Tuesday, February 28, 2006

Delayed

Tonight Danny and I went to see the Delays at the academy 3, it was a pretty damn good gig. The supporting act captain were ok a kind of electro pop ensamble they had a couple of pretty good tunes.
In a kind of post modern irony there was a delay in them coming on stage, whilst the most thorough sound check I have every watched was carried out, it didnt stop things messing up on the last song though.
The Delays were fab, his voice is simply mesmerising to listen to, they also did the best recovery from technical failure ive heard since a broken guitar forced Radiohead to played Creep at South Park. My particular favorites were the solo job on bedroom scene and Nearer than heaven. On was a great crowd thumping tine and Valentine was amwsome as well.

Danny was good company for a change he seems a little more mellow though he still never lets me get a word in edgeways :P Seems is back with Lyn or he? I couldnt really tell what was going on to be honest I guess he enjoys the complexity, he kept gong on how g4reat the "physical side" was, whilst pushing the revolting mental images out it made me kind of jelious. Well not jelious in the sense I want what he has but more worried that everyone is settled but not me.

Whilst enjoying the evening emensly one thing put me in a downer, standing in front of my was a pretty nice girl she kept leaning back into me, her hair in my face the sweet smell of her perfune was intoxicating, I really longed to reach forward and wrap my arms around her, but I couldnt even pluct up the courage to speak. I am not sure if it was in my head or not but I am fairly sure she was insterested given there was not eason for her to press up so close there was plenty of room. Another wasted opportunity maybe or did I prevent myself from getting mugged on display, I will never know the truth. Sometimes I live too much inside my head and not enough in the real world I just wish I could find the courage and works to comminicate and build relationships, Danny's lovelife is going well why I am alone?

Saturday, February 25, 2006

Mums Birthday

It is my Mums bithday today, got her a card and took her and my dad out to te La Quila 2 in Handforth for a curry, it was as usual up to a high standard and we all had a good time. It was nice after such a horrific week of computer problems and general working too much. Friday was the Trade Union Congress national work you real hours day so I did, I think it was well deserved after doing 14 hours sunday, and an extra two hours Monday.
I feel so tired and full now at least I am warm sat with map laptop by the fire with the cat laid on the arm of the chair, on tv is the rather dreadful movie Island, it started off well but unfortunatly it descended into hollywood trash fairly quickly.

I started reading the rather excellent Intellegent Investor by Ben Graham its amazing reading about the markets of the 50s, 60s and 70s and realising nothing really changes. Ben Graham was a profetic figure, rather than predicting hot shares he gives excellent advice on how not to lose money, a strange conept maybe but a lot of hs advice seems to be more about how not to lose money rather and how to make money. So far the chapters I have read cover nitial ideas inflaion and the different types of investor, I think its proved some of my "investments" thus far are mere speculation rather than investing. I think that cash in isas and dollar cost averaging of the trakers funds would count as intellgent defensive stratergies though.

Phil and I went to the gm and played squash today, I think it must be a year since we last went togther, I really enjoyed it was very relaxing. Except for seeing Clare running round the track, perhaps she is the universe laughing at me for what I have done to others. I dont really believe that though, I think what upsets me the most is that she is still single an yet somehow I wasn' good enough. In her eyes anyway, in mine I am alway good enough I just wish more people could see it.

Tuesday, February 21, 2006

311

After a very long two days at work I was feeling very very tired however it was Faye's birthay party (her actual birthday was on Saturday). She hasnt been well recently so it was good to see her back on form, also a load of the people I know / vaugly know were about. I wish I had taken my camera but after the weekend and day I had my brain was not working 100%
It was good to see everyone but alcohol and fatiuge made me chat jibberish and generally not remember what i said, it was a good evening though.

Monday, February 20, 2006

Hurrah not my fault

I arrived at 7.30 after a troubled nights sleep, there were issues for me to lookinto and sql replication was turned off becuase speed was such an issue. Andrew was called in to do some diagnostic work on it (thankfully because I was totally out of my depth). He found there was a problem with the index missing on one of the tables, one of the IS staff had neglected to create it when the schema was changed, that meant 1.5million records had to be searched each update with no key oops!
Thankfully I and the project plan were vindicated, I still feel I need ot be given a higher level of training or supervisions on upgrads of this importance but thats a topic of conversation for my next review.

