Is this stress or trepedation?

Recently I had some important work to do and it was booked about a month in advance and I couldn’t think about anything other than what if it goes wrong, how can I recover the situation if it does etc.

Now I’m never one to shy away from the unknown but sometimes I think I should for my own sanity.

I haven’t been able to participate in anything really, including social networking which is unlike me.

It didn’t help that my Internet connection died the day before the work was scheduled for, which gave me even more to worry about. The Internet connection came back up at 3pm and my stress levels decreased slightly until my laptop kept giving me the BSD so again, my levels went through the roof, finally getting it fixed at 5:30pm on Friday.

So to all of my Twitter/Facebook friends, I’m not ignoring you as normal service will resume shortly.

The work has now been completed over the weekend and went according to plan (mainly) and I am now back to my normal self.

Let’s just wee what this week has in store for me

It was a rather long flight, in that getting picked up by taxi at 5am is never good, but a crew change and refuel in Manchester added an additional 2 hours to the journey isn’t great either, but hey, I was on my way to Mexico,  land of the sombrero and tequila.

This was actually our second visit to Mexico so we knew what we were going to get and we were looking forward to it.

There were 13 of us travelling together this time so quite a large group, all upgraded on the plane, but worth the money for such a long flight.

We arrived at the resort, the Gran Bahia Principe, to our own reception lobby and quickly got checked in etc which meant we could start to enjoy our time at the hotel.

The complex is huge and has three hotels (Coba, Tulum and Akumal), but we decided to stay in the hotel closest to the beach, The Akumal.

The rooms were nice and clean and provided everything that we needed, apart from WiFi, but two weeks holiday, with only limited access to WiFi from reception may have been a good thing, keeping me from being on the web all day.

The weather was lovely, a few cloudy days but to be honest I was glad of them as the heat was sometimes overbearing.

We swam with the dolphins, which are too cute for words, I will post some pics later, including a video of me getting pushed by two dolphins which was an experience by itself.

We decided to go on a boat trip, which was good fun, but I think too much beer and the constant motion of the boat made me feel ill, so I didn’t enjoy it as much as I would have liked.

I normally steer clear of the beach whilst on holiday as I am normally a pool person, but we decided to spend most of our time on the beach for a change and I must say, I am now a beach person as it felt like truly being on holiday with the sand between my toes, the sun on my skin and the constant cooling breeze, it was heaven.

All in all, a great time, but now I’m back and guess what, it’s raining

It hasn’t stopped raining since we landed on Saturday and it’s still bloody raining now.

First day back at work today and I have a cold, how the hell do you get a cold in Mexico?

I want to go back to Mexico as on Friday I was swimming in the sea and getting my body tanned in glorious sunshine, now I’m sat in front of my laptop, freezing my nads off waiting for it to stop raining, wearing a bloody jumper.

Oh well, I will do it all again next year.

Countdown starts now….

I currently use my iPhone for the following

• Taking pics, not a great camera but good enough, iPhone 4 has slightly better camera and a flash
• Taking video, again, not great but OK, iPhone 4 does HD but not full HD
• The usual social networking, Facebook, Twitter and Google+, but Google+ is rubbish on the iPhone
• Google Maps every now and then when I’m lost

So here are my thoughts

• Keep my iPhone 3GS, reducing my contract to a rolling monthly contract until the iPhone 5 comes out
• Get an iPhone 4 on a 12 month contract which works out very expensive and replace it if I feel the need when the 5 comes out

OR

Should I move to Android? Will I regret it? Will I love it and wonder why I didn’t do it ages ago?

The Galaxy S2 hits all the notes for me, in that

• It does Full HD
• It has a nice 8 mega-pixel camera
• It does the usual social networking, but Google+ will be a lot better on it, but I have heard that the Facebook app is crap
• It’s absolutely rapid and so smooth and bright
• It’s nice and thin and very light

But again, the phone etc works out very expensive so as I am going to be spending a good few pounds on either the iPhone or the Android one, I would like to make the right decision as I don’t have money to throw away.

It is quite difficult to get a good opinion as you are either Android or iPhone and so people have real strong opinions on their choices.

So my questions are

• If you had £500, would you go for the iPhone or the Android?
• If you went for the Android, is the Galaxy S2 the best phone for circa £500?
• Can anybody suggest a cheap rolling contract?
• Can anybody suggest a cheap way of getting the Galaxy or the iPhone 4?

I know it’s not life or death but the decision is doing my head in

Please help me……

The first time I drove a car, I was about 12 years of age. My dad had a Range Rover, which was pimped up and had massive wheels. He took me on the beach during a cold winters day and drove over the sand which I thought was so cool.

He stopped and asked me to get behind the wheel, which I did. He wanted to see if I could reverse his pride and joy in between two massive rocks, without hitting them, no pressure then.

Now those were the days before cars had these bloody namby pamby reversing sensors etc and I must admit, I was shitting myself.

I did it…yey and then had a quick raz around the beach, it was great.

A good memory..

I was working for a large ISP and I was working in London, in a building opposite the Tate Modern Art Gallery. I was waiting for a BT engineer to turn up and bring some new kit to replace a faulty cable.

The engineer rang me and said he would be a while as he had to go home because his mobile phone battery was dead and he had forgotten his charger, so he would ring me from his home phone and let me know how long he would be.

“No problem I said, I’ll kill a bit of time in London whilst waiting”, I said.

I decided to act all hip and trendy and pop over the road and visit the Tate Modern to have a look and more importantly try and understand modern art.

After looking around for a while, I happened upon a room which looked like it was getting refurbished, with tables and tools littered about the place. As I was walking through this room, my mobile phone rang; it was the engineer asking me to ring him back on his home number. I explained that I didn’t have a pen, so if he hung on for a minute, I’d try and find one.

I was in luck, there appeared to be one laying on one of the tables which I quickly tried to grab.

Now picture the scene…..

Me walking across the room to try and grab the pen, tripping over the ‘unseen’ by me wire railing that was ankle height and falling flat on my face, whilst at the same time having a security guard diving on my back asking me what the hell I was doing.

I’m trying to get the pen I explained to which he replied in a rather arsey voice, “It’s an art installation you imbecile”

Well what a complete tw*t I felt and it didn’t help the situation by being frog marched out of the Tate Modern.

I have never visited a modern art museum since.

That is why Modern Art and moi don’t get on

Well anyway, the building regulations have recently changed and brought in new part L regulations which mean that all windows and doors etc need to be energy rated.  This is a nightmare for a small company such as ours. There are lots of companies out there that will ‘sell’ you a U value calculator but these are a tad too expensive for a company such as ours.

Another part of the part L regulations state that we need to offer the customer an insurance backed guarantee (IBG), but we can’t offer this as we are not registered with the FSA, so guess what, we have to appoint a company to do this on our behalf.  This is the bit that gets my goat. As a company, I have to pay for the privilege of passing a sales lead on to another company, surely that can’t be right

Small companies are drowning in legislation and compliance and there is not a damn thing we can do about it.

We employ two people and like to think that we are doing a service by doing so but we get no help whatsoever from anybody.

Oh, by the way, if you need windows etc, give Titan Windows a ring on 01429 891919 **Shameless plug**

Passers by look at all of the ice created by a broken water pipe in New York

I think that one of the lines in the book is so true, in that of all of the people who enter and leave your life, some of these people have no affect on you whatsoever, but some people just stop you dead in your tracks and leave a massive impact

Get it, read it and enjoy and tell them Dave sent ya

It wouldn’t be so bad if I could even get home on an evening, I can’t, I’m effing miles away and not back until Monday.

This really is a sucky weekend