Caffeine high

Well, maybe not so much a high, but this (short) blog post is most certainly caffeine fuelled. To say work is currently hectic would be a bit of an understatement, but at least it's a decent enough excuse for the lack of blog posts. For the past wee while, when I've not been working I've been sleeping, and (annoyingly) sleeping usually consists of dreaming about problems arising in work and .Net code. In fact, maybe worryingly would have been more apt than annoyingly.

But, the end is in sight. Oh yes indeedy. This coming Tuesday is when we hand over the last major release for UAT (That's User Acceptance Testing, BTW). Now, potentially this can mean a whole lot of bug fixes, and in most normal scenarios this would be the case. However, da customer ("yo", etc) has a go live date of the 26th of March, so the final final final final end of this particular chapter is but a mere 7 days away. Bliss.

I can live on caffeine alone for another 7 days. I know I can. After this, it'll be back to sitting with my feet up on my desk and listening to music. Well, one can but dream.

So, I'm now off to catch a few hours sleep before returning to the office for yet more of the same. Except tomorrow, it'll be closer to 6 days till it's over. Oh happy days.

Flight of fancy

So this is the second post from my mobile. I could almost get used to this roaming type thing. The reason for this post is being at the airport slightly earlier than I expected, what with the roadworks and rush-hour traffic failing to hamper my journey.

This is the second time at the airport today. The first visit was about 10 hours ago for my flight which was cancelled. Oh well, these things happen. So I rebooked for tomorrow morning, changed the hotel reservations and went into work. Of course, things are never quite that simple. Turns out they want me to come down tonight, stay over and get an early start. So changed flights again (with a fee this is time), changed the hotel reservation again and here I am. Still, their money. Who am I to complain?

It's a little strange to be here right now. The sun is setting on a clear and bright day. It's 5:30 on a cold February evening, but with the sky, light and heat in this building, it could just as well be 9:30 on warm August evening. So yes, it's nice, but still a little strange.

I always, for no particularly strong reason, associate evening flights with going home. Or, at least going somewhere I want to be. Whether this comes from the rose tinted memories of summer holidays as a child, where flying was exciting and it was always sunny, or from the dogged reality of work, where most flights to clients start in the pitch black at some ungodly hour, I really don't know. But it is strange, as I feel a lot more relaxed than usual, and than I suppose I should given what's ahead.

It does kind of make me long for a holiday and some sun. And make me realise how long it's been since I was last abroad, or for that matter had a holiday. This year I promised myself I'll have a holiday but with the success of last yearsresolutions, it remains to be seen if it will actually happen.

All I know is it will be a hell of a long year if I don't.

Hmmm, wonder if I can sneak on a plane USA-bound instead......

Mobile in sunny Bradford

This will be a (mercifully) short entry for a couple of reasons. First of which is because I'm in Bradford for a client meeting. Not that being in Bradford is a reason for a short entry, but rather because I shall shortly be meeting Mr Gulp who is going to feed me this evening. Exceedingly nice chap that he is.

The other reason for keeping it short, is that I'm typing (for want of a better word) on my mobile. On screen keyboards are not my favourite thing. I am, however, impressed with Windows Mobile 5 and specifically pocket internet explorer. It renders most sites in a way that is semi sensible, and usually readable.

Anyhow, the main reason for being in Bradford was a client meeting. Actually it's for a clients client meeting. Consulting, eh? From the start it was a doomed trip. Having to leave on the 1st 'working' day of 2007 for a 9am meeting 200 miles away is not good. Even less so was the weather on the way down. Torrential rain and galeforce winds in the dark makes driving fun.

Despite that I made it safely, without incident. Which is more than can be said for the 7 mile drive from the hotel this morning, in daylight, when it was dry, and not windy. Whilst waiting at some traffic lights some woman decides to drive into the back of me. Grrrrr! Damage was only cosmetic fortunately (a hole and a crack in the rear bumper) but that put me in a bad mood.

