And as the end of another day draws to close, I leave The Parents to squabble over why the
curtains in their bedroom fail to do just that. It's a petty argument although an ongoing one for the best part of
thirteen years, and it is pretty much The Father versus the rest of the family. It turns out that the Father has
this absurd idea that all curtain rails have to be incredible feats of engineering, and only systems that would have
made Brunel weep in confusion are suitable for the simple task of pulling two pieces of cloth together or
apart.
The rest of the family are happy to make the metre and a half journey across the window to pull the
second curtain in, but the Father insists this is unnecessary and made sure that the house was fully rigged up
with the little string-pulley-curtain-parting contraptions. I broke the one in my room broke years ago by
over-exertion and I gleefully treasure my prize of free-moving curtains while the rest of the family struggle on
with their ever-jamming cords, weights falling on their feet and curtains that never quite meet in the middle.
Tonight the whole furious debarcle erupted again when The Mother went to draw her bedroom curtains from the middle
which proved too much for The Father to stomach.
Aside from mundane battles with household furnishings, today
has been fruitful and as you can see from the picture, the Old Edwardians now have a vague skeleton of a website.
There has been progress on the Askyric front as well. I am pleased with some more code related revelations, despite
how incredibly bored you would become if I relayed them onto you.
There was some time for Tours4 related activities, and the day was
punctuated by a trip up to that jewel in The Lye's crown, the OK Diner, for lunch.
Despite a high level of
productivity, my desk remains looking not too unlike what Staples would class as significant competition. I cannot go on peeling items
from out under this pile on request; the problem is that I've started recovering things that I don't remember
putting there which shows how deep the pile is. I need a system or a bonfire. Either or. Hmm.
I've spent probably more than half my waking hours today
working on Askyric which is coming one nicely. Although incredibly boring from the outside, this piece of work is
going to save considerable time and effort in the future if all goes to plan. I've already learnt a lot (in part
thanks to Kroc) but there is a long way to
go. One of the major benefits of when this is all finished is that I will have a much better understanding of
ASP/VBscript as a language, and hopefully some better coding practises. Not being a coder, until now my scripts have
been fairly long winded and clunky, but this is definitely a solution.
Also work related I had a meeting down
at the Old Ed Club. Despite what the Father told me, jeans are not acceptable in the club, which annoyed me a bit as
I had planned to wear smart trousers all this morning, but was unfortunately let down by a lack of shoes to match
them. This is going on my list of things to buy.
I'm not going to talk any more - I've spent far too much
time gawgling at this machine today.
Holidays are
a time to relax, enjoy a break and remove yourself from all things stressful. On the whole, things are going well
along these lines for me except for one thing which is really getting under my skin. I don't know what I'd if I
ever came across that frickin' annoying British idiot who has been employed to do 'in-between' commentary on Pimp My
Ride. WTF? Why on earth do MTV feel that just for the US
version of the programme that we can't understand what we are seeing? Banal comments likes 'Mike walks over to
the car' or 'Mike unscrews a nut' in the three second gap between the original speaking parts. This
also overruns any of the sound track. Argggh. Pimp My Ride UK is bad enough with
that pillac Westwood,
but now this? Firstly, I'm not blind and secondly, if I was blind I still would consider listening to a dial tone
for a couple of hours instead of that useless commentary. MTV UK - Sort Your Life Out!
Apart from
unjustifiable outbursts directed towards the TV, today has been mainly positive, littered with little events like The Swan's birthday and speaking to all my fellow
housemates in one day (quite an achievement considering I haven't heard from Sean in over four weeks). He seems to be enjoying the states, and already proclaims
that the Yank women are nicer than the British ones, which is only because he's somewhere new. Like when he came to
Birmingham and his tongue was falling out.
Rich did me a huge favour (beyond what I asked for) and managed to
swipe me a Pantone set for the night just so I
could do some colour fishing. It's so damn expensive to buy one that this has proved a bit of a life
saver.
