Busier than expected

Wednesday's culinary offering was Butter Bean & Bacon soup. The recipe is pretty much as Delia Smith set it down so there is no need to reproduce it here. Its a great recipe, definitely got the "thumbs up"  and made sufficient to provide a lunch for me and 30% and also a portion for the freezer.

After making lunch I took 30%, T & M round the Three Miler. 30% was a dreadful nuisance, always stopping or lingering behind or running up to strangers and annoying them.  I have obviously been somewhat remiss and need to ensure that she is kept under proper control the next time I take her out for a walk.

Lunch followed the walk and then we were paid a visit by The Mad Bat. A visit from MB is always fun and a good hour or so was spent drinking tea and catching up with the news from the other end of the village. If it seems strange at The Pile there is a whole new level of lunacy in MB's locale*.

Having seen MB off the premises, Step Mum Sue walked through the door to drop off TP's birthday present. More tea was drunk and further news was shared.

The evening saw me visit the Consultant to have the stitches removed from my hand. All is well with the incision site and the dressing can finally come off in a couple of days. Apparently I am also OK to drive after the weekend ...

... I ignored this advice as I'm not prepared to stay in Droitwich until next Monday and climbed in to the Defender and trundled back home.

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* Remember Village Idiot lives closer to her than us !

Goodness! Things to do

Tuesday was quite busy compared to my recent sparse agenda. After seeing TP off to school and 30% off to work I got busy in the kitchen. Today's effort was a batch of vegetable soup. It is incredibly straightforward and takes little effort and I have noted it down below if anyone cares to give it a try ...

• 12 oz carrots (peeled and cut in to 2" lengths)
• 12 oz celeriac (peeled and cut in to 2" cubes)
• 12 oz leeks (peeled, washed, halved and cut in to 2" lengths)
• 1 large onion (peeled and roughly chopped)
• 6 oz parsnips (peeled and cut in to 2" lengths)
• 6 oz potatoes (peeled and cut in to 2" cubes)
• 3 bay leaves
• salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 3.75 pints of stock (vegetable, chicken or a combination of the two)

• I weighed and prepared the ingredients as described above and put them in a large Slow Cooker and simply left them cooking for about 6 hours.
• After it had cooled a little the soup was liquidised and is ready to eat or freeze. A swirl of cream or crème fraiche and a few chopped chives can be added when serving.

Having got the soup on the go I had a quick chat with Tigger before taking T&M for a walk round a very gloomy and very soggy Three Miler. It is fair to say that Autumn has most definitely arrived.

Back home I had time for lunch and twenty minutes with my head in a book* before I was out again. This time it was a trip over to the Dentist to have a 30 minute crown preparation appointment. I'm no great fan of the Dentist but I have to admit that it was nowhere near as bad as it sounds. The final fitting is scheduled for next week and that shouldn't be too bad either. The appointment took up a good chunk of the afternoon and the book and soup blending took up the remainder.

We then all had an early supper before we headed over to Warwick Arts Centre to see Steven Merchant on his Hello Ladies tour. I am mostly familiar with Merchant from his involvement in The Office and the occasional appearances with his writing partner Ricky Gervais. I say occasional  as Gervais is one of the few people that has me reaching for the off button on the remote control as I find him intensely irritating. Consequently I was not particularly familiar with Mr Merchant. I have to say that he was absolutely brilliant. He was laugh out loud funny and his 6' 7" gangling frame gives him a naturally comedic appearance. His material was sharp and very well written and he had an amazing ability to engage with the audience and poke fun at himself.

It was a great night and I hope he does more solo work as I would definitely recommend him.

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* Sovereign by C J Sansom - not his best,  but still very good

What's for Supper?

A while back I had the idea of using the Journal to jot down recipes for some of the things I cook as I have a tendency to adapt them rather than slavishly follow cook book instructions*. One such example is a Pea & Ham soup recipe that is a family favourite but that one will have to wait until I have a couple of Gammon Hocks...

... Today 30% asked me to marinate a fillet of Salmon. I'm not a huge fan of the farmed, pink fish but there are occasions when it is sold at a price that is just to good to be true. The aforementioned fillet was taken from a whole fish reduced to a ridiculously low price. It was brought home and filleted and frozen.

A few years back after eating yet another bland chunk of farmed Salmon I finally decided to get creative and this is what I came up with ...

