She's Back!

Yes, she's back! Our big girl Harriet is back with us! Had to wait at school after picking up Dylan. The coach was stuck in traffic. When they finally arrived it was so good to see her. She claims it was all horrible, the food was gross, the activities were hard and they had to do chores! But I reckon overall it was a great experience for her and given time she'll look back on it fondly. I spoke with her teacher to thank her for looking out for Harriet and she said that Harriet had done really well during the week. We're so proud of her.

Picked up some McFood on the way home then showed Harriet the new desk in her bedroom that we set up for her while she was away. It's so good to have her home.

John Peel Day

I was thinking of not going to the John Peel Day gig at the Jug Of Ale as Mike and Paul had both dropped out. Then Paul of the IC list mailed and we agreed that even if the bands were shite (which they were) it was worth attending in memory of the man.

Whilst propping the bar and discussing various music matters, I was approached by Brendan! Haven't seen him for about 10 years. He looked really well (the bugger) and it was very good to catch up a little with him. I hope that now we have bumped into each other that we can catch up a bit more some time.

All in all a good night. Not the greatest gig but still enjoyable to be back in the local gig scene. Must keep looking out for more interesting events. Check my upcoming page for the latest.

Harriets Trip

Our big girl is on her first school trip away to Wales for the week. We took her to school this morning and saw her off on the coach. Jacq was stressing over the packing arrangements but in reality organised it all superbly. Harriet was a bit nervous the night before but this morning it was more excitement that I saw.

Tonight we got a call from the teacher saying that Harriet was a bit upset and wanted to speak to us. Jacq took the call but could barely squeak a word out in an attempt to not get upset herself. I spoke to Harriet and she was fine, just a little homesick. Her friend Lizzie had started them off and the pair of them got upset together. I think they were tired at the end of the first day and their emotions got the better of them. I'm sure things will be fine in the morning. I was very pleased that their teacher spotted the situation and took steps to smooth it out.

Editors

Great night last night at Editors at the Irish Centre. Mike and I went into town together. I enjoyed walking through the city centre. The evenings now dark but the store lights still on, reminded me of Christmas. It's so rare that I walk around town that every visit brings new discoveries. I'm constantly looking around in wonder.

Met up with Paul at The Kitchen within the Custard Factory. Nice bar. Nice art on the wall by Beat13. Had a couple of drinks before heading off to the Irish Centre. The place was heaving. Sold out. It had been ages since I'd been to a 'proper' gig like this. Queuing to the bar and crushed in the mosh pit. The support was ok, We Are Scientists from NY. When Editors came on the place went wild and it was fun allowing myself to get swept up in it all. Joined in with the mosh pit and had a great time leaping about. So hot in there, the occasional flung pint came as quite a refreshment. I was hoarse from shouting in ears to chat and singing along with the songs. The band played well and the crowd loved it. All in all a top gig.

When we piled out of there I had that lovely post-gig deafness as we walked around the streets of Digbeth looking for a last drink. Eventually we gave up on that idea and made our way back through town to the bus. It was quite a serene journey home which I suppose is odd for a Friday night. The parts of town we walked through, the bus, the Bearwood high street, all quiet.

Upcoming

So I get myself setup on Upcoming and drop a badge on my blog site then what happens next? Well Upcoming only go and get themselves bought by Yahoo! don't they? Is there a pattern here? Will all the sentences in this blog post end in a question mark? No.

This is cool news. Stuff coming together. I like it. And tonight I'm attending my first Upcoming-posted gig, Editors at the Irish Centre. I'm reet looking forward to this. Meeting up with Mike and Paul over at the Custard Factory first. Should be sweet.

Matlock Day Out

A beautiful day out to Matlock in the Peak District. First stop was a walk around Matlock Bath. As always, the book sale shop caught our eye. Among other things, I picked up a 'making of' book for the recent Hitchhikers movie. At the till, the guy told me that his daughter was actually in the movie. A student at the Wimbledon College Of Art, they got involved in the creature props and she actually played one of the Vogons.