The fact that the meeting was 9:30, and I'd been told 9:00 didn't best please me either, nor did the fact that the main reason I was down was to discuss integrating a system which the client decided (the day before) they no longer needed integrated. So all in all the work part of the trip was a total waste. Thank TISG for Mr Gulp being available to cheer me up.

I'll go back and sort the typos at later date, when I have a proper keyboard, as my hand feels like it's about to fall off.

Work, 2007 style

Comparing work now to how it was this time in 2006, there are a number of similarities and a number of differences. Last year I may have supposed to been in Derby just after getting back, and this time I've to be down in the Bradford area on Thursday, which is the main reason for me being in work today, even though it's technically a public holiday up here in Scotchlandia. Still, at least I may get to see Mr Gulp if he's about.

In the last 12 months, the company has moved office twice (from a tiny office in Bearsden to the City Centre) and has gone from 3 full time employees to 5, increasing to 6 (or maybe 7) as soon as we find someone suitable, since our recruitment efforts in December failed to turn up anyone. The number of customers and projects has also increased, meaning the workload has also increased significantly. Since plans for a holiday failed in 2006, let's hope 2007 fares better.

For now though, it's back to work in this office which is more deserted than George W Bush's brain.

Erroneously uninformative

First of all, forgive me for this work related rant. Names have been changed to protect the innocent, or rather the guilty.

Throughout the IT world, it is generally accepted that errors will occur. Sometimes due to sloppiness, sometimes due to unforeseen events and some just cause the error Gods get bored and decided to spice up the lives of all the IT drones. The cause of errors are varied but the one thing that is usually fairly standard is that the error will tell you what went wrong and allow the developers or maintainers of the application to fix it.

One group of people we have been working with for close to 5 years now have a Web Service which we query several times a minute to retrieve data. In this 5 year period there is one error which we frequently receive that has never been fixed.

"What is this error?" you are probably wondering. Well ... honestly, I wish I new. In fact, we don't even know that it is just one error. The reason being is that ever so helpful error which the application returns to us is:

Server was unable to process request. --> Index (zero based) must be greater than or equal to zero and less than the size of the argument list.

Useful, to say the least. The whole point of error messages is to be informative and help you diagnose what went wrong and then fix it. This error, in effect, is saying "There was an error in the web service". As to why, or where, well if it is being logged the customer is being very quiet about it.

We know the error is coming from the customers web service. They claim it's our application. We want to get it sorted for numerous reasons, they don't seem to care. One possibility is they don't know how, as I believe it was a contractor that wrote the web service for them, but they certainly won't admit that.

So basically we're stuck with the error occurring (seemingly) at random. All we can do is monitor it and our end and each time it fails continually re-try the request until it magically starts working.

The customer is always right? Yeah, that'll be shining bright!

Include, include. My kingdom for an include

It's been a while since I've had a work-related rant, so here's one to help bolster the stats. We recently got a copy of a PHP website which needed to be re-developed. The website is, as with most sites these days, database driven. Although I use the word database loosely, since they use MySQL as opposed to a decent RDBMS like PostgreSQL. However, flame-wars aside, this web site was using MySQL as their database of choice.

As with all databases (even the toy ones like Mysql ;) a login is required. To do a successful login you need to know the server on which the database lives, the user which can access the database and the password for that user. Now, since this information is the same for every page in the site which requires access to the database it makes sense to have this defined in a single place in the code, then all other pages to use this definition. This also has the added advantage that if the server, username or password ever change (and yes kids, passwords should be changed frequently) then only 1 file needs to be updated.

That would be the sensible way of doing it. But did they do this? Did they buggery. At the top of every PHP file they have the server, username and password coded. Every single document. That's 63 fricking pages that need changed every time the password changes. 63 files need updating when copying files from a test environment to a live environment. 63 bloody files!! Have I made my point yet? This is one of the most fundamental things when using databases in any application. It really rather irks me.

However, on a plus note, I got my first payslip in over a year today. Not that I get paid for another week and a bit, but a payslip is good. Contracting has its advantages, but there's a lot to be said for a regular income. Means I can buy beer regularly for a start... mmmm ... beer

Burning down the mouse

Now you know I'm not really one to complain. Hey! Enough of the sniggering at the back. Damn kids. But in all honesty I do tend to (or at least try to) avoid moaning about stuff in this ole blog thingy-ma-jig. Now ranting, that's a totally different story. However on this occasion I feel the need to break with tradition.

