Golf

So I took the plunge and joined the golf club. I now get to play 7 days a week, whenever I want, as often as I want (tee times and spouse permitting of course)

Its a big expense, and I really have to make sure I play often enough otherwise its just throwing money away. I am hoping to get out after work one day next week, and then try and play at least four times a month.

Also, I have started the process to claim back unfair charges from my bank and credit card company. There has been a lot of media attention about this, and more and more people are going through the process. I am at whats known as 'stage 1' in that I have requested my statements for the last 6 years from both my bank and credit card company. Once they come through I need to work out how much I am owed and then submit this as a claim.. I will keep this site up to date with how things go.

Apart from those bits of news, a quiet week. My e-signature project is coming along well, really making progress and user testing starts this Friday.

No plans for this weekend - Jake has his last match on Saturday morning, so Sunday will be quiet (I could go play golf!) .

Have a good rest of the week everyone.

UPDATE: Haven't done this for a while, but soundtrack of the day is "Grace" by Jeff Buckley. HIGHLY recommend it.

Another week

(I need to rate this page as an '18' as opposed to the normal 'PG' as there is some rude stuff at the bottom!)

A quiet-ish weekend. There was no football for Jake, so it kind of left us at a bit of a loose end. On Sat. I had an attack of the cleans, and blitzed our dining room (it looked like a bomb had hit it) and it now looks nice and tidy and clean. I have my parents round for dinner on Saturday night, to buy dinner for mothers day and so my dad could watch the England game (what a pile of sh*te THAT was!) Sunday, went to the golf range with Jake in the morning (he's getting better...more than can be said for me) and then spent a lazy Sunday afternoon doing the grand total of bugger all.

No real plans for this week... I wanna try and get up the driving range again, and I think I am going to take the plunge and join Stockley Park golf club (!) I need to talk to the pro up there today and see what the situation is.

Oh, and I got sent a joke this morning...

Man goes to the doctors and says "I have a problem in that every time I finish masturbating, I sing 'Glory, Glory Man United'..."
Doc says "Dont worry, a lot of w@nkers sing that"

Cold

As warned by the weather men, the weather has turned and its freezing now. Its a glorious bright sunny day outside my office window, but the temperature isn't the highest.
Didnt do much yesterday from a personal point of view, but Im really making progress on my current project (E-Signatures) and its turning into quite a beast.

Im worried Im getting overly obsessed with golf... all I wanna do is be out there on the course. I guess I should hurry up and win the lottery so I can retire and do just that.

A friend of mine is going to Austria this Saturday for a week, to go snowboarding... lucky sod. Im hoping to get together for a drink with him on Friday night before he goes.

Its been a few days, but I've finally downloaded a new album that I really like (well two actually).
"Grinderman" by Grinderman and "Capture / Release" by The Rakes (a certain Chelsea supporting, golf playing, 'fancy dan' will like this one especially... you know who you are!)


A few websites here that have helped me pass the time recently... (not work time, of course!)

French Games

Line Rider

Top Gear

Have a good day all - and remember, you're not paranoid... they really ARE all out to get you.

Update: ALREADY someone has pi$$ed me off again today with the way they treat the work's kitchen as a pig sty. PUT THE F*CKIN MILK BACK IN THE FRIDGE AND CLEAN UP YOUR MESS YOU LAZY BA$TARD. I SWEAR IF I CATCH YOU DOING IT, WHOEVER IT IS, I WILL TAKE A DUMP IN THE MIDDLE OF YOUR DESK YOU INCONSIDERATE TW@T.

Update: Someone else has just made the list - whoever made the urinals in our gents and can't stop them blocking up. For those of you who dont know, urinals usually have a timed 'flush', to clear out any debris from the place you pee. This can create a problem if the plug is blocked, even slightly, as the water does not flush the urinal and go away, it over-flows creating a mini Niagra Falls over the edge of the 'bowl' (we're talking about the individual urinals that sit high on the wall here).
Not nice, as Im sure you'll appreciate. But imagine being stood at the urinal, contemplating the world and draining the main vein, at the exact time this flushing occurs. If you wanna picure something funny, imagine your gentle host trying to pee while dancing from foot to foot to avoid getting his shoes soaked by the over-flow of water. Ba$tards.

