Month: December 2011

Addendum

Just a quick one. My last entry was all doom and gloom. Back on top now. Too much time sat around waiting for the agency to get me work.   I got the call to action yesterday. Back in, straight back on the road (in awful conditions) and I did fine. I settled into it and was a happy Bucky again. This is good. Part of my worry was that as we are almost into the New Year there will be no work, thus I’ll have to start applying for other jobs. A daunting prospect, all those assessments. Now I’m going to go and kick trucking arse. It’s just a matter of being careful. I can do the tricky bits, but I have to be slow and careful. 99.9% of the time I’m fine. So I just have to be triple sure of everything I’m doing in that .1% when it’s gets really difficult.   Positive Bucky.   To prove I’m all chipper, here are a couple of funny pictures people have just posted on Twitter. A Northern pina colada:   And, Jihad dog disapproves of your extravagant New Year celebrations:   And a random one that makes me laugh, (‘cos I’m a bastard!)   See? Happy Bucky. Have a super New Year and enjoy it all the way up to the Mayan apocalypse. Buck.

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I dunno

  Wendy was looking for a hobby so I bought her a surprise present of a clarinet. It’s well cool and looks like this: And breaks down into a natty little case like this; Unfortunately she likes it, so there goes another bonus present. She only mentioned it because she loves the decrescendo, (glissando, they are calling it on youtube) from Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXrwIHcNB5o ) That is our task for tomorrow. It has got me back to my sax. I’ve not had time enough to sleep, never mind anything else these last few months, so sax practice has taken a serious hit. The longer you leave it the more daunting it becomes. When the clarinet arrived though I thought I’d have to have a go. Just kept making a horrible squeaking sound. Wendy could get it to blow notes, I got squeaks. (Think it might be broken!) In frustration I broke out my sax. So, all for the good. I’ve since realised the embouchure is totally different. You hold your mouth the same, but apply next to no pressure. On the sax it’s a firm bite from the top teeth, taught bottom lip over bottom teeth. The clarinet you just rest on your taught bottom lip. Still have some way to go before either of us are knocking off the tune above.   I got myself some new ‘natural running’ trainers. They say that modern trainers encourage injuries by placing all that padding in the heel, encouraging a heel-strike running technique. Apparently this jars unnaturally and causes shin-splints and knee injuries. The latest thinking is by removing the heel padding, having more or less a flat running shoe, that you run as your body wants to naturally, landing on the balls of the feet and absorbing the impact. They said on the website that because you are removing an inch or so off your heel that until your muscles strengthen and adjust you should do no more than a half a mile run. Increasing by no more than 10% per week. Naturally I scorned all such mamby-pamby, sissy-boy, nonsense.  I wore them around the house for a few days then as soon as the gym was open (today) went for a good run. I thought 5 miles was a girly enough distance to try them out. To spice it up I ran half a mile at a stupid gradient then for good measure just kept putting the last quarter mile faster and faster. Ended up running at a sub 5 minute/ mile speed. Fine and dandy. So I hopped on the push-bike machine and blasted out half an hour on that. The last five minutes of which were at killer pace as I wanted to get it to 8 miles. (I don’t know how I’d been so slow at to need to blast it, must have been the run.) I staggered off the bike and back on to the running machine, thinking to do another 5 […]

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