The View from my Office

The View from my Office, originally uploaded by Gophers Ramblings.

This is the tree outside my office, it all it's spelender, just thought I would share it with you, so you know even although I can't actually do very much online at work (due to something called "Websense") I do have something nice to look at, it helps keep me from going to sleep...... Sorry what was I saying oh yeah it helps, well that and large amounts of caffine, technical support can be boring sometimes. I have found something even more boring and that is stocktaking, I do feel sorry for all those people who have to do it, at least you don't have to do a full inventory of what you have with no actual idea of what is being classed as stock and what is this and that, so Im writing it all down the accountant can sort it all out :| oh i Now strongly dislike accountants. As to why Im doing this, well Im the only one who is available to do it as the others are out finishing off some contract work we have.....
*Yawns and stretches* Right Im off to go get some food since I'm not long in from work... Cya.

A Tale of the Unexpected

Well, I got a surprise this morning. I went downstairs there was a letter waiting for me in a nice bright yellow envelope, the handwritting I recognised as being from one of my friends and the post mark told me exactly who it was from. I hope it up and as Im pulling it out, Im confused as it looked like a card of some sort, check pattern on the part I could see, thought, not my birthday, and a bit late for an easter card. I remove the card and see this wonderous cute baby picture and now Im really confused. There was a letter neatly written on the inside, it was from my friends Jenny & Gregor, who I've known since I briefly went to university about 12yrs ago, they met during fresher week and well they've been together even since, we used to call the the "elastic couple" as they were never far apart, they just clicked, it was wonderful. They got married about oh 9 yrs ago now and were happily settle down somewhere near Oxford. Gregor is even more a geek than me, that is when I talk to him ,lets just say we could talk computers all day. Jen is just well Jen, maths is her forte but she helps kids out who are struggling with maths or english as she's part of the "KUMON" program, with helps kids like that, it's not that expensive to put you kid in and well any time I've talked to Jen about it she's been fully enthusiatic about it. Anyway back to the point the little man, I now know as Harry, staring back to me in the photo wasn't exactly planned and as Jen puts it "either the unexpected or the enivitable occured and we made the silly step into parenthood", they did meant to mention it sooner but well the past 9 month for them has been a bit of a tough one, as Jen's mum also wasn't feeling great but thankfully grandma is all better now :) and is Harry's Number one fan. Im sure a lot of you out there know exactly what they are going through and what is to come, I do a little, it's gonna be a fun next few years for them. Only thing is it's yet another birthday in MARCH! ARGH!!! I'll survive, oh and could you please make sure no more births in March Please I have enough cards to write out and remember :P.
Anyways Im off to go and do something else, with a skip in my step, a song in my heart and with a smile, not something that happens often.

Some Photos

Bishop Hill, originally uploaded by Gophers Ramblings.

Well I did say to few people that I was going to one day do some photos from around about me, well here is one, I was driving back from meeting a friend and I had my camera so it got snapped, along with a few more I took later on, this is part of a flikr set so you should be able to see them all (I hope)

Just a quick post

Happy Easter, coming soon more pictures of where I live, well of the hill i can see every day and other stuff, think I'll only link on and then have flikr do the rest (i hope), I'll upload them tomorrow night after I get home from work. That's right someone is working Easter Monday, 12hrs at that, well someone had to do it, shame that someone was me.

I did a quick look around the Park

I took a quick look around my fellow BWTP blogs.
Okay, 1 dead link - I figured that much
I've left comments on some that I read and understood so if you've not got a comment from me recently then I can't figure ya out...
All I have to say is those that I didn't comment on were impossible to decypher (chewy) or not update in a while (Church of Steele) or just erm Im sorry Chief Slacker I just don't get your blog maybe I need to read more.

