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Today i have the day off from work. I know i only work 2 days a week, but it is very rare for me to have a Saturday off. I took it as holiday as, on Tuesday, it was my Mothers 50th birthday. Today is her party for her and her friends from work and the village etc. What's organised is a banquet at a Thai food restaurant. It should be pretty good. I helped too, kinda. As they wanted to have a champagne toast, i obviously insisted i chose the champagne. To be honest i cant say i have the opportunity to drink much champagne so i have little advantage over my Father choosing, except i know what's the best quality for the target price, and i know the differences in the mixes of grapes and the various differences between brut, demi-sec, doux, etc. It's been mentioned that i now have to bring my camera along this evening. My sister has a better camera, and did a degree in photography/media, but didn't bring her camera along. I'm not a big fan of having to take photos of people, and at these functions i prefer to keep relatively discreet. However, i had best do as I've been asked. I have put in my accommodation application to Nottingham University for when i go in September. I should find out where i'm going from April onwards. I put down 3 choices. The main halls on campus at Nottingham are pretty old school. The majority of them are 6 bedrooms sharing 2 showers, 2 bathrooms and a laundry room. They're either catered or have a kitchen to share as well. Most are catered. I'm (technically) a mature student, and i was kinda worried at the prospect of being stuck in a halls of residence with a bunch of 18 year olds who have never moved out before, drinking themselves into oblivion and generally being annoying, so my top 2 choices are self catered halls for both undergrads and postgrads. The rooms are more self contained with most of them being en-suite bathrooms. The drawback is that all of these residences are off campus. What's somewhat more inconvenient is that they are incredibly far away from the engineering block on campus too, so in one case I've got to walk the full length of the campus from halls to the block, which is a long way and over a lovely steep hill. Another case is i'll be actually based at a campus which is described as a 35 minute walk or a 15 minute bike ride to the edge of my campus. Luckily that brings me to the edge closest to the engineering buildings. One thing is now for sure, i will be getting plenty of exercise. There are shuttle buses to take also, and most of them are free so i cannot complain. We ran out of tea the other day. After 2 days of no tea, i think we all got sick of having nothing but coffee, and new teabags were bought. I must say that these are lovely. So lovely that i actually managed to complete one of my 101 tasks (#92). I've just started doing another one of my 101 tasks too, which is to take a photograph a day of myself for 60 consecutive days. I know many people do the same but for a longer duration of time, but i purposely made all my tasks achievable, i just had to put in the minimal amount of effort, which is often what i lack. I've made a new photo set on my flickr to upload them all to. So far there are only 2 photos, but i hope to upload daily. Trigonometry, Linear Motion, Curriculum Vitae and Capacitance assignments to do before Wednesday. I best get busy. Ciao Tags: college, exercise, food, photography, uni, update, wine, work
Current Location: Leicester, uk, home.
Current Mood:  content
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Starting with the forecast, it will be getting gradually wetter until midweek, however, towards the end of the week it will start clearing up substantially. Day time temperatures will be cooler than last week and will struggle to get much higher than 10'c. Night time temperatures will start to get cooler as the week goes on due to the cloud cover going. By midweek we might even see some frost in rural areas.
I told you that one of my back-up professions was a meteorologist. Weather report was for Leicester, so if you're across the world, i'd not listen to me.
Well, do start listening now. The things I've been doing this week:
Most of this week I've been stupidly busy, which is why i haven't updated much at all. I've been pretty active on twitter, babbling on about what wine I'm drinking and trying to destroy my house by resonating the supports with a sine wave generator.
You know, the usual stuff.
I made pancakes on Tuesday. In fact, i have a photo of it.
