Friday, July 17, 2009

Office space

Any one seen this film?
I only ask as we got a new employee at work this week.
He's called a COO and he is here so help improve our business processes and streamline the way we work with each other.

So I'm thinking of having a sweap stake and I'll take either He fires our management or just decides to get rid of our entire department.

Getting all arty

it course booking time again at the various evening course places in london
I book myself on two
weds at the city lit doing sulpture
thurs nights at the bethnal Green centre doing stained glass workshop

all very arty! looks a bit like I'm over compensating for working in IT techy stuff all day long

NINJA

Continuing with my year of music I’ve just been to another gig. Considering I said I wouldn’t go to a music festival this year and so I didn’t really think I would see a lot of live stuff this year, my total so far is pretty amazing.
First up was a trip to see Placebo and their support at the Roundhouse. I got the tickets in the iTunes free festival draw and Placebo where great. Notable songs included Infrared and the brilliant Meds.

Next up the big event of the week was the NINJA gig at the 02. Ninja is nine inch nails and Janes addiction. After a few beers and a really rubbish queuing system which made us late for Janes addiction we got to our seats. Seats which I have to say were great just off to the side of the stage at about eye level with the band. The end of the Janes set was good and then came the huge power of volume of a great NIN set. Lots of shouting and jumping up and down from yours truly, I was knackered and a little hoarse by the time they finished with the song Hurt. As an extra treat there was a surprise guest appearance by Gary Numan (a hero of Trent’s), who came on to do a couple of songs including an amazing versions of Cars. All in all it made for a Wow evening.

Friday, June 26, 2009

Still quiet

Well not a lot happening at the minute

So a quick update on life

Both knees are not too bad at the minute but I’ve managed to mess up my back,
I swear this gym business is a bad idea.

Actually I’m thinking it maybe my new sofa. It’s a huge deep sofa bed thing from IKEA with the base so deep that you have to slouch on it to get your feet on the floor and your back on the upright bit.

In other new the gym trainer is talking about going off to climb Mont Blanc, hopefully I won’t need to look for a new trainer and I've book a weekend away surfing!!! This should be final proof that the knee surgery was completely successful.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

All Quiet

Nothing much happening on the home front. Yes the economy is in crisis and all that but work is busy and showing no signs of slowing down.

My knee is pretty good now and I have more problems with my other knee which is slowly recovering from me twisting it in the gym a while back.

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

Zombie on Red Bull and Beers

It was sci fi festival this weekend accompanied by a visit from the boyz so we could not win but not lose the Sunday afternoon scifi pub quiz.

this year we also had the opportunely to do some pervasive gaming on the theme of James Bond... We did a little gambling on the tables, ran around looking for clues and held meetings of find a mole.

I helped out at the sci fi festival again this time including staying wake all night to help with the all-nighter screenings. So I was a strange mix of lack of sleep, red bull and alcohol by the time we got to the quiz. So I don't know really if it went ok I think it did.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Firestarter ! - Touch the Keith

Managed another 'must see before you die' event. I got to see the Prodigy live at the Brixton Academy.

It was great stuff they play all the classic you could think of and a load of the new stuff (which is good) as well.

They looking fine shape for a band from way back when. Keith and Maxim look just as much the tattooed nutters as ever.

Despite my dodgy knees I got completely carried away and spent most of the gig right in the front of the mosh pit. I got to touch the Keith as he reached out to the crowd and I definitely could breathe from the crush and shouting during breathe.

It must have been the maddest biggest mosh pit I've ever been in as you could keep hold of your drink or avoid the rush even towards the back of the main floor.

I was right there for firestarter and my brain is now seared with the close up view of Keith doing he bit for the crowd and screaming 'I'm the firestarter'!

Thursday, April 09, 2009

My that's a big Chopper

Relaxing in the park is meant to be a quiet time but the other day we (a group of us at work) were sitting having lunch in the small bit of green grass in a square near the office, behind John Lewis on Oxford Street when, we became aware of a helicopter in the area.

We watched it for a bit as it circled around quite and then left.

Next thing we knew the chopper was back as it appeared low over the top of the buildings at the edge of the square.

