Received a phone call from my daughter today at work she asked if on my way home from work could i would call in at Borders the book shop and buy her John Steinbeck's "of mice and men " .
apparently they are reading it in school and it is part of the English literature work.

I remember reading the same book when i was at high school 30 years ago its nice to see how teaching as moved forward and things haven't stayed the same.

it annoys me when people are leaving school not understanding different aspects of modern day to day life E.G signing on the JSA rock and roll , methadone projects ,needle exchange centers build a blunt classes etc etc but are familiar with books we was reading in the 60's and 70's good old secondary education( now i know why its called secondary). Iam not in no way shape or form having ago or a dig at the Teachers they are delivering what is being asked of them and no doubt do a first class job but someone somewhere should wake up and smell the coffee its a totally different aroma more chocolate mocha then Camp.

it wont be long before Shakespear and Latin are making a come back and IT and media studies are ancient history tis a funny old world ain't it

Few people got caught out at work this morning instead of turning up on time for the seven o clock start a couple turned up a hour early..makes it a long day.

I remembered to turn the clock back but i woke up as normal it will take a few days for the body clock to adjust.

A good friend called round tonight to re-set certain configurations on my pc i thought that CCL would have D/L'd latest drivers for graphics card etc but they hadn't they didn't set the corsair memory to the correct settings in the BIOS either part of the cost of the build was to sort all of this stuff out he also change some wireless settings to hopefully make it run better and so far its looking like the changes he made are running good so big thanks Rob.

Not been round the back of the house to check out the cricket population will have to remember to do this in the next day or so.

bought a miniature bottle of Jack Daniels with small metal hip flask and funnel from Asda a snip at £3.99 ideal when mornings or nights the bus knocks must old a couple of shots to keep the cold at bay i do know that alcohol and spirits lowers your body's core temperature but seeing i am not living at the north pole what the heck.Also when the miniature bottle runs out be like on Tuesday the way our bus run,it will be a good excuse to go out to the off license and buy large bottle or two.

Here is the gecko tracking down its supper atm there is only three crickets in there and the gecko is in the process of shedding its skin THE WIFE DOES THE SAME HEHE .

Must go buy it some fresh moss which is kept damp and moist UNLIKE THE WIFE ON THAT SCORE and when it wants to chill out it will sit on top and keep cool the wife goes on Ebay .

Eventually it will need a much bigger tank than the one it is currently living in
and will try feeding it meal worms instead of the crickets which at least wont jump about the tank or the container when we try and get them out.

pretty sure they know that are all on borrowed time we feed the crickets broccoli and Greens the vitamins are then passed on to the gecko as it eats the live bait.

So it is like having loads of little pets thrown in literally obviously don't get too attached to the crickets and where all part of the food chain eventually after all we all end up feeding the worms for all of us out there I do hope its later rather than sooner..............

Bought a Netgear wireless router Dg834pN for the laptops what a piece of rubbish hardware.
When i ran the installation disc it was recommend you use the netgear utility to program type in http://192.168.0.1 to set up the wireless network but to configure the other PC's it was ten times easier using Microsoft settings to configure them it up especially setting the 64 bit wep key security settings.
Atm back using my adsl modem to connect to my ISP the Netgear kept dropping its connection down to barely a trace wouldn't even load firefox disabled windows firewall my sygate firewall mad no difference and that was on my machine where the phone line is connected to and Netgears internal modem i have been looking at reviews for the DG834PN and people are having the same problems as me so I'm pretty sure its not a meatware error hehe

been looking at d-link which i was tempted to go with in the first place didn't know now why i didn't but want to make sure it is not some stupid configuration what needs adjusting or resetting

Was cleaning out my son's gecko out last night with him we completely emptied out the bark ,moss and was going to put fresh stuff back I noticed that they was loads of live crickets jumping about the tank so instead of dumping everything into a black bin bag we decided to empty the lot on the back of the near bye garden allotments the back of the houses back onto a walkthrough to the other side of some woods and there is loads of newts frogs toads etc hopping about .So all the crickets went free and did.nt end up as gecko food.

we put fresh bark moss in and the rest of the stuff back into the tank and returned the gecko to its newly spring cleaned home.I told my son not to feed anything as the amount of crickets what it hadn't eaten it must have been well stuffed and we agreed to feed it the following night.

