post people continued

Like I said, one of those days. We left to go to the Post Office at 11:30. The parcel was my BT kit but they didn’t include the Broadband phone. If you ask me, when I complained they bunged a label on a home hub box and stuck it in the post. It wasn’t even in a bag! Anyway, as I said no phone. I did ring up (eventually when I got home) and to start with I was told that I wasn’t supposed to have one. When I said that it was one of the deciding factors in my return as a BT customer I was put on hold while they spoke to someone else. Do you think they really do that or do you think they go off and have a fag so that you think they’re making a special effort just for you?! Anyway, she returned and told me that it was all sorted and I should get it by 29th March.

Ok, back to today. After we went to the parcel depo to pick up bro J.’s BT kit -with phone I might add! – we went to look at laptops. They had one that my bro J. was considering (the same as S.’s) in Curry’s but it was out of stock though it was in stock in another fairly local branch. We went to Comet and it was apparently reduced by £100 making it the same price as the one in Curry’s but again it was out of stock. This meant a drive to another store where it was in stock. When we got there I noticed a few ex-displays that were reduced. This made the laptop better spec than the one he was after originally but for the same money! So he went for one of those. Simple yes? No. We were there for hours.. literally. Everything went wrong. The laptop was packaged and opened again four times. The price wasnt right, the warantee was wrong, the sofware had to be removed and on an on… I got back home at 16:20 after leaving at around 11:00 and we only travelled 15 miles in one direction and back to collect a parcel and 15 in another to buy a laptop.

We got back and by the time everyone had gone it was almost 20:00, I started emptying my Harry Potter computer station (meaning my shelf under the stairs!) in readiness to set up the new kit. It went ok. Its’ a nightmare trying to get to everything in the limited space, I bang elbows, knees, my back, my head I swear and get dusty but I managed. I got as far as plugging in the hub for it to tell me to leave it alone for an hour after connecting it! So I texted bro J. to let him know so that he could connect it before he went out. He rang and we were on and off the phone setting it up. I disconnected the power by accident at 21:00 and had to start my hour again. Then eventually it was time to connect it all. I plugged it all in, put in the appropriate numbers and it said they were wrong! I did it over and over again. I gave up and tried on S’s laptop because it has built in wireless. The software said it didn’t detect a wireless adapter. I came back to the tower and did it another three times and for some reason it accepted the number! I wasn’t mistyping it before because I was pasting the number in the space so it never changed… Anyway it was eventually set up at 00:25 and here I am tapping away at a keyboard. I’ve no idea what time it is right now because the clock changed. It says its 02:23. Is that an hour forward or is it really that time and I have to go back/forward? I dont know. It’s been a long one of those days… I’ll sort it tomorrow.
x

carniverous fish.

We set up a tank. In it we put 2 peppered corys, 3 bronze corys, 5 white cloud mountain minnows and a pair of breeding kribensis’. Within a few days, one of the bronze cory’s was found bobbing around the top of the tank. I was regulary testeing nitrates, nitrites etc
A month later we added 3 neon tetras. A few days later there were 2
Then last Sunday we added 2 male guppies that J. picked, a bristle nosed cat that S. picked and 4 harlequin rasborras that I picked. By Tuesday one of the harlequins had gone and one of the male guppies was at the top of the tank with half his back end missing. By Friday another harlequin has gone. I can only guess that its the kribies. There is nothing else big enough to eat them in one go and as they are vanishing over night, they must be getting ate… I need to watch them closely and see what’s going on.

post people (?)

I know people are in a rush but why can’t people wait? I can’t win with the post delivery people around here. Last year I was doing a set of night shifts and the postlady insisted on knocking me out of bed at 08:30 three times to deliver a parcel/packet. By knocking me out of bed I dont mean the continual tap of the letterbox until I get up, I mean thunderous banging that cracks the plaster on the inside of the door frame! On the third occasion I wasn’t impressed and asked her if she’d knock only once or twice and then leave. She then spent 15 minutes telling me how she knew what it was like to have to get up early and have people getting you out of bed as she had to be up in the early hours so went to bed in the evening to have people waking her all the time… I said that as she knew what it was like, maybe she’d appreciate my position. She decided not to knock the door again to deliver my post so that I had to go and collect it from the depot myself! That has changed recently which I attribute to my relentless cheery nature around her with good mornings and asking her how she is etc; she actually knocks the door in a normal manner now, leaves it a minute, knocks again and goes away. It’s great. Except we also have Nigel Mansell driving the delivery van. This morning the door knocked and I was in bed. (I was up until 2am looking up articles on dog training!). It was a discreet single knock from our now thoughtful psotlady but being aware that my BT equipment is arriving any day I shot up out of bed and tried to get dressed before she left. I missed her so I picked up the rest of the post and I went into the kitchen to put the kettle on. K. & J. (the kids) were opening a parcel. They had opened the door and got the parcel and as it was addressed to J. and she recognised it as being her Felcity Wishes mag so was opening it. I was gutted it wasn’t my BT stuff especially seeing as my brother (J.) ordered his the day after me and got his stuff on Thursday (22nd March) – yes, I’ve complained.