There was no driving today however. I spent most of the day polishing off one or two projects and
beginning a new personal project that should save me time and money in the long run. I've come up with a suitably
vague and nonsensical name for the whole thing - Askyric, and it will represent my own brand of CMS software. Currently I rewrite for nearly every project and this
should help to standardise and modularise my code making upgrades easier. Little real progress was made on this
except for a logo and a old fashioned hand drawn plan.
Tomorrow Lucy goes off to India. I was intending on
surprise emailing earlier (I was fairly sure she thought I would forget) but she managed to send her email before I
woke up, which ruined the plan. Also tomorrow is the day I meet up about the Old Ed Club, which will be good to get under way.
I need to
fix my damn sunglasses. I trod on them the other night and they now sit wonky which is rubbish as sunglasses don't
suit me and it took two years to track down this pair which look vaguely wearable. Hmm.
Today started when James woke me with a phone call at 10am. After wasting an hour doing nothing, I
rushed to get up before he arrived to discuss our summer expedition (which is five weeks away; longer than I had
thought).
We briefly looked through the paperwork and discussed money, travel, insurance, all the usual
paraphernalia that goes with our trips, then got bored and went for some food in town. It's the first time I've
been to the Chicago Rock Cafe in The 'Bridge even though it's been open a good while now. It's quite nice inside,
although as it isn't exactly Chicago it definitely lacks in the way of 'Rock'.
While in town we also picked
up a Lonely Planet
(indispensable on trips) and after food took a trip up to see Goody who we haven't dropped in on in a
while.
Turns out we arrived the week before the big day. I think I knew that it was on the 23rd of either June
or July; more likely to be July than June, but my memory didn't hold much weight and I had to ask him. Foley House
is undergoing some major refurbishment and we had a chance to look around. A considerable number of walls, ceilings,
floorings and all the trimmings are missing in the name of full refit of the house. Most of the odd corridors are
having the kinks ironed out of them and a the place looks like a skeleton at the moment. By the time it's all done
there is going to be a new entrance, the boot room is going to have moved into where matron's room was, matron is
moving next door into the tutor's room, the computer room has already eaten up the old cleaner's kitchen and the
main kitchen is being knocked through into the old boot room to form an even second bigger TV room. On top of this
all the wardrobes in the sixth form rooms have already been knocked out and all the old bed/desk units in the house
are being outright replaced. The bathrooms are also having a facelift and every single one of those crappy windows
has been replaced with a nice one. Looking good.
Goody seems to be enjoying the last few days of being a
bachelor and is in good spirits on the whole. Kate and him are off on the real kind of safari in Kenya for the
honeymoon and although she wasn't about today you could clearly see her influence in the house now - a new cat. On
the other hand certain things don't change and we left Goody with about 20 minutes to clean up the house (which was
'needing some attention') before Kate got back, which he probably wasn't so pleased about. James and I went
separate ways and upon arrival back at home I persuaded the mother to accompany me back to Cotteridge to return the
fancy dress from the other night.
Later in the evening The Father took me up to the driving range at Bromsgrove. It's been about three
months since the last time and my unfortunate wrist injury, so I'm hoping time has healed it and it doesn't jump
on me two days after like it did last time. I wasn't hitting the ball as well as last time, but it wasn't too bad
either. Hopefully another couple of sessions and I'll be back on track - maybe then I could even play my first
round in well over two years.
I was bombarded with texts, emails and calls throughout the day from various
people, and as well as finding out from Flash that he
managed to graduate with a 2:1 (well pleased - it was touch and go for a while and considering the mass of effort
that he had to put into it and still nearly end up on the verge of a 2:2 nearly made me weep in desperation over my
final year) I have also arranged at meeting on Wednesday about the Old Ed Club website. Things are coming on.
