Friday 10th October 2008

It is 21:43 as I finally get the chance to begin this blog post, although I did make notes throughout the week while at my cousin’s house. Here I am, at the bottom of the mountain with a thousand things in my mind that I know I should mention because I do not know when the next opportunity I will have to blog. I am seriously all over place, I have so much to do this weekend and have just gone through my mail and I have a few more ‘tasks’ added to that already long list. Oh well, sometime on Sunday evening, the stress may have died down a little. Finding it very hard to find a subject to start with, as I have so many things noted down on this page, plus the scattered notes in my head. An extremely busy week in the office plus gettined used to the new gym routine, plus fending for myself in the evenings all on my own. It has been a little easier this week, I have settled into a routine (of sorts). However, I was still looking forward to Friday afternoon when I would leave the office and head in the direction of home. It is quite a nice feeling to be heading back to Wycombe. The journey back took an hour due to traffic on the M4. A Land Rover towing a boat had overturned (the boat was on the hard shoulder as I drove past) so there were long queues westbound between junction twelve and thirteen. This was the event I had been waiting for. I was hoping that there were be some action but more in the style of The Matrix: Reloaded but never mind, it was an event and as the traffic presenter on BBC Berkshire described it, a lot of “rubbernecking” taking place on my side of carriageway. Although of course, I was too busy concentrating on my driving to bother with any of that. It was a bit difficult to find a Friday night tune but eventually I picked up a random unlabelled CD and played Hall & Oates – Out Of Touch, my weekend could begin. Well sort of, I was stop starting in heavy traffic a mile away from junction eight/nine. Received my E65 on Tuesday at work and then received my case the following day. I have to confess I am proud of myself for not opening even the outer plastic wrap packaging to my phone during the course of the day. Yep, unlike last April when I had ripped the package open and was already uploading applications by 9am. I held firm and opened the phone when I got home but even then it was just to check it out and put it on charge. I could not do anything with it. Firstly I did not have the case and secondly I needed my PC to backup my contacts, messages and notes from my N73 and then restore back to the fresh E65. I have actually just done that this evening (one of the first jobs after checking my e-mail). All I need to do now is step up Skype and also install the MSN Messenger app!

I have an announcement to make, my O2 number is now officially dead. It took a while but I have been planning to get rid of the Pay & Go number for a while. I got my second phone back in mid December 2000. At the time Genie (the online arm of BT Cellnet at the time, before it re branded to O2) was offering unlimited text messages and unlimited WAP. Along with two Uni friends I took up the offer and got the fantastic Nokia 7110. Many of you will consider it a brick by modern standards but trust me it was cutting edge technology at the turn of the decade. In any case, I had a good time with my 7110 and it was hacked to death and I even used it to check my e-mail (on my desktop) via infra-red and the internal 9600bps modem. However ultimately the unlimited texts were dropped to three hundred at some point in part of the change to O2 (or just before) and it just became my second phone. People having two personal mobiles is not unusual. However, when I was given a work on top of this, having three phones was just plain stupid. So I used to just leave my O2 at home and use it in the evenings and at weekends. Although it does get stupid to top up a phone you hardly use and I had to let go and have done. I am happy to publish the number for the world to see because the line is dead and will not be used ever again. Please contact me on my Vodafone number, which you should already have and if you do not, just drop me a line (there are numerous e-mail addresses, Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, MSN or even MySpace.) My O2 number was 0775 1695 480. I have been off the grid a little bit more today than usual. I kept my personal phone off and in my car and did not check any of my personal web-based e-mail accounts during the course of the day (just Hotmail and Yahoo!). It was hard, and I thought I would relapse around 9.30am, when I had a few minutes of down time waiting for my desktop PC to do a job (I have two machines believe it or, a number crunching HP Compaq desktop and an admin and e-mail Dell D610). I was surprised I managed it, because generally I check my e-mail throughout the day, now that MSN Messenger has gone! It is something about remaining connected and picking up the odd bit of news or gossip to get your through the day. Now that Facebook is a no go area during the working day, it is another channel in order to get bits and pieces of information. I was proud that I was able stay off the grid for a whole day and not feel too left out. The England match tomorrow would under normal circumstances be the highlight of a my weekend (and month in fact). However, my move to Newbury on Sunday overtakes everything in the big news stakes. Charlie is popping over in his van with Annie in the afternoon and I hope to have everything ready and packed to just dump into the back of the van and head off. I have ordered my broadband and it may be until the end of the month before it is switched on. I went with Tiscali in the end for their local broadband and phone deal. I had limited options as cable is not available in my area but I am quite close to my exchange so should get near the eight megabit per second connection. Speed tests will indeed follow. I have a long list of other things to sort out, utility bills and council tax. I think it will take me most of next week to get everything in place and make sure everything is in order. My plans for the weekend are as follows (all subject to change). I will be heading to town to pick a few things up and then jumping on a train into London. Meeting up with my friend in East London, most likely a late lunch around 2pm before treking over to Wembley for the game. Really looking forward to the game, it should be a goal fest! Then I hope to be back home in time to catch up on some reality television before beginning the packing process. In between all of that I want to catch up on a few television shows. Obviously no care package this week as Mr. Khural was over snorkling in the Maldives but I should get a bumper package next week. Plus, it will give me things to watch the evening while I go internet less! (Even more so from Wednesday when I have to hand my cousin’s Vodafone 3G dongle back!). Looks like I might need to start a few more count down timers on my blog! So much to do, so little time. I am off to catch a few episodes of GREEK and The Big Bang Theory.

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