Ok, from something bad comes something good-ish…
You know what some of you did to me on Christmas Day at the instigation of our rowdy commentor JK?
Well here is my take on this…
At the stroke of midnight on New Years eve (this includes me), take out your phone or camera and either get someone to take a pic of you and your better halves, or simply turn the cam on yourself and take a pic of your drunken face.
Then send them to me and I’ll post them!
If you want anonimity, then I’ll black out some part of your head…
The worse for wear you are – the better!
I pay for, but can’t get a 20mb Broadband connection. Apparently I can only get up to 8mb’s on my given telephone exchanged.
So, using several internet based tests I have determined that at any given time, I do NOT get more than 3.7mb!!
The maximum download speed attained was a mere 6mb!
I look forward to living where I get what I pay for!
Today I got up at a nice time of 6am and a short time later a knock at the door revealed a package containing my new software (because I bought the wrong thing last week!!)
Half and hour later I sat down to play with my all new video editing suite and a few minutes later staggered to the kitchen towards the kettle while profoundly scratching my head!!
A phone call broke the silence as I hadn’t sent in one of my time sheets for last week, so I had to go and look for a scrap of paper inside the cesspit better known as the TWB Car of Character.
After sorting out and email time sheets off, I sat down once again to have play with the new editing suite.
20 mins later and I’m back to reading my book ‘Sovereign’ by C.J.Sanson (the 3rd in his series around the Shardlake mysteries).
This brings me to another thing – I’ve been looking at cars again!
I’m thinking 4×4’s now. The trouble is, which and what in regards to age vs price! Now I’ve owned a Range Rover and a Land Rover 110 County Station Wagon (CSW). I had a Landcrusier once too.
But I’m airing toward either an old Discovery 3.9 V8 or another 110 CSW – but I can make my mind up!!
If I have a 110, I will gear it up, with front and rear winches, up-rated suspension, front and rear towing gear and increased chassis strength. Two sets of wheels (road and off road) – but here is the problem…. I have nowhere to work on it..
So after all my search and thought, my hands are once again tied (grumble)
JK has been yet again – wanting me to post a picture that she sent me on Christmas day… I guess we’ll see and I will see what size I can actually reduce it too with Photoshop!!
I need to do so much over the coming weeks; sort out and build a new PC, get a couple of good sized monitors, change this laptop’s hard drive for a solid state one, get a new car and or course….find a dentist as I’ve been without one for almost a year!!
So today is about, well, setting a few basic goals and getting on with it (that means I’ll be starting tomorrow rather than straight away – as you must remember that I’m a guy)
Dave, aka BigDog has sent me some photos from his home in Sioux Falls, South Dakota of the variable yet constant snow they’ve been getting over the last few weeks.
It’s been bad enough to prevent this years Christmas family get together, but just looking at them does give me the shivers.
BigDog tells me that it’s been snowing almost constantly and he’s been having to relay the snow shovelling with his faithful dog Brisco. Basically he’ll shovel the snow for an hour, take a little time off then go and shovel for another hour.
My only thought about this was ‘Dude, move to Miami!!’
Well Christmas is over and it’s time to start gearing up for 2010.
Today I was up at 6am and looking forward to start clearing my place up, being merciless with throwing out the things I simply do not need, want or use.
I also need to do a little patching up and prepping my place so that if something comes up in the work dept, I can up sticks and move quickly.
I have been having a gander about the tech world and see a court has upheld the banning of the sale of Microsoft Word after existing copies have either been sold – so a headache for Steve Bulmer and the Microsoft crew.
I’m also expecting several things to arrive in the post tomorrow, these are mainly to do with video editing and production as I’d like to do a couple of vids before I hang up the driving.
As I prepare to leave 2010 behind and look back and many of the things that I listed in my Christmas post, I do so with a real hint of sadness – my goodness, am I getting soft?
You see, it’s that I had so many plans for this year and achieved pretty much none of them. But, that just means I do need to do twice as much in 2010…
The greatest result as I have already mentioned is people, whether I’ve affected their lives, challenged them, what they do or whatever, 2009 I will always remember for the people I met.
Now on the subject of resolutions, nope, I don’t do them. The only things I covert is not smoking and getting my teeth fixed. As for my grumpy and arrogant attitude, well I’m please to inform you that there will be no change there and it’ll be business as usual.
So, now I’ll jump in the shower, and head out to do some shopping before returning to sort this place out (well, in an hour or so)
I have been holding back this post somewhat, basically to gather more information from other sources.
During this last week, the South West of the UK has been gripped in a ‘freeze’. Even when the air temps reach 11C (51F) the ground temperature rarely got above -5C (23F). As such from what started as a bit of snow 7 days ago, the overall situation just got worse.
