Snap, Crackle and Pop

Well after an invigorating trip to London to see the Queen...okay actually it was Golfy, but he carries a royal presence!  I was almost tempted to go for the drag queen approach, but erred caution...

...anyway his wise words of wisdom which actually covered many subjects resulted in me spending my hard earned wonga on a new gadget.
Now I have been toying with this idea for years and could never quite justify it, even when Mrs Stretch gave me permission it always seemed that there was a catch and to many of my married readers you should know what I mean when what a woman says is not actually what she says!
So now I have a new Nikon D5000 with 2 lenses and flashgun and extra kit

 

I have to say she has done me very proud already.  You see as well as having the wise words from Golfy, and permission from Mrs Stretch (ish), I also had the Sister-In-Laws wedding at the weekend and I was asked to be the photographer for the day.  Now this is my 2nd wedding photography booking in the last 4 months and I have another one next month.  What started out as a favour has not exactly snowballed but it has continued!  Which means I must be doing something right!  And to be honest I love it.  Yes it is nerve-racking and tiring (your legs and glute muscles really ache the next day!), and very time consuming.  Obviously it takes up the bulk of the day, but it also takes up every spare moment for weeks afterwards.  Luckily I had undisturbed time on my train trips to and fro the big smoke to do lots of editing and tweaking.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattstretch/

Squeezed in

So here I am sat on the train.  Okay I will correct that I am squeezed on a train.  It is nothing to do with the guy sat next to me, whom at some point in the next 5 minutes is bound to be tempted to read my screen.  And that is not the reason why I am saying it is not his fault, but it is clearly the day and age that we are in, whereby every company beliefs they can squeeze every ounce out of people.  This is especially more the case in a captive audience.  I don’t have much choice about what train company I want to use to get to London (my destination for the day), so Rail company decides that they can put in more seats which are smaller, they have no tables.  I know I am slightly larger than average, but seriously this is ridiculous.  I have heard about another company I think RyanAir looking to having saddle seats which are basically a mix between standing but perched on a saddle; that way you need less leg room but you do get to sit-ish.

My train journey is less enjoyable by the fact that I don’t have a table and there were none to choose.  I could have sat next to someone from the 2^nd stop which is where I get on, but I always think this looks strange when there are blocks of seats which are empty but of course they don’t have seats.  The next reason my journey is not great today is due to the fact that my audiobook on my iPod is not working it seems that Weread4you books are rubbish.  They play okay on my laptop so I do get to listen to it now, but it is not that portable!!  I don’t want to be walking around the tube with my laptop in tow.  So with my laptop finally out and keeping my knees warm I have been able to get a smidge of work done, my blog written (nearly) for the day and had a battle of elbows with my neighbouring passenger who also has their laptop out.

Today in the big smoke will be ending in an enjoyable bypass to Westminster and meeting up with Golfy.  A great catch up is indeed needed especially as Starfleet are trying to squeeze an extra ounce of there best and probably only asset they have left!

In the words of Rolf Harris - The Cat Came Back

Harris - Cat Came back

so really has it really taken me this long to think of an appropriate title to return with?  No, not really.  Unfortunately time has slipped between my fingers and it is never retrievable.  So for my many readers I can only apologise.  Even the cryptic Badman could not populate my blog for me - shame, but his makes for such a great read to alleviate the misery of all those that have missed mine.

So the update goes along this line:
We had Christmas - a nice time with family, didn't go overboard and didn't drink.  Now the lack of alcohol was not quite my choice but Mrs Stretch's who decided that I should be on constant standby in case baby made an appearance over Christmas - and tho and behold the baby did not make an appearance!
We had a baby and will forever more on blogging be known as "baby".  A not so novel but somewhat appropriate name.
Starfleet as me still here and I have moved around to slightly different work.  We have some internal rebranding and some new tools, and just had a cheery call from Bendy Ears which doesn't give much hope!

So was that really what I have achieved in my absence... well you cannot underestimate the time that baby takes up but the enjoyment is unmeasurable.

okay, that is the brief update and the bite size teaser to keep you coming back and more importantly for me to keep writing!

I mmm'd and ahhhh'd

Do you ever get the feeling that something is not quite right, but you can't put your finger on it?  And that maybe your messages in the bottle are not getting through.  Luckily it seems my communications are still linked with other people - phew!

