Whistler and the Alltracks group

So I'm in Canada, in Whistler, sitting in what will be my room for the next 5 weeks.

The journey was good once I had managed to get all my gear from my flat across town by Tube to Heathrow. Air Canada did a good job with the service and one of those seat back entertainment systems. I caught up on a bunch of movies (Margin Call: very good, Lincoln Lawyer: good, Sucker Punch: very rubbish even on fast forward and Puss in Boots: also very good) and had a couple of fairly good meals.

At Vancouver the first thing of note was a huge tank of jellyfish before you get to passport control (no idea why). I was met by Guy, who it turns out is the head Instructor for the resort and really really tall!
and after hanging around for ages for another flight, in the bar watching ice hockey with an American and a Dutch lad, we got a coach to the resort.

The house I'm staying at is in a little quiet corner of Whistler called Valhalla. It's a modern development with a communal hot tub for all the houses in the square (more of a round actually) to share in the middle. Unfortunately the hot tub isn't working due to something to do with heath and safety. The house has all the things you would expect including a big TV, good wifi, microwave and washing machine (so no trips to a launderette, thank God). There are 7 of us sharing, 2 downstairs, Ben and Dom, who are friends from the UK. Upstairs we have two single rooms and a big room with three sharing. Nick, a tall South African and myself have the two single rooms and Arthur, Mike and Ed share the big room. Arthur and Ed are English (Ed is also the only snowboarder) and Mike is a blue haired American from Oregon. My room is huge and I definitely got the best deal in the house. I've got a huge double bed, a bit of a balcony and a walk in wardrobe.

Saturday we had the welcome meeting and in the evening a welcome drink. The most interest information was finding out just how many people are on the course. Once we all managed to get into the Hilton Whistler's main meeting room, there were about 70 of us with about 20 or so being snowboards. Most of the group appear to be either 18-19 and straight out of school or in their mid 20s (my house mates, except Mike (mid 30s) are all in this group). There a few grey haired individuals so I'm not the oldest by a good few decades.

It all seems well organised, the people seem nice, the town looks lively and the weather looks snowy so fingers crossed it should be a good trip.
the size of the group

Three days work and then I'm off

A good Xmas and new year at my Parents, catching up everyone big and small. Now I'm just got a few quiet, hopefully, days at work and then I'm flying to Canada, Friday lunchtime.

The bags are packed the fridge is nearly empty and my laptop is loaded with music and movies.

Time to hit the slopes

Yay!

On reflection it was quite good...

An update on life

Oh dear looks like I've not been keeping the blog up to date.


Well things that have been happening are


Pub quiz - the team, we call ourselves 'The team with 2 brains' (no matter how many of us go), have now won four times so that's total winnings of 200 quid.


Climbing - going quite regularly now, mostly with Emma, Ryan and Izzy (no sign of the others being that organised to go). although at the mo only with Emma as the rest are abroad for Xmas. I checked out Whistler and they have two good walls and I'll take my shoes with me when I go.


Skiing - Pretty sorted now. Managed to square it with work. 5 weeks break down thus


   9th Jan - 13th Feb
     5 days carry over 2011 holiday
   10 days 2012 holiday
   12 days unpaid leave


I've paid the holiday company. I've got the insurance and booked the flights.
I've contacted my cousin Mikel who lives over there to meet up, same with my friends Emmanuel, Sandra and possibly Jason (who was on the original instructor course).
In fact I've started packing too! just the money to sort and check I've got my knee supports.


Gym - just had my last session for the year, in fact until I get back in Feb. Andy is going to email me a series of exercises to do while I'm away.


Work - It's OK they are fine with me going away and coming back. I've not pushed for anything more senior or more money perhaps I can do that when I get back. Still got loads of leaving dos each week. Also we've had the Xmas party which I enjoyed much more than last year and our team Xmas meal which didn't involve any food just beer!


Bike - my wheels are still going good. Just thinking about getting it a cover as a Xmas present to keep it clean and shinny in all this bad weather while I'm away.


Xmas - presents sorted/given, cards done, going back to the Parents for the Hols. Noting sorted for New years eve.


So generally quite in control at the moment which is nice :-)


must remember to get some milk on the way home...

More leaving dos

Bye Bye Michelle

Whistler sorted again

23/09/2011 11:32

OK after alot of Googling and a few spread sheets of costs, I've booked another trip to Whistler.

It's  a 5 Week course for Level one ski instructors by a company called Alltracks. Its about the same cost as the 11 Week course I had booked but this time I get most of the food included and a single room, luxury! I will be straight after xmas so I've got a while to sort stuff out.

Now I have to tell work and see if they will agree to a sabbatical

Mystery Film

06/09/2011 17:38

I got a couple of tickets to a free mystery film showing at the local cinema. They wouldn't say what it was or what type on film is was. In the end it turned out to be Troll Hunter. The film is quite good, with some good laughs and a few good special effects. OK so the plot is loopy and the whole thing is subtitled but I enjoyed it.

Whistler Off

31/08/2011 17:37

Well that didn't go according to plan.

Had a nice 11 week trip booked in Whistler. One half was going to be the first stage of the ski instructors course and half was going to be an 'all-terrain' skills course.

However due to some weird reasons to do with who the company (basecamp) book the local stuff through it all had to change and they moved the whole thing, lock, stock and barrel, over to banff instead of Whistler.

This caused me a problem as the whole point was going to Whistler.

Time for a rethink and a refund

Leeds Mud Festival

 30/08/2011 17:37

OK 

So its actually the Music festival but it rained and rained and rained.

The music was good mind you.

Boom the r word is back

8/8/11 10:33

and it all happened while I was away damn it!

I was away on Holiday and the redundancy thing happened again. Fortunately not to me this time but quite messy. not sure of the amount of people going but it seems to effect the business facing side of the office.

Anyway the company responded in typical style they all went down the Crown and Sceptre and ran up a gigantic bar bill. I saw one bit of it when I got back and it was over 5 foot long!

Goodbye Emma and Suli

Tears and Beers 30/7/11 17:32

So the time came for Emma and Suli to leave Dare. Suli managed to coordinate her leaving to match the same day as Emma.

It was hard emotionally. The usual solution and form at these thing is to find beer. We pretty much wrote the whole afternoon off. From 3PF at lunchtime we didn't really get back to the office afterwards.
We did a bit of a pub crawl from the Lukin, via Jetlag (and lots of B52s) to the Ship.

Their leaving meant lots to me because for a long long time we were sitting next to each other in the old office with me in the middle and knowing that they aren't going to be around as much is really odd.

In the ship we carried on drinking and people came and when thru the afternoon. Bui brought some pink champagne at one point and there were shots. It was in the Ship were I sprung a little surprise I had planned. I gave each of them a stained glass star that I had made in evening class which they both loved (and managed to remember to take home with them).

We managed to get them back into the office for their leaving speeches. Which weren't as painful as they thought they were going to be (they had planned on not returning at all). After which the whole company went to the Yorkshire Grey to drink the night away.

It ended after a McChicken sandwich with the remainder of us going our separate teary ways at Warren Street tube.

Whistler On

28/07/2011 17:31

Well I made the commitment after alot of research and thinking. I decided pretty much from the start that it has to be Whistler, as it's meant to have great conditions and socially is meant to be quite lively!

In the end I've decide to go with basecamp and a slightly different sort of a course.
It's 11 weeks but rather than doing just ski instructing the whole time, this is course is first half ski instructor level 1 and the second half is an all terrain skills course. This should allow me a bit of fun and not be too hard code that the wear and tear get too much for me.

The next question is how to tell work....

New biker in town

OK so I've had it for a couple of weeks now. I've got a new motorbike. it's a Yamaha 125YBR Custom. Basically think of a old style motorcycle with a tear drop petrol tank. All in red and chrome. I got a good 0% deal so no problems using money I'm saving for the skiing trip. and as it brand new I shouldn't have too many maintenance worries.

I've been out on it a couple of times now including a few to work. London traffic is very hard work and getting between my flat and work (only 7.7miles) take me the best part of an hour. This is partly the traffic and the lights and partly because its very easy to get lost and stuck in the wrong lane.

Hopefully we get plenty of sunny days so I can get out and about!

In Mourning and the Grand plan

Good friends are leaving work.

Despite all the success factors: well paid job, a secure home, good family and friends, living in a busy and vibrant city. I been in a depressed and sad state for a while and now I think I know why, I think I'm in mourning. Let me explain. A lot of my social life revolves around work and people are going. The work atmosphere is not as good as it used to be. Now I start to see all the people who have left, to see the gaps in the office rather than the people that are there. Perhaps its a normal reaction so all the change, it's just a bit sad that's all.

And now both my friends Emma and Suli are going which is going to be hard

Anyway I told them about my plans to go and finish my ski instructor course. so now I suppose I actually have to do it...

new physical

Not as good as I would have like considering I've going to the gym most days.

