Weekend.

I went to an outdoor concert, danced the night away to a blues brother tribute band, people watched (there was a bride there with the most beautiful dress) and got offered freshly made profiteroles and strawberries from a complete stranger.

And people wonder why I do red cross! (Ok, so we had a few injuries to contend with, but nothing too serious...)

RIP Brother Roger

BBC article about Brother Roger of Taize

It's hard to understand how something like this happens in a place so peaceful as Taize. I know these things happen all over the world all the time, but somehow that it should be in Taize is just really weird. Maybe it's because I've been there (admittedly just once) and found it to be a really peacful and restful place (once I'd got used to the fact that it's just way too quiet and they don't have a drum kit) . Murder is almost expected in cities, you're prepared to see violence, dispute, roadrage. It's bizarre to see it in so peaceful a place.

I do like the comment towards the end of the article about 'different species of Protestant'. It explains a lot... ;-)

How are you?

How are you? Anything new going on?

Is it right that just because I can't think of anything new to say that my life is automatically dull? I do lots of stuff and I enjoy doing it. But I can't help it if that means that I don't' know what to say to people when they ask how I am.

So, a quick glossary:

Fine, in maryspeak, means doing good, bit tired, but that's because I was involved in this great duty/prayer meeting/youth event/discussion/drink last night. And I'm tired now because in all honesty that was more fun than getting to bed on time...

Tired, in maryspeak, means tired. Don't expect sense or intellectual conversation.

URGh, in maryspeak, means leave me alone unless you have chocolate.

So next time someone asks me how I am how should I respond?

"I'm tired"

To be grown up or not to be grown up

All around the office networks are grinding to a halt, servers are crashing. Basically IT is having a few issues.

Is this stopping me refresh the cricket scores every 5 minutes…? Is it going to stop me..? Do I really care if I can’t do any real work?

Thoughts...

Hmnmm..

Just got back from meeting with my parish priest. It was one of those meetings where you come out way too enthusiastic, and things just seem to be going well.

I went to see him to talk about youth work. More precisely to try and persuade him to let our parish get more involved in Youthnet and the other things in Earley. There was me thinking that some commitment to publicity would be good. Maybe some prayer support. The odd visit from a friendly priest to one of our events...

So I'm a tad blown away by the concept of me standing up at each of our 4 masses in September and inviting the whole parish to take on board what Youthnet is, why we should support it, why their children should think about coming, and to encourage the rest of the parish to think about the importance of talking and thinking about their faith and formation.

Ok, so that's a bit of an exaggeration. He asked me to standup and talk about Youthnet and why we should encourage or young people to be involved. The rest of the list is an inevitable part of it, at least it is as I see it.

ok.

right.

Better get over that fear of microphones....

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We also had an interesting chat about sin, mission and engagement with traditional Catholics. All in 50 minutes :-$

Incidentally, as part of the discussion we got to this deep theological concept... Have you ever considered that sin is like poo? You don't want to be near it. It smells. It brings disease and sickness...

So this poses and interesting question...
if sin is poo... What is a wastewater treatment works?

A baptismal font?

So being an engineer is a vocation. Finally the proof of what I've been telling everyone for years...

PUB!

Yay!

Today I have achieved something.

I got half the office into the pub for a swift pint. Oh yes. 

Ok, more like a quarter.
Maybe a third.
15 peoples.
Ish.
Not bad eh?

All it took was one email to the entire office telling them that we should all go to the pub to get to know each other…

So now I have a problem. Why on earth should I do any work? It’s nice out there… and I could just fancy another pint….

So peoples… reasons. I need reasons to work. Failing that I need reasons to leave the office early….

Philistines

I work with Philistines.

How can people not be excited about a score line of 0-1 in the Cricket. Against Australia. In the Ashes?!!!!

I mean really?!

How am I supposed to work under this pressure?

Celery

I decided that instead of nibbling on chocolate at work, I’d do the whole fruit and veg thing. It’s good for me.

But is it really good for me? It’s greeny coloured. It’s stringy. And it’s dull. Dull dull dull dull dull dull.

Therefore, in an attempt to right this wrong, I have a suggestion for any supermarkets out there that want to increase their sales of celery.

Chocolate covered celery.

Genius!

Calorie wise you could make it balance out I’m sure, after all celery is supposed to be good from that point of view. Taste wise it’s got to be more sensible that chocolate covered carrot – I mean really…. Who’d suggest something as silly as that.

And last but not least, it would save me from the fact that having got so bored of celery today I’m going to end up buying chocolate at lunch time anyway. Chocolate covered celery would pre-empt that.

Brilliant.

Patent pending.

Randomness

Martin: I've bought some new cycling gloves
Mary: What for?

D'oh! It’s been a long week ok?

However, I feel that any stupidity of comments is superseded by this exchange between two of my housemates at the party last night. In order to fully appreciate this you need to picture Helen with a bottle of purple vodka in one hand. It's vodka with lots of parma violet sweets in it to add 'flavour'. It tastes worse than it sounds. Lots worse.

Helen: It's ok, I've diluted it
Heather: What with?
Helen: Vodka

Later Helen successfully 'danced her socks off'. I didn't know you could stand on your own foot and remove a sock while dancing.

Be prepared.

All scouts should be prepared. Apparently this is also true of engineering offices. We must never run out of pencils. We must always know what the client is going to ask before they do. We must never admit that we’ve made it all up.