Boy oh boy oh boy. Work sucks. Like work really sucks. Well, I guess it's not so much that the work sucks (which it does, in case I haven't mentioned) but I have absolutely no motivation. Whether it's this particular piece of work, or the time of year, or just IT in general I don't know. But at the moment it's a struggle. No .. it's more than that. It's a fricking mount-Everest climb, while carrying a Troupe of performing Elephants. And yes, the fact they perform does make a different. Last I time I felt this way was when I was writing my 4th year project report at Uni, and you don't wanna know how that turned out.

And another thing. I really can't believe some people. So what if it's only a mouse, it's still a living creature. It's not the fact that he wanted rid of the mouse, as I can totally understand that. But either use a humane mouse trap and release it elsewhere, or use a trap that will kill it quickly and painlessly. Don't throw it on a fricking fire.

Poetic justice? Not quite. Poetic justice would be if the mouse ran up the guy's leg and HE burnt to death (can you tell I'm in a foul mood this evening?). I guess it's more like Karma. So bear that in mind kids.

Lottery winner

I would claim I had an algorithm. An algorithm so cunning that foxes all over the country were plotting, deep within their their dens, to steal it. And algorithm so advanced that all the great minds in the world would be baffled. I would ... but I know you wouldn't believe me. But none the less, last night I won the Euromillions lottery. Well, at least won on it.

My lucky dip ticket matched two out of five drawn number from 1-50, and both the additional star numbers (drawn from 1-9) netting me a tidy £19.50. Hold on ... £19.50? Yup, seems that matching four out of the seven numbers is only worth £19.50. Dagnammit. Still, no one won the £61,000,000 jackpot, so maybe I'll get the (est) £70m next week.

So even after all my claims that I wouldn't continue working after I win the lottery, it looks like I'm going continue working. In fact, spent the majority of today working and, depressingly enough, only managed to complete half of what I really needed to get done. I guess that means that I really should do some more work this evening, but I don't think that's going to happen, for I have Sideways to watch, and it gets a good writeup.

Eat, drink, and watch DVD, for tomorrow we work. *groan*

Snowballs' chance in hell

So it hath arrived. The 1st working day of 2006. Shockaroonie. Turns out that I might have supposed to have been in Derby today rather than in the nice, warm office. Oh well. The lack of motivation is still present but on the plus side at least a small amount of work has been completed this morning. Going to be a major headache getting the thing into a releasable state for the 9th....

Between Christmas and New Year my boss said to me "I've just been talking to your co-worker and she'll got a surprise for you". I immediately though that she'd handed in her notice and was preparing to release the pack of rabid flying monkeys with instructions to bring her to the office. However, it seems that was a slight over-reaction, and instead it turns out she purchased a mini-fridge for the office. Yay! We can now keep milk for more than a day. I spent the rest of that day trying the get the pigging monkeys back into their cages. Quick buggers so they are.

So, how's everyone's Christmas stash? Loads of cool stuff, or just loads of fodder for eBay or freecycle? Oddest present I got was a snowball, sent over from Finland. No seriously. It IS a snowball. All right, so it might not be 100% real, but it's white and scrunches exactly like snow. Most splendid. Made by Every Day Design in Finland and the snowball is the one at the top right, labelled snowball package 2.

Right, coffee brewed, so time to get some milk from the mini-fridge and get cracking on this .....

Tis bloody friesian

Bloomin' typical. Heating breaks down in the office just when it's coldest. I swear someone up there doesn't like me. So, not only I am working today, but the office was like a freezer when I arrived. And not in a good way (i.e. packed with Ice Cream). Needless to say the wee electric heater has been working overtime and I am now pleased to announce that this room has officially reached the temperature toasty. The rest of the building however ... brrrr.

