Zombies Under The Stairs

Watched Shaun Of The Dead on DVD last night. It rocked! Funny, cool and a bit scarey, all the things that the reviews said it was. Makes me want to dig out the Spaced DVD's.

Today was spent in the scarey place known as 'under the stairs'. Clearing out the last of the trash and boxing up the bits to be moved. Glad to report that not much was salvaged for the move. Just goes to show how much pointless rubbish had collected under there. Resolve to be more organised in the new place.

Rest of day spent playing with the kids and now I'm kackered. And here comes another week...

Remain In Light

My current hire car has a neat MP3 CD player in it that has kept me most entertained on the journeys between home and site. I've quite a sizeable collection of MP3's to choose from. But most of the tracks I've downloaded from Soulseek are 'nice to haves', not essentials. That's because the essentials, I already own.

On yesterdays journey home I was blown away by an exception to this rule, the wonderful Remain In Light by Talking Heads. I downloaded it because my shitty old tape version doesn't sound too good anymore. What an album! Hat's off to the genius of Byrne and Eno!

Another week ended and no confirmation of a firm completion date. The communications from these solicitors and estate agents is very poor. No wonder people get stressed. Oh well, another weekend, another round of packing away belongings.

Long Day On Site

Long day on site equals short post at end of day. Head still in the same kinda place as yesterday. Please get me to the weekend somebody.

I don't think I'm coping as well as I'd previously thought with work-related issues. But as soon as I say to myself 'right, I'm going in to see my boss', I feel overcome with a sense of futility. So whaddya do 'bout dat?

Another Short Post Of Little Substance

Because my head is full of work rubbish and real life worries I can't seem to string together much of anything to post about. Core time at work today as Dylan wanted me to take him up to school and then home early for visit to father-in-law. Talking tonight with Harriet about her role in looking out for Dylan at school. Like any parent, I wish I could be there for them all the time.

Watched new series of Grand Designs that started tonight. Beautiful house on Spanish hillside. Classic image of the swimming pool edge dropping away against a clear blue sky.

Site tomorrow for a few days so mostly offline. MUST get my current Tingy designs out of photoshop and onto the web. I'm so slack.

Ignoring The Idiots

Surrounded by the noise from idiots in the workplace. I can't get the volume high enough on my iPod to block them all out!!! Help!!!

Bunker Mentality

Still feeling same as yesterday. Focus required. I think I may have to have words with my manager today. If I don't then I'll just carry on with the same negative thoughts. We'll see where his head's at when he comes in.

Ken phoned last night. Possible completion date 24th Sept. Fine by me. Let's do this.

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?