Monthly Archives: May 2009

My First Day Back At Work

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Today was my first day back at work after three months of being unemployed.

So naturally I was rather nervous, as most of us are when starting a new job, and as is typical for me, every new job I have takes me to somewhere I don’t know.  This one is no different, at Juno Beach, just north of West Palm Beach in South Florida.

It’s a 45 mile drive to work, and as I had to be there by 9:30am to meet my new boss, I thought I had better leave by 7:45am in case the traffic was heavy.   Well as it turns out, pretty much nobody went to work by the look of it, so the roads were fairly empty, and I got there by 8:50am!   I still had to wait until 9:45am for my boss to arrive, as he had to go to the other office first, so by the time introductions had been done in the department and I had got my security card etc, it was time for lunch.

My boss was busy, so I took a walk out, a chance to call Debbie, and also my Son, both in England.   The office is in a small strip mall, and across the road is a park.  The other side of the park is the Ocean Drive, and beyond that the beach!   There was a wooden walkway with steps leading down to the beach, so I stood there to make my phone calls and took advantage of the nice breeze that was blowing, it was great to not feel as sticky as I had just 1/4 mile inland.

The afternoon went well, with me getting into the systems and looking at a few programs, and then the drive home was fairly uneventful, getting home at 6:30pm.

I thought as I had been sticky, it would be a good idea to put the sauna on, and with luck someone had already used it, so it was still pretty warm.  Nice to only need 15 minutes to warm it up instead of almost an hour!   I had a good sauna, did 30 lengths in the pool and then back up my well trodden six flights of stairs to the condo, by which time it was close to 8pm.

I was ravenous by this time, having only had grapefruit juice and a banana before I left this morning, and just water and two cups of green tea all day.  I didn’t care to go out to eat, I preferred to explore a bit and make my phone calls instead.  Starving I was, but I didn’t want to overdo things as it was late, so I just made a cheese and tomato sandwich with some German Black Bread (Pepperidge Farm, really good) and peeled and sliced 3 carrots and had those with some ranch dressing.  Yumm…  Followed by a Raspberry Fat Free Yoghurt.  That hit the spot, and wasn’t too heavy either.   Now if I can do the same tomorrow, I ought to lose a couple of pounds for sure…

Watched a bit of tv, nothing much on though.  Caught up on my email, tried to print a couple of documents, but the ink was low on the printer, need to redo those at work tomorrow.  And now, last thing before bed, to catch up on Tagfoot.

So now I am winding down, and about ready for that trip to the Land Of Nod.   Catch you tomorrow… zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…

The End Of A Short Era

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Deer Creek Country Club Deerfield Beach FloridaTomorrow I head back to work, starting a new contract after three months of being unemployed, and so apart from weekends, today marked the last time I expect to be able to take my morning walk around Deer Creek.

I have really enjoyed getting out of bed in the morning, and heading out around the lakes and golf course at Deer Creek to stretch my legs, listen to the birds chirping, and to watch the wildlife and trees.  There is always something different to see every time I take a walk, and I will really miss it.  At least I should have one weekend day when I can take my walk (the other I see my daughters and take them for breakfast, so no time).

I also still hope to go walking most evenings, which I also enjoy, and it’s different, especially in the dark.  Of course now with Summer here it doesn’t get dark until late.  Going out for a walk at 8pm even a few weeks ago would provide you with an awesome clear sky full of stars.  Now the sun still hasn’t set by that time.

Well it looks as if my Squidoo Lens about my walks around Deer Creek has started a trend.  Today Clouda9 published a lens about a Walk On Our Country Road, a lovely tour of the rural area where she lives, and it’s so different to Deer Creek, being out in the countryside.

I hope many more people will think about doing this.  It’s so nice to see the places where people live, so inviting to stroll along with them on a virtual tour of their favorite places to go walking, and nice to see the photographs of these special places.   So if you think you might like to do this, let me know.  Just stroll out, camera in hand, create a lens or a blog post, and I will write about it.   Maybe we can acquire a nice collection of these as time goes on.   If nothing else, these will make great memories in years to come, something to hand down to the children and grandchildren.

Patricia Sanders (aka Jewelsofawe) also has a great lens about being out on her sister-in-laws farm.  Take a look at Out On The Farm and see if you feel envious of the beautiful scenery.  She also created a lens that gives a wonderful virtual tour of her Garden Of Veggies – the Apple Pie looks delicious.

Definitely Good Timing

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The rainy season started here in South Florida several weeks ago, but the last couple of days have been really wet with heavy showers and thunderstorms.

This morning I woke up to find it was still pretty dark, with the skies very overcast and it had rained a lot in the night.   Nevertheless, I decided to try and take my morning walk to try and wake up, as my head was in a complete fuzz after a hard day yesterday.

I saw hardly anyone on my walk around Deer Creek, just a lady walking her dog, and two people cycling around the loop.  I guess everyone else was more sensible and decided to play it safe!

