Today I've mostly bin...

[eirian]

today I've mostly bin trying to keep my work colleague calm. We're all going out for her 30th birthday this evening - nowhere special, just a cheap(ish) pizza place round the corner, but she's all giddy, and seems to have spent most of the afternoon trying to curl her hair!

Meanwhile, she's had a vitally urgent job that she's been working on all week, and her boss is off ill, so she's been picking up his work as well.
Our ability not to laugh has been tested to the upmost when, everytime one of the top managers came into the office to ask how she was coping with everything, she was doing her hair! She is the most crazy blonde I know. Very much a blonde, and ditzy (and getting excited about a night out with work colleagues, for goodness sake!), and yet highly intelligent and able to hold sensible conversations about the details of a v.complicated legal document while curling her hair.
I think the best moment was when she said she absolutely couldn't stay late this evening to continue working on this document (which has to be finalised asap). She didn't say why to the person on the phone, but it was because she had to leave to get her makeup done.
Oh, and a drawer in her filing cabinet is full of shoes.

I should state that she has virtually finished the document and it will certainly be done in time for the meeting on Monday.

[BassBloke]

Today I are mostly bin ........ Having a fantastic time ripping up all the floor boards on the landing. Then finding, in confirmation of my original suspicions, that they really are all well and truly past thier sell by date. In fact, from the state of some of them, I would think they were past it when they were laid in about 1850ish. What a MESS !!! Great fun and great stress relief though. Iv'e had to tack most of them back down though else everyone will be falling through into the hall if they are not careful. The down side of all this is there are no suitable replacements in any of my local reclaimers yards. So, I'm having to get one of them to make me a whole set of bespoke boards (from old wood - obviously) at a price I think is just a tad on the high side of errrr, quite expensive actually. OH has been out at work all day and doesn't know anything about any of this yet. Her promise of dinner at the pub tonight could well be in jeopardy when she sees what I've done.

Hey Ho BB.

[gill216]

Scratching my hands!

Today was my lucky day!!!

I have contact dermatitis and while I can pinpoint somethings I'm never quite sure of all of them.

I went to see a very, very, young Spanish pharmacist in Boots who took one look and told me to remove my rings (all gold) stop using rubber gloves and buy latex instead, better still a dishwasher, informed me I have an allergy to soap (!) plants metal and wool, and gave me 2 tubes of cream that cost the princely sum of £11. 00 and one application of each later hey presto. I can see the difference already. I've found "soapless" soap and washing up liquid. Anyone got any ideas for shampoo and shower/bath products?

She was absolutely spot on and only saw my hands. I knew about the metal, I can only wear a swatch watch, no earrings etc. and generally only 18 carat gold around my neck. I also knew about the plants and I've long suspected rubber gloves and washing up liquid.

I've washed my hands in soap free soap and I didn't reach for the hand cream. This girl so far is a gem!!

[giraffe]

My sister used to come out in blotches when in contact with soap, but I don't think bubble bath or shampoo set her off, as they probably don't contain soap as such. She couldn't wear plasters that contained zinc, so watch out for that too and read the packets carefully.

[Bunnylump]

Crikey Eirian, your colleague does indeed sound like the original "dizzy blonde"! She sounds fun though. I hope you have fun tonight (pizza for two, obviously).

BB - I hope you haven't got a cat! When we had some of our floorboards up the cat got down there and refused to come out again all day. Her head kept popping up for a few second in the various holes, but she'd disappear every time we tried to catch her!!

Gill - that sounds nasty. I have problems with my skin, and recommend "Simple" products. If you need moisturiser, then E45 is your best bet. I often find that pharmacists are far more helpful than doctors!! And could I just say: that sounds like a good ploy. "I'm allergic to anything except 24 carat gold" is a great excuse! I think I'll try that one before my birthday!:mrgreen:

[kingsley]

Records / Fields / Sorting / Selecting........

Complete with primary keys, foreign keys, BLOB types, LEFT INNER JOINs and RIGHT OUTER JOINS I hope!

Oh no not databases!

Today I've mostly bin...

...doing databases (amongst other things like spreadsheets) in an IT lesson. How boring! Well...it was only for 50 minutes.

How on earth do they expect 7 year olds to understand it? I have enough trouble at twice that age!