It's my Work two yearly physical for all the 'oldies' in the company.

The usually story in the result have less beer, take more water, get less stress, keep up the level of exercise.

Basically sounds like my job isn't healthy for me! and they paid for the tests!

Promotions

well not me
but plenty of people in the department that should get one. they are all people that have done a huge amount of late nights and weekends.
but still it's not comfortable now this is 4 people who have got promoted past me.

I've started think hard about going back and finishing my ski instructor course

The Friday after 4PF

Well

Yes I talked to the boss and we managed to sort out most of my issues. I'm going to be patient for a bit while he decides on which client he wants to make me technically responsible for and then I become a Technical Account Lead !! plus he's promised to move me off the couple of bad support projects I'm still looking after so fingers crossed again. It's not a bad place to work but getting stuck in a corner hasn't been the best in the last couple of months, coupled with the huge number of people that seem to be leaving at the moment the social side (which if I being honest is the main reason I'm still here) is in a bit of a flux at the moment and I was thinking about joining them.

I've managed to get through to the estate agent, 7 calls it took in the end and then flat is now officially off the market. I'm going to pop into the office tomorrow to get my spare set of keys back. I'll have to have a think and a review as to what to do with the place but at least I think I need to update the kitchen and bathrooms. the problem is trying to get a recommendations for good local builders.

I've booking back onto the Stained Glass course and Today I had a bit of a talk with someone about a commission. Not sure I'm that good at it yet!

still haven't sorted this blog out yet as I still have pending post for 2 gigs, 1 ski trip and a year review...

I'm now clean shaven, which is nice if annoying as I have to shave in the mornings again. fortunately the weather has turned nice so the beard isn't missed as much.

Leeds festival is sorted (well will be when I pay the money) and it looks like a good line up including Muse, Madness, Pulp, Offspring, MCR and Mr Henry Rollins.

So quite organised at the moment I must have forgotten about something...

Stats

I'm now, well we measured in the gym on wednesday, the following stats

a weight of 88.1 Kg
and a BMI of 22.9

The trainer said the weight was a bit high, so I asked him, as we are about the same size and his weight was the same!

He didn't do his BMI...

But said I need to get it down to about 17 for a target date of 1st July.
so I will be, and I'm quoting him, ripped for the summer!

The big day to tidy up life

I will be 38 years old in less that a month so I think today I should get some stuff sorted.

right what to do today.

(Note actually I'm doing quite well today as I got up early and managed an hour in the gym before getting to work for 8:30)

get my blog up to date about my last ski trip
talk to the boss about staying at my current job or looking for another one.
take the house off the market
sign up a new online dating agency
sort out my ISA for the tax year end
get some tickets to the one of this years music festivals (probably Leeds)
redeem the rest of my free music vouchers before they run out.

and stuff that can probably wait

look at buying a motorbike/scooter.
shave my beard off
sign up for stained glass again

well what did I manage?

my boss isn't in today so that's one for Monday
left a couple of messages with the estate agent but he hasn't called back
signed up to lovestucklondon
eISA with Nationwide all sorted.
got the ball rolling and a mate will be buying a group of tickets for Leeds, Yah!
taking the vouchers home and hopefully think of some suitable music this weekend.
oh and I did some work work as well. which is nice.

MOT part trois

um somethings to think about
got a little more money
not really anything else.

Getting the gang back together - sort of

Skiingthird time for the season. Maybe that's enough for one season.

This time is was Les Arcs.

We had:
Ice - ouch my hip/knee/head
Bare bits- ouch my skis
Sunny days - SPF50 nice
White outs- always fun
Some powder - weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
It was the first time we managed to get most of us together from University as a skiing group. I've been skiing on different trips with all of them at different times, except Nick.

It would have been a fuller set as Colin was meant to go as well but due to Clare getting injured on another ski trip he had to stay behind. The was a plus side to this as my room was tiny and sharing it would have been hard, but it would have been good to have us all there.

So we had Nick, Russ, Vicky and Mark on snowboards and Nicky, Big Phil and Myself on skis. A good combination and a full range of abilities as it was Nick's first trip. To be fair its not the best resort for beginner broader as its a bit flat so we all did well to get around.

It was a mammoth journey on the Euro star over night to get there made hard work, by the rubbish seats. Don't go on those 4 seats and a table bit, that's just horrible, at least the airline style seats don't mean you have to share leg space.

The accommodation was good, so too the food and we got plenty of pints of the black stuff from the local bar while the 6 nations was on.

I Hope we will do this again in upcoming season and with Col as well.

MOT After...

Seem to go quite well. we talk for about 2 hours twice as long as anybody else.

My boss seemed to be positive apart the work I've done here and the possibilities for the future.

Hopefully I'll get some movement and I get the opportunity to do some more important senior stuff, and a little more money would be nice!

MOT Before

This is what I put in the assessment form before the meeting

Malcolm Gladwell wrote the following quote on job satisfaction.

"Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying."

While it is true that I get plenty of autonomy. I no longer get any say in what I work on so there is very little opportunity to innovate. Maybe it partly being stuck on such a long out of the way project but I no longer have any input into the direction or successes of the department and as a result I feel fed up of being so junior with no say about anything anymore.

I would like an opportunity to do some thing like line management or architecture, to have more of a voice in the department and the opportunity to work with new technology with maybe in connection with R&D.

As for complexity, yes there is a lot of work and I am always busy but the quality of work is not much of a challenge and I seem be slogging through just so other people can play ping pong. I've spent the last year hacking other people’s code and bug fixing other people work on Project A. The promise of someone else to take on the junior support work for Project A wasn't delivered upon. This situation looks set to continue with Project A until at least August and now the cycle looks to be starting afresh doing support work for the existing Project C site.

The only other major project I have worked on Project B, due to the time pressures we had to reused and recondition code I wrote 2 years ago based on what is now 6 year old technology. So I don't feel I have any opportunity to 'breakthrough' patching up my old work and work of other people.

And finally the connection between effort and reward. Nothing I do either good or bad makes the slightest difference. I watch the company presentation each year where the company reports posting a profit and by staying loyal to the company, with the effect of inflation over the 3 years, I have to suffer a lose each year in 'real terms' and this makes me angry.
I definitely feel not appreciated with no pay rise for three years

and in summary

Sorry for it being negative but I'm focusing on what I want fixing.
I'm fed up with being treated like shit
I'm bored with the work I have been given
I'm fed up with being so junior.
Would like to be able to do new development
I would like more money
I would like an opportunity to do some thing like line management, have more of a voice in the department and the opportunity to work with new technology with R&D.

The Power of Facebook

Every now and again something happens that puts a contrast between how we used to do things and how stuff happens today. and I'm not talking about a long time in the past either.

An example would be, I can remember when if you wanted to meet up with someone you would agree a time and a place and then you would turn up on time. Not like today with our mobiles and our 'I'm running late' texts.

Anyway the horrible earth quake in NZ was another one of those moments. One of the side effects of living in a city like London is that you get to know people from all over the world. So when some thing like the quake happens the chances you know people effected is quite high and long with it the need for news and to know people are OK.

Fortunately this is were Facebook is golden. By the power of social media everyone connected with the area could post an update or answer a message to say that they and theirs were fine or not even in the area. It gave quick piece of mind to those of us on the other side of the world, who otherwise might not find out details for a very long time.

69 Hours

Sometimes I wonder what on Earth I'm doing.

I've just finished my first week back after my hols and it was a mental one.
69 hours (normally it would be 40) including some serious late nights and taxis home.
We managed finishes of 8pm, 8:30pm, 12:15am, 03:20am, 11:30pm and another four hours on Sunday! I also managed over 60 quid on taxis.

All this was to build a website for one of our phone clients. They had a new phone being announced on Sunday night at a international conference so a bit of a pressure deadline. Sunday night found me in the office madly trying to fix bugs and get the site up and running before the chairman of the phone company finished talking and told everyone the website address. I just made it! Talk about shaky hands at the end.

Now I have to work out how this expense claim things works and sleep!

Yawn!

Still Icy

Second ski trip this time to Corcheval with the Ware Skiers.

Corcheval is very posh in places with Gucci and that sort of shops all over the place. We stay way out of town, up hill, by the slopes for a fast-ish (9am in the boot room, when the body was willing) getaway in the mornings.
Being far from town we didn't do too much going out but the wine and dinner and the hotel bar were just fine.

The skiing was very icy caused a few crash including me twice, once fast on a steep slope and once slow on a rough bit of a boarder cross run. There hadn't been any new snow for a couple of weeks and the weather the whole time was cold and clear. good for the sun tan not so good for the snow conditions. Fortunately the base snow was good so the going was still doable for the whole week.

