| Ah, this still exists doesn't it |
[Mar. 18th, 2009|01:20 pm] |
Right, given how I haven't posted in a while, I suppose I best do so.
Short form:
Have moved form leaky flat to cotswold stone cottage. Much win, but significantly colder.
Have done CBT and bought 125cc cruiser style motorbike to learn on. It's good. Gear changing while going are very much easier than all the pissing around in 1st they get you doing on the CBT. Sadly I still fail at hill starts. Also hitting the horn rather than turning off the indicator is an occasional problem.
Work is much quieter at the mo, so have weekends free. This, along with being almost mobile now, has led me to seriously consider the reserve forces again (most likely TA, as they're the local ones).
I still have excellently random friends. |
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| Rich in refridgeration, poor in armenian interpretive dance |
[Nov. 13th, 2008|03:12 pm] |
Huzzah, Gary has remembered it's considered polite to post, rather thasn simply read, so now he shall do so!
Just moved from grooty crappy Flat to shiny cottage of 2 bedrooms. Much money spent, including on shiny new fridge/freezer to enable stock piling of meat products. All hail the marvel of extreme refridgeration.
Few small issues with house (not least of which my bed doesn't fit up the stairs to main bedroom, so impressie beamed room is now guest bedroom/giant floor space for drunkards/area for use of rowing machine), but generally fantastic. Will have to get some real internet in and post some piccies.
In just as excellent news, it's 10 mins walk from work (or a 2 minute cycle :-) ).
So, if anyone feels like visiting, give us a shout, for now people can be accomidated :-) Note, probably can sleep 7 people if 4 of them have rollmats. as long as no one minds a barracks approach with 5 people in the spare room and 2 in lounge. Which of course leads on to the concept of house warming. There shall be one if people feel like coming all this way, not at all worried about when that may be.
Other than that, things are about normal.
"the time has come, the walrus said, to speak of many things..." |
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| "Pooh, being a bear of little brain, decided to invite the strange noise in" |
[Aug. 11th, 2008|11:08 pm] |
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Gary needs to learn that he rides a cycle, not a main battle tank.
On the way home form work this evening, he decided to face down the oncoming articulated milk tanker coming up the road (on his side). It wasn't until the rather larger opponent had backed down, that it occured to me how bloody stupid this was as an idea. Gary plus bike masses maybe 100kg. Tanker weighs in at say 20 tons. result of collision = splatted Gary, maybe a 1mph drop in tanker's speed.
Ah well, nothing like being stupid and winning :-)
In more serious news, Russia needs putting back in it's box. Sadly no one has:
a) The will to stand up for what they calim to beleive (namely supporting democracy)
b) The spare force (given Iraq and Afghanistan)
c) The foot print to do anything significant even if the did (the Americans are on the way, but this happened 4 or 5 years to early for Joint task force East to exist)
Ah well, good to see that Russia can still decide to invade it's neighbours when it feels like it, with out any come back. If I was Poland or the Ukraine i'd be sharpening up the old Homeland defence plans and looking worriedly over the border. The Turks may take offence at the concept of sharing a border with CCCP mark 2 however.
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| "where world's collide" |
[Aug. 4th, 2008|08:43 pm] |
Well, as i've managed to waste my savings on a laptop, i suppose i ought to use it to update this rather neglected corner of the internet.
So, I'm still in my flat (or, as Rachel renamed it in a rtaher Dr Seuss esk fashion, my "Flouse"). Still a team leader in my factories production labs. However my duties are now officially running the samller shaped cutter lab, and one shift of the main flat cutter lab (as opposed to the previous spending lots of my time on the main lab, but not gettign the shift pay). So, back to working a week of 6am till 2 pm followed by a week of 2pm to 10pm. No skin off a single man's nose this shift work, and not bad 22% pay rise to do it.
Sadly with work, sometimes I'm busy and love it, other times i'm quiet and thats when i dislike it. I need to be rushing like crazy to be happy in a job that doesn't exactly offer many intellectual challenges (even for a drop out like me :-) ).
Personally wise, I've become remarkably reliant on the excercise I do to stay positive. Felt a little down last week, didnt do my excercise, got steadly worse. So, it seems the excercise is vital to my hapiness. Some may argue that it means i'm slightly addicted to it, but thats no bad thing as I don't actually go mad with it. On the plus side, i definatly seem to look better for it.
