Even 18 months into the job, I’m exploring bits of track that I haven’t been over before.
Tag: work
510: general report form
I seem to have given up social media for Lent. I wasn’t planning on doing so, in fact I was going to pick something else, but I absent-mindedly uninstalled all the apps on the mobile phone on Ash Wednesday. I was probably pissed off with something I’d seen, but it seemed somewhat co-incidental so I’m going with it. To be fair, I haven’t really missed it and I have appreciated using the time saved to read instead. I’m keeping it purely to social media on the phone only; if there’s something that really needs doing then I will log in on the laptop instead.
After not having done so for over nine months by my reckoning, I had to fill in three report forms at work for three moronic incidents:
- Someone off their face on something (probably the White Lightning cider in their bag) having to be carried off the train at Sheffield.
- Some lass falling over and splitting her shin open.
- A group of lads fighting on the train. The argument began about crisps, I shit you not.
After the shenanigans of the camera memory card getting corrupted, I’ve discovered Canon have a cloud service where you can upload directly from the camera onto their server where it will be saved for a month. I’ve set this up and will see how it goes. It might be easier for retrieving pictures later on, as I could download them and save straight into the instance of Immich I have running locally, rather than farting about with cables and card readers.
Arse-end of 2023
As usual, I’ve been rather slack in keeping up to date with events and happenings. I’ll try and remember what I’ve done since May.
The main change has been a change of employment, having gone from bus to train. Where I used to log various delays and cancellations, I can now be a cause of them. Also: better pay, benefits, conditions and such.
An earlier post was seeking suggestions for areas of outer London for pub based investigations. I managed two of those with calls at Penge and Eltham, plus Bromley and Stoke Newington as well.
This year’s Loony Party conference took place in Wales (specifically, let me check the spelling here, Llanwrtyd Wells). Beer options were a bit suspect and for the first time it rained during the cabinet reshuffle. Hopefully, that isn’t a bad omen. I was also roped in as an election agent in the Tamworth by-election. First count I’ve been to for a few years and completed relatively quickly too, as I was in bed by 3am.
Space idiot decided that not posting on Twitter was spamming, so that account got suspended. I got a Bluesky invite code around the same time though, so I have a new social network account to neglect instead. Mastodon continues to be my preferred waste of time, however a full range of options can be found in link-me-do corner.
That’s about everything of note, unless I remember something else later and add it into the small space above this paragraph. I’m off to the pub to celebrate one crap year ending and another beginning. Cheers/Sláinte/Iechyd da/Prost/As you are!
CAMDRA – Campaign for Discounted Real Ale
I’ve moaned previously about the disconnect between the national management of the Campaign for Real Ale (saying that membership should not expect or demand discounts on products) and the membership of said organisation (expecting or demanding discounts on products). That memo doesn’t seem to have reached local branch management. One of the local branch team was in having a loud discussion. His view was that pubs should be offering discounts to CAMRA members, as that is the only reason people join CAMRA and go to pubs.
Yes, it was the neighbouring pub’s beer festival again so there was some overspill of beer veg demanding half pints with discounts.
I still stand that The Barking Guitarist should remove the pub’s own CAMRA discount; nobody else is making up the 20 pence shortfall per pint, and all those 20p’s add up. Particularly now with all commercial bills going sky high. Only the most fickle or moronic are going to stop frequenting the premises if they aren’t saving pennies a time. If someone isn’t prepared to pay the going rate for a product they care about, they probably don’t really care about it after all.
202
I should probably give up the pretence of posting here weekly, since I have failed to do so for five months. I’ll keep to an ad-hoc schedule instead, but I’ll carry on with the funky number title thing for kicks.
Brief highlights of the past five months:
- I went to Louth for political purposes.
- I’ve made two lame efforts at parkrun. Unfortunately, I don’t operate with much enthusiasm on Saturday mornings, so I haven’t made further progress to date. It should have been three efforts, but one attempt was postponed because of bad weather.