I have already mentioned in an earlier post about it raining on ice creating an oiling effect. Every single operating base we use has now written off trucks and nearly every single Ex-Farm Bulker has been off the road and stuck in ditches, fields and in some cases water – not once, but several times.
The cost in vehicles alone and not to mention recovery costs will have by now exceeded around half a million £!
Then came Christmas Day morning… the air temp had finally risen and at 4am, what looked like normal safe ground became something I have never witnesses – it was ALL Ice, you simply could not stand up on any surface that you’d normally assume to be safe!!!
I found this out at 56mpg on the south bound M5 just south of Wellington, while moving to the 2nd lane to give more room to the emergency services to recover several cars from the hard shoulder – as I passed I lost control of my truck, the trailer went one way and the tractor unit went another. I do have a lot of Ice and Snow experience, but not that much on black ice in an articulated vehicle! While I have experienced black ice, I’d never experienced this total loss of control – and this video was pretty much watch saved me!
I regained control and continued – experiencing a further 5 instances of coming close to not only losing the truck, but also putting others at serious risk for their lives…
Now, I’m not gonna sit here and whinge, nor am I gonna claim to be any kind of a good driver. But it was fairly obvious to everyone that the conditions were totally unsuitable for the safe movement of just about everything!!
Yet, work continued, people were expected to carry on. Whether it is a Bull S*it pride thing with drivers of the complete and utter stupidity of managers (probably both) the work continued.
On my way home I wrote a text to WKD to tell her NOT to come in, but the thing was that I knew her phone would be off and even if it wasn’t – she had a house full of Christmas guests.
For whatever reason it was I did not send the text – and I should have done!!
You see, I have this very weird skill, at gut instinct you could say. But whatever it is – it IS 100% accurate and some of you reading this will already know what I’m talking about. So If I ever call any of you and say something like you need down time now! Or in this case – don’t go to work because it’s too treacherous – Don’t f’k about, do what I tell you, because what ever it is you do – it isn’t worth dying for!!
How accurate am I? Accurate enough for it to have earned me money!!
When I woke up later on Christmas day, I got a couple of phone calls giving me what could only be described as nothing short of an encyclopaedia of disaster before returning myself to work for 4:30pm – based in the knowledge that much of the main ice had thawed…
At this point and when talking to WKD, I had no knowledge of what had happened to her during the day (I mentioned this interaction in the hohoho post below).
Anyway, WKD IS probably the best driver we have, she can do things so naturally with a truck it begs belief – I don’t think she realises how good she is, but she is very well respected.
So when she loses traction and goes sailing backwards at speed straight through what would ordinarily be a very busy road junction and not coming to a halt for quite some distance (saved by the fact there was little traffic due to it being Christmas Day) then you know that we should no longer be on the road AT ALL!!!
Airing this incident to managers on her return to base – she went out again…
Now, this is not just about WKD, but this is where I draw a line, and this line has consequences the likes of which I don’t wish to put into writing and you really don’t want to read – But, here goes…
I have listened to, too many stories this week of people being told to go out in trucks onto roads and lanes you wouldn’t even try to crawl down on your hands and knees! Yes, they say “If you’re not sure then don’t do it” but in reality they say “well someone’s got to go” or the best one is “well give it a try”… (These drivers spend years hauling these trucks around some shockingly tight roads and lanes, they have skills behind the wheel I can’t even conceive of, so when they say it’s a no go – then you can bank on it!!)
This is tantamount to asking someone to run at armed police with a loaded gun. It is outside of and does not even come close to a Duty of Care and I will not have it.
If you are pressured in any way and especially by insinuation to go out or try to get into a place where you have expressed any doubt or fear of doing so, the person or persons are putting your your life and putting members of the general public lives at risk.
If they put you in fear of your life – then welcome to my world!! Because I have no qualms in returning this favour – no matter what the cost. If anyone puts a colleague or team member in fear of their personal safety outside of a combat zone, in doing so breaking just about every law you can imagine… there is no law in this land that will protect you from what I most certainly will do and have a high level of proven proficiency in – to you.
Now there used to be a adverse weather system in place whereby a farmer would put his milk in a tank and tow it down to a good road with his tractor and meet the Bulker – but apparently this is now against EU regulations.
Well stuff the EU regs if it puts people at risk of injury or death!!
Now just to back up a little here, we’re not talking snow, heck it we were – a set of 8 chains would solve this problem straight away!! Ice on the other hand needs studded tires – isn’t quite true. You see studded tire technology is a 1960’s system and since then tire compounds have changed greatly. Infact they called them ‘Stud-less Ice Tires’ now and are basically a standard tyre made of a very special compound.
YOUR RESPONSIBILITIES ARE THESE:
Your personal safety – you go to work to make your life better, not lose it for trying to earn money to put food on your table!!
