Lunch For Everyone!

Following on from my Twitter conversation I had earlier, here's lunch for everyone!

Enjoy!

I'm Thinking Of Leaving

Ever wondered that something fresh and new could be waiting for you somewhere? Well I am. Don't get me wrong, I'm happy at my job, I have brilliant prospects. I have some great friends and I'm in decent surroundings. But I think my head needs a breath of fresh air, something new to immerse myself in.


Some of you will know how much I enjoyed my trip to New York last year. Some of you will also know that if I wasn't in the window industry, I would like to have been a journalist. Not one of those News Of The World style journalists. More like the proper investigative ones with something important to tell!


I'm not saying I want to leave the country forever, but I have in my mind an 18 month break, probably in and around New York, doing something involving writing. 


I've had a bitch of a day, but this post isn't just a knee-jerk reaction to a crap 24 hours. I've been thinking of it for quite a while. Of course there are the logistics of the plan to think about. Money, accommodation, a job, meeting new people and making new friends - all things that have to be considered. But this is something I feel strongly about, and I hope that sooner rather than later I get the opportunity to do it.


So, if anyone in the New York area happens to read this, drop me an email please!

43 And Counting

Over the last month or so my tally of readers has steadily rose, which is good to see!


I'm setting myself a little aim now, I would like that tally to reach the 100 mark before the end of the year. So, I'm asking a little favor again from my readers. If you think that someone might find reading my daily waffle interesting, please pass the URL of this site on, and maybe they will even subscribe!


Again, very short post, apologies!

I Have Severe Writers Block!

For the last few days I have really struggled to write a new post. I haven't posted anything since last Thursday, which for me is a long time!


RCG has covered the Everest purchase of the Amdega brand, so I can't really write about that. I'm working on quite a sizable post at the moment, but this isn't for my blog. I think I've said as much as I can about the News Of The World hacking scandal.


I'm not able to focus at the moment. Has anyone got any ideas which would help me get back on track?


Thanks!

Something Refreshing On A Sunny Day!

Here you go @AnglianHome:

And here you go @TradeStopUK: 

I'm Taking Out A Super-Injunction

Just to let you all know that I have now taken out a super-injunction to protect my identity from getting out. So, for all those who already know who I am, you are now not allowed to call me by my name on here, you aren't even allowed to tell people that you know what my name is! Even though most of you know!


You must all now call me by the abbreviation: DGB, or by my full blog name. 


If anyone on Twitter reveals my name, I will take legal action against those who write the tweets, and against Twitter itself for allowing such things to be published!


By reading this, you are also not allowed to say you have read this.

The End Of The World Starts At 6PM Today!

An evangelical broadcaster in the US has predicted that a massive earthquake on Saturday May 21st will start the process of the end of the world. Which is highly inconvenient because I have a night out planned tonight and I wanted to get some pool time in before the earthquake causes the balls to move out of position!

This guy, Mr Camping, had predicted the end of the world in 1994, but got it wrong, obviously. So should we take his predictions, of which he's 100% certain it will happen, seriously? Well, that depends on your beliefs. My belief is that it's not going to happen, we'll move past this date without fuss and life will go on. There will always be some other person who has predicted Armageddon.

However, just on the off-chance it does happen, I'd just like to say it's been nice talking to you all, and I'll see you either above or below!

Normal Service Resumes...For Now

Business can now get back to some form of normality after the strange double bank holiday weekends.


There was a worry that due to many people booking the three days off between the two holiday weekends, that business would suffer and people's spending would drop. But I'm happy to say that despite the time off, we've not suffered for it.


Leads have still come in and people have still placed orders with us. It seems that fears of the country not spending just because there's consecutive bank holidays were unfounded. Us British spenders aren't that flakey!


Because of the time off, this blog hasn't received as much attention as usual, both from me, and the viewing figures - which will be updated as soon as I get back from my 11am appointment!


I hope you all had some well spent time off!

Doing The Healthy Beer Diet!

Today is the day that myself, @JWNorthWales and @TradeStopUK have all joined the 'healthy beer and cider' diet!


When you think about it, if you compare beer to other drinks like Coke, and most fruit juices, it's far healthier! Beer has much less sugar in it than Coke does, therefore better for your teeth. And it has less acidic content than fruit juice, again much better for your teeth! Also, if you compare bitter to lager, lager has less fat content, so, healthier for your arteries!


Fruity cider is another option. If you treat yourself to 5 bottles of this every day then you're getting in your 5 portions of fruit! Fat wise it's better than lager (I think!) and roughly the same cost!


So, I name this day Beer And Cider Tuesday, and from this day on, to make sure we live a healthier lifestyle, we must ditch the Coke, other fizzy drinks and tooth rotting fruit juices and strive to make sure we drink enough fruity cider and lager to keep our bodies fighting fit!

