New job, new beginnings.

patman99

Well, new computer system went live today and it was a fiasco. The goods-in guys had no access rights for uploading goods received onto the system until very late in the afternoon.

I had two trainers with me to guide me through the process of manually adding an item for inspection. All went well. Added item, changed use-by date, then went into the inspection module. Everything went well until I completed the whole process and tried to save it, it then refused to go any further as there was no security card present and it wanted one so it could 'digitally sign' the transaction.
Now, herein lies a problem. As a temp, I'm not entitled to have a full security card, only a door-entry one. However, when it became obvious that I would not be able to undertake my role without one, clearance was soon gained, so it was off to have my photo taken.

Card is supposed to arrive tomorrow, but until it does, I am unable to carry-out my duties.

Still, sold another camera for £35 + p&p, so have made a profit on the joblot in just two sales. Still have 1 camera up and now have battery charge for another, so will be listing that later this week.

patman99

Thought I'd better bring things up to date.

My sideline business of buying joblots then testing and selling-on is actually turning a profit at last. Must remember not to get to caried-away though.

Making a small profit from in-play betting as well, just wait for a team to go a couple of goals up, then stick on a £2 bet.Don't get much back, but even 10p is better than nothing (and at 5% return on investment, a better return than my bank account).

The experts now reckon that the latest fashion is now influenced by Essex rather than Milan.
So, next time you see someone walking down the street in trainers, tracksuit leggings and a 'T', they ain't scruffy, they're fashionable.

Now, where did I put my old tracksuit ?.............

patman99

Going for the big prize. Have set myself a target of reaching £500 on Ebay by Christmas. Have placed bids on 17 'as-new' cameras and 10 4Gb SD cards.
If I get the cards, then I have a good chance to sell these on at my camera club for a profit. If I get the cameras, then I will be listing 1 a week on both Ebay and Ebid.

Today's joke -

Bill and Ben the flowerpot men were having a bath when Bill went 'flobbalobbalob'.
Ben turned to him and said "if you ever fart in the bath again, I'll knock your head off"

patman99

Been busy the last couple of days.

Bed has been retrieved from parent's loft and re-assembled.
Fixed curtain pole.
Ordered new mattress.
Taken van-load of scrap to the tip.
Actually found time to take some photos for 'Colchester24'.
Finished-off the Paypal bank account linking for the chap I am creating a shop for.
Got 90% of the way through configuring the ecommerce system he will be using.

Tomorrow's jobs -

Fetch mattress.
Upload stock to ecommerce site.
Chill.
Will be looking-forward to getting back to work Monday just for a rest.

chevalier

glad you have a little more certainty about your job, at least until christmas. And you are doing well with the reselling, just make sure you are keeping straight with HMRC (ie registering as a sole trader). As you don't want tax penalties later.

Yeah to OH for getting a job, how is that going for her. Must be very hard to have sarcoidosis for so long.

I hope DS is doing well in his flat too.

chev

patman99

I have been registered as a sole trader with HMRC since 1991. As they keep sending me tax returns every year (even though I stopped being s/e in1993) I though sod it, might as well do some work for myself, after all, it does not take much effort to fill-in a couple of extra boxes, especially as it is now done online.

My OH has now been ironing-away for over 3 months (no jokes about the size of the wash-pile please) and is thoroughly enjoying it.

Been another busy day. Went to pick-up DS so he could give me a hand moving the new mattress and he informed me that he was "to tired" and was staying in bed as he had to get up early on Monday to accept delivery of a shelving unit and fridge that some friends of mine had donated.

Picked-up mattress and had to ask a nieghbour to give me a hand lifting it in. The same guy then gave me a hand this evening to load the shelving unit into my van.

Delivered shelving unit and fridge to DS, he was pleased.

Hung curtains in bedroom and relocated alarm clock.

Also gave the van a damn good clean and spent 90 minutes getting the green carp off the over-hanging trees off the roof. Cleaned-out the inside and took a car-full of rubbish to the tip.

Finally relaxing prior to a bath and bed (determined to beat Mrs P. in the race to be the first to use the new sleeping system.

patman99

Jeez, can't believe it has been a week since I last updated.
Sold/posted two dead cameras on eb*y, managed to locate a new cooling fan for and HP TouchSmart TM2 (fan failure is very common on these due to a design fault).

Fired-up my desktop PC yesterday and decided to resurrect YNAB (You Need A Budget), so cleared-off all the old accounts to begin again, then realized that I could import CSV, QIF or OFX files, thus saving a lot of typing.
Downloaded my last months Bank statement and then the fun began, apparently there is no standard format for a csv file and despite much trying, there was no way YNAB was going to accept the damn file.