I really need to wax my skis now before the third trip :-)

Office Move

Actually this was back in November but I missed blogging about it at the time.
The company has also merged with another agenct so we are about 250 people now.
My new desk is bigger and I have more space but I miss the friends I was sitting with. I don't seem to get any of the updates on the gossip like a used to :-(

NYE Skiing

and tobogganing in the dark which was exiting if contra-indicated on my travel insurance.

Review of the Year! 2010

um yes should do this - a handy app to do this for me, nice!

Skunk Ananise

A fitting gig to end a great year of music.

90's favorites Skunk Ananise played the Brixton Academy

It was so loud I had to stuff paper in my ears to pervent damage but still heard everything clearly.

Had a bit of a rush to get the as I had to show my face at a work leaving drinks but I made it thru the door just as the band appeared on stage and the lights went down
nice!

Black Keys

A bit different this time at the Roundhouse. Went with Olly to see the Black Keys, who are a blues, rocky, indie alt type of band.

I had no idea about any of it beforehand but it was good and loud. I'm definitely going to look them up on Spotify.

By the looks of the audience they have a hard core following, a few comments I heard said it wasn't the best gig they had done, but for me it was fine. The roundhouse roof being open to let the heat out again was also very welcome.

Feeder

a good solid performance at Sheperd's Bush. Went with Rob W. One lady got overcome and had to be taken out by the medics. Nothing to do with Rob and me of course.

Training !

A bit of a first or at least that I can remember.

I've just been on a two software architect conference. A bit scary technical but I got some good info and idea about developmet.

It's a bit of a first because I think its the first time that a manager has delivered on a promise of sending me on a training course.

I guess I'll have to say positive things about him from now on...

Sonisphere

Wow my ears are only just getting back to normal.
A whole host of bands at my first festival where I've camped at.
It was really tiring trying to sleep on a slope, in a 20 quid tent, surrounded by thousands of people.

musically highlights include

Iron Maiden (headliners, my first time seeing them, very good, I knew the word for fear of the dark)
Rammstein (brilliant, fire and noise, got right to the front for them)
Alice Cooper (not so good, not sure why didn't quite get the crowd going)
Iggy & The Stooges (same although I was a long way back)
Papa Roach (for the kids)
Good Charlotte (for the kids as well)
Anthrax (great stuff, I didn't really
Placebo (OK bit weird in daylight and wearing white suits)
Henry Rollins (great again keep up the fight)
Skunk Anansie (really good set, Skin owns the crowd, I got a bit sun burnt!)
Apocalyptica (OK odd 4 guys with cellos, everyone else thought they were the nuts)
Mötley Crue (WTF the crowd went wild)
Slayer (Roar! mighty stuff)
Corey Taylor (unlucky missed most of it but the rest was good)
Pendulum (Really, Really good didn't think I was going to like it but boy did I bounce)
Renegades (Feeder really really late at night, but tired and happy)
Terrorvision (Highlight they still got it and I nearly lost my voice)
Therapy? (Once they got the electrics to work. One of the highlights as they played the whole troublegum album)
Gary Numan (solid stuff)
Europe (yeap final countdown they did other stuff but couldn't hear for the crowd chanting for final countdown!)

plus a load of others which I can only vaguely remember going to. I was all a bit of a blur in the end. That might have something to do with sharing a camp site with a bunch of South Africans, boy can they drink!

Flat Update

They changed the sign (a sign of desperation?)

"BUY MY 1 BED FLAT
NO MORTGAGE NEEDED
£10,000+£268a week BUYS IT.
WEST FERRY RD, E14
CALL ADAM
07xxxxxx"

Well that'll be tricky to beat. Althouhg I wouldn't fancy getting into all sorts of legal oddities being either half of that sort of an arrangement.

Lager Lager Lager

It was iTunes festival time again here in London and I managed to win tickets to
Underworld at the Roundhouse on the 17th.

It was a good gig, a bit different to what I normally see live. we got into a nice dance to the different tunes and I realised I had been dance for about an hour when I decided to head to the back for a cold down. I guess the gym sessions are paying off!

Support was good too a chap called Kele. I didn't realise until he started singing but he's the lead singer of Bloc Party. He built up a really good vibe for the main event and I would definitely want to catch him live the next time he is playing.

Of course the crowd were waiting for one particular song and Underworld closed their set with it. As the opening bars sounded out you could feel the roar of energy rip thru the crowd and get the whole place moving.

we all left happy humming 'lager lager lager...'

Flat Competition

An update the flat is still up for sale. Its sort of a holding pattern now as nothing much is happening in the market at the moment. looking at the land registry info most of the stuff that does sell is a couple of 100K more than my flat. I would normally mostly be getting first time buyers looking at the flat and there aren't many of those about.

My competition, another flat that is up for sale in my block, made an interesting move at the weekend. the following hand written sign appeared outside on the railings.

For Sale by Owner
Westferry Rd. 1 Bed flat
NO MORTGAGE REQUIRED
£296 per week
cal 07xxxxxx

So er is that Hire Purchase? I assume so and that they would take about 20 years at around 5.5% to pay that off if the price is still anything like my place. I guess that's one way to go if its just investment and your want to get it rid of it for your pension.

Guitar Blues and Heat at the Roundhouse

A jolly night out at the Roundhouse with Olly one of my brother-in-laws. We caught the show by the Dead Weathers. The band includes the lass from the Kills and Jack White of the White Strips.

It was an interesting mix of rock, blues, amazing guitar work and some seriously shouty lyrics. The weather had been really hot and the southern American blues vibes suited it perfectly. I came away humming the tunes of even the ones I didn't know.

The big 4 in Polska

OK this is definitely the farthest I've been to just to go to a gig.

Poland for a one day festival (on a Wednesday!) to see Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Megadeth.

There I stood in a field outside of Warsaw, a shinny warm day, in the middle of a sea of black t-shirts, getting my ears rearranged by some seriously loud music.

A good couple of days with cheap beer and some very nice (if meaty) BBQ takeaway food.

I went with a friend from work and ended up meeting another (ex-)work friend, who kipped on our hotel floor! It was a nice atmosphere and we got chatting to a couple of other English groups of people who we ended up going around with.

the music was great and you could really feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up as Metallica launched into some of their classic hits.

RageFactor free thank you gig

It was brilliant. A whole festival feeling on a Sunday afternoon.

When we got there is some good support from Gogol Bordello and we had a few beers in the late afternoon sun (and a little rain).

It was amazing to me that I managed, in such a large crowd, to bump into 4 different people I knew.

So along with Colin, Joe and Jamie we got ourselves down into the mosh pit and got jumping. I managed about an hour before retiring to the back to watch the remainder of the show.
It's definitely a moment to remember. I was there when Killing in the Name was played out to the crown in a London park as the final song of the evening.

We made History!

and got the T-Shirt...

MOT

Yeap I finally had my annual review at week

There were many things I had thought about saying about my time here and the fact that I've not had any changes in my T&Cs since I got here.

I was going to point that the cost of living has gone up by about 3.5% per year while I've worked here so i fact I'm being paid less (in as the government like to say, real terms).

I also had a great quote from Malcolm Gladwell on job satisfaction.

"Those three things - autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward - are, most people will agree, the three qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying."

But what did I say, not alot, I got a mixed set of reviews so we talked about that I somehow have managed to be helpful and obstructive at the same time. and also being good at mentoring but not offering information unsolicited.

so I've got to be more proactive, which is like asking someone to juggle fog.
I've also got to try to be happier, no idea how they are going to measure that one!

and the CTO wants to push me towards handling one of less interesting clients and basically moving my role towards support work on a site we inherited from another company and client management meetings.

the subject of money didn't come up.

BMI

for no other reason than my results were a lot better then some of the other people in the department here are the results of a check your weight/height/fat machine we found in Boots the other day.

Weight: 14st 2lb 89.9kg
Height: 5'11.2" 1.81m

which gives a B.M.I. 27.4
the formula being Weight/(Height)^2

which makes me overweight :-(
where the ideal being [18.5] 9st 7lb (60.9kg) to [25.0] 12st 12lb (81.9kg)
which is a bit crazy as I wasn't even down to 10st when I was very thin back during my university days.

Body Fat 24.9% which is good (average being 25.6% and it getting to be a problem at 32.1% (for men))
Body Fat Mass 22.3kg

and we found a nice little calculator to check the results
http://www.nhs.uk/Tools/Pages/Healthyweightcalculator.aspx

so looks like the gym has been helping :-)

New broom

So It's all about to change around.

The last two of our line manager are now going to be the new CTO (the newest guy who has been with us not 6 months yet) and his deputy (who's been at the company 3+ years). And it looks like some of the work that the four of them (including my old line manager and the old CTO) used to do doing technical management of the client will be given out to us (the rest of the tech department) to do. probably I might add for the same amount of money as before.

and guess what we have to do our MOT career reviews again, joy! I'm going to have to answer questions like

What do you think you could have done better and what has stopped you?
What do you think you’ve done well and how do you know?
What are your career goals and what would help you move forward?

