Matt Charlton

To say last night was eventful would probably be the understatement of the year. 

I was sat on the sofa, sorting through about 10 years worth of backup cdrs, cdrs with anti virus and spyware solutions that I’d done to take round to people’s houses to sort their pc’s (and never labelled) and lots of loose original PC games.  Whilst not exactly the most glamorous of jobs I could have been doing, it was a necessity and something that only I can do. 

Sue was cooking tea, we had steak slice (pastry for the first time in three weeks ftw!), potato waffles (they’re waffly versatile) and beans (see the advert said they went with beans).

She’d just brought tea up at about 6:30, was pouring me out some coke and turned around to go back to the other sofa and pour herself some coke when she fell over.  Proper big style fall, not a stumble.  She went straight down and almost into the coffee table.  No idea what happened.  Her toe was bleeding quite badly and her arm hurt.  Other than that she’s fine (thank god).

Problem being, she had most of a 2l bottle of Coke Zero in her hand and her laptop was sat in front of her sofa. 

The keyboard was covered, the laptop was still on.  I flew over there, killed the power, unplugged everything (we’re still trying to find the USB mouse dongle), pulled the battery and got the thing on the floor.  There must have been around half a pint of coke in there.  It being  a HP, getting the keyboard out didn’t seem like the easiest thing to do.  I tried to get most of the bezel off from around the top but the screws weren’t having it.  Found out the top bezel screws were in the battery compartment.  Eventually got them out and got the keyboard out.

There were one or two small puddles of coke below the keyboard, I mopped these up.  The mobo seemed to be dry. 

Found a new keyboard on ebay at £12.50 and bought it just in case. 

Looked at the keyboard and the underside was covered in sticky back plastic.  There were mass puddles of coke under there.  Took the keyboard downstairs and ran it under the cold tap, couldn’t shift the stuff from the underside so had to break the stuff and pull it off.  Gave it a really good clean, shook as much water out as I could.  Put the heating on and then put the keyboard on the radiator.  Flipped it every 5-10 mins and after 30 mins it was bone dry. 

Put the laptop back together, ran some tests, tested the keyboard.  Everything seems okay. 

It probably helped being Coke Zero – no sugar, no sticky.  Still liquidy which is bad for laptops. 

Phew.

That was probably the scariest moment I’ve ever had (Sue, not the laptop silly).  If anything had happened to her I’m not sure what I would have done. 

This morning she tells me that she hadn’t had anything to eat yesterday and she’d last eaten at about 1am at work.  Giving her around 17 hours of non-foodage.  Couple that with not sleeping yesterday morning very well and she probably fainted from exhaustion and lack of energy. 

Eek.

So yeah, last night wasn’t fun.  I’m just glad Sue is okay.  I’m also glad the laptop is okay because that would have cost me money to fix. 

I hope tonight is nice and quiet and we can just both chill out.

I’ve decided to step up the plan. 

Due to Sue starting nights tomorrow and the fact that we might be messing around getting the car sorted, we may not have time to put up the Christmas decorations.  With it being December 1st, I wanted to get them sorted. 

It’s November 30th…………here. 

But in Australia, its the 1st December.

Tree is going up.

Tonight.

I wonder how long it’ll take the rss feed to pump this out to facebook when Sue will see it? :p

It’s true.

It is.

I realised something today.  It’s quite interesting.

Before I started working at Hanson, I didn’t know what SAD was.  I used to love the Winter nights rolling in, they felt cosy.  You’d have the fire on, it was dark outside, the decent stuff was back on the TV after the Summer break (Noels House Party, Casualty – when it was good, etc).  Then I started working at Hanson, in the server room.

There was one main window which connected the room to a classroom that spent a good three years covered in paper displays.  The other two years it was covered in that frosted coating.  Didn’t let much light in.  Around the corner there was a single window that looked out onto an external area of the school, wasn’t very picturesque and we didn’t benefit from a lot of light from it.

With only having 30 mins for lunch and being surrounded by little (and large) monsters we didn’t get out for lunch much unless it was half term and we’d manage to get out to KFC and McDonalds which was nice.  Didn’t seem to make much of a difference though, the Winters would roll around and even with a 3:30 finish I struggled.

So now we’re fast approaching Winter – it’s dark before I’ve even nearly finished work, let alone before I’m out of the door.  I started to use the lightbox again a month or so ago, towards the end of August actually because we had such a crappy Summer.  It was making a bit of a difference but didn’t seem to be making as much of an impact as in previous years.

Fast forward a few months and I’ve now got a desk right next to a huge window, a massive one.  We’re going out for lunch every day due to a lack of onsite catering.  At first, the walk into town was a bit of a killer – its probably only a mile round trip, if that – but the hill from Dean Clough to the centre of Halifax is quite a steady gradient.  Was quite painful on the old calves.  Now we’re in town in less than 10 minutes and its easy peasy.

Quite fun actually, plus it means that pretty much anything is on the menu for lunch.  Be it KFC, McDonalds, Burger King or Subway.  Most of the time I’m ending up in Greggs – their Steak and crispy onion sandwich is to die for.  You don’t actually realise just how many shops are down there.  There’s a Woolworths, a WH Smiths, GAME, Gameplay.  Alsorts of places for me to spend money.  Which is fun.

There’s also a local supermarket – Sainsburys, which is a slightly closer walk than town (I think), there’s also a Tesco Express in town.  Given the choice, I think I’d rather go down and park up in the car park at work and walk into town than go shopping in Bradford.  Any day.

That’s sad, because I live in Bradford, even if it is a giant hole.  Most of the places I used to shop have gone.  To be fair, long before they stopped trading and got knocked down I didn’t go there.  It’s really not the sort of place you go once you can drive.  The White Rose Centre and The Trafford Centre are much more fun.

Actually, until I started at Frog, I hardly went shopping at all – save for going to supermarkets.  Everything is so much cheaper online.  I know the regular shops have wages and outlay and everything, but there are no crowds on the Internet either.  Crowds suck.  Big time.  Hate them.  There’s nothing worse than a busy supermarket, trying to roll a trolley down an aisle when you’ve got the world’s slowest walking person in front of you and inconsiderate people taking up the rest of the aisle with their trolley sideways.  It’s annoying.  One of my biggest bugbears ever.

Anyway, back on topic – I can’t remember what I was writing about **scrolls up**

Oh yeah, SAD.  So, I’ve got a big window, I’m getting tonnes of natural light, and I’m getting out and about during the day.  Big difference.  I haven’t used my lightbox for over a month.  And I’ve never felt better (except on the weekends, when new Xbox games come out and I don’t leave the house for 48 hours – but that’s another story).

Before Hanson, there was no SAD.  Now I’ve left, I’m pretty sure that the SAD is on it’s way out too.

I think that Sue working the last few Christmas’ days and to be honest the run up to Christmases has spoiled it for me too.  She’s got the whole of Xmas week off, and most of the week after too.  We’ll get to spend some time together and listen to Christmas music, watch some Christmas films.

I already started last week.  We watched Home Alone and Gremlins.  Classics.

Thats what Christmas is all about, spending some quality time with the people that you love.  The last few years I’ve not looked forward to it – I knew that Sue was working Christmas and it just took the shine off the whole thing for me.

I’m looking forward to Christmas, and I’m looking forward to the long Winter nights.  Bring em on.

So here’s a nice finish to this extra long post -

You only get one shot (unless you’re a follower in one of those religions that believes in reincarnation) at this life.  Make it your best one.  Live it to the full.  Don’t hold grudges (unless the person is a real arsehole ) and take every chance that you get.  You never know which day might be your last so live every one to the full.