Year: 2008

Every few years, around this time of year, a group of intrepid souls set off on one of the two Around The World yacht races. There’s two of these, one of which is a group event with the other being single handed.

That’s right – single handed sailing around the world, non-stop in yachts designed for a full crew. This is the event that made Ellen MacArthur famous and its name is the Vendée Globe and I’ll be keeping a sharp eye on it over the next few months. It’s gotten off to a fairly bruising start too, with heavy storms in the Bay Of Biscay causing a fair bit of carnage amongst the fleet. There’s been 4 retirements so far, possibly more to come.

I’m following 3 of the skippers in particular this time around. They’re Mike Golding skippering Ecover, Sam Davies of Roxy and Dee Caffari of Aviva. One characteristic of the Vendee Globe is how closely you can keep in touch with the skippers of the boats. The website linked above has a newswire service, which publishes regular notes from the skippers, along with the more regular news stories. It’s far more intimate than the connection you get with most sports and it really makes a difference. And the yachtsmen and women are great people too, without the bad attitude that taints many sports with footballers being the worst. It’s an attitude that extends into skippers being only too willing to help out in emergencies, where their help literally means the difference between life and death. And they’ll give that help without a second thought.

This story about the rescue of Alex Thomson is why I’d like Mike Golding to do well in this race. These people aren’t sportsmen, they’re heroes.

I started following Sam Davies and Dee Caffari because they’re Brits and I like to support the home team. However, after reading some of the logs from the girls (Sam and Dee), I’ve been caught by the tone. They’re out there in the oggin doing something they love, they’re having fun amongst all the work and that shines out in the Girls Wanna Have Fun logs that come over the newswires.

I’m hoping the fun continues so we can keep seeing those entries in the newswires. They’re a great read.

I know I’ll be keeping an eye on this race over the next few months, hopefully it will be as captivating as Ellen MacArthur’s race 🙂

I did something that was possibly a little daft last night, which was to watch all 3 Resident Evil films back to back. So I was jumping at the shadows last night.

Watching a Deep Space 9 repeat at the moment that’s got a bit of an Ahhh moment in it. One of the characters in DS9 is Odo the shapeshifter. He’s a fairly solitary fella is Odo, played masterfully by Rene Auberjonois. Probably more accurate to say alone than solitary though …

I’m kinda feeling the same way at the moment. I’d like to have the chance to share a dinner with someone. All those dvds I watch, I’d like to watch them with someone else (even if that means relinquishing the popcorn bucket occasionally!) And I guess I’m missing gaming with people I know too. I’ve not really been connecting with the Eve people (well, new/old corp) and I’ve been on a bit of a break from Warcraft for a while.

Part of it is the new location at work, I guess I’ve been missing having the pretty girls from the team next door walk past and give me a wave. There’s something about a smile and a hello that really brightens the day. The move has put my team on the end of one of the building spurs instead of the middle, so we don’t have people from another team walking past. It’s not quite as bad as that though, there is still the IT Girl, The Boss and Wild Thing* who I can usually rely on to respond to my strange humour. Even if it’s just with a pat on the head.

So the loneliness has set in a bit and its demon has been pacified tonight by a bit of Amazon Treatment. Oh and a tie from the Mall tonight to replace some that are rather badly worn out. Which might tell how old they are ! I may also be suffering from a bug that’s going around work at the moment, with it sneaking in under the cover of the severe dust inhalation I got last week while cleaning.

Anyway – it’s my birthday tomorrow and one of the project traditions is to procure donuts (and other cakes) for the team. I’ll be hoping to lure over some non-project people too 🙂

*(I must get around to doing that Cast List of some of the people at work sometime … IT Girl, The Boss and Wild Thing are just 3 of the people I work with but they are 3 of the best)

I kinda get that but it’s because my Skybox isn’t working too well at the moment. It has a lot of trouble picking up the signal when the weather gets bad.

Might be worth checking to see if the programme has reached BBC’s iPlayer ?

I’m here again and thank you for the visit. It should have been Mom in progress but you popped in.
It’s been a wet dreary day here in the UK and a programme I was looking forward to has disappeared – no explanation. Drat the BBC!
Michele says Hi again.

Dunno really with the price ticket, that was a tradition that my ex kicked me off on that I may have to break 🙂

Gosh you watch a lot of films. Quentin Crisp says if you leave the dusting for three years it stops accumulating.
Are you going to take the price ticket off one of the puppies or leaving it on in case you return it?
Michele says hi!

Gonna have to keep in the habit of keeping the place clean 😉

It’s the morning after now, so how was the party ?

Let’s start by listing the films :
First up was Mars Attacks, a bit of insanity by Tim Burton where the Martians come to pay Earth a visit. Hilarious film and those Martians are totally evil on the level of a prank loving 5 year old 🙂

Next was Over The Hedge, which is an animated film from 2006 where a rascally raccoon gets himself in trouble with the local bear by trying to steal all the food the bear had laid in for after he came out of hibernation. I missed this one in the cinema first time around and discovered it courtesy of the movie channels. Well worth catching, if the photos on Imdb (link above) are anything to go by, the voice actors had great fun putting this one together and that really comes over on screen.

Third up was Cars, courtesy of a happy CQ 🙂 Another animated classic, with attention to detail that goes all the way down to aircraft leaving contrails in the form of tire tracks and the insects on the windows being miniature VW Beetles. The climax near the end also makes this one of the few films that gets me choked up. Must acquire this one for me some time 🙂

And last, after all the kiddies (except for RCA!) (and I’m due a thumping for that comment!) were safely in the bus heading back to Chez Aginoth, was scary movie Constantine. Not a bad story on this one but let down a bit by weak performances by the two lead actor/actresses. Worth catching this one but it’s guaranteed to upset people who may be sensitive to parts of the content.

