Quick theres a fire!

Yesterday afternoon I received a call at working stating that I had to get home quickly as our house was on fire and that the fire brigade and police were waiting to speak to me.

So I quickly dashed home with all thoughts in my mind mainly

• What did I leave switched? (The computers)
• Did I let the cats out?
• I hope the fire is not in the computer room as I need the CD Duplicator / Printing this weekend.
• My smart invites stock and CD's.

By the time I got home I was quite worried to what state the house would be in, and was rather relieved to enter the street and not see the fire brigade still putting out a fire.

It turns out some kids, put our green recycle bin near the back gate and set light to it, which then set the garage door on fire and started burning the stuff behind the door. Luckily there is not much in that garage apart from junk.

If only the message I was given earlier whilst at work was `the garage is one fire' I wouldn't have been so worried.

http://picasaweb.google.com/blueskimonkey99/Fire

Three posts in one day....

Cheers ArticFox, just downloaded Picasa2 and it allows you to post photos direct to your blog, and type the blog entry!

I had better get back to my coding, it's now officially 9 days until the launch of http://www.smart-invites.co.uk at the National Wedding Show @ the Birmingham NEC Stand A12 - for anyone wishing to pop along.

However 9 days to go and still lots to complete, we have just hired two designers to help produce our leaflets and posters and an extra coder to help code the billing system, I always find a tight deadline is always good to get you working hard, but maybe this deadline is too tight.

Things to do:

Print / Duplicate (in House) 1500 Demo CD's
Print 2,000 Ipod touch competition forms
Print posters & 5,000 Leaflets
Upload our brand new website and be-spoke user area - with some very very cool AJAX controls & Features.

Plus much more...

Picasa testing

ArticFox has just informed me that I have a Google Picasa account which is associated with my blog, so I've just headed over there to check it out at first.

I've uploaded a few photos but can't seem to work out how to make it add to my blog from the Picaso site :(

I did however manage to get a link to a photo I've uploaded and here it is.

Next up is to download the Picasa software to see if that can post a new image uploaded directly to blogger.

My new camera and flickr

I got a new camera a couple of days ago, a Ricoh Caplio 6 and I have to say I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the photos.

I've also just signed upto Flickr (Finally), and as you can tell I'm testing out it's features...

Aaron

Being Rambo…

It seems and has been so long ago since I last blogged, a lot of this is to do with the upcoming wedding show for our new business idea still lots to complete and only 15 / 16 days to go. It’s my own fault I’m telling myself all those hours and days wasted away when I should have really been programming the new website.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time on Facebook, which I think is 100x better than myspace. Facebook is quite simply great but also creepy as any of your friends can spy on what you do without you knowing, and thus know what you get up to day to day I guess it’s kind of like blogging really.

The only thing I find annoying with facebook is the amount of application requests you get and no matter how much you decline them your friends shortly send you a request again Grrr.

Last weekend was a great one we went to a friend’s fancy dress party I of course decided to go as Rambo, which went down well, and I came 2nd in the competition for best costume.

We started off in an ex serviceman working club with plenty of cheap drinks to get us all in the mood, then at the end of the night about 10 of us went to a busy nightclub in Leicester where we got mobbed.

It was a weird one:

• Girls trying to steal my wig and gun – one girl actually nicked my wig and I had to chase her for 5 minutes!
  
• Guys feeling my muscles – weird I expected the girls to want a feel.
  
• People asking for photos with their friends.


• The DJ Announcing Mr. Incredible and Rambo are on the dance floor.

However it was a fun packed night and I am certainly looking forward to the next fancy dress event, maybe Zombie Slouch in Huddersfield – watch out Mr. Fox.

The wedding venture

A few people have asked what is the new venture artic--fox suggests I will be a stag party stripper.

I did post what it was about, but have since thought and received a comment from artic--fox which made me think I should'nt shout about the new venture yet as the idea is extremly unique.

All I can say it's computer related, and once the website and product is launched I will tell you all more :)

It's been a while

I've been up to so much recently, just lacking the time to sit down and blog.

Now lets see if I can remember whats what!

1. After 3 days of strong medication I recovered from the bad back just in time to go on Darren's stag do.
   


2. Darren's stag do - We all went down to Newquay for the weekend and had a top time, lots of drinking, surfing, body boarding, more drinking, a lap dance club, dressing up Darren and dares!
   


