St Anton

So I didn't last very long before the need to be on the slopes hit once again.

Last week I had a great little week in St Anton, Austria, to finish off the season. Being as its right at the end, the conditions were quite warm and the snow patchy. In fact the resort advertises it as the crystal snow season, the snow looking a lot like big wet bath salt crystals. The skiing conditions were actually still OK with pretty good coverage and a fair amount of stuff to do. The benefits with coming so late in the season is that the weather is warm, for t-shirt skiing and the resort is practically empty, so no packed runs.

Friends on this trip were a couple of mates from previous new years trips Jayne and Rich. Also because we were joining a large chalet we hung out with the other guests, a good mix of ages and drinking abilities!

One of the big apes-ski places is called the Mooserwirt, a big outdoor bar and dance/music place. I'm not sure of the quality of the Austria style techo dance but once the beer is going it seemed very danceable. In fact we've got some great pictures of us dancing on the balcony.

For this trip I tried a new packing approach to skiing and cut everything down to the bare minimum. This worked quite well, with me easily making the airline weights, but became a bit of a problem one evening. We had been enjoying a dance and a jager or two at the Mooserwirt before head back down to the resort and found that the equipment storage lockers had been closed for the night. It would have been OK as we could taken the stuff back to the chalet unfortunately I only brought the one pair of shoes in my packing which were in the locker so had to spend the night in, sans footwear.

One quirk of the booking and flights meant that we had an extra day in the resort so I took the opportunity to have a day snowboarding. Once I got my head around it again, its been 7-8 year since I did a week, it was good fun with some reds and black and some annoying flats.

Another quirk was my leaving bus which was a couple of hours after everyone else. I went for a wander and sat in the sun, while I waited. The whole resort seemed almost deserted, I really did seem to the last person out.

A good trip.

Ouch a bit harsh

Ok so the MOT didn't go too well.

I got double teamed again, mainly I think because of my boss leaving.

Most of the negatives came from the new boss so that doesn't bode well.

Basically they say I'm just coasting and not helping solve problems and 'a bit negative'.

I didn't fight back apart from pointing out my projects did get released on time and the picture they paint doesn't reflect what others say about me. Its all very confusing.

So things are going to get bad with the new boss in control. I like him as a friend but his temper will make stuff hard. I'm perfectly willing to except I'm not a very good worker but I don't operate in a vacuum and the odd bit of encouragement, recognition goes a long way.

Change and maybe an MOT?

My boss resigned last week!

I guess at least he waited until I got back or rather I'm glad it didn't happen while I was away. That would have been more of a shock but it's still a major event. He's off to another agency good luck to him.

So his deputy gets his job and one of my good friends is now deputy CTO.
This means a change of line management and some choas going forward. It's going to be a tricky time as the new CTO is a good guy but can be a bit volitile. I forsee grief the next time something goes wrong whether or not any of us will be to blame.
This all happened without the boss bothering to get around to my MOT (well his mind definately will have been on other things) to discus my future at the company so I guess I'm an irrelevance and wouldn't have figured in any decision making. My MOT will probably be a bit of a non event.

So I did something to cheer me up, I booked another ski trip! I'm off to St Anton for a week in April. I'm really looking forward to it. This maybe an addicition!

Being Home

Man is cold!! and I've been in a ski resort. The country look very in white on the flight in travelling over the home counties, with little white patch works of fields.

So I back and doing chores, the washing mainly. Getting this blog up to date, particular the exam week entry will take a while we've doing a lot of stuff.

Back at work nothing much seems to have changed, a few more people have left but the nine to five is the same. I'm watching everyone still enjoying themselves on Facebook and its making me want to start planning a return trip. In fact, its odd to be sitting still for so long and I've been going for walks around the office and outside to work off some energy.

Exam Week and Results

So we finally get to exam week.

It started with everyone meeting up at the Roundhouse first thing in the morning for registration. So a lot of nervous people, form filling and queueing. The whole skier group of plus a few extra people are logged in and randomly given a form to fill in. Each form has a pupil number and couple of instructors listed on it for the groupings for the next four days. We have a bit of a confer and I find that unfortunately I don't really know anybody in my group but fortunately I seem to have done quite well with the instructor selection. The two instructors are Nick and Chris. Nick I don't know but Chris I know a bit socially (he was on the avalanche course) and everyone that have had him says he's a really good instructor.
The exam is broken down into two days concentrating on skiing skills and two days of teaching practise. We will be assessed over all the days and then find out the results on Thursday after lunch.

