Dentist Appointments Done

The time for procrastinating had gone on long enough and I did all my chores in one hit today including phoning my friend who is now in Thailand and seems to be enjoying his time there.  I then called the Dentists and set up my appointments starting next Thursday and so will get my teeth sorted.  I'm adding rinsing and final cleaning at night using Bicarbonate of Soda (Baking Soda) to just neutralise my mouth of acid before bed.  I hope that this little routine will assist in the longer term.  I'm also considering getting a water pick - my cousin in the US talked about getting one - it looks pretty impressive tool and I'll discuss with my dentist what he thinks.  

I wonder if having Cancer has anything to do with my teeth problems or whether it is just an "age thing".  Whatever, I want to hang on to them as long as possible and so need to work out some sort of long term maintenance plan.

Out and further tests of my resolve

I did rather well tonight - I stuck to Red Wine, I had only vegetables and meat, no gravy and no pudding.  A kind soul remembered that I like Cheese and Biscuits and presented me with a plate full which I gave to my colleagues - I had the Celery only.  I am determined to lose more weight and I reckon a stone in 3 weeks is pretty good in fact I think it is close to 1 and a half stone already, 3 to 4 inches around my stomach gone already, trousers are beginning to fit better, belt in by one step, watch now loose on wrist, ring now goes on to finger easily and so on.  I can put my fingers between my neck and the collar of my shirt too.

My stomach is really beginning to show improvement and also under my arms and around the side of my torso so all in all, I'm heading in the right direction.  I am moving cheat day to Sunday as we are out and about Whisky tasting and probably having a meal - I think that is what Mrs. F. muttered to me under her breath.  I'm sure that if I caught her on a day when she isn't tired or pissed off with me that she might speak properly to me and I'd understand what was being said.  

Anyway, that aside, I've had a good day and managed to do a couple of miles walk and eat properly so that's good.

There's a clue

I have a programme that replicates the files on one device and copies them to another.  I finished the cataloguing and set this going last night - it's going to take another 4 days to complete the transfer of files from one device to the other across a reasonably fast network - even so - that's a lot of data being transferred :-)

Of course, I've changed practically every file name, all the tag data associated with each one and also much of the Folder structure!  

I was having another one of my "episodes" again last night - not really getting to sleep and getting all worked up about something - not sure what it was.  Today I'm procrastinating a bit I need to go and sort out appointments and the like and I think I've got my diary in some sort of order so I can ring the Dentist and get my 4 appointments set in stone.  I have a number of days where I am out and about and suddenly I wonder where all these things have materialised from.

Still no word from potential employers but in some ways I am getting used to that.  Out this afternoon to a meeting and must go and get ready soon for that.  Weight is still coming off nicely and my belt can go the extra notch in and also my watch is loose on my arm and my ring fits my finger again!  I'm getting used to the diet again now but this weekend need to move cheat day back a day to Sunday as we are going out.

Catalogue

Finally I have completed cataloguing my music - well that I already have recorded that is.  It's taken absolutely ages and at least 60 or more hours of work I reckon.  Anyway, it is completed now and I'm just tidying it all up.  I can now search directly and see what tracks and artists I have.  

Now I need to keep up the discipline and move the rest of my music over a bit at a time.  

I also now need to get my schedule in order so that I can get my dentist appointments scheduled along with all the other bits and pieces I need to sort out.  

Spit it out man

Thanks to Flocky for those words earlier :-)

Interesting- I went to a friend's house earlier and we chatted (as you do) and he was interested about how I felt about my dad.  It's strange (funny peculiar) as I am neutral about it - I have an attitude that everyone dies and when your time is up, well that's it and that it is part of "life" if that isn't a tautology in itself.  

I read with some emotion this blog entry by Jim Tuffin in his ongoing blog about his terminal cancer.  I only know Jim from having exchanged emails 10 years ago but saw his blog and was curiously drawn to it because, in many ways, it could have been me.  I am beginning to find his blog both disturbing and yet I'm drawn to his pragmatic and optimistic outlook as well as some "moth to a flame" attraction because "there but through the grace of God go I"

In many ways Jim has been wrapping up what it feels like to know that the end is coming and who knows when it will be whilst he still keeps up his own spirits and those of his family.  It demonstrates how you don't suffer in silence yourself but how you suffer for ty=hose around you and worry about them.  Wonderful human characteristics but perhaps somewhat misplaced as you won't be there after the event - or will you - as Jim discusses?

