Me

Music to walk through a crowd to: Marilyn Manson – This is the new shit.

Things to do before I die:
#1 sit in clapham junction train stations inter-platform bridge and take photos of the stupid faces people make when running for their trains.

I think this is starting to get silly now, when I turn on my computer and start up my web browser I have it set to open 93 pages at the moment… I wish I knew what this said about me.

OK, it would be safe to say the last week has basically been insane amounts of not sleeping and developing PHP for my final year project and for a quick site for one of my modules.

The site I have been working on for my final year project is a records management tool for scout leaders called SORT (Scouts Online Records Tool).

It is basically a website that leaders can log into and get at all the details they store about the Beavers, Cubs and Scouts. So for example, the members section is a big table of the members they are allowed to see and then they can click on them and open up their profile in more detail. There is a messaging section which allows mass e-mails to be sent to parents for events and just general news. There is a section to deal with the badges side of record management (so who has done what towards badges) as well as some rather nice search features.

Well I basically started this site on Friday last week and worked on it constantly up until today when I had another site to make. You see, the SORT system has to be painfully secure due to the nature of the data it holds, children’s names, address, date of birth etc… and so this has all taken a lot of work to get to where I am now.

And where am I now… well, I now have sent an email to my test group and they have started feeding back. Most of it is very positive, not much in the way of suggestions yet. Few bug fixes and a couple of concerns over security that I have addressed, but all well so far. Got a couple of months to finish it all and get it online, so not too bothered at the moment, just getting the ball rolling really.

Now all I have to do is get through the next week and then I finally get to see Demz again for a weekend… really looking forward to that… other than insane amounts of work I’m semi doing that’s about as interesting as my life is at current. Oh, and my sleeping pattern is a big mess, should really sort that out.

It would be safe to say that recently I’ve had a fair bit on my mind.

For starters my Family has a new media center PC which hasn’t been working quite as expected. It refuses to wake up properly sometimes and the radio part isn’t working, and before Saturday it wouldn’t record anything and the signal was very very poor. I’ve spent hours and hours making it work as best I can. It was the last thing I needed really, but I didn’t feel like I could come back to Brighton without leaving it in a state where it mostly worked. Especially as it was my idea!

Then there has been the vast amounts of work I have to do for my degree. I didn’t do enough before Christmas and I now have a huge amount to do until Easter. From Easter I’m pretty much free and would really rather be 3 months from now and passed this busy point in my life.

I’m also job hunting and applying to what I can so that if/when I finish my degree I might actually have something to go to at the end.

Oh, and then there is Japan. I have had my family bugging me to sort this trip out and really, the last thing I needed was another thing to go on my mind. My brother wants to go out there this summer and so would I. But I don’t really feel like I have the time to devote to all the research I want to do before I go. But I’ve booked the flights now, so it’s happening one way or another. Yey stress.

Then finally I want to spend as much time as I can in Roehampton these next few months seeing Demelza, but I know I will be insanely busy, and I know she will be too, but there are so many reasons I have to go up there that I’m going to hate not being there as much as I want to be. As it is I haven’t seen her in 3 weeks… this is pants.

So with all this on my mind I spent Friday night in the pub and then chatting to Demz on MSN. Made me feel a whole lot better, but still a way to go I think.

Oh, and if you get bored, a decent word game/quiz that’s actually quite a challenge and does some good at the same time: http://www.freerice.com/

I did this last year and it seemed a bit of fun then… so why not try again and look back and see what’s changed. Should be fun.

1. What did you do in 2007 that you’d never done before?
Ate from a chocolate fountain, slept on a plane and probably a few more things…. Oh, moved out and am now living in a rented house with a few other people.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I didn’t really make one, so technically that’s a no.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Nope, not that they told me.

4. Did anyone close to you die?
Again, thankfully not.

5. What countries did you visit?
France, Malaysia and Singapore

6. What would you like to have in 2008 that you lacked in 2007?
More enthusiasm about my Uni work.

7. What dates from 2007 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Leaving work at Merrill Lynch was quite a big thing given it took up more than half of my life this gone year. Most of my trip to Malaysia is pretty firmly in my head, lot happened on it and doubt I will forget it. 9th of December is pretty high up there, it’s when I asked Demz out. I may not remember the date that well, but I remember the time very well.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
I want to be really sad and say watching the whole of Stargate SG1 on DVD, but it think this still has to be work related. I completed a year of work without too much trouble and enjoyed it.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Not grasping some moments with both hands as they passed and not doing as much Uni work as I should have since starting back there.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Not more than the usual colds and badminton related stuff. Managed to pull my shoulder a couple of times, but I’m used to that now.

11. What was the best thing you bought?
Anything from Computer (well, lots of new bits for it) to Digital SLR probably.

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Can I be really self centred and say myself? I think I have grown up a fair bit this last year. I still do a lot of stupid things and I’m still lazy and childlike half the time, but I feel like I’m ready for the real world now and want it to happen.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
US and UK governments, as always.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Probably in the following order: Computer, Holiday, Camera, train fairs!