Still considering OU courses, need to figure out what i want, how much that would cost and how to save for it. Then of course there si the over arching issue of "am I up to it?". Off to Amsterdam next week for the Lowlands festival, for <lj user="sallamino">'s birthday with an odd collection of people (only kidding :-p). Will come back significantly less monied, but hopefully with some excellent memories. Hopefully I shall make it back up to brum on next paycheck, many people i need to catch up with properly, who I've unforgivably neglected recently. In a random aside, is the new gothsoc committee (from the website) look really young, or am I just getting old? :-)
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| It's alive |
[Aug. 1st, 2008|09:37 am] |
Morning all Have obtained one of these shitty mobile internet whatsits. Trying it out now, but it's far from fantastic. On to the main point of the post, my phone decided to break. O2 decided that any phone fixing requires a memory wipe. So I'm gnerally not in possesion of most people's numbers. If any of you still actually look at lj, and still want me to have your numbers, please leave them in a comment (screened of course).
Cheers all
Gary, still in the shires |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 21st, 2007|06:28 pm] |
Ah ha, It's back. Very breifly popped on the net up at the aprents house. Sadly a bout of paranoia (about just what embaressing photos of me there may be on there) has forced me to join facebook. I blame you all.
will have to ge tthe net sorted for my flat, as it'll probably be cheaper than entertaining myself with a never ending stream of dvd's and books (which sadly cost money).
Just incase some of you havent seen it yet, i'd like to report that my beard is one of the best things in the history of the world. ever :-p (not that i amsue myself by beard based mockery. atall) |
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| Brief and not all that intresting |
[Aug. 5th, 2007|02:27 pm] |
Right, sorry it's been so long since being online, but i havent got an internet connection as i still don't know if i'm staying in my flat. There may be a small issue with a collapses ceiling*.
Basically my life has degenerated into the going to work, slobbing around weekends thing. The only thing close to news i have is that i got a promotion, and for the last month have been running our new Lab. We arent all that busy yet, and we've more or less been starting from scratch. The sad part of the promotion is that i'm now on days (so no 22% shift allowance) and have far less overtime. So in essence i took a noticable pay cut for the promotion, but as <lj user="bright_raven"> pointed out, that's hardly a rare thing to hear.
Using the cycle2work scheme with halfords, i shall shortly have a shiny 550 quid bike. Hopefully this one will survive, unlike my poor abused cheapo one.
Floods may have trashed most of glos., but ebley (where i live) never even lost water. Had some fun riding through the floods, but home and work life largely unaffected.
Sadly ireland doesnt look overly likely, given the utterly trashed state of my passport.
Hopefully i'll manage to do something intresting in the next few months.
* - my hot water tank leaks, and the landlord refused to fix it. 2 months later, the ceiling in my kitchen collapses. 1 month after collapse, still not fixed. so i may end up moving out after 6 months, rather than the year i originally planned. so no point trying to get net/phone/etc. contracts that last a year. |
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| (no subject) |
[May. 13th, 2007|04:46 pm] |
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Just a quick statement that i moved everything over okay, and so far every thing is relatively fine with the world of the flat. unlikely to have internet in there before the end of may/beginning of june. |
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| any old iron, any old iron....i mean pine |
[Apr. 26th, 2007|09:11 pm] |
Bloody hell. I just made off like a bandit!
I have an absolute ton of furniture and curtains (easily a grands worth) for FREE! :-D
Hurrah for Dad's boss's boss wanting rid of the stuff that doesnt suit his new home :-) |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 22nd, 2007|02:57 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  productive | ] |
sucessful morning. I have bought a double futon and a two seat sofa for the princley sum of 70 pounds. Next week will involve a trip down to wottton under edge to collect all sorts of other furniture from a workmate of dad's. That leaves a requirement for a bed and a washing machine (and at some point a freezer) and i'll be all furnished.
Now i just have to make sure i get the bloody flat :-) |
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| GRRRRR |
[Apr. 20th, 2007|11:06 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | rant | ] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cranky | ] |
Who the hell do some of these random companies think they are? If i've never heard of you, and you send me a text message out of the blue asking me to urgently contact you, I'm kind enough to phone you and find out who you are and why you want to speak to me.
