Be Glad You are not Married To Me!!

Picture the scene, Sunday morning, Its a beautiful day outside, birds in trees, no clouds etc.

*Mike gives a sigh*

Jacqui: "Whassup?"

Mike: "Oh, nothing. Just the sudden realization that I am mortal, and will one day die"

Jacqui "???!!!"

Women of the World, give thanks to Jacqui, from sparing one of your number this fate...

Be Good

Be Glad You are not Married To Me!!

Merry Christmas, have a pay rise!

Hi,

Y'know how when you pull a brick on piece of elastic, nothing happens then you get a face full of brick?

Well.....

I have worked as a Radiographer at Hawkes Bay for 3 and a half years. In that time I have done what I consider to be "the job", in other words, a lot more that is written on my position profile.

I have always thought that you get out of any job what you put in, so whenever any opportunity came up to do a bit extra, I did.

This started with Health and Safety stuff, then departmental documentation, then some computer stuff etc.

My role changed from a basic "MRT" (Medical Radiation Technologist) to MRT (PACS superuser) PACS is the system we have for storing and retrieving digital images, to MRT Angiographer (cardiac) PACS Superuser.

All good clean fun. Job became bigger, but more rewarding. Pay didn't really go up much, but that really wasn't a concern. I could feed my family, and I don't believe in chasing the dollar.

Anyway, my PACS boss gets pregnant,(thanks Jack) and I take on her role in February for initially 6 months. Which feels like a vindication for the extra I put in. Lovely!!

Then my manager resigns. This I am pissed off with, because I really like working for her, and I will miss her input and stuff.

Then...

The Manager (acute services) and clinical head of my department ask me to apply!! and I am "acting up" until the job has been decided on!!!!

This is nice, if terrifying..

So in a 3 month period I go from MRT to Charge MRT (acting) which is a 75% increase in pay!!!!

So I bought an xbox 360, and tickets to go back to the UK to see the olds..

There is no guarantee that this post is going to be mine. I would be surprised if it was, in which case I go back to PACS administrator (acting), and there is no guarantee that THAT role will not go (if the PACS admin comes back after her baby full time)...

So in 8 months I could be back where I started.

Not really, because as long as I do the absolute best I can in whatever role I am allocated, I will have gained a shedload of experience..

I also have the knowledge that my Big Boss thinks that I candle these roles, even if only temporarily..

Which is a real pat on the back, and that is nice

Be Good

Teddy Bears and Hidden Agendas

Hi,
It never ceases to amaze me how really stupid people are. You may have heard about the Brit schoolteacher working in Sudan who managed to become embroiled in a diplomatic shit storm after getting arrested for insulting Islam.

Her Crime? Allowing her school class to name a teddy bear Mohamed.

Now the Muslim takes the graven image thing much more seriously than does the average Christian. You cannot paint God. The reason is that God said not to in one of the 10 commandments. You also cannot make a representation of Mohamed, in case it gets worshipped. In fact, in many Muslim cultures you are forbidden to paint any living thing, or naturalistic environment.

This is why in many Islamic countries their artwork is based on geometry and calligraphy. (And beautiful it is too). To a non-Christian, the puzzling thing is why Christan's tend to ignore this prohibition, rather why the Muslims follow it, but I digress.

Naming a teddy bear Mohamed is wrong under the strict interpretation of Sharia law that they follow in the Sudan. But here is where I lose the thread. The Teacher didn't name the bear, her pupils did. Now I am not suggesting that the children be punished, but what about their parents? Surely they are responsible for the religious teaching of their kids? If not the kids parents, who did teach them? Their Imam? Jail him!

The kids took a poll, so it wasn't one rogue apostate. It was most of them. If this was such a terrible insult, why didn't these kids know? I mean, if a Christan kid wanted to name the class hamster "Satan, destroyer of worlds" I am sure there would be a little murmur of dissension? So whats going on.

The teacher worked in a school where the pupils were mixed Christian and Muslim. Sudan is a country where the north is Muslim, the south Christian, and they hate each other with a passion. they have had wars and stuff, and there is at the moment a very uneasy peace. There is another thread. The British used to run the Sudan.

There is always someone who prefers conflict to peace. If you are an empty, soulless shit head, there is a happy glow from hatred that fills the hole where the love should be. I would try to feel pity for these people, but I cannot be bothered to try. Nothing makes these type of people happier that having someone to despise. In Zimbabwe, their asshole of a President manages to cling to power buy telling the people that Britain is sabotaging the economy, and wants to regain control, giving his people the unseen, external enemy that every tyrant needs. In Sudan the enemy is Britain and Christan's.

Enter a British, Christan teacher working in a school trying to reconcile the warring factions who made the mistake of allowing her pupils to make a minor gaffe over the naming of a teddy bear. So why do you thing she was arrested?

She is home now, after British Muslims protested vigorously at the injustice. In fact, every single other Muslim country condemned this act of stupidity. Though in Sudan, some people wanted her killed, but what are you gonna do? There are assholes everywhere

