Not a bad day yersterday, I had the afternoon to myself on the PC, and we went visiting the Sankey's at 16:00 - a good evening was had by all...

Another day, another matchpot - still undecided on the colour for the ceiling, but it's now tending towards 'A Hint of' type white, I think it's too light, but I seem to be in the minority on that one...

Today was the first day of the Microsoft course for Windows XP, pretty good it was too. It seems that MS have put a lot of effor into the 'Unattended Install'. On NT4 and W2K training this was a last day topic, covered briefly and in haste. On the XP training, it is an integral part of the 1st day! Lunch time was a trip to "Ask" where I had a very nice (and quite large) Stromboli (Double pepperoni sausage, mozzarella, tomato), I think it will be Quattro Formaggi
(Four cheeses, tomato) next time.

Stargate series 7 starts tonight on Sky one.... Whhhoooooo Hooooooo!!!!!

Got Dido's new CD today, Life For Rent - just listening to it for the first time, and so far - Yes it's a good 'un. White Flag is the most immediate track, but I suspect that there are two or three others that will be fighting for top spot before too long.

It's already on the walkman (24.5 GB on there now!), so may well have a listen on the bus in the morning.... On the Bus! yep, the weather is dire, and there are no real facilities for dealing with wet bike gear at Parity's training centre, so I will rough it on public transport for a couple of days.

Well I did get into the new DIXONS XL, and quite an impressive store it is too... We managed to get all the shoes and stuff we needed to get in quite good time, and I just managed to get home before my patience completely evaporated...

Fame Academy was good last night, my fave 3 are all in the final. I don't think Alex had her best performance, but I still think she may win it. Alister was really good, and he has every chance of winning, but Carolynne was superb, and on that performance deserves to win...

I have now finished 'Ripping' and merging the MP3's for "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" audio book, so now I just have 38 files - 1 Chapter each, with no "Chapter 2 Continued" etc prompts in the middle of a file.

I am now going to see if Amy fancies going a ride on the bikes, I could do with the exercise, and the mood Amanda is in this morning, she would be better with us out of the house.

Just looking at the weblogs and found the link to avland below was broken, I have now fixed that... Sorry whoever you were..

I remortgaged earlier this year, and now have a nice shiny "Offset Mortgage" from First Direct. One of the real big advantages of this (for me) is that my savings account now earns (effectively) 4.6% APR - TAX FREE, this is much better than the ISA's and other tax free savings methods I have been using, so I have closed them all down and movedthe money into my savings account... Ok I don't get any GROWTH on my savings, but it does REDUCE the interest on my mortgage by a significant amount, and means about 3 years reduction in the life of the loan!! Think about it, you know it makes sense.

What does today hold in store - Shopping!! No not the good sort, computers, gadgets, Bikes, HiFi etc., the boring stuff, Food and shoes!!! I can hardly wait. On the plus side, we will be trying the new BULL RING again, so if I can get the girls into a shoe store, I may be able to sneak out into the new BIG DIXONS for an hour!

Hopefully we can get home at a reasonable time, and I can listen to the football on the (internet) radio, followed by the semi final of Fame Academy.

Well, it's now Friday, and I have done no decorating for 4 nights... admitidly I havn'e been at home for 3 of them... I have been away on a traiing course at a company called ITEL in Chester, stopping at the Ramada Inn. but don't get me started on that one, enough to say that if I ever need to stay in Chester, I will NOT be staying at the Ramada.

The Training course was for the Stratus FtServer 3300. A very nice piece of kit, the major problem being that IF you need to wipe it and start again from scratch, it takes about 7 hours...!

I have managed to get to chapter 25 in the "Sword of the Shanara", and have reached chapter 5 in the audio book version of 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix"

Have just spent anout 1 1/2 hours getting up to date with e-mails etc. and am now going to have a break, and a rest before getting an early night... back in my own bed, bliss.

I am now the proud owner of a pair of Sony MDR-EX71SL Fontopia Headphones for use with my Archos FM Recorder Walkman. They fit great, feel really comfortable when in, sound good, and really block out outside noise well - £34 from www.avland.co.uk

My 'Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix' Audio book CD's arrived today. I have just ripped the first 6 CD's to the PC. I have located which of the 65(ish) tracks on each disc are the start of chapters, and am just about to use 'MP3 Splitter & Joiner' from EZ SoftMagic to merge tracks together to give me one file per Chapter. I will then load these onto the walkman.