I took M. (the puppy) to the toilet and as I opened the kitchen/backdoor into the porch and turned to get my shoes on she wee’d on the floor in front of the porch door; I could tell it was going to be one of those days… I let her out anyway then had to go get her and carry her back in. I noticed she was limping so I came back to ask J. & K. if they knew why and there was a red card on the floor telling me that someone had tried to deliver a parcel but I wasn ‘t in. Arghh! I’d only let the dog out for a wee! I asked the kids what happened to the dog and K. told me he’d accidently shut the door on her. I decided to watch her and see if she improved. Then I put my coat back on and went to find the postlady. The card said I could collect it from the office in 5 hours but it shut in 3! She told me that it was the van and that if I went up the office at 10:30 I should be able to collect whatever it is. So I start getting ready and as I’m about to get changed the phone rings and its my bro J. He wants me to go with him to the Birmingham office to collect his BT stuff as he missed the delivery on Thursday. Then he wants me to go with him to pick a laptop… I wanted to get my stuff sorted and play runescape today as a break from work but its not going to happen is it. He will be here in a minute. It is going to be one of those days….

podding…

After I dont know how many years, I’ve caved in and bought an ipod. I thought I’d get the video one because I thought you could get movies for it. It looks like I can’t as I’m not in the US Plus, they look dayam expensive! Like the audiobooks. The main reason I bought it was to have podcasts etc. I was also hoping to integrate it with our current systems in the car and the house but it hasn’t worked out that way.

For starters, to connect it to anything in the house, I need a special kit which is going to cost more money. We bought a new car stereo not long ago which being Sony, we assumed would take the ipod especially as it has an aux port on the front that states “Front Panel Aux In
Plugging your portable audio devices into your car’s sound system is like stealing candy from a baby. ” We plugged it in and it did naff all… So that means another car stereo or another kit so more money.

I wasn’t impressed with itunes either. Maybe I need to get used to it but I found it a nightmare to sort through the huge list of files it came up with! My computer has been running for some time now and we converted tons of music to mp3s to put onto disk to play in the car. Itunes did a search and came back with 2600+ which it put into a huge list for me to select from.. I can’t be bothered going through that lot and I certainly don’t want the majority of it on my ipod! Most of it have been albums done for other people and its music I can’t stand. Ok, so I should pull my finger out and sort it out on my computer but I dont want to right now. I have neither the time nor the enthusiasm so why can’t I just have a list of folders or something? They are stored in folders that, if I use media player or winamp I can select to play that folder before it’s added to a playlist not after!

Apologies in advance if much of this doesnt make sense. I’m absolutely shattered and am now into rambling…

osce practice and more

This week has been interesting again apart from Monday. That was evidence based practice module and I dont really enjoy it. Not only that but I raced around like an idiot after cleaning up puppy poo and feeding her and getting the kids sorted and so I missed my own breakfast and coffee to get there at 9 am (oh yeah and sat in traffic for 20 mins) to have a lesson for just over an hour and come home!

I like these clinical weeks in uni though. This week we’ve covered urinary catheterisation in both men and women. The lecturer said we’d probably lose the skill to do male catheterisation as many of our mentors aren’t trained to catheterise men. In another session we looked at first aid again. We were expecting to do cvp lines but that session didnt happen. We then spent a day doing manual handling covering the legislation and later in the day we were video filmed for us to review our practice; I dont think anyone really appreciated that. I personally hate being filmed. On our last day we had an OSCE practice session. This I think, will be invaluable in a few weeks when we will be doing the real thing. Its surprising how many silly mistakes you make when you are being observed.

clicker training

After almost 2 weeks of trying I am on the verge of giving up on the clicker. If you do any research on this method of training, you will see that if you put the time in (as with anything) you should get great results – I’ve done it before and it can be brilliant! There are a few videos here to watch. Anyway, Several times a day I pick up the clicker, a handful of treats and attempt to train the puppy. As I said before, she I can’t find what food she enjoys. As treats I have tried tuna, cheese, liver, chicken, tripe, beef, carrot, cucumber, peanut butter, cream cheese, 5 different types of commercial treat and even walkers french fries in an attempt to get her interested in what I’m doing but its hard going. Normally she’s interested for the first 5 or so click and treats (c/t’s) and then she just lies down and wont move. All I’ve done with her so far is try to get her to look at me – sometimes she does, sometimes not. I’m not even sure if she is associating the clicker with the treat. I thought tuna would work as she was seemed to enjoy it as her meal; so much so that she started guarding it on her second meal with growls and she even turned on us if we approached. We fed it to her for 3 further meals and tried to stop the resource guarding by only feeding her small amounts and adding large chunks of tuna with our hands so that she got used to hands by her dish. She seemed to be doing well then on the 4th meal, she approached her dish seemingly excited at the prospect of food, sniffed it and went and got back in bed. She’s done the same with tripe, and minced beef. For almost a week I though I’d found her favourite – cooked lambs liver – so Ive been using it only for training – I think she knows her name now – or bribing (swapping liver for the kids toy she picked up or the stone she’s trying to eat or the plant shes dug up and attempting to swallow…) but when it comes to clicker training her she cant be bothered.