In between all of this I
discovered a couple of fantastic websites. This brilliant blog charts the progress of
Manchester Buccaneers as they have become known since Glazer's takeover. All recorded
through the eyes of a 12 year old soccer fan from the US called Roswell with a clear misunderstanding and
Americanised view of the game of football. There have clearly been mixed reactions as can be seen from the comments
which makes for fantastic reading, but just as long as you don't believe everything you read you probably won't
get as irate as some of the other viewers.
The other one is Rum and Monkey which provides some fantastic if not puerile quizzes and
generators. Here are a selection the best:
Other favourites include 'Which famous historical homosexual are you?',
'What type of pirate are you?' and the 'Name Your Own Genitals' generator, which you can
discover for yourself as I'm off to bed.
That was frickin' awesome. I've just got back from Jon's 21st birthday (post having a
bath and uploading all the photos) which proved to be every bit as fantastic as it was billed.
Being the only
person who had been to his house before, the girls gathered around my house just after 2pm yesterday. Although
originally we had been waiting on Adam, we decided to make a move after he failed to show after an hour, and met him
at Jon's. By the time we had all assembled there were 9 of us in what became known as the Lufbra Tribe,
representing the uni side of Jon's
friends.
- Adam
- Alex
- Rosie
- Chris
- Anna
- Lianne
- Lauren
- Sarah
- Me
By about five we had all arrived and pitched the tents. Some preparations had to be
made costume-wise but once we were all fully clothed we headed down to the back lawn where we were greeted by
waitresses carrying platters of canapés and the other guests who had already arrived.
It was initially quieter
than expected, but after a couple of hours the place was definitely more lively as the vast majority of the guests
arrived. There was a considerable amount of talent (like loads of it) about and the theme seemed to have been
adhered to pretty well, with some well thought out costumes. There were also a considerable number of recognisable
faces around and about. Joe and Tom Sherratt, Rich Rowland, Leo Hewitt and
few of the other ex-OSH lads from that year.
A colossal marquee had been erected behind the terrace and after
a couple of hours of swigging back the punch and lounging on the lawn we were called to dinner. Each tablle within
the marquee had been labelled with a different exotic destination. I was on Tangia with Anna, Alex and Adam, while
the others were all seated together on the table behind us. By this time Jon was finally getting a chance to relax,
and had received our present an engraved whiskey flash and shot glass set.
The starter was king prawn on a bed
of prawns and balled pineapple. The wine began to flow and we managed to trawl our way through several bottle of
rose during the evening. Main course was a self-help platter of steak, chicken and various other meats also with the
option of lamb curry. The food was awesome, but thankfully the help-yourself approach allowed me not to stuff myself
(I'm not a big eater at big meal events).
After this course there were speeches and entertainment, which
included some ballet and concluded with a pole dance where both Jon and Ben (his brother) were shown the ropes and
had to do a demonstration of their own. In with this there was also a slideshow (properly done on DVD) of photos of
the boys as they grew up. Chris said that he was getting all emotional about the whole thing which proved of much
amusement to us.
The sweet was served and there was a great rush to gather up the remaining chocolate desserts
(which were lush) and finish them all off ourselves. Mission accomplished, there was a stunning firework display
behind the marquee where we were finally able to see how far back the garden stretched, right down to the lake. Anna
reckoned the display gave Alton
Towers a run for it's money, and she only works there.
And then the drinking and dancing began and the
night took it's own course. The free bar caused some issues, in that I wasn't too sure if the drinks I asked for
were the ones I was getting. Doubles tasted a little stronger than doubles normally, but I'm not complaining and it
made for a fantastic night. Anna managed to pull Leo but most other people behaved themselves, but there was plenty
of socialising going on.
I don't know when I went to bed, but I do remember being woken by Chris in the small
hours checking where I was. I was very surprised to see that my tent was still standing, and even more amazed no one
had been impaled on the lethal spikes protruding from the top - at the last minute I had to borrow Matt's tent as I
couldn't find mine, but it turns out that it was the old fashioned sort, and therefore and absolute nightmare to
keep upright.
