December 20th, 2006 by 0lly

It was January 2005, and a nervous shirt and tie wearing guy called 0lly turned up for his interview at a company called Mini Marquees. They make the best promotional marquees in the world, fact! And a friend of mine worked there and had put in a good word for me. The job i was going for was a Digital Printers job, and although i wasnt 100% suited/qualified for the job - my IT knowledge meant i was adaptable and could fit in with the job quite well…

…That was 2 years ago next month, and today is my last proper day here. Its been 2 of the best years of my life. The company is run by a chap who REALLY knows what he’s doing. hes one of the most switched on business men i have ever met, and i have met a fair few! He looks after his employees, and isnt tight when it comes to spending money to improve the working enviroment for his staff. Best MD Ever!

The production manager is also the bollocks, he knows whats happeneing, and when its happening. He is also a good mate of mine, and if i was to put money on who’d be running this company in a few years, it would deffo be him! Best Manager Ever!

The main designer, has also become a very close mate of mine. Ive seen him go thru a lot over the last 2 years, and he’s still going strong. Without him, this business would not have the speed and accuracy it has when dealing with customer designs. This chap is the backbone of MMX3. Best Designer Ever!

And the rest of the people who work there are ace too. The women in the sewing room, the sales guys, and the staff in the offices downstairs. Its the best working enviroment you could possibly ask for whilst working for someone else. Best Working Enviroment Ever!

The next best thing, is working for yourself. And thats exactly what the rest of my life is gonna contain.

Dave and myself have managed to get some funding from the Princes Trust, to help get our business off the ground - So when we say 2007 is going to be the year, we mean THE year.

I think we’re finishing early today, and probably going for a drink after work. And its the MMX3 Xmas party tomorrow. Then im having till January the 1st off, and then its time.

December 18th, 2006 by 0lly

Im not used to being at MMX3 on a monday. This is reallyu gonna shake my week up! We have that meeting with the princes trust tomorrow, and thats the final one. So hopefully we’ll know by the end of the week if we got it, and if we do then we can relax and take our time doing things in 2007 so that they get done properly.

It also means i can take the time to make a few structural changes to the maxxd setup. Currenty we have a server and host a shit load of sites, i need to downgrade a little, as we need to spend our time on making money, not fixing wank servers that are hosted by COMPLETE useless fucking twats who call themselves Layered Technologies! NEVER EVER EVER go with them. They may start out cheap, but its gets costly, and you never can pay too much for GOOD support. LT have never heard of customer service! Bloody bastards!

Anyway, i have been looking for a partially managed reseller account, with unlimited resources (yes, there are some available) and with the ability to import accounts from cpanel/WHM. So far NONE have the option to do this. I have found many UK based web hosts, who offer VERY good deals, but all have their own custom made control panle software. So id have to re-created each account one-by-one. Erm, no thanks! But we do need to cut costs..

If any of you know of anyhting that may suit my needs, then holla. If there isnt one in the world with CpanelWHM compatibility, then i require FULL SSH access, so i can copy all shit across at once. These ones i have found only give partial SSH access, so again, i’d have to do each account one by one.
I have to go home now, and spend some of the money i dont have.

If Layered Technologies made lager.. It would be the most foulest tasting horrible lager in the world.. Probably..

December 15th, 2006 by 0lly

My mind has been doing backflips this last week or so. I have had so much on in regards working and everyhting, that i havent been paying enough attention to my feelings for Gemma. Of course i have been expressing emotion to her, but i havent let the feelings develop in me enough to be able to handle all that is going off. I know that might not make sence to you, but it does to me. I dont think i have ever met any one who seems as compatible with me as she does. We like the same stuff, and when she isnt with me i think about her all the time, and miss her like mad. I have fallen in love with her, and unlike other relationships i would do anything she asked of me, whenever she asked it.

So why is it then, that i still think about my ex from time to time? I dont mean fantasize about her or anything like that, i just remember her every so often and it makes me sad. I have no fucking idea why tho, the relationship was doomed, she annoyed the hell out of me, she was clingy, dependant and didnt have her own life - she became part of mine. We used to argue all the time, fall out over everyhting and to be honest i grew to dispise her becasue of the amount of previous sexual partners she admitted she’d had. I dont remember the exact number - but it was HUGE. And ever since that day i couldnt shake that thought from my head.

I guess the problem is that when i got with her, she moved in, and stayed there pretty much every day for a year and a half. Now imagine you get a dog, and he’s around you for a year and a half, but he shits everywhere, and chews your superstars. If he died or ran away after a year and a half, you’d be sad - even though he was a little bastard. I guess thats what im feeling, cos i certinaly dont feel an attraction to her any more.

