2.5 hours to save the earth!!

Every evening at the moment is the same in my head. Every evening the same cheesy film quote rings in my head.

"Flash! Flash I love you but we only have 14 hours to save the earth!"



A little over the top maybe but time management is becoming a real fine art around this house. It is a fine art that, slowly but surely, Legs and I are getting pretty good at. Oh what it is to have a fab team mate!

The 2.5 hours, of course, refers to the time between Alfie going to bed and us getting some dinner down and us going to bed. Those 2.5 hours are sacred and vital. All jobs, big, small, loud or quiet must be done in those 2.5 hours. Last night, for example, I moved the office downstairs in preparation for the transformation from spare/junk room to Alfie's new haven. Tonight is actually my night off so at 9 I will be sitting down to watch my one regular TV show with a glass of wine. In the breaks of said show I will be changing the water on my fish tank... Aside from writing this blog I will also be spending 30 minutes before that writing some more code as kruelintent.com seems to have become very popular at the moment. Hell, I am not complaining. 2.5 hours a night is AGES!

The teamwork is vital. That much is true. All the day to day stuff could so easily swamp 2.5 hours that we would never move forward (Bullshit bingo #1) with the rest of the house. Projects are good but we have so many on the go at once it is often difficult to see the ends. This is all down to the timing of course. Some jobs, for example sorting the spare room, take longer than 2.5 hours and need to be done bit by bit. It is all to easy to pick the low hanging fruit (BB #2) and just do the washing up or banal stuff like that but as things stand we have just over a month until the family becomes 4 and we have a LOT to do to this house before it is ready. 2.5 hours a night is a lot but only if you don't want to relax. As of now I am also working on 5 different websites for kruelintent.com so I am finding a couple of evenings a week set aside for that too.

A friend of mine said to me "I always see your status' and you do so much!" - Whilst kind, this isn't strictly true. I/we certainly start a lot of jobs. Then they get finished at a rate the 2.5 hours allows. I mean hey! We are not trying to boil the ocean here! (BB #3)

With that, blogging time is up!! LOL! Time to code for a bit before CSI Miami....

NGTFOOMO

Kruelintent.

What time is it?

I am sat here at my desk and I have just remembered that I was up at 1am this morning banging around in the dark trying to find a cup for some water to appease a screaming child. Isn't it funny what the brain decides to forget as useless pish. This little episode certainly counts. It is also pretty cool what the human body is able to do while otherwise pretty much asleep. In this case, get up, go down to the kitchen and get a cup of water, return to child's room, pick up 2 year old and take to mummy and daddy's bed for a calming drink, return 2 year old to bed and return to sweet sweet slumber.

In other news. The kitchen floor is finished * and I have a poker night tonight. Total unknown. £20 buy-in. 25-30 runners probably. We'll see. Haven't played live poker in a long time. I live in a world where the blinds go up every 3 minutes so a live (and deep stacked) tourney where they go up every 20 minutes might take a little adjusting to. I have my wingman going with me tonight and I also know one of the other runners as the manager of the Top Q snooker/pool/poker room here in Gloucester.

Need a holiday. Always need a holiday. Really looking forward to taking legs away for our 6th anniversay. 6 years. Wowza!

That's it. NGTFOOMO.

* Finished is a fluid term. Legs and I are really good at getting jobs to a 90% finished stage and claiming victory. TBC...

A few Dilberts...

I read a load of blogs each and every day and I keep some posts that I like... Like thousands of other office people I read the Dilbert every day too. Here are some that have tickled me over the past few months...

Affirmation

I believe the sun should never set upon an argument
I believe we place our happiness in other people's hands
I believe that junk food tastes so good because it's bad for you
I believe your parents did the best job they knew how to do
I believe that beauty magazines promote low self esteem
I believe I'm loved when I'm completely by myself alone

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe you can't control or choose your sexuality
I believe that trust is more important than monogamy
I believe your most attractive features are your heart and soul
I believe that family is worth more than money or gold
I believe the struggle for financial freedom is unfair
I believe the only ones who disagree are millionaires

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

I believe forgiveness is the key to your own happiness
I believe that wedded bliss negates the need to be undressed
I believe that God does not endorse TV evangelists
I believe in love surviving death into eternity

I believe in Karma what you give is what you get returned
I believe you can't appreciate real love until you've been burned
I believe the grass is no more greener on the other side
I believe you don't know what you've got until you say goodbye

Short Emails

Grinding tonight

Ok. $6 in the account. That is 3 shots at a win. I will be playing $1.80 + 0.20 SnG Satellites up to 2 at a time and I have 2-3 hours earmarked for the grind. Each table normally takes somewhere around 30-45 mins to finished so there is a potential to bust or move into the teens in 'roll. I will report back later to let you know how it goes. Grinding is a bitch but, as before, the 'roll is low and I don't want to buy back into FTP again just yet.