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going on Holiday

16. What song will always remind you of 2007?
Probably Linkin Park – What I’ve done, although Ludovico Einaudi – I Due Fiumi is a close second

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:

a. Happier or sadder?
Happier, and if some things stay the same and at the same time I’m not in the process of failing my degree then I will be as happy as I can be.

b. Thinner or fatter?
Probably about the same.

c. Richer or poorer?
Still richer I think, although I now don’t have any money coming in and I have a million ways to spend it, so it won’t take much longer to be poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Uni work (notice a theme yet?) and visited friends.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Being a lazy arse, sitting on trains.

20. How did you spend Christmas?
At home with my family as per usual.

21. Did you fall in love in 2007?
Yup

22. How many one-night stands?
none

23. What was your favourite TV program?
Has to the legend that is Top Gear

24. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don’t think so. This hasn’t really been the year for hating people.

25. What was the best book you read?
I think the better question would be did you read any books. I have however been given 211 things a bright boy can do for Christmas and so far it does seem rather good.

26. What did you want and get?
Love. Oh, and work experience.

27. What did you want and not get?
Can’t think of anything specific at the moment, although I’m sure as usual it was lots of little things.

28. What was your favourite film of this year?
So many to pick from this year, Probably Hitman, Die hard 4, Borne ultimatum or Blades of glory would have to be high up there.

29. What was your favourite game of this year?
I will have to say Burnout 2 on the GameCube, still. I still play it more than anything else.

30. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
It was my 21st birthday and I spent it on a rainy campsite as a Scout leader setting up a huge music concert in a marquee tent with a sound and lighting system. That has to be fairly original…

31. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
More spare time and more time with friends.

32. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2007?
Half of it as the modern city worker in decent shirt and trousers, the other half as a returning student in brown trousers and t-shirt.

33. What kept you sane?
Well, it certainly wasn’t my housemates, work colleges or the travelling. It s a bit of a push, but it may have been my friends in Roehampton. Of course this suggests I’m sane. I make no promises.

34. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy respect the most?
I actually can’t think of anyone at the moment. That doesn’t bode well for the world really does it.

35. What political issue stirred you the most?
The usual “war on terror” still winds me up.

36. Who did you miss?
Demz (although if I’m allowed to pick more then pretty much all my friends….)

37. Who was the best new person you met?
I can’t think of that many people new to this year, although a few of the guys that started at work were great. What has happened though is I have got to know a lot of people a lot better. Mainly people at Roehampton thanks to my millions of visits, although clearly my housemates fall under this list too. I knew them all before I moved in, but know them all a lot better now and they are a great bunch of friends.

38. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2007:
I’m not sure it’s possible to work on personal life or work life at the same time. For one thing to succeed the other must fail. I hope to try and disprove that this year.

I think it would be fair to say this isn’t exactly getting my full attention.

So, things that have happened… Well, for starters I have finished working for Merrill Lynch. In fact I finished working there before the summer holidays, but we all know this is one of the most up-to-the-minuet blogs around.

I have therefore been having a summer off and getting ready for going back to Uni and moving down to Brighton.

Some parts of this summer have gone to plan, others have not. I made the mistake of saying I would do some work for the local YMCA (building a website) which has taken up a fair amount of my time (maybe a bit more than I wanted it to) and is still hanging over me and I’m struggling to find the motivation to finish it.

The main events for the summer were actually just summer camp and family holiday.

I went away as a leader again on the explorer scouts camp. Twas all good fun and I really enjoyed it. Made lots of friend and had a good time. would rather be there now to be honest.

I also went on a family holiday to La Rochelle in France. They all went for a couple of weeks, but I decided I couldn’t take two weeks of France again, so I booked some flights out there and back and did a week. Which was just long enough for me to miss home and the real world and the English language, but not too long as to be pointless.

The other week I also upgraded my computer in preparation for this year. Thought it would be fun and now means I can use all 3 monitors which is a big change. I have moved to a $core Intel, 4gig of RAM, dual graphics cards and then added another hard drive and a TV card. This bring me up to 1140GB of disk space and also meant I didn’t have to take my TV with me to Brighton….

So, moving on, next thing. Brighton…. I’m now here. I have been since yesterday, but my transition down here is far from complete. I have some stuff here, but I have a lot more at home still. Which is a good thing because I need to be home on and off for the next 3 weeks fulfilling various promises to people.

All going to plan this week I should be up in London on Thursday, Out in Horsham Thursday evening, getting my hair cut on Friday (yea, really helpful information here…) and then playing badminton in the evening. Then Saturday and Sunday I’m going camping on a scout leaders training camp, then Sunday evening doing SNYF (church group) and then back in Brighton on Monday I expect….