Sunday, February 19, 2006

Upgrade / Downgrade

Some days things go bad not matter how hard you plan and work, today was a major upgrade in order to implement the new workflow system There were major changes to the schema, programs and data. This was also the first major upgrade to be project managed, there was a full implementation plan. We all came in at 7.30am to begin, the changes and get everything ticked off before 12noon so as the call centre could get back to work.
Initially it seemed to go ok, there were a few bugs with the workflow but these wee checked off then problems with speed started occuring, we tried many different way to fix this but it was too slow. Eventually we tracked the problem to a fault with replication to the sql databases. At 5pm we decided to restore the system to the origonal state which was done but the problems persisted. I stayed until 9.30pm with a short breka to go home and get some dinner but there were still faults. Tommorrow is going to be a killer day.

Friday, February 17, 2006

Office Space

Today we moved offices, which was a little bit traumatic especially as I have been so busy trying to fix some last minute bugs before Sundays go live. The good thing is I now have a seat next to the window which is much nicer than being sat in the middle of the office.

Ive just spent another Friday night say behind my computer sorting out things for the ejected brass lan, the server seems to be running well now, I hope it alls goes well tomorrow it promises to be a busy lan if nothing else a lot of people have said they are coming if they all turn up we could be pushed for space.

Talking of space I had a look on Pauls myspace before lots of positive things about his music and his life, I am pleased things are working out. I would really like to meet this Pippa girl I hear so much about, and here the new band. I guess he is a little t busy at the moment though. I think I need some goal and blue sky thought I am falling into the mundane drudgery of the 9-5.30 world and it sucks.

Only one more week until payday, man this month has been a long one, lots of bills like my car insurance and gym membership at least I managed to get that at corporate rate. I should on paper have loads of spare cash but in reality i never seem to have any.

I had an argument with my dad before he really frustrates and annoys me coming in showing off yet another design of his document to my friends, how many pints of view does he need he spends so much time and effort procrastinating if he spent half as much time doing anything he might actually achieve something I really want to get away from my parents they just talk and talk but it never seems to go anywhere there is always another excuse another good reason. Sometimes I feel myself falling into their routine but its not what I want. I might not be as clever but I want fall into the malaise of inaction.

Thursday, February 16, 2006

Weight Loss?

Think I finally got the damn deferred product work done, I ended up having to back Mikes changes out and go back to my versions, they might not be the standard way however they appear to work for all circumstances whereas the A programs fails to work under all circumstances. Personally I think its the lender whos wrong but management just want the project finished so in this instance I just did, and hopfully the gamble paid off this time.

Went to the gym tongith for the usuall session actually saw Martin there he is all shook up about the rather tragic death of Charlottes mother. Its realy sad for them, but unfortunatly its the way of the universe its cruel and unfair, but hard as it was at least she died happy and peacfully at home surrounded by a loving family.

Anyway so as not to dwell on the negative for once, did a test tonight and looks like the gym is begining to pay off quiet apart from the increased fitness I was starting to worry I havent lost any weight, howevr today I proved I have lost some fat, did the hips to waist ratio and for the first time im under the 0.92 ratio which means you aint too bad hurrah and ya boo sucks to body mass index rubbish by which scale im obese, I know im carry a few extra kg's but I do not think I am that bad.

Run John Run

I finally caught up with the film Run Lola Run today. It's been one of those films that I have wanted to watch for ages, but for one reason or another haven't. Thanks to love film I finally have finally watched it. It pretty damn good too initially I started watching the English dub but it was so poor I switched back to German with subtitles. Essentially the film is about a girl whose world is turned upside down when a deal goes wrong, it plays the story out in several ways each time showing how minor changes in people actions actions cascade out into the world and cause very different outcomes.

It is a bit like the theory which states a the butterfly flapping wings and causes a hurricane. Its impossible to predict how and what minor changes cause chain reactions through complex systems like the weather or in the case of the film peoples lives.

