GARGH!

I've just been reading through a couple of blogs.

Why oh why can't people think about what they type. The BBC and the Times websites may be usefuresearchch sites but not on their own! Never ever use just one source to base an opinion on! It's madness! And please if you're going to link to a vaguely political site then state something about whether actuallyully agree with it or are just tying to be ironic.

And just when I was about to decide that maybe the stereotypes of Americans were unfair.

Right. I've got that out of my system for the moment.

In other news life is 'interesting'. I'm hoping to work out which way is up shortly. I mean how hard can it be?
In better news my Firefly boxset arrived. Happiness :-)

I got asked an interesting question yesterday.

I was in Birmingham yesterday representing my company at recruitment fair. Major news of the trip – Newman house, the catholic chaplaincy now has a dishwasher – Praise the Lord – prayers answered!)

While I was there, and over a Balti, a current Birmingham Cathsoc member asked me how I knew that God wants me in Reading. As opposed to, say, Africa.

As I was applying to uni and later studying for the degree I always imagined that at some point I would use those skills in places where they are really needed. Maybe going out with the VSO. Obviously you need experience for that so it was always a long term thingy. Except I’m beginning to get that experience but I’m not considering going to the VSO website. Well, not much I’m not (and if I’m honest, I don’t yet have the kind of experience I’d need. Getting there but not just yet).

So why am I so sure I should be in Reading? I seem to be involved in lots of stuff. There seems to be amazing stuff going on across the town. There is also terrifying stuff going on as we start to see gun crime and violence becoming more and more prominent in a way that it really wasn’t 10 years ago (and that’s without the rose tinted glasses too). There’s so much that needs doing in Reading, and occasionally I kid myself into thinking I’m indispensable. I’m useful, but Reading would still be here without me.

So why am I so sure that I need to be here?
I’m not sure at all.

I could go anywhere, but I do kinda like it here. One day I’m going to have enough money to live in two whole rooms instead of one, but other than that I’m happy enough. Why move? God does seem to use me here, and despite the fact that I really don’t spend enough time with him he still lets me play.

So I’m here in Reading for no better reason than because I’m not somewhere else. Currently it’s wet cold and miserable so I’d far rather be somewhere else. But I’m honoured to be able to work with the people I do (both professionally and not) and to be able to get to know an awesome bunch of people, and have fun all at the same time. How many people can claim that?

Maybe eventually I’ll put down some deeper roots. Maybe one day I’ll learn to appreciate what I have that little bit more and stop faffing. Now that really would be a miracle.

Would I like to go to Birmingham?

They want me to go help out at a career fair at Birmingham university. Do I know where the great hall is? Umm? Lets see now ;-)

It’s the careers fair where I first came across MWH and essentially why I applied to work here. Talk about returning to your roots!

The Good News about HADES

Having previously taken the mickey out of the Work 'Good News' wall - guess what I'm currently writing. Yes, that's right. A poster for that very same good news wall.

I probably shouldn't have mentioned to a reviewer that the internal software had been really helpful.

I was told yesterday that I was obviously very confident in my work. This was in a meeting of 20ish people - all men, all older than me. I was asked if the flow split would work. My response of "It works." Didn't provoke any more questions or discussion, in fact there was a short pause in the meeting. It would appear that I can blag confidence pretty well.

But it does mean I have no reason not to write this Good news thingy.

Somehow writing Good News about HADES is a little odd though...

(HADES = Hydraulic Analysis and Design Software.)

Intelligent Design.

Does Nature have an intelligent designer? Well, yes, but….
Are the gaps in evolution? Well, maybe, but…..

Currently in the USA Intelligent Design (ID) is on trial.

Is it science or is it religion?

ID questions natural selection and Darwinism. It suggests that natural selection couldn’t occur in the way that is generally assumed and therefore an intelligent designer must be responsible. That designer isn’t necessarily God, but by definition would have to be a deity or Supreme Being of some sort. Most of the proponents seem to be American fundamentalist Christians. Which shouldn’t get my hackles up immediately. Unfortunately it does. It doesn’t help that George Dubyah supports it… However, lets try to look at this objectively.

There is a universe. Well, lets start small – Earth exists. So far so good. Was it designed or was it not? The arguments for a non-religious start to the earth are well discussed and known; Evolution, asteroids, Bangs, suns etc. Natural selection theory does seem to work. It does seem to fit the way in which we can see the world around us operating.