No More CTO

Yeap after all the politics and messing around. My boss, the CTO, is leaving the company. so its all change here. Actually I been ages since I've known but had to keep quite about it until all the legal stuff was sorted and the official announcement has been made.

He's leaving partly because of all the complaints from the us during the staff survey and partly some stuff happening in the board.

It was turning into the worse kept secret in the company and as I found out in the pub several months back, its good its out in the open. The department was in a bit of a holding pattern waiting for the other shoe to drop and so we could talk to the rest of the company about it(and make the odd blog!)

and yes that what my cryptic post about the situation changing in the department was about and why I haven't had a career review this year.

So a big opportunity for me and I guess there will be a shake up in the department. At last I should have a new line manager and finally get an annual review.

Anyway must dash as we are about to have the leaving speeches.

Zell am See Skiing trip 3!

Ok

A great little trip to Austria with the people at Snowbreaks.

At the resort of Zell am See and Kaprun.
Zell is by a beautiful lake at only 500m and by the end of the week it was very much summer holiday conditions. In fact one day coming back from the slopes Kevin (another skier) and I sat in the bus in full ski gear opposite a group of lads in shorts and flip-flops!.

to get to the skiing you take a cable car 1500m up at Zell and a bus plus a cable car to 2000m at Kaprun.
The conditions went from cold and snowy (day 1), to very hot and very sunny (days 3-4) to crazy whiteout skiing (day 6)
the first two days we skied Zell which got very slushy by the end and then 4 days at Kaprun which has a glacier so it guaranteed snow. however being the Easter weekend its also guaranteed to be busy.

Our plan to avoid the crowd was to get up real early (no matter what time we were in the bars the night before) at catch the 8am bus to Kaprun so we could be up and skiing before 8:45am. This meant we had the best conditions and clean runs before it got busy. We had lunch at about 11:30 just when it was getting crazy busy and back out for a couple of more hours when most people are at lunch, finally going back to the hotel around 3ish, knackered of course!

Nice bunch of people in fact it worked out that out of the 13 on the trip seven of us were on the Andorra new year trip as well!

really good guides in Bas and Dana the Dutch ski instructors.

Got a bit of a shock a couple of day after we got back as Snowbreaks the company who organised the trip went bust. A shame as I've had some good trips with them.

17 Winter sports cover Oh bugger

Ah I've spotted a floor in my plan

3 ski trips in one year works out as 18 days skiing. That mean the annual travel insurance won't cover it all by one single day.

Fortunately the nice people at DogTag (that the insurance company, they print all the info on a dogtag you can wear while you ski) let me cancel my current policy with quite a big refund and take out another policy this time with 24 days cover.

This mean I'm covered for another 3 skiing holidays before next April, interesting!

My Boss' last day

Yeah the last day for my line manager.

Not sure who my next one is going to be
guess I can't resign until I know...

My MOT - Annual Review

Not as dramatic as you might think.

My annual career review which was meant to be with our CTO. Was meant to be with my Line Manager but he's leaving so there is little point.

We decided not to bother with it. The main reason being that we both know the situation in the company is changing soon and there is no point planning as we don't know how the department will be arranged in 6 months time.

Skiing mark 2 - Fun in France

Val d Isere with my friends from Ware

started cold minus 20 plus
got nice and sunny by the end of the week

the skiing was good

alot of kids and crazyness.

Stained glass

I finally finished my first stained glass panel last thursday. It took me all of last term and half of this one. It's all glass from the offcuts pile so it could be a bit of found art (and cheap!).

here

next I think I'll try a couple of easier ones that I can add to the glass doors in my flat.

Rumours and Hidden Agendas

We have been pitching for alot of new work recently and hardly a week goes by with out a new piece of work being announced.

Normally in advertising you getting about a 20% turnover of clients for one reason or another. Now we have got a couple of big new clients over the past couple of months to cover the loss but we are still driving on despite the countrywide recession.

This growth is bigger than we can really cope with. The word from someone further up the food chain than me is that we are driving up the value of the company so the board will get bigger performance bonuses as part of the deal that they arranged to

Ah so that's why we are so busy.

and I mean crazy busy and its going to get worst. I great time to get experience on lots of different projects but also its not likely to do anybodies social life any favours.

This is on top the rumours currently going around about who is leaving.
We lost one of our Flash developers last week. most of us found out at the weekend via his facebook status! The rumour list is now a hand full of the designers, one head of department and my line manager! He hasn't said anything to me yet so we will see, but it might explain why both he and my department boss are doing my review rather than just him

Pep rally

so today we had a little company get together about the focus of the company for the coming year and on from there.

It was all about giving 5% more please to the company and working smart.

It was also about the coming together of tech and creative

part of the presentation was from the head guys in the creative department
it was noted my boss didn't give any part of the presentation.

I wonder why...

Office Politics

So I talked to the director who is running these 'sorting out tech's problems' sessions about what my boss had said about him saying to my boss that I was being negative and not helpful.

He was a little shocked about what my boss said and said he hadn't said such things.
I told him I was planning on withdrawn from the process if it was just going to back fire on me and he asked me not to. In fact he said its quite negative because we have to talk about what wrong in order to find solutions.

It sounds like my boss is playing office politics and because I checked we know he's been exaggerating or making stuff up.

It may be because we are integrating the tech and creative parts of the company and he feeling a bit sidelined as the junior part of the partnership.

In other news a couple of the new guys in the department have had either their probation extended or been put on a rolling three month review mainly because they don't work fast enough. So I definately not the only person who is not in his good books.

So much for trying to help

The saying is true that 'No good deed goes unpunished'.

As a result of us trying to talk to the board about the issues in the department and wanting to trying improve the situation it looks like the whole thing is back firing in my face.

My genius of a boss dragged me over the coals yesterday for being too negative and much as said learn to love the way the company does things or consider my position with the company.

So that'll teach me to try and improve things. I'll just stop trying to fix stuff, focus on doing interesting stuff and improving my skill set.

Oh and I guess I'll update my CV as well.

Renegades OK OK its Feeder

A stadium band in a tiny pub venue.

That's what happened on Monday evening. Feeder pretending to be the another band played a final gig (for this little tour) in a bar in Hoxton which I managed to get a ticket for. Actually three of our for work the other two being real fans.

It was a loud mad set, of alot of their old tracks and pieces for the real old time fans. So I didn't know much of what they played but it was catchy and loud! I had a good time jumping around even although getting 200 odd people in the space the size of a tennis court meant I didn't really have the room for it.
Funny to be that close to a band (10ft), they where well supported by a band called ManOrMouse.

It took a couple of days for my hearing to recover.

Rammstein and Meeting the Management

Busy day today (although I'm still finding time to write this!) we got a second meeting for the concerned from the tech department with members of the board. we had a meeting a couple of weeks ago as because there was so much stuff to talk about and this is the second meeting for the over run. Basically we are complaining about Career development and the rest of the company treating us like &$%^&£! see below for a few of the points we put to them.
Things in the department has actually been a bit more stable, we actually have 4 people in the flash team at the minute! We just want to try and fix things up a bit so it will be worth stay with the company in the medium term.

...And Rammstein well that's my first music gig tonight of this year. Da Boyz and down for a visit and we will be off up to Wembley for a bit of German Heavy Metal and an ear clean.

Rest of the weekend will probably involved PS3,Xbox and beer




Career path
There is none

Line Management
Too busy to manage

Respect
Treated like a third party supplier company

Innovation
Should not just be down to one person who does share with the tech department

Recognition
No reward for effort

Ignorance
Digital understanding in the business, it ‘cool not to understand’

Integration
How does the business see tech in the company?

Training
None!!!

Process
No point doing project reviews ; tech not included in part of the planning

Knowledge
Individual team member knowledge is ignored or dismissed

Quality
We always end up with the ‘best of a bad job’

Fault
Budget and Deadline for most projects already gone by the time it gets to Tech but its still our fault

Creative Technical
Tech only gets involved after the fact. There are no opportunities to innovate

Budget
We are always told the budget is blown but nobody will back it up with figures

Tempora
Estimates can be made more efficient if we got feed back of what time we did take on tasks

R&D
Any? By force the business was not happy to give up the time for it

Leading the Field
No; The company isn’t the company it was; we follow the trends or miss them completely rather than make them

The Companies’ Aim
To be the Agency of the Year; no matter what; nothing else is important

Quality
One person is not a QA department unless you are cowboys

Retainment
Pay rise only if you leave (but offered too late); Lack of support; no profit in going the extra mile

Architecture
Old broken software; Old development technology; no plan for maintenance and upgrade

Internal Process
Have a Company way of doing things rather that muddle through differently each time

Ideas
An idea is only a good idea if it is made to happen the good ideas don’t happen unless somebody realizes it

Outsourcing
Managing third party tech work isn’t tech work

Developing
Bug fixing and low quality scrap work isn’t enjoyable work

2009 before I forget

A bit late but heres a little review of last year based as last time on facebook, really its just slow twittering really. I also note the stuff happening seems to be the same as the year before.