( Or three )Other than this, I had been frantically writing about classical mechanics, in particular Simple Harmonic Motion (note the attempted destruction of my house with a sine wave generator). Well i completed it. It's currently being marked. I'm not that happy with it, but I was not in a position to make it much better without locking myself in a library for a week with nothing but a steady supply of caffeine and pancakes to keep me going. I skipped college on the Wednesday because i had been up all night writing about it, and after i woke up after an hour and a half sleep, I decided it was probably best for me to avoid driving to college. This is for other motorists' sake as well as my own. Thursday i did go in, and had great feedback on my participation at the Student Liaison Team meeting on Monday. This was nice to hear, but to be honest only 5 other reps bothered to turn up (out of about 30). I did prepare for the meeting though so I can take that much credit. Friday i relaxed and slept. I had been somewhat sleep deprived all week, and what sleep i did have was at awful times like 04:40. Saturday was just another work day. Sunday i had a list of things to do at work, and i only got half of it done. One of the things to do was to merch a bunch of wine stacks by the chillers, and the other was to work through 2 rows of backstock. I came in and got handed a merchandising brochure for Mothers day. I had a mod of wine to merch, so i quickly grabbed the 20 or so lines and did that before taking a tea break. i only got half a row of backstock done as i got nabbed again to train someone using the back-office system. So, here's the forecast bit! (that thing at the start was just to throw you). Monday and Tuesday I will be spending mostly drawing triangles and writing about Linear motion. I have 2 assignments to do, and i had best do them! On Wednesday(actually the following Wednesday. bloody February with it's short days.) i have my usual college stuff to do, but i'm going to a guest lecture at Leicester University's Science department. It's all about power generation, and particularly the economics of it. It is supposed to talk a lot about coal, as the lecture is titled "King Coal: Time for restoration of the mucky monarch?". Very relevant to what I'm interested in. More info can be found here.
Back on track, Thursday is more college and Friday i have free to either do work or play or relax. Most likely the last one. Ciao Tags: college, food, pictures, update
Current Location: Leicester, UK, Home
Current Mood: Spaced
Current Music: High Contrast - Music Is Everything
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It's Monday, and that means that i must procrastinate before doing some work.
I started watching ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) ofmornings a few days ago. It's just a comm where people post pictures of what they had for breakfast. It's a great source of inspiration as i often find myself in the morning thinking, bleh what can i have to eat? The photos posted are quite cool too. It makes you hungry though.
As most of you probably have seen, mission101_2009 is also featured on the spotlight. I'm tempted to do it, but i doubt i could populate a good 101 list in less than 3 days, let alone one that would keep relevant for nearly 3 years. I may still give it a go though!
My Christmas was sedate (as i mentioned last post). I hadnt asked for much of anything material wise. So in due course, i got a cd (Anjunabeats Volume six), a book (Elephants on acid and other bizarre experiments) and a £20 note. My parents have agreed to help fund a travelling expedition for me next year, once i figure out where i want to go and if i can afford it. I'd like to meet a few of my friends in other countries.
Keeping on the holiday note, i have about 5 days of holiday to take before the end of March at work. Considering that i only work 2 days a week currently, that is about 3 weeks off work. I may just take most of January off work? i don't see the weather getting substantially better in February or March, so i don't think I'll be missing out on much.
What am i intending to do for new years? fuck all. I cant be arsed with much at the moment for some reason. Motivation is pretty dire, and my mood is hardly in party-mode. Tags: food, music, new year, travel, update, work
Current Location: Leicester, UK, Home
Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Bad Loop - ystaevae
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So i write this by candle light in Casciana. The flight i got from east midlands airport this morning was very smooth. I landed in Pisa, got off the plane promptly, and was reunited with my bags in possibly the fastest time i've ever experienced at an airport. I was on my mobile phone on msn for most of the time once i had landed no problem. We collected the car and drove out to Casciana, no problem getting here, and because i was being a geek and was watching us drive on google maps, i managed to prevent my Father from taking a wrong turn. hoorah! We were considering going to go to the supermarket before we got to the house to save time, but decided against it after we realised that the car was pretty full already with suitcases. Upon arriving at the house we turned on the gas, but the electricity wouldnt turn on. Curiously, it wasnt turning on at the consumer unit switch outside, and kept tripping out. Very strange! luckily the former owner of the house literally lives behind this house, and speaks good english. He came down to give some assistance, but