Now we all make typos from time to time (I do) and spell checkers are unreliable. From and form are both words, and a spell checker won't ever pick that up when you type form when you meant to type from, which is something that happens to me quite often.

But how about this for a typo.

I've just been with my eldest lad down to a place called Acocks Green (which is about 5 miles from where I live) to pick up some ant nest killer called Dethlac. It was almost a wasted trip as they didn't have any, but we enjoyed a really good laugh which made it all worth while.

On the way there we drove past a new store which had a HUGE sign over the top of it. The plastic letters must have been two feet high, and it was really hard to miss.

And that's what made us laugh so much.

I can just imagine a conversation at the sign creators.

First person: "I don't think you spell it like this."
Second person: "That's what they asked for, and we say really clearly that we do the wording exactly as they asked for it."
First person: "Shouldn't we give them a call?"
Second person: "Nope. Just do it will you? We've got a lot on today."

The sign read

EX-CATALOUGE CLEARANCE CENTRE

-Frank Haywood

I couldn't concentrate, think straight, or even start a sentence. My memory, poor as it is, stopped being any real use to me too.

I'm not kidding.

At the same time, I was constantly tired and didn't need any excuse to close my eyes for a nap. In fact, I was getting up in the morning, doing the school run with my wife and then that was it. I needed to go back to sleep.

Yes, I was a bit worried about it, but not to the point where I felt I had to see a doctor…

But it turns out it must have been a virus. Eventually it broke into a sore throat, sniffles and a headache. About the same time my mind started to clear up.

Also, my wife now has the same symptoms, which makes me feel better in a perverse sort of way as I know that my problem wasn't something more serious.

And because we were both in the same frame of mind for a while, some conversations have been a little strange.

The following joke is a good example of what it's been like in our house.

There's an old couple at breakfast time, and the lady says "I'd like something a bit special for breakfast this morning."

"Oh yes dear, what's that then?"

"I'd like some ambrosia rice pudding please. I know there's a tin in the cupboard, I saw it there yesterday."

"Okay, I'll do that then."

"I haven't finished yet. Write this down, you know you'll only forget it."

"No, I'm okay, I won't forget. What else do you want?"

"I also want some whipped cream on top."

"Okay. Ambrosia rice pudding with whipped cream on top."

"Write it down, I know you'll forget what I've said."

"No dear, it's okay, I won't forget. Is that all?"

"I bought some strawberries yesterday. I'd like two strawberries on top please."

"Right! Ambrosia rice pudding with whipped cream on, and two strawberries to top it off. Is that it?"

"Yes. But please write it down, you know you'll only get it all wrong."

"No, no, dear. I'll remember it perfectly well. Rice pudding, whipped cream, two strawberries."

"Ooh, okay then, if you're sure."

So off the old gent goes into the kitchen, and for the next twenty minutes comes the sound of banging and clattering, cupboards opening and closing and so on.

He finally returns with a plate, and on that plate are two rashers of bacon, two fried eggs, and a sausage.

His wife looks at it incredulously, one eyebrow raised, and with a look of total exasperation on her face. Finally she says "See! I knew you'd forget if you didn't write it down!"

"Wha… wha… what's the matter dear? What have I done wrong?"

She looks at him and says…

"You've forgotten the toast!"

-Frank Haywood

There are two reasons.

#1 – I've been helping Alex Jeffreys get his new site together, and it's taken a lot longer than either of us thought it would.  This is because Alex wanted to test out a few things, and so we had to take a bit of care over how the site was constructed, and more specifically the site flow.

#2 – My mom found out that her breast cancer had returned, so I've been very distracted and pre-occupied with that.  She had an op to remove the cancer and seems in good spirits.  A body scan (results came through yesterday) has revealed that there are no secondary cancers detected, but she'll still have to go through radiotherapy and chemotherapy anyway.

It turns out that for the last 3 years since her last lumpectomy, she's been taking a drug called Tamoxifen which has no benefits in her case.  They couldn't (or didn't) test at the time, but it appears that it has no effect on suppressing cancer for her.  It doesn't work for everybody.

So two weeks ago they put her on a different drug called Irimidex which they've tested on her cancerous cells they removed and can see that also has no effect.  The only one that has proved positive for her in tests is the so-called wonder drug Herceptin.  She's been told they'll put her on that during or more likely after chemotherapy.

So it's good news all round really, and a bit of a relief for us all.  Hopefully there's just 6 months of her feeling very ill due to the chemotherapy, and she'll be okay.

Time will tell.

On a much lesser note, I've been so distracted with other things that I just a few moments ago realised I wasn't feeling very well myself.  Now I look back over the last few days, all the warning signs were there, but this time I didn't notice.

I guess it's just a "summer" bug (it's just been announced that summer in the UK is on a Wednesday this year), but it's scrambled my brain, made me ache all over, and generally made me feel very tired.

So I've just had something hot to eat, half a pint of orange juice, a couple of ibuprofen and I think I'm going to take a nap.

Just one of the many benefits of working from home…

-Frank Haywood

In this case, feeling sorry for myself because I'm over tired and feeling over worked, I came across an article that's blown away many of my mis-conceptions, and also made me feel a little stupid as well as very humble.

Dare I say it, I even shed a tear.

Going against one of my taboo subjects that I never discuss (sex, religion and politics), the article in question has certainly set me right.

I've disabled comments on this post as I don't want to start an enormous discussion about it.  Agree with the article or not, I'm sure you'll feel a little more educated after reading.  I do.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Columns/y2008/Powellsweatshops.html

-Frank Haywood

(An "accountability partner" is someone who you go through 5 questions with each day.  The questions are designed to keep you focussed and on track with your daily tasks, and so also your long term goals.)

The call is supposed to last 7 minutes to go through our questions and answers with 3½ minutes each.  But it usually runs over because we chat.

One of the questions is (paraphrased) "what are you going to do today to further your goals?". Diane's reply was "to clear up my space".

Because we'd both been on a teleseminar call last night about MySpace, it seemed a pretty topical thing to do.  So I then spoke about MySpace for about 15-30 seconds, which is quite a long time in a telephone conversation.

And then Diane said, "no I meant my space here is a bit of a mess, I need to tidy up…"

Anyway, I'm still chuckling about it, but it just goes to show how a conversation can go completely down the wrong route without a bit of clarification.  I wonder if any wars have started because of a simple misunderstanding?

It also shows how you can jump to a conclusion (well I can anyway), when you don't have all of the facts.

The roof on my office which is attached to the side of the house needs replacing, and has done for a while.  While it will hold off most of the elements, the kind of rain we had the other night severely tested it.

Can you guess what's coming?

Well…

We have a couple of leaks.  One we already knew about and so we've temporarily dealt with it by using some plastic sheeting.  The other we thought we'd fixed for good.

But no.

The rain was so rainy, it leaked in again through the same spot.  Here's the funny thing.  I didn't know about it until this morning when I reached for a marker pen that's in one of those little multi-pen-tidier-thingummies.

It came out wet.

Somehow, the rain had dripped in just enough to almost fill one of the pen holder bays without splashing a drop anywhere else on my desk.

The diameter of the pen holder bay is an inch across and if I'd put it there deliberately to catch the water, then of course it wouldn't and my desk would have been soaked.

I've been lucky this time (if you believe in that kind of thing), but it's just one more thing I have to deal with at some point in the not too distant future…