It's a dogs life

Birthday treats.

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:30:49 GMT

Yep, 'tis me birfday today. Was treated to a days clay pigeon shooting today by my sister. The rain held off and I did manage to hit a few too :)
Went round Mum and Dad's for the afternoon, and off to not so sunny Weston-super-Mare tonight for food and a few beers.
All in all quite a nice day :)

EF Registration

Sat, 21 Feb 2009 19:15:59 GMT

Yay!!! Registered for EF, was on site at work at the time so with great help from mhisani who did the registration for me *hugs Mhisani* I am now registration about 130ish. Have confirmed the E-mail from EF staff but don't give the registration number, so have to wait and see for sure.

FC2009 Cont

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 16:49:14 GMT

The convention was absolutely awesome. Got to meet up with furs I have never met before who seem to know me. Met lots of new furs too.
Went to amazing room parties on Friday and Saturday, and danced the night away and the furdances.
Photos and videos were taken thoughout the con which should apprear on line soon, videos at least on youtube.
Got out and about a but more this time too, having diner at verious places in the area instead of at Dennys or in the hotel, with some awsome furs too.
One awesome con, one awesome time.
Off too Sanfrancisco now to do the touristy bit today as we are here for a few more days yet.

FC2009

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 02:06:04 GMT

Arrive ok yesterday eve at San Jose for FC 2009. Flew from Heathrow to Huston then on to San Jose. From home to hotel took 29 hours, much sleeping done when we got there. Fine now though. First time down to "Dennys" thismorning for breakfast then most of today has been visiting the shopping malls in the area. The convention starts tomorrow but will mostly be registration sp after that we might go to the computer museum at Mountain View. If anyone at FC would like to meet up with us, myself and Andysquirrel are in room 874 at the Doubletree.

Merry Christmas

Wed, 24 Dec 2008 20:11:38 GMT

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all my friends on LJ. Hope you have a great time over the festive period and see you all in2009 :)

Ferret News

Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:11:05 GMT

Ferretcam has now been put on a new server... www.ferretcam.co.uk if you like to have a look. It is still experimental at the moment.
Let me know what you think, if you have any suggestions or if it just don't work!!!

BristolFur Meet

Sun, 16 Nov 2008 22:05:12 GMT

Went to the BristolFur meet today.
We all met up at Bristol train station at treasure (plushie) hunt organized by TigerFire and Helena.
We were all issued with maps, compasses a number of envelopes and instructions then pointed in the direction of the first clue. This then led us to a number of other clues hidden around Bristol.
The rain stayed away right till the end which made it all the better and we finished up in Wetherspoon's for a well deserved drink. Plushies will be awarded to the winners, sadly not me! better luck next time :)
Many thanks to TigerFire and Helena for putting so much work in to organize it all. An awesome time had by all.
BristolFur meets are great!!!!

If you fail to see the morning you probably had a good night!

Sat, 08 Nov 2008 13:22:08 GMT

In need of tea!!!!
Yes that was a good night.... The venue was good and the music wes excellent. Was nice to see not only local furs but also furs from further afield there too. Big thanks to Jasper Foxx for organizing it all and also to Jasper Foxx and S-Wolf for doing such a good job as DJs. In respect I was only planning on popping in for an hour or two and ended up being one of the last to leave.
Roll on the next one!!!
Off to pick up a firework display now and take it down to Bridgwater.

Quick update :o)

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:41:04 GMT

Well it has been a while since I updated this.... Everything has been going well and not really much has changed....
Went to Euroferance again this year, that was as awsome as ever, photos and video WILL be up soon....
Also all set for Further Confusion if January too, still have room space for that if anyone is interested - email me for more info....
Ferets are all happy and well, although feretcam.co.uk is currently offline pending a server upgrade....
Went to see Vampires Rock last night (http://www.vampiresrock.com/) with Toya Wilcox. That show was awsome, I had a great time and got my programme signed by Toya too :o)
Spent most of thisafternoon sorting out a firework display for Yksinainen's 21st tomorow, that went really well. All set for tomorrow eve.
Just getting ready now for the BristolFur rave night tonight at 9pm....
That's about it for now, more updates soon :o)

The past 6 months

Fri, 11 Jan 2008 23:06:12 GMT

It has now been six months since I last updated this journal, far too long!!!
Well, it has been quite a quiet six months but there have been a few notable events.