It seems my absence from blogging has actually been missed, which I am surprised.  However seeing as I get great insight and feel a warmth of connectivity when I read over bloggers, I should not be surprised that the reciprocal feeling does not go both ways.  In these times of less connectivity with other beings of whom I have built (I consider) great friendship and fondness it is nice to have these message in the bottles that continue to link us and long may it continue for I would like to think that one day I will see them again.

Starfleet has been busy and my journey has taken me on a adventurous route (okay not that adventurous, but it is different to the norm) and I trying with others to secure a continuation of income.  It seems that this is an unprecedented short timescale, and some members of the team have gone more AWOL than an intermittent blogger on who has been cast adrift on an island in the widest seas.  Next week sees my journey continue to what seems to be my next stop for a few months and hopefully it will be interesting...
But that is all drone and boring and work which still has to be followed with a yawn.

Biffo and Buba send their hugs (love is still to be required, but hugs will do for now)

On the positive side

So it seems however much Starfleet can be frustrating and unrewarding it is still a job!
It seems that it is better than working at HP.  So in 2009 they got rid of staff from EDS, then announced redundancies earlier this year and now just announced another 1300 jobs will go and be off-shored (India).  Which works out at about 4000 jobs in 2 years! WOW!

Maybe I won't moan quite as much!  I said maybe

On other news the bedroom has been decorated (thanks to Father-in-laws) and today saw a carpet being laid.  Now all I need to do is build the wardrobe, but Mrs Stretch decided that her sleep was more important than my late night shift at putting those together.  It is mostly due to her being ill and it would have given me a night off IF work was not too much and I have just spent the last 2 hours getting the niggly bits out of the way to clear my day for the deluge that I need to work through. (Most not moan!)

suddenly it's gone

So last week was a return to posting, I then went on leave for a couple of days and then ended up being off sick, now I am back at my computer nearly a week later.

A few lovely events have happened, I managed to win a Phil&Teds buggy on eBay.  I can't believe how popular these things are.  I love buying bargains on ebay, but getting one of these as a bargain is a hard thing to do.  I even did the searches for peoples spelling mistakes - there was a website for this, but I can't find it now.  But simple typos by people mean that less people can search for it - great for the buyer!  Anyway the buggy has finally arrived after problems with the courier and Mrs Stretch thinks it is brand new which is great.

So as I mentioned I was on leave for a couple of days, I was actually on the Isle of Wight and if I had foursquare I would have got my "I'm on a boat" award, but I haven't, so I didn't!  I did however have a great time with the guys from church.  If you didn't know that I go, then "surprise".  Don't worry I will not be going on a christian crusade and slaughtering you all :-)  It was a very inspirational time and lots of male bonding with bonfires, golf, go-karts, croquet and lots of table tennis aka whiff-whaff.  The top quote from the weekend was "Each generation goes further than the generation preceding it because it stands on the shoulders of that generation. You will have opportunities beyond anything we've ever known."  Which when you have kids is a great motivation to achieve so much more for them to be able achieve so much more.

So today sees me at a Starfleet office, hopefully accompanied by Golfy if he can be bothered to travel! :-)

On the opportunity front, it seems I am not going on the route that I expected.  It seems I am too valuable and they can exploit me further somewhere else.  Which suits me at this point. Now I just have to tell the man who has the dog that the dog is not wanted (for now) 

Let me hear a "Whoop Whoop"

So yesterday I got my long awaited phonecall and it looks like I am on the move soon.  However it does depend on when they will let me go!  I might be gutted if they say I can go straightaway - but 2 weeks would do lol!

Starfleet is as exciting as watching your walls dry, actually watching them dry actually was quite interesting.  Yesterday then saw going round the house with Decorators Chaulk and filling the gaps and getting ready for the decorator!  I decided that the tube of chaulk was harder to reseal so I just used the whole tube  - my house is now stuck together - lol!  Not as badly as my fingers were at one point!  I am not lazy enought to pay for a decorator, but Father-in-law is a painter/decorator by trade and has offered - so who really look a gift horse in the mouth?  what a really strange expression... what is a gift horse, who looks at anything in the mouth unless you are dentist...but did you know that horses teeth never stop growing (the facts gathered from X-Factor)

Mrs Stretch has the brainwave idea that we NEED to go to IKEA.  I don't think anyone NEEDS to go there!  So the house is now measured and visio'd (shouts of NERD can be heard)  I don't want to come home with a new desk to find it doesn't fit!

I am off on Thursday and Friday and Saturday to Isle of Wight (if I had foursquare I could get my "I'm on a boat" award).