So first up is Nick from Wales, who managed to scary us all straight out of the gate by talking about what gets an immediate fail, only to finish the sentence by saying he was joking! The focus is on the basic skiing skills and getting really good parallel turns. The conditions are very good and much to our amazement we have a really good ski day covering lots of ground including and trip into Whistler Bowl!!! to practise doing our steeps. We were quite happy when we finished and were surprised to find out most of the other groups had just been doing drills and not doing much distance. The others were quite annoyed when they found out what we had done.

The day ended with a couple of lectures on teaching and the basic of the Canadian Ski system. That was bearable but the homework reading was very hard as I kept nodding off. At dinner I tried and failed to get anyone to come out for a beer.
The snowboarders also started their exams today but on the other mountain. They were all pretty tried when I saw them and they had to do a lot more homework that us, including making lesson plans.

Day two was also quite a fun day, we had to cover the basic beginner techniques but we had a couple of breaks to go for a bit of a ski. Nick is a phenomenally fast skier and a don't think I've ever gone much faster than the groomer that we did to warm up first thing in the morning. I had gotten up early and done a couple of runs, on the beautifully smooth slopes, as I had assumed we wouldn't be doing anything fast, so I was warm already as so could keep up. Lessons concentrated on teaching from new to basic wedges and speed control. We also did a selection on moguls and steeps including a slow race (going down as slowly as possible in control not stopping) down a hard mogul field, at which I managed to beat Nick (Not a normal thing according to him).

The day ended with more lectures, homework and a one to one with Nick about my skiing. He seemed quite happy about it and said I need to concentrate on getting low and turning with my feet.

The homework in the evening was better and I manged to go out for a few beers with Pete, Ed, Ed and Mike. I think most of the group were getting a bit too worked up about it all to go out but it was good to decompress.

The second half of the week was with Chris, a Canadian who I know socially to have a beer with. The focus was now on teaching the 'Canadian way', What to look for and how to handle a group. We all had a little go at teaching and I did learner wedges, giving the group the 'Hands on knees with poles'. Chris didn't expect too much from the first lot of teaching as they knew we hadn't done it before. We did a bit of free skiing and Chris gave a few more pointers on our technique, and I would agree with the others that he is a very good instructor. A pity we only had him for two days.

There was then more lectures, on what to look out for and fix and homework on teaching kids. Dinner was dramatic as the snowboards only had a three day assessment and so knew their results. We kept meeting up with little groups of them not knowing if they had done well. The results were generally quite good but not everyone was OK. One group, randomly assigned like us, only got half the group through. A case of a very hard examiner.
But mostly they were very glad they had finished. Pete, myself and the successful snowboarders went out afterwards to the GLC, although we left them getting very happy after three beers, after all the next day was D Day!

And so to the last day. Fortunately it was only a half day but what a half day as the weather was snowy/cloudy and the visibility wasn't good. The format for the day was to let all of the group having about 10 minutes teaching for each of us in our group of 7, each teaching a group of 3 and rotating around the group until we have all had a go. In the end I was one of the last in the group to get my turn and the nerves where steadily getting worse and worse. We had to teach either wedges or parallels and because I did wedges yesterday, today I got to teach parallel turns.

So I got my little group and started with a bit of a ski, with Chris the examiner just behind me the whole time watching me. The rest of the group stayed out the way a bit further up the hill also watch me. After a bit it was time to find a good place to stop which was a bit tricky as the slopes were busy with too many other groups doing the same thing. Next I stopped to watch my group ski for a bit and try to work out what needs improving. having come up with something to fix, which is very hard to do as unlike normal skiers the issues are quite minor and hard to spot. Anyway I suggested a drill deciding this time to get rid of poles and picked the hands on knees drill again. This time making them raise up to the zombie pose and back down to touch the outside knee at the end to focus on correct body position. The time went pretty quickly in the end and I don't think I stopped talking for the entire time. Chris said cool and said I didn't need to be so nervous, so it must have been quite obvious. I was very relieved to have had my turn and that was it nothing left to do but finish the last couple of people to go and wait for the results.

Results was a very stressful process with highs and a big low.