So, it's just me and a couple of Friesian Cows in the office today. Ok, so not real cows, but rather non-animated miniature replicas. Previously there was one which was semi-animated in that it moo'ed and bounced around the desk (don't ask) but now it's been joined by another wee one which just sorta sits there.

Only 3 more days of the 2005 version of the Tangram Daily Boxed Calendar before the 2006 Fact or Crap Calendar brightens up my morning. Looking forward to it actually, as the Tangram one has become a little repetitive after 300-odd puzzles (Yes, 300ish. Don't get one on a Sunday, so shuttit smartarse!).

Right .. better get back to this work lark before the cows get angry. Or something.

My special day

I know a fair few strange people. And some stranger than others. I don't necessarily mean that in a bad way, as a little oddness in a person is always a good thing. It makes people more interesting, and wouldn't it be rather dull if everyone was alike, and even more so if they were alike and boring?

Yesterday I receive my first ever First Communion card. Yeah, came as a shock to me as well to be honest. I checked and double checked my calendar. I phone my parents. They phoned the minister. He phoned ... er ... God? Ok .. so I may be making that but up. But I did receive a First Communion card. Admittedly the sender (and I will not mention who so as to protect the guilty) did say "Ignore the card" ... but still. Anyhow, made me smile which was a bonus after the weekend I had.

Work-wise, today (and yesterday) I pretty much got nothing done, so ended up doing some work this evening. The stuff is not difficult, or to be complexly honest, particularly dull. Don't get me wrong, the whole job is dull, but comparatively it's not that dull. I just seem to have no motivation for it.

So tomorrow I better get my finger out and do a full days work or else the sh*t will be hitting the fan. Metaphorically that is. Can you imagine the mess if it were literal? Eugh, and moo.

No time at all

Again, been far to long since the last one of these, where does the time go? And that leads me neatly onto a rant (feel free to skip the next couple of paragraphs).

Dear Anne, why oh why oh why can't a DateTime object in C# (.net) be null, or have no value? Eh? Answer me that. "But why on earth would you want this?" you may be asking. (Or maybe not, but to be honest I'm gonna tell you anyhow). Well, what if you have user accounts for something, but some of them can be set to expire and others have no expiry date. Grrr.

OK, I'll cut the rant short. In other news I now have a legit copy of Visual Studio 2003 (yes, I am aware the 2005 version is released in November) so my laptop is back to being totally legit (apart from the MP3s). Necessary evil I'm afraid.

Have I mentioned that I hate computers? How I wish I was at Glastonbury right now. Guess I'll have to be cotent with the coverage on the BBC (starts Friday BBC3, 8pm - 2am). Moo.

Wire free pooping bird

If I had a computer category this would go in here, but I don't and I ain't creating one so it's going to have to live in here. Not that you really care, but I thought it was important to mention. In the interests of openess and honesty and what not.

So, tonight I have wireless working under Gentoo (that's Linux BTW). The problem was it was using WPA rather than WEP and the whole thing just wouldn't work .. but now it does. And I am a happy bunny.

And I've probably bored you senseless, but I had to share this wonderful news with someone. And if I tried to share it with anyone IRL then I'd have lost what little credibility I had.

Anyhow, that's enough for now. I shall attempt to rack up a few miles on the ole' bike tomorrow, but that depends on work and stuff. Need to get out on it more. Moo.

In a spot, that's hot

Working on-site today, meaning I'm writing to you from the sunny climes of Hillington rather than the usual base of sunny Glasgow's "South Side". And not only that, but I'm in a T-mobile hotspot, meaning I'm paying a whopping £7.50 for 3 hours of WiFi connectivity. Still, at least it's tax-deductable, if I ever figure out this accounting lark.

More work keeps appearing from all sides, meaning I'm potentially busier than ever. So much for holidays and time off and getting out on the bike. Mr Colin is getting up a fair lead on me over there. Still, as long as he keeps breaking spokes, and stopping for beer, I should be able to stay not too far behind.

Weather is lovely and I'm stuck in here. Gah. But on the plus side there has been positive moves on payment of invoices (not that I've actually got the cash yet). Anyhow .. I shall get back to what I'm supposed to be doing, and try to ignore the sun blazing through the window.

