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Well, don’t know why I’ve been so quiet to be totally honest…  I was up at the caravan for a few days last week…  And then I’ve pretty much been around home and stuff since then.

Not really a lot going on, last week of Easter hols, have to tidy my room, and have a couple of short assignments to do, nothing too stressful though 🙂  Been working a bit, although very little extra compared to usual, just the odd hour here and there…  Think that’s the best way, just doing extra hours at the start of your shift lol.

Went for a bit of a drive/BBQ on Sunday with Amanda.  We originally decided to go to Crawfordsburn, but when we got that length it was packed, so decided to head down the side of Ards a bit…  Ended up outside Millisle, which was actually lovely and quiet, and we had our BBQ there.  Had some lovely, very tasty burgers, chicken kebabs, and some hot dogs…  The only issue was the lack of rolls in the shops, our own shop had run out, so had Carrick Milestone, and Tesco in Newtownabbey.  We ended up with ciabattas for the hot dogs, and crusty baps for the burgers…  Nice though!

Random, dad just rang me there, for maybe 30 seconds…  I have to go and pick up his car from QUB this afternoon, and he was just reminding me not to be too late lol.

Anyway, better love you all and leave you!  Promise it won’t be too long before I blog again.

Well, I’ve been very quiet on here for a few days…  Just had a lotta stuff going on.  Amanda’s mum and sister were away in Edinburgh for a few days, so I had been leaving her down to work in Larne, and then heading back to Belfast for uni, and then going back down to pick her up in the afternoons, basically because the trains don’t all go to Larne Harbour, and it’s too far/too dangerous to walk from the train station in the town…  And there aren’t many buses between Larne and Carrick/Ballycarry…  And there are no buses from the train station to the depot she works in…  So basically I’ve been kinda knackered, and then not working or anything in the evenings I’ve just been lying around, sleeping mainly…  Working tonight though so that should make a difference.

We had our BB display on Friday past.  It wasn’t as good as previous years, not too sure why.  There is a slight lack of older boys, which I think is affecting the quality of potential items for the display…  Also the Company Section don’t do much drill, which I think is a pretty important part of the BB.  Even the Junior Section didn’t dedicate a complete item to figure marching, they had to have a wee dance at the end.  Nothing wrong with that, but the quality of the marching was awful.  The Anchor Boys and ‘Puppies’ were quite good, although I am biased, but their items had a certain finesse, although they were a bit long winded, mainly due to the lack of space for the games, meaning only half the boys could actually participate at a time…  And obviously they all had to have a go!

This morning has been quite boring, just the usual 9am lecture on Nuclear & Atomic Physics, which is a bit dry, but nonetheless essential…  It wasn’t without it’s usual drama…  Some eejit had broken the VGA lead into the projector, and worst of all, didn’t bother reporting it, meaning the lecture didn’t start until 9.15am, but hey, what can you do…

I was reading an interesting article in April’s edition of ‘RadCom’, published by the RSGB.  It was in the EMC (ElectroMagnetic Compatibility) section, and was talking about a radio amateur in England who had been having severe trouble with man made interference.  He built himself a small detector, on the end of a fishing rod, to try and find the telephone line that the interference was coming from, and tracked down the offending house.  When checking with the owner of the house he found that the guy had a number of switch mode power supplies, the ‘bricks’ that are plugged into the wall, to power USB drives…  It was found that these were causing the interference, and the telephone lines were picking up the interference, ‘transmitting’ it all over the place…  Unplugging the power supplies when they weren’t needed fixed the interference problem…  An added side effect was that the guys DSL connection greatly increased in speed…  So if you’re experiencing slow DSL connection problems, perhaps try unplugging some of the power supplies you have around the house, things like phone chargers, ipod chargers, laptop power supplies and digital photo frames, to name but a few, and you might find you get a great increase in speed…  Of course you might need some of these things, but switching them off when not in use could save you a pile of energy, and also increase your broadband speed…

The technical issues my server was experiencing yesterday regarding akismet and stuff are fixed, whatever was wrong…

Well, more overtime in work, I guess this is a good thing! Having slight issues with staff – there seems to be a vomiting bug doing the rounds, and we’ve had various people off over the last week or so… I **really** don’t want to catch it though! But I think the extra money is making up for the possibility that I could get ill… Anyway, I’m off now until Sunday, so it’s pretty unlikely that I’d have to take time off if I did get sick… Suppose it just depends on when that happens.

