Month: February 2014

I totally agree the IS is a much better car, I love mine to death and will upgrade to the IS in 2015

I’ve been playing with the new toy 🙂

I haven’t had an excuse to take it anywhere for pleasure, just business. We can ask for hire cars with work but I prefer not to for a few good reasons :

You can’t trust the hire car company – a few colleagues have been caught out by the hire car place claiming our people have damaged the car when the damage was either done by the hire car people or was on the car before it was dropped off. It’s a serious problem and our people have taken to taking camera phone pics of the cars as evidence.

The expenses cost difference is trivial. The way it works is : hire car cost is the hire charge plus fuel used. With our own cars, it’s a straight pence per mile (which incidentally hasn’t changed in 15 years, even though petrol has gone up from 80p/litre in 2000 to 130p/litre now). Because I have an economical car, I make a profit on the trip on the petrol cost alone although that goes away when Total Cost of Ownership comes in. We get 25p a mile, the CT cost about 13p/mile on petrol and 80+p/mile on TCO, although that would have gone down after the finance period finished.

My car is already set up for me with Bluetooth and satnav destinations. Well kinda, it’ll take a while for the satnav destinations to be programmed back in.

There’s too many variables from the actual drop off of the hire car.

And that’s leaving out the elephant in the car park of comparative quality between hire cars and what I’ll be paying loads for over the next few years.

I’ve done the business run twice now, it’s 120 miles each way so it’s a good drive but not too long. Most of it is motorway, so it’s where a relaxing cruiser comes into its own. Which is what the Lexus IS is.

This is going to read like an advert isn’t it ? Sorry about that – it’s just being honest ! The IS is my second Lexus after the CT and the CT was good enough to convince me that Lexus know how to make very high quality cars. The only problems with the CT were lack of power (10 secs to 60 but I like more) and a few trim niggles. It was an outstanding car but you could tell where unfortunate compromises had to be made to fit the price point and the concept.

The IS is better in almost every way, although they are two different cars with different interpretations of how some things should be done. Like me not knowing where the button to unlock the doors where, as it is done differently between CT and IS. Hitting “Park” would unlock the doors in the CT, the gear selection is done a bit differently in the IS.

But we don’t really care about that. How’s it do on the road ?

It’s a supremely relaxed cruiser. It cuts through the air effortlessly at 70 and the engine is barely above idle. That nets it about 51-52mpg on the long run. It got the 51.2 at the end of the return 120 miles yesterday. I’m hoping for better when the car loses some of the new car stiffness and in the summer. Hybrid tech is very interesting when implemented well but it does demand the engine run more in the winter to keep the warmth going.

The sound is supreme from Bluetooth streaming to the car. I read some stuff about incompatibility between the Bluetooth in the car and the iPhone 5, I suspect that’s more to do with the Apple side than the Lexus side. As in, Apple have variable quality and some of their kit just doesn’t work right. Like this Macbook Air struggling to stream over 2.4GHz wifi. I think I must have got lucky with my Iphone 5 and got a good one.

Yeah – I enjoyed the two trips and next week’s should be a good one too. It’s another meeting at the same place, this time I’ll have a new guy along. Actually, he’s an old guy because he’s been on the project before but has been on other things for quite a few years. It’ll be good to catch up.

Oh – weird coincidence : With my CT, the first time I tried to fill it up with fuel I came across one of those garages where it refuses to give you more than a thimbleful. Never had that problem again. With the IS, it happened again … first fill up, uncooperative pump. Hopefully I never see that problem again ! Another coincidence, it was at two different Insert Supermarket Name Here (same chain) garages …

One thing that was weird – getting almost 600 miles out of a tankful. It’s a 50mpg (claimed 60-63 but you rarely get the government figure) car with a 66 litre tank. That makes for lots n lots of miles …

Shake apart ?

My skin’s been mostly improving on the outside, although I’m not quite free of the need to treat it with the gunk fairly regularly. On the inside it’s a different story. I get the feeling my outsides will be capable of cricket but the insides won’t want to know. Whinge list ! :

Shoulder feels like it’s disconnected – like it’ll dislocate if I pull on something too hard.
Hip is still stiff
Back feels like it’s had concrete poured down my spine
Wrist badly needs some Game Therapy*
Fingers still cramp up at the slightest excuse
And the rest
*(it’s weird, the RSI in my right wrist seems to go away with certain games# – dunno why)
#(HEY ! I caught that snigger … single player games@ seem the best type)
@(Ooo eck – think I’m digging the hole deeper there)

I’m going to stop that little train of thought before it plumbs new depths of deviant depravity.

