Dealgrabba auction website blog

Register with Dealgrabba

2009-05-18T19:02:00.003+01:00

Another weekend has passed and weather was horrid. We are getting closer to the summer now, here's hoping we get one this year. Not long and the kids have another week off school, hope the weather is nice then, or my daughter will sloth around in her bedroom rotting like a dead corpse for the week, just like most teenagers I suppose.

People are still registering with Dealgrabba which is great, still a slow process, but Rome wasn't built in a day. I'm sure when registrations are in there thousands dad will be happy, until then he still remains he charming self. Lol

Work for me and the website has slowed down for the present moment. I have done all I can for now, so I can take timeout for a bit. I have watched a few movies, Inkheart, a little boring and predictable, Bedtime stories, very funny made me laugh hard. Yes man, for a change a movie with Jim Carey that was watchable and Harley and me, which made me laugh and cry. Does it show I have children?

I have also managed to fit in a few books, Hannah, sad story about a little girl who dies of cancer by the age of four, Paul O'Grady & Dear fatty, both not as good as I thought they would be and a book about killers who got away with murder.

I have also had time to spend with my niece who is four. She is the type of child you would think butter wouldn't melt, however there are times when I'm sure if I looked on the nape of her neck I would find the devils mark, 666. Of course I still work full-time, so it's not like I have gained lots of time back, but enough to enjoy "my time" for a while.

Nothing else to report, thanks for the new support, checkout the link above or on the links to the left if you want to register with dealgrabba.

New members

2009-05-14T17:24:00.002+01:00

Good evening, haven't really got anything to say, other than thank you for joining dealgrabba yesterday and a few more today!

We haven't got round to going large with advertisement yet, as we want to wait until the main dealgrabba website is close to launching. At present we are relying on word of mouth, people stumbling across us on the big wide interweb, my blogs and facebook.

A slow process we knew, but the response so far has been very positive, so thank you again.

Should you want a quick link to dealgrabba, you can use the toolbar links on the side, or click here

My SEO is working well so far, the reason we aren't on the top page is due to not having any AdWords set up yet and we are only a pre launch website. Hopefully once the main website is in place we should start to jump up the ladder. I have a few links with other websites which helps, but again nothing more now until later.

I have also learnt how to make changes to the website and emails. I don't think I could or ever would want to be a web developer, however I can read some of the coding now and understand most of it, which is a great help to some degree.

Dealgrabba.co.uk goes live!

2009-05-13T17:04:00.002+01:00

Yes I know, It's been a while, about a week I believe, since I have posted on my blog. I haven't written as there hasn't been anything exciting to put until now and yes Dealgrabba has now gone live.

As of today you can register and refer friends to gain further free bids, which you can use once the full dealgrabba website goes live. We are still not sure at this stage when this is likely to be, but hopefully very soon.

I have pasted a link to the website above and also in the links to dealgrabba section, should you wish to go and check it out. It would also be lovely to hear any feedback you have regarding the dealgrabba website, good or bad.

Crash course

2009-05-04T16:28:00.004+01:00

Well it's the bank holiday Monday, and surprise, surprise, no sunshine! My weekend away was lovely, we had a really nice steak cooked on some steak stones, which I've never had before, did some shopping (in the lego car), watched movies, drank plenty of wine and or course the company was fab.

Part of my weekend also included a crash course in coding. By no means am I now a coding geek, or will I ever be, however I have a much better understanding on how all things work and for this I am truly grateful, I really don't know what I would do without you guys, you are my saving grace!

Anyhow, tomorrow is another working day, back to the grindstone of life. Tra for now.

I'm going away!

2009-04-30T16:29:00.003+01:00

This weekend I'm off to see friends. I know the company will be great, the food will be fab and the drinks will be flowing all weekend, Can't wait!

I think we might rock out over the weekend, maybe do a little shopping and if we are really lucky the sun will shine upon us and we shall turn into beautiful glowing ladies, however my friend may well take on a more lobster type appearance.lol

I would like to think that come Tuesday all the website problems will be sorted and we shall start the next mission of many. I could win the lottery this weekend, should this be the case, I think I shall take myself, kids, partner and my winning to a remote Island, wifi free and live a peaceful and happy life, like the Robinson's. I know this would mean no more blogs from me update people on my new life, but at least you would know I was happy.........

Why are emails such a pain sometimes?

2009-04-25T21:47:00.002+01:00

We are still going bonkers over the emails, not bonkers at the website developers, but bonkers/Gaga because some search engines like Yahoo mail, BT and a few others don't seem to like us for some reason. You get a mail, but it will go into your spam, or you get an email but no logo. Things haven't changed. This isn't down to the website developer, he's working hard to try and sort the problem, it's just the servers, why isn't life ever simple?

I've worked all day today, giving up a windy, wet, and cold Saturday to work on SEO, what a socially exciting life I have. Tomorrow being Sunday, a day of rest, I think that's just what I shall be doing, before another busy week begins.

I plan to visit my parents tomorrow, they don't know it yet, but I'm sure they will love the experience. Dad has already been complaining about his ears bleeding through all the phone calls from me today, but in defence, There was a time when he was doing it to me, great how role reversal comes around and bites us on the bottom! I have been keeping him informed of my progress today, and making demands for money, to which I'm still waiting for!

I'm hoping by Tuesday if not sooner I shall be able to give a link to the website and you can have a look, register and even refer a friend or two. Or you might hate it, and never go there again.

Mails

2009-04-23T18:06:00.003+01:00

We are nearly there; dealgrabba pre launch website will soon go live. The only reason we are being held up is due to our emails. We are currently having problems with the header and footer, the layout and a delay in receiving them. This however only seems to be a problem with certain providers. Outlook and outlook express seem to be fine; however BT and Yahoo really seem to want to P us around!

I'm sure the website developer now has indentation marks on his forehead, due to hitting the PC monitor with frustration. I know I would be, if I were in his shoes. We plan to do more testing tonight, and if all else fails, some emails won't have headers on them. Not something we want to do, but we would rather people got a mail, than nothing at all.

Not much else to report, I'm still going through Meta Data, which is oh so much fun. Will let you know more tomorrow, tra for now.

A new look

2009-04-21T15:11:00.003+01:00

As you can see the blog layout has changed. After sorting out the logo, I didn't think the green went well, so I changed the template. I'm going to stay with this look now, to follow suit of dealgrabba.co.uk. What do you think, love to hear your thoughts, please feel free to leave a comment below.

I've been a busy bee today. The web developer has given me access to the server so I can do my thing. I've set up Google Webmaster tool and the developer has sorted out the analytics coding for me.

Also I've improved dealgrabba's internal and external links and I've increased dealgrabba's Alexa rating. Dealgrabba's SEO ranking can still be improved upon, but this will come in time with tweaking. Rome wasn't built in a day, neither was I educated in one, so hopefully time will tell in my progress.

I got given the clocks to play with this afternoon. I managed to have 6 on the go all at once, all with different times, all changing when hit and I won on everything. Very impressed! With this in mind the hard part is now out of the way. The rest of it should all be quite plain sailing from here on in.

I think the dealgrabba pre launch website will go live this week and then I can get on and do other things that need to be done all in the name of SEO and website marketing!

Technical problems

2009-04-20T20:50:00.002+01:00

As you can see I currently have a rather large header running across the top of my blog. This is due to me trying to change my blog to the new logo to match the website, but it went wrong. There isn't anything I can do to rectify this until tomorrow. I need the developer to upload a new image to the server and then it should work, I hope.

All very technical, but basically I'm pointing my blogger HTML code header to the header for the website. Unfortunately the website header is bigger than what I need for the blog, hence the over stretched header! I feel like heading my head into the heading table!

I'm also going to put a facebook group together, for dealgrabba.co.uk to tell all about the new site and how to register.I hope to do this in the next few days, all being well. At some point we may start running promotional codes for you to gain further benefits at the dealgrabba website. Feel free to join the group and become a follower to dealgrabba and show your support.

In the meantime we are still waiting for the amendments to finalise and then we should go live, all being well, this Friday.

On a funny note, Dad had to have a tooth pulled out today. The female dentists asked dad what he had planned this afternoon. "Why are you asking me out for lunch" he replied. "No" replied the dentists. "Well, I'm going home to mow the garden" replied dad, why? Well after having a tooth extraction you must not over do it. So on that note dad went home and done nothing. However he didn't follow the not drinking hot drinks or not smoking rule, Men!

A beautiful day

2009-04-19T19:54:00.003+01:00

I've spent a wonderful relaxing weekend chilling out. Saturday I went shopping with daughter of darkness. I brought pink curtains for my bedroom to go with the rest of the bedding set, I also brought a picture for my bedroom, some seat pads for the dining chairs and some new cushions for the sofa. Daughter of darkness has got herself a webcam; let's hope she not doing naughties with it!

Sunday has been even better, the weather has been wonderful and I've done as little as possible. Once I got my domestic goddess chorus out the way, I spent the afternoon in the garden reading a book "greatest unsolved crimes" and listening to the birds singing. I think I even saw a pair of birds at it. My boyfriends worries himself that once day he too could be a murder statics, due to the amount of criminal things I watch and read.

Anyhow on a more serious note, me and dad did some testing over the weekend, a few errors still outstanding, plus we have made some further amendments. Unsure how long it will take for this to be sorted out, but I think dealgrabba.co.uk pre launch site will go live next week.

Once this happens my life will turn busy again for a while. I've so much ahead of me, which needs to be done once we go live. I want to improve the dealgrabba ranking and of course increase traffic to the pre launch site. I also have lots of other SEO related stuff to do, which is oh so exciting. As for dad, well again, I wonder what is he doing........

Not today

2009-04-17T16:53:00.002+01:00

The weekend is here again already, really where does the time go. I remember when I was young time dragged, now I'm wishing it to slow down a little. God knows how I shall feel when I'm my dad's age! lol

As you know the website developer has a list of things to fix, change, amend and adjust. We are still awaiting for these changes to take place. I thought they may have done them all by today, but it isn't the case, so maybe Monday of next week instead. We shall still need to do a re test before it goes live, all being well we might go live next Friday.

Nothing planned for the weekend, just hoping the weather is good and maybe I a can sit in the garden for a few hours and get some rays.

Testing

2009-04-15T17:13:00.003+01:00

We got the dealgrabba pre launch website today to test on this afternoon and this evening. They have given dad a tool so we can delete ourselves afterwards and can start a re test of registration, should we need too.

I sent the link to a friend who then tested it herself and let her 12 year old daughter have a go too. They came back with quite a few points, which was all positive feedback. Kim I have spoken to dad about your request and the answer is no, there won't be any dates with Jensen Button with all the trimmings available!

I then went on to test the site myself. I noticed more errors than they would, as they didn't know what was missing etc. Unfortunately, I came up with quite a page full. Most of them are little errors that should be easy to rectify. Some of the information within the emails was incorrect, but that was down to me, not them. Dad and I have gone over everything with a fine toothcomb and feel we have made a full list of problems and errors. Dad will get these over to him tonight or early tomorrow morning.

I'm not sure how long this will take to put right, all being well I would like to think we shall go live Friday if not Monday. We shall just have to wait and see. I'm finding the whole experience very draining and painstaking at the moment. Due to me feeling like I know the website inside out now and find it hard to properly put my point across sometimes, as I expect them to be able to see what I see in my head, which is just not the case.

Anyway I hope we shall all soon being singing from the same hymn book, tra for now.

Dealgrabba pre launch coming soon!

2009-04-14T19:36:00.002+01:00

The long weekend break has flown by and yet again it's back to the grindstone. Dad is back around again to take on the workload he did before, however I think he's taking his time in slipping back in. The web developer has been informed dad is back, but still he chooses to email me rather than dad, the only conclusion I can come too, is that the web developer knows who's the boss!

I think there's a good chance we will see the finished pre launch dealgrabba website by the end of this week. I would like to think we can test over the weekend and then go live Monday of next, week all being well. The only problem we have is not having any access to the management system yet, so we can't delete the registration and start again.

I'm also hoping that maybe next week the dealgrabba logo will be on my blog. I shall also have a link on my blog for all my readers to checkout should you wish too and I hope you do, even if it's just for a peek if nothing else.

Easter weekend

2009-04-12T09:54:00.002+01:00

Firstly I would like to wish everyone a happy Easter and hope all my readers have a lovely sunny day and enjoy their eggs without feeling too sick.

Nothing much to report on the website, haven't heard anything from them since Friday afternoon, so I guess they have either run into some problems or they are enjoying the Easter weekend too. I shall report on more news as and when it comes in.

Yesterday was my friend's birthday. Kim turned the ripe old age of 40! We had a lovely day out, first we went shopping then went for a spot of lunch in a lovely pub overlooking a canal. When we arrived back at her, the house was fully decorated with balloons, banners, her age in years, months, weeks, hours and minutes jotted everywhere along with some really cute baby pictures.

OMG was her reaction when we pulled up, mine was tummy rumbling laughter. The party started at 7pm with plenty of food including a hog roast. Yum yum. Kim looked lovely in her dress and rather high shoes, drinks were flowing and the music was great in places.lol

Once night came round fireworks were lit and no I'm not talking about the birthday cake, lol. Kim's mum put a lovely "this is your life" album together with pictures of Kim from birth to 40. Laughter could be heard as people viewed the crazy haircuts, silly costumes and of course the mad world of fashion in the 80's.

I'm sure Kim is suffering today with a hangover and sore feet, but it was all worth it!

Dealgrabba pre launch is nearly here!

2009-04-09T18:50:00.002+01:00

I've been busy the last few days as dad has been away, so I have taken on his work load too, which I must say isn't a lot!

Emails have been bouncing back and forth between the website developer and me regarding SEO, coding, reports, timescales and the pre launch design. We have even had a 40 minute telephone conversation. So lovely to work with people so responsive and helpful.

All being well the pre launch page will be ready tomorrow and we can view it over the weekend. The clocks are coming along nicely. The developer currently has 10 running on a page and all running correctly. We should be able to see this for ourselves either over the weekend or Monday of next week.

Should we be happy with the pre launch site, then we will go live either Monday or Tuesday of next week and Phase one of our missions will be completed, only four more to go. The full website should be up and running in about 60 days. We were going to go with a .com address but because we are UK based we have decided to go with the .co.uk address instead.

The developer and I had a great chat this afternoon about SEO, Geeky stuff and general life. When we started working with these guys, for some reason dad thought they were from Brighton. Due to the fact both were men and from Brighton dad decided to come to the stereotypical way of thinking, they must be gay to live in Brighton. How wrong could dad be....

For a start they don't come from Brighton so who knows were dad got that idea from and secondly he is not someone to look at and even have those thoughts. Turns out he is a Goth, married and with a son, he is also a boy/girl scout leader in his spare time. Because I felt the conversation was going well between us, I choose to tell him of my dad's thought. He couldn't stop laughing and said he was far from gay, but he couldn't speak for his mate. Anyhow, He sent me a link tonight to his Myspace profile. OMG. he makes Marilyn Manson look like Bambi!

We post tomorrow with more updates. tra for now.....

My 100th posting!

2009-04-07T18:21:00.002+01:00

Nothing much to report today, apart from the fact this is my 100th post. One hundred posts of me rambling on about a site called dealgrabba that is still nowhere to be seen!

I've been busy working out what I would like the website developers to do for me regarding my SEO and have emailed some details to them. I've not heard anything back from them, so hopefully I will tomorrow. Most of the work I require them to do, isn't urgent, but thought I would get it to them for a later date.

Some sad news to report today. My friend Shelly was looking forward to a Holiday in Canada this year for three long glorious weeks. Staying in her dad's place and visiting the local area. I say local, most of the drives are 4-8 hours long, but that's local out there. Anyhow, she called me today to say, the house her dad has out there caught on fire last night. It would seem that the tenant came home from work with friends, lit the fire and then went out onto the decking to drink beer.

While chatting away with friends they soon noticed sparks and flames coming from the chimney, so got a ladder to take a look, they could see a hole in the chimney pipe and that there was a fire between the roof and the lower timber. After chucking a few buckets of water down, they soon realised it wasn't going to go out, so the fire brigade was called. One very long hour later the fire was put out.

No one can now enter the property, the tenant is homeless and everything within the property is buggered. To top it off they have a basement, so currently all the water that was pumped into the house to put the fire out, is now resting there. That's not all, nothing is now supporting the main timbers, so in effect the property could still collapsed. The fire inspector will be going round to find out the cause of the fire, then the insurance company to deal with the claim. In the meantime if they get any snow or rain that too will be entering the house until something can be done to cover what is left of the roof!

Shelly was hoping to go away in August, but they will be lucky if anything is dry by then, let alone fixed and live able. Never mind Shell, we can always go away for a holiday instead!

Week three

2009-04-06T16:05:00.002+01:00

I've not posted for a few days as I haven't had anything to write about. We're now entering week three with the new website developers and things are going along slowly. The developer has made a start on the registration page but not sure about the other pages as yet, as I have only seen this one.

The pre launch site always had three pages, main, registration and the confirmation page. I do believe this has now change to a main page, registration page and a confirmation page combined with a refer friends section. I'm assuming that while he is doing this the other developer is working on the back end.

We received the new logo today from the illustrator. The first one we received was horrendous. The colour had changed for some reason to a sickly orange and his facial expression was hideous. Anyhow dad got back to her and clarified what he wanted and she came back to him within a few hours with amendments. So I think the logo is now completed and should soon be added to the pre launch page. The illustrator still needs to do all of the other images we need, I'm not sure when we shall get to view these as she hasn't given us any idea of timescale.

Easter will be upon us this weekend, which means this and next week will be a short working one. I'm unsure if anything more is going to happen this week while the developer is working on the pre launch page, but if I get any exciting news I shall post it on my blog.