3. Currently working all the hours the possible on mine and Darren's new business, we are attending the National Wedding Show in October to launch the idea / business so the pressure is now on!! With only two months to go.
   

Command and Conquer is now officially taking a back burner on the list of things I need to do, I have also finished the new Harry Potter book it was very exciting I was a bit disappointed about how the book ended so quickly but overall it was a top read!

From Wii-arm to backache Lumbago

I've never felt so much pain, a few hours after my post yesterday my lower back started to ache, this throughout the day got worse and resulted in me not being able to work properly (I'm actually pottering around the house walking at the pace of snail with an invisble walking stick).

This morning I woke up hoping that the pain has gone to only find it is still there I'm now finding it hard to walk up and down the stairs, and walk with my back straight.

So I booked myself an appointment at the Doctors and have been diagnosed with Lumbago http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lumbago

I'm not sure what has caused it I seriously doubt that the nintendo Wii has brought so much pain to me when i first got it last year I spent an entire week playing wii sports, getting wii-arm but nothing like this.

The only thing which comes to mind is that last week I cycled from work to home pretty quick on high gear and and was putting a lot of pressure into it, but then I've also done this type of cycling before aswell....

It's time's like this as a contractor I wish i had taken out insurance, medical cover etc being a contractor I get no sick pay or anything so time off work is not an option.

Luckily for me I have my work laptop here so I can do the majority of my work, it has all made me think though I definitly need to look at some form of insurance because you can never tell what life might throw at you.

Today I have a conference call to attend once that is done, I think a few simpson episodes are needed, along with a bit of harry potter reading I'm on Chapter 9 at the moment and it just keeps getting more exciting! Vicki has almost finished the book...

I have also been invited to a Command & Conquer Tiberian Wars battle tonight, one which I simply can't refuse and it will give me a chance to try out the new scrin Mothership tactics...

For those of you who looked puzzled checkout this.

Wii-arm

Too much nintendo Wii I think, these past few days I've been playing hours of Wii sports mainly bowling and Tennis. I'm now a pro bowler with a score of 1056 and I'm also a pro tennis player score 1843.

With all this playing I've now got the famous wii-arm for those of you who don't know I found this description on the web.

Wii-arm

This happens when you over-play the Nintendo Wii.

Your arm begins to ache, and somewhat burn slightly... Using your arm for any kind of quick movements, or outstretching of the arm generates pain.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - The book is finally out and we all took a trip into town yesterday to purchase it, I now wish we had got two copies as my partner Vicki is hogging it so far she has read over 250 pages and I've only read two chapters.

At this rate she will finish the book by the end of the weekend, which means it is ALL MINE!!

In the meantime I think I might watch The Goonies today as Vicki got it for me the other day as it's one of my favourite films when I was a kid.

The Forgotten Blog

Naughty me!

I started off well, with posting once a day but just recently I've been fairly busy and not very creative when it comes to making a post. Just lately there doesn't seem to be enough hours in the day to do everything I would like to do.

Here's just a few things which have been consuming my time.

1. The day job - I've been tasked with a new project which if I do well could result in me getting a new Job title and perm position with this company.
2. Business Accounts - Believe it or not I have an accountant who does this but I'm not very organised so when it comes to the end of the quarter I have to make sure I've printed out copies of invoices, receipts etc and that they match the statement I keep telling myself why don't I get more organised and print the darn things out as I get them.
3. The family and Harry Potter - We have just finished watching The prisoner of Azkaban on Sunday and Chloe can't wait to see the next one.
4. Web Hosting - For those of you who don't know I run a Web Hosting company and own two servers in London this past week I've been upgrading the server software and also automating some of the website features.
5. Command & Conquer Tiberian Wars - Need I say anymore.
6. Sleep - Currently getting 7 hours a day

What's going on with the weather hopefully it will stop soon and we get some nice sunshine; on Sunday our road was flooded and we live nowhere near a river or a stream etc.

I seemed to find it funny with the cars going by and the amount of water on the road, I guess I wouldn't have been laughing if the water got any closer to our front door though.

The 8 miles I cycle to and from work each is proving hard work in this weather as well, as a lot of it is uphill with the rain and the wind last Friday I was almost tempted to turn around and get the bus, however I just thought of the money I would be saving not doing that.

Well there you have it a slightly longer post whch hopefully will make up for the lost days.

Games....