So back to the plot and I was talking about my dad and how I didn't feel that he had a "good death" that he lay there helpless in bed and for many weeks on end knew that he could do nothing for himself (and I mean nothing).  for a man of his standing and independence it must have been humiliating and upsetting and I did see him upset for the first time in my life.  I saw fear in his eyes, I saw hurt and I saw helplessness in someone that had, until that point never been helpless before but had been the "head of the family", strong, resolute and a leader to us.  He was reduced to a helpless, feeble, grey shell of the man I knew and it does upset me.  It upsets me because you don't want to see this sort of whimpering away of life; this steady and then rapid decline.   

So did it affect me?  Of course it did but I'm comforted by a number of things and disturbed by others.  My father and I were never "close" but we knew between us what was going on - I felt every bit of survivor syndrome when he was diagnosed and he knew it and reassured me about that.  He knew what was coming and he dealt with it as only he and we knew he would.  He was a very brave man and considering he'd never really been ill or been in Hospital for well over 60 years - he had a good innings.  He bore the Hospital stuff as well as he could and whilst he was "spaced out" on a number of occasions (often you are thankful for that when you think about it as he didn't know what was going on), he dealt with everything heroically.

How do I feel now?  I guess I don't want to die like he did.  It wasn't "fair" and it wasn't "nice" and you can see why Cancer has this fearsome reputation.  I've been moved in many ways (and humbled) by his and my own experiences.  However, this hasn't manifested itself very well in me as I want to go and live life to the fullest and my circumstances and my own conservative and introvert (yes I KNOW that's difficult to comprehend if you know me) personality stop me from cutting loose and living my life flat out.

Interesting times ahead.....   

Phew

That Was an interesting afternoon and night out - as usual I got the jitters as the meeting started as I still have this mini panic attack about being in these rooms and getting hot and airless but they had the fans on and it wasn't as busy at it was a few years back and so there was room to move around and I felt fine.

We had a good Burns Supper and a good few drinks back at the Club and I arrived home at 02:30.  It was a good night out.  Reality bites and I'm back on my diet this morning and the cycle starts again.

I'm continuing to re catalogue my music and have two PCs running together closing in on each other from either end of the alphabet.

I managed to chip a lump off one of my teeth which all adds to my bill with the Dentist!  I need to arrange a series of visits to get all this lot done and the Root Canal treatment is the first on the bill - as long as he numbs my head it will be fine!

An Afternoon And Evening

It's time for the boys from Scotland to come down here and this afternoon and tonight should be a good evening once again.  It is one of those meetings that is quite enjoyable once I've got over the mini panic attack with the crowded room at the beginning but we call off for tea halfway through and so that's normally OK.

We then have a Burn's Supper with all the pipes and Haggis etc - very nice.  Then on to the Conservative Club and have a few drinks before getting home in the early hours.

It is cheat day and so I will have plenty of things to cheat with including beer and potatoes and Cheese so I'll be happy and fully stuffed when I get home.

I've lost around a Stone so far but have far more to go on that.  I happened onto a Programme from Aljazeera last night - a South African chat show and a chap called Tim Noakes was on there talking about diet and he very much promoted the Atkins / Tim Ferris approach but more that that went on to explain some of the interesting facts around the food and drugs industries.  Look him up on the Internet - he is a University Professor in South Africa.

As an approach it makes perfect sense to me and you can see where all these processed foods start to give you trouble.  

I start week 4 of the diet tomorrow and I'm hoping for yet more improvement although I have a number of functions coming up that will challenge me - I was able last week to only eat those things I'm allowed to and refused the others.  I feel pretty good about that and I know that in keeping to this diet (this time) I should be able to get back into my clothes!  

I've had a relatively good week this week but I've been occupied and not disturbed too much so that's probably what it is - my mind being off things.

Turning Out To Be An Expensive Week

This time at the Dentist :-(  All looked OK until the mention of a small blister which looks to be from the tooth adjacent to the Root Canal filled one.  At one point it looked as if that one was due out but a trace dye and X-Ray sorted that out and found another two fillings!  So Root Canal to see if the Tooth can be saved and clear the wee blister.  Then a further two refills for loose or potentially loose ones.  

I've got the estimate so Mrs. F. took a sharp intake of breath when she saw that. 

