History Is Fantasy

Eduardo Recife is a graphics guy I like a lot. I've been checking his Misprinted Type site for years now but only today did I find his commercial work site here. Really great stuff that guy does, so inspiring. Following a link to some video for an HBO history lecture show called Assume The Position. It looks pretty good stuff and I might just BT some of it for a look-see. You gotta love bittorrent, it's so cool being able to just download stuff that seems interesting without having to wait for your own broadcast networks to pick up on it. Phil passed over a bunch of episodes of Dexter in the week that I'm looking forward to sitting down with.

Only a week to go until our Easter holiday break up in Northumberland in the village of Beadnell. Really looking forward to it. Taking Pebbles up with us will force us into a different sort of holiday I reckon. A simpler holiday, consisting of fresh air and beach walks hopefully. Dylan is keen to check out out some Roman stuff so a trip down to Hadrian Wall is definitely in the plan, if only for another sword for his collection.

Not much to summarize from the working week. Ducked out of gym on Friday due to strained muscle in the hip area. I'll be back on Monday, if only on weights. Popped over to Coventry on Wednesday to catch up with ex-colleagues and members of the elite Chancers team. Great to see everyone and love the fact that eveyone seems to really value keeping in touch. Long may it continue.

Karting

Karting last night with some of the guys from work. The group split into teams of two for a 1 hour endurance race. Phil and I teamed up in Kart 11. Phil drove first and set off at a great pace getting miles ahead of the pack. I was half-pleased and half-terrified, concerned that I would let the side down. It took me a while to build up the required agression to go full-out around the course. But once I got into the zone, the red-mist came down and I was pushing myself hard to keep the pace up. I was stoked. In the end, we came in third place which I was chuffed with considering it was my first time karting. Glad I didn't let the side down. Top fun all in all. The kids were impressed with my bronze medal. You can see an example lap of the track here.

A lovely spring-like sunny morning, Dylan and I did the swimming lesson routine and Harriet played out with her friends. Later on I went down the high street to pick up the obligatory mothers day flowers and bumped into Mike who was looking well. I hope we can get together for some creative action soon.

Games In Good Health

Listening to the 1Up Yours podcast on the way to work this morning reporting from the current Game Developers Conference. It sounds like Sony may finally have some interesting stuff coming up on the PS3. It will be nice to get excited about that bit of kit at last. Hopefully some Nintendo news will be coming out from there soon too. Go Ninty!

Gym attendance still going strong and I'm starting to feel some benefits from it in a general feeling of well-being along with a flexibility I've not had for many many years. I'm already starting to wonder why I ever left it this long to do this when it makes me feel so good about stuff.

Official Companion

Meeting tonight with my soon-to-be accountant in Birmingham. It was a two-hour chat that went by in a flash. My mind is spinning a bit with figures and I'm musing on some decisions that need to be made. As always, talking it over with Jacq helped me with my moral compass.

Managed a little bit of retail action while walking through the Bullring tonight. Picked up a copy of Firefly: The Official Companion for a real good price. It looks sweet, with lots of pictures and info that I can geek out over later. On a related note, my second set of trading cards arrived today, full of Serenity goodness.

Lunar Eclipse

After swimming, the afternoon was spent over at Marys house for Jodies birthday. Good to see everyone as it's been a while.

Waiting in the drive-thru on the way home, I rambled on about how great our new car is. The improvement in space and functionality for the family is a joy to me. I think it suits us really well.

It was a lunar eclipse last night. The sky was clear so we got a good look at it. Although Flickr is full of moon shots this morning (no, not THAT type of moon), it wasn't worth pointing my camera at it as I just don't have the lens.

Look What Happened There

Can't remember much of what happened at the weekend as it's got to Thursday night already in the blink of an eye. One thing to report though was a quick shopping trip up town on Sunday afternoon where I scored the first series of Battlestar Galactica from Virgin for just £12.99! Thirteen quid for 4 DVD's, that's good value in my book. T'wife says I can't watch 'em as they're too boring but she wasn't keen when I brought Firefly into the house and look what happened there.

Pleased to report that since joining the gym last week it's been 100% daily attendance so far. It's a bit of a mad rush trying to get a solid block of time actually on the equipment so I hope I can stretch my lunch-hour by a bit as I get more settled into the workplace.

Booked holiday for the upcoming Easter break up in Beadnell, Northumberland. Easter is at the end of this month which seems ridiculously close but it will be fun to be away with the dog for the first time.

Trading Cards

First week done at new workplace. Friday night journey home not as bad as expected. Jacq went over to Carols for some cooking-slash-party thing. She found it boring and needed booze to get through it, ending up with the blokes in the kitchen.

Jacq and I went to see Hot Fuzz this afternoon while my parents looked after the kids and took the dog up the woods. Film was good, not as good as 'Shaun', but good.

Some post waiting when we got back home. Love getting post. Love getting post from US even more. I got trading cards. I love trading cards. I don't like buying trading cards by the individual packet, but buying them as a complete set rocks! Got myself a lovely set of Firefly cards which are a joy to flick through. Firefly is one of my most favourite TV shows ever.

Oh and Jacq is great. Great great great.

New Direction

This week has gone so quick, it's Thursday already and I've not yet blogged about starting at a new workplace this week. I'm over in Leicester now and there are a few friendly faces here. It's great to be working with Phil and Dan again. On the first lunchtime we took a stroll and it was just like old times, except with less to bitch about.

A more than usual amount of TV has been watched just recently. 24 and Lost are essential, but the highlight is Heroes which started on Monday night. I'm loving this. Took me until the second episode to get fully into it but I'm there now. Hiro is my fave character so far but I expect that will change as things develop. The fact that the actor that plays Hiro is also an oscar-winning ILM employee make me sick with envy.

Inspired by Phil and frankly using him as moral support, I've finally joined a gym. It feels like a big step for me and it's long overdue. I'm determined to get into the routine of going every lunchtime and really making this a 'lifestyle change' as my doctor calls it. I've only been twice so far and not attempting anything too ambitious until I've had my induction session next week.

Now I Can Love My Car

So glad to report that I've got the car back from the garage and it's running like shit off a shovel. What a relief that is, I can now allow myself to love my car. I'd been holding off getting too attached on the off-chance that I might have to return it should the lack of performance in the engine become too much to bear. But all is well, the car drives nice now and it's here to stay.

A Flickrmeet tomorrow with the Black Country group, having a walk around Walsall. Looking forward to this as I've never had a close look at the town. Jacq and the kids are coming too and they will mostly be hanging around the New Art Gallery which I hope to check out as well as it's been ages since we've been there. Hope they've still got Noddy Holder as the voice of the lift announcer. That's the best bit. An art installation in itself.

My Own Personal Flickrmeet

Dropped my new car into the garage this morning to check out the under-powered effect I've been noticing. I hope they can find something wrong to fix otherwise I'll have to swap the car and I don't want to do that. After the drop-off, I took a walk into town through the streets of Digbeth. The sun was shining strong and I enjoyed my own personal Flickrmeet.

I know that lots of people didn't much care for the first Fantastic Four film, but I liked it. I was glad to learn that a sequel had been sanctioned and now I've seen the trailer for it I'm stoked. Check it out here.

Another Last Day

I don't like last days. I hate feeling like I might be the focus of any kind of attention. That's a bit lame I'll admit, but there it is. I just wanted to get my work done, get my hours in, and get out of there with the minimum ammount of fuss. So just after lunch I made my backups, made my excuses and left. Thankfully no bridges were burnt and the door was left open to stay in contact, there's every possibilty I could work work for them again under the right circumstances. Can't ask for better than that I guess.

Last days, I hate 'em. I suppose I should get more used to them. They're a feature of the landscape.

The snow returned today. It was snowing as I left the office and the queues on the M6 south were horrendous, but nothing compared to the chaos I encountered on leaving the motorway. It must have took me almost an hour to travel the last couple of miles from the motorway exit to my house. I almost didn't make into my road. Much wheelspinning on the hill. But I made it glad to say. Sense of relief when I got into the house.

