Lissa ‘n’ Andy’s little World

I finally got to take some annual leave from work. Delay after delay had meant that I had to get a project finished and the 1st 2 demo units out the door before I could take leave.

Annoying sales people not listening to the developer (me) about time scales and completely ignoring to tell the customer that it was a product still under development and not fully tested!

Anyway first few days of holiday time were disturbed with texts, emails and phone calls for the 2 demo units. Because there had been no testing time or time to write the manual etc, I am the only 1 that knows whats going on and how the system works.

So far this week they have left me alone, but i’m expecting some kind of contact from them.

Lissa and I have finally managed to get a day out and we went to the Musem of Science and Industry in Manchester for a wander round. Wow has that place changed since i last went many years ago. I don’t know whether the changes are good or bad, so far I’m thinking bad. There is now WAYYYYY too much emphasis on school parties and accessibility and much less on actually having good, interesting exhibits. I think the designers really need to go back and have a rethink. Huge long ramps between floors might look good but waste a lot of space. Enough of my griping, it wasn’t a bad time out and I have uploaded a few photos in the gallery.

Lissa has just had more hand surgery to correct “trigger finger” in her right hand. This is the thrid lot of surgery to correct carpal tunel and tigger finger issues. Hopefully now everything is fixed and there will be no more.

Maybe the company she works for will actually get their arses in gear, do a risk assessment, that Lissa requested months ago, and deem the keyboard she has to work with the reason for her hands getting screwed up.  There again the company is sooo dis-organised, i doubt it, nor do i doubt they really care if the equipment they use gives people carpal tunnel and trigger finger, probably cheaper to pay the fine or give the risk assessment company a back hander to keep it off the radar!

The attitude will be “tough, dont like it, find another job”, which is crap, considering 1 of the engineers that fixes the tils let it slip that HSE has already condemed the machines due to the keyboard problems. The shop manager doesnt care and is just out for himself and the assistant manager is too weak willed to do anything, hell she doesn’t even like calling the head office to order stationary or to get rotas fixed.  The shop manager needs firing as incompitent and the assistant manager needs demoting until she learns how to be an assistant manager.

Not only are the public gambling with their money, but the staff are gambling with their health!

What is it going to take for emplyers to provide safe, RSI limiting equipment for their employees to work with???

Wow, a long 10 days of feeling like death warmed over. The meds i’ve been taking for my back problems have given me a stomach ulser which decided now was a good time to really flare up and I was signed off for a week.

So 3 days of bearly eating, a few trips to the doctors and a threat of being hospitalised, I’m now on the right side of it.

Down side to all of this is that I now have new meds for my back and they have got to settle things down again. Until the ulser has pretty much healed up no spicey food, no cola and cut back on fried food, well there goes the 3 things I eat and drink the most. Also no alchol, not a big deal not really a drinker anymore now anyway.

Through all of that, Lissa had her hand operated on last Wednesday, right in the middle of me feeling the worst. She was then unable to prepare meals or do dishes etc, so feeling like i would throw up at any time, was preparing Lissa’s meals. Some of that smelt sooo good, just the simple things like a bag of ready salted crisps, and i couldnt eat any of it!!

Lissa goes back to see the surgeon on Tuesday and have her stiches out, so hopefully end of next week she will be a little more back to normal and able to do a lot more for herself, especially since I’m back to work on Monday.

We have just moved offices at work, OH MY GOD, the chaos!!!!!!
First install new network, cables, sockets, cabinets etc, put in 4000 ft of cable !!! yes nearlly 4000 feet of CAT5 network cable installed. For a company of 8 people thats a lot of cable.

All new gigabit infrastructure, so no more network bottlenecks, hopefully. Lots of fun kit to play with and a major head ache of a new VoIP telephone system.

But we have got there with the infrastructure, its all up and working. Now just have to sort the workshop which at present looks like a cable factory threw up in it, find all our missing bits and pieces oh and configure VPN access for remote workers, so not much left to do then :-O

After all that is finished might be able to get back to my development work, but for now looks like im finishing off the internal IT stuff.

Oh and 1 more thing when I have a min (ha ha ) is to install a wireless network, document the whole of the new network, ok so 2 things then.

Well it was that time again, Orange contract up for renewal! Had a nice chat with the woman at Business Customer Services and managed to get a better deal and 2 new handsets. My new toy is the Nokia E71.

I know it looks like a gooseberry and it is similar but it doesnt need the subsription for the email side of things.

Since I have kinda big hands and fingers I was afraid the keyboard would be too small, but its suprisingly easy to use and so much nicer for writing text messages and emails than tapping it all out with the standard numbers. Just got to get it working with my Exchange server (it has Nokia’s Mail for Exchange app pre-installed) and since it has wifi built in, no silly costs using 3G. Still playing with it and getting used to it but so far a really nice phone that does what I need without too many annoying bells and whistles. It is a PHONE after all, not an mp3 player, mp4 player, mobile tv and all the other junk you get on a lot of phones these days. Oh and as for the camera, well it works. Nothing spectacular only 3.2Meg pixel and to be honest, the normal crap quality pics I have come to expect from tiny little lenses and tiny little sensors in the back of my phone. If I want good photots will use my DSLR.

After leaving British Cycling in April this year, I went to work for IQ Digital Media, now Screen Media Group, on their helpdesk. The company creates, installs and manages digital signage networks, like those you see in convenience stores.

The place is only small with only 13 employees at the offices in Knutsford and has a much more family like feeling.

Although I am working on the helpdesk I am also becoming the in-house developer, Visio master and general IT fixer, working with the Technical Manager and CTO.

After hunting around I found that Google was blocking my external IP because my web/ mail server had been attacked.

After a few tweaks on the web server and killing the running processes that were causing the issue all seems fine

Google is driving me nuts, every few days I get an error when I try and do a search from the Google Toolbar, that says my search looks like an automated search from bot and please enter the damned captcha word.

Virus scans show nothing…….

Is it just google being a pain in the rear or something more serious? will have to keep investigating.

my first attempt at a blog, lol you poor ppl stuck reading this.

Well back in March went back to NY to see the family, got to spend nana’s bday with her, which was great, spending time with nana, grandpa, momma, uncle butch, aunt patty, aunt jane and uncle jim.

omg when did kaitlyn grow up so much? that is so not allowed. cause ya got to remember am 20 years older then that kid and she is graduating from high school this year.

As much as i loved seeing my family was even nicer coming back home and being with andy. i do love my family and miss them dearly but being back home in NY no longer feels like home. it’ll always be my hometown but england and andy are now my home.

I have a very wonderful husband who stands by me and supports me, i finally realize what Martina Mcbride was singing about in ‘my baby loves me’ am not saying we don’t fight or disagree or that its all sunshine and rainbows, because its not that is not realistic, but our love and good times so out weigh the bad ones. We have admitdly had a rough past 6 months but are pulling thru stronger for it.

My new family includes Sue, the other Mrs T. Mum is such a wonderful mother in law, she takes care of us and looks after us. she will stick up for me if she thinks am right, but she’s not afraid to kick me in my ass if she thinks am wrong.

Then there is Vicky, my sister in law, a very smart opinated woman, we have a few things in common, we both have a great love of books, cooking, and mum and andy.

Dad, we all love and miss u and will always be a part of our lives.

blessed be

lissa

Finally! found some nice blogging software and a gallery plugin that works and doesnt crash the server.

So over the coming weeks things should be more active on our blog.