Really winds me up when the Fun-police get their way and succeed in banning something so unimportant and irrelevant, which most right-minded people wouldn't be actually bothered about.
To what am I referring? this piece on the BBC News site about the ASA coming down hard on Reed for daring to poke fun at 'ze Jermans'. Blimey, whatever next? Ooh, no mickey-taking of anyone with any kind of infirmity, or anyone who's got a big nose, or likes [insert your least favourite kind of music here] ?!
FFS.
Wednesday, January 20
Monday, January 4
Post Crimbo
Now that Christmas is over, and New Year is also history, the full weight of 2010 is pressing in like a huge dumb-bell, ready to snap my arms into broken twigs.
It's looking like I've got a fair few airmiles coming my way this year - my schedule is mapped out until June so far, and involves about 4 or 5 trips to Aus I reckon, taking in the delights of Perth, Sydney and Brisbane. At least I know folks in all of those places - whether they'll want to meet up is naturally an entirely separate question! :-)
At least when I'm not travelling I'll mostly be at home, working on preparing for delivering course materials, not having to commute into the City. It thus seems fair to say that not only is the nature of what I now do different from before, but also the level of team contact, since I am no longer one of those who gets caught up in a project team for X months/years and all that that typically involves. Plus ca change, as my cheese-loving friends over the channel would say...
The house needs a few jobs doing, which I'm now getting around to addressing. Porch roof i leaking, the lean-to is as grotty as ever and I can't wait til we get to tarting up the interior and binning the cheap carpet which has lived through 2 sets of tenants and is now subject to daily abuse by the dogs. Pretty good chance that the place will see some investment this year I'd say, though depth of pocket will doubtless influence how far we go.
Last bit of 'good' news - I'm getting a nice Blackberry Bold 9700 tomorrow, which is gonna be groovy since it fulfils all the usual Blackberry usefulness, plus adds 3g to its armory. Sweet!
It's looking like I've got a fair few airmiles coming my way this year - my schedule is mapped out until June so far, and involves about 4 or 5 trips to Aus I reckon, taking in the delights of Perth, Sydney and Brisbane. At least I know folks in all of those places - whether they'll want to meet up is naturally an entirely separate question! :-)
At least when I'm not travelling I'll mostly be at home, working on preparing for delivering course materials, not having to commute into the City. It thus seems fair to say that not only is the nature of what I now do different from before, but also the level of team contact, since I am no longer one of those who gets caught up in a project team for X months/years and all that that typically involves. Plus ca change, as my cheese-loving friends over the channel would say...
The house needs a few jobs doing, which I'm now getting around to addressing. Porch roof i leaking, the lean-to is as grotty as ever and I can't wait til we get to tarting up the interior and binning the cheap carpet which has lived through 2 sets of tenants and is now subject to daily abuse by the dogs. Pretty good chance that the place will see some investment this year I'd say, though depth of pocket will doubtless influence how far we go.
Last bit of 'good' news - I'm getting a nice Blackberry Bold 9700 tomorrow, which is gonna be groovy since it fulfils all the usual Blackberry usefulness, plus adds 3g to its armory. Sweet!
Sunday, December 13
"Stupid Police to the Target supermarket, please!"
Amazing. Truly, gob-smackingly amazing.
I can't purchase booze in Target in California. My driver's licence is no good, so I tried my passport (which is just about enough to let me cross the border into this 'great' country called USA), no dice.
Unbe-f*ckin-lievable. Get some common sense, people!
Still, I went down the road to Safeway and they were fine about me purchasing al-cur-hol.
I can't purchase booze in Target in California. My driver's licence is no good, so I tried my passport (which is just about enough to let me cross the border into this 'great' country called USA), no dice.
Unbe-f*ckin-lievable. Get some common sense, people!
Still, I went down the road to Safeway and they were fine about me purchasing al-cur-hol.
Saturday, December 12
Choon!
It has to be said, I'm a fan of Mr Dizzee Rascal. Check out this tune 'Bonkers', I defy you not to smile as you listen to the lyrics and the melody.
Now isn't that fun?!
More amusement, though this one's really only if you're brave enough to admit that D n B can really rock! This is by a Kiwi DJ, of all things ... :-)
Now isn't that fun?!
More amusement, though this one's really only if you're brave enough to admit that D n B can really rock! This is by a Kiwi DJ, of all things ... :-)
Wednesday, November 25
Lady Luck?