A religious/Christian perspective can be that God created the earth, the universe, and all in it. There is a God who can influence the fabric of the universe; who can make things happen; who can change the world.

However, I’m fully aware that this is a belief. As much as I know it to be true I can’t persuade that to someone who is not willing to take the leap of faith and accept that there might just be a God. In addition I don’t see that there are any difficulties between the two philosophies. I can be a Christian and believe in evolution/natural selection with some intervention/steering from God at times.

So ID is another way of looking at things. Yes.
Is it Science? No.

Science is something that comes with fact and evidence. That a cynic can look at and understand (I’m not saying that the end result is agreement with the assumptions) but how can something be science when it starts from a basis of a leap of faith? That doesn’t mean that it’s not true and by all means talk about it, discuss it, but not in the same way as science is discussed, and not in science lessons in school.

God is present in all things. God is an intelligent creator. But that doesn’t mean that evolution is not possible. To be Christian does not mean that I do not have common sense. We have free will!


I await the outcome of the trial with interest.

Happy Birthday to me!!

And so I reach 25. As Charlie so nicely pointed out – I’m now halfway to 30. With friends like her... :-$

I’ve upgraded my phone as a birthday present to myself. New toy! Yay! It goes beep any everything!

Google mail is temporarily unavailable. Cross your fingers and try again in a few minutes. We’re sorry for the inconvenience.

Wonderful! One of the best error messages I’ve seen in ages.

And that’s including the great one on a work package: "Cannot divide by zero". Really… you can’t?!

What’s going on? I can’t keep up!

I’m really hoping that at some point in the near future the world will slow down for long enough for me to catch up.

Grandad’s funeral went really well. Car no. 2 was the grandchildren and associated cousins etc. By the time we got to the crematorium we were left with an interesting philosophical debate. If we hadn’t nicknamed the car the ‘B’ Ark, would the armrest have fallen off? Thankfully the giggling fit that ensued with the car subsided by the time we got to the crematorium. I suspect the giggling was mainly a way to vent some emotion however whether Gran would have seen it like that is another matter entirely. On the whole I think everything went really well and really smoothly. It was all as Gran wanted it to be. It’s just a shame that I learnt some things about Grandad in Dad’s Eulogy instead of from Grandad himself. I suppose it’s better to know people a little than not at all. It’s hard to visualise the Wilf Wells that I knew building his own house or playing tennis.

And today I’m back in the office trying to work out why on earth I would want an MWH polo shirt – oh wait.. It’s free. I guess it’ll do for the gym. Now when did I last go to the gym…?

We’ve also been asked to contribute Good news to the company to show off what we’re doing well etc. How tempted am I to send in something along the lines of "For God so loved the world…." Well, it is about engineering in a sense…. And it’s definitely good news….

Over.

Over
Out
What?
Errr.. red b…
What’s my callsign?
Um..

As a highly professional organisation it’s always reassuring to know that we can grasp new technologies with both hands in order to provide a better service. It would perhaps be nice If we could also grasp slightly older ones.

Last night was Red Cross radio training. We’ve had radios for YEARS. We’re had this set of radios for a fair while too. So it’s perhaps a little embarrassing when you realise that we’re still not entirely sure of the correct protocols. We can use them and get our message across in an emergency with no trouble. Can we all remember to say ‘over’ after a transmission, or tell left from right to pass on directions? Now that’s all a little more complicated. And that flashing red light… what does that mean…. Noone knows. Oh good. Let’s hope it’s not the self destruct.

Apparently for the Wokingham Winter carnival we’re going to use a radio net. This involves adding more people into the loop to ‘help’. The idea is that all communications go through one point where a record is made of the transmissions. All well and good until you consider what kind of situations we tend to need to use the radios for –Emergencies. The last thing you need in an emergency is a very very slow communication path. The whole point of radios is to speed up the process.

I can’t help but think that we’d be better off with a large net to catch the radios with when we inevitably get annoyed and drop them into the nearest water source… Looks likely that we’ll continue to compromise on some of our duties… mobile phones are wonderful things.

Out.

Uh huh.

Mary: Where’s the drawing register?
Stefan: On the computer. You’ll find it, it’s a small computer.

Stefan is the lead engineer on my project. As you can see we work together pretty well. We're both off our trolleys...

RIP Wilfred Wells

Pray, verb: to ask that the laws of the universe be temporarily annulled for a single petitioner, confessedly unworthy.