Logo

2009-04-01T17:04:00.002+01:00

Today has been sorting out the logo day. As you know we are starting from scratch, which is driving me bonkers.

The web developer started it off with his idea this morning, to which dad's opinion was it looks utter shit! Reminds me of the books kids have when they first learn to read. Blocks with letters in A,B,C, type of thing. So that was the web developer's idea out the window.

Then came dad's turn, who doesn't really know what he wants and is just clutching at new ideas, He managed to put one to paper and email it to me, which I didn't like, the rest of his brain storming ideas were given to me over the phone, all of which I believed to be utterly shit!

My turn. I have a very creative mind once in the right mood and I just so happened I was in that place. I have asked for the font to be bubbled, and for the little man to be squeezing/grabbing the logo. I feel the little man then fit together nicely and it all makes perfect sense. The web developer thought yet again this was a good idea. Once again daddy's little genius comes to the rescue to save two idiots from any further distress. I should have put pen to paper with my ideas before he tries to pass them off as his own, but I don't have the time to being do this when I have more than enough things to be doing already. What is my dad doing I hear you ask, I still don't know, is the answer!

Regarding work, I linked my blog to other blog rolls yesterday and got a very positive result, over 60 hits yesterday. I'm not stupid, I know not everyone has visited my blog and found it to be what they are looking for, however hopefully if nothing else, maybe soon the name dealgrabba will start to stick in peoples head due to it being catchy, if nothing else.

Plagiarism

2009-03-31T15:19:00.003+01:00

I've received several emails today, all from dad; either directly to me, copied in, or forwarded emails from the website developers. After looking through the emails I note that all of my wonderful ideas, have now become his wonderful ideas, plagiarism I tell ya!

Considering this factor, it only leads me to believe more upon my thoughts yesterday and that is I'm a total female genius for him to be stealing all my ideas. With this in mind, I shall in future write all my ideas down, rather than telling him over the phone and have them copyrighted to me.

Men, really, where do they get off ever thinking they can surpass the female mind?

Anyway back to work, we have received the illustrated drawings today, so far, only two out of three have come through, so unless number three appears and blows our socks off, we shall be going with the slightly amended illustration...... number one.

Dad has given the web developers the details of what we want our new mascot to do and how we are going to incorporate it within the website, now it's down to them to get it sorted out. Can't wait to see something soon, just not sure at this stage how soon, soon is. I have a feeling things are moving along faster than we think. We are into the second week now, but I'm not really sure when or if things with the development has started, or if the developers are just sorting out the logo, layout and mascot at this stage. Although this work is being out sourced, so they could be doing other things. Plus we are having a domain issue at the moment, but that is currently being sorted out by the developers for us.

Dad is still stating the new incorporated look is all down to him, but I beg to differ. Should dad continue with this attitude, I shall have to tell him I quit and then we shall see how good the ideas keep flowing then.

Mother will be of no help to him what so ever. She doesn't understand anything beyond the use of the TV remote, the microwave or the telephone. This does not include a mobile phone as she never has this switched on, how she thinks people can contact her, I shall never no. Dad's other dependants/my siblings aren't as intelligent as me so again no help will be gained from asking them anything. He could ask my brother's girlfriend but she comes from up north so not point talking to her as dad can't understand a word she says. As for friends, he doesnt have any. So far as I know he can't find anyone to like him.

Talking of which you will all be pleased to know his neighbour has passed her exam. She should be able to get her warrant card in June. This will enable her to section people under the mental health act. What a day that will be. Balloons, drinks, foods, festive music and celebrations will be heard throughout the village as dad is carted off to the local looney bin!

Don't worry, this wont jeopardise anything to do with dealgrabba as I shall have total control over the website, management system and bank accounts by then.........

I'm a genius!

2009-03-30T17:38:00.003+01:00

That's right I'm a genius. There are various reasons why I have come to this conclusion, mainly just because of the fact I'm female, however the following will explain more.

I have finally got my head round all the stuff dad sent me over the last few days. Now I have a better understanding of how linking works against your website ranking among other things. I rang dad with the amazing news only for him to tell me, to get on with it and write all the links out and send it to him to view. More work for me, so that's what I have been doing today, writing out all the links, keywords and meta tag stuff, so exciting it nearly made me want to pee myself!

The next reason I'm a total genius is because we have to come up with new ideas on how the website is to look and what logo and mascot we are now going to use, as the old ones have been scrapped!

Dad has been pondering for days, so too has the web developer. Once I got a few minutes spare on Friday afternoon I decided to put my brain cells into action to solve this problem. Within seconds my brain was filled with lots of inspirational thoughts, which led me to sort out yet another one of dad's problems.

Again I rang dad with my wonderful ideas and gave him my detailed thoughts on it all. I truly believe he is so proud to have such a wonderful, intelligent, dedicated and brilliant daughter, that as soon as the website is bringing in money, I shall receive a rather large pay cheque! He doesn't know how lucky he is. Anyhow, dad passed all this information onto the website developer and he too thinks my ideas are excellent.

In light of this situation instead of being Customer service as dad keeps implying, I shall now only be referred to as Managing Director SEO Genius!

Should he not wish to call me by this title, then I shall have no alternative but to cease use of all fingertips and computers and resume to my normal way of life, before I took this workload on.......

Not sure what the web developer is doing today, come to think about it, not sure what dad is doing either, probably another day where I seem to be the only one doing any work!

A weekend of R & R

2009-03-27T17:36:00.002Z

I feel this week has been incredibly long. Not sure if it's all the early mornings in a row I've had to tolerate, or all the extra working hours I've put in this week, whatever the case, I'm knackered and so glad it's the weekend.

The other half is working this weekend and I know he will be up and out early. We have a spare room and I asked him, would he like to sleep in there tonight so not to wake me in the morning, to which he replied no, but he's more than happy for me too. I'm not going to give up my half of the bed for anyone, so looks like I'm going to be woken up at silly O'clock again!

Oh and the clocks change this weekend, so not only do I suffer from lack of zzz's, but now I'm going to lose a valuable hour too.

Dad has sorted out the hosting today for the website. Although the colour scheme is now in place, a decision has yet to be made on the mascot, logo and layout. Dad and I had a brief chat about it today, but still no outcome has been reached. As to what, if any development has taken place so far, we are unsure.

Probably going bring joy to my dad's life this weekend and visit him and mother. Firstly I shall disappoint him with the presents I brought back from Amsterdam, he wanted duty free fags, instead he's got a pair of clogs and a fridge magnet. Then I shall going on to delight him with my holiday snaps all 60 of them. We will then move onto website discussion, which could go on for hours, thank the lord my mother has a good wine selection.

Let's hope we have some nice weather and I get chance to get out in the sun for a bit over the weekend, would be nice to do something with the garden, even if it's only to tidy it up a bit. I'd like to get my hanging baskets and pots done, but it's too early in the year for that yet, we have the April showers to come before any glimmer or hope of sunshine.

Dad has finally got his money back from the skater boys, god knows what took them so long, but at least our business with them is finally ceased. Next time you see a skater boy going down the road, don't be tempted to think they could be the next Bill Gates like I so foolishly did, instead throw a stick under their wheels and take delight instead.

Back to the blank page

2009-03-26T16:18:00.003Z

The site is having a total re vamp. After some emails bouncing back and forth today, it has been agreed to change the colours to orange, black, green and white, rather than, black, green and white. I think we may also have a bit of grey in there somewhere. We are also getting rid of the mascot, logo and cards. He has convinced dad that it looks too much like a gambling website, so we are going to make it look more of a gaming website.

So we're back to the drawing board on ideas for the mascot and logo, no doubt the overall look of the site layout will also change.

Obviously the cost of this is now going to go up, as he now has to get an illustrator to do the logo and mascot, and the site itself has to be designed too. Not sure how much if any, this will delay things as I imagine they will still be able to get on with what they need to do in the mean time, while these things are being formed.

How the logo or mascot is going to look is anyone guess, but they seem extremely helpful and are full of ideas, which is more than what could be said for the previous company.

I have been going through the stuff dad sent me, very helpful in parts, very confusing in other. I have now joined up with wordpress so I can blog on there too, not everyone is going to use blogspot, and it's worth trying to reach as many people as possible, or as my dad says, I can bore more people to death. Should you already be a member of word press and wish to use this instead, then go to www.dealgrabba.wordpress.com

Still unsure what dad is doing within is little world, but I'm now having to put lists together and yet again do more researching. How exciting my life is, I used to spend any spare time I had watching soaps, films, reading or spend time chatting with friends or relaxing at home with family, now I spend what little time I have, staring at a computer screen reading stuff I barely understand and then having to read it again to get my head round it.

I love the way some people out there talk or write about subjects you have no idea about what so ever, use all this fancy terminology and live you more confused and dumbfounded than ever. Why can't they talk or write about subjects in a way non computer geeks or SEO expects can understand in plain English, this would make my life so much easier and pose less stress on the few little brain cells I have left...

Colours

2009-03-25T16:11:00.005Z

The guys who are doing the website for us are making a start on the layout of the site and colour scheme. We told them we weren't happy with the website's previous layout or colours and they agreed it needed to change, so today we've been presented with colour schemes again......

The logo and mascot are also being re done, but I don't think much, if anything is going to change about them.

I haven't spoken to the web guys about the website as dad has dealt with them so far. However I have now be told I'm to be included in all further mails, which means we shall be back to arguing again over colours when we see the first draft. However in saying this, dad and I did agree today on a colour scheme we both preferred, which made a refreshing change!

I think they could also be doing something with the pre-launch page, or holding page as they call it, as well as looking into the clock functionality. They seem very focused on getting this right, so let's hope they do.

They have been more than helpful so far and they like to communicate a lot which I really hope is their working ethos. They seem to take the time to explain things even if dad doesn't really understand what they are talking about. Not only do emails go back and forth, but also calls. We never had this from the previous company.

I'm going through some of the information that dad sent me the other day. Trying to work through it as I'm doing it, that way I shall have a much better understanding of it all, rather than reading through a load of pages all at once and overloading my poor brain. The information supplied actually means I am learning something new, which makes a change. So much stuff on SEO repeats itself; this is giving me more information and tools to help me along the way, which could potentially make my life a little easier in the long run.

The lovely girl from Key 103 (Manchester) is still in contact with me over the marketing we could potentially do with them. Really good at her job, gives a friendly call without the feeling of being hounded. Shame there aren't more people in this line of business like her.

Nothing else to report at this stage, Not sure what dad is doing, probably sat on his arse in front on the computer looking busy, doing nothing as my mother would say!

Colours

2009-03-25T16:11:00.000Z

I'm back

2009-03-23T10:38:00.009Z

I have returned from my lovely weekend away with the girls in Amsterdam, oh what a weekend!

Looking over the two days my dad wrote the blog for me, I see he has nothing but lovely, kind, caring and good words to say about his hard working dedicated daughter, something never change!

Being a dam virgin, I only had other people's word on the place, which in turn created images in my head of what I thought it was going to be like.

We arrived at night and once we had dumped our belongings in the hotel, which was right next to the train station, it was off out for the evening. First to the grasshopper for a drinky poo's then a stroll around the red light district.

As soon as I entered the grasshopper, a young lad stumbled out and past out on the floor. He had come from the downstairs coffee shop, "the weed must be good if it has that effect on you, I joked with a friend"

The red light district wasn't like I expected, for a start it was a lot smaller than I thought it would be. The girls in the windows were much prettier than I thought, nothing like the old hags you see over here! Turns out though, not all is what it seems, and most of the girls are really men that have had a sex change. Explains at lot!

The cobbled streets, bridges and canals take on a much different feel at night, much like walking round Glastonbury festival. Anyone who has ever been to the festival knows you can walk all night and never get bored of what to see or do.

Plenty of sex shops, seed shops, sex shows, strip shows, bars and souvenir shops to be had, along with black men hanging around whispering out drugs on offer. Plus of course the drunken men eyeing up the window girls and shouting at them, how the women don't go out and deck them one, I'll never know.

By day Amsterdam took on a different feel. Complete madness! We walked miles on the Saturday, went to a park, couple of bars, a coffee shop or two, had a lovely pizza for dinner and had wonderful weather to top it off. Dam square is great to people watching, I spotted Darth Vader, Batman and Death roaming around.

Referring to the madness Amsterdam takes on by day is the traffic. Trying to cross the road in Amsterdam is like playing frogger, bikes, trams, cars, bikes, trams, people, and that was just one road of many, which we had to do on several occasions. I couldn't believe my eyes when I seen a multi storey car park just for push bikes, unreal the amount that you see everywhere. They don't care where they ride, happy to go on the pavements and then expect you to get out of the way. Pedestrians are second class citizen over there.

We seen so much is such little time, that I plan to go back again sometime soon for another mini adventure. There were three of us this time around; however other friends are coming for the ride next time!

I have posted some pictures below for all to see, however should you feel you would only be wasting valuable life time then click away at the end of the text.

In the mean time, dad has emailed me some info that I have to look through, he wanted me to take work with me to the Dam, however I politely said no, it will have to wait. Not much else work wise for me to do at the moment as I need the site to start before I can do a thing.

Sunday morning. About to be evicted from Dutch soil!

2009-03-22T08:25:00.002Z

The writer of this blog will arrive back into the UK today after her extravagant weekend jaunt to Amsterdam where no doubt she will subject you to reading what a wonderful time was had by all.

Meantime, an issue more important than weekend breaks...the website.

Discussions at this stage suggest its development at being around 4 weeks. (Raises an eyebrow with some dis-belief). Following on from this will be a further two weeks worth of testing in an attempt to ensure whatever glitches are in the system are extracted. So in theory, Six weeks from now the website could be in place and running...... I wonder what the world's record is for holding one's breath??? Anyone know???

With hindsight (thanks to the previous escapades) and putting my doubts aside, the guys who have now taken this on do at least project an air of knowledge in both what it is the site demands as well as a level of expertise which to-date has been sadly missing.

Now with the best will in the world things could still go wrong, there are probably still going to be areas which spring up to cause concern but for the moment it's a time of entrusting the development to these guys whilst keeping fingers crossed things run smoothly. (Is there a world's record for fingers crossing???)

The first port of call for them (so they advise) is to work on the clock counter, followed quickly by the bidding system. The problems with both these aspects are the users method of internet connection. It would seem (much to my surprise) that dial up Modems are still prolific and it's this method is going to present the site with its biggest problem.

Put simply, a page refreshing via a broadband connection occurs in a split second whereas Dial-up is painfully slow. Their idea is to try and allow users with Dial up connections to actively take part. Me.....ever the cynic believes this is highly unlikely but for now will go along with whatever suggestions they have in this area.

I am also unsure at this stage if it's their plan to allow people to take part using hand helds such as PDM's and of course relevant mobiles. I guess it would be nice to think so but if not, at least the automatic bid function will be in place for times when individuals can't be at their pc....

Hopefully over the next few weeks and using this blog, we will be able to inform everyone of the progress being made....(again I begin to wonder about that world's holding one's breath record!).

Thankfully, if not today then at least tomorrow, normal service will be resumed on the blog though I suspect you will at first be bored to death having to read about her latest escapades in Amsterdam......What can I say? I guess it will be a little like those times you're invited round to a friends for what you think is a dinner party, only to find out the 8mm projector is all set up on the dining room table and you're there to suffer two hours of "Wish you were here" Holiday snaps..... Good luck is all I can say.

Left in the lurch

2009-03-20T20:10:00.003Z

If I already didn't have enough to do I now find myself having to take over my daughter's blog for a few days while she takes time out to wander around the City of Amsterdam.

I use the daughter term loosely as the blood tests I've recently had done, have yet to be proved conclusive.

Quite what the poor Dutch population have done to merit her arrival in their midst over a quiet, exceptionally sun filled few days, is beyond me!! I guess it's a bit like inflicting the Ebola virus over a weekend and expecting them to survive. But hey! I am sure given this short, sharp lesson the dutch will in future, treat her like British Beef by never again allowing her to darken their doorstep. In fact I suspect the next time she ever tries to enter the country, Bells will ring, Sirens will screech and laser beams of light will fill the heavens warding off all manner of evil spirits.

Yes, I am certain her passport will be microchipped accordingly in that never again will she be allowed back onto Dutch soil.......Not even to view Tulips.....

Of course on a more serious note, I am left asking myself, what possible reason is there for me to take over this blog?

Now my daughter may not be the brightest light bulb in Woolworth's (Yes, before you comment, I am aware Woolworth no longer exists) surely even she is aware, technology as it is today, stretches far and wide, certainly wide enough that if broadband has reached Manchester then it is sure to have reached the flat, mountainless terrains of Holland. Hence, given she has a laptop, is it not therefore reasonable for me to assume she could have taken this with her?

Would you, her followers not have enjoyed a few snapshots of Amsterdam's better known district or maybe a pic or two taken while she hung off the side of a canal boat? Yes, though she may not agree I feel this is an opportunity missed for her followers and all because of this selfish need to enjoy herself.

I know for a fact she will frequent the occasional cafe over there and I am sure said cafes, among other things will have wi-fi hotspots, so again, what possible excuse can she have for not taking a few minutes out of her busy schedule of relaxing in order to write a few well versed lines of her blog?

But of course it's the female species we are dealing with here and just who could possibly know how their minds operate? Definitely in no logical manner that's for sure.

Well whatever the case let's just hope she comes back refreshed (Errrr Like she was ever exhausted) when at least then I might then reasonably expect her to provide a little more input and effort.....and of course let us also hope she is not remiss enough to have forgotten MY duty free!!!!

Ah yes....The blog and the website......Yes well...as you can see...writing is not really my forte and it seems already I have run out of time. I will try to update you some more tomorrow and can only hope my efforts do not lose my daughter too many of her followers. Then again, with that attitude of hers she has only herself to blame.