Half hour later my Daughter came into the room with the look of sheer terror on her face I asked her what was wrong and I was getting worried thinking something was drastically wrong.
She had decided to check on the gecko noticed it had no food I think she knew we had cleaned him out but she thought we must have forgoten to feed him in the process of opening the box of crickets she manage to empty a full cartoon of live crickets into the geckos tank
at least 60 plus was hoping jumping about we took a few out but they was just too many of god's little creatures.

so it was another trip to the back of the allotments to add to the already new formed cricket colony population.
I don't know the life cycle of a cricket or how fast the can breed etc and I don't really know if they will survive but I guess if there is a abundant amount of crickets next year we will have had a small part in the replenishment of the local wild life .

This is my wife's baby girl she is adorable and today she went to the vets to get her booster injection we have another chiahuhua called chico who is a dog. But Tia is the boss and leads him a merry dance anything he as she wants although they both get treat the same they can be both can be given identical chews,dinners and toys etc she will always want what he as got once she as got her own way she wants to swap again.

It is not very often he will put her in her place and he is more than happy to give in to her wishes most of the time just like being married i guess.

Anyway she was brave at the vets and didn't make a single sound when she had her injection she might be small but she is tuf 'n' nuf what you have to remember if you all did not know is that chiahuhua's are the only breed of dog that cry real tears........

It was my birthday yesterday i have a twin sister so it was a joint celebration we went for a nice meal at the White House near Roundhay Park Leeds.The drinks was quite expensive but the food was spot on had a mixed grill which was £10.99 and was just abit more than what a pig would eat.
My twin sister and her husband bought me a canon lide 60 flat bed scanner which was easy to install and use, its the first scanner i have ever had and its going to be a long job to scan all the photos we have as a family but i look forward to doing it.

My Wife bought me a new chair to sit on whilst i am at my computer got a height adjuster and its the first proper seat i have had so all in all I'm more than happy.

We bought my Sister a leather jewelery case and a scrap book album and a rustic metal nodding dog for her garden put she is going to keep it in the house.

My other Sister gave me a metal hipce brief case type storage container for all my disc's and softwareprogram'ss which holds 180,she also gave me a cheque from the sale of my mothers house. My mother died in Febuary this year aged 84 and of course its our first birthday without her so thanks to my sister for being so generous and thanks to my Mum and Dad for the new digital camera i am going to buy.

the said machine got the wireless working first attempt which i was pretty amazed at only thing missing it believe it or not i never invested in a new mouse mat and the old one i have thrown out.
slight fault on the pc error message coming up when i shut down about A:drive being open and not ready to use its telling me to try again later'

originally i was going to have a card reader slotted in but it was not compatible so i had the option of adding a floppy drive to the 3.5 inch bay but i declined i think it was configured to take some type of drive and because nothing was fitted or installed its throwing up this error message its only when i log of.

So if i disable A: drive in the bios this should sort it the annoying message out i will check with CCL to make sure my theory is correct tomorrow before i do anything regarding the bios settings .Apart from that i,am more than pleased with everything.

FRIDAY ...........Got notification that the new pc was ready to pick up so of i went to CCL to collect it i added to the build a 108 mbps netgear range max adsl wireless router and two netgear usb wireless adaptors for the laptops. Waited for them to bring it all out went to pay for it with my visa card when they phoned up to get authorization it was well over £1000 it was refused why idon'tt know i phoned my wife to make sure the funds had beentransferredd and the money had been credited to ouraccountt and they was more than enough to cover the cost.
Had the guy from CCL to try it again to go through with the sale using my visa card you've got to remember this as far as i know on the other end of the phone is a guy in India processing this transaction and he is asking me stupid security questions that i just cant get right like what direct debts come out on what days, to which i have no idea i just earn the money what comes out when icouldn'tt answer if my life depended on it,ask me my date of birth my Mums maiden name my post code phone number something i know he finally asked me what none utility bills are paid using direct debt i guessed the mortgage then he asked where my building society branch was then asked me to spell Leeds hehe anyway it finally gotauthorizedd and i got my pc

Did some serious damage to a hire van today got distracted whilst driving through a narrow opening and badly damage the side door and window it was a right mess.