• grind a level teaspoon of black peppercorns in a mortar
• add a couple of dried red chillies and grind them too
• next add a level teaspoon of salt, 4 crushed cloves of garlic, a handful of roughly chopped fresh rosemary and grind to release the flavours
• finally add a good glug of Worcester Sauce and 2 tablespoons of olive oil and mix well
• place the Salmon skin side down in an oven proof container and brush liberally with the marinade
• now cover with cling film and leave in the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours
• finally pan fry  or bake - whichever you prefer

It works really well and gives the fish a much needed boost. We usually serve it with fresh green vegetables and new potatoes for an easy weekday supper. The other great thing about this recipe is that it can be varied depending on what you have in the store cupboard/herb garden. The chillies can be replaced with Sun Dried tomatoes to give it a more Mediterranean feel.

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* I then have a tendency to forget what I have done - hence the idea of jotting them down here as an aide mémoire

Weekend round up

Saturday saw me take a take a trip over to see the Orthopaedic Consultant. His brief appraisal went along the lines of; very good, take more pain killers, do more exercises, see me on Wednesday to have the stitches out.

The afternoon involved a trip in to Worcester to buy TP's Birthday present and a few other sundry items. After making the major purchase there was the inevitable moment of concern about whether we had bought the "right thing" in view of the fickle and shifting whims of the modern teenager. Fortunately 30% carried out some subtle investigations and it appears that I am unlikely to need to exchange the item.

Moving on to Sunday we found ourselves at the Rugby Club for the second match of the season. TP's enthusiasm for rugby has waned slightly recently and my own personal opinion is that this is as a result of a poor decision about his preferred playing position combined with a little bit of peer pressure from a couple of his so called mates.

Fortunately he was moved in from the Wing to Outside Centre and had an absolutely cracking game which featured some solid tackles and some nifty footwork that saw him break through the opposition's defence, run 40 yards and score a try just 10 feet away from the posts. The final score was 27: 7 to TP's team and this seems to have recharged his enthusiasm ...

... although I am tempted to have a quiet word with his mates.

Picture Post. No. 14

The recovering hand hampers both activity and the recording of the limited range of activities achievable. There is only so much I can report about dog walking, cooking and the Satellite TV scheduling before tedium sets in here so Lord knows how that limited repertoire would sit with anyone who cares to linger here.

As a consequence of my limited ability to type I have continued my review of this year's holiday photos and am presenting a selection here.

Today's selection are Elk and Bison that we encountered in during our drive of the South Loop in Yellowstone National Park.

Bull Elk

Elk Cows

Bison Bull

I am really pleased with the back lit shot of the Bison Bull. He had just swam across a river and crossed the road in front of our car. He then proceeded to shake himself dry just alongside us. Right Place, right time.

Picture Post. No. 13

Today's accomplishment was a beef stew that is now sat bubbling gently in the slow cooker.

With such low level of productivity I decided to go with another Picture Post.

This selection were taken around the Upper Geyser Basin in the Yellowstone National Park on days 7 and 8 of our US holiday. This area is best known for the Old Faithful Geyser which is famed for its regularity. While we were there it was erupting every ninety minutes or thereabouts. It is very impressive but one does tend to get a little blasé about it after the fourth or fifth eruption.

One evening we were sat talking to a local who recounted the tale of the tour bus driver who told his passengers that it was OK to walk up to the geysers mouth. Apparently a Japanese tourist was hurried away from a close inspection of the vent unaware that the surface has a tendency to give way and that the geyser spout is a combination of super heated water and steam.

Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park

Old Faithful at sun set

The Upper Geyser basin is a fantastic place and the Thermal Pools are quite mesmerising. They are crystal clear allowing one to see right in to their depths with their amazing architecture of mineral growths and multicoloured mats of thermophilic bacteria. The Geysers are very impressive but for me it was colour, clarity and structures of the pools that really captured my attention.

Mineral formations and thermophilic bacteria

The Morning Glory Pool

Ouch!

The decline in to decrepitude continues ...

... today the dentist informed me that the large amalgam filling in the rear molar just had to go and be replaced by a nice new crown. 

What's cooking?

Today I offered to cook this evening's supper and had enough forethought to ask 30% to open the cans of tomatoes before she left for work as I had no chance of completing that task with my bandaged mitt.

I had further realised why I have been removed from active duty when it took me the best part of an hour to peel the onions and mushrooms in preparation for a Bolognaise sauce.

The spaghetti bolognaise turned out really well and was wolfed down by 30% and TP when they came home after Rugby practice.

Apart from that the day was relatively mundane. The dogs were walked and there was an "incident" with Marauder near the Poultry Farm but other than that I sat around and healed.

I need a plan

Three weeks, Twenty One days, THREE WEEKS.

It is Monday and I am now at home having been judged not fit for work for three weeks. After running around like a maniac for the past few weeks on the latest project I was thinking I would enjoy some enforced leave but now I am not so sure.