[MBH]

Kingsley - who on Earth can manage to make Databases and Spreadsheets BORING??? "you are about to enter the most important and fascinating sphere of ..." (Oh! Hang on - that's Quincy)

All I can say is "That's what you get for having professionally trained teachers" You didn't know me when I went on my 'rant' last year, but nobody taught me how to teach yet I've been doing it all my working life. I did 14 years teaching adults at evening class, but due to changes in the rules (from the Government?) designed to improve quality, I am now not qualified to teach

Ignoring the 'optional extras' thay my assistant added to the list I taught all the things on MY list with a pack of playing cards. I've got a trick pack of cards I use to do a couple of magic tricks (finding the selected card in the database - i.e. searching).

Figuring that the same thing might happen again at sort notice - I purchased (out of my own pocket) the ultimate Database teaching aid..... Harry Potter Top Trumps deck of cards Everything you need to know about databases without touching a computer

MBH, I can't believe a primary school teacher would expect you to cover databases.

I've got my suspicions that it needed to be done because it is 'on the curriculum', but the teacher saw a chance to bottle it and leave it to me because she had NO IDEA how to go about it. The second time the same school asked me to do it (for a different year) I ended up with the teacher rather than the classroom assistant coming on board to 'help' me

Although, to be honest, your average 10 year old probably knows more about computers than I do!!

I say it about twice a day to a variety of parents and grandparents, will you STOP giving kids so much credit with regard to computer ability. Children are not great / brilliant / knowledgable / excellent with computers... they are COMFORTABLE with technology. They will 'know' as much as their teacher can get across to them or they take the trouble to find out themselves.

Teaching a 10-year-old and a 50-year-old: After 5 minutes, the 10-year-old will seem to be miles ahead.... After 5 weeks times 2 hours a week, the 50-year-old will know FAR MORE.

In my day-job I've been asked to do the same routine as last year and attend sessions that give all the 14-year-olds in a variety of schools access to 'real life' computer experience. My routine is Word Processing: Typing, editing, centre & change format/size/colour of headings, changes of alignment in the paragraphs, use of headers and footers, and changing of page margins...... no problem with that? Guess what?? NO MOUSE!!!

The teachers don't know that you can do what I show them how to do I tell them not to worry - it's because I am OLD and the mouse is NEW technology. I go back before the mouse... Heck - I go back before the SCREEN!

How do you two youngsters fancy your chances with this little task? Or has someone let you in on all the old tricks?

BB - I hope you haven't got a cat! When we had some of our floorboards up the cat got down there and refused to come out again all day. Her head kept popping up for a few second in the various holes, but she'd disappear every time we tried to catch her!!

Been there - Done that - What a MESS

[kingsley]

Kingsley - who on Earth can manage to make Databases and Spreadsheets BORING???

Er,...my IT teacher! She is one of the most boring teachers ever, (but unfortunately I have her for IT, DT and as a form teacher!) She tells us all to gather round the large interactive whiteboard, where she tells us exactly what to do, shows us exactly how to do it and then gets us to do it. It's very boring and repetitive.

[MBH]

Unbelievable I know there's nothing worse than some strange guy on the Internet asking you things that remind you of school but what do you learn during a few years of IT classes? I'm told it is all 'operation' now (Microsoft Office Suite) rather than programming.

Feel free to move to PM's so as not to tie this thread up.

When I BEGGED my way onto the first IT classes that my school had (it was for the 14-year-olds and me and my mate were 16 about to start 'A' levels), there was no 'Personal Computers' or software the way you know it - so we had no choice but to learn to program... great fun

Just out of interest - would you have managed the Word Processing tasks without a mouse control of any kind? (including finger pads, roller-balls, and anything else the kids have tried to push past me as "not a mouse")

[Laura]

Today I've mostly bin.....

Sleeping.

Didn't get up til 11.00. Bliss. I love Saturdays!

[eirian]

Today I've mostly bin...
wanting to scream. We are waiting for MFI to refund our kitchen. They've now said that we won't get anything for 'several months'... What is really frustrating is that if we'd used credit cards, instead of having our finances sorted fully and having the money in our account, and therefore paying for it by debit card, we'd've had our money back by now. Indeed, if the money had been in my account rather than OHs, we''d've paid by visa delta, which would also have been paid, but instead we paid by switch.
So, no kitchen for months, which means no dining room, which means no nursery. Wonder if it'll all be sorted before baby's first birthday???


