Joke

This is probably an old one - but I hadn't heard it before:

A man in a hot air balloon realized he was lost. He reduced altitude
and spotted a woman below. He descended a bit more and shouted,

"Excuse me,can you help me ? I promised a friend I would meet him an
hour ago but I don't know where I am."

The woman below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon hovering
approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between 40 and 41
degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be in Information Technology," said the balloonist.

"I am," replied the woman, "how did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you told me is technically
correct, but I've no idea what to make of your information and the fact
is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If
anything, you've delayed my trip."

The woman below responded, "You must be in Management."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the woman, "you don't know where you are or where you're
going. You have risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot
air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you
expect people beneath you to solve your problems. The fact is you are in
exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now, somehow, it's
my
f**king fault."

Farmer Ted's

Frodo's off on a school trip today to Farmer Ted's.

My uncle has a farm - and we stayed there a lot when I was younger. I got caught starting up a combine harvester when I was Frodo's age. It looks like the nanny state has set up this sort of place so that farm tomfoolery can now be carried out in relative safety.

DarkDwarf Law no 1.

When in work on your own, and you need to go to the toilet for a number two, a manager will ring your mobile for a progress update a few seconds after you've sat down.

A Bit of Blather whilst waiting for a Backup

In work again for a Saturday night release.
Thought I would blog whilst I'm waiting for some backups to finish.

I'll be in again tomorrow for for a 9 hour stint stopping and starting processes whilst some hardware maintenance is carried out.

Nice little earner, but it means that Novelist Supermum has to mind the hobbits on her own for most of Sunday.

We've got a family wedding to go to in a couple of weeks time - up in Northumberland.
This morning we went shopping, to get some smart new clothes for the boys.

Frodo got a shirt and waistcoat. We couldn't resist buying a Samwise sized pinstripe suit. We're now going to have to get a Sonic Screwdriver to go with it.

Speaking of Frodo - we've booked his Birthday Party for August - he'll be Six on the anniversary of the last eruption of Mount Vesuvius.

This year we've booked a sports hall for a "Fun and Games" party. We'll be inviting about 40 kids from his year at school. Luckily we don't have to organise the party games, since the booking comes with two or three Party staff (the number depends on how many accept the invitation) - who lead the activities.
All we have to do is provide the food and drinks, and dish out the lucky bags and slices of Birthday Cake.

Speaking of Birthday Cake - the diet isn't going too badly. Had a mega-vegetable overload tea last night, with a bit of stewing steak. In fact I probably overdid it with the vegetables (and may have undercooked some of them).

I've probably lost about half a stone - it's a bit difficult to tell since either or bathroom scales don't work very well - or there's variable strength gravitational forces under our bathroom floor.

If anything I'm feeling a little healthier for the detoxification aspect - even though I didn't give up tea and coffee. Hopefully I've also trained myself to be a little less greedy i.e. usually I'd celebrate the end of the week with a Mars Bar or two - but not this time.

Lift Shaft Fire

Driving to work this morning around 10:30 (I'm on the late shift) I saw a large cloud of black smoke billowing out of a building that's under construction for the Paradise Project. The building is just a lift shaft at the moment - a few storeys high.

The car in front of me pulled over, the chap driving jumped out, took a camera with a telephoto lens from his boot and started snapping. Either a well prepared opportunist or a reporter methinks.

Despite the thick black smoke there appeared to be at least 10 construction workers, nonchalently standing on the scaffolding/platform around the lift shaft that was ablaze, watching the progress of the fire.

I was slightly delayed, but from the news on the local radio it sounds like I just beat a temporary road closure when the fire brigade turned up.

One Banana, Two Banana, Three Banana Four

Discovered that today is either semi-skimmed Milk to drink and 8 bananas, or 6 bananas and some tuna.

Went for the tuna option - never has a tin of tuna tasted so good!

Tomorrow is veg and meat (beef, chicken or fish) and potato.
The next day is veg and meat - no potato.
I think that the last day is brown rice and veg.

Not doing too badly. Definitely shedding a few pounds and coping with the diet regime. I reckon that I should make it to the day before the brown rice.

I'm in work doing "ovies" for 6 hours on Saturday night and 9 hours on Sunday, so I reckon that I'll probably crack on Sunday and get a buttie from Subway - since the Company will be paying for it.

Going Banana's by Thursday.