For starters the transition from 100% to zero mental effort is a bit of a jolt to the brain and that is combined with the frustration of only having one hand in full working order. Basically I am sat at home with a load of things I would like to do but even the simplest jobs need to be assessed and reworked so that they can be accomplished with one good hand and one little better than a boxing glove.

I have worked out that dog walking is feasible so that takes up an hour of my day and general tidying is well within my limits so that should take up more than my three weeks of sick leave. However heavy items or anything remotely grubby or soggy is most definitely off limits so garage projects are unfortunately not going to happen which is a real shame. 

I really enjoy working with my hands as well as my head and I really wish I was able to knock up something in the garage over the next few weeks. I'm not even able to drive so it looks like it will be limited to TV, books and tidying.

Ho hum!

Sick Note

It is up to you to decide which of the following three approaches I have used to jot down today's Journal entry;

1. Using a stick attached to a band around my forehead to peck at the keys
2. Dictation via 30%'s supreme typing skills*
3. Child exploitation of TP by making him do it** 

It was an early start and 30% was an absolute angel to get out of bed at half past six to have me over in Droitwich for seven thirty. I was soon wearing a surgical gown and by nine thirty I was lay on the table having large quantities of local anaesthetic  pumped in to my left hand.

15 minutes later it was all done and dusted and I was being monitored for complications before being trundled back to my room. After a quick cuppa and a snooze I called the saintly 30% and she selflessly dropped everything to come and pick up the  ingrate  invalid.

I collected my "Get out of Jail Free Card" Doctor's Note and was soon being chauffeured back to The Pile to spend the day catching up on some TV and sleep on the sofa.

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* He I very much under values me her and he I should show some bloody gratitude and appreciation by going out and buying me her something nice like a Mulberry handbag 
** very much like option 2 but with more shouting

It just gets worse

By now the corpse of the Badger is very smelly indeed but still surprisingly bloated.

"bad man, how can it be that big? The magpies and crows have been pecking at it for three weeks"...

 ... actually it was a lot more "shouty" than that!

"Your assumptions are wrong, make different assumptions"....

... I did have the genius idea of this one; It is assumed that there will be a breakthrough in Fusion Power generation in the next few months that will lead to electricity being free at the point of delivery by mid 2012. This assumption would solve many of my problems but, for some reason, Tigger was not keen to progress with this one now he is in charge of the Enterprise ...

... Try not to crash it Matey

Role Play

Today Tigger attended a cultural awareness course. This involved him having his orange bits painted black so he could start to experience life from a Panther's perspective*...

"How was it Tigger?"

"Pooh it was great. I ate three deer and a Native who was planting pineapples. Pass me the dental floss will you old bean"

Back in the real world today has been pretty much the same as yesterday. Hence this nonsense rather than the usual griping about resources and costs.

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* This may not be true

Thought for the Day

Did you ever watch Changing Rooms? It was a BBC Makeover show where two Celebrity Designers would be teamed with a two home owning couples. They would then survey a  problem room in each house and then, here's the catch, they would then swap homes and sort out each other's problem room over the course of a weekend.

Now, as someone who likes DIY and home decorating, I used to watch the programme and wince at the corners that were cut and think what an absolutely dreadful job they would deliver. Everyone knows that "the key to decoration is preparation" and if you only have 48 hours your room will look like you employed Stevie Wonder and Ray Charles to do the job*.

Now you might wonder why this is my thought for today. Basically the current project is being run using the Changing Rooms approach - lets do a quick and dirty job, it'll be fine because it will only be viewed through a cathode ray tube and no-one will see the spiders in the gloss and the massive cracks that we didn't have time to fill.

Unfortunately the couples have now swapped back and they aren't happy**

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* You can bet they aren't cheap either!
** everyone seems to forget that they signed up to the show in the first place

Mission Impossible

Tuesday started with the Admiral's Team briefing and Tigger and I were there to recount the sorry state of the Enterprise. I gave my report as concisely as possible and watched all hell break loose. The Admiral was incredibly aggressive and seemed to be suffering a complete loss of memory about the train of events that lead us to where we are now. I stood my ground and took the flack and the net result is that a call needed to be held to see if we could progress the Mission with the Enterprise taking a less prominent role.

An interesting diversion was at the tail end of the briefing where one of the other Captains and our Commodore had verbal fisticuffs about crew numbers. We are reliably informed that there are NO issues with crew numbers...

... apparently the issue is with the way that Admirals are asking Captains to crew their ships. My Winnie-the-Pooh understanding of this is that all emergency situations now need to be planned in advance.

