Monday Morning Full Force

Stressful journey to work due eternal roadworks and various accidents. As I made my way across Coventry town centre I wondered why I was bothering. I knew that as soon as I got into the office I'd be moaning about something or other. And I was right.

This can't be healthy. Must try MUCH harder to keep my head down into work stuff and let the shit fly around overhead. Keep telling myself that it's none of my business but it still stresses me out to witness the piss-poor performance of the place.

At least I know there's an escape route available.

Sunny Funny Weekend Honey

Swimming lessons on Saturday morning and Dylan passed his level 1 test! Well done Smasher! Harriet still on level 6 but swimming so well now. Getting up to level 7 is tough as that's when the lessons start using lengths rather than widths.

More box packing in the afternoon. Not much interesting to report about it, but I still find it to be quite fun. Jacq sorting out the monster lavender in the front garden as the bees seem to have had their full.

Sunday yet another nice day. BBQ over at Lizzie and Steves for Maddies 3rd birthday. Harriet and Rebecca spent the entire afternoon linked togther by their GBA's. Funny watching them walking around everywhere together. Having Pokemon trainer conversations that the adults could not understand. Well me and Jacq could, but that's cos we're cool parents, aren't we? (Well, we try. Not TOO hard though cos that's a bit sad.)

Ending The Working Week (Pleasantly)

Dylan felt much better this morning and was happy to go to school. I did a few hours of work stuff this morning, Photoshopping screen dumps for a technical manual I'm writing for my project. When a natural break came I stepped out into the garden for refreshment. What a civilised way to work your day!

Packed the lappy away in the afternoon. Took some stuff down the dump then picked up the weeks groceries. Mom & Dad came over in time to collect the kids from school with us. Dyl seemed a bit tired but perked up once home. Harriet yelped for joy when she spotted the Pokemon comic we had brought up to school for her.

Rest of day spent in a variety of pleasant ways including a bit of a go on Spiderman 2 although I'm STILL not getting my share of the web-slinging action! Spoke with George and Ken to get the latest in the saga of the house chain we're all in. Seems that there MAY be an agreed date by the end of the week. I do hope so. I was shocked when Ken told me that we'd been doing this for 19 weeks now!

Just Catching Up

So what's happened lately? Well not much in real life due to working on site for excessive hours. But a recent email from Fergus enthused me as we connected over JG Ballard. Spookily, after JGB being in my recent thoughts, I picked up his latest book Millenium People in a booksale shop.

What little time I've spent in the office this week has been spent in the usual manner of full-on bitching mode. Learnt today that our star project is running at a margin of -25%!!! Well call me stupid, but that simply CANNOT be right! One HAS to despair! Anyways, good to see 'best mate Phil' in the office today, if only to pay respect to his recent blogs and now playing Sonic Youth. Chap!

This update finishes on a low note as my 'Super-Best-Boy' Dylan had a miserable return to school today. Apparently, at his cousins house yesterday, he hurt his neck bouncing on his Aunties bed. So the pain from his neck plus returning to school caused quite some trauma this morning. Thankfully I'm working from home tomorrow so I get a chance to look after him. Bless.

And that's the update for now. If I don't see ya, well have a good 'un.

A Short Long Weekend

A nice weekend just gone, but so short! Saturday was a day of the usual routines and the dismantling of the kids beds ready for packing. The kids are now sleeping on their mattresses on the floor and finding it great fun. Sunday was a day out to Gullivers Kingdom in Matlock. A fun day for all. Monday was a shopping day. New shoes for the kids ready for school.

And then it was over. And now I'm back at my desk just prior to heading off to site. The usual bitching in full flow. The previous weeks queries to my manager had generated absolutely no content in my inbox. No change there then.

Randomised Head Items

Again, I need to shout out how fantastic flickr is. I just spent a relaxing hour browsing through such a variety of wonderful images. I'm really stoked by whole experience. I need to polish up a few of my composite pieces and post them up.

Tidy laptop session last night with Mike. Created a few little things and listened to a whole lot of different stuff. He left me with a cd full of northern soul mp3s to trawl through.

Dylan is SO desperate for the Spiderman web shooter he saw in the shops the other day. He hasn't stopped asking for it for two days now!

Another unimpressive day in the office but it couldn't touch me.

Gravitating To The Mothership

At todays Team Brief it was all too apparent that the power base of my organisation is shifting to SWiSH in Manchester. So let's cut to the chase shall we? That's where the deals will be made. That's where the experts will emerge. That's where new opportunities will arise. So someday I'll need to be there.

Following the Team Brief I had a word with the Operations Manager and floated the concept of me moving to the SWiSH Systems Dept. No problem, he said. Easy as that. He even went on to include me in his list of 'the good guys' which was flattering. This quick chat did wonders for my work morale. To know that the move is there for the taking when I want it, is very liberating. It makes clear any confusion in my brain about how I can stay within Siemens in the medium term. The only barriers are physical and logistical issues to do with my home location and working strategies. These I can progress and deal with myself now that I know there's no organisational problem.

A healthy by-product of the chat was the paranoia it induced in my department manager. This is of course an entirely desirable state of affairs. Keep 'em on their toes I say!

