Information to help you!

So, I get this email from my boss titled ‘mission to Libya’ A very random email to receive first thing in the morning. Basically the task was to urgently get Arabic translation on to two passports for my boss’s who for some strange reason are looking to go to Libya.

Anyway, no questions asked, I begin the task. First port of call – the UK passport office who kindly inform me that “this is a strange enquiry, I’d better check how to do this” not exactly giving me a confident start!

They tell me I need to get the passports to one of the 7 offices for it to be stamped – part 1, understood.

Then, they give me a number for me to call the Commonwealth office who would apparently help me with the translation part of the task, the only thing they did was give me another phone number to call as they didnt have a clue how to do it.

So, I call this alternative number, only to get through to a guy who tells me that he cant help me and he is unable to give me any information over the phone. HELPFUL! god knows what he actually gets paid for! Anyway with no progress made past stage 1 I get back to google and search for the Libyan Embassy, maybe they could help!

Got through to the Embassy with a rather frightening greeting in Arabic from a man I would not like to argue with! From the frightening tone and mumble of words I tried my luck and asked this gent “can you help me at all, please”? scared and talking to him like I was communicating to a 2 year old he responded with a polite “yes” thank god! Stage 2 complete.

I asked him about Arabic translation on passports and he quickly gave me a mobile number of ‘a man’ I needed to call. I called this man who said he could help and informed me that I needed to get the passports to him it would take 3 hours and would cost £85 per passport (unless we had more than 4 passports in which case he would do us a discount) Forgive my distrust, but this sounded dodgy!

He continued talking and I thought he had told me to “put the money in the box” getting even more suspicious at this point I repeated what he had said only for my colleague to over hear me and had to leave the room in laughter over the dodgy deal it sounded like I was setting up! I was waiting for him to say “we meet, but No Police” or a classic one liner from the movies!

Anyway this guy wanted the passports and the money (in the box) and he would ideally like them posted but would be prepared to meet in London if necessary.

With my day getting stranger by the minute I felt that I had enough information so I replied to the boss giving him the instructions over what needs to be done in the hope that nobody gets killed in the process!

If it all works out I’ll let you all know, if it doesnt then you will probably see it on the news….

Being a RAMS fan I’d love nothing more than to see Derby in the Chamionship next season with an injury free set of decent players who showed the potential of working the way back up to the Premier League. Realistically, the picture is slightly different at the moment.

A loss at Plymouth means that Derby have to some of wins out of the remaining games of the season, the only problem here is that the remaining games are going to be some of the toughest for the rams. This saturday brings Nottingham Forest to Pride Park, the local derby stands sure to raise a determined, 100% effort performance from both teams, however with Forest’s current form and second position in the League it will be an extremely tough game for the rams, Forest’s last game delivered another 5 goals and a hearty, attacking performance.

After the local derby we face:
Sheffield Utd
Newcastle
Birmingham
Preston
Swansea
WBA

So, lets hope for some solid team performances, to try and hold strong against this opposition. We are going to need it to maintain championship status next season and stop people talking about being a League 1 team next season!

We have all heard of stories where people have been unfortunate enough to have somebody hack into their email accounts, or maybe their bank accounts etc but what can we do to ensure this doesnt happen?

There is a guy at my work who happens to be the Head of IT who hacked into my boss’s email account and sent an email to me from them!

Obviously he was doing this for a joke, but I didn’t know this at first! I thought my boss was emailing me, instructing me to travel from Derby and meet him in Devon tomorrow to pick something up from him to then take this to London and return to where I began the journey, back in Derby!! I was fuming and had a rant for a moment to then turn round and see the Head of IT sat there, laughing behind me, I then realised that my boss didnt want me to do that at all and it was an email that was written by the Head of IT but he had sent it from my boss’s email account. Not Happy.