I am not sure whether to stay with love film though. My major gripe is that they don't send out new films until you return both the old ones whereas the last club sent everything individually which I much preferred. Mind you they sent me a stream of dodgy disks so I'll stick with Love Film a bit longer.

Bruce popped over and we had a bash at the game server in preparation for the lanparty on Saturday. Think I finally got to the bottom of the slow logon in steam also with the help of manlug mailing list might even have sorted the bind problem we shall see on Saturday.

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Where is my mind?

Its 11:30, and I have to be back in work I should be in bed asleep already, but then I wouldn't be blogging and you wouldn't get to hear about my day so I am keeping it real.

Today was well pretty good mostly finally got the workflow to a decent level, they had to get Mike in so I guess I felt slightly sidelined as he seemed to manage to make the most difficult things seem simple but he is after all the lead programmer with years of experience on me, I think recently I have become a much better programmer and valuable asset. I guess in a sick way FF must feel like that too or else they would have kept someone else instead of me.
Personally I think given the nature of the beast and the loss of the one third of the development teams it amazing we have got to this stage and shows how hard myself, Mike, Natasha and Andrew have worked.

Turns out the new girl I had been chatting to on msn wasn't all she seemed, though I don't mind being a shoulder to cry on I don't like to be made meaningless after the event I spend far too much time like that, I guess on the personal front its another lonely valentines day. I went to the pub tonight with Phil and watched all the happy couples inside I felt a pretty big pang that I am alone yet everyone else is successful, I just hope my time comes someday.

Phil wants to start up a share club, he has been reading the fool and thinks we can be budding buffets, time to order my copy of the intelligent investor I think!

The wind and rain are drumming on my roof I really hope its not an omen about tomorrows program changes, I am going to put a few things live pre the weekend to hopefully cut down the amount of time spent on Sunday, time for bed I think.

Monday, February 13, 2006

this coming V day...

cookie's world is my last but safest place for blogging, thx cookie for authorising me as one of the contributors here :)))
i always believe that distance can be a kind of beauty as well as treasures, cuz sometimes i just can't tell any friends no matter how close they are. now i understand why we both rely on our conversation and cherish our friendship.
as i said in your blog of "Friday night", i'm in a relationship with no future, i don't want to dwell on this too much, but this coming V day forces me to make a decision, thats why i wrote my blog "deadline". parents have their point that he would never bring happiness to me, mom complains so many times "you can just be his friend, but never girlfriend".
lulu was so pressured...
thinking of his care & love, every friday he would come and wait for my time for offwork, sometimes even no dinner together, just to send me home. but i know i was moved and touched, passively, its not love.
anyways, happy Valentine day tomorrow cookie*

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Fixed Pc

Felt very tired this morning didnt sleep to well thanks to the excessive alcohol and curry consumption last night. The comedy night was good though escpecially as so many people turned up. I finally got to have a decent chat with Charlotte Martins girlfriend she seems nice, though her and endos missus and endo started questioning my lack of companion. T a hanks for adding insult to injury guys :P
Finally finished Emily's pc and got it back to her today, she was pleased though she managed to hurt her hand yesterday in a weird food processor related accident, fortunatly its not too bad a fingers still attached :)
Think she was happy to be able to play the Sims again, I got the impression there was a bit of tension in the house for whatever reason so I didnt stay too long.
Went to the pub tonight with Nick and Jono was quite fun Nick was on good form, as was Jono I felt a bit tired after going to the gym, think I might have been a bit ambitious. However its been a few days since I last went so needed to have a decent session. Mens health have finally got a conversion to metric so I no longer have to go through and recalculate my workout which is a real bonus.

Saturday, February 11, 2006

I heart Life?

This evening watched a film call I heart Huckabees A surreal film based around existensial dectectives examining the interactions between a seris of characters and the universe. I guess watching fimls that examine life so much was maybe overkill for me I guess I indentified a little too much with the central character Albert, a nerotic self obsessed nut (though he identifed through poetry and social action whereas I blog and simply feel agnst about real world issues;of course I am real whereas this was just a film, mind you if you are reading this blog then I guess a film is just as real as my online persona (you get where I am going right?).