I just want to move on now, and develop my ties with Gem. I love her very much and cant let her go. I asked myself a question when i was in my last relationship. it was;

“Can you see yourself with her in 5 years time?”

The answer before was a downright NO.

The answer this time, is a definate YES.

Do you people belive in soul mates?

December 12th, 2006 by 0lly

Hahah.. Today we went to pc world and bought ourselves a printer. Some other business “things” have progressed further today, and hopefully me and dave may be celebrating something next tuesday. I wont say any more on the matter, as it wil probably Jinx it!

Things are going great at the mo, everything seems to be happening for a reason. Things happen that force us to do stuff, and that leads on to other stuff and its all just getting better and better.

More updates tomorrow, im nackered!

December 8th, 2006 by 0lly

Im sat here awaiting the clock to strike 17:00 so i can leave this place and go home. I have to nip home, then to my dads, then i have to go to the office and work on some bits and bobs for a few hours. Anyway, whilst i was checking emails etc this morning i got a PM off a member of the maxxd site staff regarding something or other. And this discussion went on to talk about the DIR. He also mentioned that he personally thought we had done things in the wrong order, and proceeded to give me his opinion on what we should have done.I have no issues with people giving us constructive criticism, but i didn’t see this as being constructive at all. When i look back at the way we have gone about things, i see that we have taken the best, safest and most effective path to get to the stage we are at now.

We were at one point both working full time, for random companies. Whilst we were doing this we ran Maxxd.com and made that the name it is today. Then we slowly went down to 3 days a week, and worked on maxxd stuff 2 days a week, and the next stage is to move onto full time work on maxxd things.

If we’d of tried to get the DIR 100% up and running whilst still in full time work, well, it wouldn’t be possible. You cant do two jobs at the same time! And if we’d jumped in head first since day one, we’d both be so financially crippled by now that we’d both of probably OD’d on crack and died

I quite often get the impression that NO ONE has any faith in me, or the things i do. I speak to my parents and they don’t really seem to care. My dad seems more bothered about his new family, than what his own flesh and blood is doing with himself [although he did seem to show more interest tonight, when i went for dinner there. That kinda helped a bit]. And although my mother shows an interest i can see deep down she doesn’t have faith, and that she’d much prefer me to get a boring 9-5 job like every other sheep on the planet. I just want my parents to be proud of me.

Well, fuck it all. I couldn’t give a fuck if it takes us 3 more years of struggling, scrimping and saving, i am never going back to work for anyone ever again. And im also post the point of caring whether or not people have any faith in what we are doing. I know that me and dave will be able to do the things we say, and i KNOW that in 3 years time we will be looking back and laughing at the people that didn’t have any faith.

You’d of thought our friends would be happy for us? That we are progressing our lives and making a go of things, whilst the rest of the world plods on. My mum mentioned today that her boss - the big boss man of crown in the UK - said he envied ME. And the reason he envied me is because im making a jump, im risking it all. Whereas he had always taken the easiest option.

Next time you’re faced with a decision, and can either chose a easy way, or a hard way - choose the hard way. you’ll be surprised at how satisfying it is to achieve something under your own name, instead of someone else’s.

Think Big. Aim High. Fuck the Poleece.

December 7th, 2006 by 0lly

Hah, from time to time, i hear people bellowing on about how good they are, or how much better their stuff is than yours. Now it winds me, it REALLLLLLLYY winds me. As i dont see why people have to big themselves up so much? No one like hearing a big head go on about how good they are, so whenever i hear someone talking like that i simply reply..

“Your medals in the post duck”

Ok, so maybe without the Duck part. But usualy i make a joke about it and they shut up. Its something i have said for years, and finally the day came where i actually recieved a medal in the post!

Ok, so it wasnt in the post as such, but it was in an envelope kind of addressed to me!

I didnt take a picture of the medal, as im a doughnut. But its ace. I originally thought i couldnt get it over my fat head - but we realised it was velcro’d at the top as wardo tried it on and i thought he ripped it! So im officially a winner!! - Totally awesome!

We got a new TV and Xmas tree from wardo’s mum and dad as well, the TV is fucking amazing. Ill post a pic of that tomorrow! Hopefully i can get a scart thingy, and test to see if it works with my laptop. If it does we can finally watch the millions of films i have on my hard drive on a BIG screen! WOop!

Me and gem have adopted a little black baby too. His name is trevor, and he cost just over £2.50 haha. Of course, he isnt a human, that would be silly! hes a fish! And he’s the bomb!

