Let's write a quick blog.

Hey how are you?  It's been a week already since the last post apparently in the Ramblings.  I can hardly believe it.  I don't really know why it doesn't feel so long!  Perhaps because I've been off quite a bit lately with not many shifts on my rota.  This week is different, although because Louise is out of the room for a little while doing stuff, I thought that I would grab a quick few minutes to write what I can of a blog.

Firstly there isn't much that has happened.  The pedal came off the bike again on the way to work the other night, so the engineers on the site I was working put the pedal back on and used some special glue that is for keeping nuts in place - no, not those sort of nuts, although I'm absolutely certain that it would work on those as well.  Apparently they apply the glue to the but itself (inside), then screw it on and leave it to dry. "If it comes off again, then we'll get the welding equipment out," they said.  Well, there's dedication for you isn't there.  I don't tend to say on here where I am working so much now, but I'll just say that Lauren's Patisserie on Brunel Drive estate have really nice engineers.  Thanks guys. :-)

The view from the cabin at
work the other night

While I have been off it has been fun to share some time with Louise, because I didn't get very much time off over the Christmas and New Year period, well I didn't get any time off to be honest with you until January the third, which was one day where I obviously didn't see much of the day because I was bloody shattered from all those working hours.  Well not working hours really because I don't really do that much work, short of doing patrols which I will always most definitely do and any other duties that are on occasional sites (each site is different in some way, some even have alarms to respond to).  I can't for the life of me understand people who are so lazy that when they are doing security sites that require patrols they are not done.  I mean, even if you don't do them as often as it states, at least doing them is only a small thing in reality.  It isn't flipping rocket science people.  Occasionally things happen, but most often on what are called "static sites", it is pretty much being sat around and waiting.  I take the old laptop to keep me active, because another thing that I can't understand is the whole sleeping on site...  You are being paid to watch over someone's site.  If you go to sleep then you are not watching the site are you?  If you go out somewhere, leave the kids with a babysitter, and then come out to find the babysitter sat down casually watching your telly whilst the children are no longer at home, would you go off "on one"?  Abso-flipping-lutely you would.

As I said, you're being paid for a job.  There I've said it out in the open, now for the criticism back at me.  I know that a lot of security guards will be just like that, but whatever, I am not.  Sometimes I may have nodded accidentally, but some go to work with the sole purpose of sleeping while they are there.  I know one guard who once said that "firemen sleep on nights!"  Yes, but that is something that is catered for, and they are available at a moment's notice to respond.  They are not making sure that someone's livelihood is kept pristine.  That is your only job as a security officer, and to do any other is to be not doing your job!

Louise's loaf (picture taken
on her own phone).

While I have been off Louise has been busy in the kitchen, and am I a flaming happy man or not?  That is a rhetorical question (doesn't require an answer)!  She has baked bread for the first time since she baked it at school, and she has made some of that lovely Broccoli and Stilton Soup of hers, as well as some other culinary delights.  I am lucky beyond belief, and I know it for sure.  That bread was delicious, especially the midnight snack of the bread toasted with blackcurrant jam on there - yummy!  I am so looking forward to more of her new recipe attempts, because I am very much a fan of food.

Wow, I'm getting a lot written in here aren't I?  I'll be adding pictures next, and what on earth is that all about?  A quick blog that is actually relatively followable (wow, followable is a word).

Anyway, finally I am chuffed to bits that I have won an auction on eBay for something that I have been thinking about for a long while.  For Christmas I got money from a variety of different people, which when put together added to quite a nice amount of cash.  I've already bought some things with it (a couple of CD's and a DVD I think), before looking on "The E of BAY".  First thing I got from there was a great T-Shirt that is very much like the sort of thing that Sheldon from the TV show Big Bang Theory would wear (a show that me and Louise have gotten to like, me more so because I am a sci-fi nerd and "get" the references.

My new T-Shirt is called Evolution.

Last night though I won a 12-track digital recorder, which on;y five years ago cost nearly £1200  according to a Sound-On-Sound review from that time.  It isn't absolutely everything I wanted, as it doesn't feature a means to connect it to my laptop, so I am in the position of still looking for an Audio Interface that will work with the Windows Vista that is on my laptop.  I have tried numerous times to change it to Windows 7, but it just craps out every time , and I am then in the unenviable position of having to download all that was on the laptop again, using only the out of the world crazily over priced mobile broadband that I have.

I am however happy enough to see past that to the fact that now I have a means to put quality recordings down at home if I want to, which I can think take to somewhere without having to re-record those parts again.  Okay, maybe occasionally I might, but most of the time I think that I won't have to.  If I can keep the signals pure, then all there would be is the case of using a studio's own effects on those "pure parts".  It also has 250 of what are called "virtual tracks"...  In a nutshell, some digital recording devices give so many of those for each "real track".  On the one I am getting there are twelve faders for the twelve recording tracks, and some other faders for other operations (so it says in the Sound on Sound review).  Each of those faders then has a specific amount of "virtual tracks" each, which are supposed to be to give you the ability to do multiple takes of the same thing.  You can only make one of those "takes" audible at a time though.  However, it does mean that there is the possibility of you recording something different, and then making those different things live at a different time.  I could therefore copy each different part across to a computer at the studio say (or laptop when I have an Audio Interface), which is a long-winded way, but also a possibility.

Anyway, Louise is finished now, so I must go.  Thank you for reading, and please take care.  Let's see if I can get some pictures up then.

January 21 2013 (42 years, one month, and 26 days old).