2008, an interesting year

2008 is nearly over. Lots of things have happened this year in the world of Loon, but mainly towards the end.

The beginning was the usual mix of non exciting stuff, work, drinking, MNIPN, TNIPN and alike. Some high points and some very low points. Good friends and good times outweighed the bad points, which is the best way.

From September everything started falling apart. First of all the Alfa GTV died in a pool of steam and decided to leak all of it's electricity into the atmosphere. Then Her Holyness decided to eat her clutch slave cylinder, and (as of now) she is sitting in my garage awaiting the arrival of the new year and the new workshop. Which brings me nicely to work (that's the new workshop).

November 6th 2008, thats a date to remember for the Gibraltar export trade. What was looking like a quiet day in the office, one trailer outside, puppy running around the office. Then Customs & Revenue appeared, stripped the office of all the computers and the company of the General Manager.. Two days later, I was confirmed as the new General Manager. Now at the end of December, I have a company van, no fuel bills, a full warehouse, a large Christmas bonus and awaiting the confirmation for having the office redecorated and refurbished!

I also have been looking after a mad 2 year old cocker spaniel by the name of Sadie. God she is mad!! Loveable and well behaved (90% of the time). She has just left today, after I felt guilty about keeping her in a two bedroom flat, a long way from a garden that she has been used to for the past 18 months.

After nearly four years of waiting..... A week after getting my new job, the phone call came;

"Hi, this is the Appalause Store here, I see you have been on the waiting list for Top Gear for a while now, and we would like to offer you some tickets for the next filming."

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!! So after picking myself off of the floor, and a phone call to Bella (I usually keep my promises), we went off to the secret studio of Top Gear (Dunsfold Aerodrome, next door to Cranleigh Freight Services). A great four hours spent with Clarkson, Capt Slow and Hamster! God Hammond is tiny. And after seeing the filming from the stuido, and being glued to the TV on the Sunday following, did I see myself.... NO! But I saw Bella! Happy Loon!

Not forgetting Madness! What a concert. Malc and myself disappeared off on an adventure to the O2 to rekindle my Christmas parties of the late 90's of Baggy Trousers and One Step Beyond. Apart from becoming (forever) known as "Pizza Crack Man", a full two hours of dancing and enjoyment, as well as a few beers and lots of Doc Martyns! I'm still listening to Madness on full blast (+12 on my NAD amp) as well as the Stereo MCs (support act... excellent!!). BOUNCE BOUNCE!!!

As for Christmas, well it's been quiet and enjoyable (mainly because I have been taking Sadie for walks to get out of the way for most of the day!). My sister made Sadie ill (well I'm blaming her) and I spent last night sitting up with the poorly puppy... Poor puppy. I think she got drunk (Sadie not my sister).

So to finish, I've enjoyed this year. Good on Malc for finally settling down (a few times), hopefully some good news for puppy when she finds a loving caring home with a big garden to bury all her evidence of evilness in, and to Bella, I miss you lots..

To everyone out in Blog land, I hope you have had a good festive season and happy new year.

Three weeks on...

Three weeks ago yesterday I was put in charge of a UK company, thanks to Customs & Revenue and the Metropolitan police. Actually, the police didn't do much but stand around and try and occupy the puppy, whilst the three of us left just sat in the warehouse wondering what was happening. Gibraltars quiet little corner of Hayes was raided by 6 Customs officers and after 30 minutes the boss was gone and so were all of the PCs and the fax machine (minus the phone, they left that on the filing cabinet!).

The owner of the company flew to the UK on the Monday, and some sanity was restored. By the end of the first week, my office (well I was now confirmed as the UK General Manager for the firm) was starting to function, albeit in a dysfunctional way. Slowly the systems started to come back online, the old customs entry system installed onto the new PCs, the fax being run from my 6 year old laptop, Windows Bu sines Vista crashing every time someone decided to breathe.. Nothing unusual then!

This week has now passed. I had a half day on Wednesday to be in the audience of Top Gear (four years on the waiting list and I wasn't going to miss that!) and all hell broke loose again....