couldnt get it to work either. After ringing the energy company, we discovered that they didn't change over the names on the electric account, even though my parents had sorted it. Instead they just deleted the last people off the list, and thus, cancelled account. NO ELECTRICITY! This was a slight problem as it was dark, and there was no real light source other than a wind up torch that my Mother was clever enough to buy from Tesco and bring it here in the summer for situations like this. My phone has a bright flash LED which i used as a light for a while, but as we wont have any electricity until Monday at the earliest, i stopped doing that as i may wish to check my phone now and again.. not that i can get a solid 3ITA signal around here. So with no power, that means no hot water or heating, as the starter switch and the thermostat for the boiler are both electronic. The gas does work though so we can have lots of cups of tea! We were about to go out to get some food, and were in the car. The car had been a bit strange since we picked it up, but we (foolishly) ignored it. It was making a kinda clunking sound when in low revs, which made me think the exhaust was a bit loose and it was resonating when the revs were low. Anyway, reversing out of the parking was a bit hard to do. It required high revs and was very sluggish feeling, and i wasnt even driving the thing! we moved forwards 10yards and an alert flashed up on the screen saying, WARNING EXCESS ENGINE TEMPERATURE, which is madness as it had only just been started. Going forwards another 10yards the alarm kept flashing again, so i said stop and i'll check it out. I walked around the car, all the tires were intact, there was no visible damage to the undercarriage and nothing hanging down. No radiator fluid was leaking either, but in the headlights i could see steam or smoke, and it smelt bad so i called it quits then and said turn off the engine and lets call up the hire company. Unfortunately, we had stopped literally slap bang in the middle of the road which is a steep wall one side and a steep drop the other, so we had to move the car to the side of the road as luckily this was on a wide bend. My mum steered, My Dad and I pushed, up hill. Thank sod we didn't have to push it far, about 3 metres. My dad called Avis, who had reps who could speak english, and the car will get picked up tomorrow, but he has to go back to Pisa to collect another car. He will also get €50 refund for today for being given a car which was not satisfactory. That's good, it may just about cover the train fare from piazza al serchio back to pisa!  We werent miserable though, considering everything. My mum got inventive and made some sort of tangy tuna pasta with the tinned tuna and some olive oil, pasta and some other bits and bobs left around in the house. I made a rudimentary candle holder for the only candles we had were tiny narrow lighting candles, which are really intended for lighting other candles than being left lit themselves. We ate, we contemplating opening a bottle of wine, but decided against it. Well, they decided against it. I personally am rather in the mood for getting absolutely hammered so i dont notice it getting cold tonight, but we cant have everything.  Tomorrow, i expect after the car has been collected, and my Dad has either gotten the train or is getting a taxi to pisa, my mother and I shall wonder down to piazza al serchio and find a nice coffee shop/bar it sit and be lazy in. Failing that, i have about 6 assignements which i could start doing for college, however many of these require use of my laptop, which currently only has 7 and a half hours battery life left. I'm writing this on the saturday night, but i probably wont be able to send it until tomorrow. I'm have a good time, all things considered, and i've only just got here! Tags: car, europe, food, geek, italy, mobile, travel, wine
Current Location: Casciana, LU, Italy
Current Mood: good
Current Music: Luna-C- Crash
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I'm ill. It's a weird illness. I've got sinus's that feel like they're sand bags, i have a snuffly nose, and an intermittent sore throat/cough. I feel like I'm deaf in one ear. Furthermore whenever i sit down i have the strange sensation of vomiting everywhere. Luckily this symptom has yet to come to surface fully (pardon the pun).
What's really weird about this is that my energy levels are the utter opposite of what they should be. I should want to crawl into bed and sleep this off... BUT NO! I'm absolutely brimming with energy. I feel like crap, and i have a FUCKLOAD of energy. I fancy dancing around etc, potentially in the nude depending on the audience.
At work, a few other guys have this strange cold, including my manager and a few of my colleagues. My manager got tired of everyone wondering around looking gaunt faced (breathing through their mouths cos they cant through their nose) and went and bought some super max strength flu tablets.
He walks into the warehouse where 3 of us were and heard me groaning, and shouts...
"Who's for drugs then! Anyone fancy some drugs?! Get yer drugs here!"
Kabba, Adam, Ravi, Myself and my manager grab a tab each and go grab water out of the canteen.
It was funnier if you were there cos my manager is cockney so 80% How do you quantify that? of what he says is hilarious.
So as you may have taken note, I'm doing overtime this week, Monday and Tuesday 1600-2200. Its easy work, basically prepping for promo change for grocery. After 20:00 it's dead on the shop floor so it's all a good laugh.
