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Alex's even longer post thread.

Started by Alex, March 19, 2020, 10:14:15 AM

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Alex

With us on reduced hours, occasionally a backlog will build up at work. I went in today to help clear the small one that is building up at the moment, only to discover my opposite number had went home early.

Guess who decided just to go back home too then. Might be that Joe is working mornings instead of afternoons, but since I haven't done this particular task for a couple of years I had planned on him reminding me what the right procedure actually is.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

Alex

Not slept much for the past three days. Kristi says I look exhausted, but mostly I am feeling fine. I did try sleeping yesterday evening, but Kristi was in a Zoom call, and when she is doing the phone, skype or whatever she seems to think she has to shout instead of using an indoors voice and everytime I dropped off, she woke me back up.

I at least got an hour or two last night. Ash woke up at 5 this morning. Kristi got up with him, so I did get to just lie in bed and rest. Should be enough to get me through the day.

We had a nice long walk through the town, what Kristi calls the Lossie Loop. Picked up some stuff at the local butchers for breakfast and headed home. Ash walked most of it, but towards the end he did want to be carried, so he finished up on my shoulders. It tired him out enough that he went for a nap when we got back home. I only let him sleep until 12 though. Any later and he is up at night until 20:00 or later.

Still no word on when I start my new job. Funny, but when I joined up I figured they could have me for up to 3 wars and then I'd be out. They are on number 5 now. We always seem to have someone to fight. I wonder who will be next?
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

Alex

Getting a new oven fitted on Friday, so I decided to give the old one a cleanout to make the job a bit more pleasant for whoever comes to take the old one away and fit the new one.

Funny that they spent about £250,000 training me up to work on electronic systems on aeroplanes, and yet we are not allowed to change our own ovens. Or change a lightbulb for that matter. But they do expect us to do the gardening, something for which I have had zero training.

Ever wondered about Medusa's pubic hair? I mean were they snakes too?

Saw these figures. Might have to buy them, although I'd never be able to paint them quite as good as this.





Playing Battletech at the moment. The AI seems ok except for two things. One: 60-foot tall robots can run through each other with no collisions and Two: No matter how badly outnumbered or damaged my opponents are they neither surrender nor attempt to retreat. I can have 4 medium 'Mechs strip all the weapons off of a light 'Mech and surround it and still, my opponent will fight on. Makes me think of the Black Knight from The Holy Grail.

So Kristi had kept on mentioning she wanted a swing for Ash in the back garden. I said yes, because well I generally indulge her in these things. What has turned up sits fours kids on its various parts. She'd gotten some spikes that need to be driven about 18 inches into the ground to secure it.

Did I mention in a previous post that this is the stoniest ground I have ever come across? After a couple of hours, I'd gotten down about 8 inches for one leg and a large pile of stones that I'd had to dig out of the ground by hand. Oh well, at least the set is all built up.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

Alex

So I went into a conference call today as Joe was busy and I said I'd cover the meeting for him. Someone down south had found out that we get another section to fill in some details on the jobs they do, in an online form. They also have to put some details online for other people but we don't have access to that. It takes about a minute to fill in the details, so why someone half the country away cared is beyond me, but anyway.

By the time the call was finished, not only are we going to keep doing things the way we were before, but our process has been identified as best practice and the base down south is going to adopt our procedures. Makes me laugh though. We had seven people in the call ranging from my rank up to chiefs and warrant officers just to decide that. Still, at least it was only a 20-minute call. I was expecting a minimum of an hour.

I miss the days when I used to have wild and wacky adventures. Sure, I nearly died a couple of times, but still. It's amazing just how alive you can feel at those times.

Ash continues to surprise us by generally behaving. I was expecting the terrible 2's to be much more challenging. When he is tired he will bring us a bottle and attempt to open the fridge so we can fill it with milk for him and then go upstairs and try to climb in his cot. His teething is continuing at the moment, so we do get occasional tears. Last night he woke up about 21:00 crying. We had just finished building his swing out the back door, so I distracted him by putting him in it. That kid does love his swings. Gave him some stuff to soothe his mouth and then put him back in his cot and off he went straight back to sleep.

