Sunday 25 November 2007

Turtle Encounter

Took the camera to the Sea Life Centre today and managed a few pics and videos amongst the cleaning and sticking duties.

This one shows just how close the turtles get. They are very inquisitive and just barge you out of the way if they feel like it - and to be honest you don't have much choice given they weigh about 40st. They are very nice about it though - quite gentle creatures.


Monday 1 October 2007

Underwater Window Cleaning

Got a new voluntary job cleaning windows at the Birmingham Seal Life Centre. When I say windows I mean the wet side of the tunnel that people walk through to see the sharks and turtles etc in the main tank.

Andy Moore and myself were asked to become members of the dive team at the centre by Ray Kirton who has been running it for several years. (He is off to Corfu and Ade Marsland is taking over). We turned up a couple of Sundays ago to meet the rest of the team and get stuck in after a briefing and reading how to deal with a shark 'hold bite'. Then signed our lives away through a variety of disclaimers.

Soon in the 21m long and 6m deep tank diving with the sharks (several Grey-Tipped Reef sharks about 1m long but very shy so never really saw them while in the water) and a couple of magnificent turtles aged about 35 and 50 years the oldest weighing in at 40st last time it was checked.

We were advised to wear hoods otherwise the turtles would probably mistake our hair for weed and try to eat it. Unlike the sharks they have no fear of the divers so are likely to bump into you regularly. Such a privilege to be in the water with them.


There are several jobs to be done and I got involved in sticking the 'coral' back onto pegs sticking out of the 'rocks'. The coral was pre-glued with superglue, the glue filled orifice covered with duck tape and the items handed to us by Graham (the curator) who quickly made his way into the tunnel and shone a torch on the spot where the coral had to be fixed. Not always too easy to get hole aligned with peg but managed them all eventually. (Pic is not me!)

Also had to clean the inside of the tunnel. So difficult because it was hard to see where you had cleaned it, there are no hand holds so as soon as you put any pressure on you push yourself away (could do with the 4 week course in Dunoon!). Rosie who was cleaning the dry side gave directions so that no bits were missed.

Andy Moore seemed to enjoy sprucing up the mermaid - he proved to be an excellent scrubber who obviously gets plenty of practice at home!


It beats the **** out of Netherton Resa

I feel very privileged to have this opportunity every month

Monday 26 March 2007

Cannock Chase Walk

As you know Bob, Kathy, Amy, Roger, (memory failure) and myself ran a feeding station/checkpoint for the Cannock Chase Walk a couple of weekends ago. (In case anyone else is reading this, the Chase Walk is organised by the Scouts every year and involved teams of walkers completing a 40 mile walk in under 24 hours around Cannock Chase). We have run checkpoint 12, at the 32 mile mark,for a few years now.
It involves going to the scout stores at 09:00 picking up a mess tent, cooking stuff, tables, chairs, generator, lights, water carriers, water etc. 3 cars driving to Cannock and setting everything up by 11:00. Spending the day checking the teams in, providing drinks, cooking about 250 sausages and onions for the hot dogs, providing encouragement and the occasional first aid, packing up in the dark after the last teams have reached the following checkpoint and leaving site at about 22:00 getting back just in time to unpack and head for the pub.
It is completely voluntary, we do it for fun and to provide a bit of humour, support, food and drink for the brave souls who are doing this walk.

What really annoyed us was that for the last hour or so we entertained a couple of the organisers (a man and wife I think) who sat in the tent doing nothing but feeling important then watched us dismantling everything and carrying it back to our cars while managing to stand there without lifting a finger to help. Very full of self-importance. The woman did comment that there is nothing more difficult than taking a tent down in the dark! I don't think they even said thank-you.

We don't do it for the thanks but it wouldn't hurt. Roger was adamant that he wouldn't do it again. No wonder they have trouble finding people to run the checkpoints.