I'm not happy about what happened at work on Wednesday afternoon, and it's an issue I need to get on top of. The ex boss turned up to collect his things, and as I wasn't in, decided to pick holes in the staff and start throwing files around the office.... Time for drastic measures. He appeared back on Thursday, and I was the only one left in the building. Now I know my job, and I know what to do (90% of the time), and after a quick and polite chat, things were sorted out. Fine, he hasn't been charged with anything by the authorities, but it's not his job anymore, it's MINE!!!

And finally today. Some normality has restored to the office. Friday being the worst day, and things started to fall into place. The accounting is starting to look easier. The trailers are getting loaded nice and easy, the new member of staff doesn't really know what he is doing but that will be addressed as soon as I can have a quiet 20 minutes to myself and work out where to start training him (apart from the usual "this is a phone, this is a pen, this a piece of paper, write what the person on the phone says down on the piece of paper")....

Gone are the days of finishing at 4:30pm for me. I can't remember the last early finish now (apart from Wednesday). Working weekends, working till 7 or 8 at night, but I know once everything is in place, the work will be easy and back to the old routine, but with me in charge!

Time for me to become a tough, unfriendly, company manager.... Time to show the others that the new boss is in the office, and get things done my way!

New toys and some pondering

After the nasty recession has hit, I decided to go out and spend some of my hard earned cash on some new toys. After purchasing some new Wharfedales, NAD L53 and cables, the next purchases on the cards were to upgrade my PC and laptop.

After a visit to Offtek and play.com, I've now received a nice new Maxtor 500g One Touch external hard drive and 2gb of ram for my laptop. Sorted!! All my files have been transferred, leaving a nice (fairly) empty hard drive on my desktop and the new RAM on the laptop has speeded it up a bit, well after deleting some files off of it at least!

As for the pondering side, I'm not too sure. After a night out in the Noble Vine with Gary (or Barry as he has now been christened), some chatting about the finer points of life (broken motorcycles, the film Convoy and Thelma and Louise), I get home and try to cheer up bella. I think it worked, but now I'm sitting here pondering about bella... Hmmmmmmm

I think I just miss her, actually I don't think, I know I miss her!

I think I'll take my pondering head up the steps to bed! Good plan.

Let the work commence

This is it. The nights are drawing in quick! It was dark before 6pm tonight up here in cloud towers! This calls for desperate measures. Well the last week has been rather intersting. The old Alfa trying my patience, until now. I've decided the GTV is going to be sold, and replaced by a nice MX-5 or some description. The Monster, well Her Holyness was nearly next on the list to go, but after an evening of trawling through the internet and finding some places to do the work, it's looking like 'Winter Project 2' is going to be underway this weekend.

First job will be to strip out the clutch pressure plate (start nice and easy) and the clutch slave cylinder. Whilst doing that, I'll be having a glance round to see if there are any other jobs to keep me occupied, well I know one, sorting out the rev counter!

Then during the next three to four months, the work will start. The '93 original Monster will be stripped down, cleaned, fettled, cleaned, lubed and put back together, hopefully pass it's MOT and back on the road intime for the 'summer'. I'll keep the world (well my little world anyway) upto date with the progress of this project, but bearing in mind Project Number 1 is still sitting in my garage and untouched for the past 3 years!

Maybe I could two at once......

Views from my desk....

Not much in the way of excitment today. Two trailers sent off to Gibraltar with lots of goodies on. The heater in my car packed up again, but a swift bit of brute force via a 19mm spanner and the heater switch was all that was required to get it working again! A nice drive home tonight, as I decided to miss out the boring queue of traffic waiting to get across the Bridge of Doom! A dart round the back roads and onto some twisty roads before getting back to the queue at the Bridge of Doom!

Todays view from my desk, well there are a couple today!





A new office manager, with a new hair cut! Better not make her angry!

Not a very good day......