Jacq picked up a sledge on the high street so off we went to the woods. Much fun was had. Harriet and her friend Ellie were on the sledge, me and Dylan were rolling down the hill, Jac and Pebbles surveyed the scene.

Telly and wine were enjoyed later from the sofa. It's the start of a half-term holiday. Does it get any better than this?

The Woods Transformed

The snow stuck around yesterday and it was great to go out for a walk in it. Usually the evening walk of the dog involves walking along the edge of Warley Woods, but never IN the woods. That's because basically it is a dark and scarey place on a winters evening and I'm a scaredy-cat. But last night the woods were illuminated by the snowfall and filled with the sound of laughter. We ventured through the trees and came out in the open area to see hundreds of people enjoying the snowy slopes on a variety of sledge contraptions. Unfortunately we don't own a sledge, I don't even know where to but such an item. Hopefully some enterprising soul will sell sledges on the high street after this recent snow and we can pick one up then, ready for the next time.

A Taste Of Winter

It snowed this morning. It wasn't the storm the news had been in a panic about for the previous few days, but it was nice. Enough snow to get the schools closed, although that's not saying much. I travelled into work without any problems which is where I am right now. I hope the kids get to have a play in the snow before it melts. The dog saw it for the very first time this morning and she ran back into the house.

It was my birthday on Sunday just gone. Jacq got me an iPod Shuffle. That thing is small! Been listening to Boards Of Canada on the nightly dog walk. Should be a nice soundtrack to a walk in the snow tonight.

Finishing at my current workplace tomorrow and I'm taking a week off next week as the kids are on half-term break. Looking forward to the week off as it's arrived almost as a surprise. Looking forward also to starting at my new place of work the week after.

A Day Off

Too much stuff on today to possibly consider doing a days work at the office. So, no wages for me today. Set off this morning over to Leicester for an interview. The journey was as long as I had feared and motorway trouble meant that I had to phone ahead and warn of my late arrival, not a good start. The interview went fine and I reckoned that I pressed all the right buttons. It really helps in an interview situation to go into it NOT wanting the position. Following the two hour meeting, I caught up with my mate Phil and discussed things. My head was spinning with many questions and it helped enormously to bounce some ideas off him.

Headed back to Brum for a dental appointment. What fun. I hate the injections. Sitting in the waiting room my head felt like it was about to explode. Stressing about a possible new job and worrying about an injection, I was in a right state. Anyways, I survived of course. Managed to get back in time to pick up my little beauties from school. Discussed things further with Jacq and decided that I would indeed go for this new job. Soon after, the call came through from the agent that an offer had been made. So now it's real, I have a new position to go to if I want it. I've got this weekend to let things sink in and on Monday I'll be going into the office to drop the news. There will be an undeniable satisfaction in demonstrating to the guys who've been chuntering on about no work and moving on that yes, I'm moving on, and you lot can stay, chuntering on.

Spoke with Mike tonight and I hope we can get together soon. Although he's not been too well recently, I'm chuffed as fuck about some of the creative stuff he's been up to. You go Micky!

Should have gone out to see The Nightingales tonight but I wasn't feeling up to it. A mixture of the dental work and the stressing about work stuff meant that an evening on the sofa with the wife and a box of wine was far more appealing. The kids had a 'sleepover' tonight, which involves Dylan sleeping on the floor in Harriets room and the two of them having a great time playing with Gameboys and all-sorts, joking and giggling. I love it when they decide to do that. Good times.

Egg (Mc)Muffin

Well by now you'll have all seen the reports on all the major news channels, the shocking news of the rise in price of the McDonalds Egg McMuffin. It has risen from 99p to a whopping £1.49, a scandalous rise of 50p! Since when was inflation running at 50%? I'm truly shocked and outraged. As a mark of protest, this morning I cooked myself my very own Egg (Mc)Muffin made with finest ingredients procured from Sainsburys last night. It was, even if I say so myself, simply gorgeous.


Here's the cost breakdown:

• 1 x Muffin = 15p (Pack of 4 muffins 59p)
• 1 x Cheese Slice = 6p (Pack of 10 cheese singles 59p)
• 1 x Egg = 17p (Pack of 6 medium eggs (free range!) 99p)

Total cost of one homemade Egg (Mc)Muffin = 38p

And here's how to make one of these bad boys:

1. Fry yourself an egg in a little oil, trying to keep the egg white tucked in around the yoke. This was quite easy on my first attempt but if you've got one of them ring things that keep the egg contained them you're quids in. You can flip the egg to fry both sides as I did or not, your choice.
2. Cut the muffin in half and apply a small smear of margarine or butter to each half.
3. Pop your tidy little fried egg out onto the bottom half of the muffin. Place a single cheese slice on to the egg and then add the top half of the muffin.
4. Place the assembled beast into a microwave and give it a blast for 20 seconds to give the muffin a boost in fluffiness.
5. Enjoy with a back coffee (or other beverage of choice).

So, there you go, a delicious Egg (Mc)Muffin knocked out in the comfort of your own home for just 40p. A lot less than the scandalous £1.49 that McDonalds are asking for one, and arguably a better tasting beast to boot. Will it stop me eating Egg McMuffins at McDonalds for the occasional breakfast treat? Probably not.

Weekend Summary - Edited Highlights

Good weekend just gone. Highlights being, picking up our new car on Saturday morning and a Flickrmeet at Witley Court on Sunday. Not much more to be said really. Photos from Sunday are up on Flickr if your interested. That's it. Cheers.

A Grind At Times

There's a sense of relief as the week winds down. It's been a grind at times to get through it simply because of the attitude I've brought to it. I realise I've made it hard for myself and I need to sort that out. I'm grateful for the lifelines thrown from emails and phonecalls this week, thanks guys. I reckon that I'm missing having colleagues more than I realise. Maybe I've kept myself too isolated in my freelancer status. Plans are in hand and change will come, but I'll not say anymore about that until things are really happening.

I know that most of this ramble will make no sense to most. It's just work stuff after all. I don't want to create the impression that I'm stressing about stuff because I'm not. I'm just looking forward to my Friday night glass of wine a bit more than usual.

Touch

AWESOME post by Fergus on his blog A dorsal fin breaks the water, recalling the great work of the Touch label. Touch was an intoxicating source of inspiration and mystery to me back in the day. Their beautifully packaged cassettes blew my mind. I never collected the whole catalog, but the stuff I did get remains precious to me still. In fact, I've just been over to the TouchShop and ordered myself the latest compilation Touch 25.

Thanks for the memory jog Fergus.

We Bought A Car

Test drive was OK. The deal is sealed. We got ourselves a nice new-ish Citroen Picasso to look forward to next weekend. Hurrah. I'm excited.

New series of 24 started tonight and I enjoyed the double episode. It's good to have Jack back. In the break was an ad for the restart of Lost series 3. Seems like it will be 24 and Lost both on Sunday nights. My two fave programs on the same night. Can't decide if that's a good or bad thing. Certainly the only night I'll be watching telly for the next couple of months.

Here's a clip of some beatboxing that really made me chuckle. Checkout Beardyman.

Watch This Space

For some reason I've been finding it hard to muster the enthusiasm for a fresh blog post this week. Don't know why. Anyways, work stuff is under control, got a new project, just a tiddler but it'll do. Although change does not appear to be thrusting itself upon me in this new year, I've sort of talked myself into it I think. So we'll see what happens work-wise. I'm up for change. Watch this space.
Worked at home today cos I had a dentist appointment this morning. Ouch. Later in the afternoon we popped into the Citroën dealer and spotted a Picasso that we liked. Top end of our budget, but it's got all the bells and whistles on it. Having a test drive tomorrow to check it out some more. Watch this space.

