Monthly Archives: July 2001

Really feeling shite this morning.
Would rather be doing nothing, but on the way to work as usual – sucker!
Anyone else would be on a sicky. Blasted work ethic.
Got gut rot yesterday evening, which has proved a little, more persistent than your usual. Sleep early, which was as well as it was broken over the night. Feeling a general lack of enthusiasm for anything. Bah.
Saturday was a good day. Got a lot done even pushed myself into doing some wallpapering in the evening. Only 2 stripes over the polystyrene – but a good start on that wall. Needs to be done to stop the kids marking up the polystyrene that’s there.
Train starting – an old boneshaker – so I’m stopping.

Going to work. I have found myself a lot tetchier in the mornings. There can be no other explanation other than… work is annoying me. No one likes work, but I manage on the whole to keep myself detached from that side of thinking. Unfortunately I definitely seem to be forming the opinion that I do not like it. There is too much stress at the moment & it takes up too much of my thinking: 2 things it is not supposed to do.
Jack is on ‘summer hols’ at the moment. He asked Louise the other day when he could go back to school. He’s a social beastie is Jack, & he gets a lot out of it all at the moment. He was doing just afternoons before, when he returns he will be in official ‘reception’ class, & spending the whole day there. Quite a different arrangement: school, proper, even. It’s a very odd concept for a parent, let alone the child. What will Eve make of it all?
They have been playing very well together, with Jack being very good with his wild little sibling. He helped her up the stairs the other day. …Well, it’s not like she cannot do it herself, but they went up together, Jack with a protective arm held up behind her.
I wish to be home more, but life won’t let it happen (at least, not at the moment; hope may be refuge of fools, but I never said I was anything but.)

It’s a hot day today. Perhaps this is why people have been cranky on the phone? Had a really shitty day at work, with an above average ‘sanctimonious fool’ call rate. Also a general lack of back up to queries has not assisted my mood any. Matty packed it in & walked out yesterday. Still… I don’t suppose I care so much now as I am on the train home & no longer have think until tomorrow. My thinking capacity has been somewhat impaired recently. Picked up another cold/cough, am tired, it is, as mentioned, hot. I’m just a dumb-ass jack-ass – don’t ask me nuffink.

Work seemed to stabilise to yesterday. Back to there being not just me on the phone & a more normal level of work – not insane. Much relief & stress petering out.
No decorating last night. Had to do form filling for “Working Family Tax Credit” – which is the only thing that makes the job I do up to a reasonable (living) wage (I wonder how often i bleat that?).
“Tech support – gosh, that must be a well paid job?”
“Ummmm….”
Well, we have taken on more work (customers), responsibility & have taken on administration work, but, we are still paid less than accounts. I should complain – Alex, who does more work than me, gets paid less. Go figure – it’s the modern workplace – innit! Just in case you think this be all bad, I do quite like a few aspects of the job & I certainly like the hours I keep… Well, sometimes as the alarm nags me at 5:30, I do wonder, but that’s just sleep trying to hang onto me.
Jack woke last night. He said that he had, had a wee-wee before getting into the bath & we took him at his word… as neither Louise or I saw him do it. He probably had not as that what woke him & he woke confused & had a shout to us. I dashed upstairs to see what was wrong & his complaining woke Eve – so she started to complain as well – so there I was in a dark room with 2 wailing kids. Louise quickly came to the rescue & took charge of settling Eve, & I took Jack off for the wee he should have done earlier. That done, he was off to sleep, straight off. Jack has never wet the bed – which I consider pretty brilliant, really. It took Louise to point that fact out to me for me to realise something that I take for granted.