I've got a job!
A paid one at that, doing work! Woo-hoo! Not going to say who with, just because the last place hassled me for using their name in a public blog - the important bit is that it's exciting because it's a job I wanted to get and with a firm where the culture and ethos are excellent!
I'm going to be a Senior Education Consultant, serving the EMEA region primarily (with some possibility of working further afield as and when), and I start next Monday in San Mateo with a few weeks' product training, i.e. getting familiar with the software product and doing their certification so that I can move onto being able to train others in it.
This is not the first role where I've gotten to the final stage, or the only one where I've had the joy of the face-to-face grilling. Well over a month ago I had a final with a charity, for a senior developer role. More recently I had one for a European Support Consultant position, which I really thought I'd enjoy and it also seemed that they were pretty keen on my fit. But both these opportunities faded away, frustratingly at the time, before the Education one came along.
I realise that one gets generally more proficient at interviews the more experience of them you get, and getting a job you're qualified for should only be a matter of time, but - speaking personally - I would say that in this case there's a bit more to it. I believe that God had His hand on this area of my life: He's let me explore myself and experience some rejection, whilst knowing that this new opportunity awaits and that it will fit me better than the others and allow me to give more of myself. Clearly, there's a lot to be said for faith - without faith in myself, never mind God, I would have been badly affected by the pain and anguish of rejection, from the interviews that went nowhere, to the ceaseless drone of looking over job ads as they trickle into my inbox.
Important to reiterate something that I keep realising, over and over again, which is, God is faithful and good - not just some of the time, as we kid ourselves we are, but ALL of the time. If God decides in His faithfulness that He is going to bring about a change, rest assured that change will take place - not always according to our timescales, I grant you, but then our perspective is so very small in comparison, who are we to question His timing. The big issue here is, that even though we are not consistently faithful, God is: He does not get this wrong, He doesn't change his mind because of bad weather, mood or what have you.
None of this means that I know what's going to happen - I thought I had messed up the face to face last week, and yet they made me an offer. Amusingly however, I had seen a number in my mind while trying to sleep a couple of nights before, and that was the salary figure quoted within the overall offer.
Go figure. :-)
A paid one at that, doing work! Woo-hoo! Not going to say who with, just because the last place hassled me for using their name in a public blog - the important bit is that it's exciting because it's a job I wanted to get and with a firm where the culture and ethos are excellent!
I'm going to be a Senior Education Consultant, serving the EMEA region primarily (with some possibility of working further afield as and when), and I start next Monday in San Mateo with a few weeks' product training, i.e. getting familiar with the software product and doing their certification so that I can move onto being able to train others in it.
This is not the first role where I've gotten to the final stage, or the only one where I've had the joy of the face-to-face grilling. Well over a month ago I had a final with a charity, for a senior developer role. More recently I had one for a European Support Consultant position, which I really thought I'd enjoy and it also seemed that they were pretty keen on my fit. But both these opportunities faded away, frustratingly at the time, before the Education one came along.
I realise that one gets generally more proficient at interviews the more experience of them you get, and getting a job you're qualified for should only be a matter of time, but - speaking personally - I would say that in this case there's a bit more to it. I believe that God had His hand on this area of my life: He's let me explore myself and experience some rejection, whilst knowing that this new opportunity awaits and that it will fit me better than the others and allow me to give more of myself. Clearly, there's a lot to be said for faith - without faith in myself, never mind God, I would have been badly affected by the pain and anguish of rejection, from the interviews that went nowhere, to the ceaseless drone of looking over job ads as they trickle into my inbox.
Important to reiterate something that I keep realising, over and over again, which is, God is faithful and good - not just some of the time, as we kid ourselves we are, but ALL of the time. If God decides in His faithfulness that He is going to bring about a change, rest assured that change will take place - not always according to our timescales, I grant you, but then our perspective is so very small in comparison, who are we to question His timing. The big issue here is, that even though we are not consistently faithful, God is: He does not get this wrong, He doesn't change his mind because of bad weather, mood or what have you.
None of this means that I know what's going to happen - I thought I had messed up the face to face last week, and yet they made me an offer. Amusingly however, I had seen a number in my mind while trying to sleep a couple of nights before, and that was the salary figure quoted within the overall offer.
Go figure. :-)
Wednesday, October 14
I've just deactivated my account on facebook, after not bothering with it for quite a long time, and having suspicions about the benefits of constantly pandering to it for about as long now.
