The Year in a Flash

Well we think that 2006 has been a bit of a whirl wind. It has literally flown by.
January was Glenn’s birthday. We went to New York and had a great time seeing all of the sites. The snow made it feel special although it made the open top bus tour very cold!
February was Anne-Marie’s birthday and Glenn’s Dad’s. Retired and 65 he is now struggling only to find time to do less! We celebrated with a meal out. Being a short month it went by quicker than the others!
March was the month that Anne-Marie received the results of her studies. She is now officially a Master of Laws and was asked to teach on the course!
April saw us decorate the hall stairs and landing. You probably won’t believe us if we told you it was the first decorating we have done since we moved here!
May was the month that we started to really gear up for Camp. CRB checks were taking a long time to come through and we were still looking for leaders!
June was like February and seemed to go far too quickly. The building project for our Church started to really take shape.
July saw Anne-Marie graduate for a second time to receive her Masters in Law.
August was the month of Porthpean, the Children’s camp that we organise. It was a little hairy at times but God looked over the site all week and provided safety and guidance in abundance to all.
September was busy for us both at work, so we made sure that we socialised with friends at the weekend. This included Jay and Chrissie’s wedding.
October saw the annual Harvest celebrations at Church. Great fun and food with friends! We also sold the mini and helped our homegroup give a garden makeover to a local care home.
November is normally cold and filled with fireworks but alas we missed both. The weather is still to change and Anne-Marie was teaching on Bonfire Night.
December has crept up on us far too quickly. We are still in Aylesbury and feel it is right to be here. We will be spending Christmas with Glenn’s family and then New Year with Anne-Marie’s Dad.
We hope you have had a great year and would love to catch up with you in 2007.

2006 in a Flash

2006 in a Flash

Life is a Peach

Until it becomes a plum and people start blowing raspberries!

Anne-Marie gets qualified!

It's official Anne-Marie has both a traditional degree and a masters degree in law as well.

You Have to Play to Win!

Indeed you do. I don't recall ever winning anything particularly grand in my life. In fact I seem to recall persuading the Readers Digest to withdraw the prize that I was eligible for because I was too young to accept it! To that end it was quite an amazing shock to discover that I was a winner today.

It feels so good to have won something though. It kind of lifts you; makes you feel as though it was worth entering; worth spending the 5 minutes to answer a few questions (which at the time seem so random and completely irrelevant to the service you have just trialled that you wonder how the providers will make any sense of the statistics created by the response!)

So I am a winner and regardless of whether or not it was a fix (surely if only one person enters then only one person can win! - I was, of course, assured that I was not a lonely entrant - it just felt like it at the time!), I am a winner.

And further more it is incredibly tempting to not share with you what I won.... You might have to ask!

PS A word to the wise - it is great fun deliberately trying to see how extreme you can make your comments so that the statistics really do end up being completely balanced.

PPS A word to the very wise - I failed statistics at A-Level.

PPPS A word to those who are still reading - I proved that you can learn by parrot fashion and passed Statistics at University with flying colours but now can't remember a thing!

Sniffing the Dirt

I was clearing through some old photos (2002?) and came across this one. Clearly he had sniffed out the dirt on me and was set to tell a porky! 

 

Christmas "E" Cards - Economy or Charity?

Jerry MaGuire is a bible of wisdom for people aspiring to challenge the management practices of today’s world. The phrase “show me the money” is just one element of the infinite wisdom that can be gleaned from the tale of Mr MaGuire and his attempt to change the way that a cut throat industry goes about it’s business.

You might be wondering what this has got to do with Christmas Cards. Well actually I am specifically targeting electronic Christmas Cards sent out my numerous companies to replace the traditional paper ones that use to be sent.

Last Christmas I received a few of these and as I hit the send button to return the gesture I paused to consider the content…. Most of those I received had indicated that they were sending them in place of the traditional cards and the money saved in doing this was to be given to a charity. This is where the punch is:

WHAT CHARITY AND HOW MUCH?

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

Did they simply consider the cost of purchasing the traditional Christmas cards against the cost of developing a web based, moving image with sound e-card? (If they did then given the rate that most design houses charge I suspect that the charities didn’t do too well this year!)

Did they calculate the savings they made by not overloading Post Man Pat with hundreds of cards that usually get filed under “b” (for bin) in next to no time at all? If so then they might have missed a trick in the loss of rebate from the post office due to a reduction in the postage bill last year! Ooooops!

Did they calculate the cost of time it takes the staff to personally write a message and sign all of the cards that get sent (not to mention the cost of the CEO’s time as it is usually their signature that appears in the centre of each card!). I am intending to investigate this one as clearly it would show up as an unusually large donation in the accounts of any Charity.