Well its almost two days since I've last posted since Sunday we have caught up with missed Doctor Who episodes, and watched Harry Potter Chamber of Secrets. Chloe my daughter has only just got into Harry Potter so we are now trying to watch a film each weekend I forgot how long they go on for!

Apart from watching TV I'm afraid to say I'm hooked on Command and Conquer 3 Tiberium Wars, currently ranked at 142,573 Worldwide . I've worked out that i play better as Scrin but I've got a long way to go until I get a decent rank..

I've also managed to chip a tooth or it's just falling to bits, tried calling the Dentist today to get an appointment to be told that my account is blocked due to an unpaid bill, the same bill which I paid last year and at that time I also had arguments with the debts collectors about it being paid, and also the dentist.

So now I have to wait 24 hours for them to look it up on the system and speak to a manager, before I can arrange an appointment to get my tooth checked out....

At least the treatment is good, but their money handling skills is terrible.

Sunday

The wedding we went too on Friday was great and the weather turned out to be nice as well.

After the wedding ceremony we all headed back to Justin and Claire's house where the garden party was being held, their garden is massive and housed a rather large marquee with a side marquee attachment for the bar area and hot food mainly a Hog Roast which was very tasty.

With endless supplies of booze and good music from the DJ we danced until the early hours well until about 3am when we got a taxi home.

Here's the scary part!

We got a taxi from Loughborough to Leicester which is around 15 miles, OK so the journey home started we had a quick chat with the taxi driver then he put his stereo on quite loud (I think cool, he's put on some decent music and I can actually hear it).

So he's driving us home, down dark country lanes I notice that he taking corners a little too quickly and swaying into the other lane, I think nothing of it shortly after I can hear the judder judder, the car is on the middle section of the road I think this isn't good and start to observe the driver through his rear mirror and also watching the road.

Further on i notice even on a straight road he's not keeping to one lane, in fact he's now driving down the middle of the road I look up at his rear mirror and to my alarm it looks like the guy has got his eyes closed and is drifting off.

So I asked him straight away "Excuse me your not falling asleep here are you?", he quickly respond in a panic voice "No!". A few minutes later we got the driver to stop and decided it would be more safe for us to walk home.

After getting out the taxi I phoned the taxi firm to complain and advised them to get him off the road, lets just hope they did. We dread to think what might have happened if we were both completely drunk and not paying attention!

As for the hangover I was quite OK on Saturday morning :)

The Day Before Tomorrow...

Well today's post is going to be super short, so far today I cycled 8 miles too and from work had a nice tasty breakfast then came home to get ready for my friends Wedding which we will be leaving for in 15 minutes.

We will be attending the wedding and then afterwards there is a big massive Garden party with DJ's unlimited drink and a BBQ, it all should be fun if the weather holds out :)

Watch out for the killer hangover I tell myself!

Thursday

Well what an interesting day it has been, yesterday I found an old school friend on facebook and decided to send a friend request, and this evening I get a friends request from the same person via myspace ...

How spooky I thought... But good!

I've just received an email from my old school friend, it's great what you can do online these days and be able to catch up with people and find out what your other class mates have been upto, but I was shocked to hear that one has been sent down for murder.

Today I've spent most of my working day fixing laptop's with broken hard drives that won't startup, I ask myself why on earth don't these people think about backing up their data for anyone reading this and not backing it up now is the time to do it.

A few days ago in Coventry a user comes the office heres a brief description of the chat:

User: Windows will not start

"I switch on the laptop and straight away you can hear Clank! Clank! Clank! (The hard drive is physically broken)"

Me: Have you ever noticied the noise before?

User: Yes but I didnt think it was much of a problem.

Me: The noise means the hard drive is broken, did you make a backup of your laptop?

User: No

Me: When is the last time you backed up your laptop?

User: About 6 months ago.

There you have it, if you have a laptop theres an important lesson in life, always backup your important data.

Alliance & Leicester

If you ever need a new bank account make sure you don't join Alliance and Leicester.

It all started last month I had a direct debit go out and was just £2 short in my bank account, normally in the past with my previous banks this is not a problem but with Alliance and Leicester they bounced the direct debit and charged me £34 for the privilege! so I'm now £34 Overdrawn.. OK fine I've broken the terms and conditions but the charge is unfair and not a true business cost for them.

Later on in the month I have a 2nd direct debit which bounced this time I was a whopping £5.74 short, you can guess what happened next another charge sending me overdrawn again. Jeez Thanks!