At 6am Alex woke me with his talking and I stuck my drunken head out to see Chris packing up. I
decided that a walk and some water (or any non-alcoholic liquid) would do me a world of good, and so so Chris and I
raided the remaining tetra packs of orange juice from behind the bar in the marquee. A pint of vitamin C later and I
went back to bed for four hours.
Unfortunately the showers weren't working in the portacabin so we just had
to make do. Most of the girls were up and about before me, but both Alex and Adam arose later, both clearly more
worse for wear than me (especially Alex). Adam also had the added shock of waking up in his own tent with a bloke he
didn't know. This provided plenty of entertainment, even more so that he couldn't remember much of the evening
after the food.
The sun had been out in force on Saturday, and by 11am it was clear that today was going to
follow suit. In the blazing sunshine we sat around and sobered up before heading down to the marquee terrace for
more sociability and large quantities of hydration before they started serving a hog roast lunch. Alex couldn't face
anything but I was starving. Thankfully I had avoided any kind of hangover and after lunch we all headed down to the
lake where Jon and some others had gone for a swim.
A hour or so sat baking in the sun lakeside wasn't doing
my skin any good and I started to burn, so Lauren, Rosie and myself decided to call it a day, leaving Anna, Alex and
Adam to enjoy another hour or so.
Some of the observations around the house were the fantastic selection of
cars; from Jon's own land rover, the Bentleys and the Hummer H2. Also the attention to detail and
simply a fantastic view made the whole thing brilliant. And he couldn't have picked a better day for the
weather.
Rosie dropped me back home mid afternoon and go straight on the bath and Aftersun bandwagon. I
couldn't believe the whole event had gone so quickly. One of the most enduring memories of this is going to be of
us lot meeting up and having a great time. Although Jon's birthday, you get the impression that with people leaving
on placements next year that things are inevitably going to change (like they did last year) and this may be one of
the few times I will get to hang with these people in the coming years. It was also good to get the 'old crew'
back together as I have seen far too little of Rosie, Chris and Lianne this year since the course messed about with our timetable.
I can't say much more except
cheers Jon for a superb weekend and happy birthday mate!
I was expecting Uncle Mike just shy of 11am, but I got a
call about fifteen minutes too late asking when we had arranged to meet. Naturally this shifted my plan for the day
and we decided to rendezvous later until after lunch. Later I managed to complete the majority of the Tours4 brochure and the Dolphin website which is a good
load out the way.
The golf was on today, and The Father was glued to it like the fanatic he is. What made
today extra adhesive was that it was Jack Nicklaus' last outing in a major, or in
fact any golf tournament. A stranger to watching golf on the TV (I ignore it and find something better to do if the
father is monopolising it), I decided to sit down and watch the last four holes. I can't truly believe it was five
years ago since St. Andrew's played host to The Open, and it was five years ago that I watched and collected the
signatures off the likes of Tiger Woods, Fred Couples, Davis Love III, Monty and Mike Weir while they knocked that
little white ball around the same course. A quarter of my entire life. It seems like a just year or two back. Is it
really that long since I was playing regularly?
Something else that I did today that isn't on my usual agenda
was to be standing outside WHSMith at midnight. For anyone who has a vague interest in children's literature,
you'll probably realise that the 6th instalment of Harry
Potter officially went on sale tonight. As part of Sister Two's birthday present it had been organised that she
would have a copy ready and waiting she, The Mother and myself all headed into the 'Bridge to attend the launch.
Although partially embarrassed to be standing with 150 ten year olds clutching onto HP balloons and wearing witch and
wizard hats on a Friday night (that sounds even worse now that I come to write it), it was also quite interesting to
file in from the darkened street and watch Sister Two claim her present. Hardback for nine quid. Bit of a
bargain.
My attendance was mainly out of interest, partially to make Sister Two not feel so left out (even she
was old by the general age) and partially to make sure we got the book. I am in fact a bit of an addict. Not that I
would have been keen enough to want to get the book on launch night, but I will have to read it. There is something
so captivating about the story that drags you in, and I challenge anyone who won't read it becuase of the thought
of it being too childish, to go and pick up a copy and absorb your sceptical self in it, like I did.
