Festival highlights...

Having made it safely through another Isle of Wight Festival unscathed I thought I'd post some of my highlights.

Of the bands I saw I think the most impressive were...
On Friday night wee K.T. Tunstall was brilliant, N*E*R*D just blew my socks off and the Kaiser Chiefs were amazing.
Saturday it was One Night Only and the Zutons that stood head and shoulders above the rest.
And on Sunday Newton Faulkner wowed the crowd with his simple songs, The Music were amazing in the Big Top and Starsailor turned in a superb set.

The Sex Pistols were c**p basically. It was like watching someone's dad doing very bad Karaoke. Appalling. No way should they have EVER been headliners.
The Police were good too. But I wasn't 'moved' by them. The crowd enjoyed the sing-a-long at least. They were good. But not THAT good.

The weather was very kind to use again. That's the third year on the trot that we've had good weather.
Saturday did get very chilly late afternoon though which had us all shivering and reaching for our hoodies.

On Sunday at about 6:45 it almost rained. The clouds got very close to us and we did feel a few spots of rain which quickly brought out all the rain gear and sent some folks scurrying for cover. But nothing came of it and my fish & chip supper stayed dry !!!

Funniest moment.
After seeing the Kaisers we all left the arena down a path lined with security guards.
Some wag started playing "Play Your Guards Right" a twist on the famous "Play Your Cards Right".
Each guards fluorescent orange security jacket had a number on the right chest.
The guy behind us would shout something like "112 !!!" "Will the next guard be higher or lower than 112 ??" to which the crowd responded in choruses of "higher, higher" or "lower, lower " etc...
On reaching the next guard it was a either a huge cheer or a load groan when the result was shouted out.
Then on to the next one with a "1342 !!!" "Will the next guard be higher or lower than 1342 ??"
The guards of course were totally baffled. Poor things.
Very funny.

Amidst all the hustle and bustle of side stalls, fun fair rides and just mingling with 50,000 other festival goers, there is one haven of tranquillity that still exists.
Tucked away between the Oxfam tent and several screaming fair-ground rides is the tranquil Solace Tent. This oasis of joy exists to spread peace and love with free tea and cakes.
Yes, that's right. When every other stall on the site is trying to fleece you for every pound you have. And where even a pint of beer costs you £4 a shot. There still exists a place in this World that does things purely to spread cheer and good will. 
We found it last year and thank the Lord it was still there again this year.
Sitting down with a cup of tea and a nice piece of home-made cake is such a treat.

All in all a cracking festival.

That time of year...

Once again that time of year has rolled around fellow bloggers.
It's that time of year when yours truly packs up the barest minimum of my possessions and I set my trusty compass to a Southerly bearing and head off across the sea to a far, far distant land !!!
I'll be battling the elements !!!
Wrestling with the natives !!!
Searching for every meal....

No, it's not a trip to the jungles of Borneo......
It's the Isle of Wight Festival this weekend !!!

Me and several thousand others will be sampling the delights of The Kaiser Chiefs, The Police, The Wombats, The Hoosiers, N.E.R.D., Iggy Pop, KT Tunstall and Scouting For Girls to name but a few of the mighty fine acts lined up for the weekend.
I must say the head-liners are a bit on the weak side this year though. =:o!
After top notch bands like Snow Patrol, Coldplay, Prodigy, Foo Fighters and the Rolling Stones the past couple of years, we're down to the dregs with the Sex Pistols and the Police. Blimey. These are bands which in my opinion are reforming solely for the money. Nothing else. Are all the big boys in the studio or something ??? Where are the likes of Kasabian this year when you need them ???

This year I won't be queuing for showers or hiking a mile to use the sports centre facilities or queuing to use three day old sun-baked port-a-loo's as I managed to book a room in the then un-built Travelodge 15 minutes walk away in town. I took a gamble on the date and booked it almost 12 months in advance. Luckily it paid off. So this year I can forgo the lumpy field and sweaty cramped tent for clean sheets, a soft mattress and my very own toilet and shower !!!

I'll report back with some pic's next week some time.