Not one to give-up, I spent 3 hours trying different programs that claimed to be able to convert a csv file into a QIF (Quicken) file without much success. The only one that worked would only do the transactions due to it being a trial version.

After much faffing, I came across 'MT2OFX' which is free and converts between the various formats with consummate ease. File converted within 5 seconds and YNAB imported it no problem. Defo one to keep for future use.


Its' just a pity populating my friend's friend's website with stock isn't so easy. Despite my involvement only being "to register the domain and set-up the site and do the Paypal set-up to". My friend's role was to "do the graphics, take the photos and populate the site with stock".
I've done my bit, my friend however, seams to have other priorities, so it looks once again, it is down to me to do his work as well as mine.

On a liter note, my niece phoned yesterday to ask if she could bring her little girl up for a visit. So, Saturday night, I got to hold my Great-niece (or is it Grand-niece) for the first time. She settled on me and went to sleep for 20 minutes. When I passed her over to Mrs P., she burst into tears.

patman99

Another weeks passes and another faulty camera is within hours of selling on E*ay.
Barcode scanner-gun arrived yesterday, so will be giving it a run-out on some Amaz0n and Pl*y listings later.

Signed-up to 'Movember' s hopefully I will get some sponsorship (http://mobro.co/PJMead). It's all for a good cause, so every penny counts as they say.

Finally got my friends' e-shop up and running. As of today, he is an official online trader.

Went to pick my son up in the van today, on the way back, Mrs P. had to sit in the middle seat. She has lost so much weight that I had to adjust the lap-belt in by 8 inches.

Still not 100% on the stomach problem front. Must phone Dr's tomorrow to get my test results from last Wednesday and see if I can get a follow-up appt. for Monday or Wednesday evening.

patman99

Cub night-hike was a hoot. "it is a 2.5 hour round route" spouted the GSL. "You'll all be back here by 23:30 by my reckoning". Famous last words.
It was alright for him, he had done the hike several times, but due to an injury, this wasn't going to be one of them.
The map reading duties were delegated and off we set in small groups of Cubs and adults set 100 metres apart.
It all went well for the first 2 miles, then the wheels sort of 'came-off' as the man with the map reached the first major hurdle. "I'm not sure if we turn left, right or walk straight ahead" was heard, as team one gathered round the map and started scratching their heads.
After a short debate, the next phase of the hike was agreed upon and off we set once again. 10 minutes later, having crossed a road and headed-off down an access road, we came to a halt as we all formed-up around the map and spent 10 minutes trying to work-out exactly where we were (satnavs and GPS were no help as Google maps doesn't show footpaths, we know, we tried).
Another 1.5 miles, and we found ourselves trudging up the side of a field on the side of a rather steep hill. At the top, team one was busy searching for a gate we were told we had to go through. I helpfully pointed-out that said gate was way back down the bottom of the hill.
Not to worry, one of the parents found us a short-cut. Trouble was, it involved scaling a 3 foot gate with barbed-wire on top, then a 6 foot bar-gate. Now, bearing in mid the Cubs are all aged between 8 and 11, this involved two adults going over both gates first, then 2 more dropping in to the gap between them before the Cubs were lifted over the first gate and left to climb the 2nd.
This wasn't our last encounter with a gate as we then stuck to the road for the return leg and got stuck at a level crossing for 10 minutes as we waited for 2 trains to pass.
We finally arrived back at the Scout HQ at 00:40 having done 3 miles more than intended.

And the best bit ?. Even though we got lost and had to climb-over two gates, I remained calm and didn't panic. Had this happened a year ago, I would have got in a right state.

At the end of the night, a good time was had by all. Now to see how well the Remembrance Day Service goes.

patman99

Remembrance Day Service went extremely well. All the Cubs/Scouts behaved amazingly well. They were all a credit to their parents.

Used my barcode scanner in anger today. Listed 55 DVD's on Play in under 2 hours instead of 5. Quite a time-saver. I went-on to scan all my books into 'Fatbrains' but they were not interested in buying any. Still, at least I know the barcode scanner works.
Was supposed to be working on a plan to drive more traffic to https://www.caspian-c.co.uk but got side-tracked into other things, so am expecting a phone call moaning about the lack of visitors from the site's owner.
There isn't much I can do about it. He fails to realise that a website is not like a bricks'n'mortar shop, people don't just 'wander by and pop-in', they actually have to search for it.
I have however, signed him up to google maps. So by Christmas anyone searching for Gothic clothing in Colchester will see his shop pin-pointed on google maps.