A month passes by and I check my bank statement this is the shocking part for each direct debit which failed they charged me the following:

£34 for Direct Debit Bounce + £25 for being Overdrawn Total £59

So that's a total £118 in charges for two failed direct debits! I think I'm going to write a letter to get the money back.

Reason two for not using Alliance & Leicester:

Last night Vicki took my cash card to get some money out of a local cash machine, she inserted the card and then the machine decided to crash and turn itself off.

So I called A&L Lost / Stolen card hot line and was on hold for over 30 minutes with no answer, I got that bored I decided to go to bed and try again today, this morning I tried again and again on hold with no answer...

Great service for the £118 they charged me last month, so I paid my local branch a visit and was told they could not help me and that I had to keep trying the number I questioned "what if it was stolen who would be liable" and they replied "if that's the case you would have to argue the case with A&L". Great service!

I'm now in the processing of moving all my banking to a different bank.

Rain Rain go away!

Phew we went to bed last night hoping that today would bring no rain, as Chloe my daughter was off for a fun day at Twin lakes for a school trip. Last night it just looked like the rain would not stop so we was quite surprised to wake up this morning to see nice blue skies with the sun shining.

So the day looks perfect for Chloe to have a fun day at Twin lakes without getting wet!

Talking about the rain brings me to my next thoughts I was reading the news on the web this morning and found a news article about a chap who died yesterday as his leg was trapped in a drain whilst clearing it out.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,2111077,00.html

It's shocking to hear news like this, but leaves me to think surely there was something else the emergency services could have done to get him out, perhaps if they had watched Casualty at the weekend.

Let's hope the UK has had its fair share of rain and that the blue skies and sunshine comes back soon.

For all of you wondering Chloe had a great day at Twin lakes with no rain in sight.

Rollouts, & Sunday's TV

I'm currently involved in a site migration in Coventry which includes new Servers, PC's, Network, and Domain..

Today was the first date of the big change for Coventry so we arrived at site early to meet the contractors who were there to help us swap PCs out, after 30 Min's of being at site we was informed that the planed data migration from the old server to the new server never happened at the weekend...

Now our day was going to start to get more complex...

The problem we now face is that the two servers / networks can't really talk to each other properly well not without some careful hacks, 30 Min's later I've created a snazzy batch file which asks the user for their old login details and cross maps all the drives across two domains, hey presto it works! were back in business boys...

So I leave the contractors to it swapping out users laptops whilst I return to my desk to catch up on some emails, and web my favourite type of work...

Last nights TV did anyone watch Ramsay's Kitchen nightmares on more4 the amount of F Word's which comes out of Gordon Ramsay's mouth is shocking, but on the other hand seeing him rip the restaurant owners to shreds had me laughing.

“Gordon was sent to Spain to sort out a restaurant with dog mess in the dining room and an unforgettable signature dish of prawns in garlic with chocolate sauce, along with chicken and banana dish and a swinging kebab (yes that's right it was swinging)”

Blogging

After finding an old friend on the web recently and his blog http://arctic--fox.blogspot.com/, I felt compelled to create my own.

Blogging seems rather cool. there are a lot of good blogs out there which differ to the normal rubbish such as

1. I woke up this morning
2. I had a wash
3. Ate some lunch
4. Went to bed

Let's just hope my blogs are more inspiring than the usual...

Lets Get Started...

Blue-skimonkey - the idea behind my name is quite simple.

• My Favourite colour is blue
• I love skiing
• and Monkeys are very cool
  

I live in Leicester and spend the majority of my time working, there never seems to be enough time in the day for what I need to do but somehow I manage to balance all the things.

During the day I work as an IT Contractor for a company in Leicester providing desktop support to the local site, and also remote sites in Europe. Alongside this I also run a successful web hosting company, eBay business, and do freelance programming work for small businesses.

So there you have it my working life is quite busy! my goal in life is to be able to work from any location in the world with just the Internet as my source of income.

Apart from working I have a lovely daughter and girlfriend having a family is great it took a while for me to learn the true balance between work and family at first I was working all the hours possible to try and earn more money but then realised my partner and daughter was loosing out and that money is not everything, since my revelation I have cut back on the work I do to ensure I spend quality time with the ones I love.

So there you have it my first blog! I'm amazed that I have put words to paper (so to speak), I'm normally quite lost for words.