Two-state Machine!

So Winter has returned with a vengeance to North-East Scotland. I got caught in a fairly vicious snow-storm while driving home on Thursday evening. All I could see were the tail-lights in front of me, so I just had to hope that they could see the road better than I could. I'm really enjoying my new job, even though it's only temporary. At least I'm getting to do the kind of work that I wanted to do. It's only until Christmas though, so I don't know if I'll be back there in the New Year... it's in the lap of the Gods.

The image above reminds me of this T-shirt I almost bought one-time, "There are only 10 types of Computer Geek in the World, those who understand binary and those who don't". Of course, you have to understand binary to get the joke, which is sort of the whole point. Since part of my job is to teach people about binary, it really appealed to me. I was even more tempted to get myself a binary watch and I still might to be honest. Although, the ones I've seen aren't as visually appealing as I would like. I wonder if you can get a Hexadecimal watch?

I haven't been out hill-walking for a while. The weather was bad, then I hurt my back and then the weather turned bad again. Winter walking in Scotland's hills is actually a very dangerous pursuit. First off, there is a considerable avalanche risk, which kills a few walkers every Winter. Then there is the risk of falling over a cliff in white-out conditions. Also, without crampons there is a considerable risk of slipping on ice, especially if it has a thin layer of snow covering it. I banged my head and knee 2 Winters ago, near the end of a hill-walk. I was kicking myself for letting my concentration slide so close to the finish. I can't wait to get out actually, especially to get some fantastic Winter photos, but I will wait for some slightly decent conditions first.

Carrying A Heavy Load!

I haven't really had time to post lately, or to do anything much at all in fact. I just started in my new temporary job this week and it's been busy indeed! First off, I knew I was coming into something of a mess and that I was going to have to sort it all out. Deja vu really, because that was how my last job started also. It has taken me three days though to get the information I need on just how bad things are and it's worse than I expected. Sorting it all out won't be easy. I won't look for any help, because I've learned quickly in this business that you're on your own.

So once again, I'm shouldering a heavy burden. Mind you, turning things around and getting everything ticking over nicely did nothing for me last time around. You had to get yourself noticed there in order to get anywhere. Just doing your job and doing it well wasn't enough. Also, I thought that helping people out now and again might smooth the passage, but in reality I was just doing someone else's work on top of my own and nobody took a blind bit of notice. I won't be doing that again unless it's clearly going to benefit numero uno.

We're still languishing in the deep freeze here, but it could be worse. My niece got stuck on the motorway and had to spend 2 nights in a hotel in some god-forsaken industrial estate town and she only got a room because her mother managed to book one over the phone... they were queueing out of the door. However, the snow looks likely to melt at the weekend, before the mercury plunges once again next week.

Still Working!

Well, today was my last day at my present job. After two and a half years, that's it over. Fortunately, I have been able to secure another post which will last at least until Christmas and probably a good bit more. I figure this will be the 12th job I've had and quite a variety over time as well. The longest I've ever been in the same job for was 6 years. That said, I can't say I've ever been truly happy in a job and at the end of the day, that's what really matters, not the pay, not the hours... but, job satisfaction!

What A Palaver!

Well, as you can see from the snowman my daughter and her friend made, we still have lots of snow here. Despite that we were back to work today after 2 days off, even though it's colder and it's started snowing again. The boss thinks we'll be back to normal tomorrow. I have my doubts! Anyway, another two days and I'm finished. I did have another interview this afternoon though, so hopefully some good news tomorrow. I need it after the spell I've had lately.

I've probably said this before, but it's amazing how the infrastructure in the UK collapses as soon as there's any amount of snow. I was watching the news and some very bemused travellers from Denmark wondering why they can't travel in this country, when they were able to go about as normal back home and in much worse conditions. There is no obvious reason. I'm sure that 150 years ago, people would have carried on as normal with little fuss, so something has obviously changed in our mindset since then. Clearly our transport network is vastly inferior and unsuitable, but I think it's about attitude as well.