Gem decided she wanted a black fish with buldgy eyes. So thats exactly what she got! He lives at my house, and hes as good as gold. His first word was “Momma” but im sure i heard him say “Adidas superstars” the other day! Hes growing fast and Gem thinks hes got fatter since the weekend! Aww trev!

In other news, the New Tesco Extra has opened in Oak Tree, Mansfield. Its massive, it has everything in the world in it. but its still not as big as asda! its nice to have such a modern and BRIGHT thing about 5 seconds away from my house. to be fair its probably my local shop! There aint shit near me!

For the last part of my blog entry today, im gonna comment on mansfield excuse for a Xmas tree. right…

For one, its only half lit up. By that i mean there are pretty blue lights, that STOP half way up the tree. It looks like the top half has been lobbed off by an axe weilding pensioner who had just missed their bus. Secondly, its fucking tiny. This tree is for everyone in mansfield, and i have seen bigger ones in peoples front rooms. Its pathetic!

Mansfield District Council, if your reading this then how about spend some of our council tax on stuff for us, instead of spending it on people who are too lazy or too smacked out their faces to get fucking jobs.

God this country sucks sometimes!

Im gonna spell check this and the last blog post, and then im gonna do some work i recon..

Peace out homies and homegirls

December 6th, 2006 by 0lly

I havent updated in that long, i have been DESPERATLY trying to rememebr all the shit i have done so that i can blog about it all.

Ill start with the weekend first, it was pretty shite as i was working most of it. The first ngiht they were 2 hours and ten minutes late taking me off shift, i was fucking fuming! After spending 12 hours there, and seeing it as a complete waste of my life - the last thing i want to do is spend another 2 hours and ten minutes there! Bastards!

Apart from working, i visited Gem’s sisters graduation thingy, where she went up and got a certificate for getting really good grades! Well done zoe! And apart from that i did nothing! Obviously i spent time with my truelly fantastic girlfriend. The time we spend together just brings us closer together. I love her!

Monday was a very important and hectic day for me. First thing i had to go to court about my Fixed penalty notice. I had protested the reason for me actually getting it in the first place with the police via snail mail. And as the process took so long the 28 days i was given to pay £30 had expired, and i was now forced to pay £45 and visit court. Now, i didnt mind paying the £30 now they had turned round and said “Tough shit, your not getting out of this one you bastard” but i wasnt prepared to pay £45 just becasue they took fucking ages sending a few letters!

I went to court anyway, and it went swimingly! (rofl..) The magistrates totally saw my point, and allowed me to pay £30 there and then and settle it once and for all. Ha!

After that me and dave moved into our office! Its small, but its bangin! Im actually sat in it right now! Its such a better enviroment than the thor office, no shouting, no bendy floors, no annoying people. And no smoke! A smoke free enviroment is so much easier to work in!

Tuesday was spent setting shit up, moving desks in setting computers up and generally getting things we needed for the office. Its a mint feeling to be in YOUR OWN place of work. No one dictating working hours, workwear, or wether i can have my music playing or not. Rock on daddio!

Then back to my 3 day a week job that is getting such a drag now. I will be sad to see the place go, but im very anxious to move on now. Its been fun working there, and they are all a amazing bunch of people but its just not for me any more. I think i finish in a few weeks. Gulp..

Im off to our wednesday meeting now, gotta nip home first. More updates tomorrow boys and girls!

December 1st, 2006 by 0lly

My mother called me on my mobile about 11:00am this morning, and told me to meet her at her work at half 12 for some lunch - her treat. Hmm.. Now ive either done something and she wants to moan, or i have forgot something she wanted to give me back.

I got to her work at exactly 12:30, and went up to her office. She was just finishing a phone call, when she’d finished i gave her a hug and she said “I have something for you here”

She handed me an envelope, and inside was £220! She had been taking part in a savings scheme for xmas, where you give £20 a month to this woman at her work, and she saves it up for everyone and then gives it all back at the start of decemeber. My mum had been doing one for me too!

Ace!

So with that cash im gonna buy a few xmas prezzys, and im gonna buy me and dave some office stuff. Hopefully we’ll be able to get everyhting we need for when we start on monday.

Oh shit…

The rest of our lives, start on monday. Thats less than 57 hours away! Wholly crap!

The first week is bound to be a farse, as we have to get everything ready and put office furnature in place so that we have a good working enviroment.

Im getting quite scared now!

Please, everyone who reads this.. Cross your fingers, and if your religious PRAY for us..

I think i might take up a religion, then i can pray - and if it all go’s tits up i have someone other than myself to blame! hahaha.. :/