-Ambrose Bierce

Grandad is at Peace now. The above definition sent round by Cath yesterday kind of sums up what we've seen happening in that hospital.

ummmm

What do you call a small spoon that is used to make coffee? It’s surely not a teaspoon is it? Is there a separate object for a coffee spoon? Does such a thing exist? And if not, why not?

What am I meant to be feeling?

Happy or sad?
Enthusiastic or depressed?
Optimistic or scared?

This has been a weekend of extremes and I’m not sure how to react.

We took the youth of Earley away for the weekend. The youth weekend aspect was pretty good. Lots of learning points as you’d expect but I think all the kids got something out of it. It was great to see the little ‘uns asking questions about prayer and love (even if they did have their heads on the table at that point due to lack of sleep. I don’t know – no stamina – the leaders were in a far worse state on the whole. I’ve never seen so many green people…

Was fun though, and the kids really seemed to have fun. We talked about God. We made T-shirts. We played wide games. We made a spoof video of Harry Potter. We didn’t sleep. We checked lots of bumped heads for concussion. (When we say ‘don’t run’ we really mean it).

I really recommend working with kids. It’s great to see them learning and discovering new stuff and you really learn from what they’ve got to say as well.

On the negative side my Grandfather had a major stroke on Saturday. All family are on high alert and as many prayers as we can find are required. Mostly for the rest of the family. Grandad isn’t expected to recover. And it really doesn’t help your sleeping patterns.

So on one hand I’m hyped from a youth weekend, if not a tad exhausted. On the other I’m trying to work out how I’m meant to feel about the health of my grandfather as we wait for him to let go.

As ever. It’s all or nothing, and all at the same time.

Things to contemplate.

1. They’ve stopped making smarties lids
2. A pint of Guinness on a Thursday lunchtime
3. God.

Right. So there’s the agenda people. This could be a long post.

Smarties lids. Nestle have stopped making them. Now, I’d just stopped boycotting them having finally got around to doing my research. I may have to reconsider. Surely if nothing else, the lack of Smarties lids is an educational disaster! Lets not think too hard about the nutritional implications – however, if people aren’t exposed to e numbers they might get really ill if they are suddenly exposed to them later in life. Therefore they should be fed Smarties from a young age and learn to spell with the lids. Of course with no lids involved we might have to resort to skittles which limits the spelling significantly to "ssssssssssssssssssss"

Guinness. Well, need I say more? And at lunchtime too. A great combination. Well, perhaps not from the perspective of my hydraulic calcs, but in terms of me feeling good, and the main reason for it – feeling warm in this freezing cold office it is indeed a success.

God. He Rocks. Well and truly. However, I probably ought to apologise to housemates for being a moody cow when I got in yesterday and not praying about it (and therefore turning into a human being) until getting to youthnet last night. However, youthnet was really cool. Was a bit apprehensive as I hadn’t met my group before and one of my group couldn’t come because she’s broken her elbow (excuses excuses). Although I had to bite my tongue as her friend explained what first aid treatment she’d received (kicked by a horse, lands on elbow, losing sensation. Lets take her home for some dinner before going to A&E. I really hope she didn’t need surgery!)

But yes, God rocks. One of the kids – first time I’d seen her, now wants her very own street bible for her birthday. Personally I like the sound of the pop corn maker shaped like a duck that she has at home!

I’m currently collecting smarties lids at work.

I have 7. Six of them are orange. One is blue.

And I already have doubles.

So go on people… what words can I make out of the letters F, F, Y, Y, P, C and Z?
And in what language?

Houses

I recommend spur of the moment decisions. But it’s useful to know what else is going on at the same time… one of these days I’m going to factor in sleep. Honest.

On Saturday I ‘popped’ up to Warwick for a pint (or as it turned out - 4 pints) with a mate who I haven’t seen in two years. We’ve been trying to organise this pint for two years now so it’s a major achievement really. Problem is Mike lives in a really nice area. It looks all grown up and stuff. Not a lot like my road. As mum pointed out, I live in the wrong part of the country. I’m looking on that statement as more of the ‘lets get the kids as far away as possible’ theory that the parents seem to be working on.

So do I move or not? Do I hang around in Wokingham and hope that one day I could afford a house/flat of my very own, or do I move closer to work and rent in, say, Woodley or maybe Twyford? Not sure whether I really want to move into a shared house with strangers though. But also not sure that I want another winter of driving 25 miles (ish) to work every day in the dark and ice.