Seems like some people still think its totally harmless however: bbc story link
Ok, all that the story tells us is that some criminals aren't all that smart, I know. But I wonder what it reveals about people in general. Do they think that what they mention 'on-line' somehow isn't the same as if they told someone the same thing face-to-face? Or perhaps that whatever they post is treated as 'obviously' fictional because its on the internet, which is a virtual place where things never have any relation to the real world?
Dunno, but you hear of this kind of thing, along with e.g. people admitting to affairs, or skiving off work, all posted on t'internet where they somehow think that it's therefore all fine and dandy!? Madness.
The concept of facebook, myspace, bebo etc isn't one that I'm actually against, since it's a good thing to be able to network like this and share with people. My issue would be with two things - that some folk use the online networking in lieu of 'real' networking, i.e. talking to and meeting with people, and secondly the whole scenario outlined above, of people assuming that the content of the interweb somehow bears no link to the real world.
Got a view on all of this? Feel free to let me know :)
Seems like some people still think its totally harmless however: bbc story link
Ok, all that the story tells us is that some criminals aren't all that smart, I know. But I wonder what it reveals about people in general. Do they think that what they mention 'on-line' somehow isn't the same as if they told someone the same thing face-to-face? Or perhaps that whatever they post is treated as 'obviously' fictional because its on the internet, which is a virtual place where things never have any relation to the real world?
Dunno, but you hear of this kind of thing, along with e.g. people admitting to affairs, or skiving off work, all posted on t'internet where they somehow think that it's therefore all fine and dandy!? Madness.
The concept of facebook, myspace, bebo etc isn't one that I'm actually against, since it's a good thing to be able to network like this and share with people. My issue would be with two things - that some folk use the online networking in lieu of 'real' networking, i.e. talking to and meeting with people, and secondly the whole scenario outlined above, of people assuming that the content of the interweb somehow bears no link to the real world.
Got a view on all of this? Feel free to let me know :)
Friday, October 2
London at dawn
I got up kinda early this morning, as in about 5 a.m. early, which was a touch harsh at the time.
But this was deliberate, not an accident fortunately, as I had decided to go up to 'that' London and do some shooting: its been an idea I've had for a little while - catch London waking up, photograph her visitors, inhabitants and shapes, as the first light hits her.
Bold plan then, given ideally I would be needing good light to make this worthwhile and, even with a weather forecast by the renown BBC, no-one actually knows the future, or how nice the sky is going to be when the sun makes her appearance.
After a quick taxi to Woking station, I got on the quarter to 6 train to Waterloo, then changed for the Jubilee line to London Bridge, where I got out and onto the bridge, awaiting the sunrise. Weather being typically fickle, there weren't the stunning colours that I'd witnessed just the other day when we got out of the house just before 7 a.m. to walk the dogs, however there was still plenty of sights and places of interest to wander around, all accompanied by London busily rising from slumber.
By mid-morning I was done, and it had become a pretty nice day, with a few streaky, high clouds. Despite ultimately needing 'a bit of a siesta' straight after lunch, I think it was definitely worthwhile.
And its hardly the kind of thing I'll get around to doing once I'm chained to a permanent job again is it?
clicky clicky
But this was deliberate, not an accident fortunately, as I had decided to go up to 'that' London and do some shooting: its been an idea I've had for a little while - catch London waking up, photograph her visitors, inhabitants and shapes, as the first light hits her.
Bold plan then, given ideally I would be needing good light to make this worthwhile and, even with a weather forecast by the renown BBC, no-one actually knows the future, or how nice the sky is going to be when the sun makes her appearance.
After a quick taxi to Woking station, I got on the quarter to 6 train to Waterloo, then changed for the Jubilee line to London Bridge, where I got out and onto the bridge, awaiting the sunrise. Weather being typically fickle, there weren't the stunning colours that I'd witnessed just the other day when we got out of the house just before 7 a.m. to walk the dogs, however there was still plenty of sights and places of interest to wander around, all accompanied by London busily rising from slumber.
By mid-morning I was done, and it had become a pretty nice day, with a few streaky, high clouds. Despite ultimately needing 'a bit of a siesta' straight after lunch, I think it was definitely worthwhile.