- I went to Portsmouth for work purposes. It was a pretty pointless affair, to be honest.
- I got the rona, so I spent 10 days working from home instead of the 8 days working from home that I would have ordinarily done. On the plus side, I now have free reign of Europe until Easter Sunday. There’s a couple of trips to Ireland already booked for before then.
- I went to Blackpool for a bit of a social with some former colleagues.
- I upped the gig count for 2021 by three in the space of a week. That makes four gigs in the year, all to see the same band.
- Some family members got the rona at Christmas, so I stayed at home instead. I probably enjoyed it more than going to the family.
- I went away to Whinfell for New Year, where I rode on a Segway. Actual footage here.
- My social media abstinence has failed yet again, so I’m back on Shitter, Fecalbook and Instatwat. I’m such a slag. It’s /aedeyes on all three if you’re that bothered.
That about sums up the end of another crappy year. Here’s to another, but hopefully less crappy.
125-129
Finally back to bar service at the pub. I happened to be on the bar on the Monday it all restarted, so had to endure an evening of gawking idiots doing the whole “YERRR FRWEEDUM DAYY!!!!!1!” nonsense. Shit idea of freedom to be honest if there are a metric fucktonne of restrictions still in place.
The accumulation of cash came to some use this month as some bits were bought through necessity and some bits bought through want. I had to drop a couple of hundred on a pair of tyres for the Grannywagon after one of them developed a slow puncture. Subsequent inspection found another was worn past the stop block so they got changed. They also came with some free sunglasses for no real apparent reason – presumably for some free marketing where I can show off which particular brand of tyre I purchased. They can live in the glovebox for use on the rare occasions there is blindingly low sunlight when driving.
I also splashed out on a laptop. I’d been after a refurb/used X-series Thinkpad for a carry-about unit in place of the Pinebook which, although slightly more stable using Twister/Armbian, still has some drawbacks. The boot issue still occasionally occurs, but nowhere near as often as under Manjaro, and the weird architecture combination of aarch64 and rockchip means some everyday bits of software I use are not compatible with it, which is a bit of a deal breaker. I’d been after an X200 but these were a bit thin on the ground – Vikings are having a site rebuild, whilst Gluglug/MiniFree/RetroFreedom/Whatever-We’re-Named-This Week seem to have paused trading again. I ended up going for an X230 from Morgan’s after a bit of hunting. It came with Windoze as standard, so I ended up sorting out a dual boot setup with Fedora for the time being. It’s running very well after bit of fettling; even the battery holds a decent level of charge for a refurb unit, going for around three hours from full. I may get an additional battery anyway as a spare for longer trips out. Not sure whether I’ll keep or flog the Pinebook, I’ll see how my use case for it evolves.
I broke my beer break on a day out to Newark with Rich. I was more sensible this time and didn’t get absolutely plastered, which was a plus. Although I enjoyed being social and all that, at the end of the day I didn’t really enjoy the beer and I haven’t had any more since. I must have lost the taste for it. And no, it’s not a pox symptom as everything else tastes fine!
The hedge got its first trim of the year. I didn’t shear through the trimmer cord this time. After I’d packed away, I noticed a stray stalk sticking out the top that I’d missed. I couldn’t be bothered unpacking the tools again to remove it so I can have a stay of execution for the time being.
Bit of a heatwave as well, so the house did its usual trick of being relatively cool and pleasant downstairs and ridiculously warm and stuffy upstairs. Great for trying to sleep!
Having a bit of a fiddle with the domain setup as I’m migrating my various email setups onto one provider and took the time to sort out email properly for the deyes.im domain As a result, the Mastodon and Pixelfed instances are down for now as I’m binning off the VPS. They could return in the future, but neither saw much effort or attention whilst they were live to make it particularly worthwhile.
116-119
Coming up to the end of outside only pub trading. I’ll be glad to be back inside – both as staff and customer. Britain is not really built for al-fresco dining. Several shifts have seen rain, whilst being under a tent does not mitigate cold or wind. It’ll still be table service initially, presumably because pox particles linger around on wooden counters.
