March 04, 2006
I Is Back!
Hello? Gosh, it does echo in here, doesn't it! And all this dust! I'll have to get a girl in to do something about it...
How have you all been? Yeah? Cool. Me? Ah, I've been getting bogged down at work, stressed out a couple of times, got ill, slept, got over having my ankle operated on - life's happened, y'know? I won't give you a full, detailed breakdown of the past few months (few? My last entry was in June!!!), but I can give you a quick overview, I guess...
My ankle - ah, when I left off it was finally copming back to normal - I was exercising and it was getting stronger - now it is nice and strong (though there is always bruising there), and I can walk normally on it without too much of a problem. I say that because it can now have spasms and lock off due to the muscle and tendon damage, as before, except that now it can do it more violently as there isn't a lump of bone in the way to stop it! Still, it is a hell of a lot better, so overall it's a success!
Just over a year ago I had a serious stress attack at work, and I've come quite close a few times more recently at work... Mostly I've just gone into the toilets and sat on the loo shivering and crying - not total stress-outs so far, which is surprising! I'm unfortunate to work in Social Services (there- I've said it!) and my job isn't too bad most of the time, but in the past year things have been changing. A lot. First, I go back to work after my op and then my colleague who had been covering has a problem that stops him driving. Then he goes off for six months after a suspected heart attack! Luckily it turns out that it wasn't a heart attack, but an infection in the heart, similar but worse, to what I had a few years ago. For six montsh I had to cover some of his work (luckily it wasn't too busy at first, and then other people in the team around the county took up the job as my patch suddenly got busy - to put it in persective, I've been off for 25% of the year with my ankle (and only managed to take a bit of leave, most of that just before I came back while I got my left leg up to full strength again). In the remaining 75% I've had as many cases as I had last year. And March isn't over yet. I couldn't keep up, so they had to help to cover for me too! Things got better, though, but then a pilot scheme that had been hanging over our heads descended and I ended up doing the pilot three days a week covering certain parts of Burnley with the other two days for my normal job (covering East Lancashire - a much bigger area!). The two days I was doing my normal job were not enough, as you can imagine - I spent most of them either replying to people amnd messages saying it they would be seen eventually, doing a little bit of the job itself (chipping away at the mountain, a bit). Except that for the new job I required training, as did the rest of the pilot team. Training that often took 3-4 days away from me. By Christmas I was going a little crazy, and then someone decided to do something about it - and suddenly I was only doing one day on the pilot. This sounds cool, right? Well, just what can I do on that one day? At least I've managed to get a lot of stuff done in my own job (though there are still delays as there is more stuff coming in every day), though at least I am feeling better now. During this time the plan was to learn BSL level 2 as part of my job, but as it has been a long while since I was trained (at my own expense) I was no good and spent much of the day miserable (despite the nice company :-) and went home a couple of weeks ago stressed, but willing to try again. Unfortunately in the week that followed I was able to think about it properly and realised I couldn't do Level 2 - not yet - and spent a shaky, flu-ey morning (in the pilot hours!) composing an email to my manager to get off it for this year, carefully trying to make it look like I wasn't joing a few members of the team who had refused. I'm willing to do it, but not while I'm on the pilot and not while I'm so stressed out. Now I should be on a level 1 course in April, but this should be better, and mean that I pick up what I lost - not so difficult. I hope...
Of course, I reckoned without my colleague managing to slip in the ice and snow and fracturing his ankle on Thursday night. Oh well.
Gaming news - this year I've been mostly playing GTA - San Andreas when at home and not working on the comic, but it's been Joint Operations every Sunday with the lads. This is fine, but while I was off with my ankle I played every night and got really good, and kinda bored with it! Still, Nick and Andrew love it, so we'll keep playing until something else comes along... and I do hope Armed Assault is as good as it looks... though Spore looks like it might be the greatest game ever!
