Three Fingered Salute

Little Miss slept through for the first time in a week. LSW has finished her Diploma and everything seems ok. This is normally when something bad happens, not that I’m being cynical or pessimistic about life. There’s just the following bugging me at the moment.

The replacement bath is in the shed but the fitting company can’t give us a date when they can do. I can’t get through to the insurance company and the books I bought from Amazon. I will have to drive Twenty Miles just to pick the buggers up. They should have arrived three days ago when LSW was out.

Work is getting impossible. First they take away visio professional because management don’t have the licences. Now they’ve take Visio 2000 off my machine because they don’t have the licences. Now they’re even threatening to take away Visual Interdev 6.0 because there’s a question about Licences. What am I supposed to write with a Quill and Parchment! I know, how about a bone and some Animal Blood?

Those jobs on the board look nice, flipping burgers at McMurgerBurger looks nice at the moment. I do feel this carrot of .net development is being dangled in front of me too much so perhaps I should just jump anyway instead of hanging on. I’ve got to get some extra cash coming in and I guess that’s why the N-Gage is being sold and I’m looking fro projects to bid for on Rent A Coder

Little Miss is still waking during the night. It was only once last night but it took LSW and me over an hour till we dropped off because we were waiting for the next big cry. We’re both shattered and can’t really focus on work, websites or the game.

Crusty wrote in some hidden functionality that we didn’t know about but the customer has been using. Lo and behold when we’ve put in new suff elsewhere, this unknown function doesn’t work anymore and the customer is beginning to kick up a stink. It’s been Crusty’s stock rely of “you looked at it last so you must know more about it than me” really had my fists itching.

On top of that, Quiet man and myself have been overwriting one another’s code. Doh. I’ll have a long day of untangling tomorrow.

Little Miss was on top form. During the day it was “cute factor 4 captain”. Funny noises, waving at people and generally being the most fantastic little girl on the planet. Even laughing when we tried to run over pigeons with the push chair.

The downside is at night at the moment. We don’t know if it’s the teeth or whether she’s unconformable in the cot but she wakes at 9:30 and 11:30 on the dot. Saturday night I ended up sleeping downstairs as she wouldn’t settle in her cot. Still, myself and Little Miss had a day to ourselves as LSW was working on her diploma.

LSW is stressed; she’s trying to balance the diploma, Little Miss, her job and the house. I am helping out with Little Miss and the house but until that diploma is out of the way, she’s going to be wound up tighter that Zebbadee’s spring if he ever saw Florence naked.

On other notes, “Scotty” has died. As a Scotman myself, there was always a love/hate relationship between me and the Star Trek character. On the up side is was good to see one of us being included in one of the most influential TV programs of the Twentieth Century. However, the amount of “Och Captain!” and “She’s gonna blow, Captain” comments you used to get from, normally, non- scots were unbelievable.

Once in a big meeting with some really high bigwigs from client two asked me why there were problems with the server. The server in question was very underpowered for what they wanted it to do so I replied that “The server just cannae tak’ it!” without realising it. There was a lot of laughter over the conference call until they realised that I really do speak that way. So then they laughed even louder. Gits!

LSW decided to make a cake last night for the nursery. The supermarket didn’t have all the ingredients and we didn’t have all the cooking utensils needed, so I was running around Manchester like a blue arsed fly getting all of those things.

There goes Little Miss Screaming at the top of her voice between 1.30 and 2.30 am. Oh Lord, we are so tired.

Work has announced that the Indian Sub-contractors are now going to be used within our department. Worrying development to be honest because people were made redundant from the other departments but the contractors were kept on. I am going to wait till I’ve got a little more .net under my belt, then … (well how many times have I said that!)

I have signed up for Rent a coder. Hopefully I’ll take some small jobs and get a little extra cash to pay off debts and so on. I’ll be looking into that more over the weekend.

Tickety Boo at the moment. Little Miss, although prone to the odd temper tantrum, has now slept properly for three nights in a row. LSW and I are now catching up with sleep and everything else really. The house is still a tip, which winds LSW up, but at least we’re getting time to ourselves. Now we’re just waiting for the next big bad thing to happen.

I spent a lot of last night fixing the Fil’s Website. Apparently the server which held the website died over the last few weeks and he’s been offline. I’ve got it up and working again but now I’m having problems with the Mobile’s Game Site.

Thankfully Little Miss was on top form and apart from a little cry at 8:30, slept all the way through to 7:00. However, LSW was kept up be my typing and muttering so for tonight I’ll be going to bed early and seeing if I can drop off to sleep.

I’m getting through the tasks at work at an alarming rate but I am still booked up until Christmas at work but there seems to be another crisis with client four. Scooter and TMCM have both been called away for a big meeting, which sounds ominous.
I’ve been slowly getting my head around C# and ADO.NET but it’s hard to do part time and now they’ve threatened to take away my Visual Studio 6 because someone screwed up somewhere with the Licences. Now I’m not developing in notepad and that’s final.

We had a full nights sleep. LSW has got a day to herself, I got a lot of work done on various items last night and Little Miss was in a fantastic mood this morning. I’m still catching up though, even though things between LSW and myself have sorted themselves out quite well recently.

