Threelight’s News

I guess as the time comes nearer to my holiday, I’m becoming what’s commonly called “demob happy”. I’m counting down the days (6 work-days left), and I can’t wait to be away from work.

Because I booked this holiday so long ago (around about March, I think), I began to plan my holidays for the year around that. Because at my employ, the holiday year runs from April to March, I’m trying to spread the days out, including possibly working this Christmas (I didn’t last year, because I was away on holiday). Not that there would be a lot of work to do.But I’m beginning to feel I need a holiday, The last time I had a day off was something like March (not counting days when I had to attend funerals).

I’ve also been doing something different for the last couple of days. That may have made me relax a bit more.

But still, I need a holiday.

Shocking. 2 weeks and no post. So, what’s happened in those 2 weeks.

As mentioned, I was off to Sheffield for the weekend (well, I was planning to stay overnight, but ended up stayinf until the Monday). It was mainly to see the 2 new puppies my firends had got. Apart from the dogs getting used to their surroundings by pissing on the floor and also having a good dose of the squits (the dogs, not me), it was a fairly entertaining and lazy weekend.

I was, at times, a bit frustrated when I couldn’t do anything like clean up after the dogs because I was “the guest”, but eventually I did help out move the carpet from a room, so the dogs could roam about in there and not worry about the floor.

Watched an interesting horror movie: ”REC“. I quite liked it. There were four of us watching it, and sure enough, the four of us jumped whem the scary part came on. I’m a fan of this sort of genre (from a hand-held camera’s perspective - “Cloverfield” being a good example, “The Blair Witch Project” (which started the whole thing off, not so).

So, the week moved idly on until it got to Saturday, and then it was off to the centre of town for a reunion of the people I used to work with. And quite frankly, it went excellently. I saw people I haven’t seen for ages, and even soom people who are a lot fatter than when I last saw them (makes me feel a lot better). A good time was had by all. One thing I couldn’t quite get used to was riding on a bus. Because I use my car every day becuase I don’t work in the centre of town anymore, and not having to rely on public transport, getting the bus was a but of an odd experience (two years of not catching one…). They stop at every stop. The drivers do shift changes adding 5 minutes to your journey.  

And they want Manchester to get the congestion charge…

I have plenty to write about, but I don’t particualrly have the inclination to at the moment. Maybe because I’ve been on the tired side this week when I’ve been coming home from work. Must be because of the 4 day week this week (was at a funeral on Monday). Looks like it’ll be the same next week too.

Not to worry. I’m off to Sheffield to visit friends and drink on Saturday evening. I’ve not sure how my body will react to loads of alcohol, because I’ve been careful for many months regarding my alcohol content.

So, I may as well say now: See you on the other side of the weekend.

I’ve got a holiday to prepare for.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before, but in a month’s time I’m off to good ol’ Espana for a couple of weeks. Hopefully the weather will be favourable, unlike the inclement weather that was experienced when I was last over there at Christmas.

I’ve made a short (ie one entry) list of things I need. Well, it’s a start, anywho.

It’s a weird thing, but since I moved jobs about 20-odd months ago, I’ve taken a holiday away from the UK, whereas before I didn’t used to bother with such things as holidays. I’m not sure why that is, but that’s the way things have transpired.

But this time I do need one. I’m beginning to run on auto pilot at work, and feeling a bit jaded and down. It has got nothing to do with the people around me, but occassionally I do get ”narked”. Like being called “Mr Threelight” by somebody who’s just joined the team. I wish I could turn round and ask them to use my first name, but I daren’t, because supervisors and the manager call me the same thing.

Stuff like that…

Well, last week carried on much the same as it normally does: always looking forward to the weekend when you don’t have to see the faces of the people you work with for 2 days. On the Thursday, I’m called to have a word with one of the managers. Oh dear, what have I done…

“Ah, Threelight. You have been chosen to do this particular thing by our team leader. How would you like to go down to London tomorrow, train fare and ticket paid for, to the British International Motor Show?”

“Er, let me think for a second. Er, yes please.”

So me and another person from the department both travelled down to London Docklands and saw the new cars and boats and stuff. It was quite enjoyable. There wasn’t a single car that stood out. The person who went with me was trying to get a reaction out of me about what car made me go “wow”, but no car did. A few made me go “Hmmm, I like the look of that” but none that stood out.

And a few of the concept cars were plain stupid. One of the cars we saw early on was quite simply stupid. Blue, and, well, plastic. Loads of room, but someone obviously had the freedom to design whatever they liked, and designed a monstrosity. Ugly.

Oh, the Top Gear stand was quite well attended. Well, they did have some of the cars they used in the series, and selling the lastest issue for £1. Bargain. Of course, that’s if you like Top Gear, which I’m aware many people do not.