As Lunchtime approached Tigger and I stepped away from the problematic Replicator, it just will not dispense Hunny, and spent a happy hour in a briefing with another Captain. His plan is for the Enterprise to take a far less prominent role on the Mission and less prominence means less Glory. 

So it looks like, at best, we will limp along at the tail end of the fleet do the stuff that nobody else wants to do.

Now this might seem a bit cynical but certain Individuals have mentioned that we might have been set up on the current project. The thought is that we are in the "game" to make the US look good. Let's call it the Levis theory...

... even the most simple imbecile knows that a pair of Levis will cost far more in the UK than if you buy them in the US. This applies to many consumer goods and services, cars, property, food; they are all cheaper in the US.

The current project has the UK and US pricing a similar range of Services to present two pricing options to the client. The Sales Execs seem to be totally unaware of the Levis theory and think that we should be near to like for like costs with a small delta for additional UK activities.

There is a lot of "Make it so" management direction with absolute failure to acknowledge the fundamental flaws with the approach and the issues of resourcing and time lines.

I am very much looking  forward to receiving the tender ministrations of Nurse Chapel in a few days time.

They're not happy

The working week commences. Tigger and I are sat in the Briefing Cabin of the Enterprise pulling together our latest Mission Plan after the Admiral puked* all over last week's reports.

He needs us to get The Enterprise to the Gamma Quadrant Trade Negotiations by the end of the week and is not happy about the amount of gold pressed latinun we need to get her out of Space Dock. "You are incompetents" he bawled at us this morning. His rant continued with "I could procure a brand new ship from the Chinese Colony on New Beijing for the price you are quoting for having the Injectors recalibrated".

I'm guessing that our quip "Yes, but would you want to trust it to get you to the moon, let alone Vulcan?" whilst precise, was not the best judged of responses.

Basically he thinks we have had the Replicators re-programmed to deliver nothing but haute cuisine  and fine wine and that we have re-crewed the Enterprise with a team of the best looking, most highly qualified Mission Specialists in the Sector...

... We haven't. We just threw what we could together in the limited time available and he is a bit pissed off because we didn't have to time to got the planet Lidl to get everything cheap in a dented container with a label you don't recognise.

In the real world our review of our costs has made some significant reductions but the US are still not happy with them and I have spent a significant part of the afternoon having my arse chewed by American Salesmen. I'd like to take a moment to thank my UK Exec who stood to one side and let me take the bullets for him.

Cheers Mike.

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* He claimed that he had Aldebaran Flu but I think it was too much Romulan Ale.

It is Monday tomorrow

The day started with the Rugby World Cup final but I rapidly got bored. I have no national affinity with either the All Blacks or the French so watching a fairly mundane match between the two was never going to reach the top of my "must do" list. I wandered over to the laptop and fired off a few work e-mails while 30% watched the second half.

After the match we threw T&M in to the back of The Defender and took them for a walk through a piece of Forestry land near where TP plays rugby. We had a great walk through the plantation and there were pheasants aplenty for T&M to pursue.

In the afternoon I took the Honda out of the garage and popped over to see Chippy Ian. I needed to return  a couple of books I had borrowed and took the opportunity for a ride as the upcoming hand operation means that I am unlikely to be doing much bike riding this side of next Spring. We had a cuppa and good old natter and he was keen to pick up the Ducati from Cheltenham if my hand prevented me riding it back.

The late afternoon saw further time spent in front of the laptop "polishing the turd". The latest project is a complete pile of rubbish in that the requirements are very expensive but the salesmen want to sell it cheaply. I am between Scylla and Charybdis here. If I drop the costs the solution will not be viable, if I keep them at a viable level the Sales Guys are not willing to present them to the customer. Basically I'm buggered.

I therefore put work to one side and did something worthwhile instead. 30% had bought a pork loin joint and it is now sat in the fridge on day one of the dry curing process. By the end of the week we will have 2.5 kilos of back bacon. I am guessing that it will then spend another week being massaged in Black Treacle as the Black Bacon has become very popular in these parts.

If I look back at my day I see that there were many good things that happened and I enjoyed them all. So why does the day feel like I have been sat under a grey sky when I look back at it? I'm guessing that might be the latest project.

If all goes to plan ...

Saturday started with a trip out to see an Orthopaedic Specialist in Droitwich. After a brief consultation he confirmed my layman's diagnosis and advised that my treatment plan was correct too ...

... I will be in for day surgery next Saturday. It is a recurrence of Trigger Finger in my left index finger and a brief procedure will be required to rectify it. Hopefully on this occasion there will be no nerve damage as happened when I left my right index finger in the hands of the NHS in August last year.