Ferrets
Recently I had a little trip to Birmingham to look at two ferrets called Bonnie and Clyde. Barney was getting a bit miserable as ferrets do when they are on there own. So I contacted a pet rescue website and found two ferrets in need of a good home. A male and female pair about a year old.
So off I went to Birmingham meeting up with mhisani on the way and we both went up to see them. We both intermediately loved them and a while later the car was loaded up with cages play toys food and ferrets and we were off back to Clevedon with them all.
This brings the total number I now have to three. They have settled in well and am still setting up a webcam server so eventually they will be on line :o)

House
Work on my house is still ongoing. It started with the bathroom which although not finished yet is going well. I have now a new fence going completely around the whole of the garden. This was an awesome project which I got a proper firm in to do as there was no way I could do it myself. It is just a standard 13 panel 6 foot fence but the special bit is that all the posts are concrete and there is a also 6 inches of concrete going into the ground below the fence line running all the length on the fence.
This now makes the whole garden a massive play area for the ferrets I can let them out and play at will safe in the knowledge that they cannot dig underneath the fence or climb over.
The next things on the list to do, when the bathroom is finished is a new patio then I'll be looking at the kitchen.

Furry
The start of 2008 is seems to be a bit up and down as far as furry is going. I recently attended RBW which I thought was awesome, a big thank you to all who organised it and attended to make it such a brilliant event.
I have also been attending most of the BristolFur meets too. For a local fur meet they are well organised with lots to do and as such well attended and getting bigger. See the uk fur forum under SouthFurs for the next one, or text me.
I missed the first LondonFur meet of 2008 which traditionally I have attended since my first meet back in 2000. This was unavoidable but I will be at the next one and making a long weekend of it as I will be going down to London on the Friday and staying there until Monday.
In the same vane I have now attended all the EuroFurence events since my first in 2000 but this year that is very likely to come to an end. I have registered for this year's event but was a little too late. I am registration number 682. This don't look good as from my calculations there are about 580 places at this year's event so unless 102 furs drop out I will not be going this year. I realistically don't think that is going to happen!
The other major furry event this year which I usually attend and without a small miracle happening I also won't be attending either is Further Confusion. Due to a big screw up on my part I forgot to book the hotel and by the time I realised the hotel was full, along with most of the overflow hotels too. I'm still looking but if I don't end up going I might look at something like MFF, MFM or even Anthrocon this year.

New Year
Happy New Year to all!!!
I was in Southampton this year for new year. At a house party at the home of tktiger, beaitchtwo, bungle_bear and xavierwolf2007 and attended by, kyyanno, slycat, orona_red, foxb, jowgenetsu, jowgenetsu's Dad and tktiger's mum.
There was much food alcohol music and merriment. A great time was had by all as many other LJ posts by the attendees has shown.

Hopefully it won't be another 6 months before the next post :o)

Birthday Update

Wed, 11 Jul 2007 18:20:36 GMT

It’s my birthday today and today I did something I have never done on my birthday before, I went to work. I have always in the past taken the day off. But this year I am rapidly running out of holiday entitlement and didn’t really have much else to do so I spent the day at work.

However, this meant getting up very early indeed. At 7:30 this morning I was in Tesco asking the assistant if she had doh-nuts…. How many do you want she said, about 80 I replied, wait here she said. About 15 minutes later many little bags of doh-nuts started to appear, nice and fresh and only 96p for 10.

The tradition at work is that if it is your birthday on the day you come in you bring something for everyone for morning break. Normally it is doh-nuts but it has in the past been many different and imaginative things.

Had a reasonably nice day at work, which is getting a but of a rarity these days, nothing went wrong, I didn’t get reprimanded for anything and didn’t make any almighty cock-ups with anything and everyone enjoyed the doh-nuts, some people even had two….

And I have just realised this spell checker actually recognises the word “cock-up”, but not “doh-nuts” bizarre!

So all in all a very nice day.

The best prezzie I have got so far, apart from the bottle of Cockburn’s from tktiger( I like that) is a new microwave oven, my other one had started to actually go rusty.