We drove up to Rowsley and got on the Peak Rail steam train back down to Matlock. Had a bit of a look around and then went back. On the platform waiting for the train, we started to worry. No sign of the train. Finally my nerve went and I called the helpline. As I listened to the phone ringing, the engine came around the bend. Phew. Back to the car, and home.

The Art Of WFH

Yet another day working from home (or WFH, as it shall be referred to from now on) which takes the total days for this week to three. A new record for me. Must confess to still not being as effective as I would like to be. I have to improve this if I want to continue with the WFH routine. Having to work on the family dining table is not ideal and there are many, many distractions throughout the domestic day to contend with.

Yesterday I popped into the office for some traditional desk action. The highlight being confirmation of the tech specialist conference in Karlsruhe. Hotels and flights now booked, this trip is on! Looking forward to a bit of travelling, something I haven't done for a long time.

Giving Githead A Miss

A second day working at home. My neck was stiff this morning (and still is now) so I gave the commute a miss. I was planning on going to see Githead tonight at The Garage in London. But laziness got the better of me. I don't expect that the set has changed much since the QEH gig so I'm probably not missing much. Would have been good to catch up with the IC massive but it's a long way to drive on a wet evening just for that.

Now THAT'S What I Call A Salad Sandwich!

Sometimes 'Working From Home' has it's advantages you know. Had quite a productive session this morning and stopped to make this beast of a sarnie. Probably my favourite ever meal, the salad sandwich. Oh well, blog post done, break over, back to the Functional Spec.

Drink At Heights

My new desktop background, showing off a composite I assembled this morning from our visit to the Heights Of Abraham last weekend.

Took Dylan and Sofia to Dions party today and left Harriet playing with Aksa. Everyone had a great time. Jacq and I planned to get lunch at the California Pizza Factory in Harborne, but on arrival we were disappointed to find that it's closed down. Some new thing in it's place. End of an era for us.

Dylan has discovered the telephone. Spent ages on the phone this afternoon to his mates Sumeet and Arron. It was so funny listening to him chatting away.

A Nice Saturday

A nice Saturday today with swimming lessons this morning then the afternoon spent at the Belbroughton Scarecrow Weekend. Lizzie, Steve and Theresa were there too. Weather was nice. All in all it was very nice just wandering around the place.

Worked from home again yesterday. Quite a productive few hours. Getting back into the discipline of it all.

Quite a good week just gone. As Phil mentions in his blog, there's a Technical Consultants Conference in Karlsruhe at the end of November and we've been approved to attend. If that comes off it should be excellent.

Tags

Tags are great! It is such a cool way to organise information now that I've finally got the hang of using it. My first experience was with Flickr, and like most things I mused too much over what words to use. But lately I've loosened up a bit through tagging my bookmarks in My Web and I've found that the more tags you use, the better resource of info you have at the end. Obvious really, but it takes me time.

Tags are being used more and more by different sites, there's even a name for it, Folksonomy. Not very catchy. There was an article in The Guardian about it recently.

Would you like to see my tag cloud? You may have to sign in to see this, not sure.

Revolution Controller

Nintendo do it again! Always prepared to think that bit wider. The new controller design is a classic example. Like many, I first saw it and thought Nintendo had lost the plot. But now I'm convinced that it's going to be awesome. The thought of using it as a sword / lightsaber will be so much fun. Check out an article about it here.

Cold In The Shade

Working at home today at the end of an ok sort of week. I'm plodding through my current tasks as best I can. Jacq not feeling too good so I left her in bed and took the kids down to school this morning. A cloudless blue sky. Bright sunshine, but cold in the shade. It's starting to feel a bit like autumn. Soon the back garden will be full of leaves.

Chugged away at my documents all morning while the home PC was busy hoovering up on Soulseek. Quite a haul. More than I've had for a long time. Listened to a few tracks from the forthcoming Boards Of Canada CD. That's one I need to buy for real.

Puters Gone Crazy!

Have had a whole heap of problems trying to keep my puters online recently which has had me suspecting router problems. Tracked the problem down to a DNS failure which could be bypassed by manually setting the addresses in the TCP properties. Finally tonight I found out thanks to a forum post that it's iTunes 5 that has caused the mayhem! Apparently some bundled service called Bonjour is causing DNS conflicts. I'm glad that there is an explanation for the craziness and hope Apple sorts it soon.