Not from the south but the north!

2009-03-19T17:59:00.004Z

We now have a web developer in place. Yippeee! We have decided to go with the guys from the North, yes that's right, north, not south!

I'm really starting to wonder if my dad is losing the plot. He thought for some reason, these guys were from the south, Brighton, how wrong could he be, when he found out today they are from the north, Yorkshire! Couldn't be much further apart really. How could he get it so wrong?

Tomorrow we should get the breakdown of timescales, costing, tests and research undertaken. After that, it will be go, go, go again, let's just hope we have a better time and experience with these guys, otherwise I think dad and I will lose the will to live!

We decided to go with the guys rather than the female as we didn't like the terms of contract and we felt unsure if she would be able to do the clock counter, where as these guys seem to convince us that they are more capable.

As you know, I'm off tomorrow for the weekend, so father will be blogging instead. Looking forward to the break away, no kids, men, cooking or cleaning, just lots of shopping, drinking, sightseeing and walking!

When I return, no doubt it will be back to the grindstone. A woman's work is never done, no rest for the wicked........

Waiting......

2009-03-18T17:21:00.003Z

Still no news! The south west guy is not going to do it, It only took him a week to come to this conclusion though, why it took him this long, I don't no. Makes you wonder how he copes with a decision over his tea each night, mind boggles, so we are now down to two.

The female with a brain, has a horrid terms of business contract, which we would want changed if we were to go with her. If she wasn't prepared to do this, then it would end there.

The guy from the south seems to think we should say if we are going with him first, before he can give us a quote and a time scale. Really, what person in their right mind would say they would give them the job, without first finding out the costs involved? It could rack up to god knows what figure, really, stupid man!

We have put this to him and are now waiting for him to reply. I don't understand why he can't just give us a quote and then we can move forward to the next stage. This whole process seems to be dragging along at the pace of a stoned snail, I wish said snail would slowly move over a trail of amfets and then get things zooming along to the point the ball can start rolling again so to speak on the build of the site.

I'm jetting off in a few days time, so I'm going to leave you in the hands of my father for the weekend. God only knows what madness and lies he will unleash upon you, but may the force be with you, of course you can always choose to ignore him, like we all do and not tune in until Monday when I shall be back!

Females are wonderful species!

2009-03-16T17:43:00.005Z

We are still awaiting quotes to come back. The guy in the south came back with some questions and a chat about a few things, mentioned he would be building the front end and his colleague would be doing the back end, but still no quote has come, so we are unsure when that will arrive.

The guy from the south west hasn't come back at all, not sure what is taking him so long, but if he doesn't pull his finger out soon, we won't be bothering with him.

We have however heard back from a female developer. She has the ability to read, be prompt with emails, logical and has done more than the two guys so far.

She came back with her spec of requirements for the site, a timescale, price and let us know what each part will be programmed in. Came to a 27 page spec, so was impressed. More than what we ever got from the skater boys.

We have found that the female developer does seem to have a different opinion to the guy in the south, regarding certain aspects of the site. Dad has emailed her some further questions and some points that she has missed out, nothing to important and probably easy to over look after reading through 87 pages!

So we are still waiting, waiting for how long, I'm unsure, just hope it isn't much longer.......

Wide berth!

2009-03-13T15:13:00.005Z

Friday the 13th. I'm sure if we were still dealing with the skater boys we would be in for a day of hell!

However we don't and everything has been hunky dory in my little world. Shame the same can't be said for dad. His heating has packed up on him and is having a funny five minutes. Sometimes it works other times it doesn't, plus this affects the hot water, or should I say lack of it. lol

He also has the pleasure of the grandchildren this weekend. He will love every minute of the screams, shouting, crying and of course the temper tantrums and paddies. Dad will see this as some form of bad deed in a former life and will wonder what indeed, he did, to have to endure three days of what he will only see as torture on the ears!

Dad has finally finished updating the spec, he sent the updated version to both potentials and both will get back to us on Monday. Dad also sent it to me to read, what a joy that was! All 87 pages of it!

The other company who came back with the stupid quote and the non ability to read, are still trying their best, bless them. We are unaware if they too are skater boys & girls; however they are acting like them, so we're giving them a wide berth!

Not much more to report really. Going to watch comic relief tonight and of course corrie, will they or won't they make it to the altar, that's the big question!

Quote, quotes and more quotes

2009-03-11T19:33:00.003Z

We are starting to get the quotes come back, from people we have emailed our spec too over the last few days. The two we have received already, lead me to believe they too, could be like the skater boys!

They haven't gone through the spec properly, so they don't have any understanding of the full website requirements or the functionality and just come back with a stupidly priced quote and a PDF file full of crap.

We do however have two people who could turn out to be suitable. Both can read both are taking their time to go through it, so that's a bonus if nothing else. One is based in the southwest, the other in the south. Both are freelance and claim to have years of experience, so we shall have to wait until tomorrow afternoon, to get their quotes and see.

We have decided to change the colours of the site now. We are going to go with a space blue as I call it on the outer rim and a different blue as the main body. We plan to change the text colour and the logo text too. The rest will stay as it is, well at least for now anyway.....

Our contract is finished!

2009-03-09T15:05:00.002Z

It's over; we no longer do business with the skater boys!

After dad sent his email to them Friday, he got an email back today, saying they will end the contract with us, reimbursing all monies paid out to them so far. Dad can walk away with all his money, but will have to start all over again.

Skater boys keep all the work they have done so far, but we of cause still keep the domain names and all the rights. We are unsure why they have been so easy, could it be they know their in the wrong for messing us around, they no they can't do they work asked of them, or dad is so much of a pain in the arse, they wanted rid? Whatever their reasons it's fine with us.

Yes it is a pain in the arse to start all over again, but hopefully second time around things will be a little easier for us. We have more of an insight into how things work now, not loads, but more than we had before.

Although we we're happy with the website design before, we are thinking of making some changes and hopefully with a good web designer we can have a better graphically produced website. Chrome showed the colours up to be nice and bright, however explorer and Firefox were a little too dull.

Dad has already thought of changing the colour scheme, I would really like to change the logo font, I hate it, hopefully with a new designer we can convince dad to change it.

In the meantime it's back to the drawing board. Dad is making changes to the spec, making sure everything is up to date and includes every last detail we can possibly think of. We know there will be things forgotten, but I doubt it will be much.

Dad has been in touch with a few website companies who deal with design and development via email today and is awaiting a response. I have contacted a few but only heard back from one, saying his workload is to high at the moment to take anymore work on at present. Most of them don't seem to both at all.

If any of my readers happen to be looking for more work in this area, or no of someone that is, please feel free to contact me!

Very frustrating when you are back to square one all over again. However it isn't a total loss. We have everything in place now, which we didn't have before. Emails, terms of conditions, registration of the company, VAT, All the text information, products, marketing info, Google, Paypal and analytics, the list is endless. All we have to do now is find the right person to do the job well and correctly and hopefully everything will run smoothly second time around.

I will make sure that I attend every meeting with dad this time to make sure they aren't the sister company to the skater boys.lol!

In the meantime, I doubt I shall be blogging as much as before as I think thinks will be a little slow to begin with, but I shall endevour to keep you informed every step of the way........

Relaxing weekend

2009-03-08T17:38:00.002Z

I haven't got up to much this weekend. Mainly shopping, eating and drinking lots of wine. Skating on ice is on later, so I will have a nice hot bath, bit of a pampering and then cosy up on the sofa probably with a nice glass of vino!

Dad tried to contact skater boy on Friday afternoon, but to no avail. He rang to speak to the director, but again to no avail. He isn't happy with the fact he hasn't had any updates, nor can he see anything done on the website.

He has emailed skater boy again, informing him of the breach of contract, so let's see if he does anything about it on Monday, or will just get the normal response of being ignored. I can't see them getting it done by the time they have estimated.

Oh well, nothing more to report until Monday, until then........

Threatened with a pre launch page!

2009-03-06T16:38:00.002Z

Dad got an email this morning from skater boy No2, saying the pre launch page will be ready to go live on Monday of next week.

We checked the pre launch page to see what changes, if any had been made and low and behold, things had changed. You register as normal, but instead of being able to refer a friend, you have to complete the registration process by click the link in the new email set up first. Once clicked, registration is successfully and then you can go on to refer friend/friends.

We still need them to move the refer a friend button to the right page, as its currently on the wrong one, reset the numbers and sort out the new emails. Once that is done we are ready to go live. Friday is the day I have in mine though, not Monday!

Nothing has changed on the website and we haven't had any updates, could mean one of two things, one they haven't done anything, or two they are working on something that's going to take a few days, once it's done, it will go onto the website for us to see.

So glad the weekend is here, been a long one.........

Catch up for new readers

2009-03-05T16:59:00.004Z

Building a website is no easy task. We started the project back in late September. The thoughts went into motion and a 65 page spec was created. Research was then undertaken to find a suitable web developer and designer. Time was taken until we thought we had found the right company.

With a 65 page spec, yes, you may feel this is long, however it is very detailed, allowing anyone to understand each page, it features and functionality. I have spoken to other people, who also have specs this long, if not longer to deal with. A real must for a developer to do their job well!

In December 2008, we handed the project over to the company, who told us that after looking over the spec, they knew they could do it. They informed us after Christmas (about 3 weeks) we would get the pre launch page and 3 months later we would get the finished website and management system.

January, February and now we're in March. We have no pre launch page and are still a long way off from a website.

We have supported them all the way, done updates for them, emailed them info when required, but still they haven't produced a thing. We have smashed our heads against walls, dented tables, bitten finger nails and are now going slightly bald in places.

Frustration is an understatement as to how we feel. We email, they ignore us, we give them detailed instructions, they screw it up, we draw pretty pictures of how we want things to look and they screw it up. They give us completion dates, then change them, they set up our emails address and sort our domain out, then ask us, do we have any email address and what is our domain. Are they stupid, do they less of a memory than a goldfish?

We don't know what to do for the best anymore. Take up Valium or go website developer hunting and I'm not going to use paint balls!

I have never dealt with a company who don't care about their clients, the quality of work they produce, or the service they provide. Even the Director couldn't give a dam about the reputation of his company. They don't seem to care that within the last 20 days theyhave only manage 2 days work and even then it is incorrect. Never have they produced anything that worked first time, nor have they been consistent with anything.

Should any of my readers decide that one day, a website could be for them, think wisely before you do. Web developers in my eyes are no better than cowboy builders. Now I'm not saying all web developers, nor am I saying all builders are cowboys. With all the best research in the world, you never know what you could be letting yourself in for, until the project is finished. Could be heaven or it could be hell......

Pre launch page is ready

2009-03-03T17:03:00.003Z

Dad received an email today, saying the pre launch page is ready. I then got a call from dad, saying it was ready. Ready my arse......

Nothing has changed, nor has it for the past two weeks, so why could they possibly think it was ready. They know what is outstanding, so have they not tested to make sure it is ready, or just passed it on to us for the sheer hell of it?

Then there's the website. A new feature has been added today. Why we don't know, has it been asked for? Yes, but for it to be in the database, not on the website. They have taken a day to do this wonderful feature. What a waste of a day, when they could have done what was asked in the same time. More delays now!

Why, why, why oh why can't they read the spec and work it out for themselves what they should be doing, check their work when they think they have finished, reply to updates rather than forwarding them to us claiming work has been done, when it clearly hasn't.

Dad will not get his pre launch page tomorrow as requested and I'm dam sure he won't get his website on the 31st of March either.

Breach of contract

2009-03-02T18:26:00.003Z

Still no news from the skater boys confirming when we see the finished pre launch page, or confirmation on it being 28 days or 32 days, for the website completion.

Dad has come to the end of his tether!

He has sort legal advice and this afternoon they came back to him. It would seem skater boys have breached their contract and are being unreasonable about time scales. To be quoted an estimated 3 weeks for a pre launch page and to still be waiting some 11 weeks later is ridiculous, but then we didn't need the Legal people to tell us that.

Dad has emailed skater boys and requested the pre launch page to be completed by the 4th of March and for the website to be completed by the 31st of March 2009. He has also had to write to the skater boys, with the same information and send it recorded delivery.

Once this has been received we have to wait for them to reply, should they choose not to, further steps will then be taken. Dad has been informed, should it get to court procedures then he will get all of his money back, plus all his cost paid for.

This isn't something dad wants to do, but it has got to the point, if he doesn't do something, we may never get a website, or lose every penny put into this project.

As we knew dad isn't the only person to suffer this experience with web design companies. It would seem this has been happening a lot and web companies aren't getting away with it so lightly anymore. The justice system is working in favour of the client for a change and not the company!

As of yet, we have heard nothing from the skater boys. We may hear something tomorrow; then again we may not, who knows.

A relaxing sunday

2009-03-01T16:47:00.002Z

Today, I've done nothing, got up, went to the Tesco early, car park was empty, so I could park as close as I could, without having to walk too far. Got inside, lovely and peaceful, got what I needed and headed to the checkout. They couldn't serve me until 10am, so I had to stand at the checkout for two minutes waiting for the clock to chime.

Once 10am came, beeps could be heard up and down; children appeared from nowhere, screaming and shouting, parents seemed oblivious, too busy catching up with friends, and blocking anyone from passing as their trolleys took up all the space available to pass. I paid and hurried to the safety of the car and headed home.

Grumpy came for dinner today, as mum is away visiting he mother/my nan. No sooner had he turned up but so too, did my two good friends. They popped in on their way home for a quick coffee and chat. One of my friends made the fatal mistake of asking my dad how the site was going. An hour later, I think he wished he never came round, let alone asked! lol

We have done a few tests on the site over the weekend. Something's are working, something's still don't and somehow, something's work worse now, than they ever did before!

Dad has written an update to the web developer letting him know the list of problems found; hopefully these will get rectified before he moves onto something else. Monday tomorrow, weekends go too quickly and before you know it, your back to the grind stone again.....

Stick a tail on the calendar

2009-02-27T19:29:00.003Z

The weekend is finally here, time to relax, chill out, enjoy the rugby, eat chocolate and drink wine!

Nothing to report on the website, they have been working on it all day, not sure what they are doing as we can't see any of it, but they are doing something and still on it now.

Dad had an email regarding schedules again, this time it will be completed April 7th. Skater boy No1 didn't mention the year, but let's hope its 2009 hey!

Twenty days ago it was eighteen days to completion, now its over a month away. In saying that though, the days he has said doesn't match up with his finally figure, so who really knows what date his has in mind, could have closed his eyes and stick a tail on a calendar and that was the day he thought he would go with for now....

No explanation has been given as to what has happened to the last 20 days, did they just do nothing? Why has it taken them so long to complete nothing?

Nothing has be explained about the launch page, this hasn't been included in the schedule, so am I to take it we are no longer having one? Bloody good job it wasn't finished back in January, people would have registered and died of waiting for the website!

Well I could go on moaning about them, but then I would sound like my dad and I can't have that.

I hear my wine calling me, wanting to be poured by me, drunk by me, enjoyed by me.

Slight improvement!

2009-02-26T18:38:00.003Z

Further checks have been made on the website today, regarding the auction/bidding part. Dad managed to put one auction on, only the idiot set it for March the 26th not February 26th. His old age is really starting to show now!

Once again, he put the auction on, this time with the correct info. The clock started five minutes before it should have, and even started counting down before one of us, had even hit the bid now button. When the clock counter did start counting down, not only did it go, 53,52,49,48,45,44,43,41, but it also went, 53,52,55,51,50,48,48,46, just great, they have managed to make it worse than it was yesterday.

I won that auction, so we decided to set up another one. This time it was a camera. Auction started again, five minutes sooner than it should have, only this time, the clock started, but we couldn't bid. So it counted down to 0 and no one won it!

All closed auctions go onto the winners page in the right place now, rather than anywhere, however even if they haven't been won, they still go there, taking the name and price won from the last auction using a camera. Dad has won 13 cameras now!

I did a check on the pre launch page, registration still work, however I cant refer a friend anymore, this could mean one of two things. One they are putting the email in place to confirm, before registration, or, two, they have screwed somethings up. Let's up it's number one for my own sanity!

Nothing more to report, other than, skater boy No 1 has predicted completion in 19 days time, yer right, I don't think so.

Dad is missing his neighbour, She has been studying hard again for her exam, which she is due to take soon. Let's hope this time she passes, I have more than enough proof, that he now needs locking up!

Because of this, she hasn't been seen all week, My mum has seen her, which leads me to believe, she is just hiding from dad, after all, she is suffering enough with studying, why would anyone want to darken their day further by spending anytime with grumpy, unless he has wine to ease the pain of it all! lol

Friday tomorrow, we are hoping auction errors are rectified, so we can run further tests, we hope to run two or more auctions tomorrow and have three people bidding. Mum will want to have a go, however, she hasn't wanted to help with the hard parts, so she isn't going to work with the fun part either. No pain, no gain!

I have won!

2009-02-25T16:50:00.003Z

Today, I have won, 500 free bids, 25 free bids, could have won a laptop, £1000 cash, £200 cash and a camera, but the auctions went on then finished just like that for some god forsaken reason!

Grumpy and I did some testing on what they said was done with the website so far. Obviously this is the auction part, due to my wonderful winning spree. When you start an auction in the database, due to the fact no auction has an ID number, once; an auction of a canon camera has been on once, it will never be able to be on again. So, thus being, as soon as you input the information, and set it to go live, the auction will go live and then jump to the ended auction page on the winner's site.

If only this was the only problem. When we have managed to get an auction to go live and start without ending straight away, we incur a different problem. An auction has a time and date in which to start. He shouldn't start until the date and time match and then someone places a bid and then the auction time should start to countdown.

Not in our case. Our auctions start at the right time and date, however, instead of waiting for someone to bid, the timer starts counting down, not from the time state at three minutes, but from 10 seconds instead!