'My that's a bit low isn't it!'
'Yeah'
'Looks like the Air Ambulance'

at this point a siren started coming from the copper

'Er its getting nearer'
'Yeah, that's quite close'
'Oh Crap its going to land here!'
'Er I think we better move'
'...'
'Yeah, lets'

So our lunch ended in an unusual manner. It got very loud and very windy and all the people in the park scattered and the helicopter landed, in order, we found out later, to help someone at a car accident on Oxford St.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Beyond the Warrenty

How can you tell when you've been in a flat too long?

When everything starts to break.

It will be 10 years in September that I've been in my flat and some of the electrical items seem to want to celebrate by breaking down. The washing machine decided it didn't want to tumble dry anymore quickly followed by the light in the kitchen and then because I was trying to reason with the washing machine the handle on the cooker broke off.

OK the last one was my fault as I hit it with the washing machine as I got it out to try and fix it. You'd be amazed how tricky it can be to use an oven without an way to open the door. I tried to superglue the thing back on but funnily enough the door gets hot so the glue melts.

Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Da Management

After all the argo I've had with the management company of the flat. I find out the other day our residents association board have decided to fire them! without telling anybody. Apparently this is mainly due to always getting a call centre when you rang them up.

So we have joined the Alliance! Alliance Managing Agents that is which look like they cost a bit more but on the plus side may actually do stuff.

Just don't tell Darth Vader...

Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Snow and Sun

Managed to get away last week for another week's skiing (I shouldn't be having a problems with too much holiday left at the end of this year at this rate :-)).
This time I went to Crans Montana, in Switzerland. This was my first trip skiing in the land of clocks and chocolate.

It was very good. Crans is advertised as the Sunniest resort in Switzerland and so I was planning on getting a bit of a tan. We call it T shirt skiing when the weather is very good and warm, for as long as you don't fall over you can ski without a coat and jumper. Of course if you fall over you get pretty damn wet and when cold so you have to be careful.

The Weather had other plans and for the first couple of days and it snowed heavily. We had about 20inches of snow, which for Europe in March is huge. This meant poor visibility and hard conditions.

Fortunately the tail end of the week was clear so we had some deep powder and sun to give a real magical skiing experience. We could get into the deep powder, just to the sides of the pistes, and once they had bashed down the main pistes we could get in some hard and fast carving runs.

The trip was run by the same people who organised last years Turkey trip for singles and it worked quite well with an interesting selection of people.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

A week of live music

I didn't really plan it in fact the week before I only thought I was going to see the Ting Tings with some mates in Leeds. But I managed a whole week of live music.

It all started the Friday before when my friend John MSM'd me to remind me that I had said yes to going and seeing the Killers at the 02 on Monday. This was a surprise as I guess I had agreed to it a couple of weeks ago in a pub somewhere while quite drunk!

So Monday is away off to the O2, London, what used to be the Millennium Dome. We had tickets in the god and 'F**k me we're a long way up!' about said it all when we got there as it was very much like watching the Killers from Orbit. we must have been 80 foot off the ground in a really steep sitting section with the stage about 100 metres away. These sizes are all pretty amazing if as well you know its all indoors. The gig was quite good although the distance was so much that there was a difference in the time the light and the sound took to get to you.

The rest of the week was quite quiet until Friday. The normal plan is for me to go up to Leeds on the Friday night train, fighting my way across the rush hour madness. However this time for some reason I booked the tickets for Saturday morning. The Ting Tings gig was on Sunday night so there was no rush. Anyway this was handy because we had a major musical event just around the corner from the office on the Friday evening which I happened to walk into.

U2 decide to play a gig on the roof of the BBC building a couple of streets away. I was a little late a work when an email went around (OK I was playing Quakelive.com with Angel) saying that U2 would be playing at 6pm. I finished playing around quarter past and noticed the email and so went to have a look to see what I could see. There was a huge crowd doing nothing outside the building, so I hung around too to see what would happen. at about half past the Police stopped the traffic (this is Regent Street in London, during rush hour and so it was busy) and the crowd rush forwards. Then when things settle down U2 came out on to the roof of the build to the roar of the crowd. They played for about 20 minutes and did four tracks ending with a great version of 'Beautiful Day'. By the time they did the last song you could hear the horns from the car of the now irate drivers stuck in the jam, but the crowd left happy.

I rounded the week off in Leeds at the Academy with a storming set by the Ting Tings singing along at the top of my voice and bouncing around like a nutter. My voice wasn't to great the next day but I loved it.