Knackered

A good weekend, but a very tiring one. My new niece is of course very cute and being only a week old still only a tiny baby. She's very healthy and spent most of the day we were with her sleeping, which is nice.
City won (yay!) a very unexpected 2 - 0 win away at Middlesbrough.
And is it just me, or do ALL men turn driving on the motorway into a race?
I will admit, more than once, I have seen a car trying to under-take in front of me and thought "right, you ain't gettin' in front of me" and made sure I do NOT let the f*cker in. Or, seeing with some satisfaction someone trying to make progress by chopping and changing lanes, only to end up stuck behind some van or lorry in the wrong lane, while I stay in the outside lane and coast away.
Also, under-taking (not the burying body kind, you understand) can be dangerous insomuch that a car will try and pull into a gap in front of you that is hardly there. If this knob-rot of a driver tries to squeeze into a gap that you would struggle to get a fag paper into, and the car in front of him has to brake suddenly, you know that YOU will be the one to hit this tw@t up the @rse and it would be his fault but you would end up getting claimed on.
There are also those drivers (normally driving something quite posh) who pull into the outside lane in front of you to overtake something in the middle lane (fine...) but only increase their speed by 0.00001 mph so take an ice age to actually get past. Then, they wait to leave a county's worth of space between themselves and the car they've overtaken before pulling back in. @rseholes. To overtake, one has to accelerate to get past the car in front - I would have thought that was fairly obvious. Its often commented on that I shouldn't be in such a rush, but in my mind once I've started a journey all I want to do is get to my destination, and any hold up really gets on my mammaries.
I've REALLY made an effort to calm myself down when driving... Im not half the nutter I used to be, but sometimes you see things that completely leaves your gast all flabbered and you can't help but react by driving defensively. Part of my problem is I have bikers blood (not in a jar in the kitchen or anything...) and I dont think I will ever lose that "f*ck you" attitude that most bikers have on the road.
Anyway - driving on motorways... it sucks.

Sore

I ache today. I played football last night, and came off worse in two 50-50's... there was nothing malicious from the other guys, but the first one I got a knee in my right thigh, so I now have a dead leg, and on the second one his knee connected with the inside of my left knee and that's all bruised! Still, at least its Friday, and its Red Nose Day today. I agree with the good cause and the money it raises for charity, of course, but I dont agree with the general air of hilarity and dizzyness that seems to overtake some of the people in the office... I mean call me boring, but an office is a place of work, especially when you are trying to concentrate on code. Yes, raise money for charity, but do it without getting on my piggin tits.
And before you ask, yes I regularly give money to charity - NSPCC is my chosen cause to which I contribute monthly.

Have a good weekend listeners - I'll be going up to meet my new niece this weekend, so I dont think I'll be able to get online, but I'll update you with her no doubt loveliness when I get back.

Peace.

Monday 12th / Tuesday 13th

I know I haven't been posting as much, or as often, as before, but to be honest there isn't much going on at the moment! People seem to be avoiding annoying me, and apart from working on a bitch of a project at the moment nothing really is happening.
Of course, its great news about my new niece, and we're all looking forward to meeting her this weekend, but apart from that its fairly quiet in my strange little world.
I know talking about the weather is the LAST thing people should do - I mean, its one of those bottom-of-the-barrel subjects isn't it - but it has been superb the past couple of days and the downside is its very hard to stay motivated when all I want to do is get out on the golf course!
I am coming very close to joining a local golf club - I am just waiting on some news about my salary and then I can make the decision whether or not I can a) afford it and b) justify the expense.
Finally, what do I have on the rest of this week? Well, Wednesday City are playing Chelsea live on Sky Sports - so that will be another horrible defeat. Thursday Im playing football again, which I really enjoy, and then Friday I dont think Im doing anything - I might be allowed out to play for a few drinks, who knows? Then the weekend its off up to Manchester to meet Megan.

Have a good day listeners

Saturday 10th / Sunday 11th

A very warm welcome to my new niece, Megan Lilly.
She was born at around 10.30 on Saturday night, weighing in at a hefty 10lbs! Mother and baby are both fine and doing well.
We are now going to be driving up for a visit next Saturday to say hello.#

Sunday - not a good day. Jake's team lost in a match that a fair result would have been a draw. The boys played really well and were actually stronger in the latter stages of the match, but two lucky goals in the final few minutes sealed a 3 - 1 win for them. Then, City played in the F.A Cup quarter final... my God they were poor. A 2 - 0 loss and out of the cup. The only thing we have to play for now (albeit very importantly) is our premiership survival. Unfortunately, I have a horrible feeling we are not going to be good enough to get out of the battle (we're fourth from bottom 6 points clear of the bottom three) and I think this could be a relegation season :-(