I think it’s probably busy today, St. Patrick’s day tomorrow, so the Post Office were doing the payouts for tomorrow today… Great!

Anyway, it’s almost time for my final class of the day… Ok! Well I only had 2 anyway, but it’s still my *final class* 🙂

Cheers

Good morning to all my followers, of which you are few…

Well last night was cool. We were a man/woman down, still between 4 of us we managed to cover till, pack out 15ish cages, tidy up, and everything else that we do every night. Thought that was pretty impressive! Anyway, a lot of it depends on the staff that are in.

This morning hasn’t been terribly exciting, just made it to Starbucks, for my coffee, which is yummy and strong today, and dandered up to my first lecture, which should be just as exciting as usual.

I sort of need 4 wee small rugby balls, need them for Friday, although Thursday would be preferable, as we could do with a quick practice with the Anchor Boys. It’s for an item in the display… If anyone knows where I could get them please let me know! I know that powerade are doing their usual promotion, but any shops I’ve been in I can’t find them 🙁

The mouse on the computer that’s connected to the projector has a mind of it’s own, and is moving all over the screen…

Anyway, not much left to say, if you’re unlucky I might leave another post later. Byee

Well, so far today has been a pretty standard Monday.  Woke up at about 7.30, as usual, glasses and iPod had fallen down the side of the bed, so I had to go hoking for those…

Had to drive over today, as my mum is doing something in Stranmillis this afternoon, so she’s going to give my dad a lift home, and I’ll be going home at lunch anyway, so it kind of made sense for me to bring the car over…  Saves me a bit of a dander later on anyway.

Had a bit of downtime on the server last night/this morning.  Bit unsure about the length of time it was out of action, but I don’t think it was that long, although I can’t remember being on my blog or anything, so it’s possible it was actually off for a while.  Think it was just a bit of a problem with mySQL, it might be a recurring issue, but I’ll wait and see anyway…  Don’t want to have to do anything if it’s not going to keep happening!

Was working 7am-3.30pm yesterday, although at the end of my shift I ended up having to go to Carrick with some flowers, as another store had run out, and we had a lot left.  Was a nice drive though, and was a bit of a change of scenery for half an hour 🙂

Lectures this morning were pretty uneventful, no fire alarms or anything, and the lecturers didn’t do anything funny or silly, so that was pretty boring!

On Saturday morning we went bowling at the Odyssey.  It was quite good fun, but their machines weren’t working too well, our balls kept getting stuck at the end of the lane, and the machine wouldn’t kick them back up to us, and we had a few times where the skittles weren’t all getting set down, and then near the end of our time the thing just stopped working completely…  This was after having to change lanes about 10 minutes in as the lane was only getting reset with about 4 or 5 pins every time…  A little annoying to say the least!  They just don’t seem as reliable as the Brunswick ones at the Sportsbowl in Glengormley…  But all in all it was quite good fun!

Saturday afternoon we also popped into Costa coffee in Abbeycentre, thinking it would be nice, as we had an early lunch, and dinner wasn’t until a bit later.  Not impressed!  Asked for a caramel latte, to be told, “Oh sorry, we have no caramel syrup left.”  Ok, fair enough I thought, so I just got a normal latte…  I then went to pay by card, again to be told, “Sorry our card machine isn’t working.”  We then went to find a table, which were all dirty and covered with dirty dishes.  Some of the employees were complaining about a customer having knocked over a tray of dirty dishes, but had they been cleaning the tables, this wouldn’t have happened…  They also seemed to be in a bit of a hurry to close up – this was about half 5, Abbeycentre/shops close at 6, so it was understandable, but they had stopped doing sit in orders as soon as we got ours, after this they were all just standing around, surely had they wanted to they could have been cleaning the tables to get ready to close?  They could have the tables cleaned, and the chairs moved out of the way…

Anyway, rant over, maybe someone will notice this and pass it on to Costa 🙂

Well, good morning to all my readers! A wonderful day it is outside. I thought it was about time I wrote another post on my blog, yknow, the way loads of people read them and all……

Sort of recovered from my man-flu from the weekend, feeling much better now, thankfully! Also caught up on the sleep, althought that wasn’t the most pressing issue. The group of guys we had were great, and were all quiet at night time – although this does seem to be the case when you’re out in the chalets anyway.