So the full line up for the week was

Louis XIV (a bit rubbish)
The Killers (OK a bit far away not sure it was worth the 40 quid)
U2 (great crazy stuff, tick them off my list of bands to see)
VV Brown (good didn't know anything about her but we could swing along to it)
LadyHawke (got a bit confused that this might be the Ting Tings doing some new stuff but it was very good)
The Ting Tings (YEAH! That's not my name!!!! la la la la!)

Sans beard

Yeap Saturday night I shaved the whole thing off and I look about 20 years younger!

I measured it just before the end and the longest bit was just about 2 inches.

it's an odd sensation to feel the wind on my chin again.

The generally the verdict so far, mostly people at work, is that I look much better.

In fact it was funny as a couple of people didn't notice straight off when they where talking to me. They would sort of go boss eyed and then step back as if trying to get my face in focus before they realised the goatee had gone.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Sorry we shut Wales

The plan was, as is a bit of a tradition with me and a couple of friends, to go winter walking in the mountains. We try and do this around February/March time each year when the conditions are hopefully cold, clear and frosty.

So we had planned for a long time that at the weekend we would travel up to the Brecon Beacons in Wales, however the weather had other ideas. The heaviest snowfall for years put a bit of a stop to that. In fact when they started closing the bridges into Wales we knew it wasn't going to happen.

So plan B, we had the train tickets (fortunately we got a refund on the cottage) so we went down to Bristol and went walking in the Mendips instead. it was good if hard work with wading thru snow drifts. We took in Beacon Batch the highest point at a modest 325 metres above sea level (not quite the Brecons!) and the Rock of Ages, made famous in the hymn of the same name.

The knees didn't half ache the day after.

Monday, February 02, 2009

Snow and the Tupperware flat

Lovely new windows and not a moment too soon.

I got back to the flat on Sunday night after being back to the Folks for Dougie's first birthday party and general kiddie chaos, and found the builders had done a great job. The windows are very nice and will keep the flat cosy and warm. Not like the old drafty ones which suffered from too much repainting. They are clean and plastic so it's a bit like living in high class Tupperware.

It's fortunate really as winter has now hit London with some force and 15cm of snow have caused the whole place to grind to a halt. I made it into work after a bit of walking and a lot of Tube changes but hardly anyone else has and the place is a bit dead.

Handy then that I've got all my winter walking gear out of storage for my trip to the Brecon Beacons at the weekend.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

New windows

As IF!

not surprisingly I didn't get back to new windows, just emails from the management company asking me why I wasn't at home.

So a few calls to the company doing the install, cutting the management company out of the loop and I now have all the new window leaning on a wall in my flat, ready to go.

I gave the key to the foreman and they will be putting the nice new, plastic, modern windows in this Saturday.

Hurrah!

Deep snow

Yeah we had over 50cm of snow during the week so the powder was deep and the skiing was nice.

I only had the one crash all week due to getting into the white stuff waist deep! Actually there was so much snow, or rather it was snowing so much they had to close down most of the runs one afternoon. but that was okay as it was the end of the week and I needed the rest.

Powder is hard work (particularly on the legs/knee) to wade thru but when the sun is out (as it was for a couple of days) and you can see what you are doing (one morning we had fog and everything was white!) its a joy.

I got my perfect skiing moment, which I try for at least once every trip. That is; going fast, on a nice piste with a bit of powder, with something good on the music player, cutting at few clean carving turns as the sun shines down on me. bliss!

I'm back fit and able, if a little poorer (6 quid a pint due to the exchange rate was about the cheapest ) and trying to work out how to go again this season.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Off-ski

right !

packed and ready to wooosh down the slopes.

Haven't managed to get the key to the management company so it doesn't look like I'll be getting new windows while I'm away.

Spent all day doing project hand over notes for people at work so I don't get phoned next week.

now lets just hope the snow is good.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

scafolding

Next week will be exiting for the flat as it will be getting a nice set of new windows. These are the ones that where due to be in by Xmas but hey no one really believed that.

The whole property is now covered in scaffolding to allow the builders access and bits of blue netting, no idea about the netting perhaps its for catching fish if we get alot of flooding!

In a typical bit of timing, I won't be there as I'm off skiing next week, with my collection of knee supports, so I'll have to sort a way of allowing the builders access.

This means I'm back in communication with the flat management company again and they started this time with a new approach to confuse, saying, when I told them my address, that they no longer manage the property!
But I'm used to them by now and such a simple attempt to confuse didn't work. After a bit of convincing that they did still look after the flats I managed to explain that all I wanted this time is for the cleaner to pick up a copy of the flat key so
the builders can get in to fit the new window.

