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Quick Update

So, I thought I’d ease into what will (hopefully) be another flurry of posting activity with a quick update on what’s been going on here recently.  If you’ve read through earlier posts on this blog then you may well know that I started working at bit10 in September 2007.  I’ve had a fantastic time working at bit10; I’ve learned a great deal and met many people with whom I’m hoping to keep in contact.  However, as with all things, I think that it’s become time to move on. Continue reading Quick Update

Back on the ‘Net

After almost a month I’m finally back on the internet.  I’ve got a lot of catching up to do, I might finally get back to posting at some point soon.

Right now I’ve got a fair bit on my plate as I’m currently following up a couple of issues with my new place with the lettings agent which are dragging along somewhat, but not to the point where I want to go into details on here at the moment.

House Move

In case anyone’s been wondering why I’ve been a bit quiet recently, it’s just because I’ve moved house and haven’t managed to get internet sorted at my new place yet.  Once I get myself back online, I should be able to resume normal posting.  When that’s going to be depends on the irritatingly recalcitrant BT.

Chocolate Brownies

After doing a bit of baking this weekend I came up with an – if I do say so myself – especially good batch of chocolate brownies.  I thought that I’d share the recipe on here because I know that not everyone who reads this blog is interested in the techie stuff… and they really are delicious. Continue reading Chocolate Brownies

Job(s)

Well, being a recent graduate, I’ve been job hunting for the past couple of months. I originally applied to Atos Origin, which is a large technology consulting company, and got rejected after a few recruitment rounds, which I was a bit disappointed about. I must admit that I let things lapse for a little bit, but eventually I got back on the search. Making good use of cwjobs.co.uk, I found a few more jobs in the Coventry and Birmingham areas and shot off my CV to them. I got a polite rejection from one, and heard nothing from the others for a fortnight. Fed up of waiting, I applied to about ten more jobs, and heard back from two recruitment agencies in the next few days.
Continue reading Job(s)

Socks: updated

As a quick aside, I notice that the aptly named ‘odd sock pile’ appears to have a fixed size, although the actual members of the pile do vary from wash to wash. Clearly, this calls for a proper scientific investigation, perhaps those lazy physicists will be able to get off their bottoms and shed light on this important issue ;)

Socks

Following on from the post about our new washing machine, I’ve been steadily making my way through approximately one month’s worth of dirty laundry. Not a particularly painful process, but somewhat time consuming. As I’m coming to an end with it, and (almost) everything is dry, I’ve been sorting everything out into piles so we’ll finally be able to have our dining room back.

While sorting things into piles, though, I noticed that there was a disconcertingly large ‘odd sock’ pile. I know that some of those sets of socks were bought after moving, so I’m really at a loss for where their partners could have disappeared to. I’m guessing that this is one of the immutable properties of socks asserting itself in the household: socks reserve the right to disappear at random.

Washing machines can be such a pain!

Honestly, I really didn’t know until now, but I tried to buy one on the first of August (we’d had a neat little washing arrangement with Rob’s parents until then, since they were visiting every weekend). The first order I tried to make from Comet failed because my billing address wasn’t the same as my delivery address (my credit card provider’s fault, let’s not go there). I tried again with my debit card, and it still got turned down. Fair enough, I won’t use Comet again.

To Curry’s! I selected the washing machine (and a freezer too, since I’m beginning to experience ice cream withdrawal) and checked them out. No problem at all. So, the big delivery day finally arrives, I’ve cleared out the area for the appliances, the delivery men arrive, dump the stuff and leave since they “weren’t allowed” to remove the packaging. So, we unpack the stuff, take the shipping bolts out of the back, plumb it in, plug it in and switch it on. It made a few noises before some lights started blinking on the front. Consulting the instruction book, it’s motor was broken. Oh well, a call to Curry’s to ask for a return, and they said that the one we had was out of stock, so we could have a more expensive model for no extra charge. Sweet.

So, with Rob being absent, li’l ol’ me has to heft this massive contraption into place. I connect the water inlet pipe to the tap with the bluey green handle (as opposed to the one with the red handle), as I figured that would be the cold water supply. Two washes later, the clothes that are coming out feel unusually warm… and although it’s not a particularly hot day… should they really be steaming? Obviously, the red tap is the cold water supply, and the blue one the hot water.

I’m certain there’s a plumber somewhere who’s just had a good laugh at my expense. I did, however, feel pretty darn manly kneeling there with my spanner and tool kit and playing around with the various twiddly bits on the cold water valve.

Ikea

Rob and I moved in together several months ago, after our university accommodation tenancies expired. We’ve now got a pretty nice house in north Coventry. Making the transition from renting to owning a house, though, means that we needed furniture. Lots and lots of furniture. Naturally, a trip to Ikea was in order. We had already sorted bedroom furniture and sofas, so we needed things like desks, bookcases, coffee tables, et cetera.

The nearest Ikea was further than we thought, but easy enough to get to if you excuse the minor detour through Walsall (it’s really not my fault that I’m useless at map reading). But a few trips meant that we had the route down pat. We went around looking at all the stuff, decided what we wanted, and then went down to the box area to pick it all up.

Of course, when we saw the size of the boxes, we realised that this simply wasn’t all going to fit into Rob’s little Micra. Ikea to the rescue! If you find that you can’t fit any of the things you buy into your car, Ikea will deliver them to your door the very next day (for a fee, of course). So, we prioritised a bit, and had everything bar the TV stand delivered. Hurrah!

Also I reckon that I should mention: if you are planning on visiting Ikea any time soon, make sure you pick up one of those Ikea Family Card things. They’re loyalty cards just like the Tesco Clubcard, but you really do get some massive discounts; we got 25% off our desk, for example. They look really cool too… not that this affected my decision in any way *whistle*.