First up was some bad news as they read out the people who only passed half of the exam. Unfortunately Alice, from my original group failed the skiing part and had to go up in front of everyone to get a round of applause and get her exam summary sheet to find out what she needs to fix. This was meant to celebrate the part they did pass but it was a pretty humiliating process in the end. It also made the rest of the ceremony a bit odd with trying to comfort the ones didn't pass while being happy for the ones that did (Alice, successful resat her skiing part a couple of weeks later so is now fully qualified).

They then started to read out everyone one person at a time to go up and get their certificates, for fifty people this takes a long time. It was ages until Chris said
'This person has to be at work on Monday' and I thought 'Oh no that's me!' ha ha and I was up and walking to the front before he had even said my name. What a buzz after all these years since Banff going up and getting applauded by a whole room of people.

So, Yes I'm a ski instructor!

We got a little pack with a metal badge and a certificate and the exam summary sheet which detailed several bits for me to work on, like making sure I'm not in too tall a stance and making sure I finish my turns. It fitted in whole ethos of continuous development and improvement.

Now that was all done and dusted we hit the town.

It started to get surreal very quickly as, in the first bar were we all decided to meet, we bumped into the cricketer Freddie Flintoff, who was in town to do some filming. A very nice chap, he was having a quiet drink with a friend not being recognised by the locals. Once the British turned up he got surrounded but took it well and there are loads of group pictures with him. We ended up quite a big group not the full 70 but a good proportion. So the plan for the evening was set with loads of drinks a good time and still quite a bit of adrenalin washing around our systems.

Eventually We all end up in the same night club, and took Freddie with us. There was drinking and singing and dancing and from this point on things definitely got blurry even the photos are fuzzy.
So finally Nic and me headed home and on the way back we searched the town for a some sort of
food and after a long long search we ended up at Domino's Pizza. Finally home at 3AM.

Next morning was an earlyish start fortunately I was mostly packed but still had a bit to do. So it was a case of just jamming it all in and sorting out when I get home.
Guy, the organiser turned up at 10:30am with the bus and so with a big farewell to the lads in the flat, it was goodbye to Whistler, Canada and back to reality.

Week four - wedges and exam prep

Things are getting a bit more serious now as we head towards the exams next week. Our instructor for this week is another Canadian lady, Jo. She too is a very experienced instructor, who when she's not instructing seems to work at the hospital and plays ice jockey! She also seems to have had the most injuries including bust knees, a broken back and lose of depth perception. Not that any of that slowed her down much!

The focus this week is on teaching and learning how to do wedges correctly. There are a series of steps in the Canadian teaching system which roughly go as; introduce yourself, assess the class, warm up ski, assess the ski level, introduce drills to improve them, reassess and then integrate knowledge into normal skiing. We tried a little bit of teaching to get a feeling for it, and the general feeling was pretty nerve racking.

As part of the qualification we need to be able to take a complete beginner all the way to doing parallels so we need to be able to do wedge (or snowplough) turns. This isn't easy when its been years since you last had to do them. So we went through the steps and concentrated on getting the weight over the outside ski and the correct pivot of the foot. Being able to do this all correctly in the wedge builds a base for when you go back to doing parallel, if you carry the correct feeling across then you will be in the correct position in the parallel turns. I think I learnt quite a bit doing this so I didn't mind doing it, however most of the rest of the group weren't happy as we stuck doing this on the green runs when there was good powder conditions.

We had some instruction about beginners, including how to explain how to put on skis and how to explain how to move around in them. We even went over to the magic carpet area and did some drills in with the learner groups so we could see what issues they have and a bit of learning to detect issues in others.

This week's focus on my technique was getting the feeling of falling down the hill (sounds weird but it means getting far enough over the ski to have good control) on the steeps (making me commit to the turns), more turning the ankle to edge, so much so my ankles were getting sore by the end of the week (really the only niggle apart from being knackered all the time).

Also another fun thing we did was one ski skiing. We left one ski at the top of the Cat Skinner chair and then went down Easy Out on one ski. The idea, switching skiing foot several times, is learn to a turn, left or right depend which foot the ski is on, using just the one edge and not cheating by using the other ski. This helped in two ways; one to get the idea on balancing on one ski, as you should do normally, and two to rediscover the feeling on being out of control on skis so we know how the beginners feel :). Also we tried to turn both ways on one ski, which is a level two skill, we were quiet a sight to see with legs and arms all over the place.

One piece of information from Jo that really helped me this week was the idea of the 10 percents of turning. Basically think of the turn in 10% blocks and have the various acts of turning broken up between them. So get the balance and pivot and edge all working through the whole turn smoothly rather than going all full on edge just at the end. So make it all nice and smooth.