And its hardly the kind of thing I'll get around to doing once I'm chained to a permanent job again is it?
clicky clicky
Wednesday, September 23
Chase Jarvis
I'm not typically one to bother my limited readership with such things, but I got the link to the above from Ken Rockwell, and have to say I think its a really good idea.
Yes, there's possibly some tie-in from Apple and it won't get me to go out and buy an iPhone, but the whole concept is what I liked and would agree with.
Monday, September 21
New!
There's some detail on the upcoming Java 7 release over on this website if you're curious.
At brief glance, don't seem to be a great swathe of revolutionary changes, but worth a look if you're interested.
At brief glance, don't seem to be a great swathe of revolutionary changes, but worth a look if you're interested.
Friday, August 28
Beer n Bread
'sgreat being redundant innit!
Here's some bread I made earlier, nestling comfortably along side some beer I've just gone out and got from the local Surrey Hills Brewery - that's 16 pints in total in the shot, 8 of Gilt Complex, 4 Ranmore Ale and 4 Shere Drop. The local working men's club serves the Shere Drop and its a delicious ale, and going along with the neighbours to the club last night is what prompted me today to go and get some of it, fresh from the source ;-)
Not exactly sure what the boss'll reckon to it all mind.
Wednesday, August 26
The Big R
Seeing as how the redundancy has just come in, I'm off to go buy one of these...
Only joking! What, you think I'd go ahead with such a plan? Without consulting and gaining agreement from 'the oracle'? Such a line of action would almost certainly result in my dangly bits being removed from their original resting place and stapled to the nearest tree, as a warning to any other men out there, thinking of doing anything like as daft...
Only joking! What, you think I'd go ahead with such a plan? Without consulting and gaining agreement from 'the oracle'? Such a line of action would almost certainly result in my dangly bits being removed from their original resting place and stapled to the nearest tree, as a warning to any other men out there, thinking of doing anything like as daft...
New Techie Books
Eclipse IDE is built on the Eclipse Equinox OSGi framework, which got me thinking "hmmm that sounds interesting", plus I've been meaning to read up on the Agile, i.e. XP, manifesto stuff first-hand for a long time, so Kent's book on XP is also gonna be interesting I reckon.
After all, I've got time to do some reading, now haven't I...
Thursday, August 13
AMG a go-go
After passing the Java 6 exam on Monday, I had myself a little treat lined up - an hour of instructed AMG driving at Mercedes Benz World at Brooklands (famous old racetrack). Basically I got to take the wheel of a new MB C63 AMG and drive it at speed, around the wet circle and around the short track circuit too. Overall it was an hour well spent, and I came away pretty impressed by the car (and a lot less impressed with my drifting ability :-) ).
Top fun! If you like cars, you'll love it!
Friday, August 7
SCJP is almost here!
To what am I referring?
The Sun Certified Java Programmer exam, version 6 of which I am taking after the weekend. It's a little bit daunting, I don't mind admitting, only in as much as I obviously don't want to fail and have to go through the hassle and expense of reapplying - never mind the shame! :-)
Had a 'bad' couple of hours doing a nasty mock exam this morning, where I clearly hadn't put my brain fully into gear, as I got a few obvious ones wrong. This just goes to show that I'll need to give each question in the exam my fullest attention and take extra care to watch out for 'hidden' problems, which will otherwise trip me up.
Anyway, by Monday lunchtime it'll all be over, I can't wait!
The Sun Certified Java Programmer exam, version 6 of which I am taking after the weekend. It's a little bit daunting, I don't mind admitting, only in as much as I obviously don't want to fail and have to go through the hassle and expense of reapplying - never mind the shame! :-)
Had a 'bad' couple of hours doing a nasty mock exam this morning, where I clearly hadn't put my brain fully into gear, as I got a few obvious ones wrong. This just goes to show that I'll need to give each question in the exam my fullest attention and take extra care to watch out for 'hidden' problems, which will otherwise trip me up.
Anyway, by Monday lunchtime it'll all be over, I can't wait!
Wednesday, July 29
New toy!
Well, with redundancy now a cert, I've not only made the decision to contract, I've even gone all giddy and bought a Blackberry, to ensure I get those *vital* emails from agencies and clients 'tout suite'.
It's not new, whaddya think I am, made of money?! And no, dont bother asking where I got it, you already know the answer...
What I will say, which may be of minor interest, is how easy it was to get set up with my ISP (Orange) to get full gmail access. Quick call to Orange (and a fiver a month on the bill, for interweb access) and a few clicks with the Blueberry (whoops, must remember its not strictly a fruit device) and I was sorted! The word 'slick' springs to mind.
