So here I sit on a Friday afternoon a week away from payday when I have to give away every penny I’ve earned this month. Was thinking of throwing all of March’s wages into setting my self up a flat, realistically thats probably not so wise, maybe April, that’s always been a good month for me…or has it? Anyhow back to work! Bfn.
Add comment February 22nd, 2008
My boss speaks very quietly, he always turns away from you when talking and to top it all he’s a northerner! Apparently it’s a habit of his to speak vaguely and out of context, so the lads I went for a beer with on Friday were saying, Just Great! So it’s not me, but wait! I have another person to turn to, the senior engineer Roland, surely he can explain things in plain English right? Wrong, he’s French… Though his English is good he’s probably learned a lot of it from my boss, as he also mumbles and talks in riddles, throw in my hearing loss and include the accent and he may as well be an illiterate Chinaman translating English from Bengali. So I’m forever asking for them to repeat themselves which can be embarrassing, and when they do I still don’t hear…You get the picture.
There’s a good reason for this moan:
1) It’s technical work, some of which I’m new to.
2) I need to understand their procedures (I don’t think they have many).
3) I am supposed to be making an impression.
4) These guys are the only two in the company who understand what I need to be doing.
So I need to be wailing and wingeing about not being able to understand what the hell everyone’s on about, but I’ve felt like poo the past couple of weeks and can’t be bothered. Hopefully in a week or two I will be more in touch with what’s going on.
1 comment February 20th, 2008
Have been flicking around on 2 metres (144-146Mhz Amatuer Band) recently because of lift conditions, in particular the GB3DA Danbury repeater nr Chelmsford in Essex has been consistently very strong (4-6bB) and I decided to break in and have a natter, at that point a kid called Rhys who was 11 years old called through and it turns out he has only just passed his foundation exam and earned himself an M3 callsign (ZFM), transmitting from an antenna on a metal tin from his bedroom in Harlow, North London. So I say hi and explain that it isn’t bad chatting to me 90 miles away on the south coast with such a simple set up and only 10 watts and he was seriously chuffed, and I thought how nice it was that a kid had bothered to take the exam and have the confidence to join in a net on a busy repeater, and he was very proficient too, only one operator had a moan about his slightly rookie radio procedure but he soon got fobbed off. Maybe Chain could access this repeater… hmmm.
Add comment February 18th, 2008
Right, about time I made an entry… Strange weekend rounded off with the notoriously dull Sunday afternoon, actually sat down and began teaching myself assembly code for the PIC microcontroller, all in all quite simple so soon I will be able to design an intelligent room thermostat for the heating system. Basically it will memorise room temperatures and average times to reach desired comfort levels, so if at any particular turn on time it is colder than usual, the thermostat will be able to judge how sooner it will need to fire the heating to reach the desired temperature at the time set, and if its warmer it will fire later etc… Just something to play around with. Had both the kids for dinner today a rare occasion, Kayleigh my eldest has told me off for not mentioning her often in my blog, so here I am…mentioning her, maybe find some really embarrassing photos of her too. She has her GCSE’s very soon and is looking forward to going to college hopefully to do a media studies course.
Add comment February 17th, 2008
Having thought about this, I’m actually paid monthly now so I’m more likely to get into a new place…Now I’m happy. Got my new Laptop today and my place on the company server, desk and phone to follow. Seems this job is much more along my street that listening to wimpering housewives complaining of the cold when they have no heating. Have to re-design a PCB tomorrow in Cadstar which I haven’t used before, I’ve only designed using Protel, so should be interesting…
1 comment February 7th, 2008
Add comment February 2nd, 2008
What is it with employment agencies? I find it hard to understand why they need to know so much information, surely there should be some kind of limit specified by the Data Protections or even the Human Right Acts…
Ok, maybe slightly extreme but I find getting my head round the fact that if you come out of prison after doing a stretch for robbery, drug dealing or even murder it’s easier to get a job than if you just happen to be doing a bit of cash work or maybe claiming benefits for a while.
6 comments January 24th, 2008
Actually found a way back where I belong in the electronic industry, sacrificing a significant decrease in salary for hopefully an increase in contentment, after all, money isn’t everything (unless you have enough to be able to be able to afford everything).
Watched a film the other night called Zeitgeist (The Spirit of the Time, brought to my attention by Cam, Cheers mate), some very thought provoking analogies about the origins of religion and describes the Bible as an “Astro-Theological Literary Hybrid,” this will make sense if you watch the film. The film interestingly covers the conspiracy behind the deliberate demolition of the World Trade Center buildings including the Twin Towers in Manhattan, what I call 11/9. The film makes perfect sense of the facts why this was perpetrated by America to justify a “War on Terror,” the consequential massive borrowing from the Central Bank by the US government to pay for it, and the lining of the pockets of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, who seem to have the balls of the globe tightly in their grasp. I do have an argument here, but I wont get too deep into it…
A couple of odd things happened while writing this, firstly my PC went absolutely bonkers and crashed and then I had Jehova’s Witnesses knocking at my door…No Joke, Spooky Eh?
Click here to watch online.
Click here to download Torrent file. (better resolution)
1 comment January 19th, 2008
It’s been raining a bit over here in England (And Wales too wherever that is?) The Barometric pressure bottomed out where I am at 975hPa and it got a bit windy for a while but nothing exciting. I’m kinda hoping for a massive anticyclone to develop across Asia and Europe to give us a decent winter, I seem to want to walk along the rivers again as I used to when I was a Kid. They haven’t frozen for more than 10 years and I remember them freezing over every year! Anyway, I may be eating these words one day if the Gulf Stream is affected, it’s predicted if the North Atlantic Drift shifts a bit, the UK could be frozen over for 4-6 months every winter, a part of me thinks that’ll be quite cool but I’m sure environmentally and economically it would be devastating…(yeah!)
1 comment January 15th, 2008