So now we have a couple of days to get our heads together and revise the detail, then it's time for the exams!! (actually the weather at the weekend was nice enough to get a bit of a tan and a few people like Kieran to do some T-shirt skiing!)

Week Three keep in control at all times

This week our instructor is Kim, a French Canadian lady who seems to like being in the trees alot.
So trees figured alot in the week as we learnt the best ways to travel through them, taking the line below a tree and committing to the turn so your body doesn't get caught up in the branches. The key piece of advice for trees is don't look at them. if you look at them you will ski into them, better to look at the gaps and plan a couple of turns ahead (if you can see for all the trees!)

On the technical side we worked on our turns and I particularly worked on remembering to use my polls and have my arms out in front of me. The correct pose is something like what you would be in if you were getting ready to jump off a low table. With bends at the knees and ankles, weight on the balls of your feet. With your stomach held tight and your arms out in front of you. They call it an athletic stance. We also continued to increase the hardness of the steeps we journeyed into.

The weather this week gave us a huge amount of snow and with the change in conditions we got chance to learn about powder or Pow! skiing. The two main things to think about in pow is to still be centrally balanced on the skis, not to lean back and to keep the skis a bit closer together as they cut through the snow. The general techniques on skiing don't change, be it in powder, or on steeps or moguls or on groomers. Getting the weight on the down hill ski, pivoting, edging and planting the polls are all the same. Powder is great fun and Kim took us to some great bits of the resort to experience it.

On Friday I had a day out with Ed the snowboarder across to Symphony bowl to play in all the trees and the new pow. Symphony had been closed for the past couple of days due to the Avalanche risks and so it hadn't been over skied. We had a great couple of hours messing about in Staccato grove.

The weekend which was still in mostly white out conditions was the Avalanche course. This is separate from the Ski instructing system and focuses on skills which would be useful in more back country situations that are not ski patrolled. We covered the types of Avalanches and how to spot the conditions that cause them. There was some interesting science into the way the snow pack forms and ways they forecast what the conditions will be like. We also learnt how to use radio transponders, probes and snow shovels so we can self rescue in the event of an avalanche. This was quite fun as we pretended to find and rescue buried people.  

Ice on the way to the city

An early Saturday start saw me on a bus to Vancouver to stay with friends and get away from all things snow for a weekend.

The journey was a lot more exciting than I had planned as the conditions on the roads were very icy. The 60 seater bus actually lost control on one bit of ice and we slid about ten foot with the back starting to slide sideways. That was really quite scary and we had to go really slow so that didn't happen again. A little while later the driver announced that a dangerous pass was coming up ahead and wasn't sure it would be safe to cross, there being a large drop on one side (yes I did think of the Italian job at about this point). Fortunately the bus driver decided to stop and wait for the pass to be cleared and gritted before setting off again and we managed to make it alive to Vancouver with only a couple hours delay.

By the time I got to Vancouver I was still early to meet up with my friends so I decided to have a walk around the waterfront area. I was a complete tourist, taking loads of photos. There were lots of interesting bits and pieces including a huge Lego whale sculpture which was ace!

After that I went around to Emanuel and Yvadney's place. They are old friends from London, I used to work with Emanuel, who moved out to Canada a couple of years ago. I stayed at Emanuel's flat which is very nice but on the 20th floor! It took me a little while to go anywhere near the windows.

Emanuel gave me a tour around his bit of the city including a visit to his office, which is the Canadian branch of the same company I work for in London. It was very interesting to see the office and see how a typical Canadian work place is set up. The city is nice with lots of little touches like leaf prints in the concrete walkways, which were done for the Olympics. In the evening we had a meal, drinks and an opportunity to catch up. I could give them the low down on our friends back in the UK and they tell me about all the odd things about living in another country (they really miss a good fish and chips shop).

On Sunday morning Emanuel and I had a breakfast of kings at the Templeton Dinner. Sitting at the counter, I had two blueberry pancakes, six strips of bacon, three eggs easy, rosemary potatoes, two rounds of brown toast, maple syrup and about a pint of coffee. I didn't need to eat again until Monday morning.

I took my leave of Emanuel and Yvadney on Sunday evening, It was great to see them again and hopefully not so long until I see them next.

Vancouver is a nice place and I think I really need to go back and visit it during the summer as it rained constantly the whole time I was there and so wasn't maybe in its best light, well they do call it Raincouver.