Next Project Please

Finished the project at Manchester today. Glad to be finished, I've been stuck in Excel hell for months. It will be interesting to see what projects are available when I return to the office on Monday. I've done a little bit of groundwork to check out options if it's time to move on. The more I think about moving contracts the more exciting the prospect seems. Talking with Trapper this afternoon he talked about work down at Grain where the BIG money is, I doubt whether the opportunity will arise or if I have the commitment to go for it.

iPhone

Followed the Macworld Expo keynote by Steve Jobs live this afternoon by constantly refreshing the live blog page on Endgadget. It was quite exciting watching the event unfold piece by piece with every new press of the F5 key. So it turned out that the iPhone DID exist and wow, it looks so sweet. The way it brings together all the things you could want in a portable device is just so cool. Apple really know just how to do things RIGHT. It seems so obvious when Apple show their stuff but how come no-one else can get anywhere near them? It just makes other devices look DUMB. Seems that Europe will get the phone at the back-end of the year, I wonder in what form that will appear and on what networks. I know which phone I'll be getting when my current contract runs out.

Happy New GTD

Spotted in Merlins del.icio.us links, an interview with him in which the New Year is mentioned as a popular time for adopting the old GTD. You could say this is obvious, but it was news to me (duh). I think I should take a return visit to GTD-land this week and try and get my act together. Check out the interview/podcast here.

Computer Down, We Have A Computer Down

Urgh. Our main PC 'Pooter' has died. Hard disk boot failure. I can fix it, in fact I've still got some warranty cover on the damn thing, but part of me doesn't even want it fixed (even though I have to rescue a whole bunch of photos and mp3's). Why don't I just go and get myself a shiny new iMac instead? Maybe later in the year I guess. Let's see what is announced at MacWorld next week. I'm really looking forward to hearing the news. It's interesting to note how my media landscape has changed over the last year or so in that it's podcasts like MacBreak Weekly that I'm looking to for my informed opinions. Go Leo!

The Old School

Yesterday I took trip to see the Smethwick Photographic Society in Oldbury and came away unimpressed. There's a thread on flickr where I discussed this so I won't duplicate, but suffice to say, it re-enforced my rejection of the 'old school' of photography I remember from the eighties. And it seems a couple of people in the Birmingham group have had a similar relationship with photography to me, being re-inspired by the arrival of digital and the very wonderful world of flickr.

Nice Timing For A New Year

Back at work and hearing stories of possible slow times at the company I'm working for. Thoughts immediately turned to my options and I called up Phil for his always positive advice (thanks friend). Of course I'm slightly over-reacting, but that's deliberate. If this does turn out to be the moment to change contracts (and I'm not completely sure that it is), then it's good to be prepared and have all avenues explored.

So time to do some networking and see what's out there. I must admit that the prospect of some sort of change is quite invigorating. Nice timing for a new year.

Post-Holiday Mind

So I've fallen back into the rut of dull posts of late, just recording events. Well, as enjoyable as this Christmas holiday has been (and it has), it doesn't really make for great postings as my mind has been generally on just enjoying the moment (unusually for me). With the working year about to force it's way back into my life tomorrow, the mind re-emerges from this holiday-mode bliss and maybe I'll have some drivel to blog about again.
I suppose I should have been at work today but as we're all still just getting on our feet post-vomitting virus I went easy on myself. So today has been a sort of limbo-day where, in the background, I've started to try and reconnect with various work-related thoughts and tasks. To be honest it's been a struggle to remember where I'm at, so I hope I can pull off a convincing 'committed' return tomorrow when in reality I've had a complete brain-wipe and I'm totally chilled. For myself I'm pleased about this mental state, but I don't suppose work contacts would be that thrilled if I were to share my enlightenment.

One Last Post For The Year

This Christmas holiday has gone so very fast I can't fathom it. It seems like just a moment ago we were unwrapping the prezzies and now it's a week later and thoughts are turning back towards the working week. New Year holds no attraction for me whatsoever so we probably won't be doing much. I'm just recovering from a bout of vomitting that took down me and Harriet in the last few days, hopefully the other two have dodged it. Our wonderful Nintendo Wii has sustained so much fun during this week that it's already earned its keep in our house.

Boxing Day

Mary's team were all sick so the gathering at our house was five less than normal. Still, a pleasant time nonetheless. Loads of food and goodies left over, oh well, I suppose I can finish it off ;) Dylan getting into his new Zelda adventure on the Wii and Harriet designing everyone in the Mii channel. Everyone loving the Wii (Rayman was a big hit) although as usual I'm not getting much action. Browsing the internet from the Wii works easy enough although it would look much better on a HD TV!

Merry Christmas!

Lovely christmas morning with all of the unwrapping. The kids loved the Wii, got that up and running and online in no time, real smooth installation. Jacq and I didn't do presents for each other for the first time this year and to be honest, I didn't miss it.
Stayed away from the goodies all morning to clear the way for christmas dinner which was a gorgeous feast. Lots of Wii playing in the afternoon mostly with the Sports and Play titles. Everyone wearing their straps and no injuries to report (although Jacqs arms ached the next day from the tennis!).
My parents came over at 4:00PM for more prezzies, a bite to eat and more Wii play. Even my mom was enjoying having a virtual bowl so Nintendo were right, the Wii IS for non-gamers.

Jacqs 40th

Jacquies 40th birthday spent up town in a posh hotel in town. My parents came over to look after the kids and off we went. We checked in at the hotel about 4:00PM and I requested a corner room for the extra space. The room was fantastic and the floor to ceiling windows gave a great view out from the ninth floor.
The complimentary bottle of wine was swiftly necked as can be seen in the photo. In the same shot, you can spot the MacBook with me in its camera sights enjoying the free broadband. I was well impressed with the design of the toiletries and was compelled to take a photo. Well, I don't think it's weird.

We went out to eat and more drinking around the canal and Mailbox area. Town was chilly and christmassy, it was nice to be wandering around just the two of us. We went to the Electric Cinema to watch Pan's Labyrinth. We watched teh film from a sofa with a nice bottle of wine. The film itself was good but pretty harrowing in places. After the film we hit another bar, the Sunflower Lounge. Standing at the bar amongst the young people was entertaining as was the conversation. And of course, more drinking. Can't remember what time we left there but it was a short stagger back to the hotel and straight into the hotel bar. We took our drinks back to the room but couldn't even finish them. Game over.

You can imagine how we felt in the morning. It wasn't pretty. Some nice fried food at breakfast helped steady me. Then we made our way slowly home for a quiet Christmas Eve.

Armed With Torches

We got a Wii!! Jacq took the kids to the cinema and I popped into town to pick up the Nintendo goodness. Phew, that's a relief, the kids have a main Christmas present after all. Who's that saying that the present is really for me and Jacq? Shame on you!

Tonight Mike and I went out with Paul for the obligatory Christmas drink. Not that it wasn't pleasant, but when things get to the once-a-year state, what does that say? I don't know. The highlight of the night was walking back from the pub and talking a short-cut through the woods armed with Mike's torches. Mike always has torches about his person, he's that kind of guy.

Not Christmas Shopping

Lovely day today, blissfully away from the hellhole that is christmas shopping around about now. We went to see Flushed Away which was great. I laughed out loud plenty of times. Great voices, great slapstick humour, rats getting their nuts bashed, and a healthy dose of French-baiting, everything that a movie needs for greatness. CG not bad but could have been better. After the cinema we took a stroll around the German Market which was not too packed as everyone was probably going headless-chicken-crazy around the shops. Sampled many yummy foods then popped into the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery for some culture. A choir in one gallery was providing a very festive ambience. I lingered a while in the Buddha Gallery. We did some interactive and craft stuff in some of the other galleries. I liked an artist called Robert Perry a local guy I'd not heard of before who paints exclusively outdoors. Next door to an exhibition by Patrick Hughes of his perspective paintings that the kids liked.

Having my say.

Hi,

Wife here. Went to Dylan's school play today and what did Mark do throughout? Play games on his phone!

Then we went to the dentist and Mark was the only one that needed treatment - hurrah.