Once the auction has been won, the auction should move to the winner's page, at the top, on the left. Again not in our case, we get to the winners page, only instead of being at the top, on the left; we are two lines down and at the end. People shouldn't have to hunt to find the latest winner.

Is it all doom and gloom I hear you ask?

No some aspects work. You can wait for the last second before hitting bid and it is counted. Order of bids and bidders are correct, the countdown timer seems to work better for me, than for dad. Mine countdown, was a bit sticky in places, dad however found it to miss numbers and jump, although we stayed within the same time span.

Mum hasn't taken any interest in the website up until now, mainly due to the fact, she doesn't understand how these things work, Mum like simple things and things simple. She will now be pleased as punch when she finds out she can now hit buttons. She will be begging for bid credits, and bidding away, competing against herself, till her little heart's content. Very simple like that, doesn't take much to please the old woman!

Pre launch page, is still a long way off in the distance, I think it has launched into the Atlantic and set sail, probably never to be seen again. By their calculations, and my crappy predictions, I think it could be mid June before we see the finished website, and the pre launch would have sunk somewhere in the Pacific!

Have I been to kind with my predictions?

2009-02-23T19:48:00.002Z

Another Monday over, I believe I may have been to kind in my predictions, they are worse than I predicted!

I thought dad would get his updates and maybe the skater boys would email dad with something. Well he did get his updates, which were expected Thursday and they didn't tell him anything at all, well they did, but nothing that made any sense to our website and considering he was working on it Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we were expecting quite a lot, however it looked about an hour's worth of work, if that!

I don't wish to undermine him as I'm no web developer, but I thought he would have achieved more than that. OK, he could be working behind the scenes on things we can't see, but there isn't any truth in that either.

He has informed us; he will continue working on option one auction and now start two and three as well. Wouldn't it be better to get option one finished first, before screwing up the second two?

I have come up with a list of Meta tags for keywords and description, let's hope at some point when I send it; they have no problems understanding where it's meant to go. If I know, then so should he!

Skater boys emailed at 5.23pm, not far out, saying things have been delayed due to the launch page, however, nothing has been done with the launch page, so, what have they been doing?

Website is still many moons away and as for the pre launch page, I shall move my predicted pre launch date of next week, to Friday of the following, even then I'm unsure if I'm being optimistic!

On a bright note, the weather was good today and I managed to get my washing dry, which was lovely. I have already pre stocked fridge with wine, as dad started moaning this afternoon, earlier than predicted. May have to book an appointment with the doc for some Valium.

Oh well, there is always tomorrow.

Predictions

2009-02-22T18:41:00.004Z

Weekly predictions, I have been pondering for a few minutes and my predictions are as follows:

Monday, dad will finally receive the updates he's been waiting for, since Thursday of last week. He may also receive an email from skater boy No1 & No2, probably telling him nothing at all, or something he already knows.

Tuesday. website will not be half way to completion, let along completed today. Neither will the launch page be ready to go. Dad will email to ask about the website and the pre launch page, but will hear nothing.

Wednesday at midday, we will receive an email saying, pre launch page is ready and they need the other emails. These will be sorted out on Wednesday and sent back ASAP.

Thursday, Skater boy No2 will get the emails sorted, by now I will have gone and got wine, to cope with the calls from grumpy!

Friday, Pre launch page will be ready, but we won't get email until 5.53pm, delaying launch until at least 5.26pm Monday. Dad and I will run tests to make sure everything is right with the site, None will be found for a change.

I'm sure throughout the week, I may well pick up more predictions, but for now that's it.

Glass of wine anyone?

2009-02-21T19:22:00.004Z

Woke up at 9.30am today nice to do that, rather than 7am. I did a bit of retail therapy, lunch, then a trip to see grumpy.

Grumpy wasn't a happy bunny today, as the work he had done last night has gone. He reckons, he saved it as he went along, only to find this morning it's no longer on his PC, not anywhere!

Now I reckon, He kept hitting the save button, but didn't at any point save the file anywhere. In doing this, some how, he wasn't prompted to save it and shut down, thus losing everything. He says otherwise, but he would, wouldn't he!

He now has a long road ahead of him again.lol

I checked my google analytics late last night, only to find it now works. Me and dad did a test on the pre launch page to make sure it was working and my eyes weren't deceiving me and yes, my analytics picked up two visitors. Only the map overlay tells me the visits came from two places, two places we don't live anywhere near. When I say near, these places were over 100 miles away.

As much as google is great and it's free, I know the information it's giving me, isn't completely correct. Bit of a bummer from a marketing point of view, as I'm unsure if the popularity of my visits are really where people are coming from.

I have mentioned this to dad, so he's going to look into an analytic package for us. Well for me, not something we shall rush out and get, but shall do at some point. If anyone has any recommendations please let me know, always good to have some comparisons.

I shall be doing my predictions for the week that lay ahead, tomorrow. Be interesting to see if I'm as spot on as this week.

Dad hasn't received any updates since Thursday, shall have to wait until Monday now. Nothing seems to have changed about the website or pre launch page since Tuesday, although they could be working behind the site, at things we can't see.

Not a lot planned for this evening. Have a large glass of vino in hand, plus some chocolate brownies that are to die for, when heated and served with ice cream and chocolate sauce. Yum, yum think I might have to have two pieces!

I love it when I'm right

2009-02-20T17:07:00.003Z

Well it is the weekend and as predicted, the launch page is still in sleep mode and isn't going anywhere!

Skater boy No1 has requested some information about my google analytics, I don't know why, I sent the information they required for tracking January the 8th and even then I did it twice. Any how, they should now have the information they require, so I will need to change my passwords again.

They are sorting out the tracking code for the website too, so I shall have everything track able under the same account. Lets just hope it doesn't take them that long to sort it out. I want it to work first time, not 31st time.

Website is meant to be live and ready to go on the 24th, which is next Tuesday. Did I forget to mentioned I saw a pig and her piglets flying over my house this afternoon!

Not a lot planned for the weekend. Saturday, lay in till 9am, bit of pampering, before a trip out for lunch, a drink, then a movie, will have to check the guide first. Tonight I think a large glass of vino is in order, not sure what is for tea, really not in the mood for cooking.

Haven't had a rock out night in a while, so might have a play with world tour. Just hope my eyes can take the pain, I know my ears can!

Grumpy is sorting out products for the website. I gave him a nice long list, which he informed me, will take three days to sort out, that will keep him nice and busy for a while. Hopefully my phone wont ring, my dads neighbour will have a lovely and peaceful weekend, mum is away till Saturday afternoon, so all in all, harmony will bless us for a short period, until his presences is known again by all.

If the weather is good this weekend, maybe the skater boys will be out playing hard, before working hard again on Monday morning, if only I knew this theory to be true!

Sore fingertips

2009-02-19T20:15:00.002Z

As expected, the over uses of fingertip movement from the skater boys yesterday, has proven too be to much for them. They now have their full list of what we see needs to be done, in order of completion. Could well be the case, that we have missed something out, but we aren't here to do it all for them.

Have been out and about in my car today, but unlike yesterday, I'm no longer driving around like puff the magic dragon. Hopefully, my car was just having an off day and needed to clear some cobwebs!

We have booked the tickets, hotel, parking, and arranged travel insurance. The weekend is confirmed, a girly weekend away, can't wait, just need to save some spending money (dad this is a hint if your reading)!

One more day until the weekend. Launch page, might go live on Monday, then my predictions will be correct. I will have to start calling myself mystic and give my weekly predictions on the progression of the site. If it comes true, I shall have to consider a career change in business predictions, could make myself a small fortune. Oh is life was so easy.......

Could it of been the magpie?

2009-02-18T16:36:00.006Z

I set out on my journey this morning and along the way spotted a magpie, I looked for a second, but could only see the one. I'm quite a superstitious, person and would normally salute the magpie, however due to the fact I was smoking and going round a roundabout, I couldn't.

Oh how I wished I had.......

On my way home this afternoon, I looked at the rear view mirror, only not to be able to see out the back window. At first I thought, god its foggy back there, then thought, don't be daft, must be coming from the car behind, but it was soon clear, it was in fact coming from my car through the exhaust pipe!

The smoke soon cleared and I kept checking the rear view mirror, for further signs of smoke. Within a mile, like puff the magic dragon, there was more, it wasn't continuous, just puffs of smoke every now and then. 3 times, in 6 miles until I got home. It was like my car was having a fag!

I have since taken the car to the garage to get checked over, only to be told, yes there is smoke coming out the car, but they will need to run some tests to see what the problem is. Next week, it's booked in to have pipes cleaned and an engine flush. This could fix the problem; however, it could be something far worse, which could involve loads of work and loads of money. Just great. I really feel like shooting the magpie, I know this is all down to him!

When the garage owner said leave it with me for a while, I will have a look at it. I thought that's what they would do, not tell me something I already knew, hence why I went to them. Men, do they really think all women drivers are stupid, why did he have to confirm there really was smoke coming out of my car?

My gimmicks are now finished and should get put on the pre launch page asap. I have seen them on a mock launch page and I'm pleased with the overall look.

My predictions could be coming true now after all. The pre launch page has encountered more problems, which will probably delay the launch until Monday now. Let's stick with the seeing is believing method!

Something that is a shocking fact today, dad has received 13 emails from the Skater boys. Nine have come from Skater boy No2 & four from skater boy No2. All this before 4.30pm, may even be time for one more before they go home.

Could they blow my predictions?

2009-02-17T18:01:00.002Z

Dad has received three emails today from the website company! Are they finally pulling their fingers out, could they want to hurry up and get rid of dad as a client, or could it be, they follow my blog and want to blow my predictions of the schedule for this week?

The emails that have gone back and forth today, claim the pre launch page will go live on Thursday of this week, yes that right, this week!

Seem that the list of errors dad put to them, are being fixed and not only that, but tested too. I just hope all this work and effort on their part, hasn't killed them and require them to take the day off tomorrow!

My gimmicks are now finished and I should be able to see them on the pre launch page before it goes live, just not sure when that will be though.

I want to get excited and think the end could soon be here, but I think that would be getting carried away, The 24th is only a week away, would be lovely to think, it could be done and we can move onto other things, I have so much in place to do, but cant do anything until at least the pre launch site is live. So until then I shall have to continue with the seeing is believing method instead of excitement, as this only leads to a depressed mood of state and a sore head!

There is some sanity in this world though. In a few weeks time, a friend and I are jetting away for a weekend of girly fun. I cant wait. No computer, no dad, no work, no daughter of darkness and hopefully not a lot of phone reception, unless my other half wishes to contact me, telling me to go wild in the shops and spend, spend spend.lol

Maybe, as director of the company, I should just inform dad, I need to do this weekend away as part of business research, insuring him that at the end of the day, I want to do all I can to make this business work. The weekend will then be approved , I shall have a wicked weekend, then claim it all back as expenses. In the really world, dad will say, get stuffed!

My head hurts and there is a hole in the wall!

2009-02-16T18:43:00.002Z

If you are keen followers, who like being bored to death by my blog, then you will know, Monday was claimed to be pre launch day. Claimed because Skater boy No1 & No2 thought they had done all the bug testing and it was ready to go. But of course dad and I knew otherwise.

Time has ticked away today, seconds, minutes, hours, morning past, afternoon came and slowly we drifted into the 5pm zone. At 5.40pm, going home time, we got an a email from skater boy N01.

He basically said, that dad's email on Friday didn't shed any light on what errors, bugs etc dad had found, but was only interested in what they (No1 & No2) had done. Can my dad as a client not ask these questions, when clearly he knows they're are bugs still awaiting to be fixed?

He also went on to say, that if dad was to be more helpful and inform him of what errors or bugs he had found, it would get things moving faster. If dad chooses not to, then he will only have himself to blame for the delay. (dad has told them of these errors weeks ago)

What a joke, it was only five minutes ago, he said, it wasn't down to us to do bug testing. Now he is telling us, he can't be arsed to do his job properly, so can we do it for him.

I'm not stupid, I know when you build a site, before it launches, it gets tested. Not by one or two people, but many. Each person may do something different to someone else, different errors/bugs will be found by different people. Plus the more people testing, helps to see if the site can work a little under pressure so to speak.

However what I cant get my head around, is that clearly they haven't done any testing at all. Sorry I take that back, they did register themselves. Surely if this is the sort of thing they do for a living, they should know how to run tests.

Dad has replied with this list of errors, which skater boy No1 will get tomorrow. Tuesday afternoon he will look at the mail, 5.30 he will reply, with " I will get on with it"

Wednesday morning he will pass the mail to the web developer to sort out. Thursday, the web developer will look at the mail. Friday, he might make a start on it. Friday at 5.30pm, we shall get an email, saying. Launch page should be ready to go on Monday.

I know I shouldn't presume like this, but I feel I have gotten to know them so well, that I can read them like a book. This will yet be another unproductive week behind us.

Just in case you had forgotten, next Tuesday, is website launch day. Can you see it, no neither can I. More chance of winning the lottery or seeing a pig flying.

Valentine' s & Rugby Day!

2009-02-14T19:57:00.004Z

Happy valentines day, hope you all got something nice and have enjoyed your day!

I have spent the day with friends, followed by England v Wales six nations rugby. I knew we weren't going to win, I just hoped we didn't get pulverised by them. In case you didn't see the game, we did lose 15/25. Was a good game, we scored two tries, one of which, was when we had someone in the sin bin. Wales only manged one.

We played a good game, made some silly mistake, which got two of our players in the sin bin and gave away to many penalties. Wales played well and had we not given away all the penalties that we did, then we would have won for sure. But no point dwelling, I shall await victory when we meet again next year!

Scotland lost against France today, looks like Scotland will be receiving the wooden spoon this year.lol

News flash!

2009-02-13T17:56:00.003Z

Important news update. Just over twenty minutes ago, dad received an email from the website company stating:

ALL TESTING AND BUG CHECKING HAS BEEN FULLY LOOKED INTO AND THE PRE LAUNCH SITE IS READY TO GO ON MONDAY!

Should I be excited, has something happened since the tests dad did this morning, which failed?

Simple answer no. Nothing has changed since this morning, other than the fact, skater boy No1 & No2, have registered themselves. Worked out they have registered and thought, yep, it works.

Did they check the database, no, did they refer properly, no, did they work their arses off this afternoon fully checking and testing, no, no, no, no and NO!

They have asked dad for any feedback he may have and if anything important arises to contact the web developer, so he can sort out errors. Lol. I laugh because, he has been informed of these errors and has known of these for weeks now. How many more times does he need to be told?

Secondly, should they in fact believe they have fully tested the site then surely they should no it doesn't work. They are the project managers, not us, it is their job to check, not ours. Why should we have to run checks after them, to make sure they have tested properly?

Dad has mailed them back, asking what tests have been taken, what bugs have been fixed and why have they only registered and not gone further by referring and checking the database?

So another Monday will soon be here and gone again, maybe another week will pass before we hear from them again with more false information, who knows...........

Another week over

2009-02-13T15:53:00.004Z

Yet again Friday has come around and still no sign of a launch page, come to think about it, no sign of a email, informing us one way or another either!

We know we wont get a mail saying "its ready to go", as we have done some checks this morning and still the same things aren't working. Links take you somewhere to outer space, rather than where they're meant too. At the moment, you can get more points for referring, than Obama got in votes, plus the emails aren't correct.

If you think that's a joke, you can start an auction back in 1927, but after 2010, you will never be able to do another auction again! Looks like that's when the business is meant to end, that's of course if it ever gets going! But of course the main problem we have here at present, is the fact, that as soon as an auction is put on, it has ended, but still awaiting bidders, work that one out.

If I were to write a list of everything I know is wrong with the site so far, plus everything that is incomplete, it would take me till the 24th of February (same day the website is meant to be completed) to finish it. I also thing blogger would put a ban on my blog, for the length of time to make the posting and for boring my readers to death.lol

I used to be a happy, out going, bubbly person before I started working for dad. But since all the problems we've had, I'm turning into a negative, grumpy old bag who is starting to moan and become like Victor. I think I shall have to reconsider my position as director of the company, or demand a vacation to the Maldives for a few weeks, so I can return to my cheery normal self again.

My gimmicks are due to be finally completed on Monday. Not that we can do anything with them, until the pre launch page is ready.

Valentines day tomorrow, I'm spending the day watching rugby with friends, so romantic, hope you guys have a lovely valentines day too!

Not in the mood

2009-02-12T17:21:00.003Z

I don't really have anything to say today. I feel tired after a hard days work and a crap nights sleep!

I went to bed last night dreaming of the website, every time I opened a link, I'm convinced I woke up and was trying to roll over. Must have been trying to help the pages turn!

Guitar hero also has this effect on me. I go to sleep dreaming of buttons coming towards me at the speed of knots and I cant seem to play a note. I had to ban myself from playing after 7pm, or I would have a terrible nights sleep.

My plans for this evening are as follows, dinner, vino, nice hot bath, more vino, Dexter then bed, hopefully with a better nights sleep than last!

Never forward emails!

2009-02-11T16:51:00.005Z

This afternoon dad got his daily email from the web developer with the latest updates. He opened it up, went through the five page document and was happy with everything he had seen, until he got to the bottom of page four!

It shocked him so much, he rang me and told me to check my emails, as he had forwarded the email onto me. I processed to open the mail and as I scrolled down, I could see questions, which below had the answers, which had been input in by the web developer.

As I got to page four I too, was shocked at what I saw, see below:

I need both of you to please confirm if this is going to be possible. If there is an issue please let me know now and I will tell the client. We need to pull out all the stops to get this done though as it will (hopefully) keep him off our back for a while!