I’ve got some interesting work to do so I’m throwing myself into it and ignoring the usual goings on. It’s amazing what a pair of stereo headphones will do on full blast. We will have a replacement for Kackman in about a month but I do have a feeling that he’s going to be my replacement when they get the opportunity.

As far as the Jury service is concerned, I’m going to have write a letter tonight to ask for a deferral. It turns out that work will keep me on full pay when I’m doing it so that’s not a problem.

Just when we though things were getting better again we’re dragged back down again. I managed to get a lot of the stuff out of the way over the weekend and managed to sort a lot of problems out with the Insurance Company. It looks like we’ll be getting the bath within ten days and hopefully the car key money will come through.

Unfortunately, Little Miss has a big molar tooth coming through. She’s unsettled, grumpy and tired. This means that, yet again, I had to sleep down stairs for most of the weekend.

Thankfully, the in-laws were up on Sunday and we all headed down a working farm. Little Miss was fascinated. She patted goats, slapped a cow on the nose and grunted at a pig. The pig took one look at her and then ignored her, which set her off trying to get the pigs attention. The louder she grunted, the more the pig ignored her so she’d try louder. Even when we carried her away she was grunting away.

Then the kicker, The Boiler seems to be on the blink. I’m going to spend the rest of the day trying to get it to fire so that we can actually have a bath. Then I get a summary for Jury Service. I’m going to have to ask to be deferred because the date clashes with a booked foreign holiday.

Due to the Antics of Little Miss, Both myself and LSW are too tired to even talk to each other. Hopefully, she’ll have a relaxing day tomorrow because Little Miss will be in nursery and she’s got a day off.

Apart from one small ten minute window, Little Miss had a really good night. Thankfully as did I. Now it looks as if the heat-wave is going to be over, so hopefully we’ll be back to normal (!) sleep though. LSW had a nice night out and I think it did her good just to be herself and not a mum. Hopefully we’ll have a relaxed weekend.

Little Miss cannot handle the heat. It took two hours last night for her to sleep. The problem was that she woke at four and then ended up sleeping in our bed (again!). The main problem is that LSW is going out tonight and she’s worried that I won’t be able to cope if Little Miss starts playing up.

I guess what I’ll have to do is accept that I’m going to spending most of the night doing nothing else but rocking Little Miss to sleep. To be honest, it might be better to leave everything else and have a kind of night off from worrying about work, the game and so on.

I’m wishing myself luck.

With the temperature as high as it is, getting her to sleep is a challenge. In fact I woke her up at one point because I couldn’t see her breathing (not on purpose) but she drank so much water that I think it was a mixed blessing.

LSW and I are still tidying up after the party. Little Miss has so many new things to play with you’d think a Toys ‘r Us lorry crashed into the house.

Work is being odd. I’ve just finished a load of work for client one and then client two starts jumping up and down about code which was written over a month ago. There’s only me and I’m getting grief about it. It’s still got to go through testing so if you could please redirect your ire at the testing department instead of the only person you know your number with. We’re supposed to get a new person soon but I’m not holding my breath.

LSW is getting bad news about her diploma. It looks like she’s going to fail it. Before Little Miss came along, she would have moved mountains to get it done properly but now she finds it difficult partly because Little Miss makes it

Welcome to your second year little girl. This year expect walking, more teeth and the beginning of the end of the tyranny of nappies. Hopefully for us it means more sleep, which is the priority at the moment.

Her Birthday party yesterday went very well, she got to splash in her new play pool, she loves her Winney the Pooh cart and old Mcdonald’s farm (from the grand-parents). She’s yet to discover the playhouse that myself and LSW have got her but if she gets too much stuff she’ll be overwhelmed.

LSW is exhausted, even with all the grandparents help, we didn’t managed to get everything done. My father and I trapped all around to get a butane canister to discover that the canister didn’t fit the BBQ. Gutting was not the word. Apart from that hiccup everything went well.

Hopefully, she’ll ease off now and begin to relax until she can think up the next big project she wants to do.

After what happened to people to London today, any of my usual amount of whinging comes into perspective. Thankfully I don’t know anybody who was affected directly but you do feel that it was an attack on your way of life. It’s a pity because at this time of year the usual London greyness has gone and you can see how beautiful the city can be.

It’s funny really, the website which claims responsibility claimed London and the UK was in panic and in fear. It didn’t seem that way to us. Typical Dunkirk Spirit really.

My deepest sympathy to anybody effected.

Little Miss has had a terrible week. Looks like she went down with a virus for the last week. It wasn’t chicken pox as the nursery thought but a throat infection. We even had to rush her to A&E on Sunday night due to the high temperature and a rash that wouldn’t fade under glass. Calpol, keep her fluids up and wait for her to kick it, was the reply.

The upshot is the last week has basically been hell. Both LSW and I have been very supportive instead of snarly and snappish which has made it bearable. Even though, LSW is shattered and taking time off work because she physically exhausted. I’m getting slightly more sleep but I’m still feeling it.

It’s coming up to Little Miss’ Birthday and LSW was in full swing about organising a birthday party. Still with all the grand-parents turning up we should have as much help as we need.

Work gave me a less than inflation pay rise, so I guess I’m now officially on the market. (How Many times have I said that !) I’ll wait until after the next month or so and see what is about. There’s just too much going on otherwise.

The game is almost there but every time I’m ready to release a beta something comes up. Must admit though, the new blogger templates are so much better now.