Had a long chat with my business partner - we are both having the frustration of trying to do something new that isn't "going back" on what we did, in other words, we want something to build on what we did in the last few years.  

I'm having some doubts about quite what I want to do but hey ho, I'm pressing onwards and let's see what happens.

Observations

• After a while you forget you had bladder cancer for hours and sometimes a whole day.  
• I find myself talking about having had a serious illness or major incident in my life rather than saying Cancer - not because I don't want to say it but that I don't want to alarm the person I'm with
• On reflection, looking at photos and thinking back - I did look like sh1t when I was ill.  Sorry I looked grey and drawn even though I kept a good sense of humour my looks betrayed what was happening to me.
• I am a little crazier than I used to be and in some ways it doesn't matter - one day I will act my age but I fear that is many years away
• Whilst I'm confident about the future - I'm going to have one for some sort of time, I'm actually hiding the fear that I will be "got" next time as I escaped this time - survivor syndrome.

Anyhow enough for now - just a few observations 

Car Fixed

Expensive to get things done these days and a new battery for the car was "reassuringly expensive".  If I get this job it comes with a car (or the money) and so I can probably have a think about that then.  If of course they get back to me!  At the moment it is just over the week so we will see, they are apparently notoriously slow in getting people in via the normal process.

So onto more mundane stuff.  A little later today I'm off with Flocky Bicep to a meeting over in Berkshire.  I've been to the centre we are going to before - it's built like a prison block :-)  At least the cars are safe given the number of CCTV cameras they have there!  

I'm progressing with getting my music library into some semblance of order.  I am only up to the letter C but that includes all my Classical Music of which I have a large collection.  After that I should race through until I get to the Films and Soundtracks section which also has a lot as well as Jazz.  At least I've worked out that I can selectively index the sections so that is helping loading and unloading.

I'm pleased with my diet - in fact I'll see later if I can fit into my suit again - I wasn't able to 2 weeks ago which really spurred me on to get back to a proper diet.  I've lost around 1/2 a stone but the main thing is that my Stomach is contracting and the flabby bits either side have all but gone now (Love Handles as they are sometimes called).  I've lost some weight off my hips too and a little around my neck.  Hopefully it can be steady progress from here.  Tonight will be a challenge as there will be bread and cheese and other forbidden stuff - I will make sure I don't touch them.

The Trouble With Extreme Cold

Is it picks out when there is a small problem and makes it worse.  My car decided that enough was enough and the battery gave up on me on Saturday morning.  Normally I'd shrug that off but this was the one day a year I may have got to see my wider family and for the last 2 years I haven't been and so I was determined to go but was really worried about the overnight forecast which was for between 2 and 4 inches of snow!!  However I guessed that if I got up at 6:30 and it was snowing well the day wouldn't happen but as it happened rain had been and so all was set.  I was going to go and get the HS1 Javelin Train to Stratford (Where the Olympics were held) and walk to the School (I helped to build years ago) and on the way have a slap up breakfast.

However, I got in the car only to have it just click and then whir at me :-(  I tried it a few more times but it's pretty obvious what it is.  I rang the garage (eventually) and they will hopefully come out tomorrow or Tuesday to sort it out.   

So on Saturday I eventually took myself to the Post Office to pay in some cheques and then but some Wine Gums that I then consumed on a walk down to the Doctor's surgery to put in my repeat prescription.  I then tried to call Mrs. F. as agreed but couldn't get through - she was vacuuming.  So I walked home and then we agreed to go out for a spot of lunch which was nice.

I did next to nothing today for some reason I'd knocked all the get up and go out of myself but I think it is really that I was disappointed about Saturday and also just a little down.  I'm focussing on getting my record collection sorted out as I've realised what a bad job I have done cataloguing and indexing it these past months I've been making all the vinyl, cassettes and CDs electronically accessible.  So far it seems that whilst I've transferred the music successfully I've been less than successful in identifying the year, genre, album and even the proper name of the band or artist.  A brief indexing audit has thrown up a lot of anomalies I need to deal with but I have a nice bit of software caller tagscanner that helps a lot although it does like to crash once a day on me.  It takes a good hour to re-build the index which is a nuisance but once done I can do multiple changes and it automatically does certain tasks for me too - capitalisation, file renaming etc.