Oh, and I remember my computer course at uni where we were taught about the difference between the internet and the world wide web... I didn't take up the IT lessons at school - our year was one of the first to be offered it, but it was all programming.

[kathlyn]

no computers when i was at school only typewriters and they weren't electric.

[BassBloke]

I are bin ........ laying the very expensive floor boards I had made yesterday. Spot on fit and quite a nice job actually. My knees are quite sore now and I'm half deaf from all the hammering. As if I could acutally get any deafer really. Too many years of playing too loud has very much taken its toll. Especially my right ear as I have always tended to stand to the left of my dummers and this tends to present the right ear to the back line more of the time.

Time for a beer and a curry.

Cheers. BB.

[Wulfruna]

Today I mostly bin..... singing Bach's B Minor Mass with our local choral society
We have a fantastic conductor who gets the best out of us - and also conducts the Exeter Symphony Orchestra, who play with us and although they are an amateur orchestra, have several professional standard players. And he also manages to get professional singers to join us for the night for a mere pittance, as it is valuable for them to get the experience of singing 'big' stuff. It's an amazing experience to be performing 'inside' one of the greatest pieces of music there has ever been (as most classical music fans would agree). Mind you, last year we sang Mozart's Requiem, which isn't far behind!!

[giraffe]

Where is the performance going to be? Exeter Cathedral?

[tricia]

I spent Saturday in Waterstones spending my Booktokens - one of the books I prrchased was the Chambers crossword manual which was recommended by Scurra - Thankyou
Prior to that I visited Borders bookshop in Glasgow and I could not find anything at all. There is no organised lay out at all. Don't think I'll go back even though i would get discount because of where I work.

One of the other books I bought was a taste of my life by Raymond Blanc - it looks very good!
Tricia

[Bunnylump]

Oh Eirian, you poor thing. That must be really stressful for you. Back in the distant past when I was pregnant I remember getting really agitated about having things finished and ready in time for the birth. Don't worry, once you've had the baby all those fears go out of the window. You're too busy to worry about it!. Babies are amazingly resilient (thank goodness), and for quite a while you can stick them virtually anywhere to sleep and it won't make any odds. In fact, that is my top tip - what ever you do, don't pussyfoot around them, make as much noise as you can when they are asleep and carry on as normal. That way they'll learn to sleep through anything!!

BB - that beer and curry is the BEST thing to have after you've done a job like that isn't it? That was really quick - I wish my OH could finish jobs around the house like that. He does do a good job, but it usually takes him about 3 years to wind up to starting them!!

Wulfruna - Is that the one with a section "Gloria in excelsis"? I think I may have sung that section when I was at school (MANY moons ago)!! It is lovely, if I'm thinking of the right thing.

Laura - I haven't been up long. In fact I'm still in my pjs! Mind you, we had friends round for dinner last night and the last ones didn't leave until 2.30am!

MBH They didn't have computers when I was at school. I remember my brother (who's 6 years older than me) was at university, and they were the proud owners of a computer. It was the size of a small building!! I remember he did a project on writing a programme to make it write a single line of music. My, how things change!!

Tricia - I totally agree with you. Borders is impossible to find anything in, isn't it? The do sometimes have quite good deals, but that's only if you can find what you want in the first place.

[giraffe]

I haven't been up long. In fact I'm still in my pjs

I wish! Pesky Kingsley needed dropping of at 8am to start her Dof E service. Thanks for the suggestions, the brownies were overun with D of E ers, so she has opted to help out at the swimming club where she swims. Surprisingly they were short of helpers for the early Sunday training.

[Bunnylump]

Oh yuk. Mind you, I've been there, done that and got the t-shirt. Before my son went to uni he invariably needed delivering half way round the country for basketball matches at weekends. The worst one was Plymouth!!! (I live in Hertfordshire).
Still, the swimming is very commendable. I bet the kids she helps will appreciate it (even if you don't!)

[Wulfruna]

Where is the performance going to be? Exeter Cathedral?

This was the performance, yesterday - only in Exmouth Parish Church, I'm afraid (but still packed out!) Yes, Bunnylump, it does have a wonderful 'Gloria' - so may be the one you remember, although there are others as well.....