If you are reading this in another country, you may be surprised to hear that many UK citizens really hate their work. It's probably the same elsewhere, but employees here, are in the main really treated with a great deal of diresepect. Quite often the threat of being made redundant is held over you to force you to do tasks way outside your job remit, to work unpaid overtime and to get little or no recognition for what you do. That I beleive is the main reason for so many sick days in this country and as an extension of that, the perfect excuse not to make it into work as soon as there's an inch of snow on the ground!!!

Snow Go!

So, we have almost a foot of snow here right now. I haven't seen it so bad since the day I got married, almost 18 years ago. My back's still bad as well, so I'm having a quite miserable time at the moment. I got some anti-inflammatory tablets, but the side-effects were almost as bad as the reason for taking them, so I gave up on them after 3 days. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to go anywhere and that's a major problem when there's a shortage of food in the house. Anyhow, I did manage to go to the local supermarket this morning, but my back was hurting pretty bad the whole time, worse than normal.

I think I can see a pattern emerging in the weather. The last three Summer's here have all been wash-outs, no real extended nice spells and last Winter was our worst for a long time. This one is already making last year's look ordinary. Things are definitely changing. Where it's all heading though, we can't know for certain. Maybe it's better that we don't know. All I can say is, global warming is only making Scotland's climate worse as far as I've seen.

So far this Winter is the Winter of my discontent. I've had failed interviews, a bad back, time off my work which I won't get paid for, and soon enough I will be out of work. I'm not really sure which way to go next. I have ideas obviously, but more than likely something will turn up, as some Dickens character played by David Jason on TV once said.

Down, but not out!

Well, yesterday I went for my third failed job interview since August and I'm starting to get a bit demoralised. My present position ends next week and I haven't manged to line up another job yet. To compound matters, when I woke up yesterday, I had a sore back for no apparent reason and it only got worse as the day wore on. As a result, I'm not in work today, and I don't get paid for being off, even with a legitimate reason. So, I know it's not the end of the World, but I think I can be excused for feeling a bit down right now.

As for the interviews... I don't think I'm actually doing that much wrong. In this line of work the motto "It's not what you know, but who you know" certainly seems applicable. I can tell you for a fact, that in one of the aforementioned interviews, I was getting negative vibes right from the start, as though they wanted it over and done with, they already had their employee. That was not a pleasant interview. There were other factors too, like a distinct lack of follow-on questions, which gave me the impression that I was bashing my head against a brick-wall!

Basically, I'm heading down a blind alley. I still have a few options, but time is running out. I was promised great things when I started, but thanks to the "present financial climate", everything has been turned upside-down. Sure, I'm not the only one that's worried about the future, but it's different when It's actually happening to you!!!

Spesh Ops!

I know that Call of Duty: Black Ops is the big thing in gaming right now and if I was a teenager I'd probably be playing it all of the time just like my own son is. However, you might have noticed that I've been messing around making some comic strips recently and I've decided to do a mickey-take of Black Ops for my latest venture. Somebody had to! Three pages no less as well....

Click on each page to view full size. If you like it, then please leave a comment!

Weeds

Here's another cartoon strip I made. It might make you think of Summer hopefully, because it's freezing here right now!!!

Click to view full size

War of the Animals!

Thought I'd have a go at making a comic strip. Here is my first attempt. Mickey Mouse (now sadly walking with Jesus and Walt) relates his version of animals' struggle for survival.

Click to view full size

The Winds of Change!

So it turns out that my prospects are possibly not as bleak as I first anticapted they would be on receipt of the news that my current employment would be coming to an end at the start of December. When I received the news, there appeared to be little chance of securing alternative employ before that time. Now, I have at least three good possibilities on my horizon. Of those three, two are posts I was interested in before. One I tried for, but narrowly missed out on and now it's up for grabs again. Another of the posts, I wasn't allowed to apply for (an internal vacancy), but now they have opened it up to a broader group of individuals and I am free to apply.

I do have a preference of the three and I would quite willingly give up my present position for it anyway, so the whole debacle may well end up proving beneficial to me, despite the way I've been treated. Things have been going well at work anyhow. Many of my colleagues have sided with me, so management have really cast themsleves in an unfavourable light because of the way they have handled it all. They've shown themselves as untrustworthy, ruthless and corrupt. Maybe those are the traits required for higher management. In this case however, none of it was necessary.