Thursday 8th

A cr@ppy nights sleep but time for another 18 holes. Didn't play as well today, and had a complete nightmare on one hole...
We played the shorter of the two courses on the Thursday and it only had one par 5. After pushing my drive slightly, I had a second shot into the dog-leg from behind a couple of low trees.
Out came the utility club and even if I say so myself I creamed the shot. Unfortunately, I didn't see where the shot ended up what with being stuck behind a couple of trees.
There was a small stream going across the fairway, and I was fairly sure it cleared it so I went to find the ball. I walked across the bridge of the stream, but couldn't spot the ball. I had a look back at the stream just in case, and spotted a ball in the bank of the stream. Now, as I couldnt be arsed to walk all the way back to the bridge, I thought "I can jump that" (as the ball was in the opposite bank) so I grabbed a club to help me get the ball out, and 1-2-3 hup!..... splash. Yes, I mis-judged the width of it and ended up with a left foot and leg soaked and covered in river mud. And to top it all off, the ball a) wasn't mine and b) wasn't a ball at all, but an empty case of one.
Apart from that, I didnt play too bad, but not as well as Wednesday, so ended up 5th. I DID win another nearest the pin though!
After the prize giving and the goodbyes, I set off back home... 10 miles in the wrong direction to start with. (Pr@tt). So after getting my Sat Nav working and finding out the way I was supposed to go I was just in time to hit the God-awful traffic round Birmingham. Joy.
Still, it was a good two days away playing golf, and I hope I get to go again next year.

Wednesday 7th

No posts for a while as I have not had the access or the time. So, I'll put a couple of posts up for the days missed.
The drive up to Shropshire was fairly painless. Once all the other guys had turned up at the course, introductions were made and it was time to tee off. I had a good round, scoring 31 points and coming third. There were also two nearest-the-pin holes and I won one of them (which was nice!)
The dinner was one of those poncy affairs with not much food on the plate. There was a choice of about five main courses and I obviously chose the wrong one when a small lump of salmon turned up on my plate along with not much else!
As it was the middle of the week AND there was football on, I didn't end up going out on a bender (thank God) but it wasn't a good nights sleep as the bed wasn't that comfortable.

Friday

Yes, I know, technically its Tuesday, but as I am off for the rest of the week after today, its effectively my Friday. So, its a good day - the sun is out, I've got a good album on ("Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire) and Im really making progress on one of the Domino projects Im working on.
Had that really good feeling today when you've been working on something and you finally crack it, with a really good solution as well.

If there are any listeners out there who are after a nice little way to waste some time today, try this: Line Rider

There probably won't be any posts tomorrow, but I might be able to update on Thursday with how my two day golf trip went.

Getting lazy

No post over the weekend... my motivation is waning slightly.
Although I have a lot of work on my plate at the moment, Im in a good mood today as today is my Thursday. Im in tomorrow, then off for three days. (woohoo!)
Its the week of my golfing extravaganza - with beer and hangovers probably thrown in.
Friday I have booked off to recover, so I can picture that being a lazy day at home.
I splurged a bit with money last Friday by ordering the complete 5 series of Family Guy. For those of you who dont know what that is, you can check here
STILL no word on the imminent arrival of my new niece / nephew... although it should be any day now. The will be inducing a week today if the little'un hasn't put in an appearence.

Soundtrack of the day: Various, but mainly The View, Fratellis, and Bob Dylan.

Albums I want to get when they come out: "Neon Bible" by Arcade Fire
"Grinderman" by Grinderman (Nick Cave side project)
But in this months Q magazine, there are about 4 or 5 more albums that sounds interesting, so I think I will be paying a visit to AllOfMP3 to get a listen!

Have a good day y'all.

Successful trip

This was the view from the train on the journey home. How peaceful does that look? The soundtrack was The Shins new album, and it was a very stress free journey.
Last night the U.S visitors and I went out for dinner to Pizza Express (I had the tortalini (sp?)) - very nice. We then had a couple of refreshments in an O'Neils in the middle of town before retiring for the evening.
It was a good couple of days - I think the U.S team have done an excellent job in their training and I hope the guys I will be mentoring will start to get to grips with the new technologies.

No plans for tonight - apart from a couple of cold ones and a long hot soak. As I write this, its peeing down with rain (again!) so I dont know what football will get played, but here's hoping.

Have a good weekend listeners and more waffling over the weekend.

Birmingham

I'll reiterate the point that travelling by train, when it all goes well, is a very pleasant way to travel. The sky was blue, the countryside was nice, and it was a very relaxing journey. Of course for the whole trip to be a success in my mind, the trains will have to run just as well on the way home tomorrow.

Im up here to kind of get involved in some Java training, meet the people that Im supposed to mentor and be the techincal lead for, and also catch up with a couple of people from the U.S who I do a lot of java project work with.

Im not too sure what the plans are for tonight, although I do know Im staying in the city centre.
I'll maybe update this posting later today...

Update: Forgot to wish all the Welsh listeners out there a happy St. Davids Day.
Dydd Gwyl Dewi hapus!