In other news, there isn't much news. Yesterday was an in-the-house sort of day and today was a quite good office day. Picked up The Guardian and I love the new size, but still getting used to the logo. Got a 19" TFT monitor for my desk today which works lovely in dual desktop mode with my laptop. I was enjoying just dragging windows from one side to the other. Easily pleased me. Not that the wife would agree.

One More Go

Worked from home yesterday for the first time in ages. Good to be not driving to Coventry. Even better to see the kids in their new uniforms going into school.

Inbetween doing work stuff, Jacq and I shopped for clothes for Harriets trip next month. It was much easier picking up the clothes without dragging the kids around the shops. Thankfully it all fitted at treat when tried on at home.

This morning the kids had swimming then we went over to Lizzies for the afternoon. She did a curry which was very nice. Steve and I discussed the imminent design changes to The Guardian which I was completely unaware of. The merits of the new masthead typeface were discussed and we both agreed that we didn't like it much but that it has probably been considered long and hard by others way more qualified than us.

We took Super Monkey Ball Deluxe over to play which I picked up yesterday for a good price (20) at Game. A top game it is, with great little mini-games inside. The footie game is a fave of mine. The main game itself is the kind of things that provokes screams of pain upon failure, but always results in the urge for 'one more go'.

Up Early

The hum of a police helicopter over the house woke me at 4:30AM from a sleep that wasn't very restful to begin with. Too hot and mad dreams about work stuff meant I had to go downstairs for a drink. The PC was running so I checked that my Soulseek downloads had completed and started this post. I'm thinking now that I might as well go into work early and get some more hours in.

Back To School (Learning Stuff)

Kids back at school today. Jacq says they both have nice teachers. Harriet is in year 5 now. So next year is her last before senior school. Gosh. Time is marching on. Dyl got a sword from the local post office as a treat on the way home. A splendid samurai type blade that we played with over at Jims tonight.

Got Laika best of CD 'Lost In Space' in the post today. Top notch bargain at 3.99 off eBay. What a top quality band Laika are. Yet totally ignored it seems. Pleased to see in the liner notes much respect for Wire.

Mike couldn't make the sesh tonight so I had another hour with Ableton. Still getting familiar with the program and trying to establish a workflow. Not sure if I'm doing stuff correctly at the moment but it's fun and I'm liking my current results so that's good enough. Need to do much more though. These current things are just the necessary initial experiments.

MUST just mention this article spotted over at Lifehacker. Absoultely spot on stuff. REALLY connecting with this. Read it here, 11 Tips to surviving a day job with your creativity intact.

New Sofas

Had my first look at a PSP this morning in a Game store. Have to concede it's quite a sexy beast but not sure that I really want one. Played with Wipeout Pure and the graphics were stunning but it seemed a bit sluggish to me. I like the fact that it can browse t'web but if that's something I really need then I'd get better functionality from a PDA.

This afternoon we ordered a couple of new sofas. Our old ones are too big. Smaller sofas will give us some flexibility in organising and decorating the living space. Included two stools in the order for some feet-up time when kicking back in front of the telly.

Sorted!

Harriet passed her Level 7 swimming test this morning with some superb technique. I'm so proud of her. Dylan did well but still needs to concentrate more. He's still just in there ducking his head under water when Keith is trying to talk to him. He's always having fun. We went swimming yesterday afternoon and he spent the whole time underwater.

In the afternoon I spent some time with my central heating system trying to understand what is going on with it. Having changed the diverter valve recently I've been focussed on the fact that the independent control of HW and CH I expected is not available. After much digging around with my meter I started rechecking the wiring around the programmable controller and stone me if I didn't find that the damn thing was wired up wrong from the start! I was well chuffed by this discovery and after changing the connections I had full control of HW and CH. Sorted!

Tonight Jacq and I watched Manhattan. An absolute classic. A wonderful movie. Worthy of a copy.