So basically, at the start of December I should be starting a new job, or I will be unemployed. Either way, I'll be happy to leave where I'm at right now. When you feel like your superiors are plotting and scheming against you, it makes things uncomfortable to say the least. Then, when you discover that your concerns are well founded, then it makes your position untenable. That's where I find myself right now. I'm looking forward to a fresh start, but I've learned a valuable lesson, be careful who you trust!

Glen Ey

On Sunday, after the clocks went back, the wife and I decided to head to Glen Ey near Braemar for a spot of cycling, hiking and steep uphill walking (not climbing, it was hardly that). It started off bright and we began with a 12km or so cycle in, mainly on a gentle uphill. After that it was largely cross-country to reach Beinn Iutharn Mhor. It was quite a steep pull up the flank of the hill and it took us a while to reach the top. It wasn't too cold except for when rounding the corrie, where our faces were numb with the updraft.

Beinn Iutharn Mhor

Beinn Iutharn Mhor up the Ey Burn and beyond Altanour Lodge ruins

Odd rock

Looking down Glen Ey to Morrone

Loch nan Eun and Gleann Taitneach

Approaching the summit of Beinn Iutharn Mhor

From the summit we made our way down into the corrie where it was easiest to descend and then faced a crossing over some very inhospitable terrain for a few kilometres; bog, peat haughs, mud etc. It was pretty bad.  Eventually we pulled up onto the ridge at the other side though and it wasn't far to the top of the second Munro of the day: Carn Bhac. There were great views of the Cairngorms from here, all browns and greys as the hills are now wearing their Winter plumage!

Beinn a'Ghlo

Carn Bhac

The Cairngorms

The walk back down to the bikes was again through wild country, no paths, plenty of mud and water though. It seemed like such a long trudge and the rain came on a bit before we even reached the bikes. The ride back was much easier, mostly downhill and took about half the time of the ride in. 15 minutes after getting back to the car, it was dark. It seemed to come on all of a sudden. What a difference putting the clocks back an hour makes!

Going Out!

Well it's pretty cold and windy here right now, but I've decided to take advantage of a possible window of opportunity and head out on the hills tomorrow. The wind is going to drop significantly the foreacst claims, although it will still be close to freezing higher up. I'm hoping to bag 2 Munros, which will take my tally for this year to 28. I made 29 last year and 31 the year before, which was my first year hill-walking. Depending on several factors, I may get another chance to go out before the year's end and make it 30 for this year. That would be nice!

Not that the annual amount is really that important. I just feel that I need to sustain a reasonable figure in order to be able to complete within 10 years. Yes, that's 10 years in total to climb all of the Munros in Scotland. That's my projected total time required to achieve such a feat. Well, there are 283 Munros spread all across the country and there is a lot of travelling involved. That's probably the worst part. I don't like having to drive for extended periods, especially not before a long walk. You do tend to stiffen up a bit enroute.

I've been thinking about which Munro I would like to be my 100th. It will probably be May/June next year before I reach that figure, but I'd like to tackle one of the scarier ones like An Teallach or Liathach for the event. Some people might suggest that those aren't scary hills, but I'm no climber, just an ordinary walker and I've seen pictures of them which have scared the hell out of me. Quite often though, in reality, they aren't nearly as bad as you tend to imagine. That said though, the Lancet Edge in the Ben Alder group gave me a couple of cheek-clenching moments and it's considered quite tame.

Marching Orders!

What a frustrating time. I'm getting booted out of my job, but I have to work for another month. It's humiliating really. "We don't want you here anymore, but you can't leave until we say so!" Leave me some dignity please! It is fairly ridiculous anyway. The reason I'm being edged out as far as I can tell, is mainly owing to my superior knowledge over my superior. Do you get that? His background lies elsewhere and my ability to make his lack of knowledge plain for all to see is clearly more than he can live with on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, I had to be disposed of! He laso has the ear of the boss, while the boss also fears the complexity of what I do and together their child-like ignorance in their interpretation of what it is I do has caused them to desire my no longer doing it.