But it just shows, how easy it is to do these things, it also shows how an IT guy could potentially ruin a company by sending out emails (supposably) from different people saying terrible things or giving harsh orders etc….watch out for the Techies!

How do you like your Tea? Brewed, mashed, stewed are all words that come into play.

This is how I make mine:

Boil Water
Add tea bag to normal sized mug
Add boiling water to mug & tea bag
Quick stir with tea spoon
Leave for a couple of minutes
Squeeze tea bag and take out
Add milk (not too milky but not too dark/strong)

And there you have it my perfect cup of tea!

If I’m honest I cant be doing with all that straining of tea leaves etc, lets face it we aren’t all dining with the queen! for me its got to be PG Tips and made in the above routine!

I know people who add the milk first, which I think is a disaster! I also know people who add more water to ‘top it up’, but although it sounds a bit daft I think your tea can be too watery if done this way, a bit thin.

Oh yeah, and one more thing, if your going to stir the drink then blummin stir it! dont just tickle the side of the mug with the tea spoon. Give it some welly!

…also it has to be accompanied by McVities Chocolate Digestives (but thats a story for another day)….

I applied for some information and on the online form that I filled in yesterday it asked me my mobile number (which I was happy to give) it then asked me to select from a scroll down menu, which times would be best for them to call, so I selected between 12-1pm today.

So first I get an unexpected call from them at 9pm LAST NIGHT, then again at 10am this morning! this was then followed by a call at 3pm today. I dont mind them being keen but why do they ask me what hour I would like to be called and then completely ignore it! is there any point in them asking me the question and me spending the time to answer it if they ignore the information anyway?!

Dont you think there is a compelling reason why I picked the time I did? of course, its because thats probably the only time in that day that I could take the call…..

A colleague of mine has had laser eye treatment last year and claims it is one of the best things she has ever done in her life! so with being a glasses/contact lense wearer it would be rather ignorant of me to not consider it!

My colleague used Optical Express www.opticalexpress.com and serioulsy recommends them. Myself and another colleague are looking into to it now because he too wears glasses.

There seems to be a few otpions in terms of which treatment to have, the basic two are LASIK and LASEK, after researching these two options I am under the impression that I have got to go for the LASEK treatment as having an active lifestyle, including contact sports I will need the slightly different procedure. They seem to be priced the same at £395 + per eye.

I have booked my free consultation with Optical Express www.opticalexpress.com for thursday lunch time but I’m just waiting for a call from them to confirm (as I did this online)

My colleague who has previously had the treatment was kind enough to give me a voucher which could allow up to £300 off my treatment! how nice of her!

I’m looking forward to what they say in the free consultation, in the hope that I qualify for the treatment.

A few of my mates have now been travelling and like myself a few others are still thinking about it. Two of my best mates have been to Thailand for 5 weeks and they loved it, in fact they have already since been back they liked it that much! I would like to sample thailand even if it is not that original anymore for travellers. I’ve been told that 3 weeks is plenty in Thailand and that this will give you enough opportunity to really cover and experience it all. I would like to stay in the jungle for a few nights, meet some new people, ride on elephants through the jungle, see some nice beaches, the culture and of course the cuisine!

I’ve got another friend who wants to try Australia but for a whole year, he wants to go alone and also spent some time in Bali. Sounds great. I can’t help but feel restricted because of my job, when really this is a once in a life time opportunity and it shouldnt be put off for a job that lets face it you may not have in 6 months time! My friend has worked hard for the last 9 years learning a trade and establishing himself into the family business and self employment so I think he should have the benefit of having work on his return so he has little reason not to go and do it!

I’d like to try NZ & Oz, Fiji etc but it makes sense to do it all in one go its no doubt a lot cheaper too! but then again you cant really take 3 months off work that easy. I think 3 weeks in either Oz / NZ would be enough to really sample each though, maybe i’ll just have to do 3 weeks at a time over a few years to see these places!