Strange Stats

Well from time to time I do check my "Site Meter" to see who's been, all i can say is it does through up some interesting results:
Apart from visits from bloggers on my blog list like : Suzanne, DB, Melonie, Wahwer, Heather, sharon, Moogie and Co.
there are a few visit via my blogger profile page and a few page visits directly many of which show a 0 second visit guessing - couldn't wait for load or they were robots.
I see Miss Zooty visited obviously to see what all the "blog tagging" was all about.
Some Searchs the find by Blog:
http://search.blogger.com/?ui=blg&q=tag+board
- from someone in Singapore.
http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?p=forcastfox&prssweb=Search&ei=UTF-8&fr=fp-tab-web-t-1&x=wrt&meta
=vc%3DcountryUK
- from a Person in the UK, searching for Forcast Fox (i think)
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://gopher-yarrowzoo.dyndns.org/users/blog/wtf_coke_tower.jpg&
imgrefurl=http://gophers-spot.blogspot.com/&h=480&w=640&sz=82&tbnid=5FPva0eI9xu4qM:&tbnh=101
&tbnw=135&hl=en&start=39&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwtf%26start%3D2
- a google image serach on "WTF" from Mississippi , got a few searches exactly like that.

http://search.msn.com/results.aspx?srch=105&q=gopher&first=11&FORM=PERE hmm MSN search on Gopher's Im guessing.
even got a link from my gretna story
Blog Search for Gretna Serach
But the best one has to be the "random" next blog that sent someone here: I ain't putting the link here... but there is a "lesbian sex now" blog out there, no idea how long it's existed but it was Visit 2,183 it was on Apr 5 2006 at 12:26 am and the person was from eygpt - it's a strange world.
I also got a few technorati search hits from Moggies World and a whole lot more RANDOM stuff, I guess only a few people get my blog as the "random next blog" (ain't they LUCKY...)

Let's all have a big old game of blogger tag.

Okay, I've had a mad idea that will make sure that well other blogs are visited, our own is possibly more visited..
Okay the rules, now there are simple:
You can tag whoever you like as long as
1) They are not the person who tagged you or
2) The person who tagged them (i.e. the person who tagged the person who tagged you)
Example:
I tag - Millie Helen who tags Heather, now Heather can't tag me or Millie Helen but can tag anyone else she likes.
got me now I'll start I've not decided who Im going to tag yet, oh the tag can either be on the Message Board or via blogger comments (i.e. something that the blog writer will pick up on)
Also could you link back to this post and leave a comment on who you've tagged (URL if possible) so that I can see how far this is going, It's kinda like the snowball thing but only funnier (possibly!?)
Okay I've decided by Random Choice that Miss Zooty is the first person to be tagged. Go visit ;)

** Edit 10th April **
Additional Rule: Can the Tagee (the person who's just been tagged) please post I've just been Blog-Tagged By to let the person know you've seen that you've been Tagged - Thanks.

Fairytales do come true...

Totally Random Posting:
Now most people in the UK if you ask them what they know about "Gretna Green" they'll say it's the place couples go to elope, and people still do that and get married properly in "The Old Smithy", the Local Blacksmith shop, as that's what kids used to do was escape to and get married so their parents couldn't do Nothing about it. Im sure there are places like Gretna Green all over the World..
Well now it's gonna be famous for something else. You see it has a football team, which was until a few years ago in the lower division of the english league system. One day this pony-tailed guy with a ciggy in one hand, came round wanting to see the manager, who was cutting the grass, yeah that's how small the club was, that and the local baliff's had been around a few times to check up on the kit locker to see what was there incase they need to sell stuff to help settle debts. The Guy was Brooks Mileson, that day he left a cheque for £ 20,000 to help the youth team as that's what the manager had said really needed to the money not thinking he'd get a bean. A year passes , same dude comes around, managers still cutting the grass, and the guy goes "what to want to be Manager or Groundskeeper?" and the dream started. He put money where is mouth was, not spending huge amounts of cash but giving the club players insentive to play and win. Someone came up with the idea well were close enough to scotland to play in the Scottish League, why not apply and we'll see, they got in to the Scottish 3rd Division. Brooks Mileson has a dream of playing in the Scottish Premier league one day soon, he's building a statium to match the premier league rules on minimum size etc. They won the 3rd Division title last year and were promoted to the 2nd Division this year which they have already won with games to spare they are that many point ahead of 2nd place. Dream come true, I mean what other team boss says you score a hat-trick this week and you get my Austin Martin to drive for a week, he did and his main scorer Kenny Deuchar did it last year and got the car for a week as well as the match ball as that's what happens if ya score 3, you get to keep one of the match balls as a souviner. Now your saying what's so special well they are in the Scottish Cup final against Hearts who are in the Scottish Premier League the top division, they have had to put out opponents for the divisions above them to reach the final. Well the semi final that put the there was last Saturday and what did the boss man do, he go celebrate, no he went to the animal santuary he has to help out as well it's lambing season and well one lamb was born that night, and it may just become the most famous lamb since "Larry" as he said he might get it to lead the team out at the Hampden Park - the scottish national statium. This is the first time anyone from the "lower division" has made it to a cup final in many years. They got a slim chance of winning but even if they lose, they could end up playing again the Elite of Europe in the UEFA cup, total fairytale. The guy behind it all is even gonna let the guys go away for a few weeks after end of the league proper to recharge for the final on him, he even paid for a load of tickets and transport to make sure the supporters could go see the team in the semi. I mean you all know what it's like you support your local team be it football, baseball, basketball, american football, ice hockey. You should at the ref, the players, the TV when they do something STUPID. It's all in the passion, that man is going places. If someone had said to me to put a bet on "Gretna FC" in the Scottish Cup Final back in August when the leagues kicked off the season I'd have laughed, now I'd be crying because I'd have made a MINT.
Good Luck Gretna FC and Good Luck Brooks Mileson don't worry you'll be able to smoke all the way back home.. (Since there is a smoking ban in place now all over Scotland)
From another Black n White Fan - That will be "The Pars" like but come on Kenny put one in the net.