I think I deserve a proper pat on the back and a hearty “well done” for the effort I put into keeping this blog fresh and up-to-date with interesting and informative content…. And pigs fly and I live in a house made of pink butter and the world is flat and overrun with 7 foot lizards….

I have a plan…. I think I might change the way I do my blog…. I’m considering putting it fully on my website and then getting anyone who cares to add it as a feed to their journals… Still making it really simple to comment etc… And then to go with that change I was considering forcing myself to write on it all the time… Then because there won’t be anything interesting to update with I will have more time to write real content, musings and other pointlessness… You never know… My plan might work. Well, as I finish work in about a month I should have more time at least.

So, as we are on the old style of blogs… Update:

Last weekend (bank holiday) I was camping with the explorer scouts. Not without purpose mind you. This year is the scouting centenary (celebrating 100 years). Our district decided a big camp for the weekend was in order with a concert on the Sunday evening. So guess which nut they asked to organise, setup and run sound, lighting and power for this “concert in a tent on a field”…. You have one guess… Suffice to say I ended up semi running it in my own special way (those who have helped me with these types of events will know exactly what I’m talking about). It went off without issue and actually (to my great relief) ended up being really very good (even with the rain on the outside causing “issues”).

Ah, bugger, already screwed up chronological order… The Saturday before the concert was my 21st birthday. Suffice to say nothing really very interesting happened on it, but then again, I was pretty happy with that. I had to wait until the Monday evening though for my presents…

So ok, Monday I came back from camp and got my presents. I’m not going to list them all as it was loads and loads of little thing in recognition of me moving into the house in Brighton, but the main things were some money to put towards the new Digital SLR I plan on buying tomorrow (camera for those who find TLAs a bit complicated) and a driving day thing at Goodwood that involves instructor training in an Alfa, then some laps in a Ferrari etc. So I’m very much looking forward to that.

Tuesday was a pub quiz with various people from church… I think we came forth…. Although to be honest I can’t remember… It turns out my best round by a very long way was the weekly news… Meh

Yesterday (so Thursday) as there was no explorers on account of it being half-term so I went to watch Pirates of the Caribbean 3 with Joiners and Paddy. Very good film, as usual not what the critics had said (oh that makes a change, although story was a bit fragmented on account of them trying to achieve quite a lot in a relativity short time…. Well, I say short… 3 hours really isn’t that short actually.

So that pretty much brings us up-to-date… perhaps I shall start posting things of value soon…. There goes that pig again….

I have just got back from an amazing holiday. There are so many things to talk about, so many things that happened. Some of them worth saying, others of no consequence to anyone but me. Right now most of them mean pretty much nothing. When pigs fly, the moon is blue and when airlines can finally cook carrots properly then perhaps just maybe I will put some photos online. To keep you satisfied for now I can not recommend you watch the film “stranger than fiction”. Perhaps its the mood I’m in, perhaps its that lack of sleep I have had or perhaps its that my holiday coming to an end has finally caught up with me, but that is one of the best films I have seen in a long time and I couldn’t recommend it enough.

Well that was a close call. I almost lost a testicle to a pointy umbrella wielding deranged commuter. Perhaps I shall start wearing a box to compliment the necessary padding required to make it through the daily commute.

I think it would be fair to say there is a certain level of neglect being demonstrated in my current blog.

Unfortunately I have so much to say (hence I’ve been too busy to update) that you will never read it all. As my clarinet teacher once taught me when referring to practice, the trick is little and often. I however replied “I’ve done the little, just not the often”. I have yet to see a copy of his memoirs, but he promised to put it in. I live in hope.

As a simple update, I have spent much time shopping, traveling, making a mess of my room and visiting various friends. I seem to have spent rather a bit of time at Jonners, hanging around with people from his Uni (that I have really known long enough to consider friends in their own right). Notable events were Beth’s birthday, a shopping trip in Brighton with Thomas and another shopping trip with George in London which ended in a computer bashing session with Jonner’s. Lots of trips to pubs and catch-up conversations in all sorts of odd places have also taken place.

As ever I am doing my best to look to the future without getting too bogged down in the present. Work has been trundling for a bit now, may be something to do with the 7 months with no holiday.

All is not lost though as my holiday is happening in 8 days times with a timely trip to Malaysia and Singapore to visit a friend (em) from church while she is on her gap year. I shall do my best to update my blog while I’m out there in a desperate attempt to adhere to the “little and often” ethic.

In fact, I think I shall call this an entry now and let my little rants that I’ve been saving up wait for another session.

It’s funny how there are some things you just know. The card I have to get into the building lasts for 3 months at a time, not a day less or a day more. This is simply because I’m a form of temp and their system doesn’t allow a temp to hold a card for more than 3 months. As I walked over the bridge this morning I was thinking about how close mine was to its 3 months. I put it on the sensor and it did two beeps. It ran out. Its just pretty impressive that the brain does that all by itself…

Oh, and a new picture here:

http://pictures.craigk.org/view.php?id=300&comments=1