Plus they was loads of people standing around watching oops I was half way through the opening and I must of over steered too much right hand and hit the brick column on my left there was loads of people milling around the yard and i was looking that they was not in the way.

After getting my line manager to phone up the hire company and taking a few photos I got in the van and drove it back to the hire company to return it my choice .Got to admit I was thinking all I need to do now is the other side reversing it out of the compound to really add insult to injury .

I ask myself is this the end of my driving career is it the end of white van man not sure watch this space I have been driving over twenty years without a incident or accident all I can say is I would no way would I like to drive a 18 wheel rig and to those people that do then respect rather you than me driving the van mini bus is enough was added to my duties , my work load might have just got reduced.

Once its repaired and the bill comes in Will let you all know what the damage really is.At least no third parties was involved or any person seriously injured. On a brighter note got tomorrow Friday Monday and Tuesday of but am working the weekend and hopefully pick up the new computer tomorrow or Friday at the latest. Orange had serious problems with there internet connection due to third party system melt down what a nightmare not having the internet for a whole two days hated it , had to watch t.v wash up and walk the dog and all other boring stuff hopefully orange have it sorted and we will keep connected.

Got a delivery today at half past five this morning yeah that's 05.30 am of 2x Mexican pine chest of drawers which you've already guessed my wife had ordered off eBay apparently it had to be this early or god forbid we would have to wait till Monday.So i bet you all can guess what i was up to when i got home.

After i finished i went to global rental to hire a few movies they now charge £3.00 a night on all new release's what a rip off i would rather wait until HMV or Virgin have their monthly sales,
than pay out to Global it use to be 3 for the price of 2 and two night hire for £7.00 saying that i still got out district 13 but i did put back the other two films i was going to rent.

Finished working on the pc last night and shut down no problem,my daughter finished doing her home work on her laptop and wanted to print it out to hand in to school,her laptop is not configured with the software to run the printer.

I t old her to save it to floppy disc but her laptop as no floppy disc drive as i couldn't find my USB pen drive to save it to so I told her to burn it to disc and I would print it off using my pc.

i Switched mine back on only to find the monitor had given up the ghost it was a Hewlett Packard A4576A 21" I have had it about five years and my mate I bought it off also purchased it second hand so it had many hours of use.

so i now am without a computer and have to use my wife's laptop already I'm trying to borrow a monitor and cant stand the thought of having no working functioning desk top is this sad or wot.

atm i have four ripped dvd's hours upon hours of music photos i-tunes etc etc a good friend years ago lost his filofax and was gutted for weeks i now know the feeling ..

So today I phoned CCL Computers up to see how my system build was doing I went to place the order two weeks ago today and I honestly believe they have not even started it.

I was told by E,mail not phone that the memory I wanted was out of stock so I upgraded it to some they had in thinking problem solved .
just slot in the memory ready to pick up following day this was last week.

I don't mind waiting another two weeks I'm a patient guy what I hate is not being told up front it will be this long .I certainly don't want it throwing together all I want is to be informed of the way things are.

And I keep thinking if this is the service people get before they pay in full what is the after sales service going to be like once they have your cash in the till and the pc is handed over to the customer to take away home.

I did pay £40 for a 7 day build its now 2 weeks and will more than likely be ready Monday which i can live with will i get a reduction in the bill will see when i pick it up .......................

Put a new bedroom door on my Daughters bedroom last night after I had finished work ,there was mortise lock fitted to the first door and she lost the key and the spare key was missing .
so I had no choice put to kick it in totally wrecking the door in the process to say as soon as I had finished kick boxing the door the spare key showed up.