I did think today that she was a bit daft. Yesterday I decicided to try another brand of food seeing as she seems to hate bakers. Again, she seemed to like it, well she ate it though she wasn’t overly enjoying it. I thought I’d make it more interesting and for the umpteenth time, I put a handful in her treat ball. She sniffed it, nudged it a few times and lay down – nothing unusual there as shes always lying down – we kept rolling it for her so the food dropped out and she ate a couple but went and got in her bed and no matter what encouragement we gave her, she stayed there. Again this isnt unusual; she wont walk over to you no matter what you do once she’s decided not to. In the end I chopped some liver into tiny pieces and put that in. After wafting it in front of her nose she got out of bed and rolled it around the floor to get the liver out ate a few pieces and got back in bed. Although she hasn’t eaten much, it does mean that she’s not daft and does know how to get the food out of the ball if she wants to. It also means that today she hasn’t really eaten.

I dont leave her food down but put it down for her every four hours. She did eat her weetabix this morning but no meal since and only a few treats when I’ve tried to get her to do anything. She will play with us and follow us around but after a couple of minutes of doinf any work with her she lies down or goes to bed. I’ve read tons about clicker training, bought books and dvds and I think I’m doing it right. I have tried giving her a big fuss and getting really excited but it doesn’t seem to make much difference. I don’t know what to do now and I’m gutted. With our other puppy I didn’t have this problem. I taught her tons! She was great to teach. She learnt by lures and clicking and any other method you wanted to use. She did most of the behaviours with the 101 things to do with a box in one afternoon. I know you shouldn’t compare but this is so hard!

Training sessions

Poor dog. I didnt say in my last blog but when we picked her up from the home, she was plastered in poo! It was matted into her coat and boy did she smell. Our first stop was petsathome where we, profusely apologising to fellow shoppers (who, I have to say, were completely understanding and most of whom even fussed her despite the state she was in!)spent another small fortune on bathing products, a bed, food, a couple of chew toys, brush comb etc. She came home and within the hour was bathed and fluffy though slightly put out! The next day she was in the vets having a check over and her first lot of immunisations along with wormers and anti-flea treatment.

Next is training! We’ve just filled in the application to start training on a good citizenship course in April. As with everything involving this dog, this will be a family event and if one of us adults can’t go, the other will go so that we never misses a lesson. She will start on the puppy level and hopefully advance through the rest of the levels. There are a few things I’d like advice on so I can’t wait to start. Apart from the “herding” there is getting her attention. We try all sorts of noises but unless she wants to get up and walk over to you, you’ve got no hope. She often walks all the way to the end of the garden and lies down and thats where she’ll stay. Not funny at 1am when you’re cold, tired and standing on concrete slabs in your nightie! She’s not overly impressed with food either. I’m not sure that she was weaned properly. Its taken till today to get her to eat. She looks at a bowl like you are giving her poison! She sniffs at it from 30cm away and walks around it from as far away as possible. Then she usually looks at you, turns around and goes back to her bed. I tried hand feeding her (I know, I know!) but she’s not impressed. The only thing she seems to like is milk. The dogs home said she was eating chicken, rice and a few added pieces of bakers but she wont touch it. I gave her some weetabix with warm milk and eventually she licked the milk off. I gave her scrambled eggs and she licked at those but not ate them. I’ve found a couple of treats that she seems to like. One is doggy chocolate drops and the other are pets-at-hope puppy mini bones. I hope things get better.

Ebay

Whats up with bidders on ebay? Today, 20 minutes before the end of the auction, I placed a bid on a buy-it-now (bin) item. The item was for sale for £4.90, I placed a maximum bid for £4.50 and someone outbids me at the last minute for £4.90! This item is for sale from the same seller every hour for the same price. Its an auction starting at £3.99 with a bin of £4.90. So why did the other bidder not just bid on another auction finishing later on or just outright buy one? They do it to me all the time. I’d rather wait an hour (not that it matters to the post time) and get it cheaper. People have no idea. I see people paying through the nose for items on ebay just so as they don’t “lose”! Most of the time it could be bought cheaper elsewhere. They’re crazy! Me? I always do my research and as for the item today, I just bid on it an hour later …

Horoscope…00:27 (transferred)

Horoscope…00:27

“Reward yourself for all the great things you have done for yourself and other people, dear Scorpio. You deserve to be treated like a queen, so make sure that you treat yourself as such. There are many times when you get so critical of the things you do that you end up punishing yourself unnecessarily. Give yourself a treat for being good instead of chastising yourself for being bad. At all times, however, you must remember that you are perfect just the way you are.”

This is my horoscope for today. I have highlighted sections you should note… Ok, I’m done

critical analysis part one (transferred)

critical analysis part one

Today I’ve spent the whole day sitting in front of the computer researching nothing! I’ve put in terms and looked at millions of sites but haven’t achieved a thing! I need to plan this better.

On a lighter note I have updated my weemee! Go make one, its free and a fantastic distraction – I mean break – from assignment writing!