Another long weekend

after my rant yesterday I am finally in the home straight. I’m taking Monday off to visit another theme park, this time just with Godzooky 1.

This one has some BIG rides, and Mrs Zilla doesn’t like them, and the other two Godzookies are too small to ride them. I didn’t fancy paying over £100 ($200) to have them watch us ride on rollercoasters.

Godzooky 1 is now tall enough to go on the big ones, and it’ll be a good opportunity for some father son bonding before the new school year starts next Wednesday.

Before that though, I have another flying trip up to Grandma Zilla’s tomorrow. She’s doing ok, and actually has a meeting with the consultant radiologist  this afternoon, so there should be more news on her treatment shortly.

She doesn’t feel up to having the kids running around yet, so it’ll just be me paying her a visit. I’ve got a list of heavy chores to help her complete, but I’m also hoping for a chance to take her out somewhere and spoil her a bit.

I’m glad that we’ve got all the kid back to school shopping done already: new shoes, lunch boxes and uniforms. Godzooky 2’s starting to get giddy at the thought of full time school, I’m sure that won’t last long though….

I’m feeling frustrated at the moment

it’s just one of those days.

There are very few people in the office at the moment, which is a bit of a sore point for me. I’d hoped to get this week off on holiday, to make the most of the last full week of the Godzookies school holiday.

However, my boss decided to book this week off, leaving me to assume responsibility for the entire office. Incredibly he’s booked this week so he can take his daughter on holiday with him and his wife. Fair enough, if she was of school age, but she’s 30!

The amount of crap I’ve had to deal with this week has been unbelievable. I’v ebeen effectively trying to juggle three different roles and answer queries which my boss had “forgotten” to sort out before he went.

Normally I don’t mind helping out, but in this instance he didn’t leave me any warning or provide any guidance as to what might be expected.

You know that feeling where you are just “treading water”, barely keeping afloat?

I’ve just been landed with another deadline of tomorrow afternoon which I knew nothing about. I need to compile a stack on information ready for a new systems migration which has to be completed by close of play tomorrow!

I think I may just treat myself to Monday off and see how the returnees cope…

It’s official – I am a freak!

Over the weekend I wandered out to the shops, not looking for anything in particular. I spied a sale on in a certain menswear shop and went in for a closer examination.

There was a good discount on suits, so I thought I might take advantage. However I hit problems quite quickly.

I buy my suits off the peg, as do most people I suspect, mixing and matching the relevant sizes.

However this shop did things differently. They had jackets and trousers paired together, on one hanger.

I took my size of jacket and then a pair of trousers from a different set, also in my size. I wandered off to the changing rooms and tried on the suit. A good fit and a reasonable price. Excellent.

Until I approached the cashier. As they rang up the items they told me that I couldn’t buy the goods, as I had mixed the jackets and trousers up. I explained that I took a size 44″ jacket, but a 34″ in trousers, so I had found the appropriate sizes.

I was then informed that I couldn’t do that: their suits are strictly sold together. If I wanted a 44″ jacket I would have to match it with a pair of 38″ trousers. Or if I wanted 34″ trousers I would have to get a 40″ jacket!

Apparently “There is a convention of jackets being 6″ larger than the matching trousers” and they “couldn’t split that pairing”.

So I was faced with the prospect of having a jacket that fitted, with clown trousers to match, or trousers that fitted, matched with the Incredible Hulk’s jacket.

Despite my protestations the cashier was not going to deviate from company policy, so I had to leave the shop empty handed.Clearly the customer is not always right.

So it’s official – the difference between my chest and waist sizes makes me a freak!

Flatpack almost meant flat back

A busy weekend saw me doing a variety of things, but the first one was assembling the new bunk beds.

The technique was similar to every other piece of flat pack furniture I’ve ever tackled.

To facilitate ease of construction and ensure no “little helpers” got injured, I made sure that everyone else was out of the house.

It seemed like a very good idea after I dropped a huge end piece on my toe: there was no-one around to hear my curses!

After a lengthy search of all bunk bed retailers in the area we had pickedthe sturdiest and most robust available. They came with a hefty price tag, and also with a hefty weight that my toe can verify!

A flaw in my cunning plan soon surfaced though: one I’d assembled both beds I was left with the task of making them into a bunk i.e. putting one on top of the other.

Being a typical man I didn’t want to hang around and wait for help, I decided to proceed on my own. For the uninitiated, the task involved lifting one single bed up high enough to place it on top of the other, ensuring that the retaining posts were secured through the holes in the struts.

If the weight of a piece dropping on my foot didn’t make me realise how sturdy these beds were, the act of lifting one onto another solo soon reinforced the idea!

I’m sure if there had been any witnesses the sight of me struggling to accomplish this would have been hilarious. Then again, if there had been a witness I would have told them to stop laughing and give me a bloomin’ hand!

I did succeed, although it was a hurculean task. In fact in a modern re-write of the legend of Hercules I’d include some reference to building bunk beds solo!

I managed to lift one of the beds onto my back and slowly lift myself more vertical, my arms close enough to the ends to provide some sort of guidance, ensuring that the retaining posts were secure.

