Random Thoughts

Mrs Dno has taken the kids to Turkey for a week and I am missing the lot of them. Have done enough travelling over the last year to be quite happy being away from home on my own, but its weird being alone in the big old house. There is a strange quiteness and calmness that isnt right. Miss my wifelet, and although the dogs are doing their best to keep me company it just isnt the same...
Bingo sneezed a few times, so I took him to the vet to make sure it wasnt the first sign of the lungworm. The vet poked him, prodded him, and listened to his chest. "Probably not" he said. But then he said Algie only had a throat infection... So i had to give him £58 for the very vague diagnosis and a few antibiotics. And yet vets still struggle to make money. How?
Renato Pagliari died. Save Your Love. Just one cornetto. Best mate of Big Ron Atkinson. Another legend passes...
One benefit of being unemployed is the opportunity to transfer your cd collection onto mp3. The idea is to do that, and then ebay the lot of them. So far I think i have done about 500, so about 800 left. If anyone wants to help...
And what has listening to the first 3 songs of 500 cds taught me? Fleetwood Mac really were a very good band. The Beatles really were that good (and if anyone wants to buy me the upcoming remastered boxset please feel free). My wife has some appalling cds that will not be recorded - Hearsay, Leann Rimes, Status Quo, Chris Rea... oh dear! Enrique Iglesias? All Saints? SHANIA TWAIN??? Its not easy loving Mrs Dno, especially when she has a CD in her hand...
Lindt 90% chocolate and ice cold Coke Zero. Its the new cheese and wine...
How does Radio2 get away with being so rubbish? Sarah Kennedy could be replaced by a drunken baboon, Terry Wogan is just not funny, interesting, relevant or even alive sometimes. Ken Bruce will die if he doesnt play an Abba song every 2 hours - and he must have the largest collection of 70s male singer songwriters in his phone book - Andrew Gold, Boz Scaggs, Al Stewart, Al Jarreau... Steve Wright - dont start me. Even Chris Evans is annoying. And then Radcliffe and Maconie are the best thing on the radio - how can Radio2 be so good between 8 and 10 pm and then so terrible every other minute?
The Wire. Watching it for the 3rd time from beginning to end, and i get excited Tuesday morning when i have a new episode. Its perfect. The best thing ever on TV by a country mile.
Talking of the country. Want to combine fox hunting with 3 day eventing. The boys obviously love a good blood sport, so if the only way the country folk can ride horses over fields with their dogs is to kill something at the end of it, then why not introduce that to Olympia? Dressage, Show Jumping and then seal clubbing. I think the Puissance would be great if the last 3 riders in it had to jump over the wall while firing a crossbow at suspended kittens...
Why do people say to me I dont "understand how the Countryside works." I do. It doesnt. Its like the town but everything is further away and shuts earlier, and everyone seems to bear a grudge against everyone else. Its brilliant to be out in the middle of nowhere and have fields and trees all around, but that is because people everywhere are rubbish and i would rather look at trees. And i think people like the fact that i am safe, far away in the middle of nowhere...
Oh, and the country has more fox poo.
Which brings me to Bingo's death toll this week. In the last 7 days one rabbit, one moorhen, one pheasant and we found a rabbit's head on the lawn. Bless.

BINGO update

The little fella has been here a month now, and he is a most wonderful little personality. As the photos show, butter wouldnt melt in his pretty little hinged mouth. However yesterday a little baby bunny did more than melt, and once we got him to drop it I had to carry the poor little thing into a field and leave him for the foxes.
And one of my shoes has just appeared on the other side of the lawn minus the tongue...
And he eats cat poo.
And he has no idea what his own name is.
But we love him, and once he stops nibbling at your hand, he is soooo adorable!

Freedom!

So tomorrow is my first official day of unemployment...
I have left Sabre of my own free will to pursue other interests. It would be mad of me to sit here and slag off my previous employer - to be honest I think they were doing the right things to standardise their business and provide a consistent product across the world - it just wasnt what I want or need at this point.
So why does one leave a perfectly well paying job when they dont have one to go to?
The obvious answer in the middle of the "worst recession since 932" is that i must have gone a little bit mad. Its the second time in a year i have handed in my notice without a job to go to, and like last year i dont think i am mad. I cant imagine Sabre possible going the same way as XL, but of course the company will be just a little bit wounded by my departure. For about 3 minutes...
So what are the options? The favoured option is still buying a software company and developing the company and the software to change the world... That is trundling along but could take another year at this speed. Lets put that on the shelf marked "Burners, Back...".
There is always the Irish connection. And who knows, maybe even an extended spell oop North?
And then there is freelance. And I am quite enjoying typing up proposals and playing with Visio and Powerpoint and making ever more elaborate presentations. Have made some good contacts with a few airlines and I am now at the frustrating stage a lot of my colleagues in the consultancy word must know well - "We love the idea of working with you, just that the guy who can sign this off is in Vladivostok for 8 months..."
So one sits, one waits, and one sends emails and phones people. The internet makes it a lot easier than it must have been years ago, but doesnt help at all when it comes to getting a signature.
So if anyone knows any businees that needs someone to tell them what they are doing wrong, suggest a different way of doing it wrong using spreadsheets and flow charts, and then look on bemused as the company decide to change nothing, then i am your man.