Tonight I am round my parents, we have “everyone” coming round for cake and nibbles. My sister, bother in law, nieces and nephews. My brother and his girlfriend, my uncle and aunt. So it’s going to be busy. But if I get a bit of time later on tonight when everyone has gone home I might just sneak down the pub :o)

Ferrret Died

Thu, 28 Jun 2007 19:54:02 GMT

At around about 5pm today one of my pet ferrets, Fred, was put to sleep by the vet.
On Monday Fred got a little ill. When I got back from work my mum was round and said Fred was not very well at all.
I took a look at him and rushed him straight to the vet. The vet diagnosed "toxic shock" this is either bacterial or chemical poisoning, from something he probably have eaten.
This was most likely picked up when running around in the garden. However, the garden is kept very clean and checked for debris on a daily basis when they are out and I don’t use any chemicals so I can't imagine how this happened.
The vet gave him two injections and gave me a heap of antibiotics to give him in the mean time. We also made an appointment to for a check up for today at 4:45pm.
I gave Fred the antibiotics in the morning before I went to work and came home every day at 12:30pm to give him the second dose.
This went well and the recovery was very quick and he was soon up and about and running around the kitchen floor again. I was happy :o)
Today as I have been doing for several days I gave him the antibiotics in the morning and came home from work and gave him the second dose at 12:30pm, he was running around and seemed fine and happy.
I got home from work at 4:40pm to take him back to the vet for his check up and when I opened the cage I found he was not moving at all, his eyes were open, he was breathing or be it very shallow.
Straight into the car and we got to the vet's in seconds where Fred was immediately put on to Oxygen. The prognosis was not good, the infection he had had suddenly got a lot worse and had overcome his whole immune system causing his internal digestive system to collapse and shut down.
This then caused his blood stream to go very toxic.
The medical term for this is acute Peritonitis. Which is what he had.
The vet said in a case like this he would operate to save his life but Fred was in such a weak condition he would not even survive the anesthesia.
So the only thing to do was to say goodbye to him there and put him to sleep, which he then did.
I didn't think it would het me as hard as it has especially as I thought he was well on the road to recovery.
It will take me quite a while to get over this I guess so I will give it a few days and think about weather I should get another one as company for Barney cos I think he will miss him as much as I will.
Meanwhile I'll just reflect on the life he did have cos when he was here he was one happy ferret.

Ferreting

Mon, 04 Jun 2007 20:52:20 GMT

Why you should always check the washing machine before switching it on after leaving it open for a while whilst loading it.... Click to see Photo

Update (long overdue)

Thu, 17 May 2007 19:40:06 GMT

Quite a lot has been happening since my last post.

On 18th March I attended my first BristolFurs meet in many years, It was good, I met a bunch of very nice people and had a brilliant day.

Photos: BristolFurs meet

I have also been to a few LondonFur meets too, they are always good, especially when I get to see Lee there too :)

Made my way to a few of the HantsFur meets too. Many of them ending up at the all you can eat Chinese restaurant in Shirley, Southampton, The Little Buddha. This is a great place, and highly recommended by me and most other HantsFurs. Notable HantsFurs meets recently were, Bungles birthday, Kev's party, and Wardy's rocket firing in the New Forrest.

Photos here: Bungles Birthday Kev's party Wardy's rocket

Registered and almost now got a plan for EF. I'll be going with Andysqirrel most likely by plane and then hiring a car. I'm looking forward to it, it is going to be one of the better EFs methinks.

The ferrets Fred and Barney are doing fine, they now have a massive new cage in the kitchen and the old cage has been moved into the lounge so they can watch the tele with me in the evening. Ferretcam www.ferretcam.co.uk is currently offline due to the webcam software going tits up... It will be back on soon as I get some replacement software, if anyone can recommend a good webcam program it will be very much appreciated.

In other stuff, I’ve been looking at getting a replacement camera. I recently went to the West Midlands safari park with Matt Lion and Lilsi and was lent a camera to try out by a colleague at work, thanks to Ton for that. As my Sony camera has now been pronounced dead, it got dropped and broke, I'm looking for a replacement. The one I borrowed was a Fuji finepix 5600 the photos I took can be found here West Midlands safari park.

I think they're pretty good, I am now thinking of getting the 6500 which is about double the price though, undecided at the moment.

As you have probably noticed by the links I have now got a picassa account to put all my pictures on, this was also recommended to me by the same guy who lent me the Fuji camera. So most of today I spent putting the pictures up there. This account is tempory however as it will soon be transferred to my own dedicated Linux server running Galley2, just as soon as I learn how to use it.

Lastly, how as all this updating been possible? Well, for the past two days I have been off work. I had a small accident at home on Wednesday morning

Recently the place where I work had a drive on providing everyone who requires them a pair of new safety shoes, for walking round in those “hazardous” areas of the site. I quite liked the look of them so I put my name down for a pair and got them a few weeks later and have been using them ever since. Now these things although they look nice are not easy to ware, as they are pretty big and heavy due to the big lump of steel covering the toe area.