Funny how Queensryche's 'Revolution Calling' seems a lot more relevant nowadays than it did back when it first came out. Now there is a band who lost greatness. Shame they were never able to replicate the heights of 'Operation: Mindcrime' or 'Empire'. I found a lot of their later stuff painful to listen to. Oh well.

Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

chefzombie

you'll get the fearsome fours instead, i'll bet, like in my family. and they can speak clearly by then, it's terrifying.
  those stones would make a lovely rock garden....*running, while hoping kristi sees this* :cheers:
don't EVEN...EVER!

Alex

Made it to another weekend and the rest of the world can go f**k itself.

Right now it feels like a game of Monopoly, where another player owns all the houses on the street and I am just trying to land on the safe spaces. Joe's wife has been exposed to Covid-19 again and has to go for testing. She should have the answer tomorrow. I guess we'll also know if you can catch this thing twice.

People are complaining that online services are editing the stuff you watch. Hah, score one for those of us who still prefer buying physical media. One less layer of interference on what you watch.

Playing around on Battletech just now. Enjoying the game mostly. I do wish my callsign wasn't BJ-1 though. I feel it dents my credibility as a merc. Now, were I playing a game where I was a rentboy then I'd be sorted.

The Scottish government has laid out its roadmap to getting to the new normal. Funny, I thought this was the new normal and what we wanted to do was get back to the old normal. Garden centres and golf courses will be reopening in the first wave. Since neither of those pursuits interest me, it makes no difference to me. I did come to some conclussions about the kinds of people who play golf though while watching them from a nearby bar, playing in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

chefzombie

they play in snowstorms here too.
some of the sailors who were positive on the USS roosevelt have recontracted the virus, according to the news. :bluesad:
don't EVEN...EVER!

Alex

Oh, it isn't official yet but I've been given my starting date for my new posting.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

Alex

We had a toddler who just couldn't sleep last night. There was a bit of a storm going on outside and we think the wind kept waking him up.

This is why I shut our double glazed windows, while someone else in the house has a habit of leaving them open...

Heh, in truth I like having the windows open. The trouble is, in the winter it is too damn cold while for the rest of the year you have seagulls screaming all damn night long. Frickin' rats with wings. Them and pigeons. Those are exceptions in my general appreciation for the animal kingdom.

Curiously, winged insects also (pun not intended) bug me. too. Normally the noise they make.

Anyway, we finally got him to sleep about half nine. Kristi got to doze as well, and both of them slept until the early afternoon. I figured I should wake them up at that point so they could sleep tonight.

Outside is miserable still. All wet and windy. I've given up on the idea of digging up the front garden. The rocky layer just beneath the surface would be more effort than I feel like making. Still going to have to dig through it in the backyard though to anchor the swing set in place. Still the wee man loves his swings and since we can't take him to the ones in the local parks, it gives us something we can go outside with him and have fun with.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

chefzombie

very good on the date for the new post. now you can make solid plans.
  i'm with you all the way on flying things, except for bats. i like bats. seagulls,pigeons, geese and crows are true lifelong enemies, for sure. and doves. i HATE doves. we had them in the trees at my parents house, the constant cooing was maddening!
don't EVEN...EVER!

Alex

I had a memory come up today on facebook from a few years back. Some extremists had just driven a car into the back of a soldier, then jumped out the car and cut the guys head off with a meat cleaver. I was pointing out the man telling us that we were still to travel to and from work in uniform was surrounded by bodyguards and lived in a street that had a big iron fence preventing the general public from entering (that would be David Cameron, the effing twat that he is). We have a different person in his old house now, but while we are now being told only to leave our house for everyone's good, they are now attempting to justify any time any of their political ilk decides to go travelling around the country. Some have had decent reasons (although normal people in the same situation using the same reasons would not get them off from having to pay a fine), others less so.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Trying listening to some new bands. Thought I'd found one that I'd like called 'Ghost', but on extended listening, their songs are just too repetitive. Kind of sounds a bit like a pop version of a black metal band. Still, they have a couple of songs that will go on my playlist, but I don't think I'll be buying their albums or seeing them live. Shame.

Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

Alex

So in the game of Battletech, I am playing, you can have up to a team of four people piloting giant robots on the battlefield. One of my pilots, with the codename Dixie has been with me since the start of the game. She went through a period of being an alcoholic, cleaned herself up and with a bit of support. She became an inspiration to her fellow mech pilots and was a top-notch pilot. Unfortunately, she was killed when her mech was blown up. At one point, they had a random encounter where she'd come to me and confessed she was worried about when her name would end up on the memorial wall and needed a pep talk.

Funny how you can get attached to something that doesn't exist.

Normally when it is a players birthday, I give them a free level in D&D. Just had to tell Ross he can't have one this year as I have already given him four free levels (every time you die, you are supposed to go back down to halfway between the previous level and your current one. Mary was 9th level when she died, but I let Ross create an 11th level character so he could keep up with the rest of the group, and I didn't take a level off him the last time his character died). Besides, giving him an extra level at the moment would put him ahead of Tina and caught up with Kristi which I don't think would be fair.

Not that he'd stay there for long. He is bound to die quite quickly again and lose the level, but still.

I wonder how North Korea is doing these days? I'd say I'd hadn't heard anything from the stupid haired leader for a while, but there are so many of them in the world right now people would be wondering which one? Funny how in the first half of the 20th-century dictators often had stupid hair or crappy 'taches. Or in Mussolini's case a giant head.

Good job they shot him. I have the feeling if they'd tried to hang him, his centre of gravity would have meant his head would be pointing down. Not that the man was a lightweight. Hell, when he was rescued by the German's his bulk almost was too much for the aeroplane to take off.
Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

chefzombie

HEY! WATCH THE GIANT HEAD REMARKS!   :thumbdown: there's a reason i call curtis punkinhead, you know!!  :tongueout:
don't EVEN...EVER!

Alex

Quote from: chefzombie on May 26, 2020, 09:52:09 PM
HEY! WATCH THE GIANT HEAD REMARKS!   :thumbdown: there's a reason i call curtis punkinhead, you know!!  :tongueout:


Because he is a demon of revenge?

Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.

Alex

After how many weeks of half days and now being back on full days, work is really dragging. It doesn't help that my enthusiasm is gone for the job.

Mind you, it has been gone since November. I just want to go start my new role.

QuoteManiacs of World War 2: Simone Segouin.

In 1944, when she was only 18 years old, she joined the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans – a combat group made up of militant communists and French nationalists. Her father served in the Great War and he was a great inspiration for her to join the resistance. She was known by her nom de guerre Nicole Minet.

She was given a new name and false identity papers; this was supposed to protect her family if she was captured by the Germans. Now, "Nicole Minet" was from Channel port of Dunkirk. The Germans bombed the port at the beginning of the war, so it was hard for them to check her details.

Soon, she was trained to use weapons and participated in more dangerous missions than stealing a bike from the Germans. It didn't take long for her to start blowing up bridges and even assisting in capturing German soldiers. She was involved in armed actions against enemy convoys and trains, attacks against enemy detachments, and other acts of sabotage.

She fell in love with Roland Boursier, who was commander of the Thivars Operation. They met in the countryside of her village. Roland asked her to be a runner for him, taking messages back to the Resistance group.

Later, he asked her to join them, and she said that she would be happy to do it.

The French newspaper Independent Eure-et-Loir described her as  "one of the purest fighters of heroic French Resistance who prepared the way for the Liberation".

They spotted her eating a baguette smeared with jam, her machine gun by her side, wearing an FTP armband. She said to the journalists that she was there in order to provide security for De Gaulle.

She helped to liberate Chartres, and then she linked up with France's 2nd Armoured division, which was headed to Paris in order to liberate it. Paris was still a battle zone and Simone became part of it.

Simone killed two Germans in the fighting and also had assisted in capturing 25 German prisoners of war during the fall of Chartres.

When the war was over, she was awarded the prestigious Croix de Guerre and she was promoted to lieutenant. Women made up just 10% of The Resistance, but their presence helped force a shift in the way their gender was treated. For example, women voted for the first time in France in the local elections in 1945, and later in the national elections too.

Simone went on to become a paediatric nurse in Chartres, where her wartime exploits made her hugely popular. A street in Courville-sur-Eure was named for her.




Hail to thyself
For I am my own master
I am my own god
I require no shepherd
For I am no sheep.