Here’s me trying to remember what we did Saturday…?
Ah, that was it… not much :)
A bit of moving things up from the front bedroom to the attic. I was planing a haircut, but we did not get the kids marshalled until too late in the day for that.
Sunday was going to be a big decorating day for me… Try to get some progress on the front bedroom. Louise’s mum was going to come over & they were going to go off & leave me alone in the house to get on with things & concentrate. Louise’s mum was late though, & just when we were giving up, she arrived… with the news that the trains were not running… So, That scuppered the plans that they should go off somewhere. Past the initial frustration & the repeated explanations & incredulity from Louise’s mum (justifying & over justifying the situation) we did settle into a routine that let me do some decorating. Did not get as much as we would have liked done, but this is the nature of things, especially when Jack insists he wants to help (when he hinders, so he cannot) & gets upset that it is not possible. He is interesting in that respect. He is not good at accepting no as an answer & will continue to ask & plead when something is out of the question, & then get upset. It’s a common kiddie tactic, which parents can generally be worn down with until they concede something. It actually rarely works for Jack (with me) as I will either yes or no. Louise will compromise or distract on some extreme occasions (as in reality I may do). On the whole though, this tactic does not work, yet he still persists…
Anyway – I got the polystyrene wallpaper covering the outer wall (reason required: a couple of cold spots that attract condensation probably caused by ‘joining stones’). I had intended to start papering over some of the polystyrene paper put up earlier with lining paper, & might have managed it if I had not mixed the paste so badly it was as lumpy as porridge. Had to dash out to buy some more.
Papered round the window & radiator too. That polystyrene stuff is easy to put up… I doubt that the lining paper will be so easy. Then having taken the manky curtains down, I put some more respectable ones up. Had taken down the manky plastic curtain rail too, & needed to replace that with one from another room (downstairs back – wooden venetian planned there). Had to go & scrounge a drill off my neighbour, Andy (Hamish daddy) as having literally searched high & low in my house for my drill, I found nothing. Moving things about so much is perhaps going to make things seemingly disappear until you straighten yourself out properly again.
Upshot: Well, it’s really weird how much more neat a room can look with a uniform wall and a good pair of curtains. By no means finished, but the transformation is quite satisfying. I have to try to transform this satisfaction into something more akin to momentum to actually finishing the job. i’ll never get anywhere if I do not.
At least I managed to get ZUM! #10 archived onto the ZUM! site (albeit in what you might call a ‘beta’ stage – so no real links yet). Still a goodly amount of work to do, but a good start.

Not feeling especially Inclined to actually be writing at the moment. No real reason other than a nagging feeling of discontentment, that has no reason for being there.
Humbug – even the Train conductor is over cheery this morning.
Eve was awake at me going to work again this morning. I recall a time when Jack used to wake early as well & I’d have Louise & Jack waving me of to work. Now Louise & Eve… no doubt in a few years, it will be the new kid – which Is a good thought (unlike actually going to work).
Hurumph – I was totally on my own again yesterday – which Is a bit like old times in a way… When we were less busy than now, I would spent a lot of morning shifts as the only person answering the calls, (with no one in sight for asistance) but now with a larger business minded customer base, things are tougher & the customers more arrogant & demanding.
One of my last calls yesterday was from a reseller, or a small time design consultancy who were in the process of moving their site away from us (thus we no longer controlled where It was pointed) Unfortunately for them it also coincided with our server moves, resulting in the website dropping of the web, but our not really having much we can do about that (as we no longer control it). The transfer of control of the domain not being complete – they name Is between 2 stools & all in all – there’s not much that can be done. I need the holes In my logic fixing, as I am aware there are some assumptions that I feel are incorrect, & specific information on areas that I am lacking. I have a basic honesty problem… I cannot bullshit completely; I can wing it on shaky knowledge, but I cannot just fob someone off.
Hmm… ranted on a bit there. Cannot say that I feel any more content – but then, perhaps this is what is bugging me… That & the feeling that I am not getting on with things as well as I would like to do.
Oh, reading the headline on someone else’s newspaper on the Train. That old schadenfreude… :) Jeffrey Archer Is going to jail. Funny – innit – the UK would like to think of Itself as a civilised county, but It Is jailing It the last government administration fraudulent shysters. Corruption just like the countries we like to look down on.

Again travelling to work with a hope that things are at last calming down… Again, we will see… but I am less optimistic of the prospect today.
Eve woke early again. She was stirring as I came out from having a shower. As everyone seems to have ended up in our bed last night, I plucked her out & took her downstairs with me. We could have breakfast together, & Louise & Jack could sleep some more. She seemed less interested in her “cereal” this morning though. She did offer me some, as I offer her some of mine, & thought it fun that I accepted. She has a cheeky grin she uses often at the moment – it seems to convey pure delight as she uses her whole body; going rigid & hunching her shoulders at the same time as a big teeth clenched grin. Oh, & she has also,in the past couple of weeks learnt how to jump. Jump & get both feet off the ground. It seems something that little kids take a particular delight in & find very satisfying. When waking & running is mastered this one seems the next ‘step’. I remember when Jack was 1st doing it as well… Hips still have a little of the baby swivel & there’s a balance thing like a skiing pose, but the delight at being able to do it!
This early rising on Eve’s part is starting to look like a habit. Perhaps she is undergoing a change in her general sleeping pattern as Louise said that she did not have much of a daytime nap yesterday. It is more likely she is either teething, or a little under the weather. Jack’s cough seems to be abating. I only say that as he was not coughing in his sleep before Louise & I went to bed last night. On the whole they both slept better.
At the moment I am reading Jack to sleep with a paperback children’s book… Not short stories, but something that is taking a while to get through. If he calms down for sleep (not ‘fiddling’) then he doesn’t usually manage to get to the end of the chapter. I’m not sure of the name of the book, but It’s by the Albergs & something like “The Bear That Nobody Wanted”. Louise & I are also enjoying the story.

