities from across the internet, found when I of course should be working.

The first is something for the lady that has everything. I know some marketeers believe a woman will buy anything aslong as it's pink, but I think this takes the biscuit. Everybody has the right to protect themselves but still.

And these, well these I just found rather funny. We always joke in the office about the life you lead working as technical support. I suppose that's how I found them. I don't quite agree with the sterotypes. But I always find anything with Foamy the squirrel funny.

Warning due to large amounts of swearing this is NOT safe for work.




There are 4 in the series and they can be found here.

Finally thanks to the joys of Penny Arcade, we can now all buy this slogan on a T-shirt. I think I know who'll want one! ;-)

Because The Girls Love a Man in Uniform

Supposedly, so somebody once told me! However after this picture they may just change there mind.



Yep that's me in my new Adult Sergeant uniform. The beret doesn't look as bad as I feared it would. It was worth sitting the morning with that thing soaking wet on my head. The shoes are also coming up well, although they could be better. The shirt however is a bit of a loose fit. They are sized on collar size, but becasue I have a thick neck, I think they expect this size of shirt to fit sombody of a "larger" stature. It also comes down to my knees, but you obviously can't tell as I'm wearing trousers.


Strange I know, but uniform regulations state that trousers must be worn. ;-) Oh and you can cut yourself on the sharpness of the creases. It also adds lots more time to my ironing as well. ;-(


In other news I have bought a new DVD player to replace the old one that died last week. It's black, shiny and looks like a DVD player unsurprisingly. It also is multi-region which means I can play the hundreds of region 1 discs (and the two region 3!??) discs which I have scattered around the living room.


Oh and I eventually had that "Talk" with the MD last Wednesday. There was lots of "I agree with you on this" & "I don't agree with you on that" but in the end I don't think anything will change because of this. That has really upset my boss as he hoped it would finally open his boss' eyes and something will be done.


I also found out that he's really scared that he's going to lose me because of it. It's nice to know that somebody appreciates me.

Twelve of Twelve

In the words of the immortal Alyson Hannigan; "I think this lines mostly filler". I apologies how mundane some of this months 12 of 12 is. I always dreaded a 12 of 12 that landed on a Sunday. This is defiantely a day of rest for me and 12 pictures of me snoozing on the couch just wouldn't cut the mustard, well in my opinion anyway!


But somehow I've avoided any pictures of me asleep and it being Sunday also means that you've avoided the pictures from work this month. So let's delve into yet another 12 of 12.

Warning: This 12 of 12 contains lots of pictures of food. Anybody on a diet should stop reading now. You have been warned.

---
1. ??:?? Approx

What's wrong with this picture? My watch is missing! I put it down somewhere and now I can't seem to find it. I can't tell you how naked I feel without it.

---
2. 11:30 Approx

This is my Dad. I'm visiting my parents today as my Grandparents are also paying them a visit. As always happens on these occasions they always put on a large Sunday Lunch, I can't wait.

---
3. 12:45 Approx

Traditional Sunday Lunch in all it's glory. My parents always go overboard with the food, but no matter how much we tell them, they never seem to get the quantaties quite right. Thankfully there is always too much rather than too little. Here we have Chicken, Carrots, Swede, Sweetcorn, Brocolli, Sausage meat stuffing, Roast Potato's and Roast Parsnips. Good job I'm not planning anythign remotely active this afternoon.

---
4. 13:30 Approx

Sunday Lunch wasn't all good. I did this little beauty picking up on of the hot pans with a teatowel and not covering my hand properly. Ouch!

---
5. 14:00 Approx

Another tradition on a Sunday Afternoon, watching the football. Both me and my Dad are big football fans and there's nothign we like better than relaxing on an afternoon witht eh football on the TV. Well except for maybe a round of golf.

---
6. 15:50 Approx

More food! You'd think after such I big lunch I'd still be full, but no! I always make room for desert. In this case it is a triple chocolate muffin covered in cream. Very sickly, but very very nice. It didn't stand a chance.

---
7. 18:00 Approx

Even more food! Well I couldn't really take a picture of me asleep on the couch, so the next picture has to be of my tea. In this case it's a sausage sandwich. I promise this is the last photo to contain food. I also apologies if this 12 of 12 is making you hungry.

---
8. 19:35 Approx

Found it! I'd actually left it at home, no wonder I couldn't find it at my parents house. I must of taken it off while having a wash and forgotten to put it back on again.

---
9. 19:45 Approx


Do you remember the jungle from a previous 12 of 12? Well here it is after I attacked it with the Lawnmower yesterday. I did actually have a lawn in my backgarden, who new? I also found a Strawberry plant I didn't realise I had either.

---
10. 20:00 Approx

Here's my other chore for the weekend, polishing my shoes. These are my parade shoes for when I'm in Uniform with the ATC. As I'm an Adult Sergeant, one of my jobs is Dress and Discipline on the squadron. I can only make comments on cadets unifoms if mine is immaculate. So the top caps on the shoes have to shine like mirrors.