A Film Review: Duma

What can I say be well directed and brilliant film. It's about a boy and his best friend a cheeta who he raised from a cub after his dad almost running over it one night after it's mother had been killed by lions.
They live out in the african wilderness, farming the land. Many names for the "pet" are tried but only Duma seem to fit, we see duma grow up learning to run like a cheeta should, reaching the speed of 80-90 kph in seconds it's breathtaking. It reaches the point where Duma must return to the wild. The boy's dad however takes ill and they plan to take Duma back to where he came from and released. However like many thing in life his dad doesn't see his plan to the end and dies, his mother realising they can't run the farm so they have to move to the city to stay with his aunt and Duma is supposed to go somewhere to be looked after. When the get to his aunts the man who's picking Duma up isn't going to be there for a few days, so duma stays too, but escapes when he gets frighten after chewing on a TV remote, only due to the fact he scares the aunt who runs out the door, this is of course seconds after his mother has left to pick him up. Duma follows the truck and well causes chaos at school when he turns up naturally the boy is not bothered, just scared for Duma safety.
The boy then decides to forfil his fathers wish and return Duma to the wild, on the way running into a drifter who's out to make a fast buck maybe but then realises that it's not the way once he gets to know the strange pair and decides to help but not before being stuck in an old diamond mine when the pair realise he's trying to make that fast buck. After getting himself out the mine, he catchs back up to the pair after duma gets cuaght in a trap and agrees to take them to the mountains, however drifter gets sick as he's bitten by something nasty, the boy saves him by running to a nearby village in the dark and with lions about, tying duma up to protect the stranger but duma escapes and finds a mate but comes back to say goodbye one last time. I highly recommend you rent / buy this movie.

Okay Call me Stupid But......

How the HELL is one after i've uploaded my pics to flikr meant to get them so i can view them in blog without having to do 1 post per freaking PIC aka i wanna update my snow post so my poor webserver can have a rest.

Happy Birthday to My Mum

It's my mum's birthday today, I won't reveal her age even although she doesn't know how to work a pc (dispite years of my attempts to teach her).
Unfortunatly the weather isn't the nicest, it's raining has been most of the day but then again it's March in Scotland and thus I can't expect anything less.
One wonderful thing is that this Sunday is Mothering Sunday here in the UK, hmm nice double presents...

Why......do........I..........even...........bother!