I’m sometimes hobbling because the skin on my knees isn’t cooperating, I’m sometimes limping because my hips or knees are being stiff.

Getting old 😉 But … one thing that’s guaranteed to make me pick up my feet, stand up straight and Walk Strong :

Pretty Ladies !

If there’s one thing I hate, it’s being caught mid – OUCH, it takes the gloss off that Big Grin 😉

Oh – everything’s on pause, I have one of those classic albums on. It’s Gran Turismo and you’ll recognise My Favourite Game. And that’s not their best album !

2 sides – definitely. The more interesting people are the more complex ones. The ones who will surprise you.

Lol – just spotted that error as well. Oops.

Pete said: Is it healthy to be talking about 2 sides of a personality like that ?

You only have 2 or just 2 worth mentioning? I have at least 12 that I know of…. [grin]

Oh, and the Inner Geek thing – first thing I noticed was the mistake which kinda distracted from the message…. [lol]

Shouldn't it be TOO much and not TO much?

Haha – I have stuff I can write about … and no clue on what title to put on it.

Ok. That’s actually not quite right. I’ve usually got about 5 different threads rattling around the marbles and I either can’t remember them when it comes time to tappy-scribble or they’re things that have no business hitting da interwebs.

There’s a few posts that I started that never got posted here. You’ll understand why, here’s a few from the Drafts folder :

Build your own … Starship ? This was a treatise on a real size NCC1701 Enterprise that someone was thinking of building in the near future. So I dismantled what they were looking to build and it ended up as a boring Wall Of Text Monster.

And there’s a few more too. I think I was writing something on orbital mechanics (I blame the Kerbals !) which is another post that got a mercy killing. Other’s get whack-a-moled because I really don’t like the way they’re going.

Hmm. What way is this one going … Nobody knows … Not even me !

Here we go :

It’s been a good day for smiles today. I’ve had a few smiles directed my way but two stand out most of all :

The HUGE smile from the Little Person. A teacake can be a great way to start the day but if the teacake run is timed (no planning or intel – honest!) to coincide with this particular Little Lady coming back ? I have no words to describe the awesomeness of that.

And there’s another not-as-little (still little) lady in our team who has the most wonderful smile too, when you can get her to show it. It’s always there, just under the surface waiting to break out but I don’t believe she thinks it’s right to look at people at their desks on her way past.

Even if they’re doing the Meerkat Silly Grin thing looking up at them hoping for that smile to erupt.

The infectious silly grin is another sign that Mad Pete is still doing his thing. I flip between a manic side and a depressive side. Mad Pete is the manic side and I think it’s fun to be in that state. It’s definitely a better state to be in than the depressive side. Trouble is, the rash and brash side of it can be difficult for others to cope with.

Is it healthy to be talking about 2 sides of a personality like that ? I think it is. We are who we are, we should own that. Everybody has flaws. The best thing is to acknowledge the flaws, the worst thing is to pretend that they’re not there. If they’re acknowledged, that’s the first step to figuring out how to manage them.

For me, just a few of them are :
The Mad Pete tendency – enjoying the ride while hoping I don’t upset people
Missing out the working – I tend to rush-think straight through to the conclusion, which leaves everyone else hopelessly clueless as to the logic that led to it. I’m steadily learning to deal with that.

Depressive – this is ok, I just tend to hide. But … it can get me thinking the world is out to get me.
(Not healthy, in my experience, the world tends not to care enough to expend effort in “getting you”)
Indestructible – people never seem to see when I’m hurting, need a friend or otherwise struggling
Smiler – I like it when the grin gets another victim, cheers us both up. But I think it freaks a few people out.

I’ll close with another one grabbed from the legendary Thumper’s archives :

I’ve forgotten when I last had pizza. Which means it’s time. Yeah, the cheese will upset my tummy but. It’s pizza. It’s worth it.

