Plenty are on lease these days. Like you say, definitely seem to be more of them – and similar – marques around these days. I also think a fair few folk made a mint on equity (late 90’s to mid 00’s) and as such went and splashed the cash because they could.

I bought a 4yr old M3 a while back followed by a brand new 320D Sport the following summer. But that was at a time when I swapped cars every year or so. Have different priorities now and have stuck with my A4 since 05. Depreciation is scary.

Had a lot of fun with this back in 04-05:

Petrol mowers IMO tend to be quite heavy beasts, and as a result they can churn up bumpy patches especially in wet conditions. Not such an issue if your lawn if comparatively flat. Hence my preference is to stick with a Bosch Rotak – very light and agile plus the side blades trim anything sticking out from borders, fences and walls etc.

Yep. Love it that bit more when I/we find a wicked new trail or two (as has happened on Winterfold/Pitch in the last couple of weeks.

custom moulded orthotic inserts

Yep, that’s what I had. Knew it was an ‘ortho-something’. Well worth checking out.

The video analysis should help. I think was told I was an over-pronator and that was contributing to the problem. Hence the custom soles worked pretty well. Think they cost £70/pair (about 7-8 years ago).

I had shin splints years ago – probably from over-exuberant football training. Got progressively with all the other running I was doing. Ended up doing the following over a 12+ month period:

> 5-10 min walking pace warm-up at the start of each run
> break up every 10-15 mins running with 5 mins walking
> return home, put feet up and pack ankles/shins in ice (socks packed with cubes works fine)

Condition may well improve. Mine did, but not sufficient to say it was over. So that’s when I had a special sole thingy made (to measure) for each foot. This reduced pain by about a further 50% so I then started cycling more and running less. After a few months I was perfectly fine. Have literally been able to run any time/distance (well, fitness permitting of course) since. I put it down to strengthening the problem area coupled with reducing the impact ‘brittle-ness’.

The other guy?

Always gonna be a subjective one this, but I’ll go for an Enduro or Stumpy. Owned variants of both (S-Works and Carbon) for a while and they’re far more competent that I am.

– 3 or 4 blackberry and apple/plum crumbles so far
– loads of blackberry muffins
– 2 bottles elderflower champagne (tastes shed loads better than normal champers)
– blackberry whiskey underway

Although I´d suggest getting as far away as possible from vista, either upgrade or downgrade.

3-4 yrs ago, maybe. But I don’t FTLOM know why people keep bleating about Vista issues. IME had very few issues in 2-3 yrs of 64bit pre-W7 chilldom.

Nah, you’re being harsh on Szczesny there Fred. Mind you, 8 goals is a lot to let in!

Am worried about DDG. I believe he’ll come good, but he’s got to cut out those simple errors.

Facing a team in form? How about when we beat Shitty 3-2 in the CS?

Can’t agree with you there Fred. A few of those efforts were placed just inside the post so the keeper had little chance. Sure, he could’ve done better with a couple but IMO he didn’t have much say in it.

DDG on the other hand still looks nervy (or just shit). Forget the penalty save – any keeper can have his moment with those. Just annoying that he’s let in 4 soft goals in 4 games. Wouldn’t have happened with VDS.

Ah, Gus … me and a mate used to call him the Vampire Chimp in his playing days … hasn’t changed a bit.

Still the weekend’s good news was that the Gus bus is on it’s way to the premiership.

Yeah, it would be wicked to see Brighton back in the big time, especially after everything they’ve been through in recent years.

WTF is that hugor? Some kind of burger, bacon, egg, mushroom and cheese hotdog? Are you somewhere in the States?

With a bit of luck Arsenal will offer £8m for Scott Parker now, they certainly need him!

Spoilt for choice is Parker; Spurs or the Arse … hmmm … both fighting for a bottom four finish.

Surrey Hills has plenty of fun swoopy stuff for beginners, but also enough rad to the core stuff for the more experienced.

Swinley is full of simple singletrack that’s easy to find because a lot of it criss-crosses in the same area. Also some more technical stuff and some faster DH bits.

fridge lasagne is the best lasagne. Especially on bread and butter.

Bread and butter? You’re having a laugh. Proper, home-made garlic bread more like. Is what the good lady and I will be having this evening courtesy of her efforts yesterday.

Kebab – the morning after.

Nothing like seeing last night’s dog meat swaddled in congealed fat.

Tis enough to make sure you eat the whole damn thing next time :)+

Yeah but what about all the people who use iMovie, iPhoto, iDVD, Garagebaynd, iWeb, Quicktime Broadcaster and stuff what don’t have to go out and spend hundreds of pounds more on additional software once they’ve bought their Mac?

Since when did Mildred say they wanted a machine to do all that?

If you read my post, you’ll notice … oh hang on, you did read my post because you quoted it. Maybe you didn’t actually process it.

Why do some people really hate W7? Are you running it on under-specc’d PCs and/or just not maintaining them properly?

BTW, I don’t really give a shit. Just seems odd that a fair number of people (not just here) come up with this but can’t always justify it.

+1 for those who say “Why spend the extra dollars on a Mac if all you’re gonna use it for is a bit of MS Office etc.” Just not worth it unless you have money to burn.

Hopefully the Tosh will be up to scratch.

Someone here mentioned these the other day. Maybe have a chat with them.

And what about a chain type thingy?

Unless the tracks are very well surfaced, more or less like a road,

Plenty of your normal hardpack in parts, but also loads of flinty/chalky/rocky/pebbly stuff too (particularly on the ups and downs).

