Going Posh

Better late than never...

The official photo from the Schlumberger Christmas party came in. Doesn't it make you feel all festive?

The End of a Dream

Conversation with Mus last night, over beer:

"I never read a book more than once after I've bought it"
"Nikki and I joined the library"
"Really? Hmm, you know I'm thinking of setting up a service like netflix except you borrow books instead of movies."
"Like a library?"
"No, you get the books, you read them and then return them"
"Like a library?"
"No, a service, for like five bucks a month, but you can order books online"
"Order books online, like I can do with the library, except for free?"
"But you can keep these as long as you want"
"I thought you said you only read them once?"
"OK, but, I'll ship 3 books to you"
"Really, how much does it cost to ship 3 hardbacks?"
"Why hardbacks?"
"Libraries have hardbacks, paperbacks must get trashed"
"I'll have a bigger selection than the library"
"The library can get you any book in any library anywhere in the city through its online system."
"Hmm, maybe I need to think about this some more"

Happy Birthday to Me

Yesterday was my birthday. Thanks to those who remembered. Don't worry about it to those who didn't. It gives me a perfectly good excuse to forget yours.

I had a great day. We were having a new bay window fitted from 10 until about 3, so I got out of bed to let the blokes in and then grabbed the paper and a couple of mugs of tea, leaving them to get on with it, while I headed back to bed to open my pressies. I got a TomTom 920 from Nikki as well as a couple of other pressies that were actually surprises, since I haven't been hinting about them for 2 months.

When Nikki and I emerged a few hours later the windows were mostly done, and after a couple of phones calls to and from the family and a delicious lunch of cheese, I pottered about with cleaning the pool filter for 3 hours. Nothing better than an afternoon in the sunshine, lifting huge, incredibly heavy, soaking wet, cartridges coated in algae to make me feel like I'd earned the delicious birthday lasagna Nikki had cooked for me. A couple of nice glasses of wine and a healthy bowl of three kinds of fantastic sorbet finished off my day wonderfully.

Valentine's Day

Hope you had a great Valentine's day. Spring has not quite arrived in H-Town, but we've had enough sunshine that my pepper plant got fooled into producing these in time to spice up our evening.