The doctor recommended it so we followed his advice and waited 3 months before letting anyone know.
Our baby is due June 2006, just in time for the football world cup. I immediately take that as a sign that it will be a world class player especially with the Brazilian and Czech heritage.
So after three months of explaining to people why my wife was so ill for so long I was running out of excuses. There are only so many flues, food poisonings and jet lags one can blame on.
Reactions? Great joy mixed with just a tad of anxiety and nervousness. I can barely take care my self so how will I managed another human being? I will let you all know in 18 years.
Category: Journal
Annoying unsolicited telemarketing phone calls: your rights
The number of unwanted telemarketing phone calls we receive have increased a lot after a recent telephone number change.
There are various ways dealing with such calls:
1. For a short term relief just hang up.
I am a honest and polite person and for the last 5 years I tried to be rational and sensible when dealing with unwanted telemarketing calls. This did not help. It was a waste of time.
Once I overcame this politeness, I can now terminate an unwanted call in just 10 seconds. “Hello I am calling from Super Cheap Calls, would you be interested in… CLICK”.
2. The better solution is to register your number with the Telephone Preference Service (TPS). By UK law it is unlawful to make unsolicited direct marketing calls to registered numbers.
Save the registration confirmation as it is required when submitting a complaint.
The registration can take up to 3 months to come into effect so wait this long before submitting any complaints.
It is the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) who enforces the above law. You can find handy complaint templates at their making a complaint page.
Even if the phone call is originating from abroad, there will be an UK company that is responsible for the offered product/service and is intended to receive your money.
Ask the caller who you will be paying to.
3. If you have a lot of spare time, a third approach is to try and waste as much as possible of the callers time.
The conversion rates (successful sales out of total calls) are low so the call centers rely on quick finishes on calls that do not result in a sale.
If enough people did this, the call center operation would become unprofitable due to high calling costs and amount of time spent on unsuccessful calls.
Ask about every single option in the offering, tell them to hold while you are getting a pen and paper, tell them you don’t understand, ask about costs and cancelations, tell them to call back in 5 minutes and start asking the same questions.
My personal record is 8 minutes, can you beat that? (leave a comment)
Before and after pumpkin
This poor pumpkin looked so much better before Hallowe’en.
Before
After
The question is, how did you feel before and after this year’s Hallowe’en party?
Plasma Irony
The recent “Win a free plasma TV” campaign on Sky Digital is causing a ghost image on the plasma because it is bright and stays in the same position for a prolonged time.
Can’t think of a good analogy at the moment. I’m sure there is one.
Mad dash in Brazil
So we were supposed to be going to the Txai resort, Bahia, Brazil. The flight Sao Paulo to Illeus was at 7 am which meant we had to go up at 4:30.
Now this would normally not have been too bad but this time it was the morning after my brother in law’s wedding. Of course there was a big Brazilian party to mark the occasion and of course did I have to force my self to go to bed by midnight.
To add to the already nicely stressed schedule, a project for work was due and this was possibly the last time with decent Internet access to send of a couple of MB worth of application design. It got done, just. Between midnight and two in the morning.
After just 3 hours of sleep but very psyched to be of to a sunny paradise we got of to the airport Guarulhos. Getting another ride from my wife’s cousin who by now I know is an excellent driver (fast, safe, breaking all possible traffic rules) in the Sao Paulo traffic.
At the airport we discovered to our horror that Guarulhos was the wrong airport. TAM, the airline that was to service us, had changed the airport of departure to Congonhas just one day before the flight. They had notified as many passengers as possible but we booked through an agent and he did not get through to us.
It was 6:30 and the flight was scheduled for 7 am. The trip between Guarulhos and Congonhas is about 1 hour we were told.
Close to tears, we gave it a shot to try to speed to the correct airport. The TAM staff were at least nice enough to warn the crew at the other airport that we were making a dash for it.
18 minutes later our tires were screeching outside the correct airport. A few ladies at the check in desk notified us professionally that there was no way we could make it on the flight but a senior staff jumped swiftly over the counter and commanded us to run after him.
