Sigh.

Today, there was a potential issue flagged up at work with the project of mine that went pear shaped last week. It shouldn't be a problem, but my professional confidence has taken somewhat of a bashing since Christmas, mostly through no fault of my own. So, I'm seeing issues where there are none. This is partly the reason I'm looking elsewhere within the company. I may spread my wings a little later in the year and look at other firms or even other countries.

Growing old... (Part 2)

Following on from this post, I did go and see my GP about my knee. He does have a background in sports medicine/treatment, so this was one time that I was sure he'd be able to help. After prodding away at my knee for the best part of ten minutes, he really couldn't see anything wrong and gave me a basic prescription for anti-inflammatories.

He also weighed me and took my blood pressure. It appears that I've put on about 4 kg since I was last weighed in 2004. However, I was quite pleased as this actually meant I'd lost about 4kg (about 8/9 lbs) since the start of the year. I've no idea how or why as my diet hasn't changed enough to warrant that weight loss and I know that my increased football isn't responsible because that's only been ongoing for about 4 weeks and I know that I lost 2kg alone when I was travelling with E. He never said much about the blood pressure, so I assume that's OK or better!

It's given me a boost though and I can hopefully lose the same weight again to get me down to roughly 82 kg. That was kind of my goal when I was seeing GC semi-regularly at the gym and there's no reason to change that.

Dreams

I woke early this morning, before 6 AM, having slept well. I went downstairs and got a glass of water and returned to bed where I slept for another four hours. Awaking this time, I remembered parts of a dream I'd been having that involved QC3 and I having sex... a lot of sex. However, even though I can't remember exact details, this wasn't a sexy dream. I seem to remember a lot of fear or tension, but can't remember what in the dream would cause it to have that kind of atmosphere.

It's weird because I haven't thought of QC3 in a long time and it's been even longer since I thought of her in any kind of sexual way.

Cause and effect

With the huge cockup at work last week, I've spent all my time creating the solution to a problem that wasn't mine. In turn, that's eaten into time I had set aside for another project I've been allocated which is currently putting my planned, but still un-requested, time off for the near future in jeopardy. Ordinarily, that's not a big thing as I only take time to chill out without any real goals, but this time off was carefully planned to coincide with E being home. She's already agreed to take day out with me and we only need to hammer out the dates, but I now have two deadlines to meet in the week she's home which always ties up a lot of time in finalising the work and preparation.

I could potentially make that easier by doing long hours this week, which should mean less work the week after and has the added effect of putting a load of hours into my account to take later (or perhaps immediately with E). However, QC2 should be finally availablte this week and I'm half-expecting her to want to meet up which kind of goes against my plan of getting the work done before E-day. 

I like QC2 though, and I've not seen her in months. She'll want to catch up and unusually, I've a lot to tell her about my trip away and various other things. Plus, she used to be a keen photographer and I've got loads of holiday photos to show her, a lot of which I'm really proud of and I kinda want to show them off as the feedback thus far has been disappointing.

Meh.

It occurred to me today that FA2 has never mentioned anything about my trip to her neck of the woods. There's no reason that she wouldn't have seen all the evidence... I've posted some travel photos on Facebook and not really made any secret of my travels or where I was travelling to. Still, in the three months I've been home, she's said nothing at all.

I suppose that doesn't really say much because it's not as if V's been talkative, has it? So, why would FA2 be? Saying that, FA2 is the type to say something (you only have to look at how quick she was in contact when she smelt gossip about my personal life to know that she still does take an interest in my life), but perhaps in this case, she'd know that she'd end up hearing something she wouldn't like.

The thing is, I think I kinda want her to notice and say something...

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I've finally managed to get my hands on all of E's photos from my trip out to visit her. It took a fucking age to get them all because I had to download them manually from her Flickr account. I guess, somewhat ironically, some smart bugger will pop up and post the first comment I've had in years about some tool that'll do it all automatically.

Anyway, now that I've got all that sorted, I can start putting together E's birthday present. I've got about two weeks in total to get it sorted, but I want it done and out of the way by this time next week.

I think it'll be great, especially considering the responses from people in work. It would be nice if E showed something similar. I doubt it though. She's showed no signs of anything like that in the time I've known her, though according to her friend that I speak to, she has been very grateful about presents I've bought in the past.

Sweat over!

I've just taken the plunge and installed Windows XP Service Pack 3. Thankfully, the laptop rebooted OK and the lovely Catherine Bell was soon smiling at me sexily once again.

Steps forward?

SSCW was asking me today about work. She's going part-time later this year to study Law at university. SSCW is someone that thinks she knows all the answers (or rather she gives that impression although I'm convinced most of it is an act). She was accusing me (for want of a better word) of not being pro-active enough about looking elsewhere for employment.

I explained that, despite my frustrations from time to time, I was happy in the industry and fairly happy within the company and that I'd be more likely to seek a move to another department and while my skills would remain relevant, my knowledge would then be obsolete. (That's a good thing though, because the knowledge I'm picking up in this current team isn't transferable anywhere else, so I'd require completely new training etc.)

I've had this conversation with SSCW before, but I'm not sure she knows me well enough to understand what I'm trying to say.

Anyway, a few hours later, my boss comes over for "a chat". I'm a bit apprehensive because there's currently a project in work that's gone over time (not my fault), so I'm wondering if the client is kicking up a fuss. However, it's nothing bad and he actually offered to send me on a training course later this year with some new technology we're going to start using. I mentioned to him that I was currently frustrated and explained why and mentioned that I was actually considering requesting a transfer to another department. He was quite supportive, to be fair because in the past I've actually wondered if he even knows what goes on in the team if he's not directly informed, so this was a nice surprise.

Still the good thing at this point is that he knows I'm not 100% happy. I suggested the place on the training course was given to someone else as I couldn't give any long-term guarantees and actually, the lack of my core technical knowledge means that I'm unlikely to get locked in to the team as some of my work colleagues have found themselves. The silver lining for the cloud!

Good looking women are stress relievers...

My "admiration" of Catherine Bell has been documented before on Baby Needs and although I've had a stressful day at work when I fired up my laptop when I came home, this greeted me (it's my current desktop on my laptop):

Look at her... *drool* Brings a smile to my face.

Still... *drool*

Work. Moan.

Work, again. Sigh.

I've got 48 hours to turn around a gap in a project that really shouldn't have happened had our clients paid attention to the law and been much better at communication. Shoving a requirement into a little-used tool with only a few lines of text to let us know of a reasonably important update is not the way to get work done. Now I have to try and turn it all round in 48 hours. It was 36 hours, but fuck it, I'm not staying in work until all hours and if this thing slips, then it slips. That mkight teach them to communicate better.

Fishing from the company pool...

On one of my other internet haunts, someone recently posed this question:

How many members of the opposite sex work in your office and how many would you sleep with?

Well, for me, the answer is twelve in total (out of about 70 people total) and I think I'd sleep with four of them, including SSCW.