That being said, if I'd had the chance I would have left before now anyway. I could see which way the wind was blowing. A general dumbing-down has been brought into play, which is clearly a necessary coping mechanism for those with the minds of children. I wanted out before they got me out and now I only have a month to find alternative employment. Unfortunately, I have to keep working during that period when I'd rather be using the time to look for a suitable post. I'm hopeful that I'll find something, but if I don't, well it's not the end of the World. I've suffered worse and survived. Anyway, I'm a firm beliver in "what goes around comes around", so those that shafted me ought in turn be shafted themselves. The sooner and the harder, the better!

Stitched Up and Shafted!

I have been stitched up and shafted and there's very little I can do about it. Don't you just hate it when that happens? Not in a small way either, in a significantly damaging to employment way! I'm still there for another couple of weeks yet though, but in essence I have been replaced and it reeks of cronyism. I don't think I even had a chance. The person who was appointed in my stead may well be a good friend of one of the interviewers. That's what I'm hearing behind the scenes.

I was only ever onto a loser, being interviewed to stay in my job. I wanted to leave anyway, just not by their choice, by my own. It's unfortunate that things have turned out the way they have. Unless I can find somethng suitable in the next couple of weeks I will be a man of leisure again for the first time in almost 7 years. It's ironic to think it's virtually 21 years to the day that I started my first full-time job.

I've gone through the whole range of emotions; anger, resentment, frustration, hatred, but I'm now slowly heading towards acceptance. It's a profession in which it's very difficult to know who you can trust. I learnt that mistake quite quickly, but nothing can stop others plotting your demise and for no other reason than a refusal to admit that their idiotic ideas are the only acceptable ones. These people have a very child-like view of the World and clearly they're still in the playground where they used to gang-up on others. Age is no barrier to incompetence and ignorance!!!

Ready for Distraction!

So, it's back to work tomorrow after two weeks off. It was meant to be holidays, but with a great deal of time spent decorating and very poor weather in general preventing me going hill-walking, it hasn't really felt like a holiday at all. Also, there is a great deal of uncertainty over the work situation. I can't really say what's happening, but of course if it goes badly I'll spill my guts... heh he he!

I've decided to try and sell my photos online. I don't know how well that will actually work in reality, but it seems worth a try. I'm using Photobox. I'm still in the process of setting things up, but needless to say, links will be added here later on. I have no idea what to charge though and I am assuming that ownership still belongs to me should someone decide to use one of my images for any type of commercial venture.

It seems that Winter has arrived here in the North-East of Scotland. We had large hail-stones yesterday and it's getting colder all of the time. Last Winter was the worst in many years, so I do wonder what's in store for us this time. Given government and council cutbacks it may well be a Winter of discontent regardless of what the weather brings.

Getting shot of!

The bedroom is finally decorated and furnished... yay! A King-size bed as well. Our first ever, what luxury! On the downside, I had to spend part of today disposing of our unwanted old stuff; carpet, bed, wardrobe, bookcase etc. I was somewhat aggrieved at being forced to give up my bookcase. Mind you, it was long since filled with books, which had began to spread elesewhere. With the King-size bed, there just wasn't space for it anymore. Never let it be argued that I'm not a reasonable man. I bowed to common sense on this one. My books are now secreted here and there out of sight. I have a lot of books...

Anyway... the dump, as I call it. Firstly I had to borrow my old man's trailer to ferry the stuff. Then I had to also borrow his car, since my car does not have a tow-bar. It took us two trips. Fortunately it's less than a mile from the house. I don't know why we call it the dump, because it's nothing like a dump in the sense of a landfill site. Mainly, it's divided up into skips and bays with separate areas for different types of material; garden waste, earth, rubble, glass, cardboard, polystyrene, metal, electrical goods, household waste, wood and synthetic wood. There are probably others categories that I haven't even spotted, but there's more than enough to be going on with when you have a trailer load of assorted rubbish. We were darting all around the place trying to deposit items in their correct locations.

