The best place in the world is here and now
I was working with some of my metrics this evening and every day (bar 11 0r 12) for the last 4 or 5 months someone does a search using my ex’s full name. It’s very strange and is always done on the same Blackberry. The search term used every day is he same, as is the machine it’s done on. It’s very strange. The graph bellow shows the number of unique visitors (that would be one visitor making each of the visits) that use this search term, as as you can see she does not miss many days.
I’ve been doing a little more cleaning up around the house and getting into some of the bags of trash left around. Really bags of trash, complete with empty Diet Pepsi cans thrown in with piles of paper.
One of those I’ve discovered today links very nicely into another piece of paper that arrived in the mail. I received a 30-day demand for $570 and change, of course I had no idea it was coming, but the demand arrived today. Of course it’s another bill I knew nothing about, yet somehow was in my name. The really fun part about this, I was not even in the country, let alone living here on the date it was started. This led to an interesting conversation with the bill originator and as a friend put it “she is less half a step from being called a con-artist.” Other words came to mind, and lawyers do talk with each other about clients. It’s illuminating some days. 
With the bags of trash we have covered part one of todays journey into white-trashdom, but while I was clearing up I looked at some of the most destroyed furniture (destroyed by the same dog that was allowed to go to the bathroom under the same sofa) that she decided to clutter up the house with before she left. I could not give this stuff away, I need to pay someone to take it away it’s in such bad condition. Funny comment of the day “thankfully the washing machine was in the house, and no on the deck like some trailer trash.”
A busy day today, a long call with a supplier let to a few hours work. Did not really plan for that, but it happens. Spent a couple of hours reorganizing the garage and turning the pile of 2-by-4 into a rather substantial workbench.
But the highlight of my day was having my blood pressure taken, sharing pizza while watching Little Fockers. While the movie was entertaining, so was the pizza ordering process. Order online from Dominos and they provide a “Pizza Tracker”. John was making our pizza, and we got blow-by-blow accounts of what was happening. It was interesting to watch and it arrived a few minutes after I got a loud “The pizza is out the door” out of the computer.
Yes it’s the little things in life that keep me entertained.
The first win of the year is in the books and that particular elephant in the room is taken care of. It was not the best performance of the year, but it was good enough and that’s the piece that mattered.
Montero was still out after surgery to his wrist last week; he was around the stadium with a hard cast on. He should be back for next week. For today Mauro Rosales played up front with O’Brian White in a rather conventional, if make shift looking 4-4-2.
We did not have to wait long for the first goal. Rosales set up White in the 7th minute for a well taken header just inside the near post. Very well set up and you did get the feeling that something interesting was going to happen every time Rosales got the ball.
Chicago responded straight away with the impressive Diego Chavez nicely finishing a pass into the middle after Parke slipped and gave him the space to finish.
The second goal was a great finish by Zakuani; he went past his marker and slotted home to give Seattle a 2-1 lead. The building got loud, this is what we’ve been looking for the first four games, and now they just had to hold onto the lead.
This was not Seattle’s best performance of the year. Having said that the home team largely controlled the first half, but the second half was a different story. Chicago made some adjustments at half time. Most notably by pushing the ball wider and playing in a little sooner. This created bigger problems for Parke and JKH in the middle and seemed to stretch the defence
Evans had a good performance, less a playmaker in the middle of the field, but making the runs into the box and taking up good positions. He put a lot of pressure on the defence, not through touches on the ball, but creating space for others to take advantage of.
Alonso was as important as ever; so much of what Seattle does goes through him. If he’s not the first name on the team sheet, it’s only because Keller is ahead of him. His importance to this team can’t be over estimated, and today he played his usual complete game and took a ball to the face defending a free kick late in the game.
What else did we learn today? Keller has plenty of life left in him yet with a couple of top drawer reaction saves in the second half to preserve the lead.
Steve Zakuani took the Chicago left back Jalil Anibaba to all over the park. The defender had no real answer for the pace of the Seattle attacker, this was fun to watch.
Set pieces looked better than ever. Corners especially have been an issue, today was better. With Friberg whipping the ball into the 6-yard box with pace anything can happen, and defences get worried.
Chicago is going to score goals and win a lot of games this year, Seattle beat a very good team that controls the ball and comes forward quickly and with purpose. The two Uruguayans up front look dangerous. This is a playoff quality team.
O’Brian White has earned the opportunity to start over Nate Jaqua, He is a very different player than Jaqua, but is a more effective target forward. He’s faster, more aggressive in the box and has a better first touch than Jaqua. What happens when Montero is back will be interesting, but I think White has done enough to be in consideration with Rosales dropping back to play just behind Montero.
On balance Seattle deserved the three points, they played well and with Montero back next week things are looking good. Its difficult to say this was a must win game, but with a tough game at Philadelphia, coming away with three points today was important.
A couple of weeks ago, after a particularly poor 1-0 loss to Hull the Chairman of Coventry City sacked manager Aidy Boothroyd. The loss to Hull made it one win in the previous 16 games. At Christmas they were 5th in the table and looking comfortable there. Results were good and the team was drawing well.