The Hall is now looking good, the plates have been mounted along the stair wall, and a new *LARGE* mirror has been placed on the radiator wall. I was plesently surprised with the Mirror £45 from B&Q. Total cost for hall so far (not including the Mark Spain painting that started it all off) is £250. I have also finally found a colour that I like for the ceiling, but that too can wait a while.

Yes, the new plan worked fine... Started the Paper Hanging this morning at about 08:30, by 16:00 I was almost finished... Took a break to watch Man United v Arsenal on Sky Sports... Out to Pizza Hut down Merry Hill to eat, and when I got back another 30 minutes doing a couple of finishing touches and putting curtains back etc.

The upstairs still has to be done, as do the actual banister rail and spindles, but rubbing them down can wait a couple of weeks.

The new Seal album arrived in the post yesterday morning, and I have listened to it twice today - love it to bits, must make a copy to play in the car. (Yes, I know that I shouldn't but I refuse to keep a couple of hundred pounds worth of original CD's in the car...)

Amanda has already gone to bed, she was up several times in the night with Alex, he was sick several times. Not sure what the cause was, but he is feeling better now.

Was very upset with Fame Academy last night, the bottom 3 were Carolynne, Peter and James. The safe money was on the judges saving Peter again, but NO!, they saved Carolynne.... Result... But then the blummin students voted Peter in and James out... Now I am not a big James fan, Yes to good voice, talented, good looking etc etc etc, but basically I find him a bit boring. But Oh My God, he is 500 times better than Peter, the guy is just a loon! and a randy little bugger to boot. OK with modern studio technology and enough time they could make a good album with him, and he would be entertaining miming on TOTP, but would you PAY to see him sing live!

My top 3 in order is Alex (So much emotion in her singing), Carolynne (Amazing voice, and what a stunner) and Alistair (Good voice, great personality, very talented songwriter). This has been the case for several weeks now, and I have seen no reason to change it as we get closer to the final... except with Alistair now get James' votes???

Nice quiet day at work... Just what I needed. Nice breakfast baguette, a cup of Costa Cofee and a rest. May get down to B&Q tonight and get the Wallpaper and paste ready to start bright and early tomorrow morning.

Sadly the highlight for this evening is Fame Academy, and Pop Idol...

Better day today, got the gloss roller on the go, finished all the pale colour - except for minor touching up, that can be done this evening after the kids are in bed. Got two coats on of the darker colour (Auburn Falls 2) - The first coat looked awfull : Translucent Red, a second coat and it is nearer to the Mahogony sort of Red/Brown that I was looking for.

I actually got out the house at about 13:30, and enjoyed a couple of hours round Merry Hill where I did nothing more exciting than get a Very Large Latte from Starbucks, and a Cinamon Bun. Gave Lofty a call on the mobile, and withed Deinise a Happy Birthday - then came home.

All I need to do (after the touching up on the paintwork) is relax and work up the enthusiasm to wallpaper on Sunday!

Finally finished the painting, all the downstairs skirting and picture rail completed, one of the three door frames, two of the three window frames... I am knackered. It was a walkman night again tonight, starting of gently with 'David Sneddon', Vamping it up wildly with 'Bat Out Of Hell' by Meatloaf, a nice funky blues break with 'Strong Persuader' by Robert Cray, before finishing of with more Retro OTT... 'Moving Pictures' by Rush.

Tommorow - The Roller... should get the doors, panelling and remaining window and door frames finished by lunchtime... I may even get a lunch break tommorow.... Whoooo Oooooo!

Just had a quick 1/2 hour on the PC, to create a new Photo Album on the Website, for our day out at Avoncroft on Sunday.

That's it for today, I'm off to bed... My neck and arms are killing me.

Yes, a plan that looks to be working.... I have now finished the paint prep downstairs, and may even nip down to B&Q to get the Gloss, so that I can start the 'Out of Reach' places tonight...

Amanda should be due home with the kids any minute, and then I am in the shower to get rid of all this paint dust. I hope dinner is early tonight, I haven't eaten at all today!

Just checked on DigiGuide, and there is nothing on TV tonight to get excited about, so it looks like painting (Dulux - Auburn Falls 5)may be the order of the evening.