David Has just skied the resort end to end. Happy and knackered. Time for the après ski! Happy new year from Andorra
31 December 2009 at 14:53

David Is going skiing over the top and down into the dark side
31 December 2009 at 08:04

David Can see the slopes from the Cafe and the stationary lifts. Grrh
30 December 2009 at 11:12

David Is at Terminal 5 waiting to get off-ski
27 December 2009 at 15:34

David It's all about the Rage Factor! Grrrrgh
20 December 2009 at 23:22

David killing in the name of...
16 December 2009 at 13:33

David beer o'clock?
11 December 2009 at 16:42

David is deployed out...
02 December 2009 at 18:35

David just off for a bit of wood carving
25 November 2009 at 17:30

David hopper $%&£!
20 November 2009 at 18:08

David Has just snapped and gone next gen!
14 November 2009 at 17:53

David And now a little light housework
14 November 2009 at 11:18

David is planning on breaking some coloured glass
12 November 2009 at 16:17

David Has an evening planned that envolves gunpowder! Nice
07 November 2009 at 18:58

David and now it's decided to delete all my music aaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrggggh
04 November 2009 at 15:57

David Happy Birthday Wallace and Gromit!
04 November 2009 at 09:56

David Is in the middle of road again but this time they have shut it. Pretty lights!
03 November 2009 at 18:50

David is off to see the lights
03 November 2009 at 18:36

David Is standing in the middle of the road at Oxford circus
02 November 2009 at 18:03

David is thinking about breaking the first rule of facebook
28 October 2009 at 11:22 (8)(8)

David has got his cans on
12 October 2009 at 17:47

David Hello world um this might be drunk pub typing
04 October 2009 at 20:06

David this weekend is brought to you by the letter V
25 September 2009 at 11:39

David is lost in translation
18 September 2009 at 13:54

David oh and that was a bad miss...
11 September 2009 at 17:35

David Um I'm in a pub in covent garden doing London thing... Drinking
06 September 2009 at 18:07

David is NOT feeling management friendly at the minute
02 September 2009 at 19:59

David is a getting a little sun. Home to see the folks.
29 August 2009 at 11:31

David wants to know why he's still at work. Sideshow Bob?, Minty?
28 August 2009 at 20:40

David is practising his big words
27 August 2009 at 18:35

David mostly human again
21 August 2009 at 19:15

David apparently it's called a Caipirinha. hic!
20 August 2009 at 19:01

David the machine goes beep.
17 August 2009 at 13:19

David humbug work! time for a beer festival me thinks!
07 August 2009 at 11:59

David sun, surf, cider and still a nice cup of tea
02 August 2009 at 16:23

David rain, tea, sun, tea, rain, tea, sun and Edie looking for her shoes- the great British holiday
30 July 2009 at 21:38

David is now in the age of steam.
30 July 2009 at 12:06

David well stuff all this working malarky I'm off on my Hols....
24 July 2009 at 18:00

David is happy now Trent is doing music you need muscles for. Ragh!
15 July 2009 at 21:30

David is getting a little pissed off with Trent for having to do all this bloody queing. NIN gig is pants so far!
15 July 2009 at 20:07

David is going all NINJA!
15 July 2009 at 17:23

David has just gone slightly nuts at the placebo iTunes gig and just applied for tickets for all the remaining gig in the festival!
14 July 2009 at 21:41

David is off to the gig
14 July 2009 at 18:00

David um but its a dry heat...
03 July 2009 at 15:59

David maybe I should be at the gym... nah!
30 June 2009 at 17:37

David is watching all human life happening, in real time.
26 June 2009 at 17:52

David is feeling a little metric in an imperial world
22 June 2009 at 19:31

David Oh wow! copy and paste!
17 June 2009 at 20:59

David it's cornish pasty time!!!
15 June 2009 at 14:22

David is having a sit down
04 June 2009 at 19:27

David still at work. There is a special circle of hell reserved for the people who invented Akamai caching...
29 May 2009 at 19:08

David its jam all the way
22 May 2009 at 17:17

David is 3 points of contact at all times tis important yer ere!
19 May 2009 at 14:39

David is still at work and not happy with his clients. I don't even know bloody coldfusion
15 May 2009 at 18:43

David I'm Not Okay (I Promise)...
15 May 2009 at 14:46

David has just gone ker-plunk!
14 May 2009 at 11:24

David gone fishing ... for beer!
01 May 2009 at 18:07

David is getting in touch with his X-gene
29 April 2009 at 13:33

David is more human than human
24 April 2009 at 19:38

David for my birthday I decided to give myself some sunburn. It was a nice day in the park.
23 April 2009 at 14:46

David it's offical I'm a Prodigy front row Warrior! Maxim said so...
19 April 2009 at 01:32

David is @#!P&$. things aren't going as planned.
17 April 2009 at 12:27

David is feeling a little NINJA
15 April 2009 at 10:43

David um still hung over time for a pint
03 April 2009 at 17:52

David has a new sofa! comfy
01 April 2009 at 17:08

David has got a ticket for the Prodigy!!!! FIRESTARTER !!!! Yeaaaaagggh bluuuurrr
26 March 2009 at 11:15

David is back in blighty and shock! still walking!
14 March 2009 at 15:21

David is skiing in his T-shirt. Nice!
13 March 2009 at 16:47

David is checking for frostbite
09 March 2009 at 22:10

David has packed his bags and is hitting the slopes...
06 March 2009 at 18:29

David are you calling me darling? that's not my name
01 March 2009 at 22:55

David has just seen U2 live at the BBC! Random!
27 February 2009 at 19:15

David is looking good in a Buffalo Stance.
27 February 2009 at 09:57

David is sans beard
21 February 2009 at 23:01

David can fix it, yes he can!
20 February 2009 at 12:25

David um now where did I put that beer?
13 February 2009 at 17:33

David Ok. Forget the beer who knows where home is?
13 February 2009 at 23:48

David is in the big smoke, damn
10 February 2009 at 17:48

David is doing plan B we're off walking in the Mendips instead...
06 February 2009 at 17:20

David is wondering if he'll be walking in the Brecons this weekend
06 February 2009 at 10:04

David has had a shave
03 February 2009 at 15:32

David is taking the hint and heading home.
02 February 2009 at 14:25

David is at work. 15cm snow no probs!
02 February 2009 at 10:48

David is mispelt
29 January 2009 at 15:03

David is cuppa tea, bacon sarnie and back in blighty, mavellous!
25 January 2009 at 16:28

David and his knee have made it thru a whole week of lovely snow powder skiing. Now if he can just make it back from the pub to the hotel
24 January 2009 at 18:39

David is up to his knees in snow
23 January 2009 at 17:53

David is bon ski ! wooosh !
16 January 2009 at 17:10

David has caught the smell of snow on the wind
15 January 2009 at 11:50

David can hear the drums
14 January 2009 at 17:44

David has had the scafolding put up
13 January 2009 at 11:11

David is thinking he should have zigged when he zagged, again!
10 January 2009 at 00:39

David is in the dark
08 January 2009 at 00:22

David is reviewing the year
06 January 2009 at 14:23

45 go mild in Andorra

The world appears to be ending or at least civilization in the UK according to the British Press as the snow comes down and everything grinds to a halt.

This is weird because I'm in Central London, and while it is a bit cold, there isn't much snow and because I've just got back from a weeks skiing so snow, for me, is normal at the mo.

I was in Andorra with Snowbreaks for a weeks skiing and quite a jolly new years eve. The group in total was about 45 people, it was good mix of people and capabilities. I skied with a medium group for most of the week as I didn't want to over do it and put myself in traction.

A combination of not skiing too late, ibuprofen, knee supports and fizzy beer got me though the week (sore now but mobile). There were casualties; one girl got catch in some fencing at speed and damage her knee and one chap fell over while going slow and dislocated his elbow (ouch).

The conditions started the week icy and bare but due to a load of snow at new year end with a fine day with some nice powder (so long as you didn't cut in too deep and hit the ice). The weather was quiet warm (in the positives) and so it was a shock getting back to London waiting for night buses with the cold rising up through the soles of your shoes.

Flat all Safe

Managed to get through the whole series of Spooks with my flat undamaged by bomb, gas, floods or fire. Well apart from the threat of Nuclear War of course

1/4 Million Hoppers

Well it took a while but we got to 250000 space hoppers. the 250000th is called 'netty' and hails from hungary.

Angel is off

Sad day Today as Angel our Spanish Systems Administrator is off to pastures new. He's been a quite force keeping things together and all the project running smoothly. He knows where everything is and what all the passwords are.