Well about 1/3 of the way around the loop I could see a few spots of rain falling on puddles on the ground, and I thought to myself “This is it!  You are going to get drenched!”.  But I didn’t, the sky brightened up a bit, and the walk went really well, except for the blister on the ball of my right foot that insists on re-forming every time I walk.  Maybe I need to try two pairs of socks…

Moving forward to now, 30 minutes later, there is a terrific thunderstorm going on outside, it’s like a monsoon, and the wind has been howling.  If I had got caught in this, there isn’t a tree on earth that I could have sheltered underneath.  I would have come home like a drowned rat!

So maybe this day is starting off ok, maybe luck is on my side today!  I sure hope so, I have so much to try and do, and I am still really tired after yesterday’s exertions (see here).

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** NEWS FLASH **
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10 minutes after posting – a mini tornado whistles down the lake.  Even the ducks are trying to shelter from the rain which is now even harder.   Rain is beating on the front of the condo, a stream of water is pouring down the inside of the front door, and we just caught the bedroom windows in time as a lake formed on the inside and it started to cascade down the wall behind the bed!   Fortunately we just caught it, and a towel put paid to the otherwise large pool of water that was forming.

When it rains like this, the old windows in the condo just don’t seal well enough to keep the rain out.  Where we are by a stair well, the wind channels through, and increases in velocity.

Fortunately it’s calmed down a bit – for now at least…  I think we must have had a good 3 inches of rain in 30 minutes.

I Got A Job Today

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After three months of being unemployed, I finally secured a job today.

I had a phone interview, then found out at the end of the day that the client wants me to start on Tuesday.

My funds had really begun to run low, but fortunately this should work out in money starting to come in before I run out.

The day didn’t go too smoothly though, in fact it didn’t go smoothly at all.  Murphy played his trump cards, but it didn’t do him any good this time.

The day was due to start with my sorting out our storage units with my ex-wife, but due to rain early morning, we didn’t start until 11am.  At least the day from then on was great as regards the weather, even though the early morning forecast was for it to get worse.

I heard from an  agent that I have been working with that I had a phone interview for a position at 2pm.  Got the details for that, and proceeded to sort out storage.  This involved moving lots of boxes and furniture, sorting things out, repacking, tossing out, so by 1:30pm I was hot, sticky, and dirty.

I went to Wendy’s to clean up and prepare for my interview, was just about to order something to drink after cleaning up, and the phone rang.  The agent said that things were running late, so would 2:15pm be ok!   I ordered my drink and thought, ok, I have neough time to drive the 1 1/2 miles south to the Goodwill store to drop off some things we are getting rid of.

I had only got half a mile down the road when the phone rang again.  The interview was going ahead at 2pm after all – 2 minutes time!   So, I instantly hit traffic, made it to Goodwill within 5 minutes, dialed in on the conference call, and began the interview.

I was aware after about 10 minutes that the phone battery was starting to run low, my having been on the phone for a while already that day, and I don’t have a car charger since I never needed one for this phone.   Well of course the interview went on and on, and I got more and more beeps.   I said to the person interviewing me that I thought my battery was about to die, and as I said that I got a “boodly-boop’ing” sound and the phone went off.

PANIC MODE!   Holy crap, what am I going to do:?

I decided to head back north a mile to my ex-wifes parents house (where she lives), to see if I could use their phone.  Hit traffic of course, so by the time I got there and tried to call it was already 15 minutes after the battery went dead.  I also could not power my phone on enough to get any numbers out of it!   DRAT DRAT AND DOUBLE DRAT!

Plan B – I headed out to Radio Shack, ironically just up the road from Wendys where I had been 30 minutes before.    $21 and five minutes later I have the phone plugged in, but it won’t work because the battery is stone dead.  The phone needs a good 10 minutes of charging before I can use it.  After 3 attempts to call the agent during which the battery died again, I finally sewed things up.

I then went back to Goodwill, dropped off the items I no longer needed, back to my ex-wifes to watch my daughters do their homework, then off to the park with them for an hour.   They were very good today, my youngest who is 4 1/2 was climbing like a monkey, while my eldest who is 8 1/2 was having one of her sad moments, missing her brother (my son who is 28 and lives in England) and her Grandad (my Dad who passed away almost 2 years ago).  She is a very sensitive girl, and although she only met them when she was 2, she misses them.   I told her about when her other Nan (my Mum) passed away 12 years ago, and we both pretty much ended up crying.  Odd situation to see at a park, luckily there was nobody else there.  My youngest joined in and we had a good group hug.  They love hugs, and so do I.

Off then back to Wendy’s to grab a bite to eat with them, before taking my youngest to a swimming lesson.  She did really good, no problems putting her head under water, and I think she will soon be swimming like a fish.   While I was at Wendys, the agent called t0 let me know that I had the job.  Phew!

I dropped them off about 7:30pm, then headed the 30 miles back home, and spent the best part of the last 3 hours catching up on mail.   Wrote to the family about my new job, and now this post.

