Far too busy

I honestly started writing an entry for yesterday... well I opened up the web interface, but never got round to writing anything. That's how busy I am.

I didn't make ringing or the radio club net on Monday night. Ended up at Boundary Sound monitoring a rather poorly internet connection. Had some more trouble of my own on Monday night with NTL, although it righted itself by yesterday.

Managed to will a crib match yesterday evening. Don't know how though.

Another session at Radio Witham tonight, maybe with Dave, who spent all last night fixing his hot water system. I'm just looking at a huge pile of house work that needs doing, and trying to work out what I can and can't manage to do before the end of the week. I don't think I'll make the radio club meeting tomorrow, as Boundary Sound need a duty manager. Chris Hubbard has asked me if I want to go drinking on Friday, but I'll be at Boundary Sound again all evening (although I can't see anything wrong with him spending an evening with me drinking coffee and eating kebabs). However, due to staffing shortages, I think Shelagh will end up tech-opping for Keith between 18:00 and 21:00 (although it's only a mini-disc and news-in job for three hours), because I can't get out of choir practise... and I haven't even thought about Sunday yet!

Me? Stressed? YAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Another exhausting weekend

Doesn't Monday always seem to come round fast?

Well... Friday night went on far longer than I wanted, Saturday was just tiring, and by the time Sunday morning came round, I didn't feel like playing the organ for the harvest festival... so it was a good job that Jason turned up. At least it allowed me to get some extra sleep before spending an evening at the radio station.

I honestly don't know why I couldn't drive the audio inputs of the transmitter from the output on the automation computer. I ended up driving the transmitter from an aux output set to pre-fade source on the automation channel, so that I could use the main output for recording... except I don't have any XLR to phono leads for such an operation. I ended up taking a signal from the mono meter drive, which I don't normally use, because we meter in stereo. What fun.

The cable internet fault from last Friday cleared itself about tea time on Friday, but I have to report that it went down again about an hour ago, so that's now annoying me. Could possibly be a local fault with our feeder cables.

This morning hasn't been less stressful - I intended to go swimming, but I'm so tired I couldn't face it. Everything aches, and even my voice is suffering. I've found out that the earliest I can get a dentist appointment is on 29th November... TWO MONTHS?! I hope things don't get any worse in the meantime.

Dah-di-dah

Last night proved to be good fun. A quick session with Bob on the old Morse code front, finally reaching nearly 12 words per minute, which is sort of the de-facto standard for sending and receiving. Ok, I'm still not picking up every letter, but with some more practise, I'm well on the way. Then had an enjoyable 15 minute QSO on 80 metres with a group of M3s in the West Midlands, including a RAFARS number, so we exchanged numbers. Didn't get to look at the PMR kit from Trent though... another time maybe - I think Don has the kit to test it, but do I have the time?

Got home just after midnight, as usual, and had a quick look around the internet, and a poke at battenberg to see if I could make Gnome work - fat chance, although I think I'm making some progress... until my internet connection died at about 1am. It was still down this morning when I got up. Hmmm.

At least the weekend is nearly here...

Life is full of surprises

Yesterday's post (which I don't get to see until I finish work) yielded a few surprises. Firstly, a bill from Green Flag for picking up my car when I had to get Direct Line to carry out some warrenty work on the repair that was carried out after the accident in June. We're now nearly at the end of September, and this is still rumbling on. Anyway, I contacted DL, and they've asked me to forward a copy onto them so they can pay it. I've also got to contact GF to let them know why I haven't paid the bill (dated 17/9/04, and I only got it yesterday afternoon, giving me 2 days to pay in - yeah right!).

The next surprise was notification from Powergen that they're going to put up the price of electricity on 6/9/04. Hang on. Going to? Oh nice (is it worth complaining about that?). We also got a bill, with these changes in effect, based on estimated meter readings. What on earth do they base these estimations on? They think we've used 700 units on our "boost" tarriff... but our boost tarriff isn't wired up (I think), and the meter reads zero, and always has! This accounts for a £55 overcharge on the pill for over £190. The other readings are also a little bit high, but not so wildly wrong. How can they get the estimation so wrong? Further, the last quarter has been summer - why would we want to use the boost in summer? Madness. Another phone call for today.