Wednesday morning I was getting ready for work as usual, came down stairs and put on my safety shoes. I then remembered I had left a box of bits upstairs that I should have taken with me. No worries, I was running a little late so I flew upstairs grabbed the box and came back down again.

At the best of times it is not easy to run up and down my staircase as it is a spiral staircase and made of steel. Halfway down I found out it was even more difficult in oversized heavy safety shoes. I lost my footing and fell down the stairs with the box landing on top of me and also clunking my head on the steel railing on the way down. After phoning work and getting checked over by a paramedic – In that order!!! I have bruising all down my right side, bruised ribs and a nasty cut on my head, but otherwise ok….. So no work for a couple of days and nothing else either really…. It is ironic though when the new safety shoes that you got from work can be responsible for you having an accident and being off work for two days!

so I am now staying in resting. Back to work on Friday.

Well, that’s all for now, update again very soon…

FC 2007

Wed, 10 Jan 2007 23:18:08 GMT

Just finalized booking for FC 2007:o) Have been unsure if I would be going or not for the last month as things have been changing so much. But now just finished sorting everything out. Thought I had a problem with my passport but that is now ok, got coach travel to Heathrow from Bristol, flights from Heathrow to San Jose via Los Angeles and will be staying with klepsydra and her boyfriend. So all set now and looking forward to FC 2007 :o)

Happy New Year!

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 19:48:56 GMT

Just a quick post to say Happy New Year to everyone. Thanks to calgor for hosting new year party stuff at his place. Much drinking and playing games on Wii. Video of this can be found on slycat's journal. Watched the London Eye fireworks display on tv for the new year that was good! If that is going to happen next year, I'm gonna be there!!!
Currently at arakinuk's with slycat having food and tea before making my way back to Bristol.

Merry Christmas

Mon, 25 Dec 2006 15:47:32 GMT

Merry Christmas to all :o) Hope you have a peaceful, pleasent and enjoyable day.

Ferret update

Sun, 10 Dec 2006 22:37:52 GMT

The new kitchen ferret cage has now been built and the two ferrets are settling in nicely. They seem to like it especially as it has two floors. They have far more space, a proper enclosed bed area as well as their hammocks and can still watch out the kitchen window from the top floor.
The old ferret cage is still going to be in use. It now has a permanent position in the corner of the lounge. During the day when I am at work and overnight they will be in the kitchen cage and in the evening they can come in to the living room, watch what I am doing or watch the television. As well as still going out in the garden run and being taken for walks round Clevedon every evening when I finish work.
Well pampered ferrets, they've never had it so good :o)

Cats

Thu, 30 Nov 2006 14:30:36 GMT

Gong to see Cats at the Bristol Hippodrome tonight really looking forward to it. Deciding weather to ware a tail or not. Got the cats T-shirt, so will be wearing that and a collar but undecided about a tail. It is cats, so it won't be out of place but it is Bristol not London so I don't know weather they go for things like that here. And last time I had a tail I got featured on the London Underground web site, which wasn't such a bad thing though. So might do but then again might not, dunno yet.

Ferrets on the move.

Tue, 28 Nov 2006 22:07:01 GMT

Last night moved the ferret cage from the kitchen into the lounge in order for the building of the new kitchen ferret cage. The moving of the cage should be fairly easy but as ever, no as the cage does not fit through either of the kitchen doors. It was a matter of removing everything inside the cage, litter trays, food bowls, ferrets etc (they had to stay in the car carrier box for a while, they’re never happy about that). Then dismantle the cage, take everything into the lounge and then put it all together again. Whilst cleaning the cage in the mean time, all this took about two hours.
So they are now enjoying life in the lounge for a while until I can get the kitchen sorted and the new cage built.

Shopping Around

Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:26:54 GMT

I know prices can very a little bit between shops and a little shopping around and comparing prices can save you quite a bit. Today that was put to the test with a result that I could hardly believe.

