You know this community is amazing, the latest giveaway Ancient Warfare Magazine Special has already over 200 entries, (so drop quickly a line that you are interested if you haven`t yet), the amazing thing though is how many people are actually dropping a little line, "how they like the site, how they appreciate the community, how they look forward to all the freebies, the book reviews etc... but most of all, that many want to give back, they tell me almost apologetic that they dont have the cap
Saturday morning, 6:40. The feline alarm clock is sounding...creeping up on me like those first few rays at dawn, and then full on. RARRARRARRARRARRARRARRARRARRAR You'd think her food bowl was empty. Oh, right, it is.
Eh, I was due to be up at 7 anyway.
I find myself at peace this morning. Quiet. Calm. I have some potential new clients to see this morning, a coffee date in the afternoon, and who knows what tonight. I have more work to do this weekend than I know what to do with
Like many others with projects to get on with, I find myself in a struggle. On the one hand, the relative quiet of the early hours is conducive to productivity in the absence of distraction, yet on the other you're tired and want to go to sleep. Eventually I succumbed to the latter, and realising I was asleep at my computer, decided it was right and proper to abandon any more effort and seek the comfort of my bed. Tired.... Eyes closing.... zzzzzzzzzz
THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD THUD
For the first time this year I've had the fan plugged in. I can't claim this is a momentous event but it does show that despite regular good weather of recent months it hasn't actually been all that warm. Neither is today all that hot, rather an uncomfortable warmth that makes the air feel heavy.
My little fan is a reliable machine. I haven't quite sunk the depths of sadness by giving it a name or having one-sided conversations with it, but after twelve years of faultless service, I think it
I had a confirmation of an epiphany yesterday. It was a revelation of something that I deeply suspected, but had been afraid to act upon for some time, and in truth I should have just bucked up and taken the reins and confronted this truth.
Ladies and gentlemen, I like salmon.
Trust me, this is a shock. For years and years, the only way I liked salmon was as sashimi...since raw salmon didn't have that pungent olor that put me off. And I do love other types of fleshy fish...everything
Todays entry is going to be a challenge. The reason is fairly obvious in that pretty well nothing happened. Partly my own fault since I've been engrossed in one thing or another, but at least I'm doing stuff instead of simply becoming agoraphobic.
My flat is currently demonstrating that the theory of quantum mechanics is correct. I know what belongings I have, just that I cannot predict where they are at any given moment. Somewhere amongst this pile of clothes awaiting a good wash is my soc
"It's been a strange kind of day" Said the librarian as he joked with another customer. He isn't wrong. When I logged on this morning all I got was a blank blue screen and no icons to access programs or my beloved internet. Every so often an electronic whine makes an insistent if intermittent intrusion to my daily round of website forums, emailed job applications, and the sort of browsing you do when you've done everything you needed and you just want to use up your alloted time.
I even had
Been a while, I know. The end of the semester usually gets a bit rough. In this case, perhaps all the moreso because of the upcoming trip to the motherland. There seems to be an unending amount of things to get done beforehand, so that when I come back I'm not bombarded with a myriad of items requiring my attention. It's bad enough that when I come back, I'll have about 3 weeks to get everything settled for my move.
I have been reminded that I am honor-bound and duty-driven to come up with
One of the most intriguing human speculations is the sixth sense, the extra sensory perception, the pyshic ability that some would have us believe is a latent talent lurking in the dark recesses of our brain. It's been the fundamental idea behind plenty of fiction, television, and film. Can we really reach out with our minds and become aware of things our mundane senses don't perceive?
In europe there's a guy called Bronnikov that tells us we can. He was the subject of an investigation by De
Half past eight? The interview slot was a bit suspicious but that's the time printed on the notification. As it turned out that's the new opening hours of the Job Centre. A few waifs and strays like me silently congregated in the small plaza outside in varrious states of dishevellment. Personally I just couldn't be bothered to dress tidily at this hour of the day and for my part turned up looking like a vietnam POW. The security guard opened the doors and we all sauntered in.
Android Lady a
Sunday lunchtime - my last chance to fire off that last extra job application before I get my nose rubbed in it first thing monday morning at the Job Centre. I've already run into file version snags but with my usual ingenuity and cursing I got around that obstacle. Yours faithfully... Press send.... There it goes, never to be seen again. Welcome to my life.