Enough sensible stuff above already so I’ll keep mine short.

Short climbs: sometimes spin up these as normal (or roll a higher gear), other times I sprint (seated) .
Med climbs: usually spin along but sometimes attack if there are multiple brows or similar.
Long climbs: again, spinning does the trick. Might occasionally ramp up a gear or two and slog roll. Maybe the odd sprint.

Can’t say I’ve looked into the technical/scientific reasoning enough as to what works best etc. I do have a strange liking for hills though.

I’m also happy to hook up for a session. Have been longing to find the time to do the SDW in a day – there’s no way I’d attempt the double. That is proper nutjobville.

Like others have said, there are plenty of sections where you can easily miss a turning. And heading 1 mile downhill in the wrong direction means climbing back up.

Cheers guys. Plenty of valuable comments. Having a chat with the SM later today.

geetee, I’ve made a note – will drop you a line if things don’t improve. Cheers.

valleydaddy, yes we have a PP, but they’re not always heeded to. Management prefer to ‘de-formalise’ certain things and see where support (within reason) can be given. I think the problem here is that we all expected him to hit the ground running.

EDIT: have just had a chat with another sales person who said this guy admitted he doesn’t have the discipline to work from home. He’s always been office-based but thought this was the right move for him. Oh well …

His SM is a good manager – plus he and I get on really well (professionally and personally). But he’s also starting to wonder if this guy just won’t cut it from home.

As mentioned already, part of my role is tied to sales activity so I’m given free reign to support the team where necessary. Hence I’ve been happy to do my bit above and beyond, but I’m now going to change tact.

When I say I’ll have a diplomatic word with him, I don’t mean pussyfooting around in a softly softly manner. I’m talking about putting the (lack of) evidence in front of him and laying it on the line, while asking him to recall his goals and motivations. This is something the SM and I can do together.

The guy is very capable and we want him to succeed. We just need to add and manage more accountability.

Spesh have one of the best warranties in the business. Although not at liberty to, chances are they would honour a warranty issue or crash-replacement to a second hand owner based on 1) believing the owner to have looked after the bike, especially bearings and bushings on a FS, and 2) asking for a comparitively small contribution.

They did this for me years ago and I’ve since been to their workshop 5-6 times since. Very good people.

don, I am not responsible for him. My dept merely works hand in hand with the sales team and as a result I encourage productivity and communication etc. It works for everyone else except this one person. As I’ve said before, he is IMO not ‘the home worker type’ and therefore finds it too easy to slack.

Coming onto a forum to ask the question hardly points at failure. I’m merely looking at what other people have to say and mixing that up with ideas discussed inhouse.

Yes, I have spoken with him about this – more and more over the last month or so. My bottom line is “If you’re not delivering results (sales) then you need to show evidence of activity etc.”

And I’ve taken the coaching approach (asked questions, listened on all levels, encouraged him to explore his own motivations/goals/methods etc) and he comes out of that on a real mission. But IMO he simply gets off the phone and adopts the easy life because he can.

Have given him leads but don’t get nearly enough info by return. Have gone through the CRM process with and asked him to substantiate weekly activity. And guess what? Last week’s activity was nigh on nothing. Same leads with pretty much the same notes as the week before … and the week before.

I was giving him the benefit of the doubt prior, but now I’m just getting pissed off.

Am going to find some way to diplomatically tell him the pressure is on. Hmm

Similar boat here. Have boxes and boxes of books – could barely give some of them away even to sellers. Seems such a waste.

Might not work for you Cougar, but for anyone who’s interested in swapping, check out: ReadItSwapIt.

An STW version might work too.

jruk, he’s both a lead gen and closer, but he can bring in other resource to aid any aspect. He’s got the ability, but IMO it’s the fact he’s based from home that’s the problem. I’m convinced he would be delivering if sat in an office because his activity would be plainly visible.

Sounds like your man needs a rocket up his backside though

^^^
THIS

I don’t know if we pay his home tel bill – if we do, then I’d like to request a copy of his calls since day one. That, coupled to his mobile activity should paint a picture.

So the answer is no, he’s not making sales. If he had the evidence to support this then I (and some other guys) would look at other ways to support him.

Fair enough his initial target was unrealistic, but that’s offset by part of his role being to get himself out there and network with as many DMs as possible; to create exposure, understand their issues/challenges etc.

I’m convinced he’s just lazy.

He made one small sale 2 months ago, but that was an off-shoot of a renewal so was likely going to come in anyway.

We’re pretty similar RJ in that we throw micro-management out of the window and encourage people to deliver on what’s expected. We give them the tools and they go off and do the work. Sometimes we put in 12-15hr days (you know what it’s like in sales) because we ‘have’ to. Other times it’s a case of running things on tick over.

But this guy is barely updating anything on CRM. He won’t reveal the accuracy of his call list. And he seems more keen on scheduling lunch meetings with people before even qualifying them. WTF?

The Don speaketh the truth.

Then you havethe special needs customers, who thinks that the local shop meat and veg is better than the local supermarket, its all the same cow pig and veg, or does theirs come from a lab.

WTF is that supposed to mean? Methinks you can’t even begin to substantiate that statement.

NHS – tis a law unto itself.

I see that CIGNA employs Lean Six Sigma.

I built a course on Lean Awareness last year. Really not sure quite how many of the 4000 staff supposedly taking it are genuinely going to adopt it.