When we eventually got outside, I could hear a stange noise of airplanes coming from the direction of the O2 Arena. It didn’t take me long to realise that the pilots were putting some form of practice for the Red Bull Air Races, an event that I’ll probably get to see one day. So, you had the noise of the planes on one side (I couldn’t see them go through the gates, as the O2 Arena was in the way), and seeing Porsches, Lamborghini’s, Astons, all on a track about 6 feet away from you. Heck. I was spoilt for choice.

All in all then, a very good day. I was foot-tired by the time I got home, but that’s one of the prices you pay I suppose.

Apart from that, nothing much happened. Oh, only that I went for my haircut on Saturday, and today. The Tight-Bloused Babe said she likes my new style: makes me look different. A result there then.

On Friday evening I was pleasantly surprised to see a message in my inbox from somebody I immediately recognised. You may remember (or not) this post. Well, said person has now found me, and we exchanged messages across the world over the next day. Whereas in my last post about this subject I wrote that I discovered that he was DJing at a hospital, I found out that he is now a DJ for a local radio station. He’s doing okay for himself, and seems quite happy. I listened to a bit of his show (amazing, is “streamed internet”), and it’s quite polished and professional (even though I don’t exactly like the choice of music, all modern type “pop” music, which at my age, I don’t much care for.)

And then I get a message from an aunt who no-ones heard of for 20 years, who went through a nasty divorce and (a long story this), ended up staying in a foreign country. while the rest of us had left. Yikes.

Yesterday, the folks and I went up to Sheffield to visit friends whose house we’d never seen before (and they’ve been in for 2 years). It was a very pleasant day; we had a BBQ, and basically chilled out. Very enjoyable.

And now, that dog from the previous post is yapping away again. Sometimes I wish for cooler weather…

After a few days of politicking and being proved right, it would seem “I have got my way”, even though I had nothing directly to do with it. Things have calmed down a bit and I can get on with working the way I’m supposed to.

But this morning, I got a migraine at work, managed to weather the worst of it. It wasn’t a bad one, I’ve had a lot more serious ones, but now I’m really tired and need an early night.

Except, outside, where there’s a huge green, there’s a small dog yapping away, and it’s making me mad. Can’t somebody please put said dog out of it’s misery? All it’s doing is watching and trying to join in with a few people playing football. Sounds at times, like it’s getting a sore throat (I wish!).

I’m sick of office politics, which was a game I was forced into yesterday. I wasn’t able to defend myself against it, neither did I have the backup of the person who is overseeing the work I was doing (that person was at another site). I won’t go into details, but quite early on, I could see what was happening. My remedy to that was just to say, “okay, what do you want me to do?” Unsaid was “okay what do you want me to do, because I know nothing and I’m just a pawn that you can move about wherever you like.” 

The person one stage higher in the pecking order said what I was thinking, and the fact that people are likely to “stick the knife in”, so therefore “always cover your back”, and told me the best way to deal with it. Very insightful comments indeed, and comments I didn’t expect from that particular person.

Today, when all the people were in the office, and everything was talked about, it was decided that everything was indeed good, and to paint a bad picture just because you wanted to cause some trouble, because a key person is missing, is just plain stupid.

But like I say, I don’t like office politics at the best of times.

I had an ordinary weekend this weekend. Well, ordinary in that I stayed around Chez Threelight.

On Saturday, after setting up a new printer/scanner, I then helped my Dad strip the wallaper off the hall, stairs and landing. The walls, at this moment, are a sickly pea-green colour. We are both trying to work out whether this was the original colour when the first people who moved in, or whether the same or other people painted it that colour. Either way, it’s sickly.

I stayed out of the way on Sunday, mainly because I didn’t feel like doing anything. I had a headache all day, and also was really tired. Ever had one of those days when you just don’t wake up? You feel groggy all day, and it feels like you’ve got some sort of undiagnosed/long-named/new disease? That was me yesterday. All day I was struggling to understand what it was; I mean I did have a good night’s sleep the night before.

I blame the green walls.

This is one meme that I just happened to stumble across during a random trawl through everything Internet. I quite like this one. I had trouble in getting a random quote (every time I went back to the random quote page, it had the same quotes there.) Apparently Flickr has a pool devoted to something like this.

Usual rules: play along if you want to, don’t play if you don’t want to. To also say again, the sage words of Master Yoda: “Do. Or Do Not. There Is No Try.”

And before you ask, I’m not working on the “awkward second album” yet.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.

2. www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.

3. www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4: Combine all three elements in your photo editing software.

5. Post it on your blog.

Here’s mine. Sort of makes sense.