James, once a regular visitor to the above gaming sessions (and once a regular blogger here!) has been working his arse off (apparently) to get money, so we don't see him, though do get the occasional email burst detailing the games he has, the cracks and how we'll never get to play them... Andrew has now got a rather lovely american girl staying (nothing going on - honest!) while she is at college over here, so we only see him every-so-often, and even then he comes late and goes early! Nick is his usual self, if a lot greyer! He tends to play Joint Ops a hell of a lot - I'm worried about him! He used to like going out to clubs to ogle the girls, but now he stops in - he's as bad as Andrew, though while the non-sexual Andrew has a nice girl at his place (even if she does shoot her own team in JO!) - Nick just ogles his Kylie calendar. When he's not yelling abuse at other players, of course. Not that they can hear him...
Me? I'm fine - stressed (see above) busy (see above and the comics!), and I simply can't be arsed to go out for nights out any more - even with my 36th Birthday lurking next Sunday, I find it hard to get any enthusiasm. Of course, the fact that I need money bad is another part of it - thankfully eBay has come to my rescue in the past few weeks and will continue to do spo this month and possibly forever more! Yep - I'm actually selling my stuff! So far my PS2 has gone (for a nice price, thought he woman who bought it instantly put bad feedback on for me, though the green colour on the screen is due to the DVD switch being turned on on the scart lead... hopefully she'll read the message I sent this afternoon, sort out the non-existent problem and retract it!). Unfortunately, this bad feedback seems to have cost me money - my Gamecube was on with 6 people watching, but it only went for the basic price. Thanks bitch. She's a noob (started in mid Feb) so I guess she doesn't realise that it might be a good idea to talk to the seller if there is a problem before jumping in with both feet. Especially when there isn't a problem - when the DVD switch is on it's meant to be green - at least she hasn't moaned that the Memory Card doesn't work (I put the instructions in with the CD and card!). The next big thing to sell (and I need it to do well!) is my telescope. I'm unhappy about it, but it has to go - and I want a new one anyway... a Big Dob, anyone?
Other little bits - A serious computer crash messed things up when I lost some art I'd just finished, but all is well now; I'm ending this year with at least 18 days leave untaken - even Andrew (who only gets Bank Holidays - takes more time off than me; I had to replace my iPaq after it for it's screen busted - still, somone bought it on ebay for spares, so I'm happy - and my new one is fast enough to run an Amiga emulator - I guess it'll do until the MS Origami systems start to ship; oh, and Doctor Who ruled!
Not much more to say now (your eyes are tired, I know!), but I'll say it anyway! While ...Whatever took a break until February, I.T. has gone from strength to strength - currently I have readers, visiting regularly, and I have even started a rebranding exercise! The RNP logo has changed, I.T. The Idiotic Terrestrial is now the much cooler I.T. : Rogue Noid (something I'd been wanting to do for a few years, especially at the beginning, but decided to wait until I was doing new stuff, which I am now, before doing the switch), and I'm currently in the middle of a big site revamp which will include advertising (and require me to advertise myself - hence the need for money!), starting a LJ feed and even taking part in Biggest Webcomic Loser, a charity comics event about losing weight (and I need to!) and raising money through pledges for UNICEF. I'm also about to try to get a strip in each issue of Zoinks, the webcomic newspaper... You can tell how serious I am - I draw the comic all the time and haven't missed an update in a long, long time... and spent money getting Adobe Creative Suite 2 - a reall one! With the box and everything!
Basically, in the coming year, I may get very stressed (expect some entertaining reading), but I'm geared up to promote the comic, get as much money as possible and finally do something with my life before it begins again at 40. Which is still some years, off, thankfully (well, apart from a couple of loans that make me wish it would come quicker!)
So - that's me and the last few months in a nutshell. I guarantee my next post will be here sooner than usual... have fun - I know I'll aim to misbehave!
Enjoy!
Posted by Badgers at 09:18 PM | Comments (0)