Hot

Someone's hit that light bulb switch again and it's made the sun come out :-)

It's about time too cos this "summer", a lot of records have been broken on rainfall. It says something for climate change being far more subtle than just "it's getting hotter" because what we've seen this summer is more a change in pattern. Britain is at similar latitudes to Canada, which is considerably colder than Britain. What makes Britain warmer is the Gulfstream, a band of warm air that circles the Atlantic. It's part of a pattern called the Trade Winds, which is a naturally occurring phenomenon which happens as a result of the Earth spinning.

But when that natural current of air shifts ... that's when strange things start happening with the weather.

Right now, it's shifted back to how late July should be - 28 degrees C heat and scorchy bum in the car.

About the car - climate control is awesome :-) I'll step into a hot car after finishing up at work. I'll turn the car on and a few seconds later the climate control will do its best to get the internal temperature down to something manageable. It's sooooo good having a fully working air conditioning system again, it's one of the things I needed to spend money on with my Focus. In fact, it worked so well that when I got home and opened the car door, the first thought was "bloody hell it's warm out here".

However, one comment about the air con is that I need to find out how to redirect airflow when I have pizza. Let's just say - hot air going to the footwell is far better than icey cold air going to the footwell. (That's where I put the pizza box on the way home - pizza on white seats = bad idea).

Another comment - the perforated leather seats work really well. I've had one previous car with full leather seats and they really didn't work well in hot conditions. Definite scorchy bum syndrome. Dotty perforated leather helps the seat breathe, making it much cooler.

Last car comment - one thing the Lexus afficionados think should be in every Lexus is a heated steering wheel. (We're used to lots of toys). I respectfully disagree. In cold conditions, I'll put my leather driving gloves on to keep my fingers working. Sorted. However, in hot conditions, I don't want to be wearing Volcano Gauntlets to be able to touch the steering wheel. I'd much prefer a steering wheel with a chiller to one with a heater.

What am I doing now ?

Oh - right now it's watching Sussex gives a huge bashing to Gloucestershire bowlers in the Twenty20 quarter finals. The average score this season has been 140 off 20 overs, Sussex have 204 already with 9 balls to go. Erm - make that 210. SIX RUNS !

Gloucestershire are my most local team but you could call me an Anti-Supporter because of how they treated our work side. We did net practice there one season but when we tried to go back, all calls were unanswered, all messages were ignored. So I support the other guy.

Music wise - I'm getting near to having listened to all the stuff in the library again. Of the soundtracks, Beyond Good & Evil has some awesome stuff in there alongside incidental music. Trine 2 is "interesting" while the Deus Ex and Machinarium soundtracks can only be described as awesome.

Off work next week, which I'm heavily looking forward to. Been feeling very stretched lately, which is understandable because I've effectively been doing 2 separate jobs for the past few weeks. That takes its toll eventually but I'm happier now than I was then. I've scoped out the major task for next few months in my head and have a mental plan. Now I just need to put that plan on paper to keep my bosses happy.

I will miss a few people in that week off for sure. I'm enjoying working in the new team. The old team didn't have a great atmosphere, with some elements of it actively working against other elements of it. That's not a recipe for getting things done. It's pretty silly. I'm not catching that in the new team, in fact I've had a hell of a lot of help from the finance, commercial and business management people.

But who will I really miss :
Finance Angels E, K and L (yep - new finance angel)
Miss Meerkat
The Apprentice who actually works downstairs (trying to pass on as much as possible in as short a time as possible!)
The Boss (who's just moved teams - must grab a coffee opportunity)
And the new Business Management people who seem highly amused (bemused?) by my antics

And there's a bunch more in the new team who I need to get inspiration for codenames. Despite not knowing what we were being parachuted into, I think our team reshuffle has worked pretty well. We're cracking on with work as a together group of people.

And that's always worth smiling about. Especially when you get smiles from people walking by your desk spotting you do the Meerkat "who dat?" thing :-)

Right - half time in the cricket, Sussex reached a massive 230 and it's time to put the popcorn on before the second half. Enjoy your evenings !