Christmas Disco

It was the Christmas disco at school tonight. Dylan went for the first time. Sounds like he and his mates had a great time. He said they were dancing but I bet they were also doing their share of kung-fu fighting and the like. Harriet went after, looking cute. She also won two prizes in assembly today, runner-up in a card design competition and a 'respect' award for just being generally nice I think. So proud.

Tonight on the computer I discovered MediaMonkey which looks like a real good management tool for large mp3 collections. I'm loving it right now. Hopefully it will assist me in grappling with the huge admin task of sorting out my tags and coverart.

Christmas Tree

Thankfully, this morning I wasn't suffering from the beers the night before, which was a bonus. I got down all of the Christmas stuff from the loft and we set about putting up the tree. Weather was dreadful so we spent the whole day inside. The weekend finished off with another splendid episode of Lost.

Chancers Winter Meetup 2006

Today was the Chancers meetup and it was truly awesome to see everybody, Phil, Dan, John (Trapper), Adrian, Mike (The Fox), Chi, Dave, Geoff and Steve.

Phil and I travelled into town together and worshipped a short while at the Apple store before heading into the German Market for some knoblauchbrot and glühwein. We then met up with everyone else at the Malt House pub. It was a joy to see that pretty much everyone had turned up.

Chancers chow-down at the Big Wok

Plenty of beers and much chinese food was consumed and LOADS of good conversation was had. A few of the guys expressed real pleasure at the common experiences we had during our time at Siemens and the fact that we are making a real effort to keep in touch with the meetups. Long may it continue I say.

Chancers 'chilling' outside the Sunflower Lounge

Chancers bid farwell at New Street station

See you all at the Summer 2007 meetup guys!

Drifted By

The week has drifted by without a blog post. Just haven't been in the mood. It was Jim's funeral on Wednesday. Not a fun time, but went as well as these things can.

A gathering tomorrow of the Chancers. Looking forward to it. And on Sunday it's putting up the christmas tree time.

This is a rubbish blog post and I thinks I'd better just stop and go to bed.

Through The Viewfinder

Finally, after scoring myself a Kodak Duaflex on eBay, I took my first TTV snaps today. I haven't yet built the required tube for it but I just wanted to click something in the back garden. I'm really expecting a big boost in photographic inspiration with this contraption as I love the grungy square format. Expect my photostream to be flooded with the stuff soon.

Getting Back Into It

Getting back into the music thing a bit more. Mike came over last night and we had a dabble. Slowly getting more into Ableton Live. In amongst the improvising and twiddling there were a few moments that I take with me this morning. The trick is to capture these moments and wrestle them into pieces.

Pebbles was 'done' by the vet yesterday and the poor thing is not herself right now. She is very subdued, not our normal bouncy puppy. Hopefully she'll be back to strength soon.

Working at home today and much more into it. As well as the work stuff there are a few chores to be done as well. Jacq has a flat tyre that I have to get sorted and I want to pop down to the Citroen dealer to have a look at the Picassos they've got. So better get back to a bit of work.

Outer Space Is A Good Thing

On the way to pick up the kids I spotted this little cutie parked just a short way from school. I just had to stop and take a snap with my phone. You don't see many of those around these parts. A passer-by looked at me oddly and commented that the car looked like 'something from outer space' like that was a bad thing. Surely outer space is a good thing, isn't it?

Worked at home again today as Jacq was out with Mary sorting out more business. Got a bit more done than I did on Friday. Nice soundtrack provided by my main MP3 archive connected to my laptop via iTunes. You can checkout what I've been listening to here.

Quiet Weekend

Autumn Leaves. Cannock Chase. 19th November 2006.

Quiet weekend. Harriet on a sleepover Friday night, she finally fell asleep at six Saturday morning. Cute. I remember the mysterious allure of staying up all night. Took a prezzie over to Lynette as it was her 40th on Friday. Today was mostly just hanging. Tonight we sat down with the kids, a big bowl of popcorn and the new Cars DVD which just arrived yesterday.

A Very Autumn Day

We got a call at five this morning, Jacqs dad had passed away. She is over with her sisters right now. I'm working at home. Well, trying. Took Pebbles for her morning walk in the woods. Autumn dampness. No sun today. I feel kinda muted too. Chatted with dad on Skype for a good while. Still struggling to get work stuff done. I'll go and pick the kids up from school in a minute.

Skype Me

Having tried and failed to get video chat working from iChat to a PC app, I relented and downloaded Skype tonight. And guess what, it just worked. Quite impressed really. Of course the mac version looks cooler. If you want to chat sometime, I'm mark.mcquitty on there.

Another mac app I had a play with recently is the splendid Delicious Library media manager. Scanning barcodes with the iSight webcam to add items to the library just made me giggle every time I did it. I think I might upgrade to the full version when they update to version 2.

Back in PC-land, I picked up Quake 4 for a few quid at Game recently and I'm gonna install that now and shoot the shit out of some monsters! Good times :)

Some Random Stuff

• This looks like a very interesting piece about Eno on Apple.com promoting his new dvd 77 Million Paintings and giving Macs props. One for my christmas list I think.
  

• Nice post about the latest Spiderman 3 trailer that captures well a number of questions that came to mind when I first watched it. Despite little niggles, I'm stoked for this movie. Roll on next May.

• (Snigger) seems like Zune is getting soundly trashed by everyone who comes in contact with it. From what I heard on TWiT the other day, it really does appear to be completely doomed. I'll be sticking with iPods thanks very much. Here is how The Guardian reported the coverage.

• And finally as a treat for you all, some lovely footage of X-Ray Spex in 1978. The first band I ever saw live. This was the start of it all for me. Enjoy.
  

www.flickrmeets.co.uk

Aeiou from the Birmingham Flickr group has setup a website called Birmingham Photographers to showcase the work of those in the group. And what a nice website it is. The clean and simple design shows off my composite photo beautifully (see screenshot). Now my problem is choosing which photographs of mine I wish to submit. Looking over my photostream it seems that most of my photos are family or gigs. I think I need more 'art' photos in there.

This Week In Tech

No wonder 'This Week In Tech' always tops the podcast charts, it's always interesting and entertaining. Here's an episode from back in August featuring my favourites John C. Dvorak and Cory Doctorow. If you got some time, take a listen...


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Trusted System

One of the hurdles for me in implementing a GTD-type system in my life is deciding on the Trusted System. I've thought for a long time that this system is a single entity and I was stuck deciding between something real or something electronic. The something real would be some type of organiser thing containing lots of lists and actions and when I lost this object I'd be screwed. The electronic thing would be computer based which would be rendered useless if I didn't have a pc or internet connection to hand. I've only just begun to think that I've been completely wrong. Neither of the two approaches is the Trusted System. The Trusted System is the whole thing! Duh. The real object and the electronic approach are just Capture Devices. I can run both if I like as long as I process them as inputs into my system. I think get it now. What a dufus!

See? When I'm online more I can blog about any stupid thought that pops up and then I can stop rambling about it in my own head. Therefore it's a bit quieter in there. Hence better mindfulness and hopefully a bit of GTD!

That's What Happens

Agreed, my blog posts of late have been poor and infrequent. But it's not that I'm fed up with the blog, more that I'm simply not inspired to write much at the end of the working day. An internet connection is a rare thing for me of late so I'm not in a position to blog when an idea hits me. And blog posts being what they are, it's rare for any idea for a post to be strong enough to hang around in my brain until I'm next online.

So now I've bothered to open up a new post and ramble a bit, what else do I have to post about? Well, not much really, the mind's gone blank again. That's what happens. Now do you understand?

Working At Home What A Joy

After working up in Manchester for four days, I'm working at home today and what a joy it is having no M6 to deal with. And what a treat having a proper lunch of pasta with pesto and olives. The sun is shining though it's cold out there. Jacq has gone off to the cinema. John The Builder is fitting new guttering out the front. Pebbles is padding around the garden freshly shorn from yesterday at the groomers. Dad popped in for a cuppa this morning as Mom is away for the weekend with friends. All's well.

