Is it really Friday again?

Work:

• job opening should be raised in next week for the new role to which I want to apply
• also sent my CV in speculatively to another company
• couple of things bubbling on LinkedIn

Home:

• Football tomorrow, nothing Sunday
• Party Saturday night - nothing against the hosts, but don't really want to go, would rather spend time with family, but we are going, so that is that
• hope to get a bit of R&R going, may involve beer.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.

And . . . relax

Already the week is nearly done.

On the work front, things are as ever they were, though I did get a recruitment person contact me* for a role that may not be totally in my hot spot of skills, so whether it goes any further relies I think on whether they want someone the same shape as their business, or if they are actually looking for someone who is quite different, to bring a new angle to their team.  Time will tell.

I also submitted a speculative CV to another company, after a discussion with a colleague.  Born to an extent by frustration that nothing is moving in Starfleet, but also because they are a smaller company, doing similar things, that seem to still have a sense of purpose and attitude that is not bogged down in a hundred years of process stodge.  Time will tell what comes of that.

This weekend is the girls' hen weekend at Center Parcs.  This means that it is a lads' weekend in Scobi Towers.  There is football training and tennis Saturday, and a football tournament Sunday, and we are also planning to have meet up Saturday night, Maggots to be baby-sat by the eldest Maggot in the tribe, and the adults having a beer and Thai evening.  It won't be a late one, since I cannot take it, and Maggot 2 needs rest for his tournament on Sunday.
Other than that, we don't have much on, which means we need to be very careful to have not too much, but also not too little, since both options tend to end in tears.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.

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* The first couple of times, a little bit of pride in me thought that I was "special" to get such a contact, but now I realise they are akin to those annoying people outside bars, offering you a free drink if you come in to their joint, if you can remember that far back.  Indeed, once upon a time I may have called them "head-hunter", but that is really over-egging them, just like calling those bar-baggers "beverage consultants"

Too relaxed

Forgot to blog on Friday.

So, had a great weekend.  Football tournament (don't ask) and then a night away at Brad and Agenlina's.  It was, as always, a great night.  We all stayed up too late, and drank too much, so by morning the house looked like the morning a major battlefield.

Oh well, a night's sleep, or three these days, should sort it out.

Have a great week.

And . . . relax

The weeks have become slightly blurred of late.  Friday's seem to appear with speedy regularity, as do their less attractive cousin Monday.  Which means there is not really a lot to say about the one that has nearly completed.

I have not been well this week, suffering I think with the virus that Maggot 2 and LO both had.  I sense I am coming out the other side of it now, which is rather good since being ill sucks. 

So, what can I tell you about the last five working days.  It has all been a bit "sausage machine" if you know what I mean.  Solution in, solution done, escalation, solution out, solution in, solution done, escalation, solution out . . .   You get the picture.

As you know, Maggot 2 plays football for a local team now, and one of the dads mentioned last time that they are planning a dads' match.  This sounds interesting, and I am keen to play, since I have realised a couple of very important things:

• I still love the idea of playing football
• playing so much with the Maggots, my eye is still in, a bit
• I am woefully, and I really do mean woefully, unfit.

This last point is something that I am starting to address.  I am doing what I think is rather grandly called "interval training", or in my case, one-minute jobs back from school run, and I also plan to add in some early evening sessions, ideally with LO if I can drag her sorry ass out.

I am also doing daily exercises first thing for my back, and also a bit for vanity.  I am doing a mixture of back exercises, yoga, stretches, sit-ups and press-ups.  It is a little routine I do in about ten minutes, to generally keep my back supple, to strengthen my core, which will help the lower back, oh, and to enhance my guns so I look buff.

The last one may be both an exaggeration and bluff.  As you know, us body-building types are full of swagger and not much else.

It is a quiet weekend; football Saturday, no match Sunday and other than that, nothing else in the diary, which is exactly what I need.

I hope you have a great weekend, and speak next week.

And . . . . . . . . . . . . relaaaaaaax

Another week over.  Nothing of note to report, just peelin' spuds and fending off escalations.

At home, things are very busy.  Last week of half term, and LO is working very long hours, running her day job whilst doing nearly a full time job getting her Academy status sorted.

We all need a week off, and what better than to go see Mickey.  We are very much looking forward to:

• Time off
• being together, away from normal life and technology
• having some thrilling times on as many scary rides as we can fit in.

The only other news of note is that I am a "signed artist".  To be precise, lest anyone get carried away, I was one of three winners of a remix competition, and as a winner, will be on a release pegged for June.  I have signed a contract, and will be entitled to royalties.

Nice.