Freedom? What freedom?

Bet you though there wouldn't be many work posts now, eh? Well, buddy, think again. Sheesh. The last day at work was fairly uneventful. Went out for lunch to a nice Indian and then I spend most of the afternoon figuring out how to fit everything from my desk into my bag. In the end I had to leave the chair and the computer. Managed to pilfer a decent amount of stationary though.

And in the two days I've now had off I've been busier than the last two weeks are work. Mind you, that wouldn't be too hard to be fair. But anyhow, I think I'd have been better off staying in a Full Time job. At least it gave me some time to relax.

So it looks like I'm now involved in about 4 projects in total. 2 of which are due to finish very shortly, and one of which is only about 1.5 days work. But the other one. Gah.

And the reason I find myself in them is because I'm too nice. I really should just learn to say no to people, but I don't. Don't get me wrong, I am getting paid a decent rate for them, but if it weren't for people I know then I wouldn't have got involved. Or rather, wouldn't have felt obligated to get involved.

What's worse, is that I can see all 4 of them coming back to bite me in the arse (or ass for our American readers). Hopefully they won't ... but they all presently have the potential to do so. I'll no doubt go into more detail at a later date, but suffice to say that this break is not very restful as of now.

But, on the plus side, I now have a "2" key on my keyboard again. Cost a whopping £1.84 in total (beats £70 for a new keyboard from Dell) but in typical so close fashion it's a US key, meaning I have 2 @ symbols and no " key. Oh well.

Frogs and fences

Yikes. Been busier than a frog on a white picket fence the last few days. That is, assuming the frog on the fence was quite busy. Most of it is work, in one form or another, which is good in some ways, but leaves less time to faff about. Still, only 4 days to go (and counting).

Both freelance/contracting jobs are due to finish soon, with more work available for both if I so desire. At the moment I don't desire, even remotely .. but I shall see what a couple of weeks off does for the ole' motivation before burning any bridges. Also another couple of opperchancities are presenting themselves.

Odd that I never really considered contracting (freelance style) before as I thought it would be difficult to find enough work to keep me busy. As it happens, there's now more work than I could handle, even if I was totally motivated. Go figure.

And just in case you were concerned, the flat didn't explode. The gas leak seems to have been fixed. At least, I hope. So far so good.

A brief flurry

Well, I hope it's brief. It's just started snowing. Jolly good. They ride in this morning was lovely, but cold as polar bears fridge. Hopefully it'll stop snowing by the time I'm going home.

Don't ask me why, but I think I've just figured out why this whole IT lark is pissing me off so much. And the reason is? Lack of enthusism. However not, as you may be thinking, mine, but rather the companies.

When I joined this lot the first time round it was enjoyable to begin with. They were a very small company, with big plans and they were excited about their own potential and stuff.

Now nobody cares. There is no excitment. There is no enthusism. People turn up to work, do what they have to to get paid, then go home, trying not to think that they have to return in a few hours.

The previous company I worked for was similar, although they were an odd lot in thay there had been a few redundancies previously. But again it was a fairly lackluster place, with people not believing in their product (apart from those who were activly developing it who were very clique like) and the others doing repetative work.

And with the job that I just turned down, I now realise the reason I felt very unmotivated is that the people who interviewed me didn't seem enthusiastic at all. To me, it seemed like they felt as I do here. Bored and trapped.

In contrast, I had another interview yesterday (No, I don't know why I went for another IT interview either) and the blok who took me round could well have been a salesman. He was really enthusiastic and believed in what the company was doing and excited about the future. And I actually thought to myself I could see myself enojoying working here.

This still doesn't change the fact that I don't want another IT job, but might explain why am I particularly down on this industry at the moment.

Offers

Man, that was weird. I just got a call from the place I had an interview last week to offer me the job. Now that in itself is not off I guess. Well, actually, going by my current form it is a bit on the odd side.

