Sirbendy

restrict them to driving 2 cylinder, 500cc Diesel Aixam Microcars, with a max attainable speed of 60 on a good day, in faded girlie pink with pink fuzzy seatcovers. Job jobbed. Even 850cc Reliant Robins are stupidly rapid..hehe...

Our protalks have the additional headsets which we use - it's rather MI5ish, haha. We walk around and do the "rubber duck to bigboy, rubberduck to bigboy, we have a situation developing" thing..good fun, and it makes the Year 7's go "are you security?"..

Kenwood ProTalks get my vote, we've got 6-7 of them. They are FAR superior to the SLT issue radios, much to SLTs disust. They could transmit from our office to Greggs - that was handy..!

I went round mine during the "pre-demolition" reunion for all past students and teachers. Again, I knew where everything was, where I'd left my name engraved etc. I met up with some friends there too, and we were sending texts such as "Where are you?", "In Doncasters english room"...off I go, it's now an ICT suite..haha! As you say, the smells are the same, it all seems much smaller though..I was walking around lost in memories with a grin on my face for most of it, then it hit me - "Ye gods, I'm now a PARENT. I'll be doing the same as my mum did on parents evening in a few years. OH. MY. GOD." etc Seeing ex-teachers is always funny...although we've had a fair few through here as supply staff, and they're always surprised to see me..

I've thought long and hard about this, and I reached the following conclusion... bu&&er it. My iPaq is currently plugged into the USB port, charging merrily. It's never really occured to me - technically, a USB pen also uses electricity - does that mean I'm thieving from my employer when I plug it in?

I hate wasps...really, really hate them. Bees I'm fine with. We get them (or at least I think they're wasps) here..it's an 1800s house, and we've had 3 HUGE sods in the living room, 1 in the spare bedroom, and 2 in the bathroom...I mean really HUGE...very out of scale wasps. Most meet Mr Dyson, one met my big cat who leapt in the air and speared it right through the main body with a claw. I was rather impressed..he can fair shift for a lardy farmcat based furball..

Yep. All my Vauxhalls are ex-motability fleet.. Bought from the "3 year end of period" auctions by the dealers. The guy when I bought the P reg was a slimy little sod, very pushy. Kept trying to pressure sell..."someone's coming to see it, very keen" etc, along with faking "interested party" phone calls in my presence. Bless him. I left it a week and thought it over - I had my eye on an Astra estate too, as well as a Subaru 1800 estate. Just for the crack, as you do. When I went back, he was almost relieved..hehe. He said to the missus - "so, when you learn to drive, you'll be coming back then?"..she said "no, not if you paid me. Sorry.".. She's honest, I have to hand it to her. The guy I got the X reg from was the total opposite. Very up front, very open, very willing to accomodate. Handed me the keys, let me go through the history, start it up, check everything in my own time etc. Even arranged to tax it for me (Tax exempt at the time). A pleasure to buy from. Not to mention when it got delivered to work, he accompanied it in his AMG Merc and ran me down to Shrewsbury DVLA to get it sorted, then out for a coffee before dropping me back at work. I'll buy from him again. The guy I got the M reg "emergency, missus could drop at any second and the ECU in the main car has gone" Astra from was an utter, UTTER sh1te. Never buy a car from Dream Car Sales, Telford — jemjabella.co.uk An entry from the Missus' site about it...they sell sh1te cars with MOTs that HAVE to be iffy, and hide any and all advisories from you/remove fault bulbs etc and pass off scrap as "good runners". I bought her half off her, as she's been threatening to turn it into a mobile BBQ. Me, I'm sure I can rebuild what's needed (brakes, exhaust, injection system/timing belt).

I got my X reg Astra with full Vauxhall/Motability service History, 50k on the dials, every piece of work ever done on it itemised in the book with dates and costs, with a full engine/autobox service, full Valet, delivered to me at work for £1950..Dealer wanted £2150 for it. I haggled him down on the EML light being on, and airbag warning lights being on. Got it, plugged in the laptop, reset the airbag ECU, read the fault codes and cleared them out, set it to ecoflex servicing schedules, job jobbed. My old P reg we got at a discount as well, as I went over it with a magnifying glass and picked up on any flaws I could.

Hmm. So far..? Good: Workstation refresh works well. Bad: Some wazzock rebooted one of our AD servers (or possibly both) during the final stage of Zen, either NM or our "overseer" in our parent academy, leading to a 50/50 split of domain join and workgroup membership. Tedious. Good: My junior just got the shock of his life (literally) when he shorted out a power lead. First shock ever, life lesson. Bad: He leaves us tomorrow. Sigh. Good: DWP just paid me the backdated DLA they stopped and didn't mention, plus the child tax credits came in at last (8 months old now!). Therefore, bills are sorted, car can have the new exhaust I've been meaning to get, and car #2 can have a secondhand set of discs/drums from a scrapyard at last and get some brakes! Even better: 2 weeks off starting tomorrow, lots of quality time wearing my daughter in the carrier/crawl-chasing across the floor/teaching her baby-sign, forgetting all about being adult and IT, and just having fun. Also got a sling-meet to attend with them, and a breastfeeding group picnic at a park by my mum, so lots of socialising. Even better again: Mother wants to take me, missus and tiddler to Shell Island/Barmouth as a "treat" tomorrow for a long weekend. Tiddlers first holiday! There are 4 people in this building. It's BLISS.

we have an HP Turion that has exactly the same! It's eerily like a wandering dead pixel..quite amusing.

Myself and NM have Walkie Talkies..serious jobs, they're far better than the SLT kit..heh. We find it adds fun to use callsigns instead of names, He's 6ft+, so goes by "Bigboy", I go by "Rubber Duck" (no idea why, but couldn't care less!)..so I'll be walking along and you'll hear "Rubber Duck, do you copy? Over.", to which the reply is "Rubber Duck here. Talk to me Bigboy, what's up?" etc. We tend to use them with the headsets, so it does look somewhat intimidating..

We've had a few teachers RUN out of the building before now..it's always a "sigh" moment. One woman lasted all of 10 minutes. I've had moments where I've had to walk into the now teacherless class, lock the doors and look at the kids, and say "What did you do NOW? Honestly..right then. What were you doing with that teacher? What's this lesson on?" and hold the fort until a replacement arrived. We've also had a couple who've been appointed and never actually shown up.

Yes, I have. It was in a school where the original head who took me on retired through ill-health (and told me first, along with saying "If you want to leave, don't feel you need to stay out of loyalty, the deputy who'll take over is a tw@t"). Shortly after that my line manager went off with stress ("gone barmy"). I was then managed 50/50 between the head of science, and the head of..might have been maths, I forget. I was on Flextime as I was working for 3 other schools as well - all agreed between them. One day I went to my nans for dinner and a catchup (few minutes down the road from the school), and when I came back one of the kids said "Did you know that Mr X is following you?". Next day I did it again, and yes..his landrover came after me very "hang back". Day after that I decided to take him on a merry dance around the area. Leading to the the council HQ, where I had a nice meeting with their employer advice people, who were helpful. Went back the next day, got summoned to the head...for a rollicking about "WHY did you go out? Why to there? What did you say? Tell us NOW. etc." I refused. I also recorded it (thankyou iPaq). They then said they were altering my hours to a fixed setup - I pointed out they can't do that without consultation. There was the head, and his deputy trying to pressure me in a closed office. They then said they were "reviewing my employment, post september". At which point I rather got annoyed and requested to know why I was being followed etc...they knew about it, they'd implemented it to "keep an eye on me"! That was also recorded. I took it back to the council, they called the school up and gave them a rocket. The school told me they would not be renewing my contract post september..so I smiled and said to the head/deputy "That's fine with me, I can't work with people I have no respect for and can't trust. ". So I worked that last month without issue...school summer hols came round, on the last day the science HOD said "Good Job! See you in September then - it'll be busy, we're putting in the new network.". Oh, how I laughed! I said "not a bloody chance. See this letter? I resign. I'm out of this hellhole, and good riddance". Handed it to the secretary and requested she photocopy it for safety, then walked out of the door and drove off into the sunset, to my new job that I'd lined up. MOST satisfying.

I hit diesel a few years back..some tit had a leaky tank. Ploughed straight into the back of a van. Most annoyed. Took out a headlamp, wing, indicator, creased the bonnet. Drove home again, found that the battery had come off the tray as well and was dangling on the wiring..good times. Luckily I kept a spares car of the same type and was able to swap the panels/lamps/bonnet over, one spot of welding and it was all sorted. Sure your brakes weren't just soaked? A run down the MWay in the wet will cool and soak them, and they're always naff until they've dried off. If I'm driving in continual rain, I tend to brake very lightly every so often to clear and dry the rotors/pads, or at least set the handbrake very gently on to give me one dryish axle.. That said, I took the Astra in for it's first brake check in my ownership..full tidy of the brakes, cleanup and tested for very little money, and the brakes are only lightly worn. Contrast that with my project Astra..rotors worn so thin they've got sharp edges, drums with ridges in, air in the lines..quality maintenance that car had.. If you can, I recommend a skidpan training day...WELL worth it. I've done 2 now.

Here bloody here. Ours is OKish...I can get a bus at 7am to get here (well, to our old site) for 8ish. if I got it back, I'd need to finish early or wait until 7pm though - not happening. Plus the walk from the old site to here + my legs/disability - I'd be dead by the weeks end. I suppose I could take my mountain bike on the bus..not sure if that's allowed though..too many big hills between here and home for my knees to cope with. Re: Holidays - we always do the Sun bargain ones to campsites in wales..good fun. Shell Island last year, in a tent, in a gale with a heavily pregnant missus with morning sickness..that was good fun too! I'm happy enough doing that, especially with littley..looking forward to taking her to the beach for the first time at some point..

Fridges and washing machines are simple devices...I could heartily recommend the Haynes manual for washing machines etc..and fridges are usually problematic due to the thermostat/motor capacitor/door seals..Don't think I've seen a fridge motor fail so far.. Washers are usually down to a failed water solenoid (cheap), split pipe (cheap), blocked pump (PITA), or duff carbon brushes in my experience..I used to replace them on mums hotpoint every few years. She's now got a Hoover one that's blown the programmer ecu...so in her words "I treat it like a man. I tell it what to do and twiddle it's knob to make it do it.". I laughed. I bought our first fridge from a refurb place..a 1970 era English Electric. Worked well for 3 years, went out in a puff of smoke. Not bad for £60. The one now is a Beko, cost me £60 from a friend. The washer we have now is a basic, no frills Indesit. Again, can't fault it. Electrical Appliance Manual (Haynes for Home DIY): Amazon.co.uk: Graham Dixon: Books The Washing Machine Manual: DIY Plumbing, Fault-finding, Repair and Maintenance: Amazon.co.uk: Graham Dixon: Books always useful. My sofa-bed is a futon..naff all to go wrong there. The sofa cost us £20, 4 years ago. Big squishy red velvetty 2 seater. Bargain! Kettles come from Tesco (£5), as do my £25 miocrowaves. I got a NICE rocking chair/kitchen drop-leaf table/set of chairs/sideboard from my Nans house when we cleared it..nobody wanted them as they're dark wood, and have had 60+ years of family usage, so are hardly pristine..on the other hand, they're Ercol units, and they'll outlast me easily. Some light attention with #0000 wire wool, and a good coat of wax, job done.

We do a lot of "making meals from scratch", I admit..but that's because I suppose you could class us as "odd" parenting-wise...we do co-sleeping, babywearing, attachment parenting and we've been doing baby-led weaning for the last..3 months now? Basically littley has what we have, in "adult" form..lots of Veg and healthy eating etc. Far healthier than purees and baby-mush, and if we make anything (even cakes) that we plan on letting her have, we make them by hand and try to cut out salt/sugar/iffy tiddler stuff. It's good fun to boot.

She's going back to work in November when Tiddler turns 1, yes. Right now she's on..about £17/month SMP. We rent@550/month. Council tax band A, etc. Bills..£150/quarter for electric (last one), £900 for gas (ouch, 250 year old house, single glazing, minimal insulation.). "Dead" household items..rarely happen. I just rebuilt my tower fan that we needed in the heat, as after 6 years it died. Most things can be fixed, microwaves are cheap (and rarely used if we're honest), etc. Car insurance, not bothered. Tax, ditto. I have more than enough put by to ignore these. If the car goes catastrophically wrong, I have a spare in storage. We go out to see family every weekend, go out for a meal on special occasions, and go out frequently with tiddler to national trust places, as we're members. As to the TV - heh, yes..we've seen some interesting debates there. It's just daft to have one for us - the TV has been on a sum total of maybe 3 days over 7 months..! Radio all the way. Less distracting for the littley as well. Reading and playing are more fun.

hmm. Jem's not working, and SMP has dropped off...I'm on a theoretical £16kish...every month, we have more in the account than out. We have all the usual gadgetry..hmm...plus a car.. I disagree. I admit we're as tight as the proverbial, but we manage comfortably with us, 3 cats, 1 guinea pig and a 7 month old. We use non-disposable nappies (doddle), we do one bulk shop a month and plan ahead, we cancelled the TV license as TV is 99% bunk anyway and we have a Wii with iPlayer, we buy things from eBay to get the cheapest possible, most of our furniture was free or charity shop (and is better than 90% of the stuff you can buy cheap in stores).. Admittedly we don't go out pubbing, and all that guff..but I don't feel in the least that we're "below any standards".. We have 5 laptops, 1 desktop, 2 smartphones, ADSL..can't say I want any more!

Ours are plumbed into the mains for filling and drainage. They went in before the server room was finished and the raised floor was installed.

our 2 airedales have humidifiers built in, and presettable levels. According to the Cli-Mate, we're currently sat at 22.33degrees, at 36% relative humidity. It was up to about 60% this morning before I forced unit 1 offline for a regenerate cycle of the bottle. Unit 1 hasn't been the same since the screwdriver-wielding monkeys of Company X poked it. It's not often we have to call security to have a contractor removed from site for services to sheer muppetry. Ah well, it's coming up for a full service anyway.

I felt like that seeing bulldozers tearing into the old school building - seeing my old office from the carpark, wall missing, floor hanging buckled, still got my old desk in it..quite a moment.

Puma..meh. Calibarge, good luck finding one that's not rotten... Astra MK4 coupe, not bad. Vectra?

One of my biggest annoyances in our building is that the kiddies turn on Accessibility mode then call me and say "I've got the black/purple screen", necessitating us to delete them from the PC and the roaming profiles folder. To that end, I KNOW you can remove the capability from the login screen by renaming the relevant .EXE - but is this allowable? Or is there some namby-pamby damnfool regulation somewhere that says it must be available? I could just rename the .EXE when needed to restore functions to a machine as required, in fact I'd be happy to. As long as 99% of them could have it removed as a rule, it'd be one less PITA. Any ideas?

We use Birchfield Interactive and VLE packages here a lot, and we've just found a 50% off code for their products. The code is: V5yj5d. Might be useful to people who use/are interested in using their products!