BP

Missing In Action

Hi guys, it's been a wee while since I last blogged, my apologies, but I've been 'away' for two reasons...
1. I've been busting a gut trying to get a new job before I get made redundant at the end of June.
And 2. They've blocked blogger.com access here at work. What a bummer now that I've got time on my hands. [I'm emailing this by the way]

So a quick update...
After a few fruitless interviews and a heck of a lot more fruitless phone interviews and way too many false leads from agencies, I have finally got myself a new job.
It's a LOT closer to home, about 12 miles away compared to my current 32 miles away !!!! So purely on petrol I'll be saving a small fortune, which is good news with the current fuel prices.
I was starting to get a little panicky about how fast the end of June was approaching. I so wanted to leave NXP with all of my pay-off intact and not have to live off of it if I could possibly avoid it.
Five years of pay-off looks a tidy sum on paper, but it wouldn't last that long when I'd start using it to live off !!!
Having been for two unsuccessful interviews at other companies I went for the interview at DiagnoSys and it just felt good.
It's a small company, about 40 people which is nice. One of those places that kind of feels right, so I was very keen to impress them.
I must have done OK as the agency called the next day saying they wanted me back for a 2nd interview, but sadly this was going to be a while away as the technical director was on holiday and wasn't due back in the office again until the 27th May. Blimey. What a wait. It was agonising.
I already had the 28th and 29th May off as we were visiting Charlotte up in Leeds for her final end of course recital at Leeds College of Music, and it was also my birthday. =:oD
I'd sort of guessed the Technical Director wouldn't be interviewing on his first day back in the office. After he'd opened his email box there wouldn't be much time left for anything else, let alone interviewing me. So I had written it off as yet another weeks wait.
I was so surprised to get a call from the agency late on Friday 23rd asking if I was prepared to go in for the 2nd interview on the 27th !!! OF COURSE I WAS !!!
It went really well. They seemed impressed. I answered all their questions. (I think). We joked and chatted. It was very comfortable.
And I left feeling very positive about the whole thing.
On arriving in Leeds I took a couple more calls from agencies, more possible leads.
I took the calls in the corridor of Charlotte's apartment as the signal was good and I could hear them easier.
I'd just finished the second call lining up another interview for the Friday morning when the phone rang again almost instantly.
Answering it I was greeted by Emma from the agency saying that DiagnoSys were offering me the post and was I interested !!!
YAAAAHOOOOOOO was I interested !!!!
What a start to my birthday !!!

So, I'm now idling my time away at NXP waiting to leave on June 27th, starting at DiagnoSys on the 30th.
It seems that time is going backwards though, I'm busy, but it doesn't feel like I'm getting any closer to leaving.

Oh well, I shouldn't be wishing my life away I guess... it'll be here soon enough.

Ciao for now.

BP.

The Green Tortoise

I found this green tortoise amongst the washing that I took out of a machine I was using at our local laundrette. Our washing machine is currently broken and while it's out of action awaiting repair we're having to resort to using the local laundrette.

It's a Dunlop "Tortex" 0.88 mm 'medium' plectrum.
It's slightly used down one side, by maybe a right handed player. [guess]
Does anyone else use this type of plectrum ??? According to the website they're used by everyone, Slash included !!!

Maybe I could get this tortoise to walk around the globe, slowly in tortoise style of course, by passing it on to a guitarist in return for a picture of it being used ???

One of those weeks....

I'll be glad to get to this long Easter weekend for some much needed rest, as I'm feeling more than a little frazzled around the edges after this weeks events.
Already on the agenda was my Mother-in-laws consultation to decide whether or not she has colon cancer. I know there is not much we can do physically, but the emotions are being stretched every which way with natural concern about her health and her long term well-being.

Then on Tuesday I find I'm on the 'at risk' list and stand to loose my job !! Mrs P didn't take the news too well as it just overloaded her already fragile emotional state.
After spending the evening pumping my CV/Resume to the four corners of the Globe, I've had a good response and I'm fairly confident I'll get something soon.

After calming down and starting tea I took a call from Harriet's college, her art teacher informing us that she's been missing from the last eight sessions and did we know about it ???
Harry is in Leeds, staying with her sister, for a Uni' interview, so after several heated calls it turns out that not only has she been missing her art lessons, she's also been kicked off her English course as well !!! When she was kicked off of English she replaced it with another art course to fill up her timetable up and she's missing those lessons too !!!
She's behind on course work on both of her art courses and with her finals in just two weeks she has a lot of work to catch up on. Her art teacher said that he'll still mark her last piece, despite being four weeks late, if she gets it to him next Tuesday.
She's due back from her sisters tonight. I'll pick her up from the airport at about 9:15.
I'm not going to shout and bawl, I just want some answers. Why ???

WOW, what a week !!!

So, I wish all my fellow bloggers a calm, restful and pleasant Easter weekend.
Don't eat too many eggs now !! =:o)

See you next week.

BP.

Tuesday ramblings...

Three short blogs...

1. While DIYing at the weekend I purchased some hinges, three pairs of chromed, 75mm butt's to be precise. After cutting my doors around to take said hinges imagine my dismay at finding the supplied screws just go straight through the holes in the hinge !!! A detour via Homebase last night I complained. Pimply youth said I'll give you a refund if you bring back the hinges. "No... it's the HINGES I wanted !!!". Idiot !!!
I love fitting hinges. It reminds me of my woodworking lessons at school...