A Distant Memory Now

Why did I buy that huge coffee when I stopped for petrol this morning on my way up the M6 to Manchester? It took me ages to get onto site this morning due to awkward security staff. By the end I was bursting.

Interesting talking to a new colleague today who is into meditation and Chi Kung. Although I've tried recently to increase my sitting practise, I've really let the Chi Kung slip.

Only back at work two days and I'm knackered already! I really got to a very relaxed place during last weeks holiday. It's a distant memory now.

Good To Be Home

The last full day of the holiday was thankfully dry and sunny and spent at Crealy adventure park. The kids had a great time on everything. Harriet discovered a love of the Pirate Ship ride much to my discomfort as I had to go on with her again and again. Finished off the holiday with fish and chips at Rick Steins chip shop in Padstow. Absolutely yummy. Best ever.

Early start on the homeward journey this morning. Dreadful traffic and roadworks. Took about eight hours to get home. Knackered. Mom and Dad brought the pets over. Great to see Pebbles again. Took her out for a walk tonight straight back into the normal routine. Good to be home.

Blue Bar

Down at the Blue Bar in Porthtowan, just a mile from our holiday cottage. Jacq brought her MacBook down to take advantage of the free wi-fi. Better weather today. Having fun.

Goonhilly

Blogging from the internet cafe at Goonhilly Satellite Earth Station in Cornwall. The holiday cottage is great and the weather a bit grim but we're having a great time.

See You In A Week

Work has been a bit of a grind with the ammount of travelling so working at home today certainly eased the load. A luxury to pop down to TGI's for lunch with t'wife. Tonight we went to parents evening at the school and both kids got great reports. So proud of them. I want them to do well of course, but mostly I just want them to have as nice a time as possible as they go through the system.

Tomorrow we're off down to Cornwall for a week in this cottage. We're all really looking forward to it. Don't suppose the weather will be that great but the change of scene will do us all good. Packing my laptop and hoping for a creative boost from being in an inspirational area.

See you in a week.

Steve Albini Owns Me Right Now

Weekend just wizzed-by, party-style. Dylan and Harriet were both out at parties on Saturday afternoon. I took Dylan to the local sports stadium for a 'multi-sport' party at which he had a great time. Meanwhile Harriet was up town with her friends taking in a movie and a pizza, very grown up. Sunday Jacqs family came over for the usual get together.

Working in Stafford today as the M6 is closed and it's not worth trying to get up to Manchester. A shorter day but at least I've got an internet connection so I can catch up with some personal productivity as well as the day job. Hence this post.

Music-wise my iPod is churning out a lot of Big Black at the moment. Not sure what triggered this decent into noise as I'd recently been listening to lots of quiet stuff like Eno and Budd. But anyway, Steve Albini owns me right now. Tiny King Of The Jews is the best track ever right now and has overtaken my previous fave, Kerosene.

Parties Coming Up

Enjoyed a lovely bottle of German wine tonight given to me yesterday by one of the guys I'm workng with up in Manchester. This guy has a hotel in Hambug which he invited us to. What a nice chap. It must be said that all of the German guys I've been working with over the last 12 months have been incredibly friendly. I'm sure us English don't come across as such.

My blogging of late has been wanting but that's mainly down to lack of internet during the working day. Still driving up and down to Manchester which is a drag but pays well. The excessive driving time is being filled with podcasts by the splendid Leo Laporte and Merlin Mann.

Harriets birthday next week. Eleven. Gosh.

Lots of parties coming up.

Why Wasn't This Band Massive?

The Wolfgang Press. Awesome. Fact.

Fisheye

Saturday morning I dropped Dylan off at the Sea Life Centre for his friends birthday then I had a couple of hours to myself around town. In the Ikon Gallery I saw an exhibition by Marijke van Warmerdam with some real nice film loops. 'Dream Machine' was a mesmerising slow motion loop of milk droplets in a glass of clear water eventually resulting in a whiteout screen. I watched it for ages. In the Ikon shop I picked up a 35mm fisheye camera made by Lomography. Looking forward to taking some fisheye shots.

Google Reader Update

The new Google Reader looks like there's lots of improvements with this update. Using the 'Share' functionality to make an RSS feed to this blog over in the 'Links' section. Also, check out the 'Tingy Link Blog'. This is automatically generated by my shared links and looks pretty damn cool.

27/11

Last night I went down to see Graham Lewis playing again at the Notting Hill Arts Club. Last minute decision. Mike came too. It was good. The set played seemed the same as before to me. Sounded great, some of the songs are well catchy. A couple of them I've been humming ever since. Didn't see anyone else there from the Ideal Copy list but I did spot Bruce Gilbert. Took a few photos but not as good as the previous set.

Bashed

Working up in Manchester this week and commuting each day has fair knackered me out. And the worst of it is there's no internet access up on the clients site. Imagine that, no internet access! It's just not right.

We are skipping swimming in the morning. Dylan bashed his face up real bad yesterday by running into a wall at school. The poor thing really did bash himself. He's got a black and swollen eye and he can't get his goggles on. He had to skip swimming lessons at school today. Harriet is suffering with a cold as well so swimming lessons are off. We're staying in for a lazy Saturday morning, something we haven't done for ages.

Uncontrolled Copy

Created today in my lunchbreak working up in Manchester. Photographs from the motorway and my desk. Loving Photoshop right now. Got a graphics tablet yesterday which is great fun so there might be some more of these. Number 001 in a series. I would like to try and aim for one-a-day but I'd only end up stressing when I failed and that kind of defeats the object.

Tonight we went to our first secondary school open evening. Kind of depressing thinking of Harriet moving up next year. Time is passing way too fast.

Much too fast.

Pause.

Enjoying The View

I've always been a fan of First-Person-Shooter games since Doom. Not just for the shooting, but also the immersive quality of moving within a 3D space. I used to download loads of Quake 2 maps, some for the office deathmatch and some just for strolling around in enjoying the view. I dabbled in a bit of map creation but like most things, just dabbling. With the quality of current games like Half Life 2 the immersion experience is getting even better. I was well impressed by this movie of a HL2 map recreating Frank Lloyd Wright's famous Falling Water. The graphics are stunning and I love the fact that it doesn't function as a HL2 game map, it's just a 3D space to be explored and enjoyed. Must get HL2 re-installed on my PC and download this map so I can go visit the house.

Mac Fan-Boy

Today I have mostly been a Mac fan-boy. Downloaded iTunes 7 last night and spent ages marvelling at the CD cover browsing feature. Pure eye candy I know, but usually that's good enough for me. I'm very shallow that way. Listened to a MacBreak Weekly podcast on the drive in to work. More Mac-geekness. On the drive home a good door-to-door chat with Phil. Catching up on work-ish stuff and spreading the Mac-love.

Moving Through The Photograph

After bitching on about photographing Artsfest 2006 in my previous post, tonight I uploaded the last of my efforts to Flickr and the panorama above I'm quiet pleased with. You have to look at it full size and pan along it to really see it. That's what I like about composites, moving through the photograph. Like Deckards Esper in Bladerunner.

Of the other photos in the Artsfest pool, I'm increasingly attracted to the Through The Viewfinder (TTV) pictures. The square format and the grungy scratches and distortions are really appealing. I've got my eye on a Kodak Duaflex on eBay at the moment. Watch this space.

Update: Just looked at the Flickr Blog and right there is a post about TTV complete with a photo from the Artsfest pool! Nice one.

Jacq had a meeting about another IT initiative at the school. This one is just for Dylans Year 3 kids and is focussed on Music Technology. Apparently it's all being done on Macs using Garageband. How cool is that? We'll be able to play with it at home too, when the MacBook comes back from repair.

In pet news, Sparky the hamster died yesterday. But hold back your tears, do not fret, for a new hamster was already installed by the time I got home from work. Her name is Chunky.

Artsfest

The weekend just gone was dominated by Artsfest 2006 which was taking place all over Birmingham city centre. As part of the Birmingham Flickr Group, I was photographing the event as an 'artist participant'. Saturday afternoon involved a LOT of walking, trying to get around all of the venues across the city. As I was walking around I started to get the feeling that actually I wasn't particularly enjoying myself. By the time I got the bus home I realised I had taken far fewer photos than expected. What had gone wrong?