When A Bullet Hits Switchable Glass

Found an interesting video on Youtube of when a bullet hits Smart Glass Switchable glass:

Glazing Blogger To Buy Out RCG

Well, I think I'm now in a position to buy out the RCG blog!


No, I'm only joking! It was an idea banded about in jest between RCG and Anglian on twitter. But it did get me to thinking how much money it would take to do so.


I went on the the UK based www.websitevalue.co.uk to see how much this site was worth and how much the RCG site was worth. Mine came in at a slightly disappointing £1089. RCG's site came in at £6057. Again, less than what I thought it was. So there's just less £5000 between the two sites.


If you go on to other website valuation websites there are differing values. So these numbers have to be taken with a pinch of salt. But I suppose if I had a spare £6057 knocking about I might think about buying it! 

Quality Counts

I was sent this image earlier on today:


What do we all think?


The sender didn't say who the company was, when the window was installed or any other details.


This is about as much as I can say about it, other than that screw should definitely not be there!

Football vs Windows

We saw yesterday how out of touch the business of football is with the rest of the world.


Windows Active magazine yesterday announced Everest had sales of £174 million for the whole of 2010. In comparison, the Premier League in just one day spent £225 million on players. £50 million of that for Torres, £35 million for an injured Rob Carrol. Torres is now earning £175,000 per week, Carrol on £90,000 and arrived at Anfield by helicopter.


The mind boggles when just a handful of football teams in one day can outspend what one of the biggest companies in double glazing earns in one year. The world of football truly is out of touch with the rest of the country.


Wayne Rooney managed to screw Manchester United out of £250,000 per week, which is made even more ridiculous while he's not even scoring! When the public see the amounts these people earn for playing football, and then compare it to their much lower wages for much more manual work, and it starts to anger the public at a time when everyone else is tightening their belts.

The Disappearing Head!

I forgot about this video on my phone, I think it's pretty funny, but then again I am easily pleased!

Don't lose your head!

Is It Time To Drop The 'Double'?

Over the near two years that this blog has been live, more and more people refer to me/this site as Glazing Blogger, dropping the 'Double'. So is it time for me to shorten the name for good?


When I think about it, just about everything else to do the site is referred to as Glazing Blogger; it's in my email address, it's my user name on Glasstalk as well as other sites, people use GB on both the Glasstalk site and here instead of DGB. So on one hand it wouldn't be a big change. Or do I keep the full name on the site as a shrine to the original name I picked? Or am I looking too far into this!? But a name is everything right?!


Feedback welcome and wanted!

My Own Youtube Channel

I am in the process of creating my on channel on Youtube channel! The whole idea is to help drive traffic to my site, and to help expand the Double Glazing Blogger presence on the web. 


The channel will probably comprise of anything to do with double glazing. But I'm not going to add any old rubbish. I'll only put videos on if I think people will actually want to watch them. You never know, I might even do a video blog of my own! Then again I might not!


UPDATE: the channel is now pretty much constructed, just the odd bit of tweaking left to do but other than that it functions. You can find it at: http://www.youtube.com/user/glazingblogger and there will be more videos and playlists added all the time!

Happy New Year!

Hope you all had a great break and are ready for what could be a tough slog this year. This post is mainly just to get off my chest how great a time I had in New York. Once I've done this, I promise to keep it to double glazing stuff, and I'll try and keep it brief!


Well, we nearly didn't get there! The original pilot was taken ill in hospital, so Virgin had to call in a spare pilot who was on his day off! About an hour later we managed to take off and landed smoothly at JFK in the middle of the afternoon. However, things were about to get much more stressful as it took four hours to make a 45 minute journey to our hotel. The reason? 51cm of snow. That all fell 48 hours before we were due to set off. The whole of New York just caved in. Three lane roads were ploughed only down the middle, only clearing one lane, causing huge snow piles either side. Not only that, trains and the underground weren't running in the city or in the outer counties, so everyone was driving in, clogging things up further.


We managed to get to the hotel, which was a very nice 4 star place in the Chelsea district of Manhattan. But we had to change rooms as we were right next to some generators and the noise was way too loud to sleep through. We actually ended up with a better room! After we moved it was room service burgers then bed.


Throughout the week we managed to pack in as much as possible, doing the usual tourist places: Empire State Building, so much shopping, Central Park, American Museum of Natural History, Maddam Tussauds, Time Square etc. One thing I'd like to stress is how polite and courteous the American people were...and how rude and arrogant the Europeans were! Every American bar one moody NYPD officer and all the British tourists were extremely kind and helpful. You could go up to either and ask questions and would give your more information than you needed. The mainland Europeans however were some of the rudest I've ever come across. A great example is where we were on a bus tour around the city and while we were trying to listen to the tour guide on the microphone, this Spanish couple were trying their best to talk over the guide, much to the annoyance of us as we were right in front of them. We did tell to be quiet as people were trying to listen, but they chose not to listen so we moved further down the bus. We had Russians and Italians pushing through queues while everyone else was patiently waiting. The French were just as rude. The Germans were OK, but I'm afraid the European tourists didn't give their continent the best impression.