UPDATE:

We been phoning him about once a day since he left needing to know one thing or another. He's in Spain so this must be getting quite expensive. Most things have been sorted out but for some reasons half the testing environments have gone MIA, but Angel didn't know about them. That's just what happens around Xmas when hardly anybody is in the office.

What's Spanish for C'est la vie?

Rage against X factor

Made my little contribution against low quality mass entertainment.

Hopefully Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine will be the Xmas number one. Suitablity enough after having seen them live last year.

Go buy it and stop the Cowell machine you know it makes sense.


UPDATE: WE DID IT YEAH!
Rage beat X factor by about 50,000 copies Merry Xmas

An online Xmas

Done it

I managed to get all my stuff ordered online for the first time. for a couple of years now I've run pretty close but this year I've bought all my pressies online.
Hopefully they all arrive at my parents' and then I can have a huge wrapping session.

Marilyn Manson and the Dry Ice

Not as good as I was hoping it would be.

Went to see the controversial one the other night, Marilyn Manson.

The support act Esoterica weren't too bad being maybe a bit like the Lost Prophets.

The main act started with the most dry ice I've ever seen in my entire life. So much so you couldn't really tell what was going on for the first 4 songs. He did a great effect like Edward Scissorhands with laser pens for fingers which looked great with all the dry ice.

The audience didn't seemed to really get into the swing of things as the show went on despite there being nothing really wrong with the set. They did get worked up for the song The Beatiful People which had some fire to it. However that was the last song so it was a bit late.

Rob and Me found a nice pub around the corner as we got out before last orders.

The last of the few

Another leaving do today.
Actually its worse than that as our only sys admin has just rang me to say he's resigned so working conditions are going to get bad as we will have to do all the systems bug fixes as well. But it's good for him as they where taking advantage of him something rotten. He should be going to something much more interesting and pays better.
One of the other developer and myself actually arranged to meet with our CTO yesterday to see if we could try and help the situation. I think the CTO was quite surprised as he must have been thinking everyone is against him. A bit too late I think but at least we tried.

You've got mail

Finally got my first bit of mail in my brand new mail box, apart of course from all the pizza and take-away menus.

Unfortunately it was just my phone bill :-(

Spooks

First episode of the new season last night. not bad, my flat, in fact all of London managed to get through the whole episode without being damaged at all.

100000 Hoppers

At 7:50pm UK time on 2nd November 2009 we had our 100,000th Hopper created, in Latvia of all places.

This means is this campaign has been quite successful

And that's alot of hoppers!

Trying out a new bit of Tech

I just downloaded a new app for the fashion victims brick (my iPhone) to write blog entries and this post is the result. Ok not that exiting but it's the future!

On the home front not much movement on the selling. However we have had our letterboxes upgraded. The new ones are much bigger and much less likely to bite your fingers. It's just a bit of a pity that i'm not getting any letters with all the postal strikes at the moment!


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Live again

Phase 2 of the great hopper invasion is live.

After a mad rush on Friday doing multiple fixes and changes to the site, refusing to add stuff that there was just no time to do and getting the final deployment out at 7pm and then off to the pub for several pints of Guinness.

It was a combination of the client wanting lots of small changes and trying to convince people it is more important to have a stable site live than keep trying to add stuff.

But it finally went live in Australia 6pm EDT and everything seems to work fine. The Yahoo site showed the special adverts at the correct time and the main site stood up fine.

So now we are waiting for the statistics to come back and to see if the client will say thank you.

By way of celebration I did get one gift, from my Mum, appropriately enough for this project it is a stress ball shaped like a space hopper.

Arraggh it's been released to the public

In a typical half asleep moment on the way to work the other week I was ambushed by my own work on the tube.

I was travelling on one of the escalators watching those new TV advert boards that they have started to install everywhere when an advert for the current web advertisement campaign I'm working came on. It's based a around a famous bouncing children's toy and we have done a site that lets you pick and personalise one to have on your PC.

My first reaction (and this was the same for some of the others on the team) as oh sh*t! I hope its working.

But it seems fine and the project is still just about on target (if a little stressful due to a dithering client constantly changing her mind). When it is finished it will be available in over 30 different languages (including ones that don't read left to right) and will be quite a complicated a mix of technologies.

So something to be proud of so long as it doesn't crash!

Bonus or a Bung

We all got an envelope at work today.

Mine contained a thank you note and a 50 quid note.

This I believe is in lieu of any bonus or pay rise for this year!
They still manages to do things here that surprises me. Most people seem have taken it as a bit of an insult.

Nobody leaving this week I think...

Leaving Fatigue

Three last week, one on Wednesday and three more today on Friday.
It's a good job its payday as all these leaving collections and drinks night are getting a bit too much.

First Viewing

For some strange reason I tidied the flat this morning. Made sure the junk was tidied away and the dishes had been washed.

Fortunate really as the Estate agent rang me at lunchtime to say could he do a view at 4pm.

OK I laid the ground work for this last week as I met up with the estate agent, this time called Neil and I agreed to drop the price another 17K to get the price in line with the current market that makes the whole drop about 13%. so hopefully the people will be back to view

no news yet on how today's viewing went, but I'm starting to have a little fun looking at the sort of property I may be able to get in this current depressed market.

A slight obsession

I find myself checking the ad breaks on the BBC more and more, for news of a new series of 'Spooks'.
I'm beginning to think its that time of year again to watch the fictional version my flat and where I live get gassed/flooded/bombed for dramatic effect on the TV.

The Offspring

Popped to another gig on Tuesday night thanks to a last minute Facebook message from my friend Nils. This time it was the Offspring supported by Broadway Calls and Rival Schools.

It was a good little night and it got suitably wild with great versions of 'self esteem', 'pretty fly for a white guy' and 'get a job'.

A department of one

It the time of year again for the company staff survey. we had a little competition in the tech department to see who could put the most truthful negative comment.

The morale is a bit low in the department although the boss seems to be in denial.
we lost 3 out of 4 of our flash developers in the last couple of weeks. So now the last guy is now the entire flash department!

With no pay rises due to the recession and not much in the way of career development most of them have decided that its not worth putting up with some of the silly stuff management try and get us to do.

From the recruitment agents who ring me up I would probably be 5-7K better off if I move at the moment and at least for IT, the job market in London is quite good.
I would seriously think about it if I wasn't trying to sort out other things in my life at the moment.

Well I figure that there'll be more people to leave in the next few weeks. I there may be more news to follow.

15 months on the Market

OK that surprised me too

I just got around to checking and my flat has been on the market for 15 months!

I hadn’t realised it had been quite as long as that. There are several reasons for this long period. The main one being the whole market crashing thing and me waiting for things to pick up again
I've not dropped my price enough and so haven’t had any interest in the property for months. Rather than take the flat off the market because nothing was happening, I've kept it on at a too high a price so I don't have to pay again for all the selling documentation to be set up.

According to mousePrices.com they think I should drop the price by another 6% to be competitive. I’d already cut the price by 5% back at the start of the crash before I decided to pause.

But I got a bit of news this week telling me the market may be up and running again and that it’s time to get selling again.

My friends Colin and Clare who live in the next postcode over have just managed to market and sell their property and put an offer on a new place all in the space of a couple of weeks. All this they managed and had time for a week’s holiday abroad!

So I guess its time to get on with it and drop the price again. Oh and contact my agents and see if they are still in business.

More free music

And this time its Kasabian

I actually knew quite a few of the tracks. according to one of the guys at work it's 'cos they'd been used on nearly every ep of Top Gear recently'
Rob at work managed to get the tickets and gave me one as I had managed to sort him a ticket to NIN

I got quite carried away a fun night

Surf and Shoes

Holiday time again and this year I'm mixing it up with a family hols in the Forest of Dean and a couple of days down in Newquay trying out surfing.

The Forest of Dean is the bit between wales and the rest of the UK and is as you can guess full of trees. I had a nice week with my Parents and One of my Sister and her family. We did various touristy activities such as butterfly houses and miniature steam railways and of course a BBQ in the rain. I was all quite relaxing in a hectic
kids and Thomas the tank engine sort of a way.

Newquay was a completely different proposition. I had a couple of goes at surfing and a quite Sunday morning coasteering.

I surfing a strange sport or at least it is for a beginner.

It mostly seems to consist of getting battered to bit by the waves/board/random other surfer as you try to fight your way out a suitable distance. Once there you try not to drown while gauging the moment the bigger waves come rolling in. Then at the right moment you drag yourself onto the board (you're knacker at this point from getting out from the beach) point towards land and madly thrash your arms to propel you forward.

If you time it right the wave picks you up and you go like a rocket straight through the rest of your group and back to the shore. Now at the point you get picked up by the wave you are meant to use some style and get yourself standing.

So far I've managed to be so surprised I actual caught a wave that all I managed to do was hang on and yell incoherently.

However I can sort of see the appeal of this sport and will more than likely try it again. A wet suit purchase maybe in my future, as being in the sea in the UK is a chilly affair.