So in order to balance this post I am going to start with a success, at the minute I am writing this post on Emily freshly built PC, its working really well and is surprisingly quiet I hope she likes it. Unfortunatly I am going to temper this good news with some darker stuff. My dad is currently working on his own projects and has been getting advice off his old friend Tony. Over the years I have on occasion helped Tony and his wife out with PC issues just like a number of people I know, I *had* alwyas thought they were happy with my work having recieved no complaint and sometimes praise. However my dad relayed to me that Tony was very unhappy with what I had done for Nick and that basically I ripped him off, only one thing last time I spoke to Nick was about 3 years ago when he carried his pc out of my place after I had rebuilt it and shown him how to use his keyboard. Now fogive me but he left happy handing over some dosh (£20 if I remember rightly took about 5 hours for a total rebuild and mess about getting his keyboard to work). I never had a call back to tell me anything was wrong and I ahe done work for Tony since and in fact been for a meal with him. So I was somewhat shicked and upset after all this time he decided to launch into an attack on my dad of all people. I am sure if Nick told me at the time there was an issue I would have sorted it but he didnt and I do not really see what having a go years after the fact can achieve.

Work was up and down today, succeeded kind of at getting the training system updated thought it proved difficult due to the amount of information going across. I still feel very pressured and not really prepared, also some of the other work I have done has a few issues which is a real pain. Martin failed to arrive so I wasn't able to have a discussion with him about the current situation which upset me quiet a bit given our conversation earlier this week. Not really sure where I stand now but I certainly don't feel very valued at the moment.

Thursday, February 09, 2006

Murphy's Law

Today was a real pain I was mad busy finishing off all the little bit in order that some programs can be put on the training system and trained out in time for next weeks go live.

Somehow at problems only appear at the most inopportune moment just as in Murphy's law "whatever can go wrong will go wrong" somehow at 5 pm after a ong and hard but productive day of fixing bug the server decided to through a wobbler. Bizarre errors started to appear programs wouldn&pos;t compile with out of disk space errors. Last time this happened it was a permissioning issue and on running df showed 31% free space on device. It tooke hours to sort out and find the disk was incorrectly set up so displayed free space incorrectly :-S I didn't leave work until 19.15 what a pain.

Tomorrow is another day, hopefully the transfer to training will go smoothly then I can have a more relaxed weekend. Though I do now have a large pile of papers for NPF to dig through and try to decipher how in the heck their fees work.

Started building Emily's PC tonight and realised to me horror after horseshoeing the motherboard in that it was a very old ATX supply without an extra power connector so Ill need to get hold of a replacement. Should be a nice pc when its all done though.

Another Bad Day

As a wage slave I find everyday is basically a compromise between the conflicting desires of the need to earn money and the need not to be exploited. Recently the exploitation side has been rather overtaking the money side. Additionally my worth as an employee and faith in the company has been seriously devalued by a number of event and a lack of communication of these.
Firstly on Monday I went into work early to put some software live on the request of FF, only to find my account locked out. When questioned about this I am given a very abusive answer along the lines of it being a new policy well if that is a new policy then my new policy is not to bother coming in early!
Next I am told that although we are already overstretched FF have cut down the number of hours Tbred staff work so that instead of having two other tbred people working 3 days each Mike will be working one day. This means my workload has dramatically increased to a point where I now no longer feel I am able to cope and though I am still officially a trainee I now no longer have other people I can turn too. Though this might be a fun challenge if the workload was managed FF's current wheeze is too increase the work and cut the time estimates for completion, whilst Mike might be able to deal with that I am finding it increasingly difficult especially with an increasingly confrontational attitude from FF management especially the line manager he is acting like a real pigeon at the moment. I hope if I ever reach that level I will not treat my staff with such contempt and have the balls to stand up to the other management rather than always capitulating.

