Bleugh, I want to go home. Oh, I am home.

The above are the important and wise words uttered by yours truly when I got home last night. It's fair to say that my housemate was very much amused by the statement.

However, it does sum up things at the moment- I'm not quite sure if I'm coming or going!

Went up to Brum recently and caught up with the old Cathsoc committee. It was 2000 that we were in power, although I'm not so sure power is the right word. There are many other words that seem more appropriate. It's weird seeing where we've ended up - two auditors, an engineer and a PhD student. Sounds like it should be a responsible group till you put us all in one place. Ho hum. Was good to see them all anyway.

Also met up with more people down in Reading last weekend in the pub.

When we got home we later spent an inordinate amount of time at home trying to determine how many teeth we should all have. There's something very amusing about watching people try to count their own teeth. Following some research we determined that you should have 32, including wisdoms. Which means that I do have wisdom teeth - I just never noticed them coming through. Which means I am wise and grown up. Which I'm sure you all know anyway...

Mattresses

Sarah has the most amazing blow up mattress! You plug it into the wall and it blows itself up! You just watch as it pootles away to itself and then there is a fully blown up mattress! And you just reverse the fan to deflate it. It's sooo cool! And, apparently, I'm very easily amused.

The reason for the above discovery was that I stayed over at Sarah's last night for a proper catch up. We spent a lot of time nattering about all sorts of things - jobs, houses, her wedding, how cool her engagement ring is.

We also drank a pizza and ate a bottle of wine.

Which, along with the sleep deprivation, is making today rather more effort than normal.

Toes. Like Fingers but not.*

*Quote from McChicken and THE Chicken circa 1999. (Not to mention a whole lot of the other chickens, although those two started it. They have a lot to answer for.)

I never really think about my toes. They're just random things that are normally inside shoes.

However, since slipping half way down the stairs last night and stopping only due to the supreme effort of toe against banister, I've discovered a new appreciation for the things. I'd never really considered them or how much you use them to walk.

Ho hum.

Monday morning.

So, I'm back at work. Woohoo. And it's everything I remember from before I went on leave. And yet somehow worse. Ho hum. We've been playing 'nick the network cable' all morning as IT still haven't quite managed to provide one for each desk. We're going to be in trouble if the whole desk cluster is in the office at the same time. Various options have been suggested, and there is strong competition on the issue of which person gets to stay home so that they don't need a network cable…

Having spent much of last week asleep I've now had a busy weekend and could do with some more sleep. Such is life.

Saturday went to parents and ate lots of lasagne and met some peoples the parents know from Thornbury way (although now in Oxford). Mum admitted afterwards that maybe me and the boys have calmed down slightly since we were primary school age… Given that we're now all in our twenties this is quite a statement. Maybe it's just because we don't live at home anymore…

And for the record, it's not a good idea to get the giggles with a mouth full of mouthwash. It's messy, a little painful, and all Anna's fault.

Holiday

I'm on leave!

I recommend being on leave. It's far better for one's sleeping patterns than being at work. Apparently sleeping on one's desk is frowned upon. or at least, not advised if you want to progress at all in your career. ho hum.

So I'm at 'the Shed'. This is the new name for the 'other' house down in Bristol. Apparently other men have shed's in the garden. Dad has a whole house at the other end of the motorway but it serves the same purpose.

The theory about coming to Bristol was to get some sleep, some CPD done and to relax.
Sleep - yep. Relax yep. CPD - well, I kinda wrote an essay last night. Anyone want to know about the History of the Institution of Civil Engineers? It started in a coffee house, which is basically the 1818 equivalent of a pub. And that's still where you're most likley to find a Civil Engineer...

I've upgraded blogger. Anything could happen. Please let me know if it all goes pear shaped. Hmm... a pear shaped computer. Noone has built one of those. How do I get a patent?

I just shouldn't be allowed out.

As many of you know I recently got a new phone. My new new phone will be arriving this week after I broke the screen on the old new one. I'm not sure how. I think I sat on it.

This is brilliant. old but brilliant.

YAY! Dangermouse! Woooo!

Dangermouse is coming back to TV :-)

2 hours and thirty minutes, or 150 minutes, or 9000 seconds or 9e+012 nanoseconds

That's how long it took me to get to work this morning. Thirty minutes to get to the bottom of the hill. 2 hours to go about 4 miles across handy cross roundabout.

I've named various traffic cones on the route. Please say Hello to Jack and Tom when you pass them.

I think it's the first time I've been caught up in real gridlock. Something else to cross off the list of 'things to do'.

Then when I got to work, and got myself a coffee the milk was off… Things were just improving. Then I dropped my pen into my mug of herbally infused water.

Please can we rewind and start today again?

Just for Martin...

Martin is the best example of blokeness I have ever seen.

And this is not written under duress. And I'm sure his girlfirend would agree.

He's also asked for semi-revealing photos.

This is a semi revelaing photo...

They're married!

ok, so I should have posted this sooner, but hey. On the 19th August, two of my best friends got married. To each other.


I was one of the best men. (I like to think that I was the best best man).

So yes, I was on the stag do. And that's all I'm going to say about that.

The wedding was great. I've attached some photos. We all look very grown up. It was really weird because it was a very local wedding so everyone knew everyone else. Half of us had grown up on the same estate (that's essentially how I know both Natalie and Ryan). Natalie looked beautiful - she always does, but particularly on the day.

We all drank a fair bit at the reception - although not as much as we did the ngiht before. We were playing drinking games with Ryan's Dad. I have no idea what the rules were I just drank when told to. Dave was in a far worse state than me the next morning.