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I went to Wagamama for lunch. My Mother bless her offered to take me seeing as i asked if she was going into town so that i could pay for storage and enquire about reducing the size of storage i have wehey logic(!) I had some sort of beef steak noodle thing which was tasty. It was the first time i had seen the Highcross centre since it had been finished. The Highcross is a shopping quarter extended and including an old mall in the centre of Leicester. It looks pretty good actually, i couldn't believe i was in Leicester for a while cos it was so... new? Walking back to the car along High Street was strange too. They pedestrianised the street during redevelopment of the city centre. I have vivid memories of walking along it to catch the bus to work at 4am. Where there was speed tables and bus stops, were trees, bins, benches. I found it almost disorientating.
I am posting this blog hopefully before my LoudTwitter kicks in with its post. I tweeted a lot today, about not very much to be fair. Lots of pictures, and a few videos. The videos i wouldn't have tweeted about but it does it automatically.
The pictures i took in Leics:
  
Another post to come when more content is available i guess! Tags: food, overtime, sick, work
Current Location: Leicester, UK, Home
Current Mood:  sick
Current Music: DJ Moo - V Mix-Dark Times (D I G I T A L L Y - I M P O R T E D - Vocal Trance - a fusion of trance,
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So, i've had a whipped cream charger for like, 8 months. I've never used it for making whipped cream though. I thought today would be a good day to try. My Dad came home and i offered to make him a cappuccino, and i said i'd make it a bit special (with the whipped cream). I had bought some double cream earlier with this in mind. Foolish for me though. Double cream, as i found out, is generally too thick for use in this charger. So i make this lovely cappuccino. Actually scratch that, the cappuccino was a bit crap actually. I added frothed milk etc and had prepped the charger. I put the only adapter i had for it (which is probably wrong too). Squeezed the trigger, cream came out... like a fucking depth charge, utterly sank to the bottom. It was the consistency of clotted cream. This was a learning experience. As i realised this was not going to work i had to discharge the rest of the gas, as if i unscrewed the lid off now, it would of been a rather creamy explosion. Mmmm. I fired the rest of the stuff into the sink. It filled the sink about 4 inches deep with this super thick whipped cream, which would not wash down! Then my Mum came home from work, and was like, eh? what's that? So i said i bought the whipped cream charger because i heard proper whipped cream is better than the pre canned stuff (which it is, when it works properly). bleh i cleaned it all up, and continued to make cappuccinos for my dad, mum and me. They were awesome, but lacked whipped cream. Frothed milk did the job though. Lesson learned. Tags: !, food
Current Location: Leicester, UK, Home
Current Mood: amused
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This weekend has been work orientated, and wine weighted.
This is a pretty obvious statement as my job is stocking wine.
Saturday, 09:40, alarm goes off. I turn it off and foolishly decide to relax in bed for a little while.
Saturday 11:10, I wake up and look at the clock. Congratulations, you should of been at work 10 minutes ago. I ring duty manager on phone and say i'll be there in 20 minutes, which i was.
Unfortunately i couldnt make a subtle entrance as i come in and realise the night fill team did not fill any stock, the store manager panicked and sent most of senior team management to fill it. I immediately get questioned as to my lateness, i say i overslept, they accept.
As my workforce has suddenly increased from just myself, to 6 people, i spot 15 cages worth of stock, which fills the aisles soon enough. Unfortunately i still have a shitload of stock and the warehouse is a tip because of this. I spend 5 hours moving cases of wine around in the back, resulting in me singing a song to myself to soothe the boredom. I leave at 20:30, and the warehouse looks amazing, the shopfloor looks good.
Sunday i wake up and was about to set off to work early so that i could have breakfast there. I usually have 3 hash brown and 3 rashers of bacon in a tiger baguette. Added with brown sauce, it's gorgeous. I come downstairs to find freshly made waffles, strawberries, pineapple, yogurt, and fresh coffee. This will do nicely, so i stayed and had that instead. YUM.
Work was better today due to me making things much tidier the day before. I worked through the Champagne cage, and got rid of a lot of stock. I then got a call from the Merchandising manager if i could help them merch for the wine festival, as we get a loaaaaaaaaaaad of stock and an extra aisle to play with. I need money, so i do.
I finally leave at 22:00. an 11 hour shift, havent done one of those for a while.
Next week i buy wine. 25% off any selection of wine so long as you buy 6 bottles or more. It also applies to things that are already reduced in price, and staff discount too! Tags: food, wine, work
Current Location: Leicester, UK, Home
Current Mood:  sore
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