After a nice nights sleep up in the clouds, everything went wrong when waking up! Grabbed all my stuff, disappeared into the car park, started the old Alfa up and no heater... Ok, all the windows have dew on them, they are misting up and I have no rear screen heater or fan heater.. Nice! I jump out of the car, and notice a nice big puddle of water disappearing off into the drain. That'll be the radiator leaking again then! Added some (more) Radweld and played about with the wires for the heater, only to notice two of the wires are not where they should be. Great the plug has gone mad! After my work colleague buggers off to work, probably seeing my boots sticking out from under the door of my car (they are not that hard to miss), I get stressed!

Off to my little workshop of doom, and holding my breath as the windows had cleared enough to see. Which would happen first, would I get to my garage or would I pass out?? Luckily the latter. Time to move the Monster, get the electrickery kit out, notice a big puddle of clutch fluid underneath the Monster (well that a story for later). Time to pull the drivers side footwell apart. Screws out, carpet and plastic trim thrown into the back of the car, now I'm lying along the drivers seat, head first into the footwell, looking up at the wiring. Three plugs have broken, crimpers out, chop the old plugs off, new plugs put on (without much swearing this time), all plugged back together and still no heater! ARSE!!! As it is now 9:30am, I decided to drive the car to work as Her Holyness (the Monster) has a broken clutch slave cylinder (a nice big hole straight through it!), and hope the water stays in the radiator, the windows stay clear and the sun stays out!

Well I got two out of three! I pulled onto the forecourt of my local Tescos petrol station and the water escapes! Time for damage limitation! £10 of petrol put in, my water bottles filled up, dart across the to the car park, water topped up and time to start praying to the God of Milan that this little Alfa will make it to work, or at least die trying to get there! The second option nearly happened twice as two idiots just pulled out infront of me!

Finally the car makes it to work. No water loss, the heater didn't invite the pixies round to fix it and the rear screen was, well, sort of clear (but thats what the door mirrors are for!). After another two hours of going through the workshop manual, swearing, and finally thinking of something, as well as striping out both sides footwell trims, I double checked the wiring, and suddenly, the pixies were there! Setting number 4 comes to life on the heater.. Sod the other 3, I have number 4! YES!!!!!! Marvelous!! WOOHOO!!

It's still working now, I'm happy, the music is back on loud.. Yippee!!

And todays picture can be my little boots, relaxing at work!

A good day (so far)

This mornings commute was enjoyable! Yes, shocking I know! A commute to work which is enjoyable. Walton Bridge was its usual arsed self. Traffic backed up through Walton, but after a little dive down the back roads, I was across the bridge in 10 minutes (rather than sit in the queue and do nothing for 30 minutes!!). After listening to the lovely music coming from the GTV ICE unit, oh the joy, and singing my little head off, it was time for my morning wander around Tescos. Just before getting into the car park, a blue GTV was parked in the kerb, I decided to be a friendly brother in arms and tooted lots down the road. A wave from the driver of the other GTV, marvelous, what can go wrong today!

Tescos done, off to work. A little blat up the A30 and round the peri track then time to settle down to do some work. Work done and sorted by lunch time, two visits from Bob (who has now called himself Ikea Man), and a few attacks from the mad puppy and a dustpan brush (maybe she wants to clear up the mess downstairs).

A nice relaxing day at work, some Hi-Fi shopping completed, and a wander round Richer Sounds and Weybridge Hi-Fi arranged for Saturday. I know I'm going to spend too much money!

Uselessness

Why oh why oh why are idiots allowed to be out and about in the world with pieces of paper (or plastic, or both) that allow them to drive???

My Monday morning commute and me time (it's the only time I can really enjoy my music loud!), whilst driving towards the bridge of doom, listening to The Blues Brothers was rudely interupted by some f**kwit in a Peugeot trying to cut me up in a Keep Clear box! Interupting my music is bad, cutting me up in a place you shouldn't be blocking (I think the words Keep and Clear printed on the road give it away), blocking the inside lane of traffic because you are a numpty, is not very clever, and not much cleverer (a word I haven't used for a while) when I put my little 916 back across your bonnet!!!