2. While browsing the hinges and door fittings I stumbled across a great word... "Escutcheon". Neat eh? It means...

1. Heraldry. A shield or shield-shaped emblem bearing a coat of arms.
2. An ornamental or protective plate, as for a keyhole.
3. Nautical. The plate on the stern of a ship inscribed with the ship's name.

3. My daughter 'C' is in her last year of music college. She has two performances remaining. One in April, one in May. Getting to Leeds is a pain. It's either five hours in a car, an expensive, long and complicated train journey, or a 45 minute flight from our local airport. After much debating we decided to fly. And after a few minutes online at FlyBe we secured flights for £1.43 each. Swiftly followed by booking a £35 room, including breakfast, at the nearby Etap too. Sorted !!! Imagine my horror yesterday when 'C' called to say she's no longer performing in that concert !!! Arrrgggghhhhhh !!!!
Kids eh ??? Who'd have 'em ???

Have a grand day fellow bloggers !!!
Stay dry...

Busy, busy...

No doubt by my total absence of 'bloggage' recently you may have assumed that I've been somewhat busy, and you would have been spot on with that assumption too.
Work is a little crazy right now and it's beginning to get through to me, uncharacteristically rattling the normal calm and poise of yours truly.
With the announcement of more redundancies a few weeks back, I was somewhat buoyed by the possibility that my position appeared to be secured by the fact I was working on some urgent development chips for our Dutch cousins over in Nijmegen, their project team being happy to keep us employed, paid for through their office, to continue their work. The Dutch team we work with came over for a few days last week to meet the Southampton team and 'chat' with the engineers. This was viewed as a 'faces to names' exercise and to cement the team as one unit and confirm all the lines of communication. My 'chat' lasted 90 minutes and went pretty well I thought.
Imagine my dismay last Friday when we were all informed that Nijmegen have decided to pull the plug on the project in Southampton and take back the work to Nijmegen despite them not having the staff or the facilities to complete the work on schedule !! Crazy ??
It turns out that they were making scurrilous efforts to 'cherry pick' certain test engineers from here in Southampton to move over to Holland enabling them to continue the work over there.
So, we're all back in the pot for possible redundancy once again.
Southampton have got rid of so many staff over the last few years that it's difficult to single out any 'weaker' team members for the chop, so it's going to be a close decision, and to be honest, it is making me feel very vulnerable to say the least. I've been in this position far too many times before to think I'm in any way safe from the chop.
I hadn't realised it but the current situation had changed me, for the worse too, my wife politely informing me at the weekend that I'd been a really miserable git and incredibly grumpy recently and that I had appeared to have stopped talking altogether. Something I've not been aware of, I must say, although I admit to having been feeling a little distracted by all the political machinations here at work.
So... time to turn over a new leaf and employ that 'whatever will be, will be' type ethos... After all, it's only a job and I'll be sure to find something else, somewhere, if the worst does come to the worst.
Ciao for now.... (a slightly less screwed up BluePixel)

Word of the Day...

A friends daughter was assembling a Power Point presentation about the Romans to show to her class.
She asked her Mum to check it over with her.
One of the slides contained today's "Word Of The Day"....
So, any ideas what this is ???

Bo Ingaros

[Answer tomorrow]

Tulips

Once again i picked up some reduced flowers with the weekly shop. This morning they looked wonderful with the sun behind them.

Good Friday !!!

WOW, what a sight to be greeted with on arriving at work !!!
THREE dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts !!
Now THIS is THE best way to start a Friday !!!
A huge thank-you to Eric, one of our fellow engineers, who thought we all could do with cheering up...



Having been a huge fan of Dunkin' Donuts for years and years and years, their Boston Creme is in my opinion totally sublime, I was dragged kicking and screaming against my will into a Krispy Kreme shop three years ago whilst on holiday in the USA. And I have to admit that Krisp Kreme's ARE better than Dunkin' Donuts. My favourite being the humble glazed ring, which is just about perfect texture wise AND flavour wise too.

Brighton Pier

Saturday involved a trip to Brighton, one of my favourite cities.
Over the years it's been a sad sight seeing the old West Pier slowly falling into disrepair, before finally being battered into submission by winter storms and last years fire that finally took out the last hopes of any restoration.
It was a lovely day on Saturday, but what remains of the pier jutting out of the sea just looked so sad. It brings a lump to your throat.

Giving it up for lent !!!

Seeing as it's Shrove Tuesday today, and maybe for the first time ever, I'm actually going to be giving something up for Lent.
Today I'm giving up being slothful.

DEFINITION: Sloth is defined as spiritual and/or actual apathy or laziness, putting off what God asks you to do, or not doing it or anything at all.

And to spur me on to achieve this I've registered for the BUPA Great South Run with my brother. So I've now got a target to reach and I'm hoping that the fresh air and exercise will also help to distract me through the current redundancy talks here.