It seems that the bad guys have indeed been busy this last week, and a new worm/virus is on its way really soon... Ahh bugger, I'm at work on Saturday, hope they hold off till after then...

New plan for the decorating has been formulated, finish paint prep downstairs today - possibly getting started on the downstairs glossing (Picture rail etc where the kids can't accidentally get covered in paint). Tommorow finish the downstairs glossing of skirtingboard, door frames, doors and windows. This leave me clear on Sunday to paper the downstairs hall, up the stairs as far as the bathroom. On Monday night I can paint the 'Dark' gloss on the bannister etc, after the kids have been put to bed.

I am away in Chester for three days then on a training course, so it then may well be the following weekend before I get chance to finish the upstairs paint prep, and the downstairs glossing (The panelled are under the stairs) The remaining paper hanging is relatively simple and could be done in one evening.

I have just downloaded the trial version of Dreamweaver MX 2004, it looks to be a real improvment of the previous version - subtle but significant changes to the user interface, WYSIWYG support for CSS (Usefull as that is an area where I am actively 'Playing' at the moment, ready for a reworking of my web site)

Finally for this morning, as much as I like to support all the britsh teams in the European cups, it was nice to see a full strength Arsenal team given a lesson by Inter last night. Arsenal lost 3-0, and I really do not see what Arsene Wenger will be able to blame for the defeat, except to finally admit that the team is not as good as he likes to think it is. As long as they win the next few European games, they will probably be OK, and get thro' to the knockout phase.

I have enabled archiving on the Blog today, not quite sure what I am doing with it thro'... I seem to have gained three links in the side bar that all give a "404 page not found" error.

I have ordered a copy of Seal IV from Play.com it's only £8.99... See, price them low, and they will buy...

A new plan is definately in order, I was supposed to have started glossing today, but it will be at least tommorow, if not Friday before the paint prep is complete... I am at work on Saturday, so Sunday looks like being a busy day :-(

Do you Remember Seal? he has a new album out 'Seal IV' and you can hear most of the tracks online here...

Time to let the primer dry before getting the Dyson out and getting the house fit for kids again...

OK, Pete's PC is now fully 'Norton'd with Firewall, Parental Control and AV software installed. Finally something that did go smoothly and acording to plan.

On the decorating front, all of the plasterwork has now been fully prep'd with Uni-Bond, and a significant percentage of the paintwork has been rubbed down and primed. No music yesterday I had a cracking headache, not helped by several hours beind a face mask with a Palm sander...

Found enough time to wash the car, and visit the local McDonalds for lunch... The Chicken Club Flatbread sure is a tasty meal.

To round of the day, football... Man United v Panathikos which United comfortably won 5-0 without actully playing very well.

Oh well, another hour till the kids go to school and I have to start rubbing down again... I am about a day behind schedule on my original plan, after only 2 days! Looks like it's time for a new plan!

Over at iPoding, there is news that about iTunes for Windows...

And Apple, NEWSWEEK learned, quietly informed
some music insiders that it’s moved up the date for
expanding its current Mac-only iTunes for the vast
universe of Windows-based PCs to mid-October

It may be worth hanging onto the iPod till after I have had chance to play with iTunes. In addition if it does make the iPod more Windows friendly, it may make it easier to sell...

Monday morning 09:30 - Phone call from BT to confirm that my line is now working again!! Only 120 messages in my inbox, plus another 100 in various mailing list folders.

I have had one offer for the iPod, but not accepting offers under £300. Even at that price I will be down £120 in 2 months...

Started on the hall this morning, paper stripping is the order of the day... I have removed about 70% of it with no effort, it really did need doing. Now, after a quick break to check e-mails etc. back to work with a scrapper and a bucket of hot soapy water...

That was almost 6 hours ago, and the wallpaper stripping is only just finished. I, however, am completely finished... It was quite relaxing listening on the walkman all day.. I had forgetten just how good Dido's first album was, listened to Liberty X for the first time - not bad - and played the album by Quechia, another one that was too good to have forgotten about.

One bit of news I did spot today, "Harry Potter & the Order of the Phoenix" is very shortly to be released (22nd September) on audio book, once again narrated by the most excellent Stephen Fry. List price for the CD version (24 Discs!) is £75, BBC Shops are offering it at £60, Amazon.co.uk at £52.50. Thats me sorted for a few weeks on the walkman then....

