Rest
Helloes! Thought it was about time I updated again, and what better time than the early morning after Christmas day? Okay, the answer to that is probably 'any time', but everyone's gone to bed leaving nothing else to do, and I'm feeling quite good so now will do.
It's been a fairly stressful few days, but thankfully today I was finally able to relax. The stress was mainy Cali-related; as I should have expected, the update I did to try and improve the refresh speed caused nothing but trouble in the beginning. I ended up having to rush all over the place between the shops to keep them running and even now I'm still getting calls about little errors, some of them extremely strange. On Friday I was called out to Ringwood road three times. The first time I'd gone up to just do an upgrade and some other bits, and then I went home. Then I got a call at about 11pm because the software had apparently died. Darius said he'd send someone to pick me up so I agreed to go take a look, but just after I hung up I realised what the problem was. It could be solved by adding a '1' to a file, so I called him back to ask if I could just guide someone through it. He said nobody there would understand and Abi was nearly at my house anyway. I couldn't recall who Abi was, but when he got here I recognised him. He could certainly have followed my instructions, his English is good enough and he's perfectly capable of understanding. I told him on the way there what I thought the problem was, and he too couldn't believe we couldn't have just settled it over the phone. Sure enough, I got there, had to click about 4 times and type one character on the keyboard, and it was fixed. So, he took me home, and just as I got in and was about to go bed... the phone rang. It was Abi again, and he said the girls in the Ringwood Road office said they were having errors again. So he took me back for the third time, and this time I stayed until 3am. This time I got a lift home from someone who didn't speak much English at all, so I had to just point the directions home, because he didn't seem to understand 'left' and 'right', and a complex phrase like 'down to the end of this road' was out of the question.
The next day I could only hope everything would go fine, and I was worried when my phone rang and showed 'Nicky'. Indeed it was to report a problem, but luckily it wasn't anything vital, and although she called me around ten times that night, I didn't have to go in. I did travel briefly up to Graham's house to drop off his presents though. He'd come over in the morning to give me mine, and I'd still been in bed. He must have been feeling very generous this year, because he took out about five presents. I was keeping them all for the next day, but he told me to open a particular one of them right away. I'm not gong to tell you what it is now, because I want to post a picture. I meant to do it today, but got too carried away plaing games downstairs to remember to take a photo.
Just before I left I saw a message I'd missed on Yahoo from Kim. She said that Scott had been taken into hospital to have surgery following a heart attack on Wednesday. Not good news. She said the last she heard it had gone well and he was okay and recovering though, so hopefully he'll be out again soon.
So, I've had quite a good day. I got up at 4pm or so because I was very tired. I was more tired than I should have been because I spent the early morning playing Rollercoaster Tycoon, which was a stupid thing to do on Christmas morning really, but nevermind. When I got downstairs everybody had opened their presents are were playing some kind of music quiz game on the playstation. I distributed my presents and recieved theirs to me, and then joined in the game. Graham had given me tea, in large quantities. My supply of non-standard tea is almost depleted and doesn't get stocked very much, so it's nice to have a fresh selection. One of the packs had some shortbread, and some other food as well so much consuming to be done! More food from Connor and Vicky, and my parents gave me some headphones that I'd been rather non-subtly hinting at. Mmmm the clarity... everything just sounds so clear and defined, like it does through my nice speakers. So much better than any headphones I've had before. They also gave me something else, but this is also remaining a secret until I get to post some pictures tomorrow. Shanna sent me a cup, which I thought was normal at first, but she informs me it is designed for keeping drinks hot or cold. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks nice and big so I can see it being used for holding coke in large volumes. Must go and write something to her actually, I've not talked to her in any way since her birthday on the 18th...
I'm feeling pretty tired now. Not sure what's going on tomorrow, but I'm really hoping I can avoid doing any work. I know we're going to Oxford to see family between now and new year, so at least I've got a few days guarenteed holiday. I could say a lot more, but like I said, tired now, and I'm planning to update tomorrow with pictures anyway. I've got new features to play with too; Graham nicely turned my account into a paid account for six months, so I have features to mess around with. See you in the morning.