It will be a week on from the interview and I wait to hear what may have happened.  I spoke to Mrs. F. about some ideas I have to progress things and will see what she makes of them in the weeks to come.

Ah Sonos

I'm a happy bunny as my Sonos 5 arrived today and after 10 minutes setting it up I was able to thump out some of my tunes from it via my mobile phone - how neat is that?  :-)

It's one of those gadgets that actually work straight out of the box with minimal interference and so far, so good.  I now realise that my indexing of my music really is pants and so I need to spend a bit more time sorting that out - I'm using a thing called Tagscanner but with over 30,000 tracks and counting, it is hard work to make sure that I keep on top of it.  It's silly things like capitalisation and where full stops and commas are used as well as other little nuances with saving the files.  Anyway - at least I can see what I need to do and can get on top of that in stages.

I am hoping that the bad weather that is due overnight will not be as bad as they say so I can get out and go up to London to my Family History AGM which for one reason and another I've missed the last two years!  Fingers crossed.

I've lost three inches off my middle, an inch off my hips and around 1/2 stone in two weeks which I am pretty chuffed at - I think I've lost about 1/2 Inch around my neck too.  The diet can be a bit boring but tomorrow is cheat day - I have to get up early to grab some breakfast before I go and can then just pig out for the rest of the day :-)

Feeling up beat at the moment but I need to put some time into sorting out accounts and the like next week.  Now I've got my go anywhere speaker system there's no reason I cannot work on the dining room table and spread out with my music thumping away at the same time :-)

I'm feeling so much better than I was earlier on in the year - it goes like this - up and down - that's the roller coaster.

Don't Annoy Mrs. F.

She really laid into the Credit Card Company who have now, after 20 years with them, been given their marching orders despite them trying to calm her down and crediting her back extra interest they'd claimed after a f*** up with the bank and their internal systems last month that meant we had to do some emergency payments and then they baulked the electronic transfer and charged us again - bunch of shisters. 

So Mrs. F. blew her top at them and when they kept lumping out the same old drivel she told them where they can stick it - good for her.  I've got to run around changing a number of things tomorrow but that's no hardship.  I think we will have a bit of fun with the letter to them telling them how not to keep a customer but then again they have thousands of other customers and losing a long term customer probably isn't too much of a worry to them.  But they are a bunch of tossers and hopefully the new cards and arrangements we have arrived at will see us OK in the future.

Nice one - I'd hate to be on the end of a Mrs. F. Rant :-)  Mind you - you haven't seen me go for someone either - that's exciting too :-)  I remember withdrawing all my funds from a bank as one of the Tellers gave us a funny look as if we couldn't afford a mortgage and said something similar so I withdrew all my savings - that shocked the little pratt when he realised I had enough to buy half the house - so he called the manager and I had much pleasure explaining in a slightly too loud voice about how badly I'd been treated and that the Teller didn't think we would have enough to raise a Mortgage.  He looked stupid, the manager looked furious and I took my money out anyway as a point of order.  Then went around the corner to another bank showed them the cheque and asked if I were to deposit this amount would they consider a chat about a mortgage - you'd be surprised how quickly they responded.

Anyhow - glad she's in bed and not ranting - it was quite frightening :-)

Digitise My Life

Now I have the Server setup for the house and all the back up and stuff working nicely I've decided to take the plunge and put all my music online too.  I've invested in a WiFi bridge and a Speaker system from Sonos which I can operate by PC, Smartphone or one of the girl's tablets.  As it is WiFi I can take it into different rooms and play music anywhere in the house.  It also connects to Internet Radio.  I've missed my HiFi system and I just don't play enough of my stuff on the Surround Sound system which is stuck connected to the TV.

So I'm looking forward to being able to stream my music to any room in the house and to control it by genre, artist etc.  Cool.

Beginning to notice the weight coming off this week - same as last time with the good old love handles going first and the stomach becoming less intrusive.  Still a long way to go but hopefully if I can continue this I can bring my weight down to more acceptable levels.

Feeling OK at the moment which is good.  Haven't been down for a week or so which pleases me.

All Work and No Play

Mrs. F. is once again working on her day off that's twice now and with hardly seeing her at the weekend and (let's not forget) I'm a feature in the house, we still hardly ever see each other.

It's a bit annoying - not that I'm possessive or particularly demanding  in anyway, I certainly don't need attention but it would be nice to spend more than 5 or 10 minutes a week together!  