As part
of my relaxing evening I watched Jack Dee, Live At The Apollo which was
on BBC One. I don't know if it's a series, but I love high quality standup like this and so will be keeping my
eyes peeled from now on, providing The Crew don't push back our drinking night. Jo Brand
was the special guest, and although I wouldn't class myself as a big fan usually, I thought she out-performed Dee.
Fantastic material.
Tomorrow is Jon's birthday celebration. Rosie and Lianne how now confirmed, and with Ad,
that makes the four of us. I am unsure if we have managed to get a present between us, but I'm sure we will sort
something out.
I lied yesterday.
Well not so much lied, but sort of forgot. I said I had managed to clear my desk of most of the rubbish; you know,
wade through it and create some space. However after finishing typing, I turned around to go to bed and found that
despite creating several piles of things that had been on the desk before, nothing had actually been tidyed away and
instead I had simply moved all the mess onto my bed then forgotten about it. Damn.
Oh well, the desk is still
as cluttered as ever but I did make some progress today. The MM logo project is coming to a close, with the final
concepts finished today, so tomorrow I can get on with the 'finals'. Neil (the client who I am doing this work
for) has also indicated there maybe some more permanent freelance work with his and his business partner's company,
which looks promising. Also I picked up some new work today on a different front; something that has been rattling
around in the pipelines for years, but has only now surfaced, I'm talking about the Old Edwardian's Club website. Looks like
I've got that to fiddle with. Plus significant moves forward on the Tours4 brochure business. Things are looking up.
Like a demented phantom
back to haunt me again today was the ever-present, undying Fresher T-Shirt project. I well and truly thought I had
murdered this a while ago, but Nick got in touch today and I had to do some more engineering on the
design. The sooner it's out the way the better - so tomorrow I'm popping the (revised) CD in the post (again).
However it was good to do some checks on the new StudentXtra credit card system, and finally for a bolt of
inspiration to hit me with regards to the problem of distributing usernames and passwords to all the old
cardholders. This eureka-like moment is going to save me a lot of fiddling about.
Once again the call of
summer induces that most adventurous side of my personality to 'bring out the bleach'. I'm not a big fan of the
albino look, so I use a technique I discovered a couple of years back to get a more subtle result. I am naturally
darkish haired, but I do go fairer in the summer. I found though, that if you neglect to use the powder bleach that
comes in the kit, and instead use just the cream and leave it on for a couple of hours, it accentuates the affect of
the sun on my hair, and I go a bit crazy blonde. Some people like it, some people don't. Personally I enjoy a
change.
Uncle Mike is due around first thing tomorrow to discuss the website which ran into thick mud after Easter and we now are going
to exhume it in order to finish the job off. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours.
Adam text today.
Looks like he's going to be my lift to Jon's on Saturday which I am grateful for. So far I haven't heard anything
back from Rosie, Lianne or Lauren which is not a problem, but just making me wonder if people are going to be coming
around to mine before or not. Hmm. Will have to chase that up tomorrow.
Another BBQ tonight and another
session of The Mother pulling her hair out over the booking of a holiday. For each argument to do one thing there
is an equal and opposite argument against. However, what I do know is that both the parents do need a break, but
The Father won't do it by himself, The Mother will always feel gulity that she didn't meet all the family wants,
and both of them together are in denial that all of us kids are now old enough for them to go away together on their
own without us (despite our united enthusiasm).
With all that has been going on with the London situation at
the moment, other things have seemingly fallen from focus. One strange piece of news I came across today is that
SAIC and an ex-Head of Ford in Europe have just signed a bit of paper that could be considered to be the saviour of
the Rover brand, even with the conception that
production may continue at Longbridge. This article was accompanied by a bemusing image. The new Rover 75, which is by my reckoning, a very swish
looking motor. I can't wait to actually get a good look at one of these.
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