Coasteering is an odd sport, it's a mix of swimming in the sea, climbing on wet rocks and then jumping off (small, fortunately for me) cliffs. It's weird if quite fun way to send a Sunday morning.

So all in all it was a good mix of stuff and by the time I got to work it felt like I had been away for a long time.

oh and 'Shoes', that comes from my niece Edie. 'Shoes' seemed to be her favourite word on the holiday. She would come up to you look up at you very seriously and say 'Shoes' then she would look to her right and left and then go on a hunt for her shoes. Once found she would take great delight in stomping around the place with her shoes on, hopefully on the right feet.

Office space

Any one seen this film?
I only ask as we got a new employee at work this week.
He's called a COO and he is here so help improve our business processes and streamline the way we work with each other.

So I'm thinking of having a sweap stake and I'll take either He fires our management or just decides to get rid of our entire department.

Getting all arty

it course booking time again at the various evening course places in london
I book myself on two
weds at the city lit doing sulpture
thurs nights at the bethnal Green centre doing stained glass workshop

all very arty! looks a bit like I'm over compensating for working in IT techy stuff all day long

NINJA

Continuing with my year of music I’ve just been to another gig. Considering I said I wouldn’t go to a music festival this year and so I didn’t really think I would see a lot of live stuff this year, my total so far is pretty amazing.
First up was a trip to see Placebo and their support at the Roundhouse. I got the tickets in the iTunes free festival draw and Placebo where great. Notable songs included Infrared and the brilliant Meds.

Next up the big event of the week was the NINJA gig at the 02. Ninja is nine inch nails and Janes addiction. After a few beers and a really rubbish queuing system which made us late for Janes addiction we got to our seats. Seats which I have to say were great just off to the side of the stage at about eye level with the band. The end of the Janes set was good and then came the huge power of volume of a great NIN set. Lots of shouting and jumping up and down from yours truly, I was knackered and a little hoarse by the time they finished with the song Hurt. As an extra treat there was a surprise guest appearance by Gary Numan (a hero of Trent’s), who came on to do a couple of songs including an amazing versions of Cars. All in all it made for a Wow evening.

Still quiet

Well not a lot happening at the minute

So a quick update on life

Both knees are not too bad at the minute but I’ve managed to mess up my back,
I swear this gym business is a bad idea.

Actually I’m thinking it maybe my new sofa. It’s a huge deep sofa bed thing from IKEA with the base so deep that you have to slouch on it to get your feet on the floor and your back on the upright bit.

In other new the gym trainer is talking about going off to climb Mont Blanc, hopefully I won’t need to look for a new trainer and I've book a weekend away surfing!!! This should be final proof that the knee surgery was completely successful.

All Quiet

Nothing much happening on the home front. Yes the economy is in crisis and all that but work is busy and showing no signs of slowing down.

My knee is pretty good now and I have more problems with my other knee which is slowly recovering from me twisting it in the gym a while back.

Zombie on Red Bull and Beers

It was sci fi festival this weekend accompanied by a visit from the boyz so we could not win but not lose the Sunday afternoon scifi pub quiz.

this year we also had the opportunely to do some pervasive gaming on the theme of James Bond... We did a little gambling on the tables, ran around looking for clues and held meetings of find a mole.

I helped out at the sci fi festival again this time including staying wake all night to help with the all-nighter screenings. So I was a strange mix of lack of sleep, red bull and alcohol by the time we got to the quiz. So I don't know really if it went ok I think it did.

Firestarter ! - Touch the Keith

Managed another 'must see before you die' event. I got to see the Prodigy live at the Brixton Academy.

It was great stuff they play all the classic you could think of and a load of the new stuff (which is good) as well.

They looking fine shape for a band from way back when. Keith and Maxim look just as much the tattooed nutters as ever.

Despite my dodgy knees I got completely carried away and spent most of the gig right in the front of the mosh pit. I got to touch the Keith as he reached out to the crowd and I definitely could breathe from the crush and shouting during breathe.

It must have been the maddest biggest mosh pit I've ever been in as you could keep hold of your drink or avoid the rush even towards the back of the main floor.

I was right there for firestarter and my brain is now seared with the close up view of Keith doing he bit for the crowd and screaming 'I'm the firestarter'!

My that's a big Chopper

Relaxing in the park is meant to be a quiet time but the other day we (a group of us at work) were sitting having lunch in the small bit of green grass in a square near the office, behind John Lewis on Oxford Street when, we became aware of a helicopter in the area.

We watched it for a bit as it circled around quite and then left.

Next thing we knew the chopper was back as it appeared low over the top of the buildings at the edge of the square.

'My that's a bit low isn't it!'
'Yeah'
'Looks like the Air Ambulance'

at this point a siren started coming from the copper

'Er its getting nearer'
'Yeah, that's quite close'
'Oh Crap its going to land here!'
'Er I think we better move'
'...'
'Yeah, lets'

So our lunch ended in an unusual manner. It got very loud and very windy and all the people in the park scattered and the helicopter landed, in order, we found out later, to help someone at a car accident on Oxford St.

Beyond the Warrenty

How can you tell when you've been in a flat too long?

When everything starts to break.

It will be 10 years in September that I've been in my flat and some of the electrical items seem to want to celebrate by breaking down. The washing machine decided it didn't want to tumble dry anymore quickly followed by the light in the kitchen and then because I was trying to reason with the washing machine the handle on the cooker broke off.

OK the last one was my fault as I hit it with the washing machine as I got it out to try and fix it. You'd be amazed how tricky it can be to use an oven without an way to open the door. I tried to superglue the thing back on but funnily enough the door gets hot so the glue melts.

Da Management

After all the argo I've had with the management company of the flat. I find out the other day our residents association board have decided to fire them! without telling anybody. Apparently this is mainly due to always getting a call centre when you rang them up.

So we have joined the Alliance! Alliance Managing Agents that is which look like they cost a bit more but on the plus side may actually do stuff.

Just don't tell Darth Vader...

Snow and Sun

Managed to get away last week for another week's skiing (I shouldn't be having a problems with too much holiday left at the end of this year at this rate :-)).
This time I went to Crans Montana, in Switzerland. This was my first trip skiing in the land of clocks and chocolate.

It was very good. Crans is advertised as the Sunniest resort in Switzerland and so I was planning on getting a bit of a tan. We call it T shirt skiing when the weather is very good and warm, for as long as you don't fall over you can ski without a coat and jumper. Of course if you fall over you get pretty damn wet and when cold so you have to be careful.

The Weather had other plans and for the first couple of days and it snowed heavily. We had about 20inches of snow, which for Europe in March is huge. This meant poor visibility and hard conditions.

Fortunately the tail end of the week was clear so we had some deep powder and sun to give a real magical skiing experience. We could get into the deep powder, just to the sides of the pistes, and once they had bashed down the main pistes we could get in some hard and fast carving runs.

The trip was run by the same people who organised last years Turkey trip for singles and it worked quite well with an interesting selection of people.

A week of live music

I didn't really plan it in fact the week before I only thought I was going to see the Ting Tings with some mates in Leeds. But I managed a whole week of live music.

It all started the Friday before when my friend John MSM'd me to remind me that I had said yes to going and seeing the Killers at the 02 on Monday. This was a surprise as I guess I had agreed to it a couple of weeks ago in a pub somewhere while quite drunk!

So Monday is away off to the O2, London, what used to be the Millennium Dome. We had tickets in the god and 'F**k me we're a long way up!' about said it all when we got there as it was very much like watching the Killers from Orbit. we must have been 80 foot off the ground in a really steep sitting section with the stage about 100 metres away. These sizes are all pretty amazing if as well you know its all indoors. The gig was quite good although the distance was so much that there was a difference in the time the light and the sound took to get to you.

The rest of the week was quite quiet until Friday. The normal plan is for me to go up to Leeds on the Friday night train, fighting my way across the rush hour madness. However this time for some reason I booked the tickets for Saturday morning. The Ting Tings gig was on Sunday night so there was no rush. Anyway this was handy because we had a major musical event just around the corner from the office on the Friday evening which I happened to walk into.

U2 decide to play a gig on the roof of the BBC building a couple of streets away. I was a little late a work when an email went around (OK I was playing Quakelive.com with Angel) saying that U2 would be playing at 6pm. I finished playing around quarter past and noticed the email and so went to have a look to see what I could see. There was a huge crowd doing nothing outside the building, so I hung around too to see what would happen. at about half past the Police stopped the traffic (this is Regent Street in London, during rush hour and so it was busy) and the crowd rush forwards. Then when things settle down U2 came out on to the roof of the build to the roar of the crowd. They played for about 20 minutes and did four tracks ending with a great version of 'Beautiful Day'. By the time they did the last song you could hear the horns from the car of the now irate drivers stuck in the jam, but the crowd left happy.

