Post 200 - The Bicentenial.

Alas, not that good a post. I shall start positive though.

Went to an absolutely wonderful birthday party over the weekend. It was wonderful to see the people I saw and to find out how they are now - I haven't seen most of them in a few years you see. I felt rather proud - not to mention priveledged - to have been there if I'm honest.

The drive to and from Worcestershire was lovely. Most of the bad weather was avoided and the company for the journey was good too. We stopped at a lovely pub for a Sunday Lunch which I shall mention now...

The name is "The Bell Inn" and it is on Old Wenlock Road (A442) in the village of Cross Houses, just outside Shrewsbury. Based on our experience, it is well worth a visit.

The start to this week has not, however, been as good.I got back to my house to discover that I had accidentally switched the freezer off when I left for the weekend. So all of my food for the next week has defrosted and my stockpiles are now predominantly wasted. Unless I can find some poor soul to give it to!

Important.
In the spirit of blogging, I need to bring a website to your attention. A friend of mine was actually related to people involved in these described events.

http://justiceforneil.com

See for yourself, decide for yourself, do what you feel is right.

A Rainy Day on Anglesey?!
Before I have my tea, I just wanted to get something off my chest.

I was at the shop (or siop in Welsh), and there were two ladies in front of me at the till who, as is normal round here, were having quite a chat with the lady behind the counter. I didn't mind, I was in no rush and what they were talking about was interesting - not that I was listening!

Well it came to serving me and the lady behind the counter just went silent - didn't even say hello. I tried to be friendly, but to no avail and to be honest I was hurt by that. Why is it that ladies seem to assume I won't be friendly, or that I'm coming on to them if I'm friendly or chatty, or compliment them?

Is it so wrong to pay a lady a compliment? Today at work I complimented a lady on her haircut - it looked nice - was I supposed to ignore that and be ignorant just because that is what is expected of me?

No, on this I am not going to conform. It truly is nice to be nice - and if I have to launch a one-man crusade to drill this into society then so be it. You have been warned - I am going to be nice to you.

That's Cloud Coming Over The Hill!

Yes it has been overcast today, but to see the clouds rolling over Snowdonia is a lovely sight.

I have been mostly watching NasaTV today as the shuttle departs from the ISS. It's been a good mission and hopefully landing will go well. It's good to have construction resuming. With my shiny new t'interweb connection I shall enjoy watching all of these events as they unfold.

Family history research - now there's something you thought I'd forgotten about. Normal service is in the process of being resumed. Two distant cousins have been found whilst I've been away and there is quite some research to be done.

My computer is crashing randomly whilst on the internet, so if I disappear from a chat with anyone, please forgive me.

Right, to the topic of todays post. Electricity bills.

My current "Energy Provider" is Manweb, or to give it its full name, Scottish Power-Manweb. As with all electricity companies their prices have risen recently and Anglesey has been no exception - a 10% rise no less.

Somehow this quarter I have run up a bill of £270. That's using 3kW every hour. Assuming a kettle uses 1kW to boil, that means 3 kettle fulls an hour. I can get four cups of tea out of my kettle, so that's twelve cups of tea per hour. That's a 24/7 average. Ridiculous! I know we British are meant to like our tea - but twelve cups an hour is a bit much!

Anyway, my point is that I was under the impression that my electricity was on an Economy7 pricing scheme. It wasn't. As a result, my bill is twice what it should have been.

It won't come as much of a suprise to learn that I went in search of a list of pricing schemes from Manweb. It took nearly an hour to track down a list of tarriffs. In total, the list contains 24 different electricity rates. Some of which are repeated and some of which only apply if you pay by ceratin methods at certain frequencies. So, all in all, I was confused to buggery (which may have been the intention).

So I sat down and did the maths. I worked out the costs for my exhorbitant use of electricity over the last quarter (which won't be repeated) and I also calculated for a more reasonable volume of electricity usage. The cheapest option was the same for both usage levels and I wanted to let the world know which one this was for their future reference.