SEARCH and RESCUE

Bob and myself got involved in a search and rescue mission. After darkness fell Kathy popped into the woods for a pee. Amy received a phone call about 10 mins later from Kathy saying the she had got lost. Bob and I headed off with torches in the direction we thought she had gone and made a pincer movement around a hill waving torches while Bob chatted to Kathy on the phone. She couldn't see the torches so we asked her to shout and headed in the direction of her call. She spotted the torches and we completed a successful rescue. She was greeted by cheers from some of the resting walkers when we returned to the checkpoint.

Tuesday 13 February 2007

Who's coat is that jacket

Something on the radio last night reminded me about my new leather jacket that was given to me by Norman several months ago for services rendered over several years sorting out his computer. It is a very smart jacket and mom reckons I look good in it but for some unknown reason I have never felt entirely at home in it.
Any way a few weeks ago I decided that I really should use the jacket instead of leaving it languishing in the wardrobe. So I put it on and went to work. As soon as I walked into the office a colleague asked me if I had turned gay! I was a little surprised at this so a bit later on I asked another colleague what first came into his mind when leather jacket is mentioned. He also said gay!
Although I am not homophobic (the spelling doesn't look right to me, so probably isn't) I really don't want Joe public to get confused about my sexuality and so put the jacket back into the wardrobe. I mentioned this dilemma to mom and she told me not to be so silly and to wear the jacket with pride.
I hadn't plucked up the courage to wear it again and quite probably won't after someone said on Radio 2 last night that no-one over 40 should wear a leather jacket. So sadly it may never see the light of day again......sorry Norman.

Friday 9 February 2007

The sublime and the ridiculous

Just returned from a very useful visit to Dell in Limerick where we were able to talk to their Global IT strategist about how they are implementing Oracle Grid Computing and gained a lot of useful information that will help us to shape our architecture for this challenging venture.

We also had a tour of the factory where your laptop was screwed together. This is a very impressive setup not the least because they don't hold any stock! They have local suppliers who are given 90 minutes notice of what bits and pieces are required for the machines that will be built in the next batch. At the start of the assembly line a bar code label is produced for every individual machine and the picking list for parts appears on a screen. All the bits are picked , the bar code scanned and checked to ensure it is the correct part for the machine being built before they are put in a tray to be sent up the line for assembly. The machine bar code is scanned again to enable the correct assembly instructions to be sent to the operators screen. It takes just over 3 mins to assemble a laptop (the motherboard is already fitted). Then inspected for damage and correct build before being plugged in to the central computer systems that determine what software needs to be loaded and then loads it (the barcode label is burned into the Bios during assembly to identify the machine.) Then on to a further inspection before being joined up with the correct flat pack of keyboard, manuals etc and boxed up ready for shipping, along a series of conveyors where the barcode is used to determine destination and push it down the conveyor to be loaded on the correct lorry. They turn out 30,000 units every day. This is a very slick, very impressive business that is heading towards a worldwide turnover of 60 billion (dollars I think)

Compare the impressive processes on which Dell manufacturing is built to our companies process for claiming my expenses for this and a previous (cancelled) trip to Amsterdam.

I have to fill in an online form for each and every item of expense and make sure that I have a VAT receipt where appropriate. I had no VAT number for the AerLingus tickets and couldn't see anywhere on their web site that I could obtain one. I phoned customer services and after a tortuous navigation through the maze of options managed to speak to someone. They told me that I would have to contact customer services to ask for a receipt and gave me a number and added that this was a FAX number and that this was the only way to contact them. Fax machines are not easy to find these days and I decided that it would cost more for me to deal with faxes and waiting for responses than the £17 VAT that could be claimed back. I have no doubt that the people who deal with validating expenses claims in India (yes India!) will reject my claim due to a rule infringement and I will have to get the infernal VAT receipt somehow.