Comments & Spies & Balti

Trying to keep my head down and battle through paperwork but in the afternoon found myself drifting and ended up on flickr. Suprised to find a couple of comments on my photos. Suprised also to find that it gave me quite a buzz. I promptly sent messages of thanks and added them to my contacts. Exploring more of flickr and noting the new things added to the site made me appreciate just what a kick-ass site it is.

The kids are stopping with their grandparents tonight for sleepover fun. I found myself missing them as soon as I got home. Me and t'wife went straight out to the cinema to see The Bourne Supremacy. Wow! That film rocked! Top notch spy action. Better than the first one. Back home, we strolled up for a delicious balti at the Raja.

Why Building Sites Are Beautiful

A building under construction is a beautiful thing. Any building. From a shack to a skyscraper, a building under construction symbolises the future. Aside from the basic need of shelter, a designed construction is a gesture of optimism. And I suppose it follows that ANY design effort is an acknowledgement of the future, a projection out of the moment into the open space of possiblity.

I'm inspired. Get me to a copy of Photoshop right now!

Listening this morning to Elbow. Downloaded the first album for the track 'Any Day Now'. I've always loved the vocal lines. Put me in mind of Eno the first time I heard it.

"Any day now hows about getting out of this place. Any ways.
Got a lot of spare time. Some of my youth and all of my senses on overdrive."

On the drive to work I got sucked into the rest of the album and I could not skip on to anything. Completely under it's spell. That hasn't happened for a long time.

Middle Age Shred

There's not much to post about this weekend. It was full of the usual stuff, swimming (both days), chores, groceries, gardening, throwing out more trash. End of Sunday and I'm totally knackered. Sat down for a web browse and came upon this site, middle age shred. Superb name, the intro text on the home page got me right stoked, it summed me up to a tee. Maybe I should shut up about being tired from doing a few chores, and get off my fat arse and get back on a skateboard!

No real new creative thoughts recently, just mulling over the current photoshop pieces. Must collect together all the recent samples to present a body of work to Mike on Wednesday.

Work tomorrow. I kind of parked my head up over the weekend and haven't given things much thought. But I need to list out some stuff and sit down with my boss this week. If I don't then I might just go a bit loopy.

Where Oh Where Do I Start?

In the office this morning the talk turned as always to the woeful state of affairs know as our management. The floodgates were fully open! I felt almost over-whelmed by the seemingly endless list of lame decisions, gaffs and other assorted screw-ups. I really did feel bad. Driving to site later, my mind was spinning, trying to make sense of it all, trying to imagine my future options. Because one thing is for sure, I definitely am NOT happy. I'm sure it's a whole mixture of things but I can't shake the feeling that I need to make some sort of decision.

Further house news, seems like the 27th will NOT happen. 10th of Sept is now the proposed date. Anything, as long as it's for real this time.

Call from Paul. Seems like I was right about his dial-up settings being hijacked by some malicious program in his system. He's just got stung for a 200 quid plus phone bill in 24 hours! Yikes!

Heaven Is An Empty Skatepark

My latest Photoshop piece consists of a number of empty skatepark images overlapped. Thinking about the image today I realised the link between the empty skatepark and Ballards trademark empty swimming pools. I'd never made that connection before. It's so obvious.

The sight of a deserted skatepark is such a resonant image for me. The curved banks of cool concrete lit by the low sun of a summer evening. Reminds me of a skatepark in Wolverhampton we use to skate after hours back in the seventies. Climbing fences and dodging security and then we were in. The feeling of having the place to oursleves seemed to be the ultimate freedom back then. Time seemed to stand still. To this day it's still a memory that I often meditate on.

Back in the real world, word is coming through that the 27th actually may be the completion date. Shit! That's just ten days to go! Let's get busy with those cardboard boxes.

Tonight Harriet has Lizzie sleeping over at our house. Dylan was sad at bedtime saying that no-one will play with him. But when the lights went off and the torches came out, Dylan was the star of the show with his blue LED torch.

Low Flying Aircraft

A long day on site down at Walton On Thames. On the journey I drive past the edge of Sheperton and I always think of JG Ballard. It's been years since I read a Ballard. I'd say he was probably my favourite author. The feelings I got when I read him are still with me but I don't know if I could describe them. Cool. Odd. Vague. No, I can't do it. Can't express it. I should read a Ballard again.

Later in the day I was working by the Heathrow T5 building site. Some huge structures being errected there. One of my systems had sprung a memory leak. Where's a software plumber when you need one?

Tonight Harriet and I sat and watched some of the womens gymnastics team event together. Harriet was well impressed. "Wow" she said as she witnessed each event for the first time. I was choked after every performance. Simply full of admiration for each one of them.

The Daily Grind

It seems more grinding than normal today. Workplace uninspiring. Thoughts turned to current Photoshop doodles. Made a few notes about them. That's about it. I think I'll be finishing at core time today.

Remembered something from yesterdays Observer. A short questionnaire with Alan Titchmarsh. In it he said, "If I died tomorrow I haven't wasted much time."