First of all, you'll want to have the 'standing charge' option (unless you use pitiful amounts of electricity). Then you'll want the 'Premier Plus' package. The rate is called 'Economy 7'. So that's the Economy 7 rate, on the Premier Plus package with the standing charge.

Still with me? Then you'll be wanting to know about economy 7. First of all look here. You'll need to get your house set up with a timer controlled water tank and possibly storage heaters too. But the key bit is having a meter (or meters) that can cope with day and night rates of electricity. You'll need to contact your supplier regarding this. They'll probably charge, so bear in mind that you could easily save £100 per year (on average).

My head hurts now, so I'll be off. I hope I've explained things well, but when it's made overcomplicated by other people, it aint'nt easy.

Guess Who's Back.

Job? Check.
House? Check.
Electricity? Check.
Phone line? Check.
Computer? Check.
Modem? Check.
8Meg broadband? Check.

Big grin? Check.

Need I say more? Oh, alright then, I will...

It's been a long haul thing, but the world is now at my fingertips once more. No longer anywhere near as cut off from the outside world, I only need one more thing to say that I am truly 'settled'. That would be a sofa. Which is on order :-D

Work is going well, I have settled in and on the whole I think my progress is good. It's annoying at times when my own inexperience stares me in the face, but it's the only way to learn. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Getting up at 6am is taking its toll on me; I usually have big headaches over the weekend (just the weekend though :-s) and my skin is getting dry. But if that's all that is wrong, I think I'm doing rather well.

I've been busy taking photo's and I have some stunning views to share. All I need to do is get the computer to realise there's a camera attached to it. I won't hold my breath - getting the modem installed took the best part of three hours.

While I've been gone, my hotmail account got deleted. I've reclaimed it, so I hope there weren't any important emails.

I have a lot of catching up to do. I have to install various softwares and I also want to actually see some of this space station work that's being carried out as opposed to reading and seeing blurry pictures.

I'll write soon. It's good to be back.

Lee's nearly been at work for four weeks, so far so good. He's enjoying the job, making friends with his work colleagues and feeling happy in general.

He's got a house, looks very nice from the picture and from what's been described. Hopefully he'll get to move there on Saturday if all goes well, although someone is unhappy with the electrics... Hopefully it won't affect the move in date. We all know Lee needs is own space to put all the stuff he's acquired over the years!

At work he has a task to do by July, it's challenging but he's making progress with it... His first thought was that it would be impossible to do but things seem to be fitting into place so it'll be do-able.

Well he's finished his first week and it went well I think you'll all be glad to hear. He was tired but happy which was expected.

He's found a house to, somewhere which is home to many of the other employees of the same company!

Also the lucky sod finishes at 12.30 on Fridays... not even a full weeks work! Lol!

Post Number 193.
I've been putting this post off as long as possible. I suspect I won't get another chance to write today or tomorrow.

So here I'm sat, on the day of the Queen's birthday, with butterflies in my stomach. Not literally mind. Just a mixture of nerves and excitement. Mostly the latter.

Everything is packed for tomorrow, most of my stuff is packed for when I find somewhere to live. All my files from Dad's PC are on CD and I've printed out all I'll need from the internet.

That's about it folks. Family and I are going out for a meal apparently. Should be good - I don't want to go anywhere special though. A nice pub will do lovely.

There's not a lot else I can say. The world cup song by Embrace has been released. It's a wee bit on the crap side in my opinion, but we'll have to wait and see if it catches on.

The blogs I usually would read are available from the newly updated "regular reads" link over on the left hand side. There's also some of my favourite websites that usually take up much of my spare time. Noise to Signal is a good one.

Enjoy the new series of Doctor Who - I know I will. I enjoyed the first episode apart from the 'gushing' at the very beginning. Oh, and I only noticed the big error once it was pointed out!