At one point I felt as though the whole lot was going to tip, but funnily enough, all my training on the Wii Fit seems to have improved my sense of balance immeasurably, and I managed to avoid what would have been a certain disaster a few weeks ago.

Of course my efforts were unappreciated upon my family’s return – tehy were very giddy about their new beds, but without any thought as to how I’d managed to achieve it alone.

My efforts at enlightening them and soliciting any sympathy fell on somewhat deaf ears…..

The long weekend beckons

with a bank holiday on Monday.

The new bunk beds have arrived, so I know what I’m doing tomorrow morning….

Hopefully (weather permitting) we’ll get the chance to go to a theme park and enjoy some rides.

It’s been an interesting day at work. Where I’m currently stationed, the building lies between the fringes of China Town and the Gay Village, two exciting and vibrant areas.

Whilst the smell and rubbish of China Town in the mornings are not particularly pleasant, the smell at lunchtimes is enticing and mouth watering.

The Gay Village is gearing up for the annual Pride parade and festivities, so many of the roads are closed off and preparations are well under way. There is a real sense of anticipation in the air as you walk around.

Whilst I’ve attended the parade most years, I’ve never witnessed close up the amount of effort and preparation required for it.

Here’s hoping for some good weather so everyone gets to enjoy it to the full…

You try and do a good thing….

Grandma Zilla sounded pretty down yesterday, which is pretty understandable, all things considered.

I tried to think of some way to raise her flagging spirits, and eventually thought of sending her a picture of the Godzookies with a cheery message attached.

Perfect – my new super duper camera phone to the rescue!

After much cajoling and many attempts to get them all smiling at the same time I achieved my goal.

A quick addition of some loving words and it was winging it’s way Grandma Zillawards.

Knowing how lax she is at actually dealing with her mobile phone, I followed it up with a phone call to ensure she received the photo.

There I hit a problem: she couldn’t remember how to open such a message!

There are some things that life is too short for. One of them is trying to explain to you mother how to use her (different brand to yours) mobile phone!

After quarter of an hour I admitted failure.

At least she appreciated the sentiment and thought, although her parting remark of “You can show it to me next time I see you” sort of defeated my initial purpose!

This was a story

I was hoping to post about last week, but events overtook me:

The proverbial hits the fan, or the wind

Is there anything that doesn’t count as art any more?

I can’t imagine many things more terrifying than seeing that looming down on you though…

Ever the optomist

I’ve booked tickets for a family day out at a local theme park. We went last year, and the small kids loved it. The rides are more of a junior size, and there is a small petting zoo, where you can be assualted by goats as they “frisk” you for consumables. I’ve managed to get them at a discount of 60% too!

They’re open ended tickets, which is probably just as well, given how horrendous the weather has been, and still is, and is forecast to be.

In addition I’ve also cashed in some air miles to get tickets for a bigger, more exciting theme park for me and Godzooky1 to go to.The younger godzookies are too small to get on the rides, and Mrs Zilla won’t go on roller coasters, so it makes more sense for me and my eldest to have a male bonding day. He’s had another recent growth spurt and is now well above the minimum height requirement for the most thrilling rides.

The big kid in me is bubbling back to the surface with the prospect of revisiting this theme park: I haven’t been there in some 15 years, and they’ve added some cracking rides since then!

Catch Up time

I didn’t get chance to post towards the end of last week, everything seemed to go into some sort of meltdown. I had major problems at work and that ate away at my lunchtime posting habits.

Still, all’s well that ends well. I managed to get things sorted, work wise.

Grandma Zilla finally had some good news – the second op has successfully taken away the necessary margin of tissue. Had this not worked she was threatening not to have any more treatment, a worrying threat, but one that isn’t required any more, thankfully. Now she awaits a date to commence her radiotherapy….

I had the pleasure of getting a new gadget: my mobile phone now boasts a wonderful 5mp camera, which takes marvellous photos. It’s a wonderful slimline thing of beauty, compared to my old bulky beast. Now I just need a memory card to accomodate all the pictures I’ll be taking!

We also managed to locate some new, good quality bunk beds, which are being delivered on Friday. So I know what I’m doing on Saturday….!

I spent yesterday afternoon at my second job, and it was a LOT busier this time. It was still a good buzz though and I felt a lot more assured doing things this time.

A busy weekend, but one which I feel has been really productive and rewarding.

Love and Hate

on the tram, this morning, on my way to work, I saw the infamous words Love and Hate tattooed on the knuckles of a man. I’d often thought it was merely a cliche, but here it was, right in front of me.

I wonder was possesses a man to have that done? You’re basically professing to the world that you have issues. How much must that act hamper you in life?

Job interviews where you shake the interviewers hand with your knuckles proclaiming Love, while everyone knows what the other will threaten. Every single person you will meet will have some sort of preconception of you, before you even open your mouth.

The saddest part was the person displaying the tattoos: he was in his late 50s, clearly had no teeth (his saggy face betrayed their lack) and had teh frame of someone who had clearly let themself go. He looked a tired, old man. Yet at some point in his past he had taken the decision to set himself up as a “man not to be messed with”.

Age clearly does catch up with us all ….