Forgot to phone the dentist again yesterday. What the heck. I 'll spend my lunch hour on the phone.

Still cringing when listening to the radio. I'm going to have to go through the logs when we go off air, and compile some top 10s for best bits and worst bits.

My mind is still wandering about doing some writing at some point. I'd love to write a radio play. I've been thinking about it for years, but don't seem to have the time. I've got a large amount of free time coming up in November, maybe I'll be able to get something together then?

Ugh!

Remind me to never ever drink as much coffee as I did yesterday. I managed a total of 4 cups during the day, and by home time I could feel an anxiety attack coming on, which was really unpleasant. Now I remember why I gave up drinking coke and coffee back in April. Back to the fruit tea I think.

I managed to give about half of my presentation to the Priory FM members that made it through the rather drawn out meeting. Only 8 weeks to broadcast, and there's so much to do...

I still felt unwell this morning, but dragged myself swimming, forced myself through my 28 lengths (consisting of 7 sets of 2 lengths on my front and 2 on my back). Didn't bother with the sauna though - the smell of disinfectant was detectable as I swam past it on each length, so it must have been really bad in there. Probably for the best. Managed to get some tea and toast for breakfast, and felt much better by the time I got to work.

Sadly, over lunch (re-heated home made soup that I made in the slow cooker yesterday), my incredible disintegrating tooth has disintegrated further. I really need to phone the dentist today, and get an appointment next week, as the edges are quite sharp.

I'm not really looking forward to tonight. Wednesday evenings are becoming a drag. Shelagh will be teaching bell ringing in Barrowby again, and I'll be stuck at the hospital radio station pretending I know all about 50s music. Fortunately, I don't always have to say very much, just play the music, although I like to add some background information. The notes on the covers of 12" LPs are great.

Stress and Relaxation

Yesterday nearly ended up being rather stressful at the radio station, but after a quick drink and discussion on what needs to be changed for next time, I'm feeling more positive about things.

Had a good ringing session, and the (failed) attempt at Cambridge Surprise Major seemed to make it all worthwhile. Unfortunately, this attempt made me late home to get on the Waddington Club net at 20:00, but managed to join in at the end of the first round of reports to report the week's news, and ask for advice on Morse sounders and the PMR kit that was given to me on Friday. I still need to get a power supply for my radio... I've been borrowing the club's since February!

Work is also feeling positive at the moment, although I'm trying to be careful not to under estimate my work load.

Last night turned into another late night after giving Paul a lift home. I really didn't want to get up this morning. Got up eventually at 08:15, rushed through the shower and shave, and chopped up some veg to go with the roast chicken Shelagh cooked last night, and threw it all into the slow cooker before dashing off to work... so I should be able to eat tonight.

Argh - It's Monday!

After several late nights over the weekend trying to get Gnome working on my Suse 9.1 personal install (and failing) and supervising the radio station in the evenings, I'm now completely knackered, all ready for work on Monday.

Lots to try to achieve today, so I'd better get on with it.

Hello World

I've been meaning to do this for some time, and so here it is...

So where to start? With so many things going on at the moment, it's a bit of a mash. Rather than introduce aspects to my lift, I'll just talk about them, and hope you can pick up on what I'm talking about.

Woken at 06:25 this morning. Shelagh starting work early, so I was sort of woken already, but my mobile phone rang, and that's a sure way of waking me. Turned out to be Duncan phoning from the radio station to report that the IRN feed was dead, and he couldn't get the satellite receiver to pick it up again. My first worry was that last night's wind had blown the dish out of alignment, but Duncan commented that it was raining hard. We really need a bigger dish than 60cm to receive Hotbird 4, as this is the thrid time in 2 weeks I've had the feed drop. Unable to think, and unwilling to go have a look, I told him to drop the news, and I'd look into it later... considering contacting Tim or someone else to check it out, or do it myself tonight. As it turns out, Andy fixed it by 10am anyway.

So my alarm woke me up again at 07:45 for work... which has recently been slow, but it now picking up with a pile of design work and coding.

In every spare moment I have, I'm continuing to set up battenberg after a great re-install last Tuesday from RH9/win98 to SuSE 9.1 - which seems to be really good, but I'm suffering a few problems in the Samba department...

Oh well... here comes the weekend...