Friday Five!

If this makes you happy, I like it.  Are you going to start seeking a new vontract elsewhere immediately, or will you take some time off?

Yep.  No time off planned, but it may take a month or two to actually get started in a new place. 

Meanwhile, more time to spend with your son... or playing with his 3D printer while he's at school. 

I have officially fired my current client.  I'll be there one more week and it's been announced today.  If anyone asks, I am saying "we weren't able to agree on the terms of my next contract renewal " when I really mean"I am so sick of this hipster crap that I demanded a huge rate increase and you can shove your pair programming where the sun don't shine ".  Don't have another contract lined up and don't care.

Good for you!    Life is too short...

Albatross, hopefully Jimmy is a good boy for his bath.  So many dogs love a bath for all the attention and yours sounds like an attention hound    f]

He very definitely did not love it, but he tolerated it and now smells gorgeously of baby powder!!

Baby powder puppy!

1.  hound still smells faintly of baby powder! 
2.  half day at work today... come 11am, ahm oot the door!!
3.  meeting a couple of friends early afternoon for beer and later, the most sublime lamb karahi in Glasgow.
4.  hoping this Cloudwater 6.5% cherry cola sour beer is still on in the pub we're going to.....  dying to try this!
5.  feeling relieved after redundancy announcements at work - my department is not affected!  Sad for others, though.

I'm intrigued by this Cloudwater cherry cola beer, Albatross.  I hope it's still on so you can try it and report back.

My five, briefly...

1.  Birthday week!  Whee!

2.  My husband gave me hand-wound pickups made by a guy in Russia who gets all kinds of rave reviews.  My guitar was fun to play before, but now it sounds incredible!

3.  My husband also gave me a blank 3-ply hdpe sheet to make a custom pickguard, and now I have a Domo Gilmour "signature" guitar!  See the photo...



4.  We made corndog bites on Wednesday night!  We cut the hot dogs into 1-inch pieces, dumped them in the bowl of corn dog batter, then fished them out to drop into the hot oil.  They came out as little balls of corndog joy.  We had them as a "side" to go with our grilled chicken breast sandwiches.

5.  A couple of days left to birthday week, and then I have to let it go for another year.  But it's been great fun!  I need to share all my awesome presents!  Five jars of Vlasic kosher spears(!!!), a garden ornament that is far too cute to leave in the garden, my Domo Gilmour guitar, an interface for recording music, money (at my age, I still get money for my birthday!)...  so much awesome!  Plus, my husband. 

Happy Friday!

Mmmm, albatross cherry cola sour beer sounds intriguing!  I'm hit or miss with sour beers. Some I like and some are too sour for me.   I'd try that one though.

Loving the guitar jfkimberly! Pickups and a custom signed guitar. Rock on!!! 

1.) Off bowling tonight with the brass band. Should be a hoot.   

2.) Going to see some fellow musicians perform tomorrow night in aid of charity.  Looking forward to it.   

3.) Brewing again this weekend. Have had my brewing mojo going strong.  Have so far made a Pale Ale, a NEIPA and Mead in the last few weeks.  Making a winter ale this weekend.  Also have ingredients for a wheat beer, a California common (aka 'Steam Beer') and another IPA.  I think I might try and make it into a cherry wheat and the IPA into a pineapple IPA.  Have had a few pineapple IPAs and I'm a bit obsessed at the moment.   

4.) There is talk about having to do rotations into other departments at work and I'm dreading it.   

5.) Need to get to the gym this weekend. Have been so remiss this week for a variety of reasons. Going to be tough going! 

PB, department rotations are fine if you have your eye on an internal transfer and want to learn more (and network a bit),  but if you're happy doing your present job, I don't see the point.  It's like forced group work when you're in school... just leave me alone and let me get on with my own thing, here.

Anyway, happy brewing, and have a great time bowling tonight and seeing your friends perform tomorrow!  I don't see enough live music.

PB, department rotations are fine if you have your eye on an internal transfer and want to learn more (and network a bit),  but if you're happy doing your present job, I don't see the point.  It's like forced group work when you're in school... just leave me alone and let me get on with my own thing, here.

The thing is, I am not real happy with my current job, but the jobs I would have to move into actually suck worse than this one.So ugghhhhhhh!   

The thing is, I am not real happy with my current job, but the jobs I would have to move into actually suck worse than this one.So ugghhhhhhh!

Oooh, maybe you can do a rotation at some other job entirely.  Like, with a different employer, where it doesn't suck.

Birthday week!  New beers!  Creating beers!  Sounds pretty good all around!

1.  Date day tomorrow, going to see Ant Middleton.  Family were going to babysit.  Booked 6 months ago.  Told me Monday they can't.  I know this family member and that they can be wishy washy.  But we wouldn't have booked to see him in Oxford, we would have done a different location closer to home.  Oh well, live and learn.  Our reliable babysitter is booked. 

2.  We had a difficult weekend last weekend.  My husband was FINALLY installing the mixer tap on the bathtub that he had me order 3 months ago.  I have been SO excited as we didn't have a mixer tap on it before (only one in the house) and I HATE our bath as a result.  This whole fill the bath before you get in thing doesn't work for me.  Plus had the plug with chain (that was broken of course).  So modernised the whole thing.  Of course one bit didn't fit so we had the water to the whole house shut off on Saturday.  Isolated the valve so were able to get water to the house on and just not have a bath.  He put the finishing part on last night and it's AMAZING.  £50 investment and we now have mixing water and a pop up plug.  SO AMAZING.   

3.  Sunday... a toilet that has had a habit of continuously running was the problem.  My husband did something and all of a sudden it wouldn't stop filling and started overflowing.  So the whole house had to have the water shut off again.  We got that fixed on Sunday after the kids went to bed.  But have LOTS of wash to do this weekend.  LOTS of wash!

4.  Going to a work thing in Shoreditch on Sunday.  From 5pm to 8pm.  Shoreditch ain't close to me people.  Going to be a late one.... 

5.  I am soooo ready for the weekend.  I can't believe it's only 1pm.....  <sigh>

We're still keeping the water off except when we need it, so I can relate to your difficult weekend.  I'm glad yours is now sorted... and you have a mixer tap!  Yay!

We're still keeping the water off except when we need it, so I can relate to your difficult weekend.  I'm glad yours is now sorted... and you have a mixer tap!  Yay!

I am still in disbelief that each thing in the house doesn't have an isolator valve.  We've been in our house 4 years now so several things do now.  Kitchen sink, washer, utility sink, dishwasher, hot water heater, and bath all do now.  Still need the 3 toilets and 3 bathroom sinks to have isolator valves.  My house isn't even old.  1988.  Not exactly before modern plumbing....

I am still in disbelief that each thing in the house doesn't have an isolator valve.  We've been in our house 4 years now so several things do now.  Kitchen sink, washer, utility sink, dishwasher, hot water heater, and bath all do now.  Still need the 3 toilets and 3 bathroom sinks to have isolator valves.  My house isn't even old.  1988.  Not exactly before modern plumbing....

I literally found out for the first time where my one stopcock is a few weeks ago!  Yay!  Before that it was a case of going out into the street to turn the water off if necessary!