In a bid to be a little less lardy I've embarked on a diet.

"I have been a dieter for three days"...

The driving reason is that there's a family wedding coming up in a couple of weeks - and I'd rather not have to buy a new suit. Although I'm not exactly fat, I'm not as thin as I once was - and my weight is creeping up a bit.

The diet (courtesy of Novelist Supermum) is:

Eat as much as you like (or as can bear) of the following.
Monday - Fruit
Tuesday - Vegetables - with potato
Wednesday - Fruit and Vegetables - no potato
Thursday - Banana's and Milk
Friday - Meat Meat Meat!
Saturday - Brown Rice and Meat - no veg (I think) I can't quite remember if this is right, and what your mean't to have on Sunday (Brown Rice and Veg?) - but by then I'll probably have completely lost the plot by then and will have cheated.

Drinks are water and fruit juice.

I've tried this before and by the end of the week I'd lost a fair bit of weight and felt better for it. Having said that there's no way I could manage a second week, particularly when I got to the Brown Rice days.

So the following week I will switch to the 'cornflake' diet.
i.e. every day.
3 meals a day. One a normal, sensible, meal of whatever you like. The other two meals are replaced by a bowl of breakfast cereal.

My resolution is that once I've reached the weight I want to be, and feel thin enough (or once I give in) then I'll try to be bit less greedy in future.
No more multiple trips to the machine that dispenses Mars Bars at work. (No comments about just sending somebody else for me please!)

Canal Boat Flotilla

There's a flotilla of about 30 or so canal boats heading up the Mersey right now.

The Mersey River festival was on this weekend - so they've come out of the Albert Dock and are heading towards the entrance to the Liverpool-Leeds canal.

They're being escorted by some inshore rescue and RNLI boats.

It's quite a sight. Pity I'm not allowed to take pictures from here (The Assassination Bureau has a ban on the use of photographic equipment on the premises).

Fathers Day

Hot Fuzz on DVD - 2 disc Special Edition.
Good Boys!

Polish Sailing Ship

A Polish Sailing ship Dar Mlodziezy just sailed past the office window.

When I say "sailed", all the sails were rolled up and it was using it's engines to go against the current. Bit of a cheat for what's supposed to be a sailing training ship.

DarkDwarf Blog - 1st Anniversary

I started this blog a year ago today.

Surprised myself by managing to keep on blogging for a whole year. Admittedly the frequency of the posts has dwindled to two or three a week, rather than the enthusiastic daily posting of the early days.


Fairly mundane stuff that will NEVER be as good as this inspired website/blog/business/international social relationship and network enhancing tool by Padge. So why will I carry on blogging?

1) Gives me an opportunity to let off steam and rant at the world.
2) Helps me keep in touch with people. Lets friends and family know what's going on in my life. As well as the few people who regularly read my posts (cha0tic,impworks and Novelist Supermum, where did DrDenzilDexter go?) it's a handy way of composing a reply when I get a "Hi there, long time no hear from you" email - I can point them to a few sections of the blog.
3) It's a break from work.

My first post was about a submarine that I'd spotted going past the office window.

Selected highlights of the year:
The demise of the Goldfish
Frodo reads his first book
Trip to Rome
A week in Wales
Various DIY triumphs and disasters. (Incredibly somebody followed instructions from my blog for their own household wiring!)
Typical Morning
DarkDwarf DBA

To quote Rik Mayall "That's the wacky sort of person I am..."
Ah well, anything for a sad life..

And to all of you lurkers out there (you know who you are) - "POST SOME COMMENTS!".

Let's see if I can keep this up for another year...

Another Place

It was a brilliant sunny day on Saturday, so we took the kids to Crosby Beach for some fun in the sand and sea. Also this gave us the chance to see Antony Gormley's Another Place.

Standing on the beach amongst 100 iron mannequins made it very difficult to tell just how many other people were on the beach with us.

Samwise correctly spotted that the iron men weren't wearing any clothes. Well they do go for a dip in the sea every high tide.

Took a few photo's, including a couple showing how much entertainment can be derived from 1 sculpture and a sun hat.

Knackered

A week of doing the early shift at work, half a bottle of wine and I can hardly keep my eyes open (yawn)...

"Time for bed" said Zebedee.

Free and Open Source Software for Windows

Here's a little link that I came across to some free and opensource software for Windows