Since I missed my morning walk today, because it started to pour with rain just as I was about to set off, I am headed out in a few minutes.  Yes I know it’s 11:15pm, but a nice walk around Deer Creek should do me good.  It’s nice and peaceful, good for clearing the head, and I hope a stiff back…

We Are Teaming Up With The Squidoo City Guide

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Big Jim very kindly created a post on his Squidoo City Guide blog all about my USA States lenses and the fact that there are lists on each of them where lensmasters can add their lenses about each state.

The Squidoo City Guide group contains hundreds of lenses about cities all around the world.   By adding your lens to this group, you are increasing the exposure of your lens, since not only will there be a link to your lens from the Group page, chances are that Jim will write about it at some point on his blog.    If you link back to the Squidoo City Guide from your lens, you are increasing the exposure for the Squidoo City Guide, and the better that fares, the more benefit you are likely to get from it.

If you have lenses about the USA, my suite of lense about each State are another place where you can add your lenses.  Based on a State rather on a City basis, both Jim’s Squidoo City Guide and my USA States suite complement each other well, and each of my State lenses links to Squidoo City Guide and vice versa.

So, to get maximum exposure to your USA lenses, I recommend adding them to the Squidoo City Guide as well as to my suite of USA State lenses.  Link back to my State lens and I will add a Featured Lens link back to yours, as well as you having a link on the list.   Don’t forget to Lensroll too.

You can’t go wrong!  Add your lens to these two, link back to both, and watch your traffic increase.

Deer Creek Continues To Rise

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Despite traffic on my new lens on Walking Around Deer Creek having slowed down a bit after the initial boost, this lens continues to rise in the Squidoo Lensrank Charts, with it reaching 212 out of close to 1 million lenses today.   I am overjoyed at the success this lens has seen so far and hope I can do a lot more photographic tour lenses, working with Debbie too on some of these.

Also today I noticed that my Fan Club on Squidoo now numbers 501!   That is an awful lot of fans, and I consider myself very fortunate and favored.

Another Batch Of Fresh Lenses

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Both Debbie and I have been busy this last couple of weeks creating new lenses on Squidoo.

While Debhie has been working on her collection of lenses about Hampshire, I have been working on my USA States lenses, and also a local one about my daily walks.

Firstly, Debbie created a lens about Southampton, the city where she lives.  Southampton is one of the largest ports in England, in the middle of the South Coast, and has seen many famous ships sail down the river, including The Titanic, Queen Mary and Elizabeth, and also their successors the QE2 and QM2.

She just completed another about Netley, a suburb of Southampton which has a lot of history.  Netley has ruins of an Abbey, as well as an old military hospital, the remains of which have been turned into a country park.

Meanwhile, I just completed a lens about the morning walks that I take where I live in Deer Creek in South Florida.  The lens has over 80 photographs from the walk, including some nice homes, lakes, and much of the tropical foliage and wildlife of the area.

I have also been working on a set of lenses about the states in the USA.  I am creating these in alphabetical order, and so far have completed Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas and California.   Each lens has background information on each state, and a list of other lenses about that state.  If you have a Squidoo lens about any of these states, please feel free to add it to the list of lenses to get some free promotion.

If I haven’t got to your state yet, why not subscribe to our blog so you can be kept up to date with progress.  I hope you enjoy what you see here.

I Got A Purple Star For My Bournemouth Lens

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Well not me personally, my Squidoo lens on Bournemouth got a Purple Star.

What is a Purple Star?

The definition says:   This page was handpicked by Squidoo’s editors as one of the most remarkable pages on the entire site.

It seems like it was a long time ago now (although it was only 10 days) that I found out that my  lens had earned the coveted Purple Star award on Squidoo and started to create this post.   I was so excited, and  was all set to publish this new post about this, when I got busy with some other tasks for a few days, and then my laptop decided to crash on me.   The Hard Drive got horribly corrupted, and having realised that it wasn’t going to be possible to get the system restored, I decided to buy a new 500gb Hard Drive to replace the 120gb one that came with the laptop.  The existing drive was already 90% full, despite my offloading my Music and Movies, so getting a larger drive was the best solution.  Since it only cost $90, it was well worth it.

The problem is that any system restore like this takes time, and in my case 4 days!  It’s not just restoring Windows, it’s downloading and installing all the programs, remembering your logins and settings etc.  Lots to do.

I was very fortunate in that I took a backup 4 days before, and since I keep 7 days of mail on the server, I only lost updates to a couple of documents, and any emails that I had sent out in the last few days, but nothing else.   PHEW!  I am so relieved to have the system back…

And now it’s time to play catch up, and work on creating another lens that might get an award…

HAPPY 60th BIRTHDAY CHEF KEEM

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Squidoo’s very own Chef Keem, will be 60 on Thursday 7th May 2009.   The “Chef”, Achim Thiemermann, is a highly active member of Squidoo, has been a Squid Angel, a Squidoo Community Organizer, and has done a lot of work for charity.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHEF!  And many more to come!

I thought I would add this little song that you are no doubt familiar with, in honor of a little story that you shared with the Squidoo community about you and a bear up in Alaska…

Enjoy :)