Ok ! One more. Cos I think she needs it :

Been in the wars lately …

Which is weird, cos I’ve been fairly lazy lately. What’s the issue this time ? Shoulder isn’t actually too bad, although I suspect it’s just biding its time. Nah – it’s another old injury, plus something I suspect caused by last year’s leg injury.

No 1 – Back

Unless you’ve actually had back problems, you won’t realise that it feels like you’ve had your strings cut … In my case, I originally injured the lower lumber area (the bit above your bum) of my spine while playing cricket twenty years ago. Let’s just say it was doing too much too soon, attempting to bowl stronger than my frame and muscles could support.

The knock on effect of the inflammation when it gets poorly is that the nerves controlling the legs get a bit cramped up. That leads to cold feeling legs and the control messages don’t get through as well as before. When I originally strained my back, I kept on playing cricket (although my bowling wasn’t as effective) but while I could still sprint with my right leg, the “sprint” message to the left leg was turning into “jog”. Ho hum.

It’s another injury that never completely heals, although when it’s not acting up I still have most of my mobility.

What happened this time ? I haven’t a clue how I did it, as it flared up during a meeting last Wednesday … Thursday was really bad, so bad I upgraded the usual Friday pm off into a 3 day weekend. Cue a few days of barely being able to move without going OUCH in a big way. It finally started releasing on Saturday night and has improved through 2 days at work to the point where I nearly have all my mobility and concentration back.

What’s concentration got to do with it ? It’s tough to concentrate when you have constant pain, even at low levels. It’s not jut the distraction of the actual pain, it’s also loss of quality sleep. Again, that’s not something that people who don’t have to live with pain will understand. Thankfully the low level pain I manage doesn’t need painkillers.

My back’s improving now, I have most of my mobility back. That can be a bad thing because I use full mobility as soon as I have it, leaving me prone to aggravating the injury again 🙂 No sense, no feeling ?

Could be hopeful for a peek at cars again, which I’ve been putting off due to : Waiting out garages that are asking silly prices and wanting to test drive without going OW from my back.

Issue 2 – Legs …

I suspect I have a Venous Leg Ulcer … (Look it up, I’m not going to describe symptoms cos they can be icky). It’s not big, about 2cm by 2cm and only slightly icky. It fits the various symptoms, as in it’s a wound that wasn’t healing. Looking up the causes, it seems like something unwell or old people get and I don’t think I count as that just yet. However … the prime cause is damage to the veins. That can be caused by a few things :

Getting old
Trauma
Deep Vein Thrombosis
Sick stuff (tumours, infections, high blood pressure)

The symptoms fit but not the cause – except when you think back to a year ago and consider what I suspect was a minor fracture on my shin … (Not enough of a break to stop the leg supporting my weight but still awkward). That whack probably damaged the blood vessels on its way to becoming an 8 inch long bruise.

Right – that’s probable cause 🙂 And I suspect the ulcer itself was initiated by a forgotten cricket thing from the 2 games early this summer.

And after some attention to it over the weekend just gone, I suspect it’s now turned a corner and seems to be improving (no icky today). The recommended treatment involves a compression bandage but I think I’ll wait a while longer before I resort to seeing the quacks. With that and the back though, no cricket for me for a while.

Lesson though for the wannabe docs out there –

Wiki and Google are great tools for finding out information. However, always, ALWAYS take a balanced view over what you’re reading. It’s easy to match a series of symptoms to a prognosis you’ve guessed at but make sure you’re not turning Symptom 1 + Symptom 2 into an OMG I’M GONNA DIE Cause.

The problem with looking up stuff on Wiki and Google is that there isn’t a knowledgeable doctor or nurse who’s seen it before moderating what you’re looking up. Especially as we tend to look for stuff that supports a prognosis instead of looking to disprove a theory. It takes a degree qualification plus a few years on top, plus more years of practical training to turn a smart person into a medic. Amateur investigations just don’t compare.

Heh heh heh – that’s me done preaching for the day 🙂

It’s been a painful week but I appear to be turning the corner on it. Just a shame it happened last week instead of this one, as there’s a Test Match starting this Thursday.

… For a while at least.

We’re about to see the close of another Winter Games but before I talk about that, I’ve been quiet for a few days. A conversation happened on Friday which I’m still very depressed and upset about. Not because of the conversation (which was dominated by someone inflicting his point of view on those who really didn’t want to know) but because of the lack of respect shown by people.