After Thursday’s dusting exploits (next time before attacking room with brush, I’ll get a mask!) I wasn’t feeling too great, with lots of breathing problems and a big headache that had been building at work. The headache got the DGI (Damn Good Ignoring) treatment and I didn’t have to be too energetic so the breathing was just an annoyance.

Since the last time I had visitors, the people I was using as my barometer and inspiration for all the effort in cleaning up were the little people … I have a semi photographic memory and one of the images that stuck was that of a little girl who burst into tears at the sight of my loo … That image has been pretty much exorcised now because the bursting into tears happened at home time instead ;-).

Breakout – current iTunes track is “You Only Live Twice”, from the Bond film of the same name and sung by Nancy Sinatra. One of the best Bond themes 🙂 (Nobody Does It Better and For Your Eyes Only are also massive favourites) Kinda fitting seeing as we’ll be seeing Quantum Of Solace soon 🙂

My Puppies were a big hit with the little ones :

Thought I might lose one for a bit but they all survived 🙂 And I now have an excellent idea for what to acquire for the little ones for Xmas. Those three live on the back of my sofa and I think I’ll be introducing people to the rest of the fluffy menagerie some time in the future. By the way that’s Aginoth’s jumper that I’m holding hostage until Monday. I have more hostages ! Let’s see :

CQ’s pen : is now in briefcase waiting for work on Monday
Aginoth’s jumper
Kat’s congratulations card – Kat’s now a qualified Charted Accountant – big grats there 🙂
CK’s bottle opener
Various munchies

Most of it will be held to ransom, although ransoms tend to be limited to a wave 😉 The munchies however are MINE, ALL MINE ! (CK told me I could keep ’em 🙂

What did I get for this part of my birthday ? First one – Iron Man film and an Iron Man figure. Iron Man was one of the best films of this year, with Robert Downey Jr making an excellent Tony Stark. Iron Man 2 (2010) and The Avengers (2011) should both be amazing movies if they carry on the form from Iron Man. Next is HitchHikers Guide To The Galaxy from the BBC, which stayed true to the humour in Douglas Adams’ novels far better than the recent Hollywood production did. I also have Blakes Seven series 3 to watch, to catch up on something I was a little too young for the first time around, plus The Complete Robot collecting stories penned by Isaac Asimov.
(all links above will take you to IMDB pages)

Thanks to the Crazies for a great party and all those presents 🙂 Although my sore head settled down towards the end of the night, I hadn’t been feeling too human before then.

PS We had pizza delivered from the Pizza Hut over the road, they get a stay of execution this time as the pizza was just right. Shame their website keeps triggering virus warnings on this PC though … something to keep an eye on.

Update – Just finished watching Iron Man – definitely as good the second time around !

i love the smell and feel of a clean house!!

have a great party

I have something staring at me at the moment.

It’s covered with brown cardboard with various Amazon logos on it … I WANNA OPEN IT ! But I must resist. It must be saved until tomorrow night’s party. But I still wanna open it 🙂

Hoping that people will enjoy tomorrow night’s party. House is pretty much to the best state I can manage, although that isn’t quite the state I wanted it in. As in, it ain’t perfect but it’s a hell of a lot better than what it was 🙂 There’s still work to be done like moving a little furniture around but that can wait until tomorrow. Also gotta do some washing up and clear some space in da kitchen …

Oh and get some sleep tonight, although I’ll need my lungs to settle down before I can think about decent shuteye. I did the vacuuming earlier, plus a bit of ill-advised scrubbing of the floor because the vacuum cleaner needed a little “persuading” (the pipe were blocked so it wasn’t sucking). All that dust coming up into the air isn’t very good for someone with dust sensitivities 🙁

But seeing shiny surfaces instead of mucky ones makes it worth it, as does seeing a clear surface where previously elements of the Dust Bunnie Army was on parade. What will make the work totally worth it is if the kiddie visitors go away happy, instead of one particular small visitor being reduced to tears by the state of the bathroom …

It’s been busy and rather strange at work this week too – our project moved across the site to a new set of offices. The aim is to gather similar projects together so we can benefit from each other better. Whenever a move happens, there’s always a bit of friction associated and a bit of awkwardness too. Things like people taking stuff that they really didn’t need or could have got recycled because they have it on soft copy anyway … People are very definitely creatures of habit. There’s also friction due to certain elements not thinking of team issues but we’ve worked around those two people.

The move should be good for us, the scenery is definitely better. From my desk, instead of seeing trees blocking the view, I can see all the way out to the front gate. It should look good come Spring and Summer, although hopefully not enough that I gaze out the window instead of gazing at Windows on my desk. Oh – my stalker of last year might be working for the team that moves in next door to us, which could make life interesting 🙂

I’ve been doing a decent amount of the grunt work too this week, which is definitely good for my psyche. I’m a bit frail and pick up injuries easily, so doing something that lets me use my muscles and therefore confirm that I can still lug things around is excellent for my confidence. Plus it means I get smiles and thank you’s from our very own Wild Thing (name acquired through slip of tongue on Monday and no I ain’t tellin’ !) and from a few other people.

Key Leadership tenet – You should never ask someone to do something that you are not willing to do yourself. Which translates into not shirking the physical stuff because you can’t be arsed or you feel that you’re too important to be bothered with it.

Right – had a shower not long ago and my too-long hair takes time to dry. Time to chill out to some music while Taking Over The Galaxy ! I started a Moo2 game on Tuesday and it’s gotten down to just me and the Sakkra. Victory or Death !

PS Being right close to the best canteen on site (we have 4 plus a shop that sells sarnies) is definitely a bonus to the move.