I suspect I will not be retiring, and actually have set my sights very low as to earning anything, however it is very exciting to be out there, and if I DO get any revenue, I will be investing it in a new machine.

I hope you have a great weekend, and speak again next week, or maybe the week after.

And . . . relax

Another busy week.  I had two days of Cloud education Monday and Tuesday, which was excellent for the content, and also excellent coz I was able to speak to my potential new boss (PNB).  His dilemma is that Europe (are you imagining a slightly faceless set of droids who run on spreadsheets?  So am I) have dictated the number or roles he can have, and if that were to come to pass, then I am stuffed.  His local (sensible) boss has said ignore it, since his part of the business has its own P&L, so can and should be free to do whatever it thinks it needs to do to meet its targets, including hiring amazing people like me (one has to park one's modesty at moments like this).

So, I remain in a holding pattern, desperate to move to a new role, for an organisation that would like to take me, but with just a tiny weeny problem to resolve before it can happen.

One of the most distressing elements of the two days was that three of the people presenting a pitch WERE KIDS.  Not actually under-twelves, but two graduates and one placement student.  So, I am being taught things by people who have been in Starfleet for less than a year.  To quote Humphrey Lyttelton on I'm Sorry I haven't a Clue, when he was explaining the rules to a very silly and puerile game, "I'm seventy-seven for f##ks sake".  I guess the positive, if one were hunting for it, is that within a year of living and breathing Cloud, I too should be able to lecture on a subject, but also with XX years of experience behind it*.

Anyway, my actual work, the work from which I am trying to escape, continues at a fairly relentless speed.  Another round or redundancies are in flight at the moment, this time just voluntary, which added to the offer from management for us to take up to "three months secondment", effectively nearly-unpaid leave to "pursue a project or experience", and rumours of a further round of redundancy to come later in the year, things can only get worse I fear.

On the home front, my lawn is starting to reach the level of greenness where people no longer gasp at its tatty state, so phase one successfully completed. 

I have ditched my master plan to create a brick edge to the lawn, to tidy the edges, make it easy to mow the edges and generally bring a little architectural structure to the garden.  I still kind of think it would work, but it will cost money and take time, and I am not, if I am honest, one-hundred percent sure how it will look.  So, I have bought a strimmer instead.  While it does not create perfection, it does make the edges look a lot better, and I think will do for what we want from the garden.

Our next steps are to get the patio sorted.  LO has a vision of a pot or bench or table or wooden box, something structural, in which to put some herbs.  We also want so larger plants and pots, something to create drama, and finally we want some seats.  We are starting to think in terms of sofa and coffee table rather than table and chairs, simply because we think we will want to be using it for breakfasts and evening drinks, rather than meals.  Whichever we choose, it does of course cost money, so we are pondering whether to go strategic, or cheapish.

LO is up in London for the day on Saturday, so it is us lads to fend for ourselves.  Maggot 2 has a football match at 11am, Maggot 1 tennis at 12pm, and we have a half plan to play golf at the par three course up the road in the afternoon.
Sunday is another match for Maggot 2, and then what we do for the rest of the day is Maggot 1's choice.

Have a great weekend, and speak next week.

===========================
* bit of positive thinking

And . . . relax

Busy week.  Cloud role not really materially closer, however discussions have been had, and on a workshop Monday where I will see my potential new boss, so planning to collar him then.

I am on a stag day tomorrow - I know, aren't I a bit old for such things - which is, perhaps as a nod to age, golf in the afternoon and beer and curry in the evening.  Translated, that is long, frustrating zig-zag walk in the afternoon and falling asleep early in the evening.

Sunday we have an all-day football tournament for Maggot 2.  He is delighted, it is fair to say we are less so.  His friend's mum will take him at 8am, and we plan to turn up 12pm ish.  Actually do enjoy the football.  There is a new kid in town, Pretzel* who is a creative midfielder, and he is good, from the Brighton and Hove Academy, and his arrival seems to have lifted the team.  Maggot 2 is not a bad player, he has just lacked, until this team, any real coaching on position, triangulation and "finding the empty squares".  He has great feet, practices all the Ronaldo-esque tricks and can find the back of the net with fairly unerring accuracy, so add in good coaching, and a pretty good team in which to play, and he could shape up nicely. 

I shouldn't boast**, but his Under Nines team play the Under Tens last weekend, and won 10-2, 7 of which were scored in the first 20 minute session.  The final two sessions I think they got a bit complacent, they did not pass as well and generally I think lost interest in scoring, combined with the opposition waking up a bit to the threats.

Have a great weekend, and if I survive, will speak next week.

=======================
* not his real name
** go on, you know you want to. Ed.