But what is odd, is what I said. It caught me completely odd guard and I think the whole call lasted about 20 seconds. What I said was I was waiting to hear back about another job interview and I'd call him back first thing tomorrow.

Now, I'm not actually waiting to hear about another job, but even if I was I wouldn't have said this. Cause then if I were to accept this one then they'd assume I got knocked back for the other one. What I usually say if I want to think about it overnight. But I'm pretty sure I'm not going to accept it, and I guess that was blatantly obvious from the short call and no immediate answer.

I'm also thinking that I wasn't top of their list since they said they'd get back to me at the start of the week, and it's now most firmly the end of the week, so I guess the other person (people?) they offered it to have also turned it down.

Shame, as the guy who interviewed me was a nice bloke. And the company is a very high-profile lot (at least here in Scotchlandia) and it would be an interesting company to work for. However, the job itself doesn't sound that interesting. Don't think it's the one for me.

Oooh dat makes me mad

And yet another end of month passes where I don't get paid. B@stards! 2 outstanding invoices from the 11th of Feb and 11th March now. Better get a double whammy at the end of April, otherwise I'll be opening a can of whoop-ass on them, let me tell you.

Another interview this morning. And while the company would probably be a good, and interesting, company to work for, the job is pretty much what I've been doing up till now. Enjoyable for the first few months, then excruciatingly boring after that. I doubt I'll get an offer (there's another 2 on the shortlist apparently) as even I felt I was coming across with as much enthusiasm as a horse being dragged off to the glue factory.

Then the same recruitment agent as from the last JP Morgan fiasco was on the phone again, with another JP Morgan position they want me in for an interview for. Now, to be fair this role looks good. A wide variety of tasks for a large number of clients in a test environment rather than a live one. This would mean no out of hours work and a reasonable amount of travel meeting folk and getting requirements etc.

But the decision has been made. I am not enjoying this at all. Not one little bit. I used to love computers, and love working with them. But since they became a career rather than a hobby the passion has vanished. And, especially over the last month, any enjoyment I once extracted from them has completely gone. Now doing any computer work is a major chore, and most of the time at work is dreaming of doing something (anything) else.

So, I called back the recruiter, and said I was taking 3 or 4 months off when this contract finished at the end of April (about 176 working hours to go - not that I'm counting). I plan to at least have a go at some non-IT stuff and see what happens. If it all goes horribly wrong I'll start looking for IT jobs again in the autumn.

Got a couple of ideas (possibly a bit far-fetched) and a rough idea of what I could live off (possibly a bit low) but hey, gotta give it a go.

Now all I've got to do it stick out another month here. And that won't be a walk in the park....

Thanks, but no thanks

There is something disheartening about receiving job rejections letters. Even if you applied for the job half-heartedly, or it was a job you really didn't want. Just the fact that they rejected you gets you down.

I seem to have accumulated quite a collection of these recently. A collection which is growing steadily by the week and shows no immediate signs of ceasing. I guess I should throw them out, but for some reason, best known to the inner part of my brain that I am scared to question, they get bunged in a folder and kept.

They're not just from IT jobs. They cover a wide range of subjects, although yes, most are IT related. The non IT ones I expect knock backs from. It seems tough to make a change, as any of the well paying non-IT jobs generally require experience in the field, and the non high paying (less skilled?) jobs claim that you're over qualified for the position.

Rejections from the IT jobs are worse. Especially ones you know you could do in your sleep but don't even get an interview for. Yes, that's probably cause I'm big-headed and I did go through a period of being offered every job I applied for. Typically, that was when I didn't really need a job and now that I am desperate to change I seem to be surplus to requirement.

Still, that doesn't mean I shall be giving up. I have applied for 5 jobs this week already, of which 1 is non-IT related and appears to be quite interesting.

Damn this money lark, eh?

Life sapping

Wednesdays' blood donation was postponed to Thursday, meaning I rode the ole' bike to work on Wednesday morning. Well, rode for the most part, as I had to swim the last 100 yards or so. And I thought Tuesday was wet.

I am normal by the way. And it's official. I am apparently in the control group for some test the The Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service people are doing. And a control group is the normal lot, so there. Anyhow, a quick visit there followed by a curry to stock on up whatever they took out of me. Mmm.