Chances are that I’m too lazy to do anything about it. But then given that Helen is talking about moving out maybe I should go at the same time she does. If she does. And that all depends on her job interview in Winchester.

Crickey! Too many things to consider. Think I’ll go back to my tea!

Apparently....

Apparently most engineers don’t collect Smarties lids on their desk and consider making it a professional objective to get the whole alphabet by retirement. (They go well with the paper penguin and the plastic ‘computer’ wizard)

And apparently most engineers don’t get excited about multiple coloured pencils, and colour in their design sketches.

So apparently most engineers are boring. Or is that just the geotechnical guys…. ;-)

oh I’m so funny…. Boring – bore holes…? Never mind…..

Pretty Handbag

So tell me... is £25 too much for this bag?

It's the perfect colour to match my dress for Saturday, and I *could* use it on other occasions too.

It's soooo pretty..

All I need is for someone to say "Yes, that's reasonable, buy it"

And so it contines

My brother is currently in Texas… and they’re messing about getting him a social security number. It’s almost reassuring that it’s not just this country’s systems that are incompetent at times. Almost, but not quite. Sounds like some prayer needed there.

Other than that let’s see… I seem to be running out of sleeping time again, and I don’t know how it happened. Other than the fact that schools are back so the commute is an extra 30 minutes a day now :-(

Still, I have a funky new dress for Clare’s wedding J Happy Mary. Problem is that it’s green so doesn’t match the jacket I was going to wear. Amusingly my mate Charlie has also got a green chiffon dress to wear to the same wedding. All the way through school we used to accidentally buy the same stuff. It’s kind of scary that we can still do it despite not seeing each other above twice a year.

I’ve achieved nothing today. That’s bad isn’t it. Better go home I guess.

So lets see… Life.

I seem to be back at work. But it’s been an eventful week.

Wednesday – hysterical tiredness

Thursday – travel to Greenbelt, collecting Alice on the way. For some reason pillows seem to be the most important thing to be packed. As it turns out, this was at the expense of silly little things like pyjamas.

Friday – Still at Greenbelt. Meet the rest of the ticket office team. They’re crazy. Sounds of Salvation play Ska mass at 0015 on stage 2. They rock. They seem to be well received, and I make it all the way through the event without bursting into tears. This is a great achievement. Well, it is for me.

Saturday – Sounds of salvation play again at 0915. Drag myself out of bed to go again. Alice doesn’t bother. She spends most of the day asleep. Apparently this is the point of holidays. This doesn’t stop her pointing out that I can sleep more than she can. Particularly at Christmas. I’d like to point out for the record that I was doing night shifts that year – give over!

Sunday/Monday/Tuesday – Still at Greenbelt. Chilling. Saw some call bands. I recommend ‘one nation’ live. They were awesome. I don’t recommend Jazz Jamaica, although Alice liked them. Motown songs in a Jazz style with just too many instruments. Not my cup of tea. Speaking of tea, genius idea to have the main stage projected on screen above the tiny tea tent, so that you can sit in the sun on the grass with a cup of tea and listen to music…. Bliss…. Discover that holiday seems to suit me. Maybe I should try it more often. Actually feel relaxed and not shattered. This can’t be normal.

Almost forgot the Organic Ale tent. A new concept to Greenbelt, but a great place to sit and catch up with people. Which, if I’m honest, is mostly what I spent spare time at greenbelt doing. It’s great going as a worker, because you haven’t paid you don’t feel the need to rush about and see stuff. So you can just potter. :-)

Wednesday (back home) – Optician points out that I’m not going blind and I have hair cut off. These two items are not really related. Honest. Optician is going to give me a new contact lens. Apparently I should be able to read text on screens. I thought it was normal until Alice pointed out that Greenbelt wouldn’t have a massive screen with text on it if no-one could read it. It’d be a bit of a waste of resource… ho hum.

Thursday - back to work. Urgh. Feels like a Monday. Two day weeks are the way forward however.

Friday – Still at work. Apparently all future leave is cancelled. So much for that theory. And the process engineers have changed the design again. I wouldn’t mind, but they’ve done one of those fundamental U-turns again. Lets get the most explosive chemicals we can find and put them near people. Yes, that sounds like a great plan. Never trust chemical engineers – I’ve had bad experiences with them since that project in third year uni…