And . . . relax

Another day, another dollar, or rather, another week, another wedge*.

It has been a strange week.

As you know, my desire to move to something Cloud-shaped is currently sitting as "my name is on a list".  On Wednesday, I decided to ping who would be my new manager when I move, to see if anything had changed, if there was anything I should be doing or anyone I should be chasing.  His response was that it was fortuitous that I pinged, since it seems that in the people directory, I was not reporting to him, and why don't I speak to my manager to see if it can stay that way and I can move on over.  "Move on over to what?" I asked, and that is where the conversation went a little strange.  I have not been offered a job.  I have not accepted a job.  I have just spoken to people about a desire for a new role.  Period.

So, anyway, he suggested I speak to my boss, which I did, and he was pretty much no use.  He had not heard anything, did not know why I had moved managers, and found it hard to have a discussion about something when that something was not really anything.  I do have some sympathy with him.

Then, to add further to the strangeness, I got a ping from someone leading a Cloud transformation project for another account, my old account as it happens, who said that it seemed my name was in the frame to mature their Cloud solution, and when could I start. 

A whole day has passed with me doing nothing.  A day full of hassle, escalation, running a team whilst also trying to run my own stack of solutions.

Today, then, I plan to make contact again with my potential new manager, suggest he offers me a job, and if I like it I will accept, and then we are on a sound footing to have conversations with my boss and my current account.  Both these are standard practice, but I fear may be more difficult at the moment because my boss has a resource shortage**, and the account is preparing to go in to renegotiation, and have put a freeze on key resources, one of which, frustratingly, is me.

However, all that said, the first step is to setup some tension by having a new job to go to, and then we can start negotiations as to when and how.

At home, we are all very much looking forward to a long weekend.  Maggot 1 is now ill, ear infection, and Maggot 2 is recovered and looking forward to training Saturday and a match Sunday, and I am too actually, since I enjoy watching him and the team develop their skills. 

I have managed to re-turf the goal-mouth bald patch, and the weather has been sympathetic by raining every day, and I also managed to cut out a couple of tree roots that poked out the lawn too.  This weekend I will be cutting the rest of the lawn, and preparing for a feeding session, to try and get it a bit thicker and healthier, so that it can cover the many small baldish patches around the lawn.  I am aiming for average at best.  If my lawn draws no comments, either positive or negative, then it is good enough for me.  With two Maggots always playing one ball sport or another, it is always going to struggle to be perfect, to the point that even average is a big ask.

I hope you have a great weekend, speak next week.

==============================
* only money-related word I could think of starting with "w", except Wonga, which is persona non grata these days
** some of the heat coming from us as we fight for an additional UK-based person to come and "bust some backlog"

And . . . relax

Another frustrating week where my full-time role seemed to be telling people, via calls, emails and reports, how busy I am.

Spoke to a colleague in the Cloud space, he mentioned that my name had been mentioned on a recent team call, but still no movement from where I am sitting.  I think I know that actually, the changes have not yet filtered down to us bottom-feeders, however I am also very conscious that I need to not drop off the radar.  Tried to hassle my contact, no response as yet, so need to become the stone in the shoe.

At home, Maggot 2 is ill, again.  Doctors seem to find nothing wrong, but it is driving us slowly mad, coz he has a hacking cough, headache and sore throat, and at various time other bits of his body aching, so it could just be a virus, but we are also concerned that it was only three weeks ago he was last ill, on holiday in Blackpool.

This weekend has therefore changed.  No clubs for Maggot 2, much to his dismay, and Maggot 1 even left for school to day "not feeling right", so our weekend could indeed be another frustrating one.

I do hope to finish the preparation in the garden for the new turf to cover the bare patch, then I will be jet-washing the (as yet unused) patio in readiness for sealing it.  We just need to find some spare change down the back of the settee to buy furniture, pots, architectural plants and a tray of herbs, the latter planning to be put on to the Singer sewing machine base with marble top table I have just cleaned up and repainted.

I hope you have a great weekend, and speak next week.

Unpleasantly busy, being escalated all over the place. 

Weekend will be busy too, but in a different way.  Sports for Maggots, night out for adults, probably some gardening in between.  

And when I say gardening, right now I mean digging out the dead bit of lawn* sufficiently to lay new turn in the shallow hole made.  Also, genius idea that is also a stupid idea, deciding to re-purpose the topsoil relinquished from the hole to top-dress the rest of the lawn.  This is a great idea, apart from the time it takes to turn grotty diggings in to fine, stone- and weed-free soil. 

Also taking the chance to cut out some tree roots that protrude in the lawn, currently the perfect tool for breaking kneecaps.  LO is worried that the tree will fall down.  Make a note to tell her about trees and roots.

