Splash!

Last Wednesday, the long awaited annoncement was made and the look on most people faces said a lot.

Many of them seeing this as the end of the world. Not me, just the start of another adventure and time to "Man the Lifeboats!"

Well, to be truthful, a holiday first as we're off for two weeks to Crete.

The timetable of events for the next 6 months should follow the tried and tested route, highs & lows, ups & downs and not too much clarity.

From previous personal experience, I know how to deal with this, the key and most important thing is to remain positive.

So after the holiday, it's the let's see what's on offer internally to stay and to go. And then what's available externally.

As previously stated, that's enough from me.

After a simple question from by wife about RSS and required a demo, I noticed I hadn't posting for a while, so...

1. Car
   Finally arrived in December 2004. As it was a brand new model, driving around and getting strange looks plus the very rare sighting of another Peugeot 407 SW.
   I still enjoy driving this car with-it's huge sunroof and gadgets.
2. Holiday - Venice
   A couple of days in this wonderful city - no traffic!, great food - was a delight. Made more so by bumping into the man from the recent BBC series.
3. Deck
   After part of the garden fence finally gave up the ghost, we replaced it and realised that we could do much more with that corner of the garden. David, my little brother, came to installed a deck big enough for my wife's sunbed, my hammock and the garden dining table plus four chairs. It's completely changed how we use the garden. See the pictures elsewhere.
4. David
   Still hurts.
5. Holiday - Estepona
   Yes, back to Estepona, driving (in the new car!) and stopping off a places of interest along the way. Moved a bigger villa on the same complex (bit of a mistake)
6. Holiday - Egypt
   This was our 4th trip to Egypt, this time the Luxor and the Valley of the Kings, etc. Great weather, pleasure trip bobbing along the Nile.

That's the interesting stuff from the past 18 months. I've tweaked the settings to allow comments...

Enough from me

As I hadn't blogged for nearly six months, I've just re-read my earlier entries... apart from the odd typo, it reads quite well.

So, what's been happening -

1. We've replaced the flooring at home.
   Let me first of all say, this wasn't our original intention. But when the dish-washer that we'd had for nearly 10 years started to play up, it seemed natural to order a replacement. However, as I had to connect up the new machine, I failed to insert the rubber washer and it started to leak!
   After about 6 weeks, we discovered this and rectified the problem but now we had a duff floor in the kitchen.
   OK, this flooring was also 10 years old and we started to look at new floorings for the kitchen AND the bathroom.
   This, in-turn, got us looking at the carpeting in the rest of the house.
   £3000 later and a new vacuum cleaner later. we finally had replaced the flooring at home.
2. I've been on holiday!
   Having been to Italy twice and watched it rain both times, we decided on Gozo, the sister island to Malta.
   Not a drop of rain and plenty of sunshine!
   Also, plenty of diving, beer, good food & doing nothing.
3. I've replaced my phone!!
   I've never liked the phone I got back in February, so, I've just got myself a newer better phone.
   Let's see if this is really better than the old one.
4. I've ordered my new car!!!
   Back about 3 year ago in the summer of 2001, I came out of the company car scheme and purchased my first car for over 15 years.
   I figured it was time to replace this car and I'm now waiting for my new Peugeot 407 SW to be delivered complete with it's GPS, cruise control & other assorted toys.
5. I've heard that there's been "more pain of change being felt"
   Yes, I did here about Dave and Pete and a couple of others all feeling the pain of change. While, some people may think I enjoy hearing this news, I know that this is a difficult time for them and if I can help...
6. Oh, and I'm enjoying my role as a DBA!!!!
   Yes, strange at it seems, I'm really enjoying my new role as DBA. The chaps I work with know a lot about the company systems but not too much about the software being used. While I know a lot about the technology and too little about the company.
   Sounds like a match made in heaven!
   And it is.

Well, if you've managed to read this far, you know about about what I've been up to. I still keep in touch with people I've worked with and am always interested in knowing how things are going. Drop me a line...

Keep going, keep looking

Just a quick update.

As my previous blog said, I've now got a "proper" office setup at home, so I should be more able to blog, but...

We've just returned from a week over in Ireland. We managed to watch the England v Ireland rugby in a bar full of locals all supporting their home team. They started quietly, then became noisier as they began to realise England weren't playing at the top of their game. Towards the end of the game, we had to accept defeat and say things like "...if you've got to lose, then losing to Ireland isn't too bad...", "...we played crap, you played great..." and "...at least it'll stopped us going on about winning the World Cup...", etc.

Ireland was quite pleasant, it didn't rain and the Guiness / Beamish / Murphys tasted fine.

Last Wednesday, was a big day at work. The "interview" for the role of Data Warehousing DBA. The technically questions weren't too difficult! and I was offered the job within two hours. I'm now a DBA.

And as we all know, DBA stand for Don't Bleeding Ask!

So to celebrate, I've upgraded my organiser!

I now have a really cute IPAQ 2210. And I spent all weekend installing software and playing with it!

I need to get out more.