I also had a confusing invoice from NIS (the travel management company that we are supposed to deal with) because it looked like they had charged me excessive agency fees. I could not check whether or not they had charged my credit card because some Mafioso felon has managed to get hold of my credit card details and buy train tickets, perfume and skype in Italy to the tune of nearly £500 - so that has been cancelled (another tortuous experience I will save for another day) and I cannot check transactions via the internet. So I phoned NIS and navigated my way through option selections to have a conversation with a helpful lady who said that the amount on the invoice was an error and that she really didn't think I had been charged. If I have been charged I will have to enter another claim......

Having logged all my claims I then had to scout around for an envelope and a label that has to be sellotaped onto it. Then you have to sellotape all of the receipts onto pieces of A4 paper taking care not overlap them. You write on every receipt the claim number and the unique ID that is generated for every expense item.

All you have to do then is photocopy all of the receipts, staple the photocopies to the expense claim form and staple the originals together and put the two bundles into the envelope (oh and you had better keep a photocopy for yourself just in case everything goes missing).

Because of a couple of flight changes and a cancellation there were a number of receipts and in all this expense claim involved 28 pieces of A4 paper and consumed most of a morning in its assembly. Not very efficient or cost effective for an expense claim of under £500 but I don't see how I could have done it any faster.

Thursday 18 January 2007

On the subject of kids

Sven forwarded the following email to me about how kids used to live in the olden days (my era). You may well have seen it before but there's a lot of truth in there.

*************************************************************************************
CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!
First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, our baby cribs were covered with bright colored lead-based paints.

We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking .

As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.

Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle.

We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.
We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank soda pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......

WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.

No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem .

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no text messaging, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........

WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents .
We played with worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them!

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!

The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!
The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!
And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!

*************************************************************************************

It may be American in origin but the same applied here. When I was a nipper you would see hoards of kids outside on Christmas day playing with their new bikes, skates etc. I didn't see anyone this year. I certainly used to spend most of my childhood out of doors - probably annoying the neighbours ringing doorbells and running, setting fire to hedges etc.............

On second thoughts perhaps it's a good thing that kids have loads to do in their own houses where there are only parents and siblings to annoy. Heaven forbid that they were all outside annoying me!

Tuesday 16 January 2007

Hoodys at the Cinema

We went to the cinema on Saturday night to see a Night at the Museum. There were plenty of big names in the film but all seemed to be yesterday stars (Robin Williams, Dick Van Dyke, Micky Rooney - how old is he now?) so I was dubious as to whether it would live up to expectations. We chose our favourite seats at the back of the cinema (for the leg room, not anything else) and settled down to enjoy the film.

Before too long a group of 4 lads strode up the stairs towards us. The one wearing the white hoody was carrying a dustbin sized bucket of popcorn and a bucket of fizzy beverage - I had a feeling of impending doom. The hoody sat just one seat away from me and began fiddling with his refreshments and they all talked loudly though the mini film that was designed to encourage mobile phone switch off and minimum disruption. Talking continued through the main film credits but, miracle, they stopped when the film started.

However the munching of popcorn and sucking of drink continued. I marvelled at how anyone could contemplate getting through so much stuff. About half way through the film the hoody must have started getting bored because he could not stop fiddling with his drink. He blew bubbles in it, sucked noisily to get the dregs out from the remaining ice cubes and most irritating of all he moved the straw in and out of the plasic top making squeaking noises. I developed almost overwhelming desire to pick up the bucket of popcorn and invert it over his head but resisted through fear of getting stabbed!

Just then a little girl started scrunching up her plastic sweetie bag and making noises - no attempt by her parents to stop it. I just hope they had been annoyed by the squeaking straw trick.

Towards the end of the film, hoody started flicking what remained of his popcorn at his mates.

Why oh why do people have to eat a mountain of food in cinemas. Let's get back to the good old days of a B movie, an interval with a small ice cream and then the main feature.

Oh and the film was rubbish as well - which is probably why I was so aware of the noises - and Audrey kept waking me up when I dropped off.