After the Peugeot incident (now if Mr F**kwit had said sorry, I need to go right I would've been happy), I'm back in my groove. Music on loud again, singing away in my little Italian dark grey leather paradise, and heading across the Peri track at Heathrow. To be greeted by one of my all time pet hates... TFL taxis!! A police van is sitting on the inside lane to turn left, when he puts on the blues and twos and wants to go right, nothing infront of the taxi, and the van gets into the outside lane, a couple of cars are stuck infront of the police van, and a clear lane in the middle to go straight over and up Harlington High Street, does the taxi move?? No... He sits there, green light showing, me tooting, car driver behind me starts tooting, police van stuck, I'm shouting at the numpty! Time for BTCC driving rules, headlights on, more tooting, and finally the idiot moves straight across!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

I hate numpties!!

But at least I had seven minutes of Radar Love to calm me down.

It's done.....

Finally, the building of flat packed furniture is finished for a while. My bed has been assembled, my sofa bought and many thanks to my mate Bob for his mad singing, whacky outlook on life and general lunacy, oh and the use of the van for getting my stuff from Ikea back to my box in the sky.



I'm happy, I like the new sanctuary in the sky!

Next purchases on the horizon, well possibly an angle grinder to get rid of 6 inches off of my bed, so I don't hit my head as much when getting into it! A new amp and speakers, that'll be nice. Well especially speakers as I've killed my present ones lots of times. Maybe a couple of shelves from my collection of bikes and an LCD television. I think that's the lot, but this shopping list can't be completed until my next quest is done. The fixing of the car and bike quest...... It's going to be a toughy, but it's winter time and that's as good a time to do it than any other.

That's my iPod sorted for my daily commute to work and now it's time to climb the ladder to the sky... Nearly...

Day off... Nice

A nice day away from Minkeyland today. Now phone calls from clients asking "why hasn't my stuff gone to Gibraltar?" today. Nice and peaceful. Well nearly, all will be revealed.

After a night down the town catching up with my mate Malc, and after a few beverages, I had a nice lay in today! I think I needed it after spending a weekend faffing around in Ikea looking for my new office furniture. The noise outside from the builders was starting to annoy me, so I headed off in search of peace and quiet. As I'm just about to walk into the paper shop to buy the daily comic, my phone rings "can you get me some coffee?" asks my mum.. Well, not willing to be killed in a painful way, due to my mums lack of coffee after a mornings swim (not bad, she learnt to swim when she was 70, and still goes once a week five years on!). A wander down to the town and into Sainsburys.

I saw a few of my old staff. Caught up on some of the gossip (well, being a shareholder, I need to know what is happening!), and after purchasing the coffee and some salad I wandered back home.

Time to make a mess in the kitchen. A nice tuna pasta creation for work, which will save me from the delights of the chocolate and crisp box for the rest of the week. Some pasta cooked. Tuna and mayo mixed up with some celery and tomatoes and a generous helping of parmasian cheese, lovely! My creation is made!




The builders still putting together the new flat packed houses in the rain. Still making a noise, but my headache has gone. I think the celery got rid of it! All that is left for me to do is go back to my box, and find a hiding place for my boots and leathers.

Day three in Ikea.....

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, three days spent in Ikea. At least it was two different stores, otherwise people would think I was locked in over night! I managed to get myself a new chair and some rather fancy desk lights! Yay!!

My new desk is growing on me. My box now has a divider! Well, that is what the desk seems to do. In a small room like mine (I think it's about 8m x 3.5m or something like that), it does look huge, but will disappear when my loft bed arrives! Hopefully soon!!

Two days of Ikea are enough..

But I'm going back for more tomorrow morning! At least this time I'm not buying anything. My dad has asked me to take him there on a recon mission.

I came up with a great way to enjoy a Friday night, whilst sitting at work yesterday. How about I go to Ikea... Numpty! An hour and twenty minutes to get from WoT to Croydon, after spending lots of time watching police cars, ambulances and fire engines going towards Carshalton and Ewell... Nice! Into Ikea, I know what I want and I find it. Two people standing infront of me looking at the ticket to get the aisle number and shelf number, I just said "I'll race ya!" to the old couple and they smiled as I run off into the crowd. I got downstairs and found my new desk, loaded my trolley and went to get my new drawers.... Erm... "This item has been temporarily oversold" Eh? Oversold, don't you mean just sold out! Out of Stock will do!

Desk and cactus paid for (I had to buy a new one, and ended up with three), and then the wander across the car park. Found my van where I had left it, well I thought I parked it next to a tree, but it was under a lamp post, which is sort of like a tree, but with a light on it. One box in, next box doesn't seem to fit past the boat lid seal... Erm.. Man in car behind, just looking at me laughing. A bit of twisting the box and swearing and the box hits the boot with a satisfying THUD!

Decided that I would confused my SatNav on the way home and avoided the A232 and headed through Mitcham Common and my old way home from Chelsea Bridge. Desk taken upstairs, but I couldn't build it last night as the instructions showed a picture of a hammer and it was 10.30pm.

Back to Ikea today, but this time the Wembley store. I hate that shop now! Idiots have no idea how to drive their cars around the car park, people just stop in the middle of the aisles and have a family meeting, people just get in the way. Time for something I learned from a friend of me... Elbows out, hit anyone stupid enough to get in my way! It worked a treat, lots of appologies to me, picked up my new drawers and wandered to the tills. After a 20 minute wait and some woman pushing her trolley into my leg 4 times, the last time I move the trolley backwards and it hit her.. That made me feel better hehe!

So finally, my desk and drawers are assembled. I'm happy now, well apart from the fact I have to lose my trusty and very comfy chair. RIP comfy chair....

First day back

Back to the old factory today. After spending a nice relaxing evening eating jelly beans and putting the world to rights, and trying not to laugh too much at Joan Rivers, I'm back in work after a 4 day weekend.

Back into the routine of dealing with numpty idiots who can't quite grasp the concept of driving a car in a forward motion, when the road ahead of them is clear! Lots of 'Termi' shouting this morning, and another morning commute has been survived.

Well someone has missed me for the past four days, shame it is the dog. She only wants me for some food later! Damn dog!

Time to get shouting at the bed company. I want my bed!!!

Finally....

God knows how long it has taken, but my box is completed. Well the decorating part at least. It's nice to have a room not smelling of paint brush cleaner, paint (ok it'll be gone in 3 hours when it's dried), tins with brushes sitting in them cleaning off, furniture being moved everywhere..... Sorted, done, finished!

Time to celebrate by walking down the town and buying a paper and some jelly beans (I'm now addicted to American Style Jelly Beans from Aldi (99p a bag)).

Sucked into WoW land

It's been a while since I posted on here. November 07, opps!

Well, what has happened in that time? I've become addicted to World of Warcraft, and last weekend I finally rolled my first character (or in other worlds I got my character from level 1 to the top level of 70). That cheered me up, as I have been stuck in that world of killing pixies and monsters for too long!



I still have my little Monster, and last December the fleet was added to with a 1997 Alfa Romeo GTV. Broken heater, tempremental passenger door, 6 months MOT, 6 months tax. It passed it's MOT in the summer, and then the radiator broke. It is still running though. The car is a wizard and also, I am now an offical petrol head, just by owning an Alfa! Excellent!





I've spent the last month doing some redecorating in my box of a room. About 20 bags of rubbish dumped, my garaged has been filled up with boxes of CDs, books and other stuff from my cupboard of doom (it hasn't been looked in since about 2001). I can now see the end. The walls have been papered and painted, skirting board, doors and frames all glossed and any holes filled in (not quite in that order). I'm just awaiting the arrival of my new bed, sofa and desk. Then that's another job completed. That's when the local authority will decide to pull down Cloud Towers!





Work is quiet at the moment. I've still got 20 days holiday to take, and it's nearly half way through September! I'm looking at the possibility of taking off the whole of December. That would be nice.

Now I have remembered my password, I'll be back to blogging about nothing, something or anything. It'll also kick start me into taking some pictures again.... Hopefully!

Ciao