Train home now… Work was not too hectic today – thankfully. Back to a level where stress is not completely mad. The ‘angry’ level seems to be calming down as well & our normal callers returning.

What joys will today’s work bring? Sigh…
Eve woke up as I was going. She was alone in our bed, Jack having got Louise to come to him earlier in the night. It was not one of her better wake ups – probably confused, & because of that a bit mad. As I was headed upstairs to relieve myself on the toilet, I though it a better course of action to try to comfort her instead. She did her ‘I’m mad – don’t touch me’, “no!”. She wanted Mummy, so I let her get off the bed & head down the hall. At the end of the hall she didn’t quite know what to do so turned round to be with a, “daaadee” & arms aloft wanting to be picked up. She did not see that Louise had emerged from their bedroom, until I had picked her up & immediately wanted passing over. All this must have been a tad confusing for her & we went back to our room with her to see if she might calm down. Not really. She now wanted me again, but I really needed to go to the toilet – so I went – much to her consternation… I have to head off for work in a couple of minutes… this, um, has to be done… Much crying & wailing & protestation & I do not have peace. While I sit on the toilet all the noise wakes Jack & he wants to know if Eve has “been sick?”. “No.o.o.o” – Resounds the shout back. Eve is starting to calm down a bit & I give her a cuddle before I go – which upsets her again as she was rather hoping that I would take her downstairs.
So… by the time I get downstairs & leave the house I turn back to see everyone, (Louise, Jack & Eve) at the front window waving me a pyjama bye-bye. Eve seems calmer (not red faced from crying) & she gives me a wave as I head off down the street.

Home from work; it was busy. Marginally less so, but enough to be able to see patterns in the things that were still wrong. Have the odd minute pause between calls… Either that or I am frighteningly getting used to another level of stress.

Busy. Very Busy. Brain numbingly busy day at work. I guess I knew it would be, but I was rather relieved not to have many really idiotic people taking it out on the sap that answers the phone. Had at least one, “Well, I will need to call out the engineers & it will cost me…” to which my response is: “your point being?” Would that it were… I’m too polite.
Major changes to a network as have had to be done always have some knock on effect even if it’s meticulously planned, let alone…
Still, I’m going home now. I only had one fizzle-pop point, but that was probably due to information overload. I am now enjoying just staring out of the train window with no obligation to think. Nice day – sunny – a few menacing clouds just to add that interest to the sky. Nah, sorry – cannot be arsed to write more.

Heh… playing with the eMate again…
I’ve loaded an application called ‘newtscape’ – which is browser for the Newton OS. Catch being; it’s on the card, not the machine itself… & yet to use it on the internet I’d have to put the modem card in… DOH!
Hey, this does not worry! The theory is to look at it & try to figure out what to best use it for. The idea is to see if it assists in the writing of HTML – which it might look good for. Unexpectedly it has given me the option to save general documents as HTML… converting them to tagged text – which is useful. It’s play & familiarise time.
Jack woke up before I set off for work this morning. I heard the padding of feet across the hall upstairs as I was finishing my pint of tea at about 06:15. Met him at the top of the stairs & he asked me if it was Saturday (presumably I would be staying). Had to disappoint him. Told drowsing Louise he was downstairs as I went to give my daily “seeya/loveya” goodbye kiss. Left Jack snuggled in front of The Hoobs jumping about on the telly. He is going to be jiggered when I get home; he was awake in the night a little with his cough, & is probably a bit short on sleep in general at the moment because of that cough. He was tired yesterday evening, but coped well with it – was not an excessively grumpy & obstreperous.