Now dear reader a semiantly-reoccuring theme of my "life" (ha now that is a joke - I don't have one or rather very much of one!) I do sometimes just think "Why do I freaking bother!" Example tonight "dearest" mother said she's seen the griter lorry out gritting the road and said so, you might get have a bit of trouble getting out in the morning - to which I go "I don't think I will, it's going to be ok" now was it something I remotely said - Do I need to go see a "shrink" now I know I'll be fine due to wonderous tool called "ForcastFox" the accuweather.com extension for Firefox, okay so -3C (27F) overnight isn't exactly tropical but expected for time of year. I hear mutterings from mother! I think i should just maybe not say a fucking WORD, so I go to try and smooth things over by saying that I've checked the weather on the computer (that and I do listen to the radio on the way home and catch the local weather forcast). Now my mum isn't into computers and never will I've tried for past 15+ yrs to get her to try and use 'em but to no avail - it takes her to work the freeview box & the Video/DVD combo player that is downstairs, so PC's are beyond. I was told "in future I'll not say a word even if there are 10 gritter lorries...."
Hmm oh that and a good friend seems to be ignoring me in a game Im back to playing even although I said "I was giving it up" I can't I've tried - they coding hurt my head too much, still is because Im determine to finish the id3v1/(v2)/ mpeg frame find and read php class (ID3v2 spec is erm well ya interesting!)
Now Im away to watch "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" on DVD which I got today.

Happy Birthday to Sharon

Yes well it's that time, time to wish fellow blogger and all round wonderful lady Sharon a Happy Birthday. So head on over and give her your kindest regards :D

What's in a Name Eh?

Well what is in a Name?

G	Glamorous
O	Outrageous
P	Patriotic
H	Handsome
E	Entertaining
R	Realistic

Name / Username:

Name Acronym Generator

From Go-Quiz.com
Oh how true this is, Head over to Moogie the "Old" 's and say hi or you could just hop to Lesley The Omnibus Driver and say hi:)

A Review..

How special would you feel if the entire school had made an effort to welcome you on your 1st day, even if it was in the middle of the school year. Oh yeah one thing your profoundly deaf. Hmm you got this one yet.
Here is a story about 1 4yr old girl called Olivia, her local school of 48 pupils (it's only a little village school) and staff made the effort to learn sign language after finding out from Olivia's big sister that she wanted to come. All I can say is If this was me I'd be very proud of my big sister. Hey siblings may fight but love overcomes that instantly.
Full Story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/4769456.stm

Another story I read of recently (Full Story):
If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle Thursday,
Dec 15, 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line (rope) wrapped around her body, her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth.

A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farralone Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so badly off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her -a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer.

They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around. SHE THANKED THEM! Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives.

The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same...
----
Now tell me your've not got a least a tear in your eye. Two Stories that show where kindness is shown it's repaid. Remember that.

What I decided and other stuff.

I decided to stop my subscription to World of Warcraft for a while, it was doing my head in and well tonight I think I totally screwed up on my old Guilds Team Speak just hope someone can forgive me, darn my mouth can get me in so much trouble sometimes!!!!
Also since I have the time I thought I'd write my own ID3 Tag read class - you know those nice MP3 type files, it will read the file and tell me what the artist, album, song, year, track, comment as well as information such as the mpeg version / layer / file bitrate / sample frequency but it's glitching - i won't go into it too much just going to say the what Im looking for isn't easy to find I'll just say this
"AAAAAAAA AAABBCCD" < the 1st 2 bytes header data I need to read
where it says "A" it means that has to be a 1, the rest can be mixed so you can see not easy as 11111111 => FF => 255 is a common occurance in the file, most of the time the code I have works, working on fixing the code to deal with the rest (that don't)
Oh yeah and dispite the snow I was able to get to work :(

This is what I woke up to this morning

Well I woke up to snow, it had apparently been falling since 2am, i was still up at that point but never thought to look out window, well why would I.
So thanks to Sharon for the nice e-mail I picked up when I woke up and checked my mail I decided it was high time I went and played a little with my digital camera I mean 3 months and not much to show for it eh well I'll just dive right in and begin with the shots then shall I.
This is the view that met me when I open my bedroom curtains, nice ain't it.
Well this is a set of chinese chestnut trees that are well about 150m from my house, riot of green in the summer but right now all snow covered they look wonderous. Okay Im just gonna stop talking and let the pictures do the talking I hope as they help show of my new camera finally :D. I do hope Rick or someone who has a professional Camera stops by and tells me what they think.







