Holidays on top of holidays

Hi all!

Can't believe it's 2 weeks since I got back from holidays! And what have I been up to? Well.... not nothing... but I haven't been tremendously productive.

Today was the first day that I woke up in the morning for ages. I've been keeping bad hours for so long that it's been really hard to sleep until about 5 or 6 am, by which time I naturally wake up in the afternoon. It's been like permanent Sunday sleepins! and I'm sick of them! Today was my last full day in London for a while (more on that later) and I had some final bits and bobs to tidy up at work. I managed to get in by 10am, and worked through till after 3. Tis all done though! Organised for the teachers to start (on Mon or Tues next week?).

And while they start work, I'll be going on my next holiday! Lee has invited me to head up to Halifax with him between the 2nd and the 6th. We're catching a train up there 1st class (thanks to his Dad) and going on a 21 mile charity hike on Sunday. We also have plans to go to Blackpool - they have "illuminations" which are switched on for the first time this weekend, and also the highest roller coaster in Europe! If any of my ex-students are reading, imagine Mr Yeates sleeping in while you drag yourselves to LPGS next week :-)

I get back on the 6th, and have a week here before I head off on another holiday - I'm visiting Magdalena in Bolzano! After training with Lee up north perhaps I'll be able to keep up with marathon girl, although I wouldn't place any money on it. A week in the alps should be extremely relaxing as well, and you all know how I enjoy short stays with "international locals". After a week of northern Italy I'll *really* need to get a job. So back to London it will be after around 10 weeks of relaxation?? :-)

This entry seems very reverse-chronological... reminds me of CV stuff. (Check out my newest CV if you want) On the job front: I'm applying for development and consultation jobs, but am *really* interested in the consulting ones. I see development as a route to consulting, or would like to find a 50% devel, 50% consulting position. There's tons of jobs advertised here - I applied for a dozen or so last week, but should be able to better that today and tomorrow. I like the fact that with consulting positions I can emphasise the more diverse skills I've been using while teaching - I'm guessing that employers looking to fill specific programming positions don't value diversity in employment background as much. Best case scenario is to apply now, interview in 1 week and be working in 3 :-) I'm not expecting that though - on Thursday morning I'll start sending CV's to other agencies, including temp agencies.

And the last 2 weeks? Well having Shane over was great. We hung out, made fun of Kylie, gave Shane lessons on inviting girls out, drank some beer, wandered about (if you tour with me, it's unavoidable), and ended up watching a 1919 German silent movie The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with musical accompaniment by Geoff Smith on multiple dulcimers (yes, I have been doing my research :-p ). I enjoyed it, but it was a bit too weird for the cuzs. He zipped off without us really having a huge night on the town! A shame, but it does sound like he is quite keen on coming back in a year or so and staying longer.

Shane left, and I thought I would be able to save some cash, but Lisa only had a couple of weeks left in London! So I've been out with her at Sarastro -an excellent, opulent cabaret restaurant, to lunch in Lewisham, to dinners at the Giraffe at Kensington, and to a wild night on club boats, restaurant boats and to (someone-knows-someone-so-we'll-get) free entry nightclubs. She leaves in the morning to go to Dubai and teach Ballet. Good luck Lis!

Other than socialising, I've been doing tons of computer stuff. Well, kind of tons. I'm convincