I suppose it had to happen, but I never expected it to happen with the cat book, but I have had a return!
Someone has returned a book for a refund. I have been waiting for this to happen since I first uploaded the first book, and if it was going to happen I expected it to happen with the first book, frankly because it was my first and my least well written. But it has happened with the cat book, my mum's ginger cat, and that is a surprise. There are a few spelling mistakes, in the early part of the book I used "which" where I should have used "were" and a few others (thanks for pointing them out, I will fix them).
I am a bit stunned it was on the cat book. Oh well, such is life!
OK, I am overweight, hence BIGMAN. I am just blogging my recovery from debt laden unemployed guy, back to tax paying worker, and hopefully onto millionaire playboy author! Well, maybe not. This is about me, dull, broke, failure me. I am down, but not out, despite being broke, in debt and having been effectively out of work for two years, I am still in the game, still trying to make a success out of life.
Wednesday, 11 April 2012
Tuesday, 10 April 2012
Oh dear god no.
I bought some cheese and onion peanuts today. I should not have done so. I have eaten a few and now all I can taste is bloody cheese! Yuerk.
Web site for radio club
At the last radio club meeting, I offered to write the club web site. I am now putting ideas together and will take them to the next club meeting on the 18th. I am looking forward to doing this as I got quite competant at doing web sites when I was doing mine for the company. Once it is done, I will put a link on it from here.
Food! Food! Food!
OK, sorry. Yes. I have been having cheerios for breakfast (except for this morning), lunch has been a variety of stews, casseroles, and a couple of roasts. Evening meals have been mainly sandwiches (I know, boring). This morning I had a slice of bacon and a lightly fried tomato.
I did miss behave on Easter Sunday, I had 5 Romany Chocolate half coated biscuits and six roses chocolates. I did not have an easter egg, but I did want one.
I did miss behave on Easter Sunday, I had 5 Romany Chocolate half coated biscuits and six roses chocolates. I did not have an easter egg, but I did want one.
Busy doing not a lot
Easter Monday I visited the dig at P*d*ng*on and agreed to bring my total station along and take some measurements, I will be loaning it to the guys on the dig via Marc as well. I also offered to lend Marc the old Pathfinder ProXr, I will have to find it first, but it will allow them to map the site in real time, even if to only 25 to 75cm accuracy. If we can find an L1 logging station, or can get our hands on one we can improve that to about 3 to 5cm with post processing. I will see what I can do.
I am planning to spend Wednesday there, so will be taking sleeping bags etc and kipping in the car. I suspect it will not be the best nights sleep, but what the hell? You only live once.
I have saved up £200 for the HF radio, I should really have paid Ken off with this, and I feeling very guilty about that. I have another £100 for Ken, and I will be able to pay him off totally next month. I would have done it this month, but I only got slightly over basic pay this month as I was off the other month when the client did not want a surveyor and then I got the winter vomiting bug! Not a good three weeks!
Anyway, I am paying everyone off now, so I am going to treat myself to a proper HF radio, even if it is a bit cut price. Keith, who is selling it is being a real gent letting me have it for such a low price, and allowing me to pay it off over a period of time. Not many people would do that. Ken is always a gent and that is why I am going to try and pay him off totally next month. He has been really, really good about the debt the company left me with. Some people are just nice people.
I have got a sexy little power supply for £8, it is a bit ugly, it is old, but it has a near perfect spec for the HF radio, it is almost free of noise on the output! A lovely smooth, spike free, noise free power supply, that stays clean even when I load it up with 7amps. I am pleased. I did not think I would get something this nice for such a low amount of money.
Yesterday I was "playing radios", I have been mapping the access to local repeaters from local hill tops. I still have quite a lot of experiments to do, but I am starting to get a decent indication of where I can get into and from where. I hope to be able to produce a map of radio shadow so that I can plot where I should get good radio signals. This is all in preparation to getting the new (second hand) HF radio, as it also has 50Mhz on it, so I can start playing with that, something I have wanted to do since BBC days.
OK. Book.
The 4th book is proving to be a bit long. I have written it a new way. I normaly lay out the book on a single piece of paper, putting the chapters on one side and then bulding the characters and the events on the other side, matching each to a chapter.
I started to do this, but then I got into bullet pointing and this is how the book as grown. This book is a fictionalised record of all the studpid, funny, odd, silly things that have happened to me or people I know on surveys around the world. For it I have invented a job, a company and a whole host of people to populate the book with. I have not used any single person as a direct character, although the temptation was huge! All the people are ficticious. However, all the stories are real. I have changed the location, and some of the ancillary details to protect the inocent. I am still planning to upload it next week, but as I add more and more this may slip back, sorry about that.
My wonderful girlfriend asked me to write her a letter of invitation last week, and the following day the PC decided to crap out on me. I have managed to rebuild it, but it it still not 100%, I now have to have a fan on it just to keep it running! I need a new PC! I have nearly finished the letter and hope to send it to her probably later today. I really do not like being short of money, it is just such a pain!
I am still hoping to be able to fly out and see her,I just don't know when. I need to have at least £1000 available, and I do not have anywhere near that at the moment. Hopefully when (ha ha) I get the council house I will be able to sort out all the little cables of rubbish I have laying around and I can sell this to clear some more debt. I will not get as much as I paid for the lemo connectors, but I have about 20 to 30 of them that are brand new, I should get £5 to £10 each for them, that will be usefull, and I have 20 to 30 cables that I can offload for about £30 to £40 each. Those alone would pay for me to be able to see her, but until I have somewhere I can unpack them and sort them out, I am a bit stuffed.
I am very lucky, I have a good job that does pay a decent wage, it is about half what I used to take home, but it is good enough. But first I have to shift the debt. Once that is done, I will be laughing. On current repayment, I should be debt free in just over a year and a half. But this means living on what is left over until I am debt free. Not nice. But, I see it as a sacrifice worth making. Once I have offloaded the debt the company left me with, I will be free. And I do earn enough to have a decent house, marry Abel and start over again. For that I thank the company that took me on!
OK, got to go, I have to take my mum shopping now!
Catch you later
I am planning to spend Wednesday there, so will be taking sleeping bags etc and kipping in the car. I suspect it will not be the best nights sleep, but what the hell? You only live once.
I have saved up £200 for the HF radio, I should really have paid Ken off with this, and I feeling very guilty about that. I have another £100 for Ken, and I will be able to pay him off totally next month. I would have done it this month, but I only got slightly over basic pay this month as I was off the other month when the client did not want a surveyor and then I got the winter vomiting bug! Not a good three weeks!
Anyway, I am paying everyone off now, so I am going to treat myself to a proper HF radio, even if it is a bit cut price. Keith, who is selling it is being a real gent letting me have it for such a low price, and allowing me to pay it off over a period of time. Not many people would do that. Ken is always a gent and that is why I am going to try and pay him off totally next month. He has been really, really good about the debt the company left me with. Some people are just nice people.
I have got a sexy little power supply for £8, it is a bit ugly, it is old, but it has a near perfect spec for the HF radio, it is almost free of noise on the output! A lovely smooth, spike free, noise free power supply, that stays clean even when I load it up with 7amps. I am pleased. I did not think I would get something this nice for such a low amount of money.
Yesterday I was "playing radios", I have been mapping the access to local repeaters from local hill tops. I still have quite a lot of experiments to do, but I am starting to get a decent indication of where I can get into and from where. I hope to be able to produce a map of radio shadow so that I can plot where I should get good radio signals. This is all in preparation to getting the new (second hand) HF radio, as it also has 50Mhz on it, so I can start playing with that, something I have wanted to do since BBC days.
OK. Book.
The 4th book is proving to be a bit long. I have written it a new way. I normaly lay out the book on a single piece of paper, putting the chapters on one side and then bulding the characters and the events on the other side, matching each to a chapter.
I started to do this, but then I got into bullet pointing and this is how the book as grown. This book is a fictionalised record of all the studpid, funny, odd, silly things that have happened to me or people I know on surveys around the world. For it I have invented a job, a company and a whole host of people to populate the book with. I have not used any single person as a direct character, although the temptation was huge! All the people are ficticious. However, all the stories are real. I have changed the location, and some of the ancillary details to protect the inocent. I am still planning to upload it next week, but as I add more and more this may slip back, sorry about that.
My wonderful girlfriend asked me to write her a letter of invitation last week, and the following day the PC decided to crap out on me. I have managed to rebuild it, but it it still not 100%, I now have to have a fan on it just to keep it running! I need a new PC! I have nearly finished the letter and hope to send it to her probably later today. I really do not like being short of money, it is just such a pain!
I am still hoping to be able to fly out and see her,I just don't know when. I need to have at least £1000 available, and I do not have anywhere near that at the moment. Hopefully when (ha ha) I get the council house I will be able to sort out all the little cables of rubbish I have laying around and I can sell this to clear some more debt. I will not get as much as I paid for the lemo connectors, but I have about 20 to 30 of them that are brand new, I should get £5 to £10 each for them, that will be usefull, and I have 20 to 30 cables that I can offload for about £30 to £40 each. Those alone would pay for me to be able to see her, but until I have somewhere I can unpack them and sort them out, I am a bit stuffed.
I am very lucky, I have a good job that does pay a decent wage, it is about half what I used to take home, but it is good enough. But first I have to shift the debt. Once that is done, I will be laughing. On current repayment, I should be debt free in just over a year and a half. But this means living on what is left over until I am debt free. Not nice. But, I see it as a sacrifice worth making. Once I have offloaded the debt the company left me with, I will be free. And I do earn enough to have a decent house, marry Abel and start over again. For that I thank the company that took me on!
OK, got to go, I have to take my mum shopping now!
Catch you later
Friday, 6 April 2012
Back online sorry for the delay
OK, I got back the other day, but I have been a little busy with one or two things and so have neglected the blog. Sorry for that.
OK. TO keep you up to date, first things first. While on the ship my diet consisted of mainly soup, which I had twice a day, other than that I ate one meal a day from a small plate. I switched aprox 50% of my hot drinks over to tea, and increased my water intake a lot.
I flew down from Aberdeen a couple of days ago, it was a flight from hell, I was on a certain budget airline (as with my first book, no names) and instead of arriving in Luton, I ended up in Gatwick, we were left in arrivals with no information for over half an hour and when I went in search of someone from the airline I ended up being threatened with removal from the airport (because I raised my voice), cancellation of my onward transportation (a bus) because I raised my voice, and at one point even arrest! All because the airline in question could not organise someone to come and tell its fare paying passengers that there was a bus waiting for it! Wonderful customer service.
Anyway, not to worry. I don't pay them (and be certain I never will), and I make every attempt not to use them in future. Hopefully they will go out of business once everyone has tried them once. Fingers crossed.
I am home, I have a lovely 2kw test load with power meter from a certain auction site, purchased while on the boat. I drove to King's Lynn to pick it up and visited an Aladins cave of radio kit that left me wanting to buy it all! There is a lovely lady who has lots of wonderful kit and wants very reasonable prices for it. I wish I had the money!!!!
Anyway the load is great and the meter works so I am happy.
I have phoned y girlfriend, I am still waiting for 1 million people to buy "my mum's ginger cat" so I can marry her. Serious! With 7 billion people on the planet is it so hard for 1 million to buy the book I ask you?
I went over and baby sat for my daughter last night, I will be doing the same tonight. Then I will be getting ready to go over and do a few days at the archeological dig at P***ing**N where there is some great remains being looked at.
4th book is in progress, I am on page 76 now, only 392 to go. It is fiction, but all based on real events.
I am hoping to see my other two kids tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
OK. TO keep you up to date, first things first. While on the ship my diet consisted of mainly soup, which I had twice a day, other than that I ate one meal a day from a small plate. I switched aprox 50% of my hot drinks over to tea, and increased my water intake a lot.
I flew down from Aberdeen a couple of days ago, it was a flight from hell, I was on a certain budget airline (as with my first book, no names) and instead of arriving in Luton, I ended up in Gatwick, we were left in arrivals with no information for over half an hour and when I went in search of someone from the airline I ended up being threatened with removal from the airport (because I raised my voice), cancellation of my onward transportation (a bus) because I raised my voice, and at one point even arrest! All because the airline in question could not organise someone to come and tell its fare paying passengers that there was a bus waiting for it! Wonderful customer service.
Anyway, not to worry. I don't pay them (and be certain I never will), and I make every attempt not to use them in future. Hopefully they will go out of business once everyone has tried them once. Fingers crossed.
I am home, I have a lovely 2kw test load with power meter from a certain auction site, purchased while on the boat. I drove to King's Lynn to pick it up and visited an Aladins cave of radio kit that left me wanting to buy it all! There is a lovely lady who has lots of wonderful kit and wants very reasonable prices for it. I wish I had the money!!!!
Anyway the load is great and the meter works so I am happy.
I have phoned y girlfriend, I am still waiting for 1 million people to buy "my mum's ginger cat" so I can marry her. Serious! With 7 billion people on the planet is it so hard for 1 million to buy the book I ask you?
I went over and baby sat for my daughter last night, I will be doing the same tonight. Then I will be getting ready to go over and do a few days at the archeological dig at P***ing**N where there is some great remains being looked at.
4th book is in progress, I am on page 76 now, only 392 to go. It is fiction, but all based on real events.
I am hoping to see my other two kids tomorrow. Fingers crossed.
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Coming ashore
OK, sorry for the break in communications, but I have been out at sea for the last 27 days. I am now heading back into Aberdeen and hope to be on dry land by tomorrow evening.
I don't have a great deal to tell anyone today as not a lot has happened that is not work related and as you know, I never discuss my employer.
I am hoping to be able to pick up my new HF radio when I get home, plus I have bought a high power test load from a bloke in Bury St Edmunds which I will have to drive over to pick up.
I will no doubt have a ton of mail to sort out, but that is normal.
Catch you on dry land...
I don't have a great deal to tell anyone today as not a lot has happened that is not work related and as you know, I never discuss my employer.
I am hoping to be able to pick up my new HF radio when I get home, plus I have bought a high power test load from a bloke in Bury St Edmunds which I will have to drive over to pick up.
I will no doubt have a ton of mail to sort out, but that is normal.
Catch you on dry land...
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