A Night on The Ocean Wave

Hi,
It is a shock, but Christmas is around the corner! I still have yet to get used to it being hot and sunny in November, and my psychology still isn't in a festive mood.
So it was with some confusion that I went on our departmental Christmas outing. Collinda, our resident Nuclear Medicine boss and all round good egg, organised us to go out on a jet powered catamaran onto the bay, and have a meal, a dance and a drink.
It was a blast. Because of some creative fundrasing, there was a 400 dollar bar tab, for 20 of us. Stunning!
And the views from the boat of the absolutely gorgeous Hawkes Bay made the award winning Matariki Chennin Blanc swill down with aplomb.
Fantastic!!
Then food was up, it was a buffet affair, but it hit the spot and now to the dance floor.
Less Good!!
Because I don't dance. Even whilst drunk I can't dance. I am aware that I am a 39 year old straight white male, which precludes me from any grace. I am also short, and "stocky", so grace quota in the dumps, and I am Welsh.
Therefore I am to dancing what Swartzennegger is to elocution.
So I do what I always do. I sit at the edge of the floor, and watch others gyrate whilst drinking.
Later on I gave a nice lady a hug. She has had a crappy year, and needed a hug. So I provided the hug, and I felt virtuous about it. The world needs more hugging.
I like to spread the love.
Not spreading love were the other occupants of the boat. A bunch of early 20 somethings, who got drunker and louder as night wore on, and there was aggro bubbling under the surface between one of them, a tall, thin guy, and I think his girlfriend.
Anyway, I was walking to the bar, when my eye was caught by this bloke arguing with his girlfriend. She was giving him "the Finger", and he was trying to grab her finger, I assume in order to hurt her. I will never know, because he obviously saw me looking. The next thing he is toe to toe with me, looming over me, and explaining "Why don't you watch where you are looking little man, before you get hurt"
Now in such situations, you often think of great pithy one liners, but usually afterwards in the bar, But that night, inspiration hit me...
"Why don't you fuck off, you lanky streak of piss, before I make you look stupid in front of your mates"
Now I am not tall, I am 5' 6", but I know what I am capable of, and I can size up the opposition quickly. I did Karate for a number of years, I was a Prop Forward, and I went to a shockingly shitty school, which means I can fight a bit.
Here are a few rules.
1.Hard nuts don't tell you that they will hit you, they hit you.
2.Anyone worth his salt doesn't' stand 4 inches from their opponent with his arm by his side leading with his jaw.
I could have decked him in a second, and he wouldn't have stood a chance.
All of a sudden, his mates pulled him away, and I was surrounded by all of my mates.
Bless'em! They were looking out for me!
One of his mate came to see me to apologise. I told him it was cool, but me better calm that guy down, or he would get hurt. By me.
I saw him later, all apologies, so that was OK.
ALL IN ALL, A BRILLIANT NIGHT!!

Be Good

Kicking over the Anthill

Hi,

I love my computer, not in a physical sense, but I use it for so much stuff that I like that being without it is like being imprisoned. Odd but there you go.

I also have a low tolerance for frustration. I am one of the sad types that has to be doing something to rectify a problem, even if what I am doing ins't helping.

So the last month my PC has been slowing up, to the point where it is unusable. So I think "Right, reinstall windows, and reformat the hard drive. I think that 4 years of downloading silly little internet games, plus repeatedly un installing and reinstalling programs has left the PC ins a state.

I get all my driver discs, backup my photos, and insert the disk. 30 minutes later I have a factory spec PC, that tales seconds to boot up.

Hooray for me!

Then the fun starts. I reload all the drivers I have, and its all good, I figure I can get any others from the net. So lets get on. I have an external ASDL router, so everything should be OK? It doesn't work!!

????

So I look in the hardware profile, and the Ethernet adaptor hasn't loaded its driver. Oh well, it will be on the factory driver disk, right?

Wrong!!

OK, go to be Mike, sort it in the morning. At 06:00, I am up, can't sleep, PC is pissing me off.So I go do my morning workout, and an hour later, I am on the phone to a bloke from Bangalore asking him to set up my dial up, so I can get on the net to download the driver to get on the net.

It doesn't work. So I look in the hardware profile, and the PC modem drivers aren't on there.

AAAAAARGH!!!

So I look in the boot disk, find those drivers, and get the modem working. I can't get on the net. So I phone my ISP. And here comes my knight in shining armour.

I will call his Anthony, cos that was him name. He not only got me online, but he configured Outlook Express (which I have never used because no one ever told me how) and downloaded the right drivers and e mailed them to me. What a hero!!

My mate came over just as I was finishing, and helped me configure my PC to work. Which it now does!!

I am happy, but its odd looking at a 4 year old PC! I am unsure whether to upgrade the software, because it works, and I don't need to fix something which isn't broke!!

Sorry for the boring blog, but this WAS A BIG DEAL FOR ME!!

The Welshman and The Black Dog

Hi all,
Read something written by my famous countryman Richard Burton "Show a Welshman 100 exits, he will choose the one marked "self destruction". Funny that, considering his own demise.

There is something melancholy about my culture though, I think it is the knowledge that for most of us this is all we will ever have. Born in village, go to pit/steelworks, get girl pregnant, have kid , drink/smoke yourself to death. Of course that has all changed now, now you can substitute work in heavy industry for B&Q/Draw the dole, and heroin for booze. Progress eh?

I chose a different path, and yet I am well aware that that was my alloted path too, if my parents had been less adept at making us think for ourselves and a bit less hardworking. Funny that. However I have been thinking that I have lost something as well as gained something.

My cousin died over the weekend. His name was Des Gorman, and he was very much older that I , older than my Dad even. Yet he was an intelligent, articulate kind and funny man, and seeing him when I was a child was always a treat. He also spoke with an RAF accent, as he was a tail gunner on Lancs in the war. He was shot down 3 times, and lived to get captured by the Nazis, lucky for him they were on their knees at the time, so his incarceration was brief. So he was a brave man as well. Now he is no more, and I cant help but think the world, well my world, is a poorer place without him.

I have been thinking there are lots of people I will not see again, and this is sad, but there is always a last time to see someone, and we don't really know when that last time is. It would be nice to remember this, cos I am sure we would all treat each other better if we held that knowledge in the forefront of our minds when we said "see you later, dude"

See Ya Later Dudes!

Mike