It's been a fairly stressful few days, but thankfully today I was finally able to relax. The stress was mainy Cali-related; as I should have expected, the update I did to try and improve the refresh speed caused nothing but trouble in the beginning. I ended up having to rush all over the place between the shops to keep them running and even now I'm still getting calls about little errors, some of them extremely strange. On Friday I was called out to Ringwood road three times. The first time I'd gone up to just do an upgrade and some other bits, and then I went home. Then I got a call at about 11pm because the software had apparently died. Darius said he'd send someone to pick me up so I agreed to go take a look, but just after I hung up I realised what the problem was. It could be solved by adding a '1' to a file, so I called him back to ask if I could just guide someone through it. He said nobody there would understand and Abi was nearly at my house anyway. I couldn't recall who Abi was, but when he got here I recognised him. He could certainly have followed my instructions, his English is good enough and he's perfectly capable of understanding. I told him on the way there what I thought the problem was, and he too couldn't believe we couldn't have just settled it over the phone. Sure enough, I got there, had to click about 4 times and type one character on the keyboard, and it was fixed. So, he took me home, and just as I got in and was about to go bed... the phone rang. It was Abi again, and he said the girls in the Ringwood Road office said they were having errors again. So he took me back for the third time, and this time I stayed until 3am. This time I got a lift home from someone who didn't speak much English at all, so I had to just point the directions home, because he didn't seem to understand 'left' and 'right', and a complex phrase like 'down to the end of this road' was out of the question.
The next day I could only hope everything would go fine, and I was worried when my phone rang and showed 'Nicky'. Indeed it was to report a problem, but luckily it wasn't anything vital, and although she called me around ten times that night, I didn't have to go in. I did travel briefly up to Graham's house to drop off his presents though. He'd come over in the morning to give me mine, and I'd still been in bed. He must have been feeling very generous this year, because he took out about five presents. I was keeping them all for the next day, but he told me to open a particular one of them right away. I'm not gong to tell you what it is now, because I want to post a picture. I meant to do it today, but got too carried away plaing games downstairs to remember to take a photo.
Just before I left I saw a message I'd missed on Yahoo from Kim. She said that Scott had been taken into hospital to have surgery following a heart attack on Wednesday. Not good news. She said the last she heard it had gone well and he was okay and recovering though, so hopefully he'll be out again soon.
So, I've had quite a good day. I got up at 4pm or so because I was very tired. I was more tired than I should have been because I spent the early morning playing Rollercoaster Tycoon, which was a stupid thing to do on Christmas morning really, but nevermind. When I got downstairs everybody had opened their presents are were playing some kind of music quiz game on the playstation. I distributed my presents and recieved theirs to me, and then joined in the game. Graham had given me tea, in large quantities. My supply of non-standard tea is almost depleted and doesn't get stocked very much, so it's nice to have a fresh selection. One of the packs had some shortbread, and some other food as well so much consuming to be done! More food from Connor and Vicky, and my parents gave me some headphones that I'd been rather non-subtly hinting at. Mmmm the clarity... everything just sounds so clear and defined, like it does through my nice speakers. So much better than any headphones I've had before. They also gave me something else, but this is also remaining a secret until I get to post some pictures tomorrow. Shanna sent me a cup, which I thought was normal at first, but she informs me it is designed for keeping drinks hot or cold. I haven't tried it yet, but it looks nice and big so I can see it being used for holding coke in large volumes. Must go and write something to her actually, I've not talked to her in any way since her birthday on the 18th...
I'm feeling pretty tired now. Not sure what's going on tomorrow, but I'm really hoping I can avoid doing any work. I know we're going to Oxford to see family between now and new year, so at least I've got a few days guarenteed holiday. I could say a lot more, but like I said, tired now, and I'm planning to update tomorrow with pictures anyway. I've got new features to play with too; Graham nicely turned my account into a paid account for six months, so I have features to mess around with. See you in the morning.