And It’s never to early to plan a party. Apparently. We just had an email round to plan the Christmas dinner 2005. Just in case you were wondering it is still July. And it is still rather a long time till Christmas. Unless Christmas has moved. Has Christmas been moved without anyone telling me?!

On an associated work note, Being prepared is also a useful motto to apply to digging yourself out of holes… Particular after comments insulting the place your manager lives by stating that the only bright lights of the town (High Wycombe) are the ones on the police helicopter circling above.. oopss...

What church should be

Pottered into my old university chaplaincy on Sunday morning.

Was met with a hug from Father, and a ‘hellloooooooooo’ from Sister (who is now remembering my name most of the time). Within approximately 2 minutes of walking in I was asked to organised the offertory procession, to make sure the urn was switched on for coffee and was invited upstairs for roast lunch.

It’s like I’d never gone away. Which is great. Surely it’s what church should be isn’t it?

Google Moon

follow this link

Zoom all the way in...

It's just not fair. Stamps foot.

Ok, so Steve is going on about Church unity in his blog).

And it’s a whole different angle to the one that I have issues with. Great.

So just as soon as I’ve got my head round the whole communion thing I’ve got the teaching side to cope with. Unless they’re both actually the same thing.

I’m really hoping that one day I’m able to make it through a communion/Eucharist service in either a Catholic or Protestant church without falling apart and dissolving into tears about the difficulty of division amongst Christians. Steve states that we’re either unifying with bad teaching or bad living when we try to unify churches. But it’s deeper than that when you realise that even when you get good teaching and good living of the world you’re still so divided that it physically hurts.

But is that so bad? Are we meant to be pleased that all these different Christian groups have such serious divisions that we can’t even come together as a community in communion? Maybe it is something that we should all be getting upset about, instead of working and compromising around. All to often ecumenism is about doing what we can and ignoring the rest. For the record, the ecumenical stuff I’m involved in doesn’t do that at all.

Why can’t it be simple? After all – It’s not as though any of us are out here with a complex message is it?

Answers on a postcard....

Socialising.

Is it possible to go to too many beer festivals? I mean really? Two so far, and another booked in. Must be careful though, work people have realised that I drink, and photos from the ball show me with a different man in every photo. Apparently this is bad, but I was only talking – being sociable!

Everyone from uni who is reading that can now stop laughing. I have changed since then…. :-p

London

So it's happened. We've had a terorist attack. On Thursday morning several bombs went off in London. On Thursday Lunchtime the emergency reponse matter slid into operation. And on Thursday afternoon lots of Red cross personnal sat around at Branch waiting and hoping that we wouldn't been needed. Front line vehicles were put on standby and moved closer in to London. The rest of us went in to support people getting off trains coming out of London.

It's fair to say that a lot of good was done, and the plans seemed to work. I say seemed to because our lcoal branch staff aren't that good at communicating with their volunteer staff.. I shouldn't be suprised. Most communications get to us, the volunteers, about a month after they've topped being relevant.

I don't mind sitting around not doing anything. In the Red cross that's always a good thing. However, I do have problems with being taken for granted, and not kept informed. If they're going to call us in then they should make the effort to tell us what's going on. Even if it's just "We're not sure, we're talking to so and so and should have a better idea in a hour..." It's only common courtesy isn't it?

Olympics

So we've got the olympics. That's nice.

On a more important note, the BBC website has crashed leaving me with nothing to do in my lunch break. Except maybe going for a nap under my desk...

Ambitions

I must learn how to NOT look like I’m asleep in team briefings.

And for the record I really wasn’t! I was merely overcome with the exciting concept of ANOTHER data management system, and closed my eyes to imagine it...

What have I been doing?

30th June?

What? Already?

How on earth did that happen?

And what have I done this year so far? Lets have a 6 month review shall we? What have I learnt?

There's been an election.
Making lasagne without an oven is complicated.
God Rocks.

That's not a lot for 6 months.

I must have done something else? surely? I've been ever so busy.. Maybe I need to learn how to take time to mentally process all the stuff I do.

Naaaah.

That sounds way to sensible.

In the meantime I shall contiue to dash form place to place armed with only a first aid kit and a Bible. And possibly some chocolate. And a phone. And cash for petrol. And...

Random question..

Does weightwatchers food have eyes to watch you with?

In space no-one can hear you scream. In the office, no-one wants the screens.

Or do they? Therein lies the issue.

10 years ago the office was refurbished, and redesigned. The architect still works for the company. I got into work today to one email from said architect to the entire office

At the staff meeting on Friday there was a proposal to remove the screening round everyone's workspace. I, and I understand many others would not wish to see this happen as I consider this would detract from the working environment and distract me from working.

Swiftly followed by another, although this time not to the entire office, from another colleague..

If you are in favour of removing / reducing screens, please forward your opinion to Erica.
If you'd rather have a tiny, stuffy, ill-lit cubicle to work in without seeing any other members of staff all day, and only finding out if it's raining by looking it up on the internet, please forward that opinion to her as well.

I’m very amused. This looks to be the start of an interesting battle of wills. The no screens lobby does however have the best sense of humour. The concept of the removal of screens distracting me from working doesn't really seem to be that big an issue compared to the fact that they let me have internet on my PC...