man i’m tired. standing in for my team leader this week, and on-call, it’s just all very tiring.
so i’m very tired.
Category Archives: Life
Loan & Moan
So I wrote to customer services, but they didn’t really get it, and told me to talk to the store, and I talked to the store and they don’t really get it. None of them understand that the card they’re advertising never had 256mb of memory, it’s not that we got a card different to the one they’re advertising, it’s that the one they’re advertising doesn’t have what they think it does.
The GeForce 6200 TurboCache PCI-Express cards do not have the memory on-board used in the card ‘name’. They just don’t. So I ordered two replacement cards while I try and educate the retailer. Of course, since it’s such a small market, I ordered GeForce cards even though I think this whole problem is GeForce’s at the root.
But on better news.
Only THREE more loan payments before it’s gone.
That’s going to have been 84 loan payments in total, and it’s nearly over. Finally. It’ll be roughly equivalent to getting a 8-10% pay increase after tax.
I’m pleased we managed to avoid adding the loan onto the mortgage when they offered us the option, I’m glad we’ve managed to hold on and not extend the loan any more, and that we’ve finally gotten to a stage where we can clear that debt.
Credit card balance is the next target … and once that’s gone, the overdraught. Getting there slowly.
off-call!
another week of being on-call over with, it always amazes me how much relief i feel even if i never felt like i was under much additional stress/pressure at the start.
roll on the weekend!
Festive Period
It’s our own fault, we live in the middle of the country and our folks live in the north-east (mine) and on the south-coast (hers). So Christmas is often a time spent in the car – staring at other cars full of people staring at other cars. I can’t drive which means poor Grete gets it in the neck and has to do all that herself (donations of driving lessons welcome). Car survived, which is always a full-on bonus. Drive up north was clear, leaving was difficult with about 90 minutes of driving snow and some serious freezing fog. South wasn’t bad, although was very cold in the morning and lots of fog, and then coming back from there it was wet and windy. We got the whole gamut of British Winter Weather (you know, hailing one moment and then clear skies and bright sunshine the next). It was nice to see the family, we haven’t seen most of them for a couple of years through a combination of health, cost and time.
Generally it’s been a good Christmas, certainly more relaxing than previous years and we didn’t get sick just before cooking Christmas dinner and throwing it all away this time, which always helps. We did cook too much food and throw most of it away anyway but that’s not the point.
Hmm, I started this an hour ago, got sidetracked and now I can’t remember what I was going to write, and it’s 3am. So, I’ll go to bed, glad you enjoyed your visit 🙂
And …
And I can’t believe it’s flippin’ December already!
Our Cat and My Thumb
We have a cat, Bubbles, she’s cute. Here she is hiding her face from the camera. She likes to lie on her back and look cute, and attack your hand as you go to stroke her stomach. It’s cute. But, she moans when she can’t go out, a lot, and then she whinges about having to use the litter tray instead of being outside. Anyway, as the nights draw in, and get cooler, we stop her being out so long in the evenings, and hence, her whining level goes up.
Anyone who has cats know that the cute ones look cute, but are just as deadly as the ones that look deadly. We all know that Cat bathing is a martial art. It should be obvious that you should never attempt to engage your cat in any kind of activity in which it’s not fully happy with. But, Bubbles has this ability to pick the right moment to wind you up – she’s like a combination between a stroppy teenager and a 2 year old.
And so revenge is often sweet, while she’s sleeping, I tickle her paws for example. Always funny. Anyway, so there she was, lying on her back as she does, next to my computer chair. All four paws in the air, eyes closed, relaxed. Hah, here’s my chance for some light revenge, I’ll just grab a paw gently and she’ll meow and then do that reflexive back-paw-scrabbling thing she does.
Only, well, she was obviously asleep.
And I always underestimate how sharp her claws are.
And how fast her reactions are.
And how surprised she’d be.
The cut is about 3mm deep, and about 3cm long, on the underside of my thumb. It’s painful, and there was a decent amount of blood.
Oh well, it was worth it for the surprised look on Bubble’s face!
Day 2 of the rest of my Life
Ok, so I’m a bit melodramatic in my title sections 😉 Day 2 back at work, and it’s a Friday so the weekend to look forward to. Friday’s are always tougher, because one of the team doesn’t work Friday’s, and quite a few times at the moment, one other team member seems to be on holiday a lot. Today, I’m the only technical resource in the office, along with my team leader. One member in India, one working from home, one on holiday and one who doesn’t work Friday’s.
Had a bit of anxiety at work, and a little bit last night while trying to get to sleep, but nothing as bad as it was before I was off-sick. Got some of the symptoms now as well, but at least I know they aren’t caused by something physical which is killing me, which helps me manage them a hell of a lot better.
Trying to maintain a more relaxed approach to being at work, not worrying so much about the detail, the company doesn’t seem to want me to, so I’ll try not to. Just have to try and move that philosophy into my normal out of work life as well – don’t sweat the small stuff as they say.
Is that good though? Isn’t it the small stuff that differentiates us and makes us who we are? Two people do X, but one of them pays more attention to the fine detail, people are going to say ‘wow, person A did a fine job’ instead of ‘well, person B did just what was needed’. Does it matter? I guess it depends on the job, the small stuff, and how much paying attention we’re talking about. Sweat the small stuff but don’t fret if you can’t sweat it this time. Perhaps.
Back to Work
Back to work this morning after 14 days signed off. I wanted to come back – I can only imagine that suffering anxiety means the longer you stay off work the harder it is to get back to it, so I wanted to come back and deal with the issues directly. Usual back to work after a break stuff to do, cup of tea, catch up with people, read a thousand e-mails.
Grete’s taken up guitar lessons and singing lessons, which she’s really enjoying, and I know she’ll be good at. You can all come around and listen to us murdering Mull of Kintyre at some point. I’ll buy the cider with toe nail clippings for the full effect.
EverQuest is still fun – I’m going to say this even though most of you will have no clue what it means. My warrior character and the character’s of 5 friends succeeded in Tipt last night and we’re now KT flagged. It’s a huge achievement for us, and a weird feeling considering my wizard character has been flagged for ages (thanks to a raiding guild he was in) and has raided in those zones. But achieving it with friends is even more sweet.
Whether or not we’ll be able to repeat that Tipt run to get whole bunches of guild members flagged is another question. Takes about 2 hours to complete, needs a solid core of 3 or 4 players (tank, cleric, puller, cc) and 2 good dps classes to make it through, one of those classes needs to be a good backup healer, secondary rez is very useful, and good buffers essential because deaths are likely. That makes it hard to get 6 new people flagged every time.
Life!
So I suck at blogging 😉 What can I say. Work sucks, garden is a mess, house is rotting around us, car is falling apart, I don’t get enough sleep, I don’t get enough exercise, and I eat too much.
Yay life.
It was the darkest of times ….
Getting to the end of the week, and several more people have been told they need to find alternative employment, as the company moves into a phase of ‘involuntary separation’. Mood on-site is pretty bad as friends find out they’re no longer required. Not much else to add.