Well That's them all, I only took a few and these link to 1024x768 images, I have the originals too and those are twice that size direct from the camera, best to publish just the thumbnails, Enjoy your morning / afternoon :)
** EDIT **
Ophs my bad I erm did some of the editing not using the bloggers "Add Image" tool and thus mistyped the path to the full sized image, should all be fixed now.

Well That's gone and torn it!

Well it has well and truely gone and TORN IT!
Okay, I've no idea what happend exactly, but I did post to BWTP and the entry did post I saw the post, now I've just checked and the post is no longer there, no even listed as editable. Now all I wanna know is was it deleted by someone if so why and if so then that person can take their blog and stick it where the sun don't freaking SHINE! Ya got me, We CLEAR on this!!!

** Update **
Okay it appears blogger thinks I want it as a draft, I did make one minor change to it but hmm it reposted fine *swear* if SOMEONE could fix this for me as I can't see it

Monday Blues..

It's been one of those days at work.
I came in to 1 more dead camera, thankfully that was an easy fix, phone the site have them reset the trip switch, after that it starts to go wrong but thankfully not just for me.
Colleague gets stuck in traffic on the way to fix / investigate faults with a few of the cameras we have. IT Manager wonders why noone phoned him to say oh btw the tempreture in the server room is a bit warm (a bit warm being 25C), well someone didn't bother telling me Formally that we'd to start to monitor it, it was kinda oh were testing it (nothing more was said after that). Speaking of Camera a site manager wondered why no-one at the company had replied to his e-mail about something that had happened, I did by phone and I said so in the reply e-mail which I made sure was CC'd to one of the Company Directors (and BCC'd to the Boss ;) ) He phoned me up and told me that well basically I was talking CRAP and really shouldn't be doing that especially if I was CC'ing it to a director who was also looking into it. Well to the Best of My Knowledge I did phone him on that day after checking the digital recording and saw nothing. well its not so bad, before I left work 2 more Pan / Tilt units were required along with a telemetry drive board for one site, nice length of new coax for another site (since erm they'd joined it adhoc stylee) and my colleague was at a 3rd site investigating / fixing, unfortunatly he's got the bosses Jag Keys in his pocket, well he is the bosses son so it's allowed ;)
The poor accounts manager tried to kill me as well, her laptop spat the dummy today while she was in mid check of something, machine ended up getting rebooted and well no back up had been made today and well thank god Sage is good software and has recovery tools built in, 6hrs work could have been lost, not a lot you think but hmm enough. I left the boss and the accounts manager to fix it once I seen that well it was okay since nothing I could do would help. She came through and said it was all gone all the data for today.. Then smirked as I went into panic mode! (not funny at all).
Oh and Dear BWTP people Im considering leaving since well I've nothing to post there that would interest and well very few of you come here and leave a comment, also I don't always read everyone's blogs I sometimes only read a few daily, some weekly, some less so and chewy's well erm blue moon time..
Sigh, roll on tuesday.

Nephew's Birthday

Well Happy Birthday to my Dearest Nephew Connor who is 8 today, that's right 8 somehow he has survived this long..
I've no photos as yet but I may post 1 at a later date.
Well let's see Im his favourite Uncle again, after giving him £20 in his card and setting up his steering wheel & pedals for his Playstation 2 - it's a "racing pack" so it's got a seat that's attached as well so it all clips together and I just HAD to set it up (I got no option in this FYI) he's doing not bad, when I'd left he had only done like 3-4 shortish races with it and he was gaining places..
20,9,8,2 - I'd say he was getting the hang of it no bother, he just needs to remember that it's a steering wheel if he ever needs to set it up again for that game (which I don't think he does ;)). Oh and because he's Connor he didn't just have 1 cake he had 2 - a chocolate cake with loads of chocolate icing on it which is very tasty and a "football" cake a nice light sponge with a icing like the outside of a football on it.
I don't know what our other sister is up to, she dropped the card off this morning at like 7am (must have been before her work) and well not been seen since :( - done this before, but hey he's cool with that he just got an extra hug or 2 because I know a few of you out there would want me giving him a hug from them so to speak ;) so it done :)..
Oh it's my dear old dad's birthday tomorrow - I won't post about it, as well it's just dear old dad and not really that exciting ;) - I know Im cruel and harsh but that's life sometimes..