I think my tankerd was empty.


Me and Charlie.

Only downside of the evening was a minor onw - I lost my bag so had to crash at Ryan's parents house that night as I coudln't get back into my parents house. I also lost my phone so if anyone has been trying to contact me recently I'm sorry. My old number will be active again tomorrow when it's ported across to a new phone and network (which actually has signal in my house!)

Cold, Not Cold, Cold, Not Cold

It's amazing what you can learn when you're out with Friends. This weekend I went to Greenbelt.

I will never be the same again. Although, with luck a hot bath ought to sort out my back. Man was not meant to camp. Perhaps Alice and I should have camped so that we weren't on slopes such that we both ended up in the same corner of the tent by morning. On the other hand, that sounds a little dull.

Greenbelt was good. I kept bumping into people that I've not seen for ages. I was working in te ticket office again so I also met lots of new people who are all completely mad. There was a beautifulo moment where some people were pretending to be automatic doors at one end of the box office, and we were checking wrist bands while salsa-ing at the other end. Punters generally looked pretty scared - but we took lots of money - more than the target by LOTS. We rock.

Got to see some good bands - YFRIDAY, Sounds of Salvation, One Nation. Some interesting talks - Timothy Radcliffe, Norman Kember
and eat some great food. Although I'm still craving salad. And vegetables.

If you've not been to Greenbelt it's well worth a look. Don't expect a life changing experience, but it's good fun. And a lot less crazy than Reading festival. Which, incidently, my brother survived.

Incidently, the title refers to a discovey that a very intelligent PhD student made in the ticket office. When the door is open - it's cold. When it's closed - it's not. When you repeat this observation over and over again people start to go crazy. Here's praying that Alice's write up is more intelligent...

BBC NEWS | Have Your Say: Have UK airport delays affected you? ...

Second comment down.

Genius.

BBC NEWS | Have Your Say: Have UK airport delays affected you? ...: "Wednesday, 16 August, 2006, 11:34 GMT 12:34 UK "

Should I be worried...?

I just opened the office door to someone from another office. He works in a different field to me - Cleanwater instead of Dirty. Yet when I introduced myself he said 'oh, I know that name... not sure why'

It could be good.

Or it could be very bad.

Either way I appear to have a name for myself.

Things I have recently learnt at work:

To reboot - to remove the computer's shoes and later replace them. The smell of sweaty computer feet apparently works in a similar fashion to smelling salts.

Also, apparently there are right and wrong responses to someone saying that their baby son has put on 2lbs in two weeks. Right - "wow, he's getting big." Wrong - "oh yes, well I can do that too…"

My kinda God....

Spot the odd one out

President of the Institution,
MD of the company,
HR director,
My business unit leader,
Another business unit leader,
Senior Technical Manager,
Future Leader, Inspirational Leadership candidate,
Technical Expert and my supervising engineer,
Me.


How did I get myself into this one? We’re all going for dinner at a posh hotel and discusing the state of the industry.

Important things not to say: "Not sure why I'm an engineer really" "well, I suppose it is an ok company" "well, you'd expect that from HR" "not that bothered about getting chartered really"

This is going to be interesting. :-s

Branded with the cross.. and a seatbelt

I went to Norwich over the weekend. It's a great city! We drove up on Saturday morning and it was beautifully sunny. It takes 3.5 hours to get there and I had the window open. So I arrived with one red arm, a red neck and chest… and a small white cross and a white line where the seatbelt sits. As I arrived at Annette's it wasn't too bad. By the time we went out Saturday night it was really very very funny. Thankfully by Sunday it had all calmed down as it wasn't actually burnt!

So what did we do on Sunday? Go to the beach. I'm still not burnt, but you can tell I've been out in the sun …

Norwich is great though. Well worth a visit. It has the most random street names I've ever seen. Upper Goat street, Lower Goat street, Golden Ball Street, Rampant Horse Street...! Seriously.

And they have the best waffle house in the entire world. Mmmmmmmmm. Could barely move afterwards but oooooooh it was good waffle.

Two people face each other across a crowded room. There is no other way to resolve this, they turn and walk away from each other - 50 paces each.

They turn

They fire

"So can you do Tuesday?"
"So can you do Thursday?"


Diaries at dawn.

Did I mention I was going to do a very long walk?

I did it! I took part in the Playtex Moonwalk on the 20th May which is a 26.2 mile walk. The walk takes place overnight and involves 14000 women and 1000 men all wearing decorated bras. I started walking at 2335 on Saturday night and finished at 0735 on Sunday. By which point it is fair to say that I hurt. Quite a lot.

However, as the photo to the left shows, at the beginning I was quite cheerful about it all.






The event was amazing, although it did take me the best part of a week to recover. My name was in the Daily Telegraph so that makes it all worth while :-s I've also raised about £800 which is a far better outcome. Thanks to all who supported me…

To prove I did it here are some photos. And no, I'm not doing it again. Nor am I running it next year.
The Team bra decorating night. Bras and Butterflies everywhere!

The team before we started, left to right, Mary, Barbara, Bethan, Janet, Judith, Helen. All in matching pink bras with lots of butterflies on them!

And we all got to the end, Left to Right, Bethan, Helen, Barbara, Janet, Mary, Judith. Note the amazing pink tent in the background - they called it Playtex city and it was the first time I've ever seen a baby pink circus tent!!

After this photo was taken we all went home where I slept for 16 hours out of 24.

More photos from the telegraph