I had a little plumbing job to do tonight. So after work I hit the local builder’s merchants Travis Perkins for two plumbing parts. I went there first because the parts I needed were not a common size and they were more likely to have them also they are quite cheep for such things. Well, they did do them but had none in. So they recommended The Plumb Center on a trading estate just down the road. Sounded good, a trade supplier on a trading estate no less, must be cheaper than you local “Joe Public” store, mustn’t they? Well, one would think!!!
So went down there, they had some, £3.27, ok quite a lot but they are an unusual size, for two? no each, plus VAT. Now it is getting pricy. But I needed them and assumed they must be that price everywhere so I coughed up £7.68 for these two little darlings.
Feeling a little taken aback by the price I decided to pop in to Focus DIY on the way home just to set my mind at rest that either they don’t do them, in which case I would have had to shell out that much for them. Or if they did do them they would have been the same price or if not more.
Went in and had a hunt round the plumbing section, no luck, looking ok so far. Then went over to the heating section and there they were on a little hook in the corner covered in dust, priced at £1.99 A PAIR!!!!!
Absolutely fuming at being ripped off in such a way I high tailed it back to The Plumb Center who were just closing bust through the door and said. Hi, by boss had just phoned me, err, he just got some of these just as I did so I won’t need them after all, sorry for the inconvenience, I’d like a refund please :o)
So I got my money back.
Now, I can understand slight variations between retailers for various reasons, but for someone who is meant to be a trade supplier to charge nearly four times the price than a DIY store is absolutely ridiculous.

Going, Going, Gone!

Sat, 25 Nov 2006 21:20:27 GMT

Sold... To a rather shifty looking gentleman with a wad of notes in his back pocket.
Yes, the car I have had since 1999, my blue Sierra I finally sold today.
I didn't really want to get rid of it but it was out of tax had no insurance, but still a good load of MOT left though and had been sitting on my drive doing nothing for the last six months. So in a way I was glad to get it off the drive and into the hands of someone who is going to use it. (But for what I yet don't know!!!).
The guy I sold it to said he was a local car dealer, but didn't look like one to me. He came round one afternoon and asked if I wanted to sell the car, I said yes and he promptly made me an offer which I was quite happy with. That was three weeks ago....
Three weeks of chasing him and I finally gave up. Was about to put it in the paper or perhaps give it a go on eBay when this morning he suddenly appeared and said, I’ve come to pick the car up.
Then took a massive wad of notes out his back pocket and proceeded to count me out a few. He asked for the MOT and the V5 which I went and got to which he then said "that's ok I'll fill out the V5 and send it off for you" oh no you won't I said, that's my bit. You just fill in the new keeper details with your name and address and also sign it and I'll send it off. I'll go and get you a pen! So he did. Well, I'm going to send it off to the DVLA now but if you see a blue sierra on crime watch next week, it wasn't mine ok!

Gutted...

Sat, 28 Oct 2006 22:31:18 GMT

This is all that remains of the offices and warehouse of Firemagic Fireworks. The people who I fire shows for.
Last night I went round to see Paul the warehouse manager to sort out what shows were booked for Nov 5th and that weekend.
We just started chatting when we heard an almighty bang. At first I thought it was thunder and yes it was raining but Paul had a rather worried look on his face, another loud bang and the sound of fireworks going off and Paul said we had better get down to the warehouse like now!!!
With me driving we were there in under three minutes and were met by loads of police cars outside the entrance and smoke flames and fireworks going high into the sky. The fire brigade hadn't got there yet and there was talk that there were people still in the building.
Moments later the fire brigade arrived followed by a stream of ambulances. Later we went in to see if anyone was hurt and found out that there were three Firemagic people working in the warehouse when a fire started. They tried to fight the fire to no avail so then done the next best thing and got out just before the fire hit the fireworks which were being worked on in the warehouse. When these went up the explosion virtually demolished the breeze block walls and made a bang that was heard 30 miles away. It does go to show what a small number of fireworks can do in a confined space.
Thankfully, they all just suffered smoke inhalation and were taken to the local hospital for a check over.
The fireworks contained in there warehouse were only a small number and the rest were in secure containers away from the fire so it looks like all the November shows will still go ahead.
All is left to do now is try to salvage what is left, if anything, clear the place up and start again.

Awesome

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 22:08:17 GMT

On the bus heading home from just seeing a production of Beauty and the Beast at the Bristol Hippodrome with TK Tiger. First time I've seen it and yes, it was absolutely awesome...

EMO

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 17:34:56 GMT

On wednesday night I was told that someone has been talking about me behind my back. Nothing special there then, and it was in general conversation, but from what he told me what they were saying wasn't pretty. Not only that, but it was as far from the truth as you could possibly get.
OK, people do this, I guess, especially if they don't like you that much, but what really upset me greatly was the fact that the person who was saying this I considered to be a great friend and someone whom I really trusted. The impression I got from him was that he thought reasonably well of me too. I must have got that one wrong!!!
I am at a loss to understand why people do this, they are really nice to your face, and make you think they are a good friend, then rubbish you to others when you are not around.
With friends as good as this, who needs enemies?