And back to work on Friday. Gah! While the blood people take your blood, work does something even worse and removes all motivation from you, leaving you a babbling idiot (yes, that IS a change) who sits there counting down the seconds till you can run out the door like a school kid evacuating the school on the last day before the holidays.

Obviously a genius

After yesterday's break from riding to work, this morning was surprisingly warm. No ice either, so I guess the overnight temperature was above freezing. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, "Looks like summer's finally arrived". Ever the optimist.

Recruiter woman phoned this morning to give me the good news that the interview appears to have gone well, so well that they've offered me the job. Dammit. When I insisted on thinking about it over the weekend she did not sound impressed. She obviously expects her successful applicants to excitedly accept the position immediately.

The job is not one that I want. However, the job I am currently doing is not one that I want. In fact, working in the field I am in is not something that I want. At the moment lack of any other skills prevent me from moving into job in another field for the same sort of cash that I have been on (Damn IT). Taking the job would be the sensible thing to do, that much I do know. However I am also sure that 3 to 6 months down the line I'll loath that job as much as just about any other IT job I've been in.

Dammit, I really hope it's my turn to win the lottery tomorrow.

Curry on as normal

Curry, T minus seventy three minutes and counting.

Job interview today was slightly more organised than I imaged. Three lots of interviews in the space of 2 hours. The first three people did the technical interview which wasn't too bad. Lots of questions on SQL and such like. Second three did the general personal information type interview and finally the last person was from HR. She seems rather concerned about the number of jobs that I've been though, even thought when I had my last interview with her (about 2 months ago) she didn't mention it at all. Most odd.

All in all it seemed to go reasonably. Not great, just reasonable. They claim I should hear something back tomorrow, but I am fairly sure that I will not be accepting the job should they offer it.

Here have just confirmed they are offering me a 2 month extension of my contract when it expires tomorrow. Undecided whether I'll take it, but since it's 2 months as opposed to 3 it's more tempting. Additionally it looks like they've just got a new piece of work which appears to be reasonably interesting. And the money would come in handy. We shall see...

Tablet, or macaroon?

Looks like I made it to work on the ole' bike without expiring or being seriously injured. Not only that, but I made it home again too. Quite surprising. But dear God, was it cold! Also, my odometer claims it was only about 4.5 miles in either direction, even though the same route (I think) was about 6.1 miles the other week.

Spent most of today setting up a tablet PC for a demo, and quite nice it is too. Possibly not as practical as a laptop, but significantly lighter and the whole touch screen thing is most impressive. And, as Ian pointed out, the ability to draw "comedy cocks" on it is also helps to retrieve the boredom. Although it does get boring pretty quickly.

Another load of photos arrived from Mr Colin which, while quite entertaining, suck ass since it just hammers home the fact that absolutely nothing has changed here in about 3 months. Well, apart from the Finniston on-ramp being closed. Damn him and the fun he's having.

Excitement overload

I have only just calmed down. Amazing. A++++++ Credit to fun things. Would do again. Yes, today I finally did it. I splashed out. I made the purchase. I went wild in Glasgow. I bought a new pair of shoe laces. Does the excitement ever end?

I asked the girl behind the counter for some round black laces. She proceeded to the stand with the laces and look for a minute before proclaiming that they only had flat or boot laces. I could plainly see the round laces so I said to her "There's some on the 2nd row at the very left". So she moved to the right of the stand and says she's sorry but they only have flat ones. Honestly, do some people really not know their left from their right?

Actually, I do have a reason for getting laces. Apart from the fact that they are an essential piece of kit for keeping your shoes on you plates of meat, I have a job interview and my current laces are kinda broken, and full of knots.

When I say I have a job interview, I actually have two. It never rains but it pours. A recruitment firm called to ask when I was free for an interview, and literally as I was placing the phone back on the desk it rang again. This time a place I applied to directly wanting an interview tomorrow. So, first interview tomorrow, next one Tuesday. Thrilling stuff.