Notwithstanding this I would still like to say SHOW ME THE MONEY. Not one of the e-cards I received indicated how much they gave to their nominated charity. Only one of them actually indicated which charity they were going to give it to. So to all the others (and to any companies I didn’t receive an e-card from) I would simply like to say:

SHOW ME THE MONEY!

PS I did send an email to a number of colleagues and I can personally assure you that the Diabetic Charity of the UK benefited by £100.

Glenn's Theory No.1 - Email

Mr Bill Gates and his technocrat colleagues, associates and competitors certainly created a rod for every living soles back when they invented email (before the comments come flooding in am aware that our friend (!) Mr Gates nor his Microsoft empire are the inventors of email but I am figuring that the mention of his name might get me a few more hits! – at least I am honest!).

OK so maybe I am setting out to offend in order to get attention (and I am really hoping that as a result of this entry people might start to read this blog!) and I accept that for the most part I am a supporter of email however I am also a concerned onlooker who is becoming increasingly aware that it is a cause of considerable stress, anguish and confusion whilst proclaiming to be quite the opposite!

I have a theory: (amongst many others by the same name) Glenn’s Theory No.1 – A successful day can be measured by measuring the number of emails you have received, the number you have sent and the number you have deleted. That is to say that a successful day is when the number you have deleted exceeds the combined sum of the number you have received and the number you have sent.

The objective of this theory (assuming theories are supposed to have objectives!) is to reduce the number of emails received by everyone.

Assuming the we all aim to have a successful day and my theory is correct then we will be able to eliminate the need to use email and return to methods of communication that are much more civilised such as talking to each other! To go one step further we could actually meet up with each other face to face! Let’s face it, whilst local transport may have got more expensive, long distance travel has got cheaper. (If I am right on this one and you pursue my logic, it might mean that you start to phone the person sitting adjacent to you but fly to see someone 1000 miles away just to say hello! Maybe I’ll consider that for a different blog entry!)

Restrictions on Standing and Litter

I am intrigued by the indication that trucks can sit or stand here. Presumably it helps make lifting loads easier. I was also intrigued by the time restriction on "Don't Litter"!

Liberty, Ellis and Blue Hats

We made it to Ellis Island 

 

Things are getting smaller

We did notice that NY was a little more technologically advanced. Even their emergency services have been condensed. Mini ambulances?...  

Teaching has it's perks

I've decided that if I takeup teaching I'm heading for New York. It seems that you can pick your company car right off the shelf. Any of these would do.  

Metro Flushing - Part 2

It was a bit trickier avoiding the flush. Fortunately we heard it coming and followed the crowed out! 

 

Apologies for the toilet humour.

Metro Flushing - Part 1

Believe it or not they expect their No. 7 Purple Metro to be flushed. We managed to avoid getting wet. 

 

A Girl's Best Friend or a Man's worst Enemy?

Whilst browsing a friend send me a text telling me that Tiffany's was a girl's best friend. She failed to warn me it was a man's worst enemy. I missed breakfast and think I might have been taken to the cleaners! 

 

You can't keep an Old Dog New Tricks (or curb the old tricks)

I saw many dogs being walked by their owners, many walking their owners, others being walked by people paid by their owners. Fortunately (I think) I didn't get to see a dog being curbed! 

New York, New York

Our New Year resolution was to take a holiday. So on January 1st we booked a trip to New York. We flew out on the 14th of January and saw all that we could in a week. Sight seeing to make our soles soar for seven days. It was great... 

Loosing and Finding Restrooms

I apologise for the poor image quality. Notwithstanding this I wasn't sure what the difference between a lost restroom and a found restroom. So I went to investigate...

Smiles, Gritted Teeth, Central Park in New York

On our first day we woke up to snow. This was taken looking out onto the reservoir in Central Park. Our teeth were clenched because it was so cold! 

Do I Still Pass as an Engineer

This is for Dad, the question is will they let me in?! - "last yere I cudnt evn spel engineer now I am 1!" - well kinda! 

Thoughts on canine etiquette

I wasn't thinking about that at all. I don't even have a dog. It is clear that Big Brother had ESP... 

Signs Language and the Interpreter

Language is a funny thing - I do accept this. I also accept that American English is a stones throw from the Queens English (and I do believe it is only a stones throw). However on Anne-Marie and my recent trip to New York I couldn't resist thinking about alternative interpretation to the streeet signs we saw.

The following few posts are illustrations of my point. They range from time restrictions on littering the streets to flushing mains on the Metro system. many of them caused me significant ammusement. Some caused Anne-Marie significant frustration (waiting for me to get a good shot). For all of them I blame (and thank) Jon Roper for starting this whole affair!

Ground Transportation

I can't remember the last time ground transportation waited for anybody! Sorry!