As it happens today isn't a spectacularly good day. The sky is a featureless dark grey, the rain intermittent if not quite heavy. There
Whilst out and about I passed an old chap and his faithful hound. The good natured beastie promptly approached to greet me and received its obligatory pat on the head whilst it stood there wagging its tail in appreciation. His owner is obviously well used to his genial canine doing this and took the opportunity to speak to me.
"Chilly isn't it?" He said knowingly. Actually, he isn't wrong, there's a definite nip in the air and only the presence of the hazy sunshine made it at all comfortable
Making good on yesterdays declaration of finding something to write about, I decided to have a wander through Lawns, one of our 'open spaces'. It is actually a pleasant area. It was once the grounds of a manor house on the edge of Swindos old town, with gardens and a hillside meadow overlooking the views eastward. In the 1880's a new railway company called the Swindon & Andover once tried to get permission to drive their line through the park, placing a local station roughly between where th
What you're looking at it something of a survivor of the Great Computer Crash of 2009. Okay, I like trains. Even Top Gear presenters play with trains. What well balanced male of the species doesn't? Football fans I imagine, but then they get so wrapped up in their tiny little worlds too, don't they? But I digress. Pahusett Valley is one of my virtual routes I put together on a comouter. Certainly it lacks the tactile sensations and satisfaction of creating a model with your bare hands, but then
Given my opinions about Gordon Brown, the news of his intention to step down really ought to have inspired a sense of shock. For some reason it didn't. He's not the most popular leader we've ever had. He got the job because Tony Blair gave it to him, not because he was voted in by the public. there is therefore a sense of justice that he's decided to resign following the very narrow defeat of his party in the general election. That's politics unfortunately. Like many other walks of life, such as
One minute they say it will be unseasonably warm, now it's going to be unseasonably cold. Oh what fun British weather can be. Not to worry, it's a nice day and on my way down to the Job Centre I passed Miss L taking a break before she catches the bus home. That was a pleasant encounter. It sort of goes downhill from there.
Is That You?
A quick stop at the library to enter todays blog entry. I've only got half an hour left on todays allocation, so I go straight to the booking computer, selec
(Ok, so that''s a song lyric, and not a song title...it's appropriate, dammit...)
Friday was a huge and emotional day, for many reasons. Yes, I did go to the Honors and Transfer Ceremony, which was this fulfilling experience as an educator and as a member of the campus community. We have 10,000 students at my college, which is a small number for a community college, but the number of students who have finished their certificates or associate's degrees and who are transferring is large. An
It's been strangely quiet in Swindon. I dare say many people like me were up into the small hours following the events of the General Election on the news. I won't bore you with the commentary on the details of our current hung parliament - we all pay television license fee for that. What interests me is perhaps less than the news that the Conservative Party are now running Swindon South, but rather the maneovers in high places as the various leaders jostle for dominance and influence.
This
It's award season in academia...as the semester winds down, it's time to honor those whose work and effort did not go unnoticed. We have a 'power couple' as I like to call them, a duo who emigrated here from Mexico together, who study together, who will graduate together, who will transfer to a 4-year college together. Oh, and who rock. Check this out:
Aldo and Violeta win the Jack Kent Cooke Scholarship
What the clip didn't mention is that this is the second year in a row that Ca
It's election day at last. Today's the day when the British public decide who runs the country. To be honest, the apathy that afflicts the public has indeed left its mark on me. It's hard to care who's voted in because deep in your heart you just know they're all the same breed. That said I still have something of a soft spot for the Monster Raving Looney Party. Way back in the late 80's Red Jasper played a gig in Devon for them to celebrate their defeat in the polls. Screaming Lord Sutch was th
Dragon Lady is back on duty at the library and already one man is risking life and limb by making a phone call to his boss with a mobile. So far he's kept it relatively quiet, whispering responses like "Yes, I'll see to that tomorrow" and "Right...", and other clever answers to demands from frustrated organisers. Oh ye gods, he's finished the phone call and survived! How did he get away with it? Is Dragon Lady in a good mood?
Hi There
Yesterday afternoon was the moment I discovered my larde
The news is now out on the forum and via our newsletter (you should get it during the course of the day), we are officially Tweeting now, if you never heard of Twitter and wonder what the heck is this all about, go to http://tweeternet.com/, its basically a micro-blogging service that allows people to type in short messages or status updates that can be read by people following them. An individual message or status update is often referred to as a 'tweet'.
If you go to http://twitter.com/UN