All the while with Tbred I feel totally out of the loop completely excluded from the ProvideX project barely kept informed about anything that's going on all the promises of training and development have proved to be empty. There has also been no talk of this years annual reviews yet thought it has been a year since the last one. To be honest I think I have reached the end of my goodwill and if changes don't happen soon then I will have to make some of my own.

Tonight I went round to pick up some pc bits E new parts have arrived so I needed the case and hard drive. Spent a pleasant evening having a chat it was a very welcome change after such a hard day, though I now have a pile of pc gear in the corner of my room.

The last few night I have been speaking to a new friend on MSN a student of Salford she has been pretty interesting company and has tolerated my whining about work and life which is incredible. Talking to people like her and Emily makes me miss university life the debate interesting conversations and ideas, but there was always the flip side the one up-manship arguments and arrogance of some of the people. Coupled with the deliberate obtrusification and wording in order to protect the image of intelligence and I think no maybe not for me after all.

Sunday, February 05, 2006

Jazzy Kecks

Today was a pretty productive day finally sorted out my backup strategy rsyncing the websites automatically by cron job and creating a weekly tar of the config and log files. I also finally managed (I think) to get the backup mail server to relay mail not delivered to the main server. Result ;-)
This evening went to Matt and Phreds with Joe, Holly, Phil, Bruce, Nina, Nick, Becs and some of Joes friends. It was another great night for food and jazz, had a good chat with Phil was nice to find we haven't totally grown apart. Becky wondered why myself and Phil didn't try to pickup, I cant speak for Phil but I personally I have never really been able to talk or bravado my way into conversation despite my abilities or in spite of them I am really bad at meeting people and I guess people (read women) pick up on this and don't want to talk to me.

I have been talking to Lulu about going to meet her and see some of China my main worry being I won't be able to get away without knowing Mandarin or Cantonese. She thinks Ill be fine but you know me alway's stressing about things. I think I would love it thought I always seem to like going to the places that are not quiet as mainstream. I think it would be really great to meet her even though it does stress me out that she likes the idea of me rather than the person I am. Mind you somtimes I think far too much about things rather than doing them.

Thursday, February 02, 2006

£48,000 Fuckup

I think at one point today I came closest to mental breakdown I have ever been. There was a period of pacing back and forth whilst on hold waiting to hear if I really owed nearly £50,000s.

OK I'll start at the beginning, earlier today I got a share tip from Jo, whilst I am not usually brave enough to act upon tips, had a quick look and decided it was worth a few quid for a punt, bit like a lottery ticket. In my lunch hour I fired up my share dealing site and placed an order for £500 as usual it presented me with an in principle contract to buy 415 shares at 1.16 what happened next though completely took me by surprise, it was showing 416 shares, but the cash balance was £-48,000 I and when I looked at the dealing form I had paid not 116 pence a share but 1160 ten time the market rate. Given my account limit is £5000 it shouldn't have been able to go through.

At this stage I was totally panicking losing 400 was bad but 50000 would be catastrophic I might as well forget the next 10 years saving for a house :-S, I basically run out of the office got sat in my car shaking partly because it was -1c partly from the fear I eventually got through to an operator explained the problem then waited on hold whilst she went off to find out what had happened. I think the next few minutes were the longest of my life sat listening to hold music pacing about the car park.

After about 10 minutes of listening to the company hold music looping every 30 seconds of so I was very stressed out, all sorts of thoughts were going through my head, I wondered whether I could declare myself bankrupt or fake my pc getting hacked or jump off a cliff. By the time she got back I was pretty worked up at first I thought she was going to pt the blame on me, but after a short explanation she told me they had made a mistake, I was very relieved so much so I didn't ask questions like, how did this happen, how could you let me trade so very far over my limit? How do I stop it happening again?

I got back into the office and I must of checked about once every thirty minutes to see if the share site updated, finally at 5.15 it did, what a relief.

Personally I am not sure where I would have stood had they tried to foist the blame onto me, I had no evidence of the site (in future I'll print each page off). I might have been able to wriggle out given the amount of money as so extremely high way beyond my limits. I think I'll brokers as well try might be a one of the worlds largest banks but they sure fucked up my trade. Oh well at least I don't owe £50000!