Having thought about this since, I've come to the realisation that the Artsfest as a photographic subject holds very little interest for me. Photos of performers or portraits of visitors are all very nice but they just don't really do it for me as interesting images. Which leads me to question the reasoning for being part of the Flickr group. I think that most of the members in the group are interested in all sorts of photography whereas I feel more and more that only particular aspects of photography interest me and other leave me quite cold. For example, I usually find a single image much less interesting than a composite of multiple images. For me an interesting photograph attempts to represent more than just reality. The distortion of a 'lo-fi' approach, multiple perspectives, representations of movement and time, these are the areas that interest me right now. So what am I doing taking photos of people at an arts festival?

On Sunday I went back into town for some more Artsfest but this time with the family. It was more fun to just consume the festival rather than document it. I was also a bit burnt out from the ammount of walking done the previous day. Met up with Steve, Mary and crew. Didn't bother with the Flickrmeet at the pub at the end of the day. Not much to say.

Having said all that, I DID take some pictures. Check the photostream. My favourite thing at Artsfest was an installation called Bangmingham by Surasi Kusolwong in an old chapel taken over by Ikon. The sight of a wall-mounted drum-kit being bashed at really raised my spirits.

The Birmingham Flickr Group Artsfest photos are here.

Swimming, MacBook & Stipe

A great start to the weekend with Dylan passing his level 3 swimming test. Keith said that everything he did was perfect. It's a pity that Dyl's friend Mitchell didn't pass because they have so much fun together. Hopefully they will still get a chance to play on a Saturday morning. Harriet did not pass but she wasn't really expecting to. It so technical and difficult at her level I don't think I'd pass either. We are so proud of both of them.

As a prize for passing Dylan chose the Cars PS2 game. Cars is still very much the movie of choice with the kids at the moment. They asked to go see it again today on their last day of the holiday. School tomorrow.

Sunday morning we took the MacBook to the Apple Store Genius Bar. Quite impressed by how that system worked. We booked a slot using the website before we set off for the Bullring and it was reassuring to talk to the Genius about the shutdown problem we've been experiencing. Although the shutdown problem is all over the Apple forums, according to the Genius it's not really all that common considering the huge ammount of MacBooks they are selling. This may of course be bullshit, but on this first occasion I choose to believe the official line and remain reassured. So he booked the machine in for testing and ran through the parts he was ordering for replacement depending on how the tests go. It was a far more pleasant experience than returning a faulty bit of kit to a spotty youth at an electrical superstore. Although we used the Genius Bar to report a fault, it seems it can be used just for a bit of ad-hoc training on anything Apple. I'd rather not use it for that myself being too proud but for some I'm sure it's great. So Jacq is without her Mac for a week but hopefully when it's back and reliable, she (we) can fall in love with it again.

Sunday night I stumbled upon a great program on the Artsworld channel about Michael Stipe and his friendship with Mario Batali (who I'd never heard of).

It was a nice insight into a bit of his life in NYC. Of course, he probably lives in other places too, but his life in New York looked impossibly cool.

I especially loved listening to him rave about photography so much.

It reminded me of how much I rate the guy.

Quietly Creative

Been quietly creative of late. Nothing earth-shattering, just quietly doing stuff and then keeping on doing stuff. And before you know it, stuff is done. Stuff exists. Baby steps I know, but still satisfying all the same. I don't want to make too much noise about it for fear that I'll stop and that would be a shame.

So, some things I have been doing...

1. Digitizing old tapes of my music. OK, so maybe this is not entirely creative but it's hopefully part of a process that leads to creativity so it gets listed here. It's my list. It's a chore that's been on my action-list for ages and I'm pleased that I've finally started. The hardest part is locating the tapes.

2. Making collages in Photoshop. I'm trying to keep this quick and not fiddle too much. Starting from a photo of mine and setting the Photoshop controls for stun it's lots of fun. It has highlighted how much I've forgotten in Photoshop. I'm tempted to pause and dig into some tutorials but I'm resisting that to just carry on making more images.

3. Taking lots of photos with my phone. Driving home on the motorway listening to Boards Of Canada and taking photos into the sunset. These will end up in the collages mentioned above.

In other news, the Artsfest brochure is B-I-G. There's lots of stuff happening. You can see the programme online here. I haven't a clue how to decide what to photograph as part of the Flickr project. I'll definitely being doing plenty of composites that's for sure.

Chancers Meetup Summer 2006

The Chancers meetup happened yesterday with everyone gathering in Brum for a few beers, much chat and some Chinese nosh. Even though we've all only left Siemens for a matter of weeks, so much has happened in this short period of time that there's lots and lots to talk about.

It was great to see everyone, and inevitably in this kind of situation I felt I never got to chat enough with each person. It was a treat to meet up with Phil and get a chance to hang out again. In the Apple Store, at the Ikon Gallery or just standing in Victoria Square drinking German wine, it was great to be chatting and sharing our common enthusiasms. Just like old times back at Coventry. I hope we can somehow manage to keep in touch like this in the future cos it's always a pleasure.

Managed to avoid drinking to much which I am pleased about. I was on my guard about drinking too early in the afternoon as it never ends well for me. Missed out on some of the eating time at the Big Wok as I had to help Dan find where he'd parked his car!

Lewis

Graham Lewis played at the Notting Hill Arts Club last night. Mike and I drove down to London listening to the great Bill Hicks. Parked up in Ealing and got the tube for a few stops. Not many in the club when we arrived. The regular crowd were still enjoying their crayfish. A while later Graham arrived and came over to warmly greet the IC massive in attendance. In conversation it seemed he was considering the gig a bit of an experiment. I was really looking forward to hearing his new stuff especially after Fergus had described it as 'poppy'. Chatting with Graham he seemed to be quite upbeat about the prospect of future Wire activity. This is great news. Fingers crossed.

Graham was playing as a guest of Sci-Fi Skåne who were a bit hit and miss for me. One or two things hit the spot but an ill-advised reggae version of 'She's Lost Control' most definitely did not! The IC troops showed great patience waiting an age for Grahams slot. Eventually the moment came. Shades in place, he took to the stage.

The great man from Wire was in fine form. The first track interrupted the flow of dance beats and put a glorious stop to some of the excessive 'party dancing' that had previously been on display. The beats restarted and the new tracks definitely had a 'pop' tinge with some great tunes being belted out.

With his short set done we had to get going on the journey home. I managed another quick chat and congratulated Graham on the set. I hope he considers the experiment a complete success.

The drive home was long and I'm eternally grateful to Mike for generating some great conversation which kept the mind focussed. Could have done without his rotten arse though!

Tiredness

Life goes on as normal but I don't seem to want to blog about it much. Am I coming to the end of this experiment? I don't know. Maybe I'm just tired.

Well, I am tired. I've stayed up much too late, too many times this week. It's ok for Jacq as she's on holiday, but I'm still getting up for work (and the dog) at 6 in the morning. Last night I went to bed early but it hurt not having any 'fun-time'.

And another thing. I'm struggling with my eyesight at the moment. It might be tiredness but I think it's more likely that I need some glasses. Must get that sorted out soon.

Missed out on a Flickrmeet last weekend. Weather looked grey and I couldn't be arsed. I'm not that fussed about the meet itself but I really have an urge to photographs at the moment. Must try and get out with the camera this weekend. Maybe some Bearwood shots, I've not really done that yet. Fergus uploaded a bunch of shots from his recent NY trip. Jealous. I bet you don't even have to look through the viewfinder there to take an interesting shot. Just walk about clicking.

Current talk is of a meet-up next Saturday for the Chancers. It will be great to see them. I just hope I can pace the drinking. Afternoon starts always end messily in my experience.

The Blog Not Rolling

I'm really not keeping the blog rolling recently for which I offer no excuse. Thankfully no external pressures are driving me at the moment, and that's a good thing.