One little bit of fun I will have before I go is to clear an area around each window
to allow the work to be done. The flat is tiny and moving stuff generally means another bit of the flat gets full. Particular fun will be working out how to let them get to the bedroom window as the bed (which is on stilts) is the size of the room and blocks the window pretty well. looks like I will have to leave that as a bit of an obstacle course

so It's 50/50 that by the time I get back my flat will be
a) still there
b) water tight (why do they want to pick the wettest month of the year)
c) have full set of new windows

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Review of the Year!

Well so what happened in 2008. this year I've decided to use the status history from facebook to tell the tale...

26/12/2008 David a proud user of the Force since 1977. 13:21
23/12/2008 David has got Christmas in his rucksac. Heavy! 11:07
17/12/2008 David is thinking how much worse his head would be if we'd have found the sambucca. 11:16
12/12/2008 David is having the boys over. 16:09

28/11/2008 David is wrapping. 15:41
26/11/2008 David is starting a new project at work that he might call Customisation. It's got Aspects in it! 09:54
23/11/2008 David just gone all retro at a Carter USM and EMF gig. Ooh my knees! 00:01
20/11/2008 David has the distinct feeling that he's missing something. 17:13
19/11/2008 David is having a cup of tea. 16:19
14/11/2008 David is wondering what to do this weekend without being organised by a tour guide. 15:31
11/11/2008 David has returned with the Sun. 08:03
06/11/2008 David is in the warmth in Turkey. Nice! 15:50
03/11/2008 David has left the country. 10:17

24/10/2008 David is neutrally buoyant. 17:37
15/10/2008 David has paused. 13:12
13/10/2008 David is pondering hot beverages. 17:53
09/10/2008 David is having his credit crunch with chips and a cold beer. 12:16
04/10/2008 David is looking for to a long long sleep after being awake since Friday morning. 21:54
03/10/2008 David is helping out. 17:31

28/09/2008 David has just got around to doing some spring cleaning . 21:49
25/09/2008 David has been to the apple store and wasn't amused. at least the iPhone is working again. 00:03
14/09/2008 David is watching Where Eagles Dare again. Ah the snow and the music! 20:38
13/09/2008 David has got his suit out of storage. 07:54
05/09/2008 David is multiplatformed. 17:02

19/08/2008 David is looking for his badself. It's festival time!!!!! 13:43
07/08/2008 David is in need of beer. fortunatly its the beer festival tomorrow. Yarp! 17:22

31/07/2008 David is oh dear... 18:46
24/07/2008 David has crossed the Alps and met the French... 17:31
09/07/2008 David can hear the theme to 'Where Eagles Dare'. Yes he's heading for the mountains. 16:37
01/07/2008 David but it's a dry heat... 14:14

29/06/2008 David is a beening an Uncle...Chocolate! 09:49
20/06/2008 David is moving office and hoping it will go better than last time... 10:54
13/06/2008 David is wishing everything would come with chips. 12:01
02/06/2008 David has been fighting with little paint pellets. 10:42

23/05/2008 David is not in at the moment but if you would like to leave a message after the tone... 16:11
22/05/2008 David is keeping his mouth shut and trying not to get fired. 16:00
14/05/2008 David is looking at flats...nice! 18:57

29/04/2008 David is fighting the facebook API. 12:00
23/04/2008 David is chilled after his day off. 11:00
15/04/2008 David likes chips! 10:31
01/04/2008 David is forgot his gym card so he's off to the pub. 17:50

26/03/2008 David is doing some Xmas shopping! 14:55
17/03/2008 David is cursing bloody load balancers. 19:23
09/03/2008 David is back from the skiing and amazingly can still walk. 11:07

29/02/2008 David I'm going skiing...I'm going skiing...I'm going skiing...I'm going skiing... 16:14
17/02/2008 David can nearly smell the snow. 23:31
05/02/2008 David mmm! pancakes! 22:39

30/01/2008 David has seen the weather forcast and brought some more survial gear for his weekend in the mountains. 16:03
29/01/2008 David is working for a livin'. 14:43
22/01/2008 David has got the date for the return to his flat its the 18th Feb! 09:14
09/01/2008 David hears the pub a callin'. 17:56