What I look for above everything else is respect. And it’s not just the conversation on Friday, it’s other conversations and interactions where the feeling of not having any value builds up. When that gets to a certain point, matters suddenly get far more difficult to live with. You start questioning where you’d have laughed it off.

And that’s what I’ve been doing since that conversation on Friday – questioning.

I’ve had to be very self contained over my whole life. I’ve always felt that the support I give to others vastly outweighs the support I get in return. I think that containment stops people seeing how I’m really doing. It’s definitely in effect at work, where I’ve successfully hidden the effects of my skin condition for several years now. (Incidentally – the support I get from my boss is along the lines of “if it doesn’t get better soon, go home” – no. That would be counter productive).

So yeah – I’m feeling neglected and the Friday thing was one of the last nails to be knocked in there. But :

The Friday thing could still be laughed/hugged off very easily;
(Although I still think the other person is an idiot, have done from what I’ve observed for many years. It just got upgraded to “blinkered” idiot based on what he said, although as an ambassador for Idiot Bikers, he’s an articulate one).
All attempts to reach out to people getting rebuffed;
The occasional “Hey, I wrote something about you that I hope will make you laugh” getting utterly ignored (that’s rude – it gives the impression that the other person puts no value in what you say).
Not knowing who to trust (there’s a very small number of people I trust with what’s inside the containment and a few of those always start finding things to do when I need to talk)

You can probably tell I’m very upset by the exchanges on Friday and narked by the other rebuffals over the years. Things like not hearing anything from the Naughty Angel and being ignored by another person when we were hoping she was ok after a Xmas party. We didn’t see her again until she came back after Xmas and you can imagine how worried we were considering this was just after the Jo Yeates murder, which was local and that our missing person shared the same physical profile. I watch too many detective shows not to get worried about circumstances like that.

This post has been a long time germinating in my mind too. I’ve not known what shape it would come out in. There’s actually more here than I thought there would be (I’ll talk about the Olympics another time).

I’ve not really known how to frame this post either, because I know it’ll upset someone (and probably draw tears, which I apologise unreservedly for).

Text is a very nasty medium to use. It is extremely easy to misconstrue what you read. You read into it what you want to see, instead of what’s actually meant. It can be very difficult to get exactly what you mean into the words. And above all :

You do not see the respect two people have for each other in the words that go on the page.

Yep. A friendship has been damaged. But – friendships can be very easily repaired as well. If that respect is there. And the respect to recognise that whoever people choose as friends is their own choice, similarly the respect to recognise that someone may not want a friend’s friend as their friend. I don’t feel that respect is there at the moment (to be honest, it’s been too long since I’ve had a chance to grin at them).

But – I know who I am. I get angry and upset at people just like anyone else. Some people I’ve completely given up on and it really confuses me why people go to them for advice when I know they’ll get stabbed in the back (like the fella who used to be in our team who was a real snake – and he’s not the one you immediately thought of). With others it takes more time.

There’s too much anger in this world already. Too many people fly off the handle at the slightest excuse. (Especially on the roads, which was the genesis for this particular bit of aggro). We need to do something about that. Forgive, forget, put the aggro behind you. Come out smiling, it’s a far better way to face the world.

There’s a lot of people at work who can’t go past my desk without spotting the grin and helplessly joining in. I like that, it gives me a lift too.

I know I’ll be ready with a smile or a hug.

PS Comments disabled here and I’ll delete the FB repost if it doesn’t let me disable comments there. It’s far too easy to fire off a response that you’d regret five seconds later after it’s gone and far too difficult to take it back.

Haha – another one raided from the Facebook 🙂

LOVE the cartoon!

I have to admit,

After some promising signs … and a touch of the Mad Pete returning … struggling again. I’ve gone backwards over the last few days. Things have got sore again.

Note – this is one of those posts where I acknowledge my struggles again. But not for long. Cos they’re not nearly as bad as perhaps this time last year, I’m still in better shape than 1 month before last year’s cricket season (where I’d written off the season) so I’m still hopeful of continuing recovery.

But – it is frustrating. Because every time I take a step forward and get some recovery happening, something happens to put a bit of that recovery back.

I’m still good. But some days it’s tougher to stay positive than others. It’s just so ridiculously easy to cause further damage (a negative for the attitude) without too many successes coming in (positives for the attitude).