The Grannywagon took another animal victim in the form of a badger. On the A61 again, but about a mile up on the other side of Shirland. I’d considered badgers to be relatively sedate and slow, but this one was giving it a good run across the carriageway. Unfortunately not quickly enough though and it went under the tyres. No damage to the motor this time, just some muddy marks on the wing where the badger got bounced.
I’ve an invite to a wedding next week and so went to dig out my nice shoes to wear. I couldn’t find them which would suggest I sent them to the charity recycling when I had the big clear out before the move last year. Looks like I’ll have to brave going out to town to pick up a pair in the week.
I’ve had a re-arrange of hosting facilities. Ghost on the VPS wasn’t really cutting it for me and was a bit overkill for what I am using it for (namely writing nonsense posts). I’ve shifted it over to Neocities for two benefits:
* I’m able to access it on the work PC – the firewall blocks the deyes.im domain for some reason and I can’t be bothered calling IT to fix it.
* If I decide to sack off the VPS I can still retain this site for little-to-no cost. I rarely look at either of the Pleroma or Pixelfed services so killing it off saves a few quid whilst ensuring nothing of value is lost.
109-110
Four weeks to go until things start to open up. I probably won’t rush to the nearest beer garden, although if there is space in the Red Lion I’ll nip a quick one in whilst I change buses on the way home.
I bought a shaver that was on offer in Tesco, further discounted with a £5 voucher they had given me on one of those instant offers that comes out with the receipt. I’d been surviving on wet shaves and a travel shaver for the past few years, so it’s good to get a full size unit to do a more thorough job.
Applied for a promotion to a management position at work. Part of the interview process is to carry out an analysis of the performance of one of the services and write a report with no more than 2,500 words. I thought I wouldn’t get anywhere near that and struggled to make a sensible plan initially, but managed to end up knocking out 2,400 words. I’ll await to see how that progresses.
102-104
- Winter is here, now with more snow now that I have moved to higher ground. Nothing mega, the most that’s fallen is an inch or so, business was therefore unaffected.
- Apparently, clearing snow off your car before driving it is such an arduous task so you just leave it on and it all falls off in front of the Grannywagon whilst going around a corner/roundabout/straight road. Lazy bastards. I’ve kept an old, slightly worn windscreen wiper in the boot for such a task, takes mere minutes to do whilst the windows are defrosting. Much safer and as, some weight has been removed, marginally more fuel efficient.
- The MD made an effort to burn down the office by leaving a potato in the microwave for over 35 minutes. It was beginning to ignite when I removed it into the sink. Don’t leave cooking unattended.
- I attempted to test some GPS traces by travelling on a service bus with a handheld machine. I managed to miss the bus, first by the shopping centre I’d parked in closing the access to the bus station; then, after driving up route to catch it up, by standing at the wrong stop for that particular route. I managed to get the job done by instead walking the route with machine in hand, then getting the correct bus back to where I’d parked.
- I got around to sorting out the wheel alignment on the Grannywagon. I should apparently see more even tyre wear now. Still noisy though, I’ll make sure the replacements are of an alternative brand.
101
New year, same old shit unfortunately. I’m applying the La Linea numbering method here, hence why the post number has jumped up by 48 places. You’ll get over it.
- The government decided to implement another shutdown. Because the first two worked so well. Guess I’ll just have to hide in the house some more then.
- In another brilliant decision, takeaway beer from pubs is also no longer allowed. The off-licence or, at worse, the supermarket will be getting my beer money for the time being.
- Managed to get an appointment at the dentist, which was needed as my recessed tooth was almost built up to the top with plaque. Unfortunately, power tools were not available as a result of the pox so the old fashioned method of the pick scraper was utilised instead. There was some blood.
- The Grannywagon was due its MOT test and service. Passed the test, just an advisory to track the front tyres as they were slightly off balance. I’ll sort that out in a week or two.
- Replacement manager started at work. Seems okay.