If all goes to plan the recuperation period* will facilitate my disengagement from the current projects and I'll be back in work just about the time the next big one is ready to start up. The big one has been on the books for weeks now but whenever anyone is asked it is always "at least another two weeks off"  or the even more discouraging "no news at the moment".

After the Consultation 30% and I drove over to Worcester to pick up TP's bike from Hallfords where it had been in for gear surgery. TP himself is spending a few days with Mama and Grandma so there will be no need to haul ourselves in to the car for Rugby Practice tomorrow morning.

Once home 30% and I lunched and then I took T&M for a wander around the Three Miler. While we were out 30%'s friend "Pinkie" and her children arrived so T&M had a 6 and 9 year old to play with on our return.

The rest of the day really faded away. A few work e-mails were dispatched, supper was cooked and eaten and the TV was switched on....

... and then off again not that much later.

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* at least a week away from work

"SMIs"

Earlier this week I made reference to SMIs or Subject Matter Idiots to avoid the TLA.

In the old days these used to be called Subject Matter Experts and they were an absolute boon to the Jack of all Trades Outsourcing Solutioning Lead. These guys would know the best and cheapest way to do all matter of clever things and would know who to check with in other areas to ensure that there were no gaps and no overlaps. Where are they now?

Tigger and I bump in to them occasionally and they are a delight to work with but we are seeing more and more SMIs. These are people that are paid like SMEs but think like they are on minimum wage. They are verging on a waste of skin. They may be nice people but having a good sense of humour and an easy going manner is not going to get me a realistic set of costs by Monday morning. I really need skill, acumen and dedication and my SMI's do not appear to be able to spell these attributes let alone present them.

Let me give you a couple of examples. Tigger and me are working with a team of about eight people. At least two of them do not actually have the ability to use a job critical tool. This means that Tigger has been forced to use it for them. This tool is fundamental to the job we all do and I am being provided with untrained support. This is a bit like expecting a Pizza delivery guy to drive an articulated lorry. He knows the "rules of the road" but is certainly not qualified to drive a 44 tonne truck.

Example number two is actually about the cheapest way to do a particular task. I have one SMI who is a really nice guy. He is willing and is doing his best but had a very high cost in his sub-project. I pointed out that he had a 1,000 man-days of work all being done in the UK and that he could very easily have 700 of those days performed by less expensive Indian labour. I told him this verbally last week and again at the beginning of this week. I put it in an e-mail to him on Tuesday and fuck me if on Friday he still had this bloody work being done in the UK. I asked him why and he advised that he was unaware of how this could be done. I pointed out to him that we had taken this approach on the last project we had won and gave him names of people that were actually doing what we proposed. I ended up having to send him copies of e-mails from the previous project to prove that his area of Speciality were doing what I said.

How on Earth am I expected to stand a cat's chance in Hell of getting a decent set of project costs together when I am working with nice people but lacking the skills or specialist knowledge they are expected to have. Now I know that everyone has got to start somewhere and 12 months ago I was a novice in this area but I had some valid background experience and I when I came across something that I didn't understand I went and asked someone who did.

I didn't know I could still do that

I'll avoid work today as it is most definitely a case of the same old story. I will only mention one incident in the day where I was hosting a virtual team meeting and, at 12 minutes in to the call, I had to repeat my Introduction for the third time as late comers were still joining. I did take a moment out of the call to comment on their poor time management as the ignorant sods didn't even have the manners to introduce themselves or apologise for their tardiness....

.... that was a bit of a "tumble-weed moment" and hopefully they felt suitably chastised.

The subject of today's Journal entry is our local Plumber who arrived today to reconnect a radiator that had been disconnected to allow me to fit some skirting boards. All seemed to be going well and after an hour or so he advised that he had finished and would drop an invoice through the door at the weekend. As soon as he left I let Noggin and Tog out as they had been shut in the "soon to be Dining Room" out of the way. Imagine my surprise horror to see water pouring through the ceiling. I slipped on a pair of shoes and sprinted, yes actually bloody sprinted, the 200 yards down the road to the Plumbers house in the vain hope that he was going home rather than on the way to another job....

... The Gods smiled upon me and he was just getting out of his van. I still had enough breath to advise that I had a leak and we were back at the house a couple of minutes later.  Fortunately it was nothing major. Basically the daft sod had left a radiator valve open when he partially drained the system and had forgotten to close it when he re-pressurised. There is no major damage done as the ceiling is scheduled to be ripped down and re-plastered and there was no electrical components or wiring near the leak.

Phew!

Quote of the Day ...

I was hosting a conference call this afternoon where we discussed our latest set of project costs. My summation was as follows ...

... We are like Magpies pecking at the bloated corpse of a badger in the road.