"The Dyer"

The house

Things are getting exciting in our house. For a long time now we have been saving our pennies and over the next month or two the house is getting a little lift. 4 main areas are going to be covered.

1. Hall floor will become solid wood.
2. Kitchen floor will become tile.
3. Our bedroom will finally be stripped back, painted and a new wardrobe will be introduced.
4. Our spare bedroom will have a wardrobe built into the alcoves.

We may even get the kitchen and spare room ceilings re-skimmed as they are both showing serious signs of wear.

Either way, come the now traditional June party there should be some more DIY to feast your eyes upon.

Family Guy vs. Journey.

Awesome dance mix up

DON'T STOP BELIEVIN' - Journey vs. Family Guy
Uploaded by cjvalencia0407. - See the latest featured music videos.

Scene From Family Guy Banned From TV
Uploaded by nastytroy169. - Classic TV and last night's shows, online.

mydrivespace.co.uk

I now have Chained payments working through the paypal API which was the final hurdle in making http://mydrivespace.co.uk a reality.

Now I just have to code out the other stuff like reservations/confirmations/email templates/small print/disclaimers/etc and then I can look to roll this baby out...

Please use the forum to comment on this blog.

Stir up Sunday

Everybody took a go stirring the mix for this years Christmas cake!! :-)

Drying paint

In Zen they say: If something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If still boring, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. Eventually one discovers that it’s not boring at all, but very interesting.

Dilbert

Chained payments in paypal.

API options coming in November apparently. Should be very useful for my project that I started off a couple of months back. By useful, I mean, actually makes it feasible...

Some links:

http://paymentsviews.com/2009/07/24/paypal-adaptive-payments/
http://transfs.com/blog/2009/07/27/paypal-announces-adaptive-payments-parallel-payments-and-chained-payments-functionality-via-api/
http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/168040/paypal_to_open_platform_to_thirdparty_developers.html

Best online poker result to date

Best poker finish last night. Made the final table of a 6-max donkfest for a $50+ payout.

Busted in 6th which was worth $51. Really happy with my play, especially from 50 players down.

Halloween Bean

kudos on the carving needs to go to Legs...

IT vs. Management

A woman in a hot air balloon, realizing she was lost, reduced altitude and spotted a man below. She descended
further and shouted to the man "Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet her an hour ago, but I
don't know where I am"

The man below replied, "You're in a hot air balloon, hovering approximately 30 feet above the ground. You're between
40 and 41 degrees north latitude and between 59 and 60 degrees west longitude."

"You must be in IT," said the balloonist.

"Actually I am," replied the man, "How did you know?"

"Well," answered the balloonist, "everything you have told me is technically correct but I've no idea what to make
of your information and the fact is I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help at all. If anything, you've
delayed my trip."

The man below responded, "You must be in Management."

"I am," replied the balloonist, "but how did you know?"

"Well," said the man, "you don't know where you are or where you're going. You have risen to where you are due to a
large quantity of hot air. You made a promise, which you've no idea how to keep, and you expect people beneath you
to solve your problems. The fact is you are in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but now,
somehow, it's my bloody fault..."

Forcing my hand...

Twice now in a week I have been passed bills with 'donations' bolted onto the bottom of them. The sick thing about these forced donations is that you have to physically ask for the donation to be removed. Now. Don't get me wrong. I am a charitable man but I give to charities I choose and when I choose. I don't need a hotel or a fast food restaurant (Pizza Hut) telling me when and to whom I should donate money no matter how small the sum so I for one am proud to stand there and demand my bill be reproduced without the 'optional' 'donation' and pay them only what they are due.

shame is that the charities in question (especially the one today) are worthy causes. I just don't think this is the right way to get money off people. A charitable donation is one that you consiously take part in. It is not something slyly chucked on the end of bill like a service charge.

They are struggling to get donations. I understand that, but you will never get a penny out of me by forcing my hand.

I wish I was this smart

clever man

In other news. I am working on a website that hooks google maps, paypal and asp.net AJAX together to hopefully earn me money and save my users some. I shall say no more for now. I have bought the URL and I will make it public knowledge in the coming weeks and months when it goes into testing (via you guys hopefully) and then live....

....to be continued.

Good weekend

Saturday - Picnic with bro and amassed families.
Sunday - Nature in art with Legs and Alfie. :-)