I rounded the week off in Leeds at the Academy with a storming set by the Ting Tings singing along at the top of my voice and bouncing around like a nutter. My voice wasn't to great the next day but I loved it.

So the full line up for the week was

Louis XIV (a bit rubbish)
The Killers (OK a bit far away not sure it was worth the 40 quid)
U2 (great crazy stuff, tick them off my list of bands to see)
VV Brown (good didn't know anything about her but we could swing along to it)
LadyHawke (got a bit confused that this might be the Ting Tings doing some new stuff but it was very good)
The Ting Tings (YEAH! That's not my name!!!! la la la la!)

Sans beard

Yeap Saturday night I shaved the whole thing off and I look about 20 years younger!

I measured it just before the end and the longest bit was just about 2 inches.

it's an odd sensation to feel the wind on my chin again.

The generally the verdict so far, mostly people at work, is that I look much better.

In fact it was funny as a couple of people didn't notice straight off when they where talking to me. They would sort of go boss eyed and then step back as if trying to get my face in focus before they realised the goatee had gone.

Sorry we shut Wales

The plan was, as is a bit of a tradition with me and a couple of friends, to go winter walking in the mountains. We try and do this around February/March time each year when the conditions are hopefully cold, clear and frosty.

So we had planned for a long time that at the weekend we would travel up to the Brecon Beacons in Wales, however the weather had other ideas. The heaviest snowfall for years put a bit of a stop to that. In fact when they started closing the bridges into Wales we knew it wasn't going to happen.

So plan B, we had the train tickets (fortunately we got a refund on the cottage) so we went down to Bristol and went walking in the Mendips instead. it was good if hard work with wading thru snow drifts. We took in Beacon Batch the highest point at a modest 325 metres above sea level (not quite the Brecons!) and the Rock of Ages, made famous in the hymn of the same name.

The knees didn't half ache the day after.

Snow and the Tupperware flat

Lovely new windows and not a moment too soon.

I got back to the flat on Sunday night after being back to the Folks for Dougie's first birthday party and general kiddie chaos, and found the builders had done a great job. The windows are very nice and will keep the flat cosy and warm. Not like the old drafty ones which suffered from too much repainting. They are clean and plastic so it's a bit like living in high class Tupperware.

It's fortunate really as winter has now hit London with some force and 15cm of snow have caused the whole place to grind to a halt. I made it into work after a bit of walking and a lot of Tube changes but hardly anyone else has and the place is a bit dead.

Handy then that I've got all my winter walking gear out of storage for my trip to the Brecon Beacons at the weekend.

New windows

As IF!

not surprisingly I didn't get back to new windows, just emails from the management company asking me why I wasn't at home.

So a few calls to the company doing the install, cutting the management company out of the loop and I now have all the new window leaning on a wall in my flat, ready to go.

I gave the key to the foreman and they will be putting the nice new, plastic, modern windows in this Saturday.

Hurrah!

Deep snow

Yeah we had over 50cm of snow during the week so the powder was deep and the skiing was nice.

I only had the one crash all week due to getting into the white stuff waist deep! Actually there was so much snow, or rather it was snowing so much they had to close down most of the runs one afternoon. but that was okay as it was the end of the week and I needed the rest.

Powder is hard work (particularly on the legs/knee) to wade thru but when the sun is out (as it was for a couple of days) and you can see what you are doing (one morning we had fog and everything was white!) its a joy.

I got my perfect skiing moment, which I try for at least once every trip. That is; going fast, on a nice piste with a bit of powder, with something good on the music player, cutting at few clean carving turns as the sun shines down on me. bliss!

I'm back fit and able, if a little poorer (6 quid a pint due to the exchange rate was about the cheapest ) and trying to work out how to go again this season.

Off-ski

right !

packed and ready to wooosh down the slopes.

Haven't managed to get the key to the management company so it doesn't look like I'll be getting new windows while I'm away.

Spent all day doing project hand over notes for people at work so I don't get phoned next week.

now lets just hope the snow is good.

scafolding

Next week will be exiting for the flat as it will be getting a nice set of new windows. These are the ones that where due to be in by Xmas but hey no one really believed that.

The whole property is now covered in scaffolding to allow the builders access and bits of blue netting, no idea about the netting perhaps its for catching fish if we get alot of flooding!

In a typical bit of timing, I won't be there as I'm off skiing next week, with my collection of knee supports, so I'll have to sort a way of allowing the builders access.

This means I'm back in communication with the flat management company again and they started this time with a new approach to confuse, saying, when I told them my address, that they no longer manage the property!
But I'm used to them by now and such a simple attempt to confuse didn't work. After a bit of convincing that they did still look after the flats I managed to explain that all I wanted this time is for the cleaner to pick up a copy of the flat key so
the builders can get in to fit the new window.

One little bit of fun I will have before I go is to clear an area around each window
to allow the work to be done. The flat is tiny and moving stuff generally means another bit of the flat gets full. Particular fun will be working out how to let them get to the bedroom window as the bed (which is on stilts) is the size of the room and blocks the window pretty well. looks like I will have to leave that as a bit of an obstacle course

so It's 50/50 that by the time I get back my flat will be
a) still there
b) water tight (why do they want to pick the wettest month of the year)
c) have full set of new windows

Review of the Year!

Well so what happened in 2008. this year I've decided to use the status history from facebook to tell the tale...

26/12/2008 David a proud user of the Force since 1977. 13:21
23/12/2008 David has got Christmas in his rucksac. Heavy! 11:07
17/12/2008 David is thinking how much worse his head would be if we'd have found the sambucca. 11:16
12/12/2008 David is having the boys over. 16:09

28/11/2008 David is wrapping. 15:41
26/11/2008 David is starting a new project at work that he might call Customisation. It's got Aspects in it! 09:54
23/11/2008 David just gone all retro at a Carter USM and EMF gig. Ooh my knees! 00:01
20/11/2008 David has the distinct feeling that he's missing something. 17:13
19/11/2008 David is having a cup of tea. 16:19
14/11/2008 David is wondering what to do this weekend without being organised by a tour guide. 15:31
11/11/2008 David has returned with the Sun. 08:03
06/11/2008 David is in the warmth in Turkey. Nice! 15:50
03/11/2008 David has left the country. 10:17

24/10/2008 David is neutrally buoyant. 17:37
15/10/2008 David has paused. 13:12
13/10/2008 David is pondering hot beverages. 17:53
09/10/2008 David is having his credit crunch with chips and a cold beer. 12:16
04/10/2008 David is looking for to a long long sleep after being awake since Friday morning. 21:54
03/10/2008 David is helping out. 17:31

28/09/2008 David has just got around to doing some spring cleaning . 21:49
25/09/2008 David has been to the apple store and wasn't amused. at least the iPhone is working again. 00:03
14/09/2008 David is watching Where Eagles Dare again. Ah the snow and the music! 20:38
13/09/2008 David has got his suit out of storage. 07:54
05/09/2008 David is multiplatformed. 17:02

19/08/2008 David is looking for his badself. It's festival time!!!!! 13:43
07/08/2008 David is in need of beer. fortunatly its the beer festival tomorrow. Yarp! 17:22

31/07/2008 David is oh dear... 18:46
24/07/2008 David has crossed the Alps and met the French... 17:31
09/07/2008 David can hear the theme to 'Where Eagles Dare'. Yes he's heading for the mountains. 16:37
01/07/2008 David but it's a dry heat... 14:14

29/06/2008 David is a beening an Uncle...Chocolate! 09:49
20/06/2008 David is moving office and hoping it will go better than last time... 10:54
13/06/2008 David is wishing everything would come with chips. 12:01
02/06/2008 David has been fighting with little paint pellets. 10:42

23/05/2008 David is not in at the moment but if you would like to leave a message after the tone... 16:11
22/05/2008 David is keeping his mouth shut and trying not to get fired. 16:00
14/05/2008 David is looking at flats...nice! 18:57

29/04/2008 David is fighting the facebook API. 12:00
23/04/2008 David is chilled after his day off. 11:00
15/04/2008 David likes chips! 10:31
01/04/2008 David is forgot his gym card so he's off to the pub. 17:50

26/03/2008 David is doing some Xmas shopping! 14:55
17/03/2008 David is cursing bloody load balancers. 19:23
09/03/2008 David is back from the skiing and amazingly can still walk. 11:07

29/02/2008 David I'm going skiing...I'm going skiing...I'm going skiing...I'm going skiing... 16:14
17/02/2008 David can nearly smell the snow. 23:31
05/02/2008 David mmm! pancakes! 22:39

30/01/2008 David has seen the weather forcast and brought some more survial gear for his weekend in the mountains. 16:03
29/01/2008 David is working for a livin'. 14:43
22/01/2008 David has got the date for the return to his flat its the 18th Feb! 09:14
09/01/2008 David hears the pub a callin'. 17:56