Now, where did I put those running shoes.... ????

Biscuits...

A guy here returned from a trip to our plant in Taiwan with bags of cookies for all !! A very welcome gesture. These are made by a company called Lins and as it says on the pack are hand made. There is a strange assortment, some even include sea-weed !!!
The packet I chose contained two very thin, very hard, square cookies, the corners and edges all neatly beveled.
The picture on the front shows just how to eat them !!!

Early Spring ???

With reports of Spring 'officially' starting early this year, I thought I'd add these pic's that I took on Saturday. I picked up a couple of bunches of budded Daff's while shopping on Friday evening.
When I came down to the kitchen on Saturday morning they had already started to bloom.



And by Saturday afternoon they were all pretty much out !!!



BLOOMING MARVELOUS !!!

Here we go again...

It must seem like a pretty regular blog subject here in the world of blue_pixel, but sadly once again the spectre of redundancy rears his ugly head here at NXP. I've been here at Philips/NXP just over five years now and four out of those five years has seen redundancies. A meeting last week revealed the need to 'let go' another 10% of the head count here, another 38 poor unfortunate souls to loose their jobs. Added to that all of the sub-contractors on site are to be terminated too, that's another 50 heads going. So, a grand total of 88 people.
All the job cuts will be done and dusted by the end of May apparently, which seems a long way off and it's a long, long time to wait not knowing who's for the chop.
With the job market in the semiconductor industry looking flat and sadly deplete and with the economy looking a little grim, it's going to be a tough time to loose your job.

Watch this space...

Pussy in a box (part II)

As documented earlier, our old ginger moggy Tybalt, loves curling up in his new cardboard box bed from Lidls. Just thought I'd add another picture of Tybalt enjoying it.
We tried to get a slightly bigger version of it at the weekend, as he has already broken one of the corners, but Lidls didn't have one.

Wasted phone call...

I've just had the strangest telephone conversation with a young lady from a local job agency.
Before I joined my current company, Philips/NXP, I pumped my CV/Resume out to just about anyone that would take it, you may find you have a copy on your PC somewhere... LOL!!
One of the local agencies contacted me last Friday saying they were updating their records and was I still 'looking' for a new position.
I replied via email as requested saying that I was indeed still looking for that elusive 'ace' job and attached my updated CV/Resume for their records.

This morning I had battled through hell and high water getting to work, accidents and queues everywhere and had JUST sat down with the first coffee of the day at 9:30, when my mobile rang. The number wasn't one I recognised, but it started with 02392, so I knew it was local so picked it up.
A very, almost overly, polite girl introduced herself, saying that she had just received my new CV and would I mind answering a few questions.
She then proceeded to ask me a series of questions, that if she had only looked at my CV in the first place, she would have been able to answer herself !!!

"Where are you working?" - errr, it's on the front page of my CV !!!

"Are you in employment?" - wasn't this not answered by the first question?

"What industry would you prefer to work in?" - err... look in my CV... 20 years of semiconductor testing !!!

"What kind of job are you looking for?" - hmmmm, with my skill set, maybe a barrister in Starbucks !!!

What a total waste of time !!!

It has put me off using them totally as to me this just isn't very professional.

Hey ho....... it takes all sorts I guess !!!

Cat in a box...

No, not a variation of the Dr Suess books...
We shopped on Friday evening in a store called Lidl. Now Lidl don't give you any bags for your shopping, oh they're happy to SELL you a bag or three, or they're happy for you to help yourself to any boxes you like for you to get your produce to the car, but they don't do bags.
We opted for the 'help yourself to the free boxes' option.
Once home with the shopping all neatly put away, I turned round to see our over-sized ginger cat, Tybalt ( the name Tybalt was taken from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet ) curled up in one of the very undersized cardboard trays !!!
He seems to have made it his own now and if you haven't seen him for a while.... take a look in the kitchen and he'll probably be curled up in the tray asleep !!!

Funny ol' weekend...

It was one of those weekends that just flew by in a rush but yet somehow seemed to go past really slowly, if you get my drift. The entire weekend seemed to be filled with fiddly chores that failed to yield any pleasure in their completion all mixed up with lots of chauffeuring to and fro of daughters to visit friends, to shops, to work or to clubs. Meeting up with friends seems to happen out of nowhere with no real structure or organisation behind them or even given a passing thought as to how they're going to actually get there or even get back home again... maybe they just casually assume that good ol' Dad is really happy to stay up into the wee small hours just for chauffeuring duties because he loves to stay up late waiting for the call to pick them up when they've had enough fun for one night. Just for once I'd like them to think about the other people that have to get involved in their last minute organisational chaos.
Oh well, maybe I shouldn't complain.