Sometimes it would seem easier to get myself on the sick leave and stay home and hide. I needed to do that a few times last year (I didn’t use sick leave except for doctor visits, I worked remotely from home). But to be honest … I’m better off at work. There’s a few reasons for that :

It gets my mind in a Fight It attitude. Positive mental attitude is vital to getting you through problems. Sometimes that’s easier said than done. Like me with the realisation that I cannot bowl again, I could live with the pain I get when I try but … the flaw in my bowling action due to a shoulder defect could be lethal to the person I bowl at. Not bowling any more is a choice I’ve had to take.

Being around good people. We have a bunch of them at work. Both in the project and people I know outside. I can trust them to answer my grin with a smile that cheers me up and to hmm … stop me getting bored ? Sounds weird that. But I do crave interaction with others. I can bury myself in tasks but my mind is so active at the moment that it wants that multiple level of interaction. Like if I’m keeping 2 conversations going over communicator at the same time as reviewing a document.

It’s appreciated. And it keeps me thinking about recovery or otherwise.

Gets things achieved. I’ll play the games to pass the time but they aren’t achieving anything real. I need to clear the house out, that’d be a definite sense of achieving something.

Aside – lethal bowling ? The defect in my shoulder means it’s highly likely for a ball I bowl to go head high. That’s bad. But not too bad as the batsmen are prepared to duck down or backwards out of the way. What makes it potentially lethal is that I bowl inswing, which would follow someone swaying backwards out of the way. I don’t want to hit anyone on the head with a cricket ball.

More randomness ? Gotta be honest, I’ve got fixated on that heal/not heal thing. I’m still hopeful that I’ll be available for the cricket season again, although that seems further off on some days than others.

The Mad Pete side of me is still going strong, although it feels like that particular wave is cresting. It’s a state of being that has me more reactive, more impulsive (erm … new car … erm), more decisive ?, more rash, more brash. More everything. I like it as a state of mind, although that rash and brash side make for rough edges. I’ll enjoy it while it lasts and I’ll hope I don’t critically upset anyone along the way.

I could do with Easter coming soon though. That’s when I next have a decent break.

What to take from all that ? Keep an eye on yourself and how you’re doing. Try to see how you look from the outside. I’m going to write about that soon. How I think I see myself. It’s only fair really, cos I’ve talked about how I see others … which was basically:

There is beauty in everything. Everyone has it. There’s ugliness too but I choose not to acknowledge that and just concentrate on that beauty. The beauty is to be enjoyed, cherished and encouraged. Sure, some people choose to wallow in the ugliness, that’s their choice. If that’s not their fault, then help them see the beauty. Some do choose it though, like the lady on our floorplate who I really hope doesn’t walk past the desk when I have coffee. (The looks she gives curdles the milk instantly).

Lol – yep. I can be bitchy sometimes. And she is utterly immune to the Grin. I dunno why she walks past the desk to be honest, I don’t have a clue what she works on. She acts like senior management but she ain’t on my team. I suspect an overstated idea of self importance, which turns that particular Pretty Lady (and she is) into someone with a look that curdles milk.

Mentioning ugliness actually – one of our Olympians has been given a hard time on social media. There’s a reason I ignore Twitter, I saw the behaviour of its denizens on the Uksnowmap.com website. It’s a cesspit. There’s no control over the behaviour there. There’s no central code where an offensive person gets ostracized or snubbed for bullying others. Yep, our girl (Elise Christie, speed skater) got things wrong in her events. But … she knows what she did, she’ll be feeling appalled at missing out and letting down her fans. There’s absolutely no reason to make that worse. The message we should be sending her is “Huge hugs, better luck next time, we know you tried your hardest”. It’s too easy for the anonymous coward to bully on twitter.

And a bully is the lowest form of scumbag. I’ve been bullied a few times. Sometimes at school (didn’t last long because I didn’t react), a number of times at work. I hope Mad Pete hasn’t bullied anyone without me realising. There should be people you can talk to if you find yourself the target of bullying. Trust them. If they’re a good friend, they’ll help you out. Even if it’s just listening and telling you that you’re not imagining things.

This is getting kinda deep innit ? Can’t have that. Time to end with something chuckle-worthy :

Rumours that the end of the world is nigh are vastly incorrect. Or are they ? :