Good chat with Mike last week has me thinking about music stuff a lot. I've got my new laptop at last so now I can do something about it.

Good weekend just gone. Dylans swimming is coming on great. He's the fastest in his class by far.

Walking The Dog

While out walking the dog tonight I took some shots with my phone. I took quite a few with Dylan on my shoulders and Harriet and Jacq walking behind. Although they are just casual phone pictures they really capture the moment for me. Watch the slideshow here.

Photosynth

If Photosynth ever makes it though to some sort of real interface it will be VERY exciting. I would love to explore that 3d world of photos. At the moment there's just some videos to look at but they do look very nice.

Underworld

REALLY impressed with what Underworld are up to on their UnderworldLive website. Don't know why I've never checked this out before. There are some really interesting packages of audio and images available for purchase which I must get around to getting. But also lots and lots of free stuff too. It's well worth registering with them (also free) for a chance to browse through all this stuff. One of the downloads looks intruiging, a zip of 1,700 camera phone photos from a Japanese tour! Excellent stuff.

Let's Recap

Been a bit slack at blogging recently and not sure why. So let's recap...

We got Jacqs car at the weekend. She's chuffed with it and has been having a busy week because of it. Sunday morning we went to see Cars. Dyl was really looking forward to it. Harriet went to Mollys in the afternoon and Molly came back for a sleepover later. On Monday Jacq took Pebbles for her first grooming session then went and got the groceries in. Having a second car means less chores stacking up for the weekend. Hurrah! Pebbles looks great with her groomed coat. Tuesday they all went over to Marys for a fun day. Wednesday they visited Jacqs dad. And today, Thursday, Carol and the kids came over. I think tomorrow Jacq's looking forward to a quiet day of household chores!

And me? Well, the third week in the new job. Steady. After much chuntering I decided to order another Dell laptop. Let's see what this one looks like. Just need the display to be up to scratch. I'm already impressed with the Latitude build quality. Fingers crossed. Pimped the RAM to 2 gig for a better VMWare experience. Mike came over for a chat and beer. Great to see him. Hopefully next week also. Spent my Amazon voucher from the old place. Ordered the Comic Strip boxset. Hopefully that comes before the weekend and I can get some viewing in. Another payday tomorrow. Yummy!

Up And Running

Phew! Got paid. That's a relief. Now that the systems are in place I can finally relax. The freelance thing is up and running. Timescales on the current project are very tight so some overtime may be required in the next few weeks. Which is nice.

The Dell laptop got picked up the other day and I'm waiting for my refund to come through . Then I have to get me a machine to work on. Can't stop thinking about a Mac-based solution. It would be so cool. Jacq thinks I should get a PC to keep work and play separate. But I want to combine them more. Surely getting an Intel Mac running Boot Camp means I get two machines?

Looking forward to the weekend. Jacq gets her car tomorrow. Going to see Cars at some point.

Also, I've signed up for duty on the September Flickrmeet at Artsfest. Seems like we could get some sort of official status. Cool.

Second Week Still Hot

Weather is still uncomfortably hot in my second week as freelance. Got my timesheets in Monday morning and hoping for my first payment this Friday. Should also get my last Siemens payment at the same time which will be nice.

The bad news dropped on Monday that Siemens have pulled the plug on the sale and are closing the Coventry and Winchester offices by September. Seems like I got out just in time. What a mess has been made of a perfect decent business. They failed to run it well and they couldn't even sell it properly. That's if they were ever serious about selling it in the first place. I can't understand what they did, and I will never forgive them.

A redundancy payout may have been a nice little bung but I wouldn't want to be looking for work at the same time as everybody else. Plus the extra money I will have made by getting out early probably comes to a similar ammount. So all in all I'm better off out and a lot less stressed.

And talking of stress, it seems that Phil had a bad day yesterday prepping his kit for a 3 week holiday in France. The clutch failing on his motor must have been an absolute disaster. I do hope his recovery plans have worked today and he's safely on his way.

Jacq is looking forward to picking up her car on Saturday. Then the summer holidays will really start for her and the kids. At the moment they are staying in the house hiding from the sun and trying to keep cool.

Just spoke with Mike who's on the number 7 bus on his way to visit his mum. Now he's back from a few days away and I'm back in Bearwood full time, I hope we can catch up soon. And by catch up, I obviously mean crack open a few cold ones and shoot the shit. It's well overdue.

Pebbles

Freshly bathed and super cute!

Breaking Up For The Summer

Got to the end of the first week as a freelancer and the kids broke up for the summer holidays. By the Friday I got into some code which helped pass the time. My new laptop arrived on the Friday and first impressions were great. Unfortunately a closer inspection on Saturday morning revealed a very poor screen display which was very dissappointing. I checked on some forums and found it was a common complaint. I'm afraid it's going back to Dell and I'm back at square one. What I'd REALLY like is Jacqs MacBook. It would be so cool to use that. I could boot into XP to run programming packages and take the risk of usb-to-serial interfaces working. I wonder...

Away from work and computer stuff, it's been a lovely weekend although Dylan has been a bit poorly today. We gave Pebbles a bath and lots of hugs after. This afternoon we went out to a Nissan dealership to check out Micras. Suprise, suprise, we ended up buying one! It wasn't a planned purchase so it may appear to be a rash decision. But there's a logic to it. We got a 2 year old motor for half its list price and only a bit more than we were planning on spending on a much older one. We should be picking it up next week which gives Jacq and the kids complete freedom to make the most of the six weeks holidays.

The Hottest Day On Record?

It's supposed to be the hottest day on record today. That's what I've been told. We shall see. Yesterday was a scorcher, not helped by the closure of the motorway making the journey home murder. I'm working at the offices of my first client as a freelance engineer. The place and the people seem ok, which is nice. Although they could do with air conditioning in the building! But in the new freelance mindset, it doesn't really matter what the place is like. All that matters is getting my hours in and getting paid. No other mental baggage involved.

I've even restarted my meditation practise as I had let it drop during the last few weeks of working in Winchester. Hotel life plus changing jobs did not provide a conducive atmosphere. Now all of that is behind me and I'm moving on to pastures serene, I'm ready to restart mindfulness.

Leaving

So Friday I left Siemens. In the end I was glad to get away. No regrets at all. Even a last stroll around the building couldn't bring up any real nostalgia. I was looking forward more to seeing the lads at the traditional lunchtime leaving drink. There weren't many in the office today for a start and a few had to get off home. So the few that came had drinks bought and we took a table outside. Thankfully very soon after the boys arrived. Phil, Dan and John, fantastic to see them. Took them inside to buy a drink and the talk was all about payday. Text messages displayed. Dan suggested a money fight! Adrian popped in to say hello which was nice of him as he'd been at a funeral that morning. Finally Steve turned up on his way back from Milton Keynes. Good to see him again and bring him up to speed with the decline of the office. And by 2:00PM I was on my way home.

Done.

Picture Note: Check the photos above, taken with my nice new phone. Notice anything about them? The only people smiling in them DON'T work for Siemens anymore!!

Last Few Days

My last day tomorrow at Siemens. I've been clearing out stuff from the office over the last few days and occasionally remembering some good times during the last eight years. Throwing out stuff like eight diaries can make you do stuff like that. But in general I don't as nostalgic as I thought I would. That has got to be because so many others are leaving around the same time as me and my real mates have already left. I thought of doing the lunchtime walk today one last time but in the end realised that it's not the same without the entertaining chat. Even when we were just bitching over the same old topics, it was always fun.

Leaving this place and moving on is so much easier because keeping the network together is so much easier than in previous times. Email, blogs, texts, etc. are invaluable. The contracting thing would be much scarier were it undertaken in isolation. The good comms provides real support.

Flickrmeet

Yellow,
Photo by Aeioux.