#PAGEBREAK#
10 minutes later after an express security check, a personal lift to the aircraft and re-lowering the plane staircase we were on board. Sweaty but on board. The plane took of 7:01, just one minute late. (BA, take some pointers please)
So here we are. Writing you from a sunny Bahia. They even have some sort of Internet connection here! (I had to high-jack a LAN cable and an IP address but it works)
Another scorcher in London
Another scorcher in London last weekend with temperatures soaring up to 30C. We don’t get many of those in London and Imade sure to soak it up properly.
Lounging in an inflatable pool from Argus, the BBQ stacked up with char coal and VH1 Top 100 classic rock tunes pumping out from the living room. If I only I had had a Piña Colada floating next to me, I could have totally dreamed my self back to the Maldives.
The puppies are growing really fast and have for the last 4 days been demanding to be left out in the garden. I feel a bit anxious about letting them rummage around in the wild but it is most likely good for them.
Just the other day Oswald (the orange one) found a gap under the wooden decking and disappeared. Only after pulling out five boards did I manage to find him. He was sleeping soundly and protested loudly when I rescued him.
How was your weekend?
The big three oh
There was a small party in our garden to celebrate the occasion. I had sent out the invites only 2 days ahead so naturally several friends had to decline as they already had made plans.
I was sending them a few “What is more important than cake and champagne” SMS messages but they would not budge. No sweat, the more cake and champagne there was for the rest of us.
It wasn’t as bad as I had expect it to be, to turn 30. I did wake up with a head ache and for a brief moment I was terrified that maybe after you turn 30, you would have a constant head ache. Nobody had told me that. The head ache disappeared next day however so all was good again.
I was overwhelmed by the preparations my wife had put into it all. She even sent me away to a favourite restaurant of ours to “pick up some things”. There was nothing to be picked up. Instead a 90 minute massage appointment was waiting for me across the street, at Bliss.
There were also presents involved in the celebrating. A few friends combined their efforts and surprised me mightily with a Nikkor 20mm 2.8D lens. An object of desire that I would not have indulged my self in otherwise.
Fine wine, cigar accessories and sporting gear were other high-lights. I felt spoiled rotten!
Blast on London underground and buses
Around 9am today (Thursday) several London underground trains and busses had exploded. All of London underground network is currently suspended and people are being evacuated.
Initially the incidents were being reported as “power surges” on the underground. After several buses had exploded as well it was clear that it was actually bombs that had exploded.
Currently (11am) there have been a few (2) fatal casualties.
No information regarding who is responsible for the attacks as of yet.
I am fine and so is our family. I have been in touch with several close friends who are all fine as well but I am very worried that not all have been so lucky.
Update 3.30pm
Currently there are more than 33 fatalities confirmed. More than 300 people have been treated.
Other sources
Real time Wiki
BBC Timeline
Sky News
yawn
Yes it is 5:01am.
Ginger, our Golden Retriever, has just had her fourth and last puppy.
Surely she is able to take care of her newborn pups so it’s time to get a few hours rest.
Zzorry for the incoherent writing.
—
Turns out that last puppy was not so last after all.
Two more puppies were delivered before 7am. By then I had already passed out in the living room, so I did not notice.
Prepare yourselves for a whole load of puppy photos in the near future. Eating puppies, sleeping puppies, puppies playing and puppies in jars… no, not that, sorry.
—
Turns out that the six puppies are all boys. What is the chance of that?! (Actually it is 0.5^6 or 1:64 or 1.6%).
Since we cannot keep them all, 5 of these Golden Retriever puppies in London will be for sale second week of August. This of course after an excrutiating interview process 🙂
Use the contact form to contact me.
Heavy
I am freakin heavy. That was the only thing I could think about during todays entire run.
Back in the days a 1 hour run was only refreshing, nowadays a 30 minute run is excruciating. The only thing that pulled me through was Blue Sonics Deapseediver*.
One positive thing with being out of shape is that you get to understand the huffing and puffing of the slightly over weight people while they work it out in the streets and parks during the weekends. I am one of them 🙂
So to all the wannabe runners that are trying hard, keep at it, it will get better. To all the aces that effortlessly run and run, please have some compassion for the ones that are trying. One day it could be you again.
* Tune in to Digitally Imported for great Trance and Dance tunes. If you use Winamp with Streamripper (free software) you can even save the high quality MP3 tunes for later 😉