This was a comment made by skater boy No1 to the web developer and skater boy No2, regarding the launch page. I appreciate dad can be a pain and I'm sure skater boy No1 does feel that dad is on his case. However I feel dad has ever right to be.

At the beginning of this build, ten weeks ago, we were told by the web design company, that our launch page would take three weeks to do. Fair enough people cant be held to dates when building a website, so there has to be allowances, however we are now at week ten and we still don't have a launch page! Wouldn't you be writing emails asking questions about what is going on?

Secondly, skater boys No1 & No2 are project managers, They don't seem to be managing anything, dad has been doing all the update checks with the web developer, not them, they haven't run any tests on the site, nor have they come back with any questions directed to them to answer. Do they think, if they don't answer, dad will go away?

Dad emailed the director of the company regarding this email and attached it for him to read. Within a few minutes skater boy No1 replied, with an apology and informed dad it was his way of motivating his staff.

Really! Well that may well be how he does things, but I know for sure it isn't something I would do to motivate staff, nor would I be stupid enough to forward any comment like that in a email for a client to see!

A slippery start to the day!

2009-02-10T15:27:00.004Z

My day didn't get off to a very good start. Woke up this morning deaf in one ear, you will be pleased to know, full hearing has now resumed!

I then processed to get ready for my day, but not before burning my hand with the hair straighteners. I then thought to myself, could it get any worse, yes, I was off to my dads for the day!

As I opened the front door to leave, It was then I noticed the ice. So taking extra care, I locked the door and slowly, with handbag in one hand and laptop in other, I walked down the steps and yes, before you ask, I did made it to the bottom safely!

I remained safe until I went to take my next step! which took me sliding down the pathway, past my car, until I final stopped three doors down, legs apart, still clinging to laptop and hoping no one was watching me. I then somehow, in what I can only imagine must of looked like zombie type movements, made it to my car and left for dads. You will be pleased to hear I made it there safe and sound!

Before I go any further, I mentioned yesterday I was doing an online seminar, well I was wrong, its a webinar. Any how, 10am on the dot, it went ahead, 45 minutes I listened, watched and learnt absolutely shit all!

Now anyone who knows me, knows I'm no rocket scientist, nor am I a total dipstick, all of my knowledge on SEO, marketing, blogs, analytics etc, have all come from either researching the inter web, or friends. With his 15 years to my 2 months, I was really expecting to gain some wonderful knowledge from this man. Instead, if all he can tell me, is mind boggling stuff I already know, maybe I should call myself SEO expect and charge the earth for my knowledge!

My knowledge of wisdom to friends, if you are ever invited to go on a webinar, (you may not all get this, due to age), but; just switch off your PC sets and go home and do something less boring instead!

As for the gimmick, well we added them to the website yesterday for overall effect and noticed you cant read the text. So, some alterations have been made, I have updated designer skater boy of these and hopefully I should see something soon. Plus I should also get to see them on the launch page, Yipppeeee!

At least one area of this website is getting there, which is more than what can be said for the launch page, or the actual website itself. Been six days now and dad hasn't heard a thing regarding progress, it is meant to be finished on the 24th, 14days to go, more like 14 months at this pace.

We registered with google checkout and paypal today. Paypal was quite easy, however google checkout is a little more trying. We have both come to the conclusion, that google, is in fact bigger than space itself!, You can start on one page and within a few clicks your 30 miles away from where you first started.

Registering and confirming was the easy part to say the least. Trying to add the buttons we wanted was another story entirely. After banging my head against the table through frustration I couldn't take it any longer and dad got involved. I left him arguing with paypal on the phone over buttons, I believe this matter has now been resolved and is in dads capable hands to sort out.

One area that is a concern, is you have to do stuff to the HTML coding, which can take about an hour to do, according to paypal and google. For a normal people, yes it may well be, but in skater world, a different matter all together, we can add a few more hours to this easily!

For nearly six hours today I sat at my dads freezing my tits off, it was so cold! Two wood burning stoves are in their house and not one of them was on, not even the central heating! I had to rub my hands together to keep warm. At one point I thought I was smoking, but then I realised it was just my breath.

I'm home now, all warm and cosy. I have a friend who always complains my house is cold, should you ever complain again, I shall send you to my parents house to stay, then you will know what cold is!

Gimmick Day!

2009-02-09T15:16:00.004Z

As promised by designer skater boy, I got my gimmicks. It now has two hands instead of one, is set the way I want it too and overall I'm happy with it. Dad however isn't.

Dad feels some of the text isn't right and now thinks it may be to small and people wont be able to see it. We also have a bit of a debate over which one will be used. We had four designed, two in one colour and two in another. I shall have to give in and go with dad or I shall never hear the end of it.

As for the progression of the website, there is no progression, so I have nothing to report. I know dad emailed the director of the company over the weekend, with the concerns he has over the project management, we are still awaiting a reply, lets hope he is not also the director of the skate park, or there will be no hope for us!

Tomorrow I have a seminar to go to, well I say go to, its online, so I shall be sat in the comfort of my own home. Dad booked me in, to listen to someone talk about SEO for 45 minutes. It could be the most exciting, knowledgeable 45 minutes of my life, or it could turn out to be as exciting as waiting for paint to dry!

Either way, I'm sure I shall learn something tomorrow, even if its only how to adjust the volume on my laptop!

Dad set daughter of darkness her homework last night, however, he cant open the file she has sent him, useless man!

Not many people seem ready!

2009-02-08T16:16:00.004Z

Thank you to the few people who gave me their interpretation on what they felt "ready" meant to them. As I said, I have posted them below, so you can have a read.

In the meantime I would like to point out, that I know a few people read this blog, however, none of you seemed "ready" to give your opinion, therefore I shall just have to assume you agree with lovely little me. Lol.

Ready means ready now, no more waiting
Agreed with example one and three, felt partner would think she was mad, if said dinner was done and she hadn't put the oven on
Ready from a woman's point of view, restaurant booked for 8pm, journey 8 miles, husband calls, are you ready, wife replies yes. Few minutes later, husband stick head round the bathroom door, to see, so called ready wife, getting in the bath
If you want to know what the meaning of ready is, ask a woman for the answer!
Ready means, if are in a running race and someone says, ready, it means get ready, not go, or now.
Ready means, I expect it to be done, now!

Well there you have it, you can draw your own conclusions, as I have mine, here goes.

This one was from a female, who has a brain and I couldn't agree with you more!
Again another female with a brain, on the same wave length as me, who I too would think bonkers, if no dinner was there!
I know some woman can be slow and aren't always ready when they say they are, I have a friend like this, (you know who you are) however I think this was a quote from a man, not of female mind, like trying to portray!
At first, you might be led to believe this was from a female, but sadly not, written by a man, who quite obviously couldn't live without us females!
This was quoted by a 10 year old, bless them! Might not be the interpretation I was looking for, but hey, their interpretation was right for them!
Finally a man with some common sense, on the same wave length as me and also has it down to a T. My five year old nephew!

Back to the grindstone tomorrow for me, not for my daughter though, my dad has decided to get her involved now and has given her "homework". Homework comes as a bit of a shocking word to my daughter, as she very rarely gets any from school.

Dad wants my daughter to put a flyer together advertising the company. I haven't given her this delightful news, as she is currently out with friends, neither am I going to, I shall just tell her to ring her grandad and he can break it to her. I think he believes, that in asking a young child to do this, it will get it done quicker, than if he were to ask designer skater boy to do it and he would probably be right.

I am expecting to see the finished gimmicks tomorrow, please, oh please let them be right now, I cant wait many more weeks, I've been waiting six now!

READY

2009-02-07T19:12:00.004Z

What is the meaning of the word ready?

Tonight I'm going to put it to you, my blog readers, to answer this question for me. You can either leave a comment on here, my facebook wall, or better still on my facebook blog page.(you will find a link to this on my profile page on facebook, under my friends) Or you can think, sod it and not bother at all!

I'm going to give you four examples of what I think ready means, one for female minds, one for male. Lets see if you agree, or if in fact you disagree with me. See it as a bit of a for or against the skater boys meaning of the word ready!

Example one

Daughter of darkness, your dinner is ready. Daughter of darkness comes into the kitchen, picks up her plate, goes to the table, sits down and eats her dinner.

Example two

"Daughter of darkness", your dinner is ready. Daughter of darkness comes into the kitchen, looks at the kitchen worktop and says "where is it", looks at me, in the teenager darkness glare she gives, waiting for a reply.

I'm just putting the oven on now!

Example three

You receive a phone call, "your car is ready to collect", says the garage. "Your brakes have been done". You arrive at the garage, pay the man, take your car and drive away happy.

Example four

You receive a phone call, "your car is ready to collect", says the garage. "Your brakes have been done". You arrive at the garage, pay the man, but as you go to collect your car, you see your wheels aren't on and it's still jacked up. Do you call this ready?

Now call me bonkers, but surely, if you agree "ready" is example one or three, then you and I are on the same wave length.

However, should you feel example two or four is your idea of ready, then lets hope you aren't employed to be working on the Olympic stadium for 2012!

All answers to the meaning of the word ready will be posted on my blog, so that everyone may get an insight, into what "ready" really means!

He is off again!

2009-02-06T17:01:00.002Z

I don't have anything to report regarding the website development, as nothing has happened!

Grumpy wanted me to post his reply to his neighbours comments, so instead of me boring you tonight, I thought I would let him do it instead, so off he goes........

Having just read through the latest pile of waffle from the Old bat who I have the misfortune of calling my neighbour, I did at first believe I should refrain from further comment as it is now abundantly clear, to anyone with half a brain, her poor state of mind confirms she is no longer capable of taking onboard, reasoned, well thought out argument, and that for me to persist, might add to the poor woman's demise.

NOW THERE'S A THOUGHT!!! So with that in mind I have decided it would be best for all concerned (namely me, the Village, the county and indeed, probably our Prime Minister) that I should take the time to respond.

Fortunately I am writing this response via a Blog and will therefore be dealing with people who can read and almost assuredly see sense.

So what indeed can I comment? Well for starters, her comment re Victor Meldrew simply confirms this poor, mentally deranged woman is living away with the fairies, somewhere back in an age long since past. Maybe someone should inform her the world has moved on from old comedies such as those she refers too and most of us now live in what we term "present day" Then again, should I be the one to suggest she stops renting out episodes of Dad's Army??

I shall desist from explaining to her what "present day" means as this would only further confuse her already addled state of mind.

Next, her point I had written (according to her) 1,196 words.

What can I say??? If all she can do with her time is COUNT WORDS on a computer....Is there anything to say??? Surely now you can all see the truth. We all need to act now and ensure her incarceration happens sooner, rather than later for her own good. At least then she will no longer have to count words. Locked in her own padded room she will be able to chat with the fairies who I am sure will frequent her mind on a regular basis......Well that is until even they see they are fighting a lost cause.

She then of course moves on to spout more verbal hogwash about my working away in London, which of course further adds to the argument for her need to seek professional help. Why so? The answer to my working away for so long and for so often is simple.....It was to escape the horrors of living next door to this mad woman and her zoological garden.

Then I ought to deal with her points about my daughter being the one doing all the work for this site.

Puuhhhleeese. I am more than aware of the few little pieces of work my daughter is doing for me, just as I am aware her reward is having me as a father.... I rather think this woman should concern herself about her own offspring, one of whom lived in such fear, he went to live in PERU. Her daughters however have yet to manage to escape and it is these poor waifs I worry for most.

I dread to think of the household dietary plan but given this mad woman decided years ago to force her own vegetarian beliefs on them, I fear much of their menu will consist of nuts, scattered over wheat grain.

Finally I ought to comment on her "basket weaving" statement.

Quite frankly, if the mood ever took me, I am certain I'd be more than capable of making a basket or two......Where I fall down however, is having a BASKET CASE as a neighbour.....and the sooner you readers help me find a secure home for her.......the sooner this once quiet Village can begin to return to normal

Yours

The Ever suffering Neighbour of the year 2001 - 2009

Why, why, why?

2009-02-05T16:56:00.003Z

Well I did the test last night, and no shock horror, it didn't bloody work. I knew it wouldn't!

This pleased dad no end, plus to top it off, for some god forsaken reason, all the emails have gone wrong, dates, ID number, times, plus emails used to go into my inbox, now they go into my spam box, with more warning signs over them, than the M25 on Monday!

This is not the only delight dad had. As I'm sure you know, we have a management system in place, which allows us to input information into the website, change things, see users and a whole list of other things. The functionally of it all, is dog SxxT!

Yes you can login in and log out, you can see all the tabs which all have different functions and you can also see new people register (test registrations). Think about adding anything in, setting anything up and you think yes its working (or not in some cases), its great. You finish what you have done, go check out the website and it looks like a piece of modern art or someone who has been sick!

Everything moves, shifts, disappears, comes back in gobble DE gook, or simple doesn't even look like it has anything to do with the website.

The final straw came late last night when I got an email about 9pm. It was from designer skater boy replying to my last email of problems regarding the gimmick. He told me he will have it done by Monday, however I shall have to input the coding for the money amounts into HTML, not him. I have lots of money amounts, requiring, I guess, different types of code for each one.

If I could do HTML, PHP, AJAX, Java or any other bloody coding language,would I have asked him to do this in the first place?

As part of our website, we also wanted an area where people could ask questions seek answers etc. We have explained where on the site we want it, what we want it to look like, how we want it to function etc.

We heard back from them and as part of the email they gave us a link to the type of forum they had it mind, so we had some kind of visual idea. What a joke that was. The link took me to a site that was the size of a small country and they had no chance or ever getting the first page done this year, let alone the rest of it. I think the schedule would go something like

Launch page February 24th 2009
Website April 1st 2009
Forum November 29th 2012

So there you have it! not a lot has happened today, we aren't going to be launching this week, nor next at this rate.

Any how I thought I would leave you with an email I received from my dads neighbour in view of his email a few days ago, nice to end on a funny note, rather than me moaning again!

Dear Adel

Well, there we are, now your bloggers can see the miserable old git for what he really is....... Victor Meldrew. Who, but your father and my neighbour (and Victor) could write a 1,196 harangue of verbal diarrhoea. Your poor bloggers must now realize what we have to endure and surely there must be concerns that this man (loose term) could be in the process of developing dealgrabba!!!

I'm sure that it must be you doing all the research and preparation for this project, as it takes intelligence and wherewithal, which is sadly lacking in the father/neighbour; as indeed is his mental capacity. I can only hope that he is providing you with significant remuneration. I really think that you should take this development completely out of his hands, and whilst I understand he does need Occupational Therapy, he could do this in a safer way, possibly by taking up basket weaving .

The Most Excellent Neighbour

ARRRRHHHHHHHH!

2009-02-04T16:49:00.002Z

Firstly I would like to point out my dad has always told me I bring nothing but delight to his life, secondly he has to think something more of me than fifteen seconds of euphoria, as it is only me helping him get this site going, not my mother, sisters or brothers, but just lovely little me, the brains of the family!

On behalf of myself and all my blog readers who tuned in yesterday, for the cat fight on here, between my dad and his neighbour, Go, Go neighbour, we are all behind you!

Well as you know its Wednesday, not just any old Wednesday, but gimmick day Wednesday. That right, today is the day I finally get to see it completed, I've waited a week, so he must of been working hard at it!

Well it arrived, not one gimmick, not two, not even four, but six little gimmicks set out holding either cards or bags. Six stupidly looking gimmicks, with not a lot right about any of them!

Were they mirrored? No! Was all their clothing in checked pattern? No! Was the bag now fixed? No, had this designer skater boy spent anytime what so ever on this design? No!

And so the list of No's goes on and on! I sent an email back to him explaining the errors, and also gave him a design to show him what I meant, will this help, probably not, but unless I do the design myself, what else can I do?

I have explained myself as clearly, as I would if asking four year olds to paint me a tree, sky, sun and grass. If my local nursery group can understand it, why cant a graphic designer? I know I'm female and people say us species are from Mars or Venus, but surely to god, I'm not talking in some strange alien language am I?

As for the website, well, we have received an email saying the schedule date is now the 24th of February. Like that's going to happen. We were told the launch page was ready over a month ago. Is it launched, but another No! It has taken a month to get a gimmick sorted and even that isn't ready yet.

He also goes on to mention, this date could get delayed if WE make any further changes, WE haven't made any bloody changes, just told them of the errors THEY had made and if they looked at the spec, they can see this clearly for themselves!

Honestly when I was a child, I used to watch the Muppet show, I loved that program. Can you remember the chicken? Well that was more human, had more common sense and could probably do this a dame sight quicker than these guys! (no disrespect to the Muppet's)

I have yet to run some tests on the launch page, to see if it is finally doing what it is meant to do. I shall be conducting this exciting test, this evening and should it work, I shall crack open a can of coke to celebrate! The champagne has been on ice for so long now, it has frozen!

Marketing campaigns keep coming in thick and fast from radio and online people, I have contacted regarding exposure. Would be so nice to give them a date and not feel like I'm messing them around, but I cant.

Well, things to do, so I cant stay on here moaning all night, shall have a moan with dad, when my test goes pear shaped later!

A long ongoing message from grumpy!

2009-02-03T18:33:00.001Z

I am sure the readers of this blog must think me an Angel at the very least must be incredulous at how I have managed to suffer a continuous tirade of unwarranted abuse, in complete silence.

Not any more!! The time is now long overdue for the innocent party here to express his point of view about this, the Dealgrabba blog and the many spurious comments and remarks which have been made about a much maligned individual.....many of which by "My own daughter"!!!!

Of course that is not forgetting a viciously vindictive, OLD neighbour who quite frankly shouldn't be sitting exams in order to assess our poor old folk, but should herself be a case study of a more dedicated, more worthy assessor who will have earned his vocation and no doubt will NOT have failed some tinpot exam several times.......

