Saints and Moaners

Moikka!

I've been trying to shake off a cold for about a week. The situation is ingravescent; I am considering going to a doctor today. Then again, I'm considering dosing myself right up with Panadol and going to Taekwondo. I'm bipolar that way.

The weather here has been fantastic lately, no fun if you're metaphorically under it. I turned down two invitations to go rock climbing at a seriously interesting 25m high spot, 40 km north of Helsinki - the only climbing I did this weekend was on my bed, and up my windowsills. Adrian and his wife Anna-Marie, and their daughter Aishling, who's either very shy, or scared of me (sensible girl) came over on Saturday to drop off some tools, so I could install my lights.


As if driving across the metropolitan area (I have to stop myself adding "Network" right there) to loan me tools wasn't enough, the proceeded to offer to drive me to IKEA (so I could buy a car-load at once) and then brainstormed people they knew who had furniture they wanted rid of. Oh, and offered me two book-cases for free. Saints!

Anyway, the drill and tools meant I could now go about installing the lights on the walls and ceilings. First rule: measure twice, drill once. Problem a) becomes apparant: I have no chair to stand on, and the places to measure are high up... Hence the climbing on the bed and windowsills. The windowsill was particularly tricky, being just high enough that I couldn't step up easily, and just wide enough that I couldn't wedge myself in, so getting up with a ruler and pencil in hand, then balancing there with my arms above my head made for a pretty interesting bouldering problem - god knows how it looked to anyone who happend to be looking up at the apartment block at that time.

Anyway, lines drawn (eventually), drill in hand, Problem b): in terms of "hardness" my walls and ceiling, being prefab concrete, are at the Vinny Jones end of the scale. The drill, well, it's great for putting kitchens together. So is Laurence Llewelyn Bowen. So Vinny vs Laurence. Exactly. The drill got about a quarter of an inch in, and then spun round and round merrily. "Dammit! I thought, I've hit a big piece of aggregate. I'll try again elsewhere" And so I did. Four times. Same story. To borrow a trademark from Ian: *sigh*


I gave up and went back to watching family guy, unsettlingly aware that a "crick in the neck" was creeping up on me. I made a list of people to call, got about half way through, and collapsed asleep on my bed and got a few hours sleep. This turned out to be remarkably serendipitous, because by 11pm the crick had, er, well... cricked? In any case I got little sleep after that, got up at 7, and landed at my desk a little after 8, but not feeling too bad for it :)

Had a meeting with my project manager, which was really interesting, in that I now know what I have to do to qualify for bonuses :)

Anyway, if the general tone of this entry is "whingy little bitch", that's not how I feel. I got an email from Rob, a friend of mine in the Peace Corp, stationed in Morocco, which was really grounding, as always. You have to respect someone who's willing to devote years of their life to helping strangers. More saints. I'm the kind of person that mentally frets over, and moans about, the sort of situations that these people wade knee deep into. Admirable. Incidentally, any of you willing to post old English textbooks (from primary or secondary school) to Morocco leave a comment.

You may or may not know how much I love a good conspiracy theory (The moon landings were faked, etc) Well I read a really good article about the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon (how it couldn't possibly have been hit by a 767) a little after the event, and with the anniversary looming, went looking for the original the other day. What I found was even better (or worse, depending). While I'm not saying I believe all of this site, or any even, I think the scepticism is healthy, I find it very interesting, and I'm linking to it: conpiracy theory

Alex's concerted effort to get me (more) interested in electronica is paying off (if only because he keeps feeding me the cream of the genre). So:
Current music: Involver - DJ Sasha.

And finally, the Orient beats the Occulent to
safe nuclear generators