Was working last night, and it wasn’t anything overly strange or startling, just the usual stuff, price checking, etc… Exciting. Has anyone tried the Doritos collisions? I had some last night and they’re lovely, especially with some salsa dip 🙂

Just had dinner in Caffe Spice in Larne. It was delicious, although I got a 12 inch pizza side, and I’m afraid my eyes were bigger than my stomach! Really good value though, two 12″ pizzas, garlic bread, chips and two diet cokes. Anyway highly recommended if you’re down in the sticks of Larne :p

Was rag day today, ie stay at home and have a rest day :). Nice to have a wee lie in and a lazy day around the flat.

Finally got round to buying a copy of Word on the Street. It’s a version of the Bible, sort of, written in everyday language, it’s actually more like a dramatization than a translation of the Bible.

Anyway, time to go and watch some more soaps 🙂

Well, for those of you that don’t know, I’m at Rathmore House, Larne this weekend.  It’s a Queen’s badge completion course, which is now going to be called the Queen’s badge residential I think.  It’s basically a weekend of working with a group of guys that have almost completed their Queen’s badge through the BB.

Rathmore is a big old house, and there are a few ‘chalets’, which are a little chilly in the  winter…  And the summer too actually, but if you’re only sleeping in them it won’t really make much of a difference!

I stupidly forgot to bring a towel with me, so I had to go and get one in B&M bargains, but hey!  It’s nice and soft, so I’m not really complaining, and it’ll do me for a spare towel for the future lol…

Amanda and I booked another trip to Disneyland Paris for September.  Quite excited actually, I’m a big kid, and I love all the rides!  They’re fun!  Will be nice to explore the parks again, and we went quite recently, so we’ll have half a clue about where things are, what rides are good and which are crap.

Anyway I better head on here, have 11 more books to check by tomorrow afternoon!  Cheerio.

Well the SPAM has calmed down dramatically, thankfully.

Set up the server at home as a backup DNS server for my domains – mi0gjn.co.uk, newtownabbeymethodist.org.uk… Didn’t set up the rest yet, as they arently exactly vital, but the NMM one its pretty important that it stays on…

Nothing else to add though 🙂

Well, it’s been a reasonable few days, the sun is getting a little warmer, and there’s a decent stretch in the evenings – great for being in work.

It hasn’t been a terribly exciting few days to be honest.  Just been working, at uni, and footering around at home.  Went to JLS on Monday night – when I booked the tickets I thought I might enjoy the concert, however it wasn’t great!  Wee bit strange, and far too many horny teenage girls screaming and jumping around…  Sorry but 14 year olds swooning over sweating 20-somethings singing on a stage really isn’t my thing!  They did do a bit of a Michael Jackson tribute, which I enjoyed, but it still wasn’t a great concert…

Anyway – this weekend I’m a tutor on a Queen’s Badge course, in Rathmore house.  Should be a good weekend!  It’s the first half of the course, which I haven’t helped out on before, so it should be a good learning experience anyway.  It does require a bit more speaking/participation from the leaders than the second one (I think anyway) so I’m a little nervous about that, but hey!  Should be fun anyway.

Sadly I have an assignment due on Monday, so I’ll have to get that done before I go away 🙁  But hey, being organised should have its benefits right?

Have one more lecture today, at 12, and then I have to head home, will probably make a start at the assignment due on Monday, and finish the one that’s due on Friday, and then by that time it’ll be time to go to work…  How quickly time flies when you’re enjoying yourself…  Or, well, doing something that you enjoy more than working 😛

Well I can’t think of much more to write, so I’ll say cheerio!