Bec was having heaps of fun colouring this morning, and I found this site full of things to print and colour in.
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Author: Mark
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Train Timetable
When do all the trains go?
General Metlink site: http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au
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Useful Excel Expressions
=UPPER( )
This function will change the case of a specified cell to upper case.
=LOWER( )
This function will change the case of a specified cell to lower case.
=PROPER( )
This function will change the case of a specified cell to title case (ie The first letter of each word in the cell will be capitalised).
Splitting Data
- Select the cells containing the data you want to split
NOTE: Excel will split only one column at a time. - From the Data menu, select Text to Columns…
The Convert Text to Columns Wizard – 1 of 3 dialog box appears. - Under Original data type, select Delimited
Anyone who knows we even reasonably well, will know that I can’t sing. I generally consider myself tone-deaf (mainly because I have trouble picking the difference between sounds, for example the internal and external rings of most corporate phone systems).
So it was with some reluctance (trepidation?) then that I noted that Jase & Mon had bought a Playstation 2 and were preparing to play Singstar all night for Jase’s Birthday.
I knew no-one would pressure me to take part, but I think I knew my internal competitive spirit would probably rise up and I’d eventually want to have a go. So I set about relaxing myself: over 1/2 a bottle of red wine and a few cans of WoodStock later I was ready!!
Some background on the game: It is like a competitive Karaoke: 2 people sing the same song together, and the game scores each of you on how close you sing to the correct notes and tempo, which are displayed visually on screen over the top of the film clip. It’s a lot of fun, and at the end you get scores based on standard notes, gold (important) notes and line bonuses. It then gives a descriptive equivalent of the score.
My first song (there were quite a few in the end) I scored about 1/2 of what Bern scored, and it described me as “::Tone Deaf”:: kinda what I expected!
In testament to my tenacity, I never saw that description again, usually scoring 2/3 to 3/4 of what my competitor sang and being described as either Hopeful or Wannabe.
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Bourbon Guard
Jase spilt his bourbon on the couch at his place the other night, (It wasn’t his first) and said something along the lines of "::Thank goodness for Scotchguard TM"::.
I said "::don’t you mean Bourbon Guard TM"::
We laughed so hard we nearly fell off the couch.
1847. That’s the number of k’s I’ve driven over the last 2 weeks doing technician training (and the other reason there have been no blog posts).
We did day trips to Heidelberg, Frankston, Rowville &:: Moe.
Then a week long trip to Geelong, Horsham, Bendigo (inc rest day) &:: Benalla.
It was interesting, and fun, but a long time away from the family.
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old old old
My mum bought me one of her friend’s computers so I could have a bit of a look at it, and see if it could be updated.
Mum did mention that it didn’t have a CD drive.
It was clearly old, and It didn’t want to boot, so I opened it up…
no dust inside, that’s always nice.
Oh my, are they 30 pins simms? where’s the processor??
ah, there it is under the sticker marked Caution and February 1993….
1993! It’s a 386-SX40, and it was still in use up until a week or so ago. In the same week that I put 17 computers out for hard rubbish, and all of them were 2 generations ahead of this machine… I think we can do an upgrade!!
Note: This is a delayed post. As part of our training we were told we were not supposed to talk to the media, so I didn’t talk to myself all week. Does that mean I was censored??
Our Church, Careforce, was given the opportunity to clean the Commonwealth Games Athletes Village as a fundraiser. Basically we had to provide 70 people per day for 23 days and the Cleaning Company, CleanEvent, would pay the church the better part of $250,000. That’s what I call fundraising!!
I decided to give up a week of my holidays to volunteer, especially as I wasn’t going to be able to go to any of the commonwealth Games because of work.
Just being at the Atletes village was a real buzz. The work was constant and full-on, but working with a great bunch of people made it fun.
Days for me started at 4:30am so we could leave at 5:30 (usually with a few pickups on the way) to be at Flemington Racecouse by 6:30. That would get us to the assembly point by 7:00, where we would assemble our team, get ready, put on our Cleanevent Shirts and head over to the Security Checkpoint. Once through Security and into the Village, we could collect our cleaning equipment and be on our way.
My Team (Red 39) were allocated 5 houses with a total of 147 Beds and 31 bathrooms. The rooms were occupied by The BlackSticks Womens &:: Mens Teams &:: The NZ Cycling Teams and the Teams from Barbados.
Lots of fun, and as a community building excercise, by far the best I’ve been involved in.
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Time for a rest
Cary, one of the contractors at work, gave me a wonderful idea for getting better rest.
Rather than having a task to do of going to sleep: "::Aarrgh, it’s 11:30, I need to get to sleep now, I’ve got to be up in 7 hours"::.
You just go to bed for a rest, and let it happen. If you sleep, you sleep, if you just shut your eyes and rest, so be it.
Think about it, if you have a Saturday afternoon rest, you rarely have trouble getting to sleep. Why? No time line. (and possibly a big roast lunch…)
I’ll give it a try over the next few weeks.
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Whiteboard Marker in the Shower
One of the things that has worked for me over the years is having a whiteboard marker in the shower. I admit I have a tendancy towards longish showers, but I can honestly say I get some great ideas while I’m in the shower. So rather than lose those ideas, I find it preferable to jot them down on the shower screen with a whiteboard marker, continue on with my thoughts and then collect the ideas later. Of course the simple act of writing something down commits it much better to memory as well.