Jacki's News

Read here to catch up on my latest news - cause we all know how bad I am with email!

Thursday, March 09, 2006

another installment...

Since I last wrote, I’ve had my coaching session at work. It wasn’t as bad as I stressed about! We just went over what I’d done that I planned to do from last year’s performance review, then I showed her all my unplanned projects (basically reasons why I haven’t done my set tasks) and my boss just wrote a report. Nothing to worry about! Becks (senior administrator) was sitting in with me and she said it went fine! YAY!

Last Friday was pretty interesting too. Cameron and I were just sitting around after work, watching the news when Rachel’s dad turned up at our house. He had a spare ticket to the rugby game in Hamilton (Chiefs vs Reds). He asked Cam if he wanted to fill the seat. Then he said we could both come cause we could get another ticket at the gate. It was in the Greenzone, so no set seating. So talk about spur of the moment! So off we go! Because it was the Chiefs’ first home game of the season, they had free packs for the first 1500 through the gate. Of course we were there with bells on (not literally but I do want to get a cow bell!). It had some pamphlets, a bag of pretzels and a blow up mere (spelling?!). They always through those out in the games but I’ve never caught one. Of course my one was a dud. The handle section had a munted valve so the plug wouldn’t stay in properly! Oh well, the game was heaps of fun and we won!!!!!!!


After the game, we headed home to change into some town clothes and headed in to town. Pam had sent a random text to say she was in town and we had Friday night only to see her. So we found her in the OUTBACK of all places, watching some Miss O-week competition. Of course, from then on, we lost Cameron’s attention. Great to see ya again Pam!! Or was it Pem?! I tell ya, that girl is sounding more like an aussie every time I see her!

On Saturday we all ventured off to Tauranga (Jo, Rach, Cam and I) in Jo’s car. That evening I’d arranged to catch up with quite a few people from Camp Quality at Shiraz Café. It was great to see everyone there and have a long catch up. The meal was FANTASTIC. I have never been able to find anywhere that does kebabs like they do. They are beautiful! For dessert I had homemade vanilla ice cream!! (sounds naughty, but I’d saved enough points!) It was YUM!!

Sunday, after lunch, we all met at Cameron’s parents’ house for Jo to pick us up and take us home. It was a quiet trip home as we were all reasonably tired. Arriving at East St, our lovely weekend came to an abrupt end. We noticed Rachel’s car wasn’t on the front lawn and Cameron’s curtains were pulled in his room. Cam and I went up the drive, went around the back of the house to see the sliding door wide open with the lock lying on the ground. NOT a good sign. We stepped inside and the first thing we saw was Rachel’s room, with pretty much everything in her drawers, all over the floor. We grabbed the phone and called the police. After being on hold for about 20 minutes, they finally told us it could take them up to 48 hours to get to us. So obviously, we felt important….

After assessing the damage, it wasn’t as bad as we first thought. They didn’t clean the place out, and from what they took, we suspect it was kids. From Cam’s room they took 2 cellphones, one of which wasn’t actually that old, they stripped his bed and took ONE pillow case and his duvet. In Craig’s room, they just messed it up a little, and found some playstation games in his wardrobe, but they only got as far as the bed, so they may have forgotten them. From Rachel’s room the took 2 CD wallets with about 60 CDs in them, her old cellphone that had a battery life of a day and her spare car key which was hidden in her wardrobe. In the lounge they took Pam’s OLD stereo that doesn’t even work and Craig’s playstation. AND the buggers took our Sky and TV remotes. Do you know how much those little suckers cost to replace!! In the kitchen they took Cam’s 4 bottle alcohol shot dispenser – with 4 bottles of alcohol that were sitting in them. Jo and Rach had vodka in it, but there were only a couple of drinks left in them. Poor Cam had a near full bottle of Bacardi and over half bottle of whiskey! From what it looks like, they didn’t even go upstairs to my room. I was the only one lucky enough to not get anything taken. Even my sister had something taken and she doesn’t even live with us!

The police called a few hours later and said Rach’s car had been found. Rach went to meet the Police as it was only a couple of blocks from out house. Nothing exciting had happened to the car, just a couple of bottle caps in the boot. But it was basically unharmed!! That’s quite lucky. No sign of missing items though.

As you can imagine, Rach was quite shaken up about it all, and the fact that the rest of us had to go to work the next day, made her even shakier. The sliding door was unable to be locked and could barely close! Luckily, I have very understanding workmates who said I could stay home and work from there. Though Rach protested the night before, I think she was secretly glad I stayed. I know I definitely would’ve been if the roles were reversed. Now we have supersize me locks on that door, so that should deter them for a while now! We have a great landlord who got on to the locksmith straight away.

Tuesday and Wednesday was full of talking. I ran 8 Microsoft Publisher trainings, so by the end of Wednesday I’d had enough of talking, especially about the same thing, over and over again!

Bring on the weekend, I say!