This morning going to work I nearly wrote of the rental minibus, I was going down a back street which work backs on to and is quite long and a fast speed easily reached and maintained I saw a artic wagon and trailer ahead and it was half way across myside of the road so he could swing it round .

I thought no problem he was enough distance away from me for it not to be a major concern then instead of making the turn he stopped whether it was to let another pass I'm not sure all I know is i was on top of him in a blink of a eye and I had to mount the kerb to avoid a very near miss, so near I had my eyes tight shut at one point if anyone had filmed it with out a doubt it would be on the worlds worst drivers.................

Sunday.
The Wifey does quite a lot of buying and selling on eBay, and she sold a food processor to a guy in Batley near Leeds he paid for it via Paypal as a buy it now and the money was deposited into the wife's eBay account no problem

.The Asian gentleman picked it up from our home address in Leeds which I was not happy with I don't think we should be inviting strangers to our house I work weekends but he came to collect it Friday afternoon and perfect polite no worries.

Checking my email which my wife uses for eBay as well ,and he as sent a email saying the item had been used and my wife stated it was new on her eBay listing,so straight away he left negative feed back the first one for my wife in over 45o transactions. He said he wanted a full refund or he would inform eBay and try to have us black listed .

I don't like being threatened and was tempted to go tell him to take a running jump.

When I had calmed down I thought let him keep the food processor and refund him his thirty pounds as well don't want anybody thinking bad of us not only that he found a receipt in the box stating where it was bought and for how much this was dated 2001.

My wife emailed him back saying we would refund his money if he withdrew his negative feedback so this Sunday after I finished work we went to his flat in Batley to pick up the item and give him his money back.

my wife had been given the food processor to sell on behalf of a friend whom claimed it was an unwanted gift and had ever been used, so did it in good faith and to be honest looked like it was indeed brand new but had been opened.

We have since found out it had been used once and obviously not cleaned properly to make dough .
The Asian buyer must of though we had stiched him up good and proper and I am not sure whether it is to do with his religion maybe he is not allowed to use goods used by others which might have been used on none halal produce I don't know,but we was sympathetic to his plight.

his wife was in the flat along with his 10 month old son I was invited in along with my wife he retracted his negative feed back and we gave him his refund and took the food processor back with us everybody happy.

On the way home we collected a Indian take away rogan josh and rice mixed kebabs not sure what food processer they used to make the dough for the nan bread but they was spot on ................................

Went back to working weekends had last two weekends off one on A/L the other on sick at least it did not drag and did not have to do my return to work which is always a pain in the butt.

On the way to the bus stop I stopped on the way and bought St.Christopher and a Crucifix to go on to my leather I-pod case just to customize it up a bit and make it unique and also to keep the faith,i bought them from a Christian belief shop in the city centre.

They had loads of rosaries and statues and more elaborate hardwood crucifix crosses, last supper portraits ,china wear and glassware for holy water different blessings and pin badges and everything else under the sun to do with Christian belief and religion the crucifix set me back a whopping 99p and the St.Christopher medal at massive £1.20 i have just attached them both on to the carrying strap of my case.

And to keep the faith alive and the ethos of helping others i did my bit for help the aged and got a sticker for a 50pdonationw what you are all thinking lol but if we all gave 50p blah blah blah hehe.................

Got to work this morning and when i logged on to my computer the dreaded virus pop up window was still appearing.
I had no choice but to phone the I.T dept to seek advise,they cleared it up using XP's remote manager good one Bill he will be a millionaire before long,and hopefully no questions will be asked.But it has teached me a lesson untill the next time .

Had a email from CCL who is building my p.c they are waiting for delivery of cosair memory for the computer so it will delay the building time which was supposed to be finished today and i was hopefully to pick it up and pay for it but i was going to wait till monday anyhow , they are not getting any new stock untill the 10th of October ,why was this not realised when it was ordered not online i did go to the trade counter of CCL at Tong and went through the order .I have emailed them with a alternative choice which is £18 dearer but bet i dont get it at the price of my original choice.And hopefully it will be ready for this coming monday after all.