A walkabout in Birmingham with a bunch of Flickr people. Most enjoyable it was. It's been a long long time since I walked about taking pictures purely for the art of it. Got me looking at my surroundings again with a fresh eye. Aeioux took this picture and I reckon it must have the only one he took where I wasn't smilling like a fool. Thanks for not making me look a fool Aeioux. He seemed like an interesting character who's into loads of creative stuff. And here's me moaning constantly about getting a creative moment to myself. Must try harder. Roll on the next Flickrmeet.

Susans Wedding

Saturday was my cousin Susans wedding day. We went up to Manchester for it and Mike kept an eye on Pebbles. It was very nice to see people who I haven't seen for ten years or more. Everyone looked well and seemed to be having a great day. Our kids didn't enjoy it much and in retrospect maybe it would have been better to have gone without them. Still, Susan had a great day and that's what really matters.

Working At Home

Worked at home yesterday and will do again today. The reason for this is combination of roadworks on the motorway and the current heatwave. Sitting in my non-air-conditioned car in a traffic jam on the M6 really seems to hightlight the utter futility and stupidity of the daily grind. Much smarter to just stay at home, keep cool, do a bit of work.

Wilting In The Heat

It's SO very hot! It's every door and window of the house wide open type heat. Too hot to do stuff. I was working at the Coventry office today and the lunchtime walk with Adrian was ill-advised. I felt awful afterwards. Clothes drenched in sweat and eyes on fire from hay-fever.

Yesterday (Sunday) was just as uncomfortable. Plans to go to the local Harborne Festival were shelved and we just flopped in the shade of the house. Saturday was nicer. Dylan had his friend Mitchell to play after swimming. In the afternoon we went over to Theresas for Lucys 8th birthday. Me and the Steves endured the England v Portugal match with much shouting at the TV involved. As is traditional, we lost on penalties and like times before, I couldn't watch. Hanging out in the garden was fun with the kids playing various water games and Pebbles running around exploring their huge garden. At one point I took a number of shots for a composite of everyone just sitting around. I've just got the basic layout done in Photoshop so far but I hope to do some detailed editing to get the kind of effects that Panoramatic gets in flickr.

Spidey Is Back!

Joy, oh joy! The teaser trailer for Spiderman 3 is out! Watch it here. It's a teaser, but you do see quite a few clips. As always, it made me want to weep. Tobey Maguire is so perfect as Peter Parker he gives it a real emotional centre for me. A new Spidey movie. Fantastic. Can't wait. You can keep your Superman. (Although the new trailer for that looks pretty neat and we WILL be going to see it.)

They Started It

Bit of a gap since my last post and not much of a reason why. Been down in Winchester again this week for 3 days. The work was dull, I didn't have really that much to do. Trapper's last night on Tuesday and we watched the England v Sweden match at the Irish pub. Good atmosphere. Suffered a bit the next morning in the workshop. Human again by lunchtime.

Back in Coventry office Thursday. Spent most of it sorting stuff out of my desk and brought another boot-full home. The word went round that the project has been delayed until next April. This has been by far the worst project I've ever been associated with. The areas I've been involved with have been OK but as a whole, it just doesn't work. Although there have been technical challenges, I think clarity and communication of design from the front would have helped overcome most issues. The fact that a number of us on the team have put in our notice must have contributed to it's demise and if that causes the upper management some discomfort then I'm fine with that. After all, in playground-speak, 'they started it'.

On Wednesday our MacBook was delivered. What a beauty it is. Still getting used to the OS regarding installing applications and the like. Well impressed with the interface. Last night, showing my Dad the machine, we popped a DVD in and Jacq got the remote out for the first time. This launched the Front Row interface and I was knocked out. The browsing of movie trailers was fantastic. Really focuses the user on content rather than the technology involved.
Mom said he should get one for his birthday and I agree. He won't of course.

Worked from home Friday. Hope I can do a few more days at home during my notice. Don't suppose it will be an option when contracting.

Secure The Future

What's really great about putting your notice in is that you are immediately immune to all the rubbish you had stressing about prior to handing it in. In one action I went from not knowing what I will be doing in a months time (and who I'll be working for) to knowing exactly what I'll be doing. Sometimes you just have to secure your own future.

Sorted.

When I got back from site tonight, as well as a house full of people, I had all the paperwork associated with my freelance career. Some interesting reading for the weekend. I definitely prefer the term 'freelance' to 'contractor', it's got a better ring to it.

Still managing to ignore the barrage of repellent mediocrity that is Big Brother. I'm so not interested in that crap. My new headphones with their 6m lead are keeping me insulated from the hideous television. Listening to Richard H Kirk's 'The Number Of Magic' brings back memories of 'ambient' club nights in the mid-nineties.

Mad Day Anniversary

Tuesday was a mad day. What started out as a day booked off as holiday to spend time with my wife on our ten year anniversary turned into a day where we hardly spent any quality time together.

Things got off to a bad start actually the night before as Harriet developed tummy pains and we spent a couple of hours down in A&E getting her checked out. It turned out to be nothing. When we got home at 5:00AM Jacq said she'd been up with the dog crying while we were out. Not the best of starts. Knackered.

Jacq took Dylan to school while Harriet slept. Got a call from a company that Trapper had given me the nod about the day before. They were interested in my CV so I arranged to go see them in Stafford later that day at 4:00PM. I then went off for a couple of fillings and came back with a frozen lop-sided mouth which made Harriet laugh. Soon after we took Pebbles off to the vets for her first jab. The vet seemed pleased with her general health and condition.

Time then to head up the M6 a bit to Stafford and have an interview. It's been a while since having one of those. Seemed like a decent place. Offered a position there and then. Opened ended contract. Just the job. The journey both ways seemed fine. No worse than the trip to Coventry for sure. Think it could happen if the contactor side of things can be setup. Gosh. That all happened a bit quick.

Back home I continued building a new PC for Duggo. Bit of a mad rush. Stopped for a balti with t'wife. A brief moment together. Then back onto finishing off the PC. Delivered it to their house about 9:30PM and then dashed back home to catch Lost.

What a day.

Ten years. Blimey. It's gone quick.

Notice

Today I handed my notice in. What a relief. After weeks and weeks of trying to second-guess my future, I've gone ahead and secured it for myself. Sod 'em.

So goodbye to the long term plans and hello to the glorious uncertainty of contracting. Bring on the big wages!

Pebbles

Here she is! It's Pebbles! She is lots of fun and LOTS of work. She's charmed the kids and almost driven the wife to distraction. She is such a little cutie. We love her to bits.

Back From Holiday

It's been nearly a week since we came back from our holiday at Center Parcs and it feels like ages ago. We had a great week. The weather was kind and we found that we really enjoyed it. The kids raed it better than a 'normal' holiday. It was nice to be riding around on a bike. First time for years. Simple pleasures.

Sunshine Casts It's Spell

Lovely weather cast a beautiful spell over this weekend and even the normal routine events seemed to be slightly more enjoyable than normal somehow. Coming out of the house on Saturday morning into warm sunlight was a great start. With me wearing shorts we all walked down to the swimming baths. The kids did great.

In the afternoon we worked and played in the garden. Paul and Lyn popped in for tea and a chat about being self-employed. Interesting stuff he had to say but I think I'll stick with the umbrella company approach when I finally go contracting. They said they'll be over next weekend to have a cuddle of the pup when she arrives.

Sunday we shopped at Merry Hill for some holiday food and a bit of reading material. Jacq picked up Douglas Coupland's latest, jPod. We love Doug! I'm going to be sneaking a peak at this book while were away for sure.

Rest of day spent packing and organising for going away tomorrow to Center Parcs. The hallway is jam-packed with stuff ready to load into the car in the morning. How come there's so much stuff?! We're only away for 4 nights! I hope I can fit it all in.

Work, Work, Work (Nearly Finished)

Coming towards the end of what is possibly my last week in Winchester. I've been quite busy trying to help out with various tasks. Slow compiles drag out the process painfully. It won't be a quick getaway tomorrow as I don't want to leave things unfinished and drop others in it next week. But what a joy it will be to be home at the start of a weeks holiday.