h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Universities are strange. Dundee university was a giant mess of various ages of buildings scattedr around randomly mostly on the campus, but some were scattered elsewhere. It was a nightmare trying to find anything or anywhere! Abertay university had one building, some old, some newer and stuck on. It did however make sense for the most part. Rooms numbered 1050, 2050 etc were in the 'new' side and rooms numbered 1500, 2500 were on the 'old' side. All connected with sensible corridors a disabled lift at the front and a general use lift at the back. The students union and the library were in adjacent buildings.

Universities are strange indeed...

I'm lucky that my office is in an old building that was well refurbished a couple of years ago, so the facilities are mostly good, but there is some work going on at the moment, including on the lift. Luckily for me, there is another, older lift, plus a ramped fire exit, so I'm ok, but it will be better when the modern lift is back in service and the literal dust settles.

Thinking of you, lil...

[GDZ]

[Bagpuss]

Sitting the George with a pint of Otter.
[BB]

[ Pastey, feral in NZ ]

NZ an British meets... , though admittedly not for the travel but for meeting the people. Having said that, NZ is on the family bucket list of places to go and explore!

Refurbishing and moving-wise, we're doing both at the office. Not in such glamour - the building only has two floors (ground/1st or 1st/2nd as to your preferences), one functional lift and lots of loos, some with showers, and all working.

But the moving part feels a bit odd - though moving is a constant here, I have moved office only once in soon 11 years Made me sort of define myself as the center of the universe around which all my colleagues moved in random ways

Or, as Danish poet (and much more) Piet Hein put it mouch more eloquently in one of his grooks:

THE CENTRAL POINT
A philosophistry

I am the Universe's Centre.
No subtle sceptics can confound me;
for how can other viewpoints enter,
when all the rest is all around me?

(He did many of them in Danish AND English, keeping the meaning and still both elegant and well rhymed - makes me downright amazed whenever I think of it. More here: http://www.leptonica.com/cachedpages/grooks/grooks.html)

Oh, and Lil: Get well!

This morning at 9am the toilets on our floor were finally open – hurray! Then at 2pm they were locked.

At 2:15pm we had the following e-mail:

'I'm sorry to have to say that we have had a sewage pipe leak in [the room directly below the loos]. We will not know the severity of this and any remedial works for a while. I would suggest anybody with bookings for certainly the early part of next week to consider alternative plans in case we are unable to get the room ship-shape in time. Rest assured we will be working hard to get this ready soon.'

<BB<

You can but hope the bosses and project manager were having a meeting downstairs, when this plumbing FU revealed itself.

Hello All! Greetings from New Zealand!

So far it's very much like the mis-remembered England of my youth, but with friendlier people. Expect a write-up for the Post, and a surplus of photos later!

But you missed the most important item...
Hows the ?

Very similar to England so far. Quite a bit of so-so stuff, but some real good ones.

Today's work e-mail of the day:

'If you look out of the windows on the North Side of the building on Thursday 25th and spot a man throwing himself off the crane and/or dangling by a harness then please don’t worry, they are staging a training exercise to ensure they know how to deal with a rescue.'

<BB<

Enjoy your trip pastry.

I have my 20 week scan on Monday to check the progress of the MicroMouse.

I received an impressive e-mail yesterday, after struggling to navigate to my office past some large holes that had been dug, telling us that some holes were going to be dug, so we all needed to be careful!

Not as fascinating as seeing working cranes doubling as training equipment, though!

(Tod)

Well, no construction/renovation related woes at my workplace, at least (though it'd be nice if the portable our classroom is in had plumbing--the *other* portables do). It's been interesting from an HR perspective, though. Y'see, our teacher accepted an adaptive PE position overseas, so I knew there'd be a new-to-us teacher this year. We got along well, and the students were adjusting to having a teacher that expected more work (complaints, of course, but much less chaos). On the 12th, I was out on a planned day off. When I returned on the 15th, a sub had just arrived (I work 10:30 to 2:00) and the principal was just leaving. The teacher had flat-out walked out. Yes, she quit. And, nearly 2 school weeks later, there is still no sign of the 5 classroom iPads she'd taken home to install things on. The last I heard, there has also been no one even applying for the position. We do, at least, have a sub that will be with us until 10/10, or until we have a new permanent teacher, whichever comes first.

I wanna be a minion again

I wish I could look out a window and see a crane with somebody dangling off it. The most we get is men trompling around on the roof, looking for the leaks that happen during rather rare thunderstorms.

I also envy Pastey being in New Zealand. That was a place I always wanted to see, at least the South Island where the incredible scenery is.

My 5-year-old Kindle died this morning. But the DX is dead, long live the Fire! I'm now saving up to get the new Fire HD 7, which looks so full-featured as to possibly supplant my netbook. And I guess I'll read books on my netbook until then, but I'll have to exercise some restraint or I'll scorch my eyeballs.

I recently got myself a new phone, on Paypal Credit; waiting to get a wallet-type case before I actually start using it. Partly to protect it from bumps and scratches, and partly because said case comes with a keyboard, but ...

I'm the least Luddite-ish member of my family, and I *still* prefer to have a telepone I can *close*. While my social life is literally almost entirely online, there are times when I *don't* need to be glued to a screen 24/7 thankyouverymuch.