Driving to Barnsley from Leeds today in the Jeepers Creepers van and the windscreen wipers feel apart one now washes away under the windscreen and its completly lost from view and the drivers side just flew off managed to wedge it back on and it continued to wipe in a fashion so went the A roads back to Leeds which at a steady thirty miles a hour to three times as long so why should i complain it was a nice drive through Horbury and Dewsbury.And seeing that i had full tank of diesel i was in two minds to detour via the Lake District and they was also a choice that if the rain was going to get any worse then would it have been a good excuse to find a transport cafe.

Got delivery of black antique door handles brass hinges and mortice latches from screwfix today which i ordered online this monday using my works computer hehe should,nt pick up owt nasty from screwfix hehe just got to check on what link i clicked on when Google threw up the results i would have trouble expalining that one to the I.T dept when i ask them what a dialler is ...

I did a silly thing at work today i checked out a cd on the works computer that a friend had done with some programes he thought i might like to try out.

And yes you have already guessed it the works antivirus detection programe popped up with a virus threat it had found and terminated, he swears they was no virus contained on the disc. I can only hope that the detection it is finding is not a virus put some type of spyware and because i have not run anything off the disc or installed anything its just being highly sensitive.

The antivirus programe keeps popping up telling me its deleted and quarantined the virus hopefully when i log of today and reboot in the morning everything will be removed during the night off the main server and in the morning will be back to normal.

God knows what will happen if i have infected the system highly unlikley but it will teach me not to run anything at work from anyone in future.

I suppose with pendrives every body burning stuff to disc it so easy to infect a p.c.that reminds me must stop blogging at work hehe..........

MONDAY
Back at work and its organised chaos got an induction which i am down to do, no paperwork completed or list of those attending is available so its total guess work i have no idea who or how many people will turn up or even if they are on the correct course never mind will teach me to take a break.

Trying my best to get either monday next week or Tuesday hopefully pc will be ready for collection from CCL so at least got that to look forward to.

Got a firm offer on the house and its in the hands of the solicitors to complete the process for a fee £395 nice work if you can get it.Might not have to pay capital gains on it or if we do not as much as we first thought but after speaking to the tax office they might want nothing wtf its unlikely i know but they might be a God smiling down on us who knows.

someone as just lent me white stripes elephant cd i'm quite impresed and are liking what i hear.waiting for P.Diddy's new album out soon and it's on my wish list.

Got to get something to eat hunger pangs are setting in and i have bad headache due to lack of caffine no doubt.
Also got to try and finish watching lucky number slev7n 3rd time of trying.

SUNDAY
My Wife as gone to the White Rose centre shopping with my Daughter and her friends.
So i have the whole house and p.c to myself apart from three dogs one cat and my son's pet gecko i can at last now change tunes on mp3 player .

I have just bought Fergies (from the Black Eyed Peas) new album the Duchess worth it for the front cover alone.and should equate to half decent music tunes and The Smiths A Hatful Of Hollow which was well under half price and the Roots Game Theroy i have not bought any new music cd's for a while and they is so much good stuff to buy Would like Keanes new album as well as Razorlight Snowpatrol, Chamillionaire,Dmx the list is endless .

Last day off work and i started reading the new James patterson Mary Mary its easy to get in to and iam already hooked on the plot would be so easy to read in one setting but will save it for the daily grind of bus journeys from work .Its my last day off till the end of October unless i can get a flexi day in between it will be work work work .Never mind no rest for the wicked.

wife returned from white rose did,nt buy anything very strange teenage daughter spent £100 plus about right.
Went to the Toby Carvery at Woodlesford for Sunday lunch £37.00 for three kids meals my wife dos'nt eat that much and 1 adults portion plus 4 deserts 4 bottles of j20,2 bottles of woodpecker and 1 gin and tonic no washing up was worth it went home took the dog out then finished the weekend of by watching Cracker,work tomorrow.........