It's not new, whaddya think I am, made of money?! And no, dont bother asking where I got it, you already know the answer...
What I will say, which may be of minor interest, is how easy it was to get set up with my ISP (Orange) to get full gmail access. Quick call to Orange (and a fiver a month on the bill, for interweb access) and a few clicks with the Blueberry (whoops, must remember its not strictly a fruit device) and I was sorted! The word 'slick' springs to mind.
Saturday, July 11
Forget Digital
I'm going back to Film.
Check out this image, taken with a cheap Olympus Trip 35, like what I had when I was in shorts all day, every day.
Got it from (guess, go on, guess) Ebay for a song, stuck some Fuji print film in it and went out shootin'. You can blame this man for me even bothering. Got the developed prints back today, along with a CD of the shots scanned at low-res. Thing is, you can see the limits of the scanning process before you can see the limits of the picture quality - at least in my opinion here.
Now fast forward to the year 2025, when image scanning technology has progressed yet further and you can get a home scanner that'll hit 16000 dpi without breaking sweat - by then I also reckon GIF and JPEG will have become obsolete, there'll be some fancier, schmancier image format, and you'll have had to convert your old RAWs and JPEGs into the new format just to look at them, which will only serve to reveal the limitation of the original capture process, and depress you that your image master was got at such 'low' resolution (I don't know, perhaps you only had a Canon 5d :-)
I've just bought a Nikon F100 (we all know where) at a good price and am looking foward to using my Nikon D40 as a 'dummy' for those shots that I'll actually want to save indefinitely and therefore snap onto slide film.
Wednesday, July 1
Roll up, roll up...
I've just discovered this fantastic new blog about bread and baking, so it only seems fair to share it with you: Bakers Row
Not much as yet, but it looks real promising... ;-)
PS, did you like the puntastic title of this post?
Not much as yet, but it looks real promising... ;-)
PS, did you like the puntastic title of this post?
Tuesday, June 23
Windoze
ARGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yet again, more kerfuffle with Windows XP on my works laptop! How is it we (by which I am referring to collections of people working together who have some knowledge of computers) put up with Windows Operating Systems?! At the very least, Gates should come clean and just call his stuff 'Non-operating Systems' when talking about the nasty code that runs software on most of the world's PCs.
Got another BSOD the other day, on start up oddly enough, causing the machine to run chkdsk, which in turn reported it had fixed a number of corrupted files - nice of it, eh? Of course, why is it said files are corrupted? I've got anti-virus after all, and Windoze's frontline security is ever-present isn't it?
Anyway, DB2 is knackered, thanks to the problem, as I get constantly reminded now when I boot up, something to do with a DB2 DLL not being the same as its 'image'.
What a load of old $hit computers really are... now to uninstall and reinstall DB2, there goes another hour of my life.
Yet again, more kerfuffle with Windows XP on my works laptop! How is it we (by which I am referring to collections of people working together who have some knowledge of computers) put up with Windows Operating Systems?! At the very least, Gates should come clean and just call his stuff 'Non-operating Systems' when talking about the nasty code that runs software on most of the world's PCs.
Got another BSOD the other day, on start up oddly enough, causing the machine to run chkdsk, which in turn reported it had fixed a number of corrupted files - nice of it, eh? Of course, why is it said files are corrupted? I've got anti-virus after all, and Windoze's frontline security is ever-present isn't it?
Anyway, DB2 is knackered, thanks to the problem, as I get constantly reminded now when I boot up, something to do with a DB2 DLL not being the same as its 'image'.
What a load of old $hit computers really are... now to uninstall and reinstall DB2, there goes another hour of my life.
Saturday, June 13
Birthday... sorted
After some deliberation, and confusion (see below) I finally opted to get a Canon Ixus 870 IS (cheers for the persuasion, Ken) on the basis that it takes good pictures and is small enough for me to actually use when I can't be fagged to carry the DSLR. For stuff that isn't moving, i.e. most landscapes obviously, the little Canon will suffice very nicely thanks, although there are some slight limits on your creative juices - it won't let you fiddle with the aperture for example.
However it should allow me to see if I can start and improve my imagination with what I use the camera for and get better at the shots themselves, since it ain't the camera that's to blame if the composition of a picture is poor now is it?!
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