Somehow I'm feeling that this particular job I'm after isn't the right thing to do for me but it will at least get me out of the house 12 or more hours a day and just leave weekends to sort out.  Perhaps that's not the right way to look at it but it may settle things or start to.

Interview - Maybe

An interesting telephone interview this morning to check that I aligned with some core competencies and now I have to wait possibly a couple of week to see if they will proceed further. Interesting.

The snow is still hanging around and we expect more - it of disrupts loads of stuff and travel is a nightmare.  I will see if we are going to meet tonight - I'd call it off as there will hardly be enough of us to make a quorum I would guess.

Yes indeed we got snow

Nowhere near as bad as we have had before but as usual the railways managed to screw up meaning A had a long journey home and spent over 3 hours by various means to get home and looking at their performance I doubt things will be a lot better when everyone gets back to work tomorrow.  I know I've had some journeys from hell but surely in these days of technology and surely having learnt from the past they are able to actually do something about it.  Obviously not!  In some ways though I shouldn't be surprised.

I have my Interview in about 9 hours time.  The upside is it is by phone so no worries about the weather there.  I have an invite to go for a lunchtime drink too so I may take that up if I feel I have been successful in the interview.  Can you believe it that I re-checked the email they sent me out and the link still doesn't work.  How shoddy is that?  So that's why things don't surprise me any more even top world class businesses have staff that aren't above average I'd say.

I need to get an appointment with my Doctor and with my Dentist and so I'll plan to nail that this week and I've a few other things that need sorting too.  Hopefully I will get around to them soon. 

I worked out that I spent 5 minutes with Mrs. F this weekend and perhaps 15 minutes in total if you include sitting down to lunch as time spent.  She did sit in the living room at one time but read her book and didn't utter a word.  Was she out all weekend?  No of course not for once I was home all weekend so it is a pretty remarkable feat given we were locked in the house that we hardly saw or spoke to each other in all that time!  

Oh well better get to bed so as to be a bit bright and breezy for my interview later.

Snow - Well I guess so

We have some snow but it looks more like Ice will be the issue.  It's been fine snow blown around in very strong winds.  Mind you is has disrupted a lot of the transport system yet again....

I got the next step of my interview process coming up on Monday which is good - a telephone interview this time - again that's good and we will just have to see how it goes from there.  I suppose the results weren't too bad after all?  

The nice thing is that it is conducted on the phone and that means that I don't have to have the stress of trying to get to an appointment when the weather is bad.

Interesting Day Coming Up

It will be interesting to see what they make of my varied test results but today is going to be interesting as I'm catching up with an old work colleague. He has moved down to Rye which is a lovely village in East Sussex - I'd like to live there myself.  I have early memories of family holidays and outings - to nearby Camber Sands where we really did have SANDwiches for lunch :-)

We are expecting some sort of snow event tomorrow and we are getting warned that it will be like 2012 or some other disaster movie but - it's just snow!  A few flakes and the country comes to a standstill!

I am gradually getting my record, cassette and CD collection sorted out and catalogued - I was surprised at how much I actually have.  So far I have over 25,000 tracks on the server!  That was a surprise but, then again, being a DJ many years ago, I suppose I shouldn't be.

The sun is out today but it mush be -4 or -5 out there :-)  So a crisp walk off to lunch...

My general outlook is quite good at the moment and the diet appears to have taken a good inch of perhaps more off of my stomach already so encouraging signs there.

Test Results

Well it's official - I'm a bit on the thick side on one of the tests and a little better than thick on the other one.  Fair enough, let's see if it daunts them to speak to me.

Had a crazy day all around today - I am trying to get my music off of Vinyl, Tape and CD and onto my Server.  This is OK but it is taking a lot of time to do.  I've also now realised that I should be indexing the tracks a bit better and have a piece of software to do that - great - however when you consider that I have close to 26,000 tracks already electronically recorded it is taking me some time to index, re index, merge duplicates etc.

Diet is taking hole nicely now and I'm beginning to get myself into the flow of drinking plenty of water and of eating the same things over and over again - until Saturday that is when I can take a bit of a rest.  I'm out tomorrow to the local pub and so I need to make sure that I'll be on my Red Wine regime and also just have to be careful what I eat.

Feeling quite well and that may be because I've got some things sorted, the diet has started working and other factors.