---
11. 20:45 Approx

This is the book I intend to read after I've finished with this months 12 of 12. It's one of about 5 in my current "To read" pile. I did plan to watch a DVD, but...

---
12. 20:46 Approx

... my DVD player has stopped working completely. It doesn't even power up anymore. So it has joined my TV in the pile of old electronic items that I intend to take to the recycling centre as soon as I can be bothered.

---

So here we go. I managed a Sunday 12 of 12 without taking any pictures of me asleep on the couch. Although there are more pictures of food than I would like. Still it asks for 12 pictures of my day and 12 pictures of my day it shall get.

If you have read all of this and have no idea why I did this, then pop over here and read Chad's blog.

The Big Un'

It's been a while so where to start? I know, lets be sensible for once and start chrnologically from my last post. I can't however guarantee anything about the sensibility of what follows. :-)

Well that means we start with my car. It has been restored back to working order. They told me that there was somethign wrong with the ignition system, so they replaced bits of it until it started working again. It also needed 2 back tyres so I had them replace those while it was in the workshop. I eventually collected it back on the Saturday (21stJuly). It hadn't been cleaned, but at least it worked, which was good as I needed it for the following week.

The following week was of course the week of my holiday. As last year Iwent to Whitehaven on the edge of the Lake Distrct to visit some of my friends from university. Thankfully the weather wasn't too bad, compared to what it had been the previous week. We still had some dull, grey days, punctuated by rain, but we also had one or two dry ones which we could get out and about.

I must admit I was glad to get away from work for the week. Things have been rather stressful at work recently so I was just thankful to get away from Leeds entirely (and cleanly I might add, more later). Anyway, I stayed with Mark and Hannah 2 friends from uni who both work at Sellafield.

As usual they were very kind in putting me up for the week and also for feeding me during the week. Those days when the rain failed to keep us inside we went out to Whitehaven, or went further down the coast to a place called St. Bees. I especially liked the little cafe on the edge of the beach at St. Bees, it serves rather nice Tifin.

Don't ask me to describe Tifin. It's very much a chocolate, flapjack, biscuit, type thing. The best thing I can say about it is that it is delicious and that I ate 2 slices. ;-)

The holiday was rounded off nicely by a barbeque (again at Mark and Hannah's) with more of my coursemates/former house mates from university coming up just for the BBQ. Considering my job you wouldn't think we'd have any difficulty lighting a barbeque, btu we did. We must have had the worlds worst matches. They would light, but then they would immediately go out. The wooden part of the match refused to burn at all. Eventually we had to use bits of rolled up newspaper and the cooker hobs to light the BBQ.

I think I also came back from that weekend at leadt half a stone heavy than when I went there. But I don't mind it's all in a good cause (me).

I'm also now offically an Adult sergeat within the ATC. My paperwork came through a week last Tuesday and I went to collect my uniform the day after. However this has meant that some of my free time has been spent ironing shirts and trousers and doing other parts of my uniform. As an Adult sergeant I am expected to have a standard of uniform much greater than the cadets. The worst parts of the uniform to do are the beret and the cadet shoes.

The beret has to be moulded into the correct shape before it can be word properly. To do this, you must immerse it in cold water and then wear it on your head (in the correct shape) until it dries. So I spent Saturday morning with a wet lump of beret on my head, trying to read a book without getting water dripped onto it. the shoes just take ages to polish. The toe caps have to be a very shiny, dark black and the only way to get them like that is to keep applying polish and buffing them for hours on end. I've made a good start, but it will take me a few weeks before they are perfect.

I'll post pictures whenever I can get somebody to take them.

Also while I was away I got plenty of leaflets for "Micklefield against the Wind Turbines". It looks like around my way they've caught the "Not in my Backyard" desease. One of the leaflets had a picture of the town with a massive turnbine towering over the top of it with the words "Don't let this happen". I had to chuckle as the scale is just so obvioiusly wrong in the picture. The turbine could have been something straight out of war of the worlds.

I can't really think that they can complain that they'll be noisy either! I mean we'll have the A1 motorway between us and the Windfarm, I can't see them generating anymore noise than that. Still I haven't seen the plans yet so I'm witholding judgement until I see the plans for myself.

Finally, I got back to work last week and straight away got snowed under by various requests from various departments. I even snapped at one point and almost started shouting at somebody from the French office down the phone. At the end of the day I'd had enough. So I emailed my boss with a critique of everything I could think of that could be run better (both for our department and communications from other departments). I also voiced my concerns for the future if thigns continues the way they were heading.

My boss surprisingly said he agreed with me entirely. I thought then he would then discuss some of the matters with his boss. What I didn't expect him to do was send a copy of the email to the Managing Director! I'm now scheduled to have "Frank Talks" with the Managing Director on Wednesday.

I'm not looking forward to those.