Well, it was a good weekend in all, a steady drive up to Colwyn North Wales Friday night where we all gathered with a few beers and a (slightly dodgy) takeaway to start off the weekend. Saturday morning we made an early 8am trip to Abersoch, stopping off on the A55 for a quick Morrissons Breakfast (highly recommended) we reached Abersoch at about 10.30am and went straight to West Coast Surf Shop www.westcoastsurf.co.uk where one of the boys bought a new Rip Curl rash vest and some gloves.

We made it to the beach at about 11.30am with high tide coming in at about 12.30pm, it was fresh out there, pretty rough and really cold. The water temp was at 5 degrees which made you feel sick after getting blasted on the back of the head with a wave! we only stayed in for about 30 minutes to be honest as without hoods we were feeling the cold a bit too much.

We found a place go camping for the evening although out of season the farmer generously let us stay anyway, knowing that we had a place to stay for the night we set off (after warming up) to a camping shop called Snowdonia where we picked up a few bits and then headed back to the farm. We set up camp and got ready for a cold (and what turned out to be a pretty wet) night.

A late start to sunday at about 12pm we packed up the tent and headed down to the beach to put the cold wet wetsuits on from the day before, and then down into the water, it was a bit calmer but the waves turned out to be a bit rubbish with the cross tides not really allowing anything consistant.

In all another great trip to Abersoch, surfing better on the saturday although 6/7+ foot waves in 5 degree of water meant you had to be a pretty compitent surfer and wearing a wetsuit hood (without a doubt). Looking forward to the next trip…

There are loads of reasons why its good to borrow things from others, heres just a few:
-Make Money from lending your stuff
-Try before you buy
-Make Money without sacrificing your stuff
-One off use, no point in buying the item i.e ladder
-Borrowing is cheaper than buying
- Saves storage space at home
- Helps to recycle things
- It saves you money

Why not borrow/lend:
1-you might not get your item back
2-your item may get damaged in the process
3-you may need the item all the time so wouldnt be able to lend it out
4-you dont trust anyone

borrowmystuff.co.uk offer solutions to the above problems:
1-you agree to the lending terms on an agreement first you can also request a deposit at this stage for the item too
2-you can include a deposit in the agreement, so at worst if damage does occur then you have got it covered
3-if this is the case then this item is not the item to be lending out, so chose another one! you must have other stuff!
4-the agreement combines its own level of trust, feedback scores allow you to see the profile of the person you are lending to, again this is all backed up by the deposit that you have agreed at the start too!

www.borrowmystuff.co.uk

We were going to buy a digital camera in the sales this year but there are so many out there, which is the best one to buy???

Well, we began obviously setting a budget, straight away this limited us on the quality of camera we would be getting, ideally we didnt want to spend over £120 because we didnt think we needed to really. We would love to be able to capture SLR quality images but the 2 reasons why an SLR just isnt right for us is because 1). they are really expensive and 2). they arent as mobile as your standard digital camera and afterall we want to have this with us as often as possible as to not miss out on any great photographs, so an SLR wouldnt fit conveniently into every day life.

We seriously considered the Sony Cyber Shot (www.sony.co.uk) camera but a friend has got this and although she said it is very good (£90 – £120) it isnt ideal for motion images. This is something I would love to have on a camera I really could do with a motion plus sensor of some sort to enable good quality images on teh move.

After much deliberation over also considering a waterproof camera we found the Fuji Finepix Z33 WP/MP at around £120 having an outdoor, active lifestyle I thought this could be an option however the camera would be used more often out of water than in it so the 10 megapixel and 3 times optical zoom seemed pretty average for this price, although very tempting.

Our search has ended at the Olympus FE-5020 Digital Camera in Grey offering a 12 megapixel and 5 times wide lense optical zoom, this seems ideal and is only £99 in fact this used to be on sale at £87 at www.jessops.com. I think we will be going for this one….unless any of you out there can suggest something similar with same/better spec in a simliar price range?