That's a really cool thing to be able to say. Is it too late for me to catch up?

Sunday In The City

Picked up Harriet from Lizzies this morning. Sounds like she had a great time, not much sleep though. Dylan was glad to have her back.

In the afternoon we to a trip into town for a walkabout. Loads of things happening. A German wine festival, an great outdoor exhibition of large ariel photography, a street entertainers competition, Sportsfest in Centenery Square and Discovery Day at the ICC. We walked around it all. In Victoria Square the kids ran around over a huge map of the world. Harriet enjoyed the challenge of trying to find places we suggested to her. In the ICC we went into Symphony Hall a listened to an organ recital. Harriet seemed quite impressed.

Didn't put much stuff in boxes this weekend. Should I be worried?

Bubbles!

Following swimming lessons, we dropped Harriet up to her friend Lizzie for her birthday party and then sleepover. Asked Dylan where he wanted to go this afternoon and he said, "Saundersfoot". It's a bit far to the Pembrokeshire coast from Birmingham.

Paul phoned. Needing computer help. So went over. Pleasant sitting out on their new decking, scoffing pesto pizza. Can't do much with the pooters as all my disks are at work.

Bought Spidey 2 game for the Gamecube. Dyl was having fun swinging about. Wouldn't let me have a go! Then t'wife took over and she NEVER lets me have a go!

Day ends with me reading the paper in the garden while Dyl blows huge bubbles all over me.

Week Ends With A Whimper

No beers last night as it turned out both Mike and I are on the same drugs. Him for the neck and me for the knee. What a sorry pair we are! No matter. Good to see him as always.

Office less fun today for the obvious reasons. I'm now getting mad at myself for being mad. I SO need to rise above this but it ain't so easy.

Popped a couple of samples under the radar to keep up the creative push.

Phils iPod is sweet. Apparently recharges through the USB. I wonder if mine will do that? Need to get myself a cable when the new laptops arrive with USB 2.0 onboard.

Finishing at lunchtime then over to Mom & Dads for a visit. Hopefully catch the Olympics opening ceremony later on TV. I do enjoy a spectacle. See if I can get the kids enthusiastic for it.

A Good Office Day

Today I would say, was a good office day. Good dose of healthy bitching with Phil about the general state of things. The new laptops look like they've not been spec'd right. Another victory for our leader!

Anyway, the day was Beard-free so a light, care-free atmosphere surrounded our natural-break chats which ranged from the afore mentioned bitching through to creative endevours of many types. High point of the morning must have been notice of the arrival of Phils iPod! Much rejoicing was to be heard.

Managed to get in a lunchtime walk. Nice and brisk. Me, Phil and Adrian. Sun shining but not for long. The heavens soon opened over Coventry and Phil captured it here.

Dave was over from Worcester this afternoon for chats with managers about his future within the company. Can't work out if he's staying or going. Hope he stays as he's one of the good 'uns I reckon. Phil and I drooled over his laptop screen rez of 1400 by 1040. It sure looked sweet and crisp. Hopefully our new ones look as good.

Doc appointment to sign off my knee. No problem. Then I stupdily went and asked about 'the snip'. Before I knew what was going on, he'd got his dictaphone out and was busy dictating a letter referring me to the local hospital. So now I'll be getting a letter in the post! Shit! That was quick! Can't we take a moment and talk about this?!!!

Round to Mikes tonight to see how he is and nod to a few tunes (and maybe drink a beer or two).

Back On Track

Phew! Skipped a day blogging yesterday due to evening spent tweaking my flickr accounts. Managed to fuck it all up and actually DELETED one account! What a complete tool! Thankfully the lovely people at Ludicorp sorted me out (Thanks George!). So tonight it's all back on track. Uploaded some more pictures and STOPPED all tweaking.

Day on site at Hemel. Swopped out a PC that needs a rebuild. Fixed a few snags, well I say snags but really they're extras. Little bits the client wants adding. Got to keep 'em sweet.

Text with Mike. He's off work with some neck/nerve problem. Try and see him tomorrow night and see how he is. Says he got some tracks/ideas to play me.

Phils reports on the laptops aren't looking too promising. Once again dissapointment looks inevitable. But in saying that, during a break today I scanned through the latest Siemens UK newspaper and found myself heartened to be working for such a varied and interesting company. I just don't work in an interesting bit yet. Hopefully, emphasis on the YET. Any company that comes up with the Dressman has got to be quite cool. Don't ya think?

More Fun With Flickr

Kids Go Crazy

Tonights blog entry is via flickr as I happened to be uploading a few more of my favourite pics from our recent holiday in Wales.

Working on site this afternoon wasn't as tough as expected as the bug was spotted almost immediately and the fix simple. Got home nice and early. Harriet playing over at Lizzies and sleeping over. Bet she's having a ton of fun. She's probably still awake chatting as I write this. Jacq and Dyl are picking them up in the morning and they're all off to the cinema.

Managed to blag a couple of samples inbetween paperwork in the office this morning. Unfortunately some system somewhere stripped the zip off the mail when I tried to send them home. Oh well. I'll have to get myself a memory key.