Well, it's one year on from that happy day when I emptied my desk into a bin-liner and "left the building".

Overall, I think it was for the best. I'd probably been there a couple of years longer than I should have.

Enough from me, keeping looking.

Wow, doesn't time fly, it's been just over a month since my last "confession".

What have I been up to?

Well, as I mentioned previously santa didn't quite get me want I wanted, so I had to go shopping for myself!

I've finally got my home office sorted. I now have a proper desk, a proper chair and I've finally gone completely wireless!

Yeap. I checked the shops, internet, etc and got myself a flat pack desk & chair from Staples, a wireless card from ebuyer and a cordless keyboard and mouse from a well know personal computing retailer with world wide ambitions.

This now means that my scanner is now plugged in ready to go and I can find all my software without spending too much time looking for it.

Having a proper sized keyboard is such a boom that I can't understand why I didn't get one before.

We've finally booked our March holiday - it's Ireland, driving around Cork and Dublin - and now we need to think about next September!!!!

I've had another request for help on the CV front.... maybe I should start charging!

Oh well, that's enough from me...

As you can imagine, I've been very busy over the past few weeks and simply haven't had time to write.

It sounds like nearly everybody that was "overboard" is now safely "on board" somewhere. So, we should all have fatter bank accounts and a chance to put the past year behind us.

I've finally decided to get my three year old organiser sorted (it was that or get another!) I've got the screen & the battery replaced, installed a wireless LAN at home and got a wireless card for my organiser... so I can now surf the web from my bed!!!

Santa Claus didn't bring me these little toys - he always gets me the wrong stuff - so I had to rely on Santa Cruse. Santa did get me a travel smoke alarm and motion detector, so he's getting better.

I probably need to educate santa local helper for next year!

1. New (tower) computer with loads of bells & whistles
2. Computer desk and shelving
3. GPS - handheld or car mounted
4. new shortwave portable radio
5. DAB portable radio
6. new organiser
7. new car
8. blah
9. blah
10. blah

BTW you know I mentioned that I was helping my wife niece with the CV? Well, she got the job!

Having watched nearly every game of the World Cup Rugby, we decided to support the local team and when to a Saracens game. Not quite in the same league as "...35 seconds to go...", but quite enjoyable all the same.

Just before Xmas, I spent two days doing my "helping hands" thing - This is where head office staff are encouraged to spend a day or so working in the stores - I did half a day working on beers, wines & spirits and two days working fruit & veg.

It was quite nice to do something simple and watching how Xmas effects people. And the time of the yellow stickers is definitely worthe being there for.

Bob is looking forward to the end of his time... and counts down every day. He'll either walk straight into another contract or spend a couple of weeks "resting".

Well, enough of me.

After one or two complaints that I seemed to have stopped blogging, here's my latest blog.

The main reason for not blogging is... I've been on holiday!

Yes, I know that I've been to New Zealand & Cyprus and I've had plenty of "garden leave" to soak up the fine British summer. But, I figured I was due a holiday!!

We had planned to take three weeks, to drive over to southern Spain - staying at nice hotels on the way there & back - and stay at the villa that we've stayed in many times before. But this plan had to be amended.

So, we flew instead and only have two weeks with a couple of days in this country.

Flying Easyjet is very different from flying business class, but with the flight of 2.5 hours being far less than 36 hours, this seemed reasonable. I managed to hire a car over in Spain for about 200 pounds! - this is about a third of what I've paid in the past - and settled in to doing nothing for two weeks.

Have a look at my pictures - www.rogercruse.com

Finally, returned to England and just enough time to dump the bags, get a nights sleep, pack the bags and get off the Cornwall for few days.

I'd booked a couple of nights in Padstow (aka Padstein) staying at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant which confusingly is a hotel as well.

If you haven't heard or haven't been to Padstow, then you need to realise that this is the Mecca for any lover of good fish and fine eating.

Mister Rick owns about 5-6 different eateries and there are other restaurants as well they have to provide good food to compete. All this is a small seaside village in Cornwall.

So, if you haven't tried Monkfish Vindaloo to haven't lived! Either get down to Cornwall or buy one of Mister Rick's books.

We also managed to visit the Eden Project. Again, get down to Cornwall and have a look yourself. Very interesting.

To wrap up on other news.
We've started to "do up" the spare bedroom, replacing the old double bed with two singles (very clever this, one bed folds under the other!) and re-arranged to wardrobes in preparation to replacing them with the fitted version.

I've been helping my wife's niece put together her CV - I'm an expert now.

I've upgrade my phone to a one that can take pictures... OK, I know it's sad, but I've got to spend my money somehow!

My laptop computer is still causing me major problems, so I'll be contacting PC Service Call again to resume the battle (new readers: my computer becomes unstable after 3-4 weeks and has been returned 4 times since February).

The neighbour's cat, Molly, is getting bigger and still visits nearly every day. She's confused about me not being here all the time, but makes up for it by staying longer on each visit!.

I've spoken to Dev in his new job - well done! - and offered to help him with his BO problem if he needs it.

Well, enough from me, keep looking...