Hope you have a great weekend, speak next week.

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* it was first where the trampoline used to be, which partly killed it, followed by being the goal mouth for the (then) new goal, which finished it off.

And . . . relax

Maggot 1 has a sleepover party today/tonight.  Ten teenage boys, the size of men, camped out in the front room.  They are out playing football just now, but when back they will be on XBox, take-away pizza later and a camping fridge full of drinks.

They will have great fun.  We will not.  Can't even drink too much in case we need to take one of them down A&E.  May seem extreme thinking, but have you ever seen ten thirteen year old boys in one room?

Tomorrow, I hope to finish the fence staining, and then start of cleaning the new, as yet unused patio, ready for sealing.

I hope you have a peaceful weekend, speak next week.

Time off for good behaviour

We had a good break away.  Well, to be precise, it was nice to have time off with the family, but the location itself was not that great.
We had a week away near Blackpool, a static 'van site near Southport to be precise, which was something of a ghetto.  It had no redeeming features that we were able to find.  The site was tatty, and the bar atmosphere was less than friendly*.

Blackpool tower and ballroom were great.  In the fabled ballroom, there was a guy on a Wurlitzer and an open dance afternoon in progress, so we watched some dancing, which was nice.  The revamped promenade was well done, so walking on there looking out to sea was fine.  Turn your gaze towards the "strip" and what you saw was much more tatty than we had expected, so overall it was a disappointing destination.

Southport, our local town, was more of a surprise.  None that we had spoken to before we went said much about it, but we found it to be charming, with (definitely faded but in a good way) Victorian architecture, a lake just in from the sea around which one could walk, those of a hardier disposition could partake of water-sports, and one could get an ice-cream, some fish and chips or just play on the well-provisioned playground.

We also did a tour of Anfield, and that was really fantastic.  The guy who took us round was entertaining and enthusiastic, and the atmosphere, heritage and passion for football was evident all around the ground.  Liverpool are now my second team.

This weekend, I have mostly been doing fences.  To be precise, yesterday I sprayed, but the previous days I had been preparing surfaces, jet-washing off the algae and generally readying the wooden surfaces for their day of glory.

So yesterday, from 8am to around 4pm, I slowly sprayed the shed and a good portion of the fences.  Gorse Fox wanted to know whether a spraying system is worth having, and I would say that it definitely is worth it.  The treatment is more expensive that standard brush-on variants, but actually as time is money**, then it was money well spent.  I did run out, and we went up to Homebase to get some more, only to find that they were out, apparently all-but ransacked during the four day weekend, so it seems that I was not the only one spraying this weekend.

It runs on four D batteries, and I did change batteries once, though not sure if I was a bit premature since the loss of power may well have been slight blocking of the delivery hose.  But, you do need to factor in battery cost as well, since four cost around six to eight pounds.

I adopted a spray and brush technique.  The spray definitely gets the coat on the panel, but following up with a brush seems to help to even it out, fill in the gaps and generally provide a smoother and more regular finish.  At the start, I did overdose on spray, so the brushing left plenty of excess treatment on the brush, which I then used for the top of the back fence (it has a one foot lattice top, to make the fence higher and harder to climb for anyone who may want to get in to our garden from the allotment) and other missed areas.  I also used a sheet along the bottom to minimise the amount of spray that went on the edges, and by the end that really was soaked through, so you can easily waste treatment if you are not careful.

I managed to do a shed of sixteen foot by ten foot, and maybe twenty or so six foot fence panels, which took just over four tubs of treatment, and in the round, probably not much more than one set of four D batteries.

I chose a colour this time***, mid-brown oak, and it has brought the garden together nicely.  Just need to get the disaster of a lawn fixed up a bit and it may start to resemble a normal garden of sorts.

One word of warning, you do need to do it when there is no wind, zero wind being the best.  There is a mist of spray that can form if you spray from the recommended nine inches distance - I found doing it much closer for the edges reduced this - and if Google is to be believed, others have experienced windows and frames coated in treatment from a neighbour's spraying during windy conditions.

This evening, we are going over to Brighton to meet up with Brad and Angelina, who are staying there for a few days, for a meal.  It is their twentieth wedding anniversary - so all the jokes about being free had it been murder should surface - and we hope to go to Jamie's for some Italian dining.  Can't wait.

Have a good, short, week, and speak on Friday hopefully.

===========================
* including open staring at these five-fingered interlopers
** perhaps less so for those retired, but nevertheless, there must be a dozen things more enjoyable to be doing that painting fences
*** I think I have said before that last time, I used a clear treatment, and when I had finished I had nothing to "show" for all my hard work