Accessibility Links
To add to the list of things going wrong, Ruth got caught speeding (3pts, and ?60) and the digital camera is broken.
it’s all going a bit Pete tong at the moment, but where not paranoid.. Honest.
My job is currently winding down, after all I’ve only got 12 working days left until I leave an start my new job. As a result I’m doing less and less coding at work (i.e none), which is just as you would expect it, but this is having a negative knock on effect to my post work day.
When work isn’t occupying my mind, I end up getting all creatively deprived, which means at night I am desperate to do something creative, and as I’m a programmer that usually means write code. That’s how this website started, and the library happened, and to some extent poopcell was born*. The problem is I get up at 6:30 in the morning, which means by the time everyone is fed and the baby is in bed it’s 7:30 at night, a whole 13 hours and a working day since I got up; I’m just to tired to get into the zone.
So tonight once Daisy was in bed I had a 45 minute nap, It’s not as drastic as polyphasic sleeping or anything, but it’s a start, and I do feel much fresher now (if still a bit rambly), all I need do now is actually have an idea as to what to create…
*poopcell was as much about being creative, as it was a place to hide from the stress of the wedding planning. Ruth ran to SimCity and I wrote poopcell.
It’s the internet, it distracts me. I sit down at the computer full of good intentions “I will create!” I exclaim, and almost straight away I’m looking at BBC news, or even worse bloglines, and then the whole evening is wasted. It probably says more about my flighty brain and current state of mind more than anything else, But I do feel terribly sad if I get to the end of the night and I haven’t done anything constructive. So here I sit, blank computer screen before me, trying really really hard to think of something to do, after all I’m a programmer the whole computer is full of possibilities.
I took the decision a while back that this creativity lark would only work if I did things I was interested in, but that has limited my options somewhat. Maybe now would be a good time to step away from the computer and maybe have a nice cup of tea, all the best ideas happen over a cup of tea (so I’m told).
Proof, as if proof were needed, that the world is out to get me: Our washing machine has barricaded itself into the outhouse. It appears to have taken a walk whilst on the spin cycle, and deposited itself in front of the door, which means I can’t get in there to move it back, much less wash any clothes. I might as well just go back to bed and admit defeat.
As you may or may not know we are big west wing fans. We have the first five series on DVD, and are in the middle of watching the 7th Series on mofo. It’s gone of the boil a bit, but it’s still a good watch.
Last week ABC’s answer to the West Wing, ‘Commander in chief‘ aired on ABC1, and well erm, gosh. It’s certainly entertaining, in a watching a train wreck type way.
They must have known that there would be direct comparisons between the two shows after all they are both set in the white house, and are about ‘the president and staff’ and you can see that, because there are a number of places where they have deliberately done something, just so it wasn’t the same as the West Wing. The West Wing’s success was based on realism, fantastic dialog, and interesting stories, maybe the writers of this should have tried to keep at least some of the features of the west wing.
Ruth is saying she may not let me watch the next episode. I don’t see why, we like a good comedy.
I don’t know the song, but one of my friends used to sing along to her doorbell (before they changed the sound to the barking dog noise).
The world is positively miniscule. Kevin has discovered that his great great great great grandmother was a Jump, which would be worrying if she was a Lancashire Jump, but the connection with the West Derby Jumps is so ancient as to scarcely be relevant (in case anyone thought that 200 years didn’t already put the relationship firmly in the irrelevant category). Still, it’s an unusual name, and a protestant name at that, so we were a little surprised.
The size of the world has also been brought into question by the fact that my aforementioned doorbell-accompanying friend today met my first cousin once removed on my father’s side, or, as we usually call him, Our Phil*. Phil is an area something or other (they used to be called Superintendants, but some time after I drifted out of the denomination into the murky world of the housechurch movement, and churches that were all too often called “Something or Other Christian Fellowship”, they restructured, and I’ve no idea what he does. The evidence would suggest that he still uses Superintendent as a point of reference to counteract the blank looks.) in the Baptist Union, which means that he turns up at Baptist Churches as guest preacher, authority figure, shoulder to cry on, etc etc, and to celebrate high days and holidays. Our local Baptist church is celebrating such a high-day/holiday at the moment (a centenary), and so there was a comparing of notes between my astute friend, who guessed that there must be some relationship between us, and my distant cousin.
On one level, I’m quite gratified - much depends on tone of voice and levels of irony, but since I’m told he said, “Oh yes, Our Ruth* - the clever one,” I’m taking it as a compliment. Two tiny degrees, that’s all, nothing to brag about, but thank you.
On another, these things always unnerve me a little. I don’t have huge secrets to protect, when my different worlds collide - plenty of people do, I’m sure - but it just seems very odd, that Tess spent some minutes, this morning, talking to a member of my family, who actually knows me hardly at all, and rarely sees me outside of Christmas. There’s always Christmas, and in a funny way, most of the family rather value the fact that we don’t lose touch all together, because we always go to my Grandma’s at Christmas. But in another, it’s a bit farcical, because we know so little about each other, the need to hold onto that connection is… odd.
An example: before he went to Bible college, Phil worked at Camel Lairds. I’ve always known this, but I only learned today that he did electrical type stuff there - for all I knew he could have been an accountant, or a spot welder. I think I had an idea he wore a suit, so maybe not a spot welder. Similarly, our Will does something in computers - I don’t know what, or for whom, or at what level. Our Tim works for BT, and always has, but I don’t know what he does. And all they know about me is that she’s the clever one - went to University, you know.
I value my family pretty highly. Maybe I ought to speak to some of them.
* I don’t have an Aunty Ermintrude, or an Uncle Joshua. They were merely examples.
after a bit of “return to base”, I’ve finally got my new pooter up and running, and after some rearranging of shelves, I have my nice new double monitor, pooter, filling most of the cupboard
as you can see from the pictures, it’s a bit of a monitor fest now, but that’s cool, because multiple monitors make you work better, it’s one of the things I’m pretty sure I’m going to lose when I change jobs, which makes me a bit sad, I’ll have to work on that, because as a percentage of my salary a couple of quid for an extra monitor is nothing (although the knock on effect of monitor envy does spread around the office).
Oh and yes it is nice and fast, thank you :0)
you can see what my old desk layout was like, or my desk at my current job which is all part of a set of photos of the Jumps’ desks.