But i'm damned if i'm giving out personal information to any random company before they're willing to tell me what they want to talk to me about. If you want my details, you'll have had to tell me what sort of dealings you want with about, and i'll have to have decided that i wish to have dealings with you.
The bloody nerve of these people. If they are genuine, and representing organisations i've had dealings with before, those org's will have many of my details, and will easily be able to find me through the electoral register. So this is precisely what i have instructed them to do. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 15th, 2007|05:22 am] |
arse biscuits.
Got up at 4am on a sunday to go to work. Bike decides now will be the time to have a puncture.
So, no work today and i got up at 4am for nowt. bugger. |
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To quote myself in an early morning text to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mrtonylee... |
[Apr. 12th, 2007|07:45 pm] |
Drama drama drama drama mushroom mushroom.
Yes friends, Brum was good and can be briefly described as follows:
Friday: far to drunk. covered myself in cow's blood. jabbered to much shite
Saturday: Was plagued by shop alarms, went to HoG, didnt get drunk enough. Various people got to drunk and cuased my overly sober self issues. examples include, but are not limited to:
Overly stubborn goths :-)
Pissed up aggressive welshmen
stupidly drunk people i dont like
People i do like expecting me to look after those i dont (who are in no way my problem)
Overly drunk boltonians deciding to be drunk at me after hours of dealing with shite from other drunks.
Yes, i hate it when the shoe is on the other foot, and yes i deserve it :-)
On the plus side, i didnt shame myself (at least on the saturday), got to catch up with lots of people, meet others (some for the 4 or 5th time, apparently :-s) and had a truly excellent "who's more evil?" conversation with a very on form whiterrabbit.
sunday involved pub and avoiding a "pride and predjudice" marathon. But seriously, guys, if i'm talking to a vegitarian, god bothering yogaist, could you please tell me before the goose story comes up? yes mrtonylee and madwelshwizard you are indeed cocks :-) I far prefer it if pretty women who dont already know me arent aware of my myriad of flaws/blood thirstyness till after the first conversation :-p
A great deal of thanks go out to my excellent hosts berley_girl, dark_raven, happy_dravya and of course Jim. Maybe i'll catch you on a more awake weekend next time :-)
So in summary good time had, wonderful seeing all sorts of people, not as much of a tit made out of myself as usual, more drama than usual.
Currently looking very good for my moving into flat in may, but sadly that will massively crush my disposable income. So, from now on my trips away will be fewer and far more carefuil with money. However, once i'm in and set up, people are morte than welcome to come down to see me :-)
Oh, in a side issue, I owe tony and co an apology for the friday in the country girl. However, the explanation will have to wait for a better time. |
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| "this isn't my shotgun shack" |
[Apr. 4th, 2007|10:45 pm] |
Right, hopefully if everything goes alright with the referenceing (as the nice lady* at the letting agent expects it to), i shall have a flat about 2 miles from work as of the 9th of May.
This is great news as it means less cycling, more me-ness and greater ability to have people down. this is less good as it means after this weekend, no more trips to brum for a while (furniture will be sucking up most of my spare dosh) and possibly no internet for a couple of weeks.
But, it's a lovely flat. most excellent for my needs.
but yes, shall be around brum friday through early monday. anyone feels like seeing me, lob us a message.
* - she happens to have an excellent arse, as well shown off by a silky skirt today. |
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| (no subject) |
[Apr. 1st, 2007|11:18 pm] |
Hehehehe
ditzy_shoe_girl just managed to call me by her boyfriends name. Lets alll hope she doesnt make the same mistake when talking to him :-p
(sorry lass, couldn't resist) |
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| (no subject) |
[Mar. 25th, 2007|06:56 pm] |
Been the best part of a fortnight since posting. unsuprising that, as nothing intresting happens down here. ever. due to this lack of intresting reports, have some boring ones.
This weekend was mostly spent moving half a tonne (literally) of sand from front drive to back garden. Then using said sand to make a level base on a 4m*3m area of the garden. then many hours were spent pressure washing and laying (with all sorts of adjusting of level with sand) paving stones to cover said area. next weekend is concreting the gaps between stones, and eventually a shed shall sit there.
So, no change on the job front, i'm getting steadily more and more bored with my stupidly easy tasks. Also, people are becoming stupid enough to try and play their silly little politics games with me. Hopefully this won't annoy me enough to join in with my games, as sadly i'd destroy a fair few of their lives, which would be a tad disproportionate a response to their stupidity.