The only poor part of the trip was a couple of passes we bought prior to getting there. We hoped to get into Times Square to watch the ball drop live. We found a website last September which claimed to sell tickets which not only allowed you to get into certain venues around the edge of the square (which is actually a triangle!) but also access to Times Square and get past the NYPD blockades. All I can say about them is that it was all utter bullshit! We had to spend two and a half hours trying to find a way to get past all the security barricades to pick up these passes, and once we had them and read the info pack we got, it became clear that these passes were worthless and we didn't have a chance of getting into Times Square! We were duped by a flashy website which looked absolutely legit. The simple message is if your going to Times Square in the future to see the ball drop and you find somewhere which claims to sell access tickets avoid it! It's too good to be true and don't waste your money. Just occupy a space from about 11am in the morning and be patient!


This didn't ruin any of the holiday as there was too much to do to spoil it. Another observation is that food is quite expensive over there. Menu prices look reasonable to begin with, but when you add tax on then 20% tip, it becomes a bit expensive. But, if you find a great steakhouse like we did then it's worth every penny!


Although bitterly cold for most of the week, we did OK weather wise. Sunny most days and no rain meant we could do everything we wanted to. It was a great week away and neither of us wanted to go home, hence we are already looking at booking again soon! It's a fantastic city full of welcoming people and great sights, just go with patience, it's a very busy place and you don't tend to get anywhere fast. Walking is probably your best option.


So, now that's over I need to sell a few more doors and windows to help pay for the next trip!

New Page, And A Bit Of Gossip

For those who haven't already seen, I've added a new page called 'Images'. I thought it might be interesting to see a slideshow of the images I've used on the blog. Most are of either the last severe winter and this one, pictures of installations we've done, and the odd image embedded in blog posts.


I'm always looking at ways for readers to do more on the site, so I saw this as a way in which they could spend more time on here.


Also, there's a bit of information about Yale's Keyless entry on the Gossip page. They're stopping selling the polished chrome and gold handles due to problems with the salt spray tests. Replacing the gold and chrome is a matt grey/silver colour. It looks OK, not as nice as the chrome in my opinion. But the big issue is that as of yet, there is no plan to bring out a suited hardware option so that the handle matches a letter box, numerals or hinges. The changing of the handle colour isn't the problem, the matching of the hardware is.


UPDATE: 16:45pm
After a meeting with our suppliers this afternoon, the polished chrome and gold options are now being reinstated. They have managed to find a supplier within the UK who can supply Yale with the quality and quantity of chrome and gold plating that they require. This now rules out the matt silver finish and the connecting problem of matching hardware.

To Fit Or Not To Fit?

As if I need to remind you, the weather is bad. Really bad. Sub-zero temperatures, snow and biting winds do not make for good conditions in which to fit windows and doors. But we are coming up to the end of the year, and if your order books are full, how easy is it to cancel pre-booked work?


We have a full order book up until we finish, and into January of next year. We also have no space left. If the snow means we have to cancel jobs, then we would be pushing work into the New Year, something which both us and our customers will not want.


Last night we've had the most snow so far, but all our staff managed to get in roughly on time despite the un-gritted Wakefield roads. More importantly, our fitting teams got out on to site. We have had to swap some fitting around, but as of yet nothing has been pushed into next year. Though if this weather holds up any longer, we may not have a choice in the matter.


The other factor which we have to take into consideration is our customers. It's all well and good us saying we want to come fit, but at the end of the day it's the customer who has ultimate choice in the matter. They won't want big gaping holes in their home for the snow and icy wind to come through. 


We're going to have to hope it doesn't snow as bad as the forecast is showing for tomorrow, and make sure we can charm our customers into letting us fit...providing we can get there!

Harry Potter Review

Without a hint of a link to the weird and wonderful double glazing world, here's what I thought of the new Harry Potter film!


Well produced film, but lacked any serious action.


I'm not the biggest Harry Potter fan in the world, but my girlfriend is, and according to her they missed a few important things out of the book. I wouldn't know, I haven't read any of the books.


For someone who isn't a mega fan, I want to see something which blows my socks off. For moments during the film it threatened to do so. It built up Voldemort's part with his quest to ready himself for the final battle which will be shown in the last film. It also focused heavily on Harry, Ron and Hermione and their struggle to find safety while on the run and trying to find a way to defeat Voldemort.


It didn't blow me away. But it didn't bore me either. It was a well scripted film, well acted and finely produced. But it wasn't action packed. And for someone who isn't a massive fan, that's what it needed. For those who have read the books and is a fan, then it was a great film as they can appreciate more what they are seeing. But it wasn't wasted on me.


The best way to judge this film is to see the next one. This is only one half of a two-part series based on the final book. I think you have to see both to be able to make a proper judgement. All in all I'll give 7/10.