Missions for this evening include such breath taking exciting jobs as, pot up 30 Fuscia and Geranium cuttings, Install AV software on Pete's PC, and watch Star Trek 3 on DVD. I told you I have an exciting existance....

OK, it's been a couple of days... I have no internet connection at home at the moment. My line is faulty, it was reported Wednesday night at 9pm, a BT engineer will be coming round on Saturday morning to fix it. So for today, I will update from Work...

I had a phone call on Wednesday (on the main line, not the faulty one!), from the Credit Card Fraud department of my bank... It seems that two gentlemen were booking into a hotel with a credit card in their name, but with my number!! They are now under arrest.

My 'New' MP3 walkman has arrived, complete with a £30 import duty bill... Grrrrr... and is fully charged and loaded with about 25 Gbytes of MP3's - which thanks to the USB2 interface took less than 1 hour. The iPod will shortly be going up for sale on eBay.

The 'Sword of the Shannara' story is building nicely, and is gently pulling away from the 'Lord of the Rings' clone feel in the early chapters. I am now at chapter 10 and starting to get well into it.

Should be a busy weekend, we have house guests, my bike is due in for a service, and the phone line has to be repaired. I will then have to work my way thro' a huge backlog of e-mails!!

Work wise, Panic and Paranoia is starting to spread over the new vulnerability in Microsoft NT class OS's (MS03-039) as most of the applications we support are based on NT4 or W2K, we have already had several customers requesting that it be fitted.... I am glad I'm off next week, it could be a long one...

Ok, the phrase 'Famous Last words' is one that now springs to mind... Setting up Pete's PC proved to be a bit more work than anticipated. Got it set up and working in under an hour - no problems, installed the ADSL modem - fine. The PC then went online to update help files and driver, then promptley announced that it would shut down in 60 seconds!!! The bugger had been MS.Blaster'd.... in under 30 seconds online!!!

Quick trip back home to get a copy of McAfee Stinger and the Microsoft hotfix, and we were back in business, but just how many fixes / patches are there now for XP on the Windows update site - it took hours!!

Back round there tonight to install Firewall / Virus software / Office / Paint Shop Pro etc. Hopefully this won't take tooooo long.

Back to work today after two weeks out of the office... :-(
The good news - it's my early finish day, the bad news - I have a dentist appointment.

It's been quite busy at work today, so at least the time passes quickly. I started to read my new book at lunchtime, I am now two chapters in, and it seems to be a really good read. I can see the Tolkein inspiration, but it isn't just a copy. I especially liked his explanation on the origins of the dwarves.

One clean bill of health from the dentist and I am happy again.

My mission for this evening is to assist a friend set up his new PC and get connected on his new BT Broadband connection. Shouldn't take too long...

No kids this weekend, they have gone camping with Nanny and Grandad. We took the opertunity to go into Birmingham on our own.

The New Bullring is OK, but nothing special. All the usual suspects are there - Clinton Cards, Dixons, Boots etc but you really could not look around - there were about 5 times more people there than would be comfortable. We will go back again in 4 to 5 week - Hopefully before it gets busy for Xmas!

I bought myself a new paperback - 'The Sword of Shanara' by Terry Brooks, it's the first in a series so if I like it at least the kids will have an easy option of Birthday and Xmas presents for a couple of years.

Stopped in at the Halcyon Gallery. After much debate we have bought another Mark Spain painting. This time it's an original. 'Woman Looking Down' is a pencil/watercolour study for 'After The Party' and is stunning.
This one will go in our bedroom, the print from there is going in the hall - So I now have to redecorate the hall! We stopped of at B&Q on the way back home and have chosen a Paper and two paint colours. I know what I am going to be doing on my week off in September!

We went to the Pictures to see Terminator 3, *Lots* of action and good fun for a couple of hours and I think they have finally wrapped the story up. Complete rubbish of course in the common sence / physics department but I enjoyed it.

Finished early today, so been to the bank, visited my Mom, cut the grass, check work & personal e-mails and fixed a few problems on the website and updated a few pages. The girls are out at a party tonight, so a night with the PC and TV is all mine.....
Finally discovered Blogger the free Weblogging tool that's part of the new Google toolbar.

OK, Just created my new Weblog - Nothing to really say at the moment... Except welcome