I'll miss the end of battlestar gallactica, so I reckon I'll just buy the DVD set later this year. I've already missed loads of episode. Not as many missed episodes as 24 though - I've missed half the series so far! Terrible eh?! Well, not on the grand scale of things.

Okay, that's it. Good bye, good luck and best wishes for all of you between now and July. Take care.

Progress Update.
Well it feels like this is really happening now. I've been in a bit of a daze over the past week and STILL haven't told everyone who I want to know.

To bring us up to date:
I've washed the necessary clothes and I've worked out a budget for the period whilst I'm in a B&B looking for a house. I have 4 weeks to find a place, I don't know if that's enough but I'm gonna give it my best shot! Hopefully I'll get paid at some point during this 4 weeks - that way I'll be able to have a proper meal (not joking).

Met Tracy today in the town of Crewe. It was an okay place - I'm not sure what I make of it though. We got accosted by a very drunk woman - friendly but verrrry, verrrrrry drrrunk - as is customary on our trips. Won't see Tracy again now for 4 or so weeks, unless I'm lucky.

I wanted to go and visit the railway museum in Crewe. The first hard bit was finding the ruddy place. When we finally did, we found it was shut. Still, at least I know how to get there now. Just being around some of the trains today recalled my desire to work as a volunteer in some sort of preservation society for steam loco's.

So we spent the rest of the day wandering around Crewe. It was a small place. We did a bit of window shopping and sat in the sun for a bit. Can't say there was a right lot to do there.

Well that brings us up to date. Now for the important future info...

As of Saturday my only access to the internet will be through my mobile phone. It takes me a good 20 minutes to set my phone up to send email / post to this blog; so for all intents and purposes you won't be hearing from me until I have an internet connection up and running.

I have what I call a roll-out budget. From the time I secure accomadation I have my major purchases and general cash-flow planned out. An internet connection should materealise within the first 2 months so you can expect sporadic updates between late May and July.

Bit more job info - though I'm hesitant to post too much. I have a job title - Engineering Technician. I'll find out more once I start. I get to wear a shirt and tie. Not too keen on ties, but I do look good in a shirt and I've been hoping for a job where I can wear a shirt and trousers. I'm going to have to go shopping for shirts and ties - I didn't budget for this so I'm not sure how I'll pay for them :-s

So apart from a little shopping, all I can do is wait. If there's one thing I hate it's hanging around! I get restless. I now can't get to sleep easily. So my eyes are itchy and bloodshot. My knees and back hurt - though this isn't helped by all the fence building I've been doing in Dad's back garden.

Well, the snooker is on. May as well watch that then.

I'll post again before I go. It'll be strange without the web (I'm not expecting web access at work).

Wheels; and Motion Thereof.
Today the planning begin. Though some play of a certain Worms 4 demo I downloaded yesterday may also occur.

I have this picture in my head of a rusty, heavy old train roaring into life. The steam flowing, like life blood, through the tubes and pistons. The fire getting hotter with the nice new coal bought specially for this occasion. There's people running around oiling the beast; ready for it to pull away from this station. Moving for the first time in years, it will creak into life. Begrudgingly allowing the wheels to turn.

Now that I know my start date I have arranged, with kind help of the company, some temporary accomodation. I've decided to leave it until I'm there to look round properties. Then I can look in the papers too. I could do it online but getting around to view the houses would be more awkward.

So the next step is to get a budget sorted. Then I can work out in what order things need to be bought. I want a new car for instance, but that will have to be much lower on the list.

Last night I did a bit of celebrating. We (3 of us) got through two bottles of champagne and a 4 pack of lager. Reassuringly expensive (and, by my standards, chuffin strong) lager. My head seems to be spinning. I shall have breakfast in a bit - that should help. Then I'm off to Coventry (again!) to pick up a key, to drive to Brum to unlock a door, search for a tape then lock said door again, then drive elsewhere in Brum to deliver said tape.

I think I'll play Worms 4 after I eat.

TTFN