Firstly my daughter, who foremost, needs to take on board, were it not for fifteen seconds of euphoria, would not now be here..... Secondly that I have patiently suffered and yes...tolerated years and years of abject misery raising said ungrateful child until, at last I was able to evict said child and return the home to some kind of normality. Quite frankly, I am amazed the years of patience and kindness I have shown her are now being repaid by her attempts to blight my excellent character and name. It truly does astound me, and indeed it goes way beyond my capacity for forgiveness.

But of course, what was my hope for a return to simple family life within a tranquil village, was all in vain!!! I will only assume, somewhere in a previous life, I must have trodden on an ant or some such creature for little did I know my problems had only just begun.

Enter the neighbour from hell!!!!

The woman, as you will have ascertained from reading her comments, is completely deranged and should long before arriving in this peaceful village, have been wrapped in a straight jacket and confined to live out her days in a 6 x 4 padded cell.

Had I known, all those years ago before we moved to this village, one day the neighbouring, scenically beautiful garden would become first, little more than an overgrown peat bog then second, home to the counties first unruly animal sanctuary for any ill mannered, wayward waifs and strays, I would have moved to Yorkshire!!!!

Now I know there will be those of you out there who yourselves have experienced "bad" neighbours, and to you kindred spirit all I ask is you consider this. Multiply your "bad" neighbour experience by a factor of ONE THOUSAND and you will still be light years short of the mark where MY "BAD" neighbour is concerned. Indeed, by way of comparison, Hannibal Lecter or Attila the Hun would be two preferred choices!

As I say, the woman is deranged to the point, medical help would no longer be of any viable use. Indeed it would be an insult to science to consider using it on such a woman.

Yes, I am sorry to say it would be in her best interests to locate said padded cell, complete with padded coat and live out her days being fed water and placebos through a metal grill, thereby allowing this once peaceful village to begin its attempt at returning to something like normality.

And what indeed is normal?? It's been so long now I have almost forgotten.

I do remember a time when it was possible to wake up of a weekend morning and listen to the quiet, peaceful sounds of a typical country, English, village together with the scent of fresh cut meadow wafting through the open windows.

Nowadays, from 0530 onwards, it is as much as I can do to stifle the screams and crowing of cockerels by lying with my head beneath several pillows..in the forlorn hope perchance the local fox will pay them a visit!

Then of course, once the cockerels have finished, albeit temporarily and I start to believe there is the slightest chance of five minutes more sleep, the raucous squawks and quacking of a flotilla of ducks commences, each one I assume demanding its pathetic allowance of grain. I tell you oh reader.......the noise of said mentioned ducks would put the Slimbridge Wildfowl Sanctuary to shame!!!

But you see, it isn't simply the noise. If this in itself wasn't bad enough, the "lake" which purports to serve as home to this variety of roast dinner, is a sight to behold.
Of course the term "lake" is something of an exaggeration. The smell alone is enough to suggest to any sane individual it could never sustain life! Indeed if there ever were any fish they would have packed their fins and vacated long ago. Then again, history leads us to believe mankind originated from the primeval swamp and I do suppose it's possible this is the reason my neighbour from hell is continually adding water, all of course to no avail for it simply overflows onto my property thereby necessitating my having to use waders!!!

Now. Does my neighbour care when I point out this little detail? Not for a moment, indeed the last time I happened to mention the lake had doubled in size, flooding half of MY garden during the entire day she was out, it was to be told...."Why didn't you enter the garden and turn off the water supply".....If there was so much as a hint of a spoken apology it would have been lost amongst the squawking ducks and crowing roosters!!!

Then let's not forget there are the dogs. Now all who know me understand I am a lover of dogs. But hers??? Quite frankly, though I am aware of the fact all dogs are descended from the Wolf, in most cases the connection tends to go back hundreds if not thousands of years.

NOT MY NEIGHBOURS!!! From the way they howl each and every time so much as a sparrow lands in her garden you'd be forgiven for thinking their immediate parentage was 100% Canadian Timber WOLF....and as I have chanced to mention before, if this intolerable noise wasn't bad enough, the fact she has individually trained them to leap the fence at least twice a day, just to deposit their poor excuse for a meal all over my Wimbledon style lawn is surely beyond what any reasonable person should have to suffer.

So regular readers of this blog I ask of you but two things. The first, is you take no further notice of the diatribe which all too often spurts from her lips, so much indeed it has now begun to invade this blog.

The second is to mention, in the next few days I will place a petition on here requesting you all to sign in order this very ill, very deranged, very society challenged woman is committed into a home more suited to her mindset for the good of the community, once and for all and that we may all then begin to re-build our once peaceful lives

Kindest regards from a much misunderstood, oft maligned father and long suffering neighbour

A response to the pictures today!

2009-02-03T15:53:00.001Z

Dear Adel,

I feel I have to write to you and formally complain about your father's ongoing belligerent behaviour and his general antagonism towards me and the wonderful animals I have in my garden. My ducks, hens and dogs would give any 'normal' person great pleasure, however, as we are both aware, your father is far from normal!

This problem has increased since he stopped working in London (I use that term loosely as I don't imagine he has ever done a proper days work in his life), when he just lived in the village from Thursday till Sunday.

I really think that you should consider your mothers needs and the impact his permanence has had on her now that she no longer gets respite. That poor long suffering woman who has to both tolerate and care for him really should have a carers assessment to ensure she receives the necessary support, indeed she could be referred to the 'carers of the belligerent old sods support group'. I try to help her as much as I can in that I endure him coming round to my house and give him coffee (this helps his medication to slip down more easily), and I do this without payment.

I would respectfully ask that you contain your father in his own home or some appropriate institution (I can help with that when I pass my exam). However, as I am also forced to contact the RSPCA and alert them to his total disregard for animals ~ I have the copy of my defaced photo as evidence, the likely outcome of this is that he will be incarcerated into the care of Her Majesty.

This would be the best result for all. Please take my complain seriously.

Yours sincerely,

The Excellent Most Caring Good Neighbour

Enjoying the snow!

2009-02-03T11:06:00.004Z

My dad's next door neighbour, went into the garden this morning to take some pictures of her ducks, enjoying the snow! She fell over in the process, however dad wasn't there to laugh at her expense!

She thought it would be nice to send him a picture, which he then forwarded onto me. So I thought I would post it for all to see.

However it didn't stop there and dad being dad had to make a few amendments! You can now see, why we all feel the way we do about him, cant you!

Evil Man!

And the UK grinds to a halt!

2009-02-02T15:49:00.004Z

A Little bit of snow and the UK comes to a near stand still! What are we like as a country? Could you imagine if Canada or America went into a state of panic or a grinding halt every time they got a bit of snow? They wouldn't leave the house for six months of the year!

My daughter came home from school early today, because some snow was falling from the sky and bus drives worried they may not make it.What rubbish, I have managed to get everywhere today, no problems at all.

However I did see a woman in a 4x4 today, looking worried about a bit of snow. I have a matchbox car for Christ sake, if I can do, why are you looking so bloody worried. Your car is designed for this weather, not just for taking the kids to school in!

Honestly some people!

I do wonder and I'm sure I'm right in saying, is it that we aren't ready for this weather because we have never had it before, or because most of our transport systems are run by men? We have known of this weather front for a while now, but have we prepared, have we f.......

Same thing goes for the website company, nothing has been heard from them today. Skater boy may or may not be off ill, designer skate boy may or may not be in, or the building could of been crushed by all the snow we have had.

They told us they would be in touch on Monday to let us know when the launch page was going live and to give us all the updates. Yet again it is nearly 5pm and we haven't heard a thing!

Either way, we are expected to guess how the updates are going, hope the launch page is now ready (which we know isn't) and hope the errors have been rectified.

I don't expect to hear from them everyday with regards to updates etc, but when you have outstanding questions to be answered, and deadlines, which aren't working, you expect answers.

God I'm starting to sound like my dad, shoot me now! lol

On a more happy note, I have some friends who I've known for a couple of years now. They are doing a round of treatment today, which hopefully may lead to the pitter patter of tiny feet. I would like to let you know, I have been thinking about you today and wish you all my sticky thoughts!

Happy Ground Hog day America!

A relaxing weekend

2009-02-01T11:37:00.003Z

I have enjoyed this weekend, due to the fact that I haven't really done a lot, which is great and makes a change!

There is only one thing left to fix on the launch page and then it will be really to go, hopefully next week! We are only three weeks behind, or is that 4?

As for the website, we are getting there slowly. Dad hasn't heard anything from the skater boys, however the website developer is doing stuff over the weekend and has been keeping dad informed of new developments.

I should get to see the finished gimmicks next week, but I'm not going to hold my breath, I've only been waiting over a month!

Some sad news to report. My dads wonderful neighbour didn't pass her exam. Had she of done, she would now be able to section my dad under the mental health act. However me and mum are still holding out hope as she is due to sit another exam soon!

Go, go neighbour, we know you can do it! Just remember the hot tub is your once you pass, the ducks will love it!

In the meantime, should you need anything to help you with your studies, like wine or gin, obviously for medicinal purposes, feel free to place your order with my mother, who will in turn go to tesco's for you and then invoice my dad! lol

I'm so glad it Friday

2009-01-30T16:17:00.002Z

This week has flown by. I think I feel like this, due to the fact I have been so busy.

Nothing to report regarding the website, we haven't heard anything from any of the skater boys, but they do like to leave things until 5.30 so who knows, we may get something then.

I'm looking forward to a lay in tomorrow. Haven't made any plans for the weekend yet, but I'm sure I will get up to something. I do plan to stay away from dad this weekend, because if he doesn't hear anything tonight then I know he will be moaning all weekend.

I would much rather he took it out on mother, who isn't drinking at the moment (may the force be with him) or his poor neighbour next door. She wont put up with his shit, who knows she may even set the dogs on him. But for the sake of the dogs I hope she doesnt, wouldnt want them to end up catchy something like miserable barstards disease!

Any how, nothing much to report, so until tomorrow, ta ra for now!

Backwards is the new forwards!

2009-01-29T17:17:00.002Z

Not much to report today. I can tell you that backwards must be the new forward!

I say this because, that how the site seems to be going. We think we are finally getting somewhere, they start to pick up speed, then designer skater boy goes sick. Then Skater boy no 2 goes sick and we are left getting nowhere!

Designer returns, but still have to wait one week before I see anything again from him. No 2 is still out, which means no project manager!

However Skater boy no 1 (who we already know is useless) returns from the skate park to help out while no 2 is away!

Helpful is not a word I would use to describe him as. He has been back for just one day and already we are going backwards again. I thought my mother lived on another planet, but this guy takes the biscuit!

If no 2 doesn't return tomorrow, we could be so far backwards we may have never met, which could be a bloody good thing!

Dad has steam coming out of his ears and its only a matter of time now before his head explodes! He is frustrated, p'd off, depressed, his fingertips are sore from having to write so many emails after finding errors and to top it off, my mother is now home from work sick! ROFL

I have been making further enquires regarding marketing. but that's been about it. I have nothing more to tell you as nothing has really happened regarding the website.

The launch page is meant to go live this week. I have more chance of my mum reading my blog, than I have of that happening!

I feel like I have a cattle prod in my hand!

2009-01-28T15:39:00.002Z

I ended my post yesterday on a happy note and I'm pleased to say I'm starting this one on a good one too!

It would seem, the skater boys take it in turns to be ill. Today skater boy no 2 is out. But designer skater boy is in!

I have received a gimmick, which is on the right track, but still not finished correctly. I have gone back to him with changes and amendments, to which he has told me will take a week to finish. A week is a long time I know, however at least I have a time frame!

Dad however isn't all that pleased with the gimmick, but then is he ever pleased about anything? He too has come up with something he would like to see, so I'm guessing when the gimmicks are completed, I shall have a battle on my hands. Father and daughterly love, don't you just love it!

Website developments are progressing along nicely, a lot of things are happening still behind the scenes, but overall a steady progress is being made.

More progress than what can be said for my mother! I have been writing this blog now for a few months and in this time my mother has been four times. Complete strangers have visited again and again. Some even everyday!

My mother however, always response with " in a minute" 17,976 minutes have past since I last asked and I'm still waiting. Does she live in some weird time frame that no one else lives in?

She has time for the DS, TV, wine, chocolate, more wine and bingo etc. But never has time for reading, exercise, cleaning or ironing.

So mother, if you are reading this for once, maybe not today, but in a minute! I going to do the lottery today. If I win, I will write it on here. If, when you next try to contact me, you cant get hold of me. You will know why!

If my mum just added, man to the end of her "in a minute" she could work for the skater boys!

What a happy day!

2009-01-27T15:57:00.004Z

As you maybe aware, we have been awaiting the call today from the web company! It came, Yipppeeee!

Instead of project manager, we will call him, skater boy no 2. Well skater boy no 2, called dad and they both discussed in great lengths, problems, schedules, time frames, launch page, website and gimmicks etc.

Dad spoken to him, in skater language and clearly he has taken on board, just what the website has to do, problems, errors, etc, etc.

Yet again, dad went into great lenths on the importance of communication. Dad is a fair man, believe it or not. He is OK with bad news, but no news, he isn't!

We have a schedules nearly in place, the launch page, should be good to go, by the end of this week. The website should be completed, tested and ready to go by the 20th of February. This I very much doubt, but dad has faith for some strange reason.

As for the gimmicks, well, designer skater boy, is still poorly, bless him! Is my gimmick being done, is it ........

However we are getting progress on this. Skater boy no 2 also has the director of the company now cc'd on emails. So lets hope he too, is getting as fed up as we are!

Skater boy no 2 is getting someone else to get the gimmick finished and put it on the launch page. He also jumps to emails, like he is electrocuted every time a mail goes into his inbox. The response time is amazing! If only I knew this to be true, I would have done it with designer skater boy a long time ago.lol

On checking the site today, further developments have taken place, although some we cannot check at this stage. Some of the errors have been rectified, however still not all.

I'm not sure if skater boy no 2 has balls of steel, or in fact if he has any at all (due to a freak skating accident that may have happened at the park). But what I do know is, if he does have some, I hope he is prepared to lose them, if these time frames are way off schedule!

Could it be that we are moving forward, could it be the director doesn't want to hand his money back to us, could it be the skate park has been destroyed? I dont know what is happening, but lets hope they keep it up!

Thank you for your guidance!

2009-01-26T20:17:00.003Z

I would like to thank my dear friend! Dad got into a state of panic tonight and yet again I was a fair maiden helping an idiot in distress!

Once again I turned to a very good friend for guidance and he was there for me. I know he had better things to be doing, like eating spag bol out of a tin, or rocking out!

However he put it on hold for me. I would like to say thank you. Your great! you know who you are and my life would be dull with out you! I enjoying hearing your stories, your wit, but most of all the stupid things you do!

Rock out, rock hard, and yes tonight rock with your xxxx out!

Productive day

2009-01-26T16:20:00.004Z

Has it been a productive day? For me yes, for dad yes, for the website company not for us, but maybe they can now do a 360!

Today I have been researching google webmaster tools, google checkout, world pay and pay point. Plus had further discussions with the local radio station, regarding advertisement.

I have also had the pleasure of a nice lengthy conversation with dad this afternoon, regarding the website development (lack of it) and the news I've heard today. News I hear you cry, news!

Don't get excited. They didn't email off their own backs, nor did they give me anything exciting to go on. Oh no!

They were only replying to me. I had to send some information over to them, which they needed to add to the website, plus chase up a few things, which included my gimmick.

Well, he must be either, stupid, thick, a stoner, or all of the above, because he couldn't recall the conversation about webmaster tools, even though he was the one who informed me of this. Neither can he remember the correct spelling of the website, and when if asked the previous project manager, neither could he!

Is there any hope?

My gimmick is still no further to completion, as the designer is still ill! I wonder if ill, is code for injured laying low at the skate park, or ill, because he got his fingers run over, while injured laying low at the skate park!

Whatever the case, it sucks! How they manage to run a business like this I just don't know!

Well they are meant to be getting back to dad tomorrow with schedules etc, lets just hope they do, for my own sanity and for dads, otherwise we shall give them one less business to worry about!

Nothing to report

2009-01-25T19:22:00.002Z

Nothing much to say today. Have enjoyed the weekend and don't want Monday to come round to soon. But it will!

Dad is probably mentally preparing himself for tomorrow, while mum is asleep on the sofa. I know them so well.

My skype is working again, which is good as my friend goes away next Friday and shall want to stay in touch. She works away a lot due to her job, In the evenings she gets bored, so we chat on sykpe for hours for free, it great!

I'm not going to over do the fingertip movements tonight, so until tomorrow.......

2009-01-24T16:08:00.002Z

What a fun day I've had. I went wall climbing today, such fun, really gets the heart going! My arms have grown a few inches and my fingers a few more. Managed to do about an hour before I'd had enough!

To recover, friends and I went for lunch before a little retail therapy was in order!

I'm sure your wondering how dad took the news of the phone call yesterday. Lets put it this way, I was right about going in armed with wine! Not for him of course, but for myself.

With excitement he answered the phone, remained hopefully and to a grumpy standard happy, until I managed to get about two sentences into my conversation. From there on in, his mood changed from a slightly happy person, to someone who wanted to shoot the web company, followed by the air of depression that it maybe just easier for him to shoot himself. He felt at least it would take the pain away from having to deal with website company anymore.

After about an hour of discussions, we decided they have a deadline to get reports schedules and time frames to us, as well as a response to outstanding emails and of course my gimmick!

If by this date, all the information is not with us, then that will be it. We shall end our contract with the company. This however, is not going to be that straight forward!

I know last night, dad fired off yet another email to the website company with detailed instructions of what he expected from them and when.

Not to confuse the website developer, he too got an email. One about the launch page and one about the website. These emails contain detailed instructions of what needs to be changed, added, sorted, moved etc in the launch page, plus a document, outlining the websites errors etc.

