Beginners Luck!

On Friday evening I went to one of the new casinos at Casa Selbs. So new is the casino that they have only one game installed; poker.

I was greeted by the croupier who was suitable attired but refused to serve food to the customers; namely me, Jason and Chris. Yeah, maybe it was just poker night round Dave's house, but to me it was a visit to a Vegas style casino!

Before the game began I got to put little Lucy too bed and she told me I was her best friend which warmed me lil heart. She'd also said that she preferred me to her own dad. 'In your face Dave!'

All 4 of us were relative novices at poker but Jason had never played before, so did well to win on the night taking home his £20 winnings! Git!

Doing the rounds

Everything was white, that was this morning; but now everything is brown, covered in dirty slush.

This morning up woke up early to visit the doctors to get a new supply of inhalers for my asthma. I was fun to drive in the fresh snow! Next I popped into Barkingside, to my old office to see one of my old colleagues and do a bit of reminiscing.

Then to my bank. I pay insurance for my satellite equipment but can't find who I pay it to. So I went to see if my bank could give me a company name. (Still ain't fixed the defective Sky+ decoder). Then I headed to Holloway to meet Nichola for lunch.

Nichola is an old friend from my Iceland days. I hadn't see her in a long long time. I hadn't met her 9 month old son Jayden either, so it was great to spend some time with them. I think Jayden liked me too, he never fussed when I picked him up or held him. Also got 10 minutes with Chris (another Iceland co-worker).

THEN I had to get a flat tire on my car fixed. Picked up a flat Tuesday morning on my way to work. Had to change it in my suit and everything! With my car going back at the end of this month, everything on it has to be in working order!

Finished off my day working on another of my Xmas cards. Phew!

I keep my job! Yay!

I had my finally performance review meeting this week. Well, less of a meeting and more of a handshake, a hug and a congratulation.

Six months ago my area manager expressed concern with my performance at work, she felt I was missing my targets to often and gave me 3 months to improve or ship out. The first month showed improvement, but the 2nd was a disaster and my area manager felt that I was not going to succeed at that point. However in month 3, I hit 2 of my 3 targets, actually doubled one of them. My Area felt then that I had shown enough of an improvement to give me another 3 months, but not as intently as before. I had told her I felt crowded by the fortnightly reviews.

Over the last 3 months I hit 2 out of 3 targets each month and only narrowly missed the third which didn't bother my Area too much as she would much rather a narrow miss than a woeful shortfall. For January I actually hit all 3 targets; the first time I've achieved that feat since joining the company!

My targets for the curious is to sell 7 properties every month; book 11 successful mortgage appointment every month; and refer 2 clients successfully to use our in-house solicitors for either sale or purchase!!

The tooth; and nothing but.

What small and white and costs £70?

No. Not the new ipod.

My bloody filling after I cracked a tooth on some popcorn!

More expense! Hmmm >:-/

The birthday oops!

Last night I went out for my old friend Jade's birthday. Or I thought I did.
I met Jade, can't remember how many, years ago when we both attended Hip Hop dance classes at Pineapple studios. Admittedly we haven't been that close since we stopped going but stay in touch by sms. I got an invite to her birthday this year and she told me some others from the dance class were coming too. I was really looking forward to the pseudo reunion.

Jade lives in east London and had her party in a club near her home in Old Street. Suni from work came too. Gregg was due to come as well but couldn't make it ultimately. We arrived at the party but couldn't see Jade. I texted her to find out where she was and she replied the the party was actually yesterday (Friday night!). Oh no!

Thankfully Old Street is not far from Shorditch and a plethora of bars so we headed there and still had ourselves a good night!

"I told you to get it serviced"

Phew. I've just spent 8 hours of my day off today working on the first of my Xmas cards. Armed with the magazines Advanced Photoshop and ImagineFX I used some of the hints tips and tutorials to help me along. I haven't used photoshop in anger for many years, a lot of the time was spent finding my way around the program again. I started from the line drawing and recoloured anew. Below is the finished article.

original line drawing
first version all them years ago
2007 version

this artwork remains the property of green18.

The joys of being a man!

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Myspace or yours?

This past Sunday I opened a Myspace account after bowing to a bit of public pressure, plus the benefit over a blog in the way of greater interactivity, networking plus being a worldwide phenomenon that everyone has heard of. With a Myspace your given a blank page with a few standard features like profile, 'about me' section and comments, but every thing else can be edited. Maybe I is a bit thick but I could find no wallpapers or templates on Myspace. Which must mean that I must trawl through the internet to find things to decorate the page, like fonts and layouts; addons and styles; all with some knowledge of HTML needed.

After 2 hours of trial and error I ended up with something I was far from happy with. Clearly a lot of time and effort has to go into making a good looking Myspace. The worst thing is that it can't be worked on behind the scene and released once ready, its online from the first moment. With my name plastered all over it.

I deleted it, disappointed with the results. Maybe I'll try again sometime...