Week Two - Get your hands up

This weeks instructor is called Tim, an Aussie with full set of their skiing qualifications. He skis in a very controlled style with his tight turns pretty constant not matter what the terrain.
Mike joined the group still recovering from his knee problem. My group is meant to be a bit more gentle so he can recover.

The three main areas, Tim had me concentrating on were, keep your hands up (I drop the hand after the poll plant which twists the body), keep the upper body still and turn from the feet (balance and movement in the turn should be coming from the lower body not the upper which throws the balance out and makes the turn a lot harder).

Tim introduced us to some more steeps including a drop into west bowl called Cockalorum which I completely messed up, crashed, lost a ski and slid down the steep (60 degree-ish) slope on my belly for about 20 metres until I could stop myself by using my poles like ice axes. My ski went another 30 metres and had to be rescued by Tim.

The weather was a big mix with days of sun, blizzard, fog and v cold winds. The conditions proved a bit too much for my selection of goggles and I ended up getting a set of Vonzipper Feemon's for 150 dollars! Since then I've no more problems with fogging/icing up which makes for a much better skiing experience when you can see what you are doing.

Away from skiing we have had a couple of good nights out to the Karaoke at the Crystal lounge and generally around town. I've also managed to get to the local climbing wall on Wednesday which was quite good and that old familiar arm burn lasted a few days. They have the same grading system for bouldering but the routes were so overlapping that different colours got very confusing. The centre called the Core is good with about 8 descent size walls to have fun on.

Back to Basics - Week One

So how do you split up 49 skiers into teaching groups?

That was the first order of business on Monday morning.

Guy got us roughly split into 7 groups ranging in how much bottle we thought we had. Dom and Arthur went for the mental double blacks top group, Mike went for a one a bit less than that and I went for a nice easy don't get myself in hospital in the first week group. Nick picked a level similar to me, Ed was off snowboarding and Ben, apparently only booked the accommodation and so went off skiing some crazy off piste stuff all week by himself.

The group I picked ended up quite a good mix and all about the same level. We have
Tansy, Alice, Amy, Chris, Pete, Ciran and Myself. Our instructor for the week is Donie, who is a small Canadian lady, who turns out seem to have taught half of the other instructors.

We spent the week starting to learn the basics again, such as planting your polls, not leaning back, getting you hips and shoulder parallel to the slope in a turn and finishing your turns completely.
We had exercises where you held your polls in out to the sides (to lean the right way), at half way (to get us lower down), at our waists without hands (to get us to bend at the waist) and on our shoulders to get the shoulder line parallel to the slope.

Arther and Dom spent the week coming back shattered and tell us all the mad things Guy (who took the top group) was making them ski down, and loving it of course. Mike didn't have so good a time of it as he twisted his knee and is going to be out of action for a couple of weeks at least.

By the end my group seemed to be getting quite a bit smoother and looking in control. Most of the time we spent on the pistes but we did do a couple of bits of steep towards the end of the week. The conditions ranged from foggy to clear to very windy and cold. We didn't get much in the way of new snow but the base is deep so it was all good groomed runs.

I've been out drinking with most of my ski group and we had quite a jolly time of particularly the Tuesday night Karaoke at the Crystal Lounge. Pete signing 'Bust a Move' is a memory that I hope will remain strong for a long time!

My house mates are not bad for a night out either although as they are all on the 11 week version of the trip they are on a bit more of a budget.

A day out with the Locals

OK one local, Sandra, a friend from way back, who moved out here a couple of years ago.

It was a lovely Powder day but it was also an American holiday weekend so lots people travelled up the ski resorts for a bit of a holiday. Unfortunately this makes for mad queues at all the chair lifts.

Sandra is a boarder and knows all the nice little bits of the resort so we spent the day with some nice blacks and tree and bike tracks (one called blue velvet) on Whistler mountain. Particularly fun was a trip into Whistler bowl which was quite bonkers, steep with deep pow and really no visibility. She also introduced me to a bit of a Whistler tradition, the Bloody Caesar cocktail at lunch which is quite tomato-y and quite spicy. I've not idea how strong it is but it was very nice.

At the end of the day we went drinking at Brandy's and watched the American football. It was also an opportunity to meet Sandra's other half Ryan and some of her friends. They were all very nice and made me feel very welcome.
Sunday was quite! a bit of skyping and I went to watch the half pipe comp

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