Dad has also put an index in the website spec, just to make the developers life a little more easier. Other than writing the website himself, there isn't much more dad can do to make it any easier for him!

This evening i plan to stay in, catch up on Dexter and maybe have a nice long soak in the bath. This might ease my muscles and hopefully make my arms and fingers the right length again!

Breaking bad news, is never easy!

2009-01-23T17:34:00.003Z

What a day I've had. Firstly I would like to say I had a wonderful night out with friends, suffered a bit for it this morning, however now I'm like a galloping race horse!

Been doing lots of work for dad today, part of which included receiving a phone call from the website company!

Over the last few days, things have been happening to the website, however only at the speed of a tiny snail. Some of these new functions don't work, some are pointless, some don't relate to anything and some things only an idiot would understand!

Dad and I have discussed the site for many hours over the last few days, running checks, making notes, checking errors, etc, etc.

As you can imagine, having to talk to him at all is bad enough, but to have to do it for hours is painful.

Well here comes the best bit. The reason I had to receive a call from the website company was because dad thought I would be able to be calm and deal with it better than him. Dad had emailed a few days ago complaining about communications and the fact the project manager wasn't doing his job.

The out come of that email, got him a new project manager, who would be able to take over full time. He was expected to project manage. Not pass stuff back to us saying, its done, for us only to check and see it was clearly not! We expected communication and for it not to always take place close to the end of the day, plus we wanted to have schedules and time frames now put into place.

Well I had the phone call and what a joy it was!

Nothing dad and I have asked for has been done and now its the weekend, nothing will until Monday! No reports, schedules or time frames. Communication was done probably as he was walking out the door. My tracking code is still not correct, my gimmick wont be with me as Ryan is ill and nobody could be bothered to tell me. Good job I'm not still holding my breath from the other day!

Another Skater boy who is useless! As for Ryan, I can only think he got his fingers run over and cant email me to inform me of his situation!

And the best bit? I have yet to phone dad and break the news! I know this will then lead into a full blown discussion, that will go on and and on! Therefore, I shall go into battle armed with a large bottle of wine. This of course, purely for pain reduction!

May you evening be merry and brighter than mine!

The skate park must be closed!

2009-01-21T15:47:00.002Z

Due to the bad weather we have been experiencing last night and today, Someone may have closed the skate park!

The reason I say this, is due to the fact, they are replying to the emails we have sent them over the last two days!Plus things have changed on the first draft website page.

Now don't get excited,they haven't answered all the questions in the mails, nor have they gone beyond the speed of a snail with regards to the progression of the website, but hey their doing something, which makes a bloody change!

The work increase could also be due to the rather firm, yet, not so polite email my dad sent them. Once this was received, we both started to get emails, I even got one with a deadline!

Although I have a deadline from him, I'm not going to get excited, the skate park could reopen tomorrow and I could be left viewing emails regarding Viagra, hotels, holidays, facebook alerts and the odd friends joke of the day!

My week seems so busy this week, what with my own work, plus my dad's ever increasing list! Emails, researching paypal and google checkout, blogging, keeping on top of friends on facebook, SEO, plus of course running a home. I don't seem to have five minutes to wipe my own arse, let alone start reading my book I got for Christmas.

We are nearly in February. Evenings are starting to stay lighter for longer each day. Christmas seems like ages ago and I want a holiday already. Time seems to be going so fast. I have done a lot of work for dad, many things have happened in the short period and yet, we are still awaiting anything half deceit from the website company.

My skype seems to have also stopped working for some strange reason. I need to use it in a few days, over a period of a few weeks. Guess some how my PC is starting to read my mind (my fingers are glued to it for long enough and I stare at the screen for hours, so guess it could be possible). Obviously feeling I don't have enough to do, thought it would give me this problem to fix too.

Oh the phone is ringing again. I had better get on with other things or I wont get any peace tonight!

Is it every going to get any better

2009-01-20T14:16:00.002Z

I finally received an email from the website company late last night. I say late as it was 11.50pm.

I think he must of been half asleep when he replied to my mail, as it didn't tell me anything, neither did it really answer any of my questions. So when is my gimmick going to be ready? Your guess is as good as mine!

At least we know they haven't been bombed, disturbed by an earthquake, or in fact been burgled of their pc's.

Before we went to this company, dad did considered learning some of the coding languages and doing it himself, but thought better of it, due to time etc. Considering they are a company with plenty of experience within this sector, he obviously gave it to them.

With the time it's taking them to just get the launch page sorted, dad could have learnt one languages by now. If not two!

On a lighter and more funnier note, I thought I would post another email between, dad and his neighbour. As all this talk of nothing happening on the website is really depressing me and dad.

Dear Madam

It may have escaped your notice BUT.....since your arrival at Pandora some considerable years ago our life has been one misery after another.

If it isn't your dogs jumping the fence to deposit their shit ALL OVER our Wimbledon type lawn....it's those bloody noisy ducks quacking and squawking every time someone dares to enter our property....or if it's not that......its that damned Bo leaping once more over the fence to knock on our door wanting a safe refuge..... and finally.....if it's not any of the above.....IT'S you....leaping ( I use that term very loosely as age has clearly taken it toll) our fence to beg borrow or steal all manner of things....including lumps of coal........!!!!!!!!!

Quite frankly my dear wife and I have just about had enough..... Up to this point in time we have remained remarkably charitable towards you and your family, indeed in the words of a certain lager company......We are probably the best neighbours in the world.......

But even neighbours as nice as us have our limits....and ours have been reached....

Please take notice...I intend to bring to the attention of the Village do gooders committee your disorderly community conduct and I am sure they will back me by implementing and enforcing whatever ancient feudal laws exist in order to return our once peaceful village to how it was before you arrived all those many years ago....

P.S. If I so much as hear one more quack or the single crow of a cockerel they will be removed from your garden forthwith and place in a very hot oven to live out the rest of their days.....

Yours most sincerely

The nice neighbours who've suffered years of hell

Dear Excuse for a Neighbour.

Further to your earlier email today, I would like to point out that the animals I have accumulated over the years that I have been your kind and generous neighbour, have been for good reason.

As you will be aware, Bo is a dog that no one else wanted, indeed, I have offered her to you (with bows on) on various occasions, as companion for your lonely, friendless existence, but due to your dislike for all things, you declined. My elderly almost blind dog has gone that way due to having to make eye contact with the nasty man over the fence.

With regard to those delightful ducks, you may noticed that two of them are lame and I saved them from being, throttled, stripped of their feathers and placed in a hot oven for some ignorant person's bazaar selfish gratification.

I have taken the decision to set up as a charitable trust and therefore will be asking you to make a regular contribution by direct debit and a possible legacy in your Will. I strongly believe that you should contribute, as you and those lovely children (who are unfortunate in that they have you as grandfather) benefit greatly from my animals as they have the luxury of integrating with them at close quarters. I'm also thinking of charging for this life enriching experience by a toll gate at the bottom of your garden.

Further, when you next choose to darken my door, I will be charging for coffee.

Yours sincerely,

The Animals Against Neighbours Society

Why cant people communicate?

2009-01-19T19:43:00.005Z

Today has been a really crappy day! I'm cheesed off, pissed off and all the other off you can think of!

I had to write an email again today to the website company, regarding the email that I sent on Friday, to which I'm still awaiting a response too. Guess what, I'm still awaiting a response on today's email too! What is wrong with these people?

Has their phone lines gone down, have they been burgled and have no PCs to email on, has an earthquake happened and their office is no longer standing, or is it just the fact the weather was fine and they all went to the skate park?

Whatever it is, the reason for their lack of communication is at a total loss to me and of course grumpy, who now has good reason to be grumpy! I'm so angry I feel like burning down their local skate park if I thought it would make them work!

I'm also cheesed off as I have a very expensive bracelet, which broke on me today. Not a happy bunny. All I did was make the bed and it flip off. Just great!

On the brighter side, I had my meeting with the local radio station today regarding advertisement. As you maybe aware advertisement is never a cheap thing, but its the only way of getting in front of a large audience.

I think we are going to go with sponsoring one of the DJ's slots plus we get a free banner on their website for for 12 months, which will link itself to our website. That's if we ever getting the website launched! We will have four adverts going out per day, plus we will pay for a few to go out at other times of the day too.

We will be on at prime time, so hopefully we shall be heard. Plus our website name is catchy and easy to remember.

Obviously this will only been going out to people within our area. Next step is to look further a field and go global.lol

I am hoping tomorrow will be a better day, I hope to a response to my email, I also hope they pull their finger out and get some work done on the launch page and the website. Otherwise, me grumpy and the other dwarfs will be going down there to sort it out!

With regards to the emails I posted yesterday regarding my dad and his neighbour, I hope you enjoyed it and shall post another one tomorrow. Dad on the other hand feels it isn't funny to expose him in this light and feels he should get solicitors involved to sue us! lol

This will never happen, as his neighbour will finish her course and exam this week and will then be qualified to section him under the mental health act! I have agreed that she can do this and in return have offered her the use of his hot tub as the new duck pond!

What a crappy day!

2009-01-19T19:43:00.001Z

A neighbours point of view

2009-01-18T18:43:00.003Z

As you all know, I have a dad crossed between victor Meldrew and the father from my family.

I know I have given you my view, as to what it is like to be a daughter to him, now I thought it a good idea to give a view from a neighbour!

Below is a email from my dad to his neighbour and a reply.

Good evening from neighbour of the year!!!

Having spoken briefly to your daughter this evening it pleases me to hear you are shacked up in some kind of concentration camp type halls of residence accommodation. It further pleases me to know you are NOT enjoying yourself and that you even have to HARDWIRE your laptop.....such a shame.

The purpose of this mail? No purpose whatsoever, other than to say how quiet and peaceful it's been these past days...that is aside from a bloody crowing cockerel who seems to think he needs to crow before sun up.....and a pair of hound which would put the Baskerville name to shame......

I trust your leave of absence will be extended and that indeed the village might yet see 2009 through without it's most annus horrendous resident.

PS.....If you are worried your absence will leave your garden looking a little unkempt, don't...it reached that stage about a year ago....

Best wishes for a continued camp like experience

The village's favourite neighbour

Neighbours reply

Dear Old Bastard Next Door

I am residing in student accommodation in salubrious Cirencester, mixing with the rich. As you will be aware, some of us are young enough to be students ~ whilst others have hung up their tool belt and gone into late retirement.

I did actually inform the poorly treated woman that tolerates you of this fact, but obviously your ears are so old, the words probably couldn't penetrate when she told you. In fact, your wife kindly offered your services to help with the animals should my dear daughters need assistance. With this in mind, would you take the dogs out for a 10 mile walk tomorrow please???

You do look like you need the exercise, so you wouldn't actually be doing me a favour, but, yet again, I would be doing a favour for you.

I also need to inform you that I have had many NICE cards and good wishes sent to me form the good people of our village, stating that the rest from my continually aggravating neighbour would do me a lot of good ~ despite all the law studying I have to undertake and exam next Tuesday ~ it's a holiday.

Well, I must go now, I need to get out of my single bed and lean out of the window and have a cigarette ~ oh student life is fun!!.

I'm back here next week as well, so I'll try to avoid you at the w/e

Best wishes

The Neighbour and student from heaven

I have more emails between then, but will post these at a later date. Hope this gives you some insight!

An lovely day

2009-01-17T17:00:00.003Z

It was lovely to wake up this morning, when my body and brain was ready too. Rather than being forced too at some early hour, then work, work and yes more work.

Today I went shopping, brought myself some nice face products and finally got my picture back from the framing shop.

I had a really nice lunch with my partner, before coming home to see some family members not seen in a while. Within twenty minutes my brother couldn't resist the temptation any longer and had to get the guitar hero world tour out!

With me on drums, bro on guitar and partner on bass, we turned ourselves into rock demons and played like animals for about an hour. Having played this game for a while now, I have decided I need a new large telly with a good surround system! I want to entertain the whole of my village, not just a small part of it!

Dad has darkened my day with lists of things to do etc, yes on a Saturday! I have let myself in for a fall tomorrow and said I would go over. I need to chat about what questions he may have for the radio guy coming on Monday, as I'm sure there will be a few.

Plus I have to show him everything to do with the analytics I have done, plus maybe go over the rest of the errors etc on the draft website page. Neither of us have gone over the management part yet, as there is so much of it!

I don't know, never any rest for the wicked, not even on a Sunday!

My picture is now on the wall, I have chocolate, wine and nice nibbles in for this evening. Daughter of darkness is out the for the night, so a peaceful evening in with the other half is planned, maybe even a DVD.

We finally have the first draft!

2009-01-16T19:16:00.002Z

Been one of those days again today!

Had my own work to do until 1pm today. Then I had to crack on with some stuff for dad!

After a while this afternoon, I thought I would look over the launch page, via the link I have. Shock horror, things had changed. However not everything.

I rang grumpy to see if he was aware of this and he wasn't. So we went through a check again and low and behold everything now looks and works fine on safari, but not on Internet explorer or FireFox! Just great.

Dad emailed them with the problems again, we are still awaiting a fix, which won't happen now till next week. I would recommend that you don't hold your breath though!

Not including this weekend I have waited two weeks now for a gimmick. As you maybe aware, on Wednesday, I received via email, a head of the gimmick so far. Since then nothing!

So I decided to write an email to him, explaining my disappointment, with no further developments. I have seen the work this skater boy can do and I know he can do far more, much quicker than what I am getting.

That was at 2pm today. I am still awaiting a response! Great customer service ahh!

At 6pm today, I rang grumpy to see if he had heard anything, shock horror again, three days late he has received the first draft of the website! Yippeeee at long last.

With excitement I waited for dads email to arrive, I opened the link and.........

I was very pleased with what my eyes have seen so far. Even grumpy was, so that's saying something!

A lot of it was functional, most of the buttons worked, however not everything with the text information was right, but that's easy to sort out, we hope!

We have a management system in place, so we can do things to the website ourselves when its up and running. This too has a lot in place already.

I'm not saying everything is wonderful and all the bells jingly, but considering communication so far, I was expecting far worse than this.

Having not met the website developer, I cant pass comment on, if he too is a skater boy, but what I do think, is this guy must have pressure upon him.

He has been working on it for two weeks now, alone. We also know we aren't the only customers. If the skater boys could have the ethos of this, what a more enjoyable journey this would be!

The weekend is upon us now. I plan a nice hot bath and this missed Dexter from last night for this evening. Grumpy will be looking over the website with a fine tooth comb and I will have wine in one hand and chocolate in the other. Good night.X

A long, long day

2009-01-15T17:48:00.003Z

I cant wait for bedtime, I feel like I have been awake for years!

Why so tired I hear you ask? My other half, would say better, but that's not how I feel about him at the moment. Decided to be a fidget arse in bed last night and keep cuddling me. Topping it off was the wind outside that kept shaking the window. At one point all I needed was a ticking clock and I would have got up!

Don't get me wrong, I like a cuddle before sleep, but once I'm there I need space. I cant be doing with someone super gluing themselves to me and breathing at me all night. I get to hot and bothered. So all in all not a good nights sleep. As for the weather, hurry up and get to the summer time! Please.

My day started at 7am and I didn't finish until 4pm and that was just doing my own work. I'm still in the middle of doing dads work and shall be for a while yet. Plus of course cook tea, have a shower and maybe talk to my partner tonight, oh and have just been informed I have to go to tescos!

As for TV, I might get chance to watch Dexter, however with these heavy eyelids, I may well be asleep by then. Will have to record it just in case.

Dad still hasn't had the first draft of the website. And the nuisance calls keep coming!

He has discovered that if he goes to the link for the yet to be launch page, within his email, he can see what further developments have taken place. As you can imagine. Not a lot! I get the impression they do 20 minutes on each clients website and then head for the skate park for a few hours.

I have images of dad starring at the computer screen, with smoke coming out of his ears, snot from his nose (due to man flu) face turning reader than blood itself and ranting like you have never heard. Then that's when he gets on the phone to me. So glad I don't live there, or even next door!

Me and dad did a test today. I run on FireFox, mum runs on Internet explorer and dad on safari. The launch page works fine on FireFox and Internet explorer, but of course it had to be, that it doesn't work properly on safari. Just great!

All my questions regarding my gimmick have been answered today. That's all though, no finished product to report. Guess he is down the skate park too!

Really starting to question what they are doing! If it is taking this long to sort out a gimmick and a launch page, how long will it take to do the website, database, content management system and all the other jingly bits?

My gimmick is nearly done

2009-01-14T17:12:00.003Z

At 5.15 today, I received my gimmick. So far it has a head and a hand holding a card. I'm expecting to get the finished product tomorrow, but these are skater boys I'm dealing with, so more like Friday.

I'm very pleased with the look so far, but was expecting to see the finished product, after all I have been waiting one and a half weeks now!

I suppose I have to respect the fact it is being done by a skater boy, if a female skater chick was doing it, then I would have got it days ago.

Grumpy git didn't get to see the first draft today, nor did he get any communication as to why, maybe the phone signal at the skate park isn't very good. He has moaned, moaned, and moaned, over and over again. I'm still considering getting BT to block his number!

I understand his frustration, I myself am getting annoyed at the fact my gimmick is taking so long. Appreciation of the fact we aren't the only customers, but communication is required to obtain a good, if not excellent customer service level.

As most people know, it easy to get a bad reputation, but very hard to maintain a good one. Lets hope their other customers aren't as frustrated as us.

Grumpy is still going through the man flu! To us females, he has the sniffles! To him, hes is dying (I wish he would hurry up.lol). My mum had the day off work today, god how she wished she hadnt, now I know why the wine rack is always so low. I myself have taken to drink since working for him!

Men why can't they listen!

