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| ********************************************************************************************************* MOST RECENT ENTRIES -*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Friday, January 26, 2007 On hols next week... I'm on hols from work next week. It's our 8th wedding anniversary on Tuesday! Yes.. you read that right! 8 years! I can't believe it! Anyway, we're not sure what we're doing, but I've taken the week off so that we can have some time to chill out, go places and do stuff. We might go to visit family, or we might just have some days out around the local area. Suggestions from work have been to visit Donna Nook and see if the seals are still there. I'd love to do that. We've been here 10 years this October, and we've never been yet! I always forget! It's only a few miles down the coast. I'll mention it to Paul. I'm also trying to find out where Trent Falls is (it's where the Trent joins the Humber...). We've been talking about visiting there for a year or so now. We did try last year, but we couldn't find it! I don't think we went far enough along the Humber bank though... Watch this space to find out where we go! posted by Unknown -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sky are doing my nut in now... For a while now our Sky+ has been randomly dropping sound at odd points while watching a recording, or live paused tv. Googled to find out what the heck was going on, and it seems that it's quite a common problem. There are two things that can be done, one of them means that you'll lose everything on your drive - so don't do this if you've got things you still want to watch on your box! The other is supposed to keep everything on the drive, and basically defrag the drive. I'm a bit wary about trying it though, as I have things on the drive I really don't want to lose at the moment. Press the services button, press '4 0 1 select' and you'll be in the engineer menu. Now you have the two options to choose from:
After messing about for about half an hour with putting the extension cable back together (at the Sky box end two of the cables had come lose inside the connector), I still got nothing! So I had to get the huge long extension out that we'd had for the back of the house and put the Sky box on that. The same day that I found out we had a problem, I got a letter from Sky telling me that they'd not been able to contact both boxes and that I was going to be charged £35 a month extra for the second box. I phoned Sky and explained the problem. I got the instructions from them to do a manual callback on both boxes, and was told that when they'd received calls from both boxes they'd wipe the extra charge. So I did as I was told - and had to send the multi-room box through the callback a second time before it was picked up on their system. I was assured that there would be no additional charge, and that everything was now fine. Yesterday I got my latest Sky bill. Guess what... Yep, the charge is still there. So now I have to phone them to ask them why they're still charging me when they know that the box is installed where they think it is, and they know that it was a problem with the cable their engineer installed which caused there to be no contact from that box. I'm really miffed about this. Too many companies tell you one thing, then completely disregard that and do something totally opposite. I'm determined to get it sorted though. posted by Unknown -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Wednesday, January 24, 2007 24 has started! We were busy on Sunday night, so we recorded 24 onto our Sky+. Of course that means that we've series linked it now so we won't miss an episode. We sat down to watch the first two episodes on Monday night, and boy what a start to the series! A few things we'd guessed would happen did - Chloe & Maurice, Bill & Karen, the identity of the new president. And some of the plot (so far) has been quite predictable - Paul mentioned that too. But he's not as used to 24 as I am, so I'm already wondering where the twists and turns will occur, what or who is a red herring that we'll be chasing for weeks. I have to say that seemed to the be most bloody, gruesome and explosive season start that I can remember... but I could be wrong. There were a few punching the air moments, which were nicely contrasted with moments which made me question Jack's emotional and mental state (I have seen the prequel, so I do know what happened to him) . I think there was a point where he realised that in some respects he's no better than the people he despises. Anyhoo... Sunday's are now the highlight of the week again, although I have a funny feeling we'll be watching from our Sky+ box a day later! posted by Unknown -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, January 23, 2007 I've remembered! I've actually remembered the 'other thing' that happened last year that I was going to mention a few posts back. We Duranies had some news last year that brought back many memories from the 80s. Andy's left the band. They've been recording a new album for ages now, and I don't know how Andy's departure is going to effect that. We'll have to wait and see. So far Dom has been standing in for Andy during the guys tour at the end of last year (as he did when Andy was ill the year before). I guess we'll just have to wait and see on this one. posted by Unknown -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, January 20, 2007 Another week, another weigh-in Well, I didn't lose any weight over the last week, but I didn't put any on either. So it's not as bad as it could have been. We managed to catch up on the last series of 24, watching the last 4 episodes back to back on Wednesday. I normally have things figured out really quickly while watching 24 - probably because I've seen every series. But this time, I was still a little stumped until a few minutes from the end. Quite a few twists and turns I hadn't spotted on the way, and what a set-up for series 6! It starts on Sunday! Can't wait to see where they go with this one. Sky are really pushing the show - as ever - and have a special website (www.ctuagent.com). If you enter your details you get a log-in, and it looks like there's going to be some sort of mission online to follow. Should be fun! What else? Oh yes, watched the third (or is it second really) episode of Battlestar Galactica this afternoon. It's shaping up to be an interesting, and thrilling, series. I've also been catching up with some of the BBC 7/Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories tonight - while doing some work. I've finally listened to The Chimes of Midnight. That was an interesting story, very interesting. I did think that Charley might actually die in this story. Every time I listen to these I keep thinking that I must start getting the Big Finish audios. There are nearly 100 of them now! I'm currently listening to part one of Blood of the Daleks. Which is another interesting one. Lucie just mentioned that the Doctor's a timelord, but I'm sure he's not told her that yet. And the Daleks have just appeared. Daleks saying they wish to help... creepy! Yep, this is definately turning into a good story. Anyway... A few things I forgot to mention at the beginning of the year:
I'm sure there was something else, but I can't think what! I'm being distracted by this Doctor Who story... just got to the end of the first episode, and it's very exciting. Silly humans, trusting the Daleks. You'd never catch me doing that! :) It's getting late now, time to pop off and feed the dogs, and hit the sack. TTFN posted by Unknown -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thursday, January 11, 2007 Weigh-in and more Had my next weigh-in today. I've put on 4lbs in the last 2 weeks! I must've got too comfortable with having lost as much as I did over Christmas. Oh well, back to the healthy smaller meals. I'm quite disappointed, because I thought I'd stayed about the same, or maybe put on a couple of pounds. I'd been doing so well too. Had a flu jab while I was there too. They have some left over, after offering it to people who are felt to be particularly at risk. As I've always seemed to catch everything going round I thought it was a good idea to have one. My arm is starting to ache, but that's me now vaccinated against 3 variants of flu. Fingers crossed! What else has happened since my last post? Well, I've managed to watch almost the entire series of Torchwood now (although somehow I failed to record episode 4 "Cyberwoman", and episode 8 "They keep killing Suzie"). I actually watched 4 in a row, and I blubbed like a baby during "Out of time" (episode 10), when Jack was trying to stop the suicide (not mentioning who, in case there's anyone reading who hasn't seen it yet). I wonder if 4 was too many, because I don't think I've ever cried as much! No blubbing in episode 11, but I cried like crazy while watching episodes 12 and 13. These last few episodes gave us much more of a knowledge of Jack, whilst increasing on the mystery of who he really is. I think his loneliness since being abandoned on Satellite 5 was much more evident in these last few episodes, and that's partially why I cried so much. I'm still quite emotional about it all now, so I think I'll probably leave it at that and post more in a few days... posted by Unknown -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tuesday, January 02, 2007 A new year, and time to resurrect the blog! I can't believe that I've not posted for such a long time, but so much has happened in the last few months. With things as they were at the beginning of last year I just didn't have the inclination to post anything, and as you'll see I've been really busy lately and just not had the time! As I've already mentioned, I left work at the college in June. I was looking daily for something new, and by the beginning of August I'd applied for a job locally, been interviewed, and started work. I now work for a full-service marketing company based about 13 miles from home. I basically do the same as I did before, but there's more emphasis on the back-end development and I haven't designed any sites. That's because we work differently here, and it's so nice! The studio team come up with all the designs for all aspects of the work we do here, and work with us on site designs. The client chooses the design they like, and we build it. Sometimes we chip in a design too, but so far I've been too busy with developing systems and building sites to do any design work. But it's nice working in a small, friendly team, with a more traditional approach. This way the sites are designed to work with the other marketing publications, and are designed at the same time, rather than being hasty re-creations of existing work or completely different in look and feel. It's a refreshing approach, and I've been so busy that I've barely had time to catch my breath. From mid-September until the beginning of November I've had very little time to even think though, for other reasons. My dog, Gem, started to have fits. She was about 7 years old at the time, and really too old for it to be Epilepsy. She had blood tests, and everything came out clear. The vets said that it was most likely to be a brain lesion. We weren't too sure, I have to admit, because the big dewlap thing under her chin had been growing in size. Every vet she saw said that it was just a ruptured salivary gland and that it wouldn't cause her any pain, but if it got too big they would operate on it. Well, it was getting bigger and bigger by the day. I took her to the vets so many times to ask them to operate, but with her having fits they were unwilling - as the anesthetic could have caused problems for her. It became obvious that she was in pain, but the vets kept saying the pain couldn't be caused by the gland, even though I'd found a solid lump on that side of her throat. After about 2 weeks I finally managed to prove to them that the pain was, in fact, from the gland and they agreed to operate. But first she had to have anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce the swelling so that they could see what they were doing. 1 week later she went in for the op. I phoned at lunchtime to see how she was doing. That had to be the worst phone call of my life. When they'd opened her up to take out the faulty gland, they'd found that she had a tumor. It was the lump I'd found. And it was huge. It had wrapped itself round her trachea and larynx, and the poor mite was being slowly strangled and suffocated by it. I could only make one decision. As much as I love her, she had to be put to sleep. I couldn't keep her alive in such pain, and knowing that she was only going to suffer more and more. Over the next week, while we waited for her remains to be returned to us after cremation - my choice - we found out that her condition was very rare. I'd been angry that the vets hadn't listened to me when I'd told them that the gland was causing her problems, but I came to understand why they thought it was just a burst salivary gland, and accepted that there was nothing we could have done differently. We took her to one of her favourite places and buried her early on the Sunday morning after she came home. I still miss her like crazy, and we both still look for her. The other dogs are now getting used to being without her. We all visited her on Christmas morning. And I cried again. But I'm getting used to it now. Although it seems strange not having her fussing to get into bed! So, as you can imagine, I'd been spending so much time on looking after her that I really had no time for anything else outside of work. And even that was effected throughout her illness. But she's at peace now, and out of pain. Another Christmas has been and gone, just. Paul and I didn't spend so much this year, so we won't be living off turkey for the next month! I got him a few things from Ebay that he's been trying to get hold of for a few months, and he was over the moon. He got me a Black remote control dalek (to go with last year's bling model), and the 24 DVD board game. We've been playing it and enjoying it. The first day took us two attempts to do, and I won - just as well as he was the mole! The second day has been horrendous, and we're stuck! Goodness knows what day three will be like! We spent Christmas day at Paul's mums. It was really nice to go over and spend the day there. His sister and partner were there too. She's expecting, and is due at the end of Feb. She really is blooming. Everyone's really excited. Sometimes it makes me feel like I'm a bad person for not wanting kids, but I'd rather be honest about how I feel than bring an unwanted child into the world. I think everyone's accepted that by now. Anyway, I have some new year's resolutions this year:
posted by Unknown -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- // *END OF NEW ENTRIES* \\ |
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