“And then the morning comes…..”

February 4^th 2006, 0510B

Well, once again I was faced with the choice of tossing and turning for another hour, & then having to get up anyway, or of getting up now already & putting the time to constructive use.

Actually, I’m busy with a sort of a compromise as I’ve climbed back into bed, with the notebook on my lap, after having made a cup of coffee. The coffee is tasting a bit weird though, having been made by boiling water in a pot on the stove, but it’s better that nothing I guess.

Anyway, so what’s new from the last few days? As usual, not very much really, but seeing as I’m on leave at the moment that isn’t really a surprise. It’s been a bit of an up & down week though, & Wednesday in particular was not a pleasant day, even before I found out that my uncle had died. I didn’t get a whole shit load of sleep the night before – which meant I got to watch the early morning repeat of Mythbusters, at least – and the caffeine depravation really didn’t help, but even taking that into account there is no way I should have been so acid. I mean, we’re talking a “boil people in oil for breathing too loud” kind of temper here, & it only got worse as the day went by. I’d managed to recover a few of the happy thoughts by the evening though & was feeling far more serene, until I called the old lady at least…..So yeah, I also spent most of Thursday in what could charitably be described as not being a very cheerful mood.

But this isn’t going to be a “woe is me” post. So far as the shitty mood on Wednesday goes, I’m inclined to attribute that to the mefliam, & also to the fact that I could easily have been on a flight home that afternoon if a certain office at the HQ had proved capable of finding its collective ass without benefit of a map & fucking gps system. Maybe I’m just turning into an intolerant & cranky old bastard, but I find these days that being on the receiving end of incompetence and people not doing their bloody jobs puts me in a foul mood.

My uncle dying I think I’ve pretty much made peace with now. He wasn’t really that old, but he was starting to get on in years and, as I said in the last post, he was also a very unhappy man. I’m certainly not happy that he died, & I’m going to miss him – particularly considering that he was busy packing up his stuff to move to SA to live with my old bat, & I’d have actually been able to spend some time with him from then on – but I’ve been able to maintain a sense of perspective about it at least.

Something that “helps” is that I’m at that unfortunate age where the senior members of your family start dying in droves, so you gain a certain experience in dealing with this kind of thing. I’m down to one surviving grandparent – he’s not got much longer to go either – and one aunt & uncle, who are both nudging towards their 60s’ now. After that, it’s just my sister & 5 cousins that are left. The funny thing is, at times like these you start to feel a certain pressure to have kids of your own before you run out of relatives. Or in my case, a certain pressure to convince my sister & cousins to have kids, ‘cause I’m not entirely convinced of my suitability as a parent :p

Then again, perhaps I shouldn’t try too hard to convince my sister to have kids, because I have an idea she’s even less suited to having kids than I am lol

Otherwise, it’s not been a bad week. I’ve managed pretty good comms with home the last few days which I’ve really enjoyed, though once again I’ve not had much joy getting through to G or Shirlz. I’ve bumped into Shirley on MSN a few times now at least, but I think I’m going to have words with her network admin when I get home – the way her connection falls down all the time is annoying enough for me, so I can only imagine what it’s like for her. I’ve been able to get through to Ash fairly often lately, & it’s been great to chat, though I gather that “evil corp” – as Noelle describes iX – is busy trying to give her a “promotion”, only they’re trying to weasel out of giving her an increase while they’re at it. She’s understandably very unhappy about that, as I’m sure you can imagine.

Speaking of Noelle, I seem cursed to never be able to call either her or Paul while I’m here, but at least we manage to sms each other on a regular basis. It’s going to be damned good to see everyone again in a few weeks, though I have a sneaking suspicion that one reason Noelle is keen for me to get home again is so that she can kick my ass at Warcraft – I mean, I suck at RTS games, so it’s probably going to be akin to clubbing a baby seal :p

But with a little luck, said clubbing will be administered to me while I’m using my new laptop, which should take some of the sting out of it lol

I don’t know exactly what it’ll be yet – I know which one I want, but Rob is having a little trouble sourcing it – but I’ll definitely be upgrading for when I get home. This notebook has served me well for the last 18 months or so, but she’s starting to show her age now & the time has definitely come to upgrade. The new one I’m looking at is also an Acer, the Travelmate 8204, & it’s a real beaut – 2gig dual core processor, X1600 graphics card, 2gb ram, & so on – but like I say, Rob is having a little trouble getting hold of one. There’s no real rush though, at least not while I’m still stuck here in Burundi, & I’m sure he’ll be able to get hold of one by the time I get home. If that falls through, then I’ll likely get one of the Ferrari 4000’s instead, and while I’m not crazy about effectively providing free advertising for Ferrari, it’s a nice enough machine, & also well within my budget. I’ll miss the dual core processor on the 8204 in that case though, especially when it comes to Photoshop.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. I’ll be heading off to the net café a little later, & I’ll check mail and upload this then. I’ll get in touch again soon, but in the meantime I hope everyone reading this has a great weekend, & I’m looking forward to seeing you all again soon.

Ciao till then though ;)