2009-01-13T15:00:00.003Z

As you may have read, at Christmas I broke my car door handle, due to the frost. As you may also know, a mechanic came to my rescue and helped me.

When he arrived to my rescue, he checked the door and informed me that I need a new handle. So when I booked the car into the garage for an mot last week, I told them I needed a new handle and to order it and fit it for me.

When I took the car in this week for the mot, he informed me that he hadn't ordered the part, as it could be something else and would wait until he had taken the panel off.

They have done this today and low and behold, I was right, I did need a handle! Now I have to wait for it to arrive, be sprayed to match the car and then be fitted.

This isn't going to happen until next week, which is no good to me as the mot will run out this Friday. Just great!

If he had done what was asked of him, I would be sorted now and getting in my car like normal people do!

With regards to work, 9am this morning I spoke with someone from a radio station, about marketing and costs. He took my details and said he would send me some information via email.

Five minutes ago he rang to say his email isn't getting to me and keeps coming back not valid. I asked him to confirm my email, for it only to be wrong. How hard is it to write an email address down? At least he managed the phone number.

When I did finally get the information, it was just about how wonderful they are and what they can do for us etc. I already know this, that's why I've gone to them in the first place.

I should be getting my gimmick tomorrow and dad should be able to see the first draft of the website. Lets just hope they have listened to what I have asked of them. Otherwise I will seriously start to wonder if any man can follow a simple instruction!

Someone asked me today if the word genuine and female go together. Yes it was a man who asked this question! I would like him to know, all of my friends are genuine and some of them are even blonde!

It staggers me, that I can statistically see in just six hours genuine and male don't go in the same sentence at all!

Wonderful weather

2009-01-12T17:20:00.003Z

What wonderful weather we have. So windy last night, I woke up more times than I care to remember.

The car was booked in at 10am this morning for an MOT, plus I had to take daughter of darkness to the doctors, as she has gone deaf in one ear. So I drove to tescos, to get everything I needed, went to the bank then came home to drop the shopping off.

Weather was fine. But as soon as I had dropped the car off and had to walk home, the heavens opened. By the time I had done the 15 minute walk home, I was soaked.

One and a half hours later, its still raining and we have to do a 15 minute walk in it again to the doctors! Just great sitting in a doctors surgery soaking wet surrounded by sick people.

Anyway, the good news was the car only failed on the door handle that I broke over Christmas, so should be sorted tomorrow. Will be nice to get into the car in a normal fashion again!

In between my strolls in the rain, I have sorted out my headset for the phone, which is great. Worked on SEO and done my own work. I started at 8am and its now 6pm. More than enough hours spent working today and I'm still not finished.

Still waiting on the launch page to be finished and error free. I haven't got my gimmick yet, hope to see it this week though, so as you can imagine, grumpy isn't happy, plus he has man flu, so glad i don't have to live with him.

Well time for tea, shame my partner isn't a cook, would be so nice for him to cook for a change. He has only cooked for me once and that was enough, don't let him near the kitchen now unless its to get me chocolate or wine.

Home again

2009-01-11T17:06:00.002Z

We had a lovely evening last night rocking out hard to guitar hero world tour! This is the best thing since slice bread! However I'm guessing due to the late night of it (11.30pm) I bet the neighbours don't think so. Do we care about the noise we made? do we F.....

Me and my friend are great lovers of Mr Kipling's french fancies and yesterday in Morrison's, we found a giant pink one! Its was the most enjoyable cake we've had in a long time, yum yum!

I'm now back home preparing myself for a busy week ahead, dad will be on the phone I expect first thing tomorrow with orders and endless lists! I now have, thanks to my friend a headset for the telephone, so now I can work and talk on the phone for hours without getting neck ache!

Thanks for a lovely weekend guys, I enjoyed the food, games, company and draining your brains of knowledge!

Rocking out large!

2009-01-10T15:57:00.003Z

What a night! We didn't go to bed until midnight, stayed up watch Lee Evans, So funny! My friends lives in a mid terrace house next to people with children. Both boys aged 8 and 10.

Well at midnight last night, they were both still awake banging and shouting like you have never heard! Took ages for them to shut up, at one point I thought about banging on the wall, but I didn't want to hurt myself. Couldn't believe the parents didn't come in and shout at them or something, youth of today!

6.30am I was woken by the shouting and banging all over again! such a joyous start to the weekend! So in the end I got up. Only to come down the stairs and be greeted by dog sick!

The rest of the day hasn't been much of a success either. We did a dummy launch of the rocket, to make sure all was functioning properly, however in mid flight it blew up, so back to the drawing board. We didn't have time to build a robot, so because the dog pissed me off this morning, we are going to send him instead. Just got to train him to follow commands for flag flying!

I have escaped

2009-01-09T20:47:00.003Z

I have managed to get away from grumpy git for the weekend! He doesn't have my friends number, I'm over 100 miles away and to top it off my signal on my mobile is crap here!

I have managed to avoid him for most of the day, busy doing my own work running around like a headless chicken and packing to come away for the weekend. However he did manage to catch me for half an hour today only to give me more orders and a list of things to do on my return.

I already have an endless list of things to do once the launch page is up and running, let alone all the other things he is asking me to do. If anyone out there has a cloning machine that they would like to lend me, please leave your details in the comment box below.

Planning on rocking out this evening, as my friend is also an avid fan of guitar hero and has world tour on the playstation 3 (and guitar hero 2 on XBox 360!). We have a busy day ahead of us tomorrow, hopefully filled with playing games, shopping, eating, drinking oh and building a space rocket and a robot for grumpy gits marketing campaign!

Rock hard, rock loud, rock animal.....

Things are happening slowly

2009-01-08T17:12:00.004Z

What a day, I feel totally knackered! I think I need to catch up with all the sleep I missed out on, when I was ill. I have the weekend for that though, no chance while grumpy git is on my case.

We finally got the launch page today, which needs adjustments, then hopefully it will be ready to go, hopefully tomorrow, if not Monday. My guess is Monday. As you can imagine, dad wants tomorrow!

I still haven't heard back about my gimmick, I just hope to get something by tomorrow, or that will be another thing he will have to moan about over the weekend. Lucky for me I'm away for the weekend building space rockets, so may not hear the phone over the noise level of brain power!

We hope to see a draft of the website on Wednesday next week, so lets hope things are going well and dad gets to see quite a lot to keep him happy, if not that will be more moaning!

I have told him and so have they, that everything wont be working yet, Rome wasn't built in a day, but the impatient git expects it all and wants it all NOW! Makes you wonder sometimes, how has my mother coped with him for all these years!

My ethos is if you need a job doing well, get a woman, it will take time for perfection, but its worth it! Just a shame its being done by men, but lets hope they somehow manage to have the same ethos!

I'm still stuck in the realms of SEO, Great fun, interesting, but the most time consuming thing since peeling sprouts and crossing them for 200 people!

Anyway woop woop to tomorrow, lets hope I get my gimmick back and dad gets the launch page done!

Marketing......

2009-01-07T18:26:00.003Z

Firstly I would like to thank everyone who has started reading my blog today. Huge thanks indeed! Lovely to know that I'm not writing this for nothing! You may wonder how I know I have new readers? This is down to the joy of Google analytics!

I have been having fun and games today with my dad over the website! Firstly we are still waiting for the information on the coding and the launch page. Plus I haven't heard anymore regarding the gimmick for the site, other than he is still working on it.

As you can imagine, this pleases my dad immensely! I've had him moaning and groaning, but at the end of the day I cant do anything about them communicating better. He needs to take a chill pill.

His main concern at the moment is getting in front of enough people to market the promotion of the launch. He said I should contact GMTV and try and get on the show. Like I want to get up at stupid O'clock and go on the telly!

Then, because I like the Chris Moyles show, I should contact them too. If only this would work, we could market to thousands.

But unfortunately, I'm not a sob story, a pop star or some famous actress. Although I could be a sob story, if they knew how my dad treated me.lol

So Mr Ben Sheppard or Mr Chris Moyles, if you're out there reading this, give me a shout!

I see where my dad is coming from, but we have to live in the real world! So my friend and I put our female minds together and came up with the ultimate solution!

This weekend we are going to build a space rocket and a remote controlled robot. When she goes to the states in two weeks time, she will pop down to NASA and launch it!

Once it lands on the moon, our robot, that's inside, will get out and place a flag on the moon, with our website name on it. illuminating for all to see.

The fact we have done this will also spark mass media and press attention all over the globe, insuring we will never have to advertise the website again.

Us woman, we can do anything when we put our minds to it!

Life is flowing through my bones again

2009-01-06T18:05:00.004Z

I am pleased to say I'm feeling much better now and hope I never have to face that again. Dad spoke with me early this morning and once he knew I was in full working order, my workload increased.

I've been in contact with the design company, regarding a gimmick for part of the website. I gave him a detailed description of what I wanted via email last night and he got back to me first thing this morning.

Within two emails, we both seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet. Will be nice if first design is good to go, not like the website design.

We haven't heard anymore about the initial website page, or the coding done so far. Lets hope we hear from them tomorrow, otherwise that will be more moaning from the grumpy old git.

Today I've mainly been researching Google analytics, seonurse, site optimisation and listening to my dad on the phone for hours moaning and giving orders. My life is so exciting, I could pee myself!

Google analytics is great, gives so much information. Have it on my blog now and in time will have it as part of the website too.

Site optimisation is very time consuming, but great if you can do all the bits required. Lots of reading involved and keeping up to date with things, but can be done in no time at all once your on top of everything. Shame I'm not at that stage yet.

Going to call it a night now and get into the realms of soaps, before hopefully having a good nights sleep.

Giving birth to a kidney stone

2009-01-05T18:00:00.013Z

As you know from my last blog, I was suffering with immense pain. After a few hours, I couldn't take it any longer and went to A&E.

I didn't have long to wait as I had already rang them and spoke with a doctor to give him an idea of what was wrong with me. He seemed to think it could be renal colic and wanted me to come up straight away, with a little pee sample. He made an appointment for me and within 20 minutes I was seen.

The Doctor I had spoken to however, was not the one that I seen. Instead it was someone who didn't seem to give a dame and wanted to go home.

I went over everything all over again, got prodded and poked and 20 minutes later he said he was unsure what it could be.

"It could be appendicitis, it could be your ovaries, or it could be a kidney stone. Best thing is to go home, if the pain gets any worse then go to the A&E at Bath or Yeovil as they will be able to run more tests than I can".

So I went home none the wiser. I didn't think it could be appendicitis or ovaries, however kidney stones could be a possibility. I googled renal colic, and by the symptoms it mentioned, I thought it could well be.

Today I felt a little better, the pain is still there but it's much more bearable. I felt I still need to know what was wrong, so I rang my doctors and made an appointment.

Told him everything, did a wee wee test and came back as kidney stones. Why the doctor I seen yesterday couldn't tell me this, I don't know.

I'm taking pain killers, and should feel better within a few days. I have been told to see if I can catch the stone as I pass it. Just great. I'm expecting to give birth to a golf ball!

Dad has been sympathetic for about 2.5 seconds today, before telling me at least this hasn't effected my finger tips, therefore I can still do some work for him. So that's what Ive mainly been doing, along with watching day time TV. Thanks ITV for This morning and loose women!

Here is a link to renal colic

I feel like poo

2009-01-03T16:50:00.003Z

Yesterday evening, around 6.30pm I started to get toothache. I knew it was due to the lost of a filling over Christmas, so thought taking 2 hardcore paracetamol would do the trick.

Three hours later, the pain was still there, if not increasing, so I took two more. Around 11pm I went to bed, still in pain. At 1.40am, I had enough of just lying there in immense pain, and took two more.

By 4.00am, not only was my head throbbing away, but now my back was killing me and my stomach was hurting. Every time the pain was in my back, so it would also be in my stomach. The pain was also making me feel sick, even though I knew I wasn't going to be.

Then I started to think not only did I have raging toothache, but now I'm going down with a kidney infection too. I have a wonderful memory foam mattress so I know it wouldn't be this, that was giving me really bad back and stomach pains.

At 6.00am I couldn't take it anymore and woke my partner to moan to him about how bad I felt. His response was go be sick then, then come back to bed and take it easy. Thank the lord I didn't have a hammer in my hand at this point.

Any how, he went to work this morning, while I have been in pain. The list of things I wanted to do has gone out the window. Apart from cleaning the house. Which hasn't been easy with the back.

I rung the dentist help line. They managed to make me an appointment for tomorrow, but I have to drive over an hour to get there. I can now see I have an abscess so hopefully they will give me drugs to relive the pain. Although since I booked the appointment the pain has now gone.

The back and stomach pain is still in full swing. It feels just like being in labour. Strong pains that come and go. If it doesn't go away soon, I will go to A & E, as this isn't normal and no, I cant be pregnant! It maybe just lack of food yesterday and the 6 pills have caused some sort of reaction. I just know it f**k** hurts.

I was going to have a nice long soak in the bath tonight, in hope to help the back pain, but the dentist helpline, said no heat around the face as this can make the abscess worse. Just great!

Normal life again

2009-01-02T19:16:00.003Z

Life is slowly turning back to normal. We took all the decorations down today and put them away. I have done what feels like enough washing for a small Island and of course fitted in a few hours of guitar hero.

Tomorrow I plan to spring clean the house, get the car cleaned inside and out, plus get rid of the old car and get to the post office. I also need to pick up a picture that I got framed. Nice picture of the first ever Starbucks in Seattle. Lets hope there are enough hours in the day tomorrow to fit it all in. Oh yes and I have the ironing for a small Island to do!

My daughter knows this is the plan of actions tomorrow, so being teenage daughter of darkness, she has considerately decided to stay at a friends tonight, so not to get roped into helping tomorrow.! Kids such a joy they bring to your life!

Headquarters grumpy git, has been on the phone today, giving me orders. I ignored the first ring, as I was in the middle of an important solo piece on guitar hero! However I had to respond to the next or it wouldn't of stopped. I cant have the telephone ringing while playing guitar. Doesn't sound right!

I am thinking I might have to contact BT and see if there is a way of getting him done for stalking, I'm sure I can. I know I can get his number blocked.lol

I plan to take it easy this evening, watch the soaps, eat chocolate and have a drinky poo's or two. Need to save all my energy for tomorrow. I know in grumpy headquarter land, this is unexceptable, but that's life!

New years day and no hangover, yippeee

2009-01-01T11:23:00.005Z

The new year is now with us, my festive season is nearly over. I Had a lovely New Years eve, brought in with family, friends and Elton John. Even had a bit of Will Young too, oh my mum would be pleased.

I'm so glad I didn't wake up with the normal New Years day hangover, however had this of happened, it wouldn't of been a bad thing. I have my lovely mother and grumpy dad coming for dinner today, so had I had a hangover, they would of been cooking for me.lol

Well I had better pull my finger out and start preparing for dinner. Happy new year everyone!

The new year is nearly upon us

2008-12-31T13:44:00.003Z

In 10 hours time we will be in the year of 2009. The Chinese year of the OX, Feng Shui year of the mouse and I will be in the year of HEAVY WORK LOAD.

I only have a few days left of the Christmas season, before it all beings again. The moaning from dad, "have you done this yet, have you done that yet?" " I need you to do this, then when you have done that, do this". The list will be endless.

I have already been given a list of things to do for when I start again. Sort out a marketing letter, think of more things for the 101 elite club, search for products we can put on the website and sort out all the marketing for linking the website with other sites etc. Oh how I cant wait! And of course do my own work!

We haven't heard anything from anyone at the web design company, or the programming company for that matter. Lets hope it's because they are busy working on the site, and not enjoying themselves like me, as dad will hit the roof, again!

I personally think as long as the work is going to schedule I don't mind if they enjoy the festive season. I'm no scrooge, unlike some person I have in mind.

With only a few hours till the new year sets in, I better get in some practice on the guitar hero...... Enjoy the new year and may it be a good one, blog you in the new year.

I am a rock god....

2008-12-30T17:53:00.003Z

Anyone out there who reads this, vital news! You must buy Guitar hero world tour!!

My nephew who is fifteen, came over today to join in the fun of Guitar hero world tour with me and my partner. We started playing at 10.30am and didn't stop until 3.30pm. The only reason we stopped was because I had to go food shopping. If this wasn't the cases, I would still be playing now.

Not only am I a rock goddess at playing the guitar, but I'm also like animal on the drums. Rock out wasn't the world for it! Think I will give the singing part a wide berth though.

Everything about this game ROCKS, it so addictive. When you like a song and someone screws it up thought (partner) you do start to lose your temper with them! lol

New Year tomorrow night, I think me and my band mates will be putting on a live perfomance for my housing estate, for free, which i'm sure they will love to bits! Requests not an option though.

Dad also popped round for a few minutes today. He thinks the game is mindless and stupid and doesnt like the fact it has got my attention more than working for him right now. Shame. Rock on dudes........

Still in the festive sprirt

2008-12-29T21:20:00.002Z

Today was a day for shopping. I am no different to any other girl, when it comes to shopping I love it and do it very well. We had only been at the mall for an hour when all of the town centre was blocked off due to a bomb scare.

All though this at first worried my daughter, once she seen what the sales had to offer her in a different part of the town, it didn't seem to faze her for long. I came home with some wonderful things, including the guitar hero world tour kit. I have played it till my eyes were so sore they nearly bled. Oh how I love this game, it ROCKS!

However I was very angry to say the least, when after 20 minutes of waiting to be served with two wii remote, I was kindly told they no long had any in stock. I politely told the assistant to remove the boxes from the shelf, so no one else has to wait this long again!

No news to report regarding the website, lets just hope when we do hear anything its all good.

I'm still taking advantage of the Christmas season and doing fun family things rather than work. Shall be dreaming of being a rock god tonight and playing it all day tomorrow....