Now it's all well and good, us doing our civic duty and sorting out all of these items for what we imagine will be recycling or disposal in another form. However, I do harbour certain doubts about what happens to rubbish here once collected. I heard a rumour that the Council must recycle at least 25% of paper rubbish and that the remaining 75% was being sent from the North-East of Scotland to French landfills. If that's the case, then we the general public really are being made fools of. No wonder our local Council are struggling to make ends meet, with massive cut-backs (closing and selling off village halls?). No matter how much money they make, they can't manage the budget. Why not? Because they are self-serving bureaucrats, out for themsleves. That's why!

Post Decorum Magnum

Well, that's the decorating done for now, a new carpet in and flat-pack furniture unpacked and assembled. I had to put together a 3-door wardrobe, which was easy enough until it came to hanging the doors. That took longer than all the rest of it put together. All that remains is for our new bed to arrive (king-size yay) and I have been promised a new computer desk. Something a bit more stylish and contempoorary than what I have a present.

The weather's turned very cold here. No hill-walking for just now. There will definitely be snow on the hills, which probably means I won't get to go up Beinn Eighe as I had planned. I might have to put that off until next year, unless we get a settled period sometime soon. The shorter Winter days really do prohibit ascending anything major and the presence of snow can double the time taken. That's why it's very important to put some thought into planning Winter hill trips. being out in the cold after dark, when the temperatures do really dip, especially higher up... that's a big no-no for me. I still want to get out though. It might just mean smaller hills, nearer home.

Marilyns

Hills below 2000ft in Scotland are classified as Marilyns. Sometimes when the weather makes climbing larger hills difficult, the wife and I prefer to go out and bag these smaller hills. Obviously a single hill is hardly worth the travelling, so today we did three of them: Hill of Foudland, Hill of Tillymorgan and Fourman Hill, in Aberdeenshire.

Hill of Foudland

Hill of Tillymorgan

Fourman Hill

With Decorum

I've been on holiday for a week now and besides our day out hill-walking at Glen Shiel (which was amazing), we've mostly been decorating the Master bedroom. We've gone for an oatmeal type colour for the walls and a dark biscuit type colour for the woodwork. We decided to go for something bold to add a bit of character, so we chose the wallpaper above and ran it around the room. Looks nice! Still waiting until next week before we get the carpet done, then we can look at beds. I suppose it had to be done, although decorating is probably my second worst leisure-time pursuit after gardening.

Don't get me wrong, I love gardens. Looking at them that is. I simply don't have the patience to nurture one. Anyway, we live in Scotland, who needs a garden? We've got amazing scenery all around us. I had plans to visit Beinn Eighe next week for some more walking, but the forecast is for howling gales and snowfall. Might have to look at a smaller target. It's always nice to get out, but I'm averse to risking life and limb.

You might still be wondering why I revived this blog after more than two years without posting. Well, I use to find it quite therapeutic posting here when times were tough. Those times may be returning. I hope not, but there may be trouble ahead!

Fab Day at Glen Shiel

On Monday the wife and I drove down to Glen Shiel to climb the four Eastern most Munros on the South Glen Shiel ridge. Given a fantastic forecast, with sunshine and no wind predicted, we were hopeful of a good day out. On the drive down it was quite foggy and when we got there the cloud was very low. As soon as we started walking though, we saw an eagle. A good omen?

The cloud persisted for a long time. We had to walk most of the way around the first Munro to reach the stalkers path which would take us to the top. At about 600m we started to climb out of the cloud. Was a cloud inversion on the cards?

What an amazing feeling being up above the clouds. We were loving it. If you wonder why people go hill-walking, it's for days like this.

It took us three hours to reach the top of the first Munro: Creag a'Mhaim. From there it took about 45 minutes to reach the top of the next Munro: Druim Shionnach.

An hour later we reached the top of highest Munro of the day: Aonach Air Chrith.

We were doing quite well at this point. Just over another hour later we reached the top of Maol Chinn-dearg, our final Munro of the day. We then started our long descent to the road.

We had to walk about 4km back along the road to the Cluanie Inn where we had parked. We decided to go in for a meal which was very good!