Managers etc – your FIRST job is the care, safety and wellbeing of your staff, team and employees!! The job comes last!! It is a CRIMINAL offence not to do so and it will invoke a guaranteed insurmountable and slow destruction of every aspect of your life by me if you do the contrary to people I deem my colleagues and possibly friends.
Make sure you have the right PPE (personal protective equipment) this includes ice grips for your boots!!
However…
There is something we can ALL do in the UK and this to simply call RIDDOR… It’s part of the HSE and a place you can report anything and everything. While they will take your details, they will not give these details to your employer. What they will do is investigate and basically make employers get their respective asses together.
There contact info is below and while there is a legal requirement for you to report stuff to them as of the 1st January I’ll be making a lot of inroads in their direction.
IT’s Christmas Day and the original onslaught of threatened photos from the lady commentors of this here blog is thankfully only running at two so far. As such I’m feeling far more relaxed than I might have been.
Now, while this has left me in a slightly up beat mood (because I was fearing switching on the Laptop) I will crack my favourite joke…
Two women are on holiday in Spain. With only a few days left they decide to go shopping!
While walking through the towns main shopping area they come across a store for exotic pets and decide to go and have a look.
After a few minutes one of the girls says she’s gonna buy a snake! Her friend looks at her and asks why and how on earth is she gonna get it back through Customs.
The girl says “ Well I just always wanted a snake, and I can wrap it around my waist and pretend it’s a belt”.
Her friend, thinking this is a brilliant idea say “right then, I’m gonna buy a pet too – I’m gonna buy a Skunk”
Her friend looks at her stunned!!
How the hell the hell are you gonna get that through Customs?!
“Oh, she said, That’s easy, I’ll put it down my panties and pretend I’m pregnant”
Her friend looked at her and said “But what about the smell?!”
“well, if it dies – it dies!!” she replies
I could write a lot about loss this year – if not a few close calls. For some reason it’s been a heady year for all of it.
I could also write about work and the recession, or even the worst parts of the last 12 months – But I won’t.
But what a year!! What a great bunch of people I’ve met, albeit one of them I had purposefully avoided for years.
Heck, I don’t do ‘sociable’ yet on the odd occasion I may almost have actually felt that I wanted to be.
This in itself causes a problem, you see I’m so used to being, well, not so sociable.
People have surprised me this year in so much as varying from the predictable, to out right inspiring! You see, whether you believe in Christmas or not, ‘people’ is what it’s all about, indeed the essence of life itself is based on exactly that. We do not exist or live to work, we work so we can live, socialise and interact with others.
Yes, there has been the loss of a few friends, too often in a manner that has left me astounded. Not upset or angry, but people who I’ve been almost shocked at the ways they have let themselves down and it’s not a pretty thing.
Then there are the people I have simply not been able to keep up with and have had little time to do so, for which I’m shamefully sorry – because for the most part, some of them are amazing folks.
Yes it’s been a busy year where people are concerned and then there has been this old blog! Oh and the fact I sometimes the need to go to work.
But this year and more accurately, the last two months I have finally come to realise and see various things that are all good.
As for my blog, well, it’s has veered off track a lot and I’m not so happy about that. I had a plan for the blog and though other things have been keeping me from maintaining the plan discipline. But then my readership has quadrupled and that of course leads me to question the initial plan.
The ladies who comment here, for reasons I do not know or understand – taken to giving me a lot of sarcasm and stick in a humorous way and for the most part it has kept me on my toes and been welcome – albeit they do seem to be able to twist girders of written text and throw the result back at me.
So what of the next year?
You know what?! I fear 2010! Seriously, I really do. I want so much to do so many things, improve on everything that I do, start many new bits and pieces, go to many, many places… But I’m ill equipped for much of it at present – and that also means my interaction with others!
There are those who will no longer be making Christmas and you will be missed, whether it’s a few pints at the bar or just friendship – but to:
Rockposer, Alex, WKD, Gabby, Terry, Cozmic, Fenny, SEC, Lorraine, Annie1978, Ruth, Howlatthemoon, Ruthlett, San, Joe, DarkheartD, BigDog, Dave Bones, Dom, RachelH, K&J, Dave & Annie, K&D Hewlett, The Bass Player and of course JK.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that this year wouldn’t have anywhere near as good without all of you, your gossip, charm, sarcasm, humour and in the odd case – counsel and for all of this I’m truly in awe and thank you. So to all of you and those I have not mentioned both from here and Twitter because there are so many of you out there, I wish you a heart felt Merry Christmas. And 2010? Lets see when we get there
And DONT forget to track Santa via the NORAD and Google Earth linkHERE. Just click on the little play arrows to watch the vids
My Family including Judy, Philip, Matt (where’s my landy), Eddy, Jes, Tim and Rachel
The Family Richey aka el Posse Loraine
