At work we had one of our guys give us a talk on “S5″, something started at Toyota in Japan, a system to organize your work area to make it more efficient. Clearing up work areas and putting up bins to store stuff, red tagging items and if not needed then disposing of them.

We saw some pictures of other companies that had done this to their work areas. Shadow boards for tools, storage bins, one picture was a lab area with the work surfaces all taped up. Each item on the counter had a tape outline around it to show where it is usually located. Some seemed a bit much, a piece of lab equipment that takes two people to move doesn’t really need a tape outline to show where it goes.

There was another shot of a desk drawer where every item had an outline around it so you can see whee the item goes and when it is missing. That was a bit too OCD for me.

Anyhoo, I decided to do my desk at work now I got inspired. Having just moved I still soon had my desk piled high with crap. So spent some time to sort it all out. I decided not to put up the Sony desktop just yet as it is on the fritz. I have my laptop with wide screen monitor, and my work laptop set up, which I just got and has Photoshop CS3 and other cool programs on. I may get a full size keyboard and flat panel monitor for this laptop too. I’m a geek!

Click on pics for larger version, the work laptop has a dark screen so I had to composite the screen in, yes, that is the screen that appears on computers in the James Bond film Casino Royale, Did I say I’m a geek?

So much for keeping the new desk clean! You can see which part of the office is whose.

Attached to the cork board is a small fabric cartoon character¹ from a British comic called The Beano, which has been running since 1938 and still going strong.

This black haired comic character was a right tear-a-away and had a black terrier dog called Gnasher. You have the same character here in the States but he has blonde hair and blue-eyes and first appeared around 1950, any ideas who he is?

.Give up? click “read More” to find out who he is.
. Read more

1. this piece of fabric was torn off my favorite boxer shorts before they got retired by the wife because they were full of holes. [↩]

Well I am on vacation until 8th of October, needed some time to decompress and stress relieve from work. Carolyn had doctor’s appointments today so we spent day together.

We ordered me a new computer scheduled to arrive Tuesday, 19″ inch monitor, I was excited. Then reading a free computer magazine a letter from a reader had a problem similar to the one I had that had fritzed my computer. I tried what the magazine expert suggested and the Sony computer coughed back to life.

Typical!

So we may give the Sony to our daughter and I get the newer one, depends if I can give it up or not.

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On another note I need to find some suitable headache treatment, been getting them a lot and need to get them sorted out. Had new glasses recently so it isn’t my eyes. I stopped drinking coffee and reduced soda a great deal, so maybe it is a caffeine withdrawal thing.

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We were out at the thrift store and I got a crap load of action figure and other silly toys to cram my new desk with even more stuff. I was trying on hats from the Halloween displays. Jester hat, appropriate, but Carolyn didn’t think it suited me. I tried the Indiana Jones hat, no on that too. The red pimp hat got a thumbs down too.

Then I tried the top hat and Carolyn said it suited me, “It makes you look even more English.”

More English! I am a pure bred perfect English gentleman how can I be more English?

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While out, the weather started to get colder and wetter, Carolyn pulled up the hood on her hooded sweatshirt. She kept tightening the hood strings, the hole was getting smaller and smaller and she was looking more like Kenny from South Park each time she tightened the hood.

“You starting to look like a turtle,” I told her.

Without missing a beat she turned to me and said, “But dear, you like a tight hole.”

“Turtle! Woman, turtle!”

“Why dear you are turning red.”

Dang, I can’t take her anywhere!

Sitting here using the wife’s awesome computer I just feel like shooting my PC, I screwed it up royally. Recovery disks I made won’t work so it is just a huge paperweight right now. So a nice new shiny machine may have o o on my Christmas list for year 2010!

I was feeling crappy all day yesterday too with body aches, rumbling stomach and a massive headache, all together now ahhhhhhh. Still feels like Phil Collins is doing a drum solo behind my eyes.

In better news, someone joined Winzy and now I have three friends, woot! Who knows maybe I can win enough money to get a new machine.

Anyhoo just some fun and a chance to win stuff for doing something you do anyway, check it out

Also, check out Emma from It’s Write Now, she has a contest for a Apple iPod, easy to enter and I’d love to win so Carolyn has her own iPod. I have a Nano and it rawks. Check out Emma’s contest post here.

Carolyn upgraded her virus checker and we paid to have it on 3 computers, I put it on mine but had problems. What with trying to get things right I have fritzed my computer, no amount of swearing seems to work!

Recovery disks and option isn’t working and I’m going to have to share Carolyn’s computer. Mad at myself for trying to fix something that wasn’t broken I should’ve left it alone while it was working okay. Oh well, guess I’ll have to save my pennies to get someone to scrub it clean and fix it.

Bugger!