Happy Birthday to..........ME!!!

Today I turn the right royal age of 35.

To celebrate, here is a picture of me from a tool on The Simpsons website that allows you to create yourself as if you were in the cartoon!!! I like it...what do you think?

Thank you to anyone who reads this that sent me a card, present, small piece of land or a kidney. For those that didn't, shame on you!!!!

Tonight, Kerris and I are going out for a meal and we will be joined by our friends Alison & Nick Birchall-Higgs!!! So I plan to eat steak and face alcohol for the first time since my fainting....wish me luck eh!!!

Acupuncture & Fainting!!!!

I haven't told you too much about my condition recently but that's because it is pretty much as it was when I last wrote about it.

Since that time, all I have learnt about my ongoing hand numbness is that its directly linked to the inflamed area in the base of my neck and that pressure on this area increases the numbness. I don't like sleeping too much these days as the pressure on my neck from the pillow ensures that I wake each morning with complete numbness and coldness and generally feel a little shaky about things. If I wake in the night, its horrible to try and get back to sleep.

Anyway, open to all forms of treat, I recently booked in for a course of acupuncture. This may seem bizarre to most who know that I have a deep feel of needles and the like but I have come to some kind of spiritual conclusion that my fear of all things sharp and thin may ultimately be my salvation so by facing my fear by having a bucket load of the little blighters in me could well shift my numbness.

The short and curly is, they haven't!!!!

They have made the area at the base of my neck less sensitive but this has had no effect on my numbing problems. So I think that following 4 courses of needle and electric current conduction treatment, I will move onto something else.

On from there, I may have also mentioned previously that alcohol had a terrible effect on me and recently I begun to believe this was passing until last night.

On reflection, 1 Corona, half a bottle of red wine, 1 lemon flavoured shot, 1 pint of Guinness, 1 Long Island Iced Tea and a pint of Peroni is enough to floor most people but my head was not even spinning as I went to sleep.

I woke at 3.24AM for a trip to the little boys room and promptly lost consciousness while peeing!!! The next thing I know, I am slumped against the bathroom wall while Kerris is shaking me terrified that I've suffered a much worse fate.

I basically passed out but prior to that I remember every symptom of my past coming over me. Numbness, pins and needles, weakness, shooting pains, the whole hit!!! It was not nice at all and I thank God that Kerris was alive enough to help me.

I am officially back off alcohol as today I feel like death!!! Its not a hangover though, I know what a hangover feels like and this isn't it!!! This feeling is my body just telling me that all of the above will not be tolerated!!!

The cat is out of the bag......

I think I am OK to tell you a little more about my new job now!!! On 1st April 2008 (hopefully not an April fool prank) I will be joining an access control company named Salto.

The cute little fella in the picture is an XS4 lever set for European Mortise Locks.......ooohhhh!!!

Basically, its a card operated lock. Its battery operated and it uses read/write smart cards to program it. Lost? Well its a good job I am not!!!

You see the concept is simple. Previously, if you wanted a networked access control system around a building then all locks had to be hard wired via a network back to a PC. Very expensive!!!

With Salto, things are a little different. Only 1 door is connected to the PC. That door reprograms other locks within the building by programming system changes onto cards that are used in door 1. That card then carries the new info and updates lock 2 as it is used. The person passing through the door has no idea that their card is reprogramming the system as they move around the building!!! The card also records audit trails as it is used in other locks so that the next time it is used at door 1, it downloads audit events back to the PC. Clever stuff eh!!!

So that's my new job. Get Salto specified. I think its a great piece of kit and I should enjoy it, I am looking forward to getting back to being Mike "Access Control Wizard" Jackson rather than Mike "Looks A Bit Lost Selling Safes" Jackson.

Time will tell eh!!!

Inter Milan

For no other good reason than the fact that it will frustrate the hell out of my good friend Sandro Campobassi. Above is the immediate aftermath of Torres banging in a great goal against Inter Milan last night and effectively ending the game in Liverpool's favour.

Well done El Nino, this guy has been the find of the decade for Liverpool and no amount of money is too much to keep him in a red shirt.

As for the European Cup....I fancy our chances, we have a different mentality in Europe and no one relishes the task of facing Liverpool.

On a final note, Mr Campobassi may be a bitter and twisted soul but respect is due to the Inter Milan faithful who applauded the performance of Liverpool near the end of the game. Roughly translate, you came, you played and you beat us......well done!!!!

Black Tie Ball

Don't they make a lovely couple then!!!

Just a couple of shots snatched from a photographers website that were taken at a charity ball Kerris and I went to last weekend.

It was great fun and raised a lot of money for charity and had an Oscars theme all night.

On the way into Formby Hall Golf Club (the venue), they had a red carpet, photographers and interviewers greeting everyone. A young girl asked me "What inspired your last film then?" and I replied "It was inspired by a home movie". She blushed, laughed and we went in!!!

The times they are a' changin!!!

I think I owe an explanation to anyone who cares to listen about why the last few months have been so quiet on the blog. Well, as anyone can see, I started a new job with Onyx Security and almost immediately blog entries stopped.

So perhaps it was work related? What can I tell you except that yesterday I informed Onyx Security that as of 1st April, I will no longer be in their employment.

Its far too long and much too boring to go into the minutia of the matter, its really been a case of me not being happy with the relationship that Onyx has with one of its suppliers and that this particular supplier has a vested interest in me and its been a very stressful and trying relationship where they have tried with all their might to dominate me. All in all, I thought for a long time that I would be sacked for not living up to expectations and the stress that this caused had a huge effect on my physical and mental well being and I came to the point where my best option was to put an end to it and find a new job.

I think that over the next few weeks I will go into more details about the experiences that I have been through in the last 6 months, I surprise myself when I look back.

Looking back is old news though and I am now looking forward to the future. I have accepted a job with another company in the security industry and again, I will go into more detail about this in due course. I don't want to announce the name just yet as for the moment, I have promised Onyx to keep it quiet, this is mainly due to "that" supplier not knowing my news just yet and my Boss, Richard, wants them to hear from him at some point next week rather than from the rumour mill.

There you go then, the blog is back.....I think I will tell you all about acupuncture later!!!

Happy New Year!!!

For the love of God, a new year has moved in since my last blog entry.

I think its time I got back to sharing my life with you.

There is lots to tell about family life, health, work, football, music and acupuncture but for now lets just enjoy the last few moments of this "eye of the storm" calm passing.

I think later this week, the storm might just be waiting to kick back to full force and rain down its almighty wrath upon the blog again.

Stay tuned.......