Hopefully plan to move closer to work will continue to pan out for end of may, beginning of june. Be it a flat i rent myself or a house share is yet to be decided (a small possibility of a houseshare has appeared, but it'd have to pan out, and i'd have to be sure it'd work out before i got myself into one of those).
Early shift's next week, so expect sleep deprivation if you have any contact with me. |
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| "roll with the changes" |
[Mar. 12th, 2007|03:41 pm] |
Quality (if brief) trip up to birmingham. Lots of booze, some turning gerbil cages into fire wood, more booze, loads of people, more booze, some inappropriate behaviour and more booze occured.
Sadly i have just remembered that there was someone with a video camera at malediction. This worries me, as it increases the chances i did something stupid, and means there's the possibility of permanent record of my stupidity. oh dear.
Anyone who feels the need to berate/mock/inform me of any stupid arse things i did, now is the time :-)
Big thanks to bright_raven, berley_girl and co for the crash space. |
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| "the mammals are your favourite time" |
[Mar. 5th, 2007|08:39 am] |
Right, after many instances of missing it, i shall actually* be making it to malediction this coming weekend. Cheers to Andy, Kim and co for the crash space.
Given this is a lates to earlies weekend, i shall basically only be about lunch time saturday to as soon as i can haul my carcass to the train station sunday, so if anyone is daft enough to want to see me, who isnt going to malediction, we'll have to sort something out for the saturday afternoon.
In other news, went down to bristol with parents to see sister this weekend. Ended up in a rather odd, but very nice, place called "bar humbug". Certainly different, with reasonable food at a reasonable price (well, as reasonable as you can have on whiteladies road). nice and chilled.
* = obviously this is subject to surviving another week of cycling :-p |
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| "with the ghosts of every drinker thats ever done wrong" |
[Feb. 27th, 2007|09:03 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | the fratelli's - whistle for the choir | ] |
Todays ride home featured rain, heavy wind driving said rain, more rain and roads more resembling streams. The upshot of this was gary being drenched to the bone within 3 mins.
Now, may people may consider that a bad thing, but this is where "gary on early's with almost no sleep" pattern brain functions come in. You're soaking wet, therefore you cant get any wetter. So, thrash the hell out of you legs, and enjoy a nice zoomy ride through all the fun water. So i did, very calming.
For those whop havent noticed, my little "existential crisis" (as yartek put it) has wandered off. to be replaced by amusement and my old alpha plan. If work want to keep hold of me, then they'll just have to pony up a real job rather than nebulous promises of a undefined future role, if they don't before i'm all army fit, then they can bugger theselves :-p
Sadly i have had a total of 4 hours sleep these last two days. Also Life on Mars has been replaced by footie. And there is nothing more annoying than wanting to know the answer to something, when you know you cant even try to find out, let alone ever know. Silly past not being like the internet :-p
I rather like this album. However some of it reminds me of the excellent "up the bracket" by the libertines, and some of the lad's singing is a little to close to the artic monkeys. |
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| "It's knowing your weakness that made you strong" |
[Feb. 26th, 2007|04:24 pm] |
I must say, getting Donnie darko on DVD fro £2 in WH smith's rocks almost as much as getting mallrats for £2.84 in tesco did :-)
Absolutly mullering myself on the ride home is less good, especially as now i'm going to follow it up with a run. I may have gone a tad mad today.
Things that amuse me: My boss's lame attempts to justify picking jamie for the job over me, and his beleif that vague, unqualified promises about possible future options will somehow make me beleive my department offers a good shot at a career :-D
In more entertaining news, the mass destruction that is the MLRS is being sent off to helmand province :-) Cue grid squares containing taleban being entirely removed from play. mmm...cluster munitions.
edit - Hell yeah, just knocked off an easy 1.8km (mix of up and down hill, tarmac and muddy wood) without any trouble. Would have had no problem whacking another 500m on top if i'd felt like it. Didnt bother to time, as it's the first time i've ran since before christmas.
However, this is quite promising. the Biking must be far better for CV than i thought for me to have been able to bang out that distance after so long not doing the running.
Feeling damned good now (but i think my muscles may hate me tomorrow morning when i climb on the bike again :-D ) |
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