Since Boothroyd was sacked and replaced by assistant Steve Harrison (a former Vancouver Whitecaps player) and chief scout Andy thorn they managed 4 points in the last two games. In the league they are safe enough and did enough in the first half of the year to avoid relegation, despite sitting 19th after what can only be described as “lemming like” drop down the table.
Boothroyd had a very direct style of play, not what you would describe as sophisticated. Teams worked it out and when the goals stopped at Christmas there was no alternate plan. When a team is winning, fan can accept some unattractive football, when a team goes onto a slide like Coventry did it’s never going to be acceptable to anyone.
The squad has not received significant investment since Boothroyd took the job a year ago. He is also the 9th manager in the last 10 years at the club, and it’s been a few years since there has been any money to spend on players. Players like Freddy Eastwood, and Gunnarsson are journeymen players at this level, they are not going to carry a team and the rotating door on the manager’s office is not going to change that.
As is usual the manager takes the responsibility for failure of the team, the board must take some of the blame in the results over the last three months. Looking at the table today it could be said that sitting 19th in the table the team is right on expectations. In the previous three seasons the team has finished 21st, 17th and 19th,
It could be argued that Boothroyd’s side wasn’t underperforming; they were right on pace for a similar finish in the table.
The team is in financial trouble, it’s alleged they are loosing about 4 million pounds a year. A big contributor to that is that they don’t own the Ricoh Stadium, don’t get to take advantage of the non-game day revenue streams. The investment group that owns the club could not afford to buy the ground despite an option to do so last year.
Somebody has to take the blame for the disappointment of the last four years; this is a team that is just good enough to hang on Championship football. Looked at as a body of work the last four years it’s difficult to blame the Boothroyd (and Coleman, Dowie and Adams before him) for everything. And if the manager is not culpable, then the board and owners are.
The books make pretty disturbing reading, and the club either needs outside investment, new owners or find a way to live with in their needs.
As long as CCFC stay in the championship they should be able to stay solvent, drop to League One and receivership becomes possibility. It would give them an opportunity to reorganize, in a similar way to Southampton. A lot of sort term pain, but in the longer term may be the best way forward.
After four years of underperformance it’s time for the board and ownership to stand up, stop blaming manager who was not given the resources to do the job requested of them.
So this week we’ve had driving rain, snow, thick fog and today when I left work the sun was out. Dare I hope that we may have a dry weekend?
So once again more bill come to light thoughtfully left to me by my ex. Today was a long conversation with Verizon wireless, once again more lies and Verizon are sending me their files on this account.
Of course my name was on the account, from years ago when we opened it, unfortunately the contract she has decided is my responsibility was signed by her. The choices we make.
The current bill that arrived in my mailbox yesterday was not for much, but none the less should have been taken care off months ago by the person who a) ran it up, and b) signed the contract the bill is against. My name is on it because the original account was opened 6 years ago in my name, and I never changed that, and I should of.
She canceled the autopay from her account on Jan-6, despite knowing the bill would not be posted until the 18th. Once again walking away from financial responsibilities, and the scary part, feeling totally justified in doing so. As someone put it to me “she is twisting herself into knots trying to justify her actions.” This is easy, I know this will be coming back to me, when trash keep score with money, there really is little they won’t do to justify things to themselves.
“It’s very cold,” he said. Temperatures in Everett were down to 38 degrees. He said it’s not unusual to have a cold spell in early April. We said there would be showers and some might have frozen precipitation,” he said. “Generally we have cold troughs that come through and have (snow) flurries.”
Chris Burke, with the National Weather Service (quote from Seattle Times this morning)
Yeah, it’s the sixth of April and it snowed on the way to work this morning. For comparison it was a little over 70 in London today.
No real accumulation, but there the grass was white and the car park at work rather wet and slushy. Very unpleasant, and of course there was an accident on the way to work to add a little spice (and swearing) to the drive.
Tonight was a good night, it was a full day at work but some friends that I worked with on a large project a few years ago are in town for the week. They work for a customer on what turned out to be a very complex and involved delivery. Tonight a few of us that worked on the project got invited out to dinner with them to catch up a little.
They are staying downtown at the Four Seasons, it’s the first time I’ve been in there. My top standard in downtown hotels is the W, I think this was more impressive. I doubt I will see the inside of without a company credit card being involved. 
They took us to dinner at Cafe Campagne by the Market. Excellent French food, great wine and a very fun evening catching up. I just need to find an excuse for a return the complement in Hong Kong. There are days where i reminded why I do this. There are the long tough days when you are on projects that seem to fight you every step of the way, but some how as a group and company we find a way to deliver. We find a way because of the talented and dedicated people both within the company and at our customers that we are able to do that.
It’s all coming together professionally for me once again. For me personally it’s been tough at times, but nights like this reminded me how cool it is to produce airplanes. There are not may places that can match what happens in Everett, we build something incredible, then turn around and do it again and again.
An interesting and rather long day, with a lot of running around after work. Lawyers, courthouse and then the vet.
But it’s not been a total waste, there has been a little education in there too. For a start I had no idea cats got hernias until this afternoon, but apparently they do.
Other discoveries today: the police take harassment very seriously and that HR departments don’t have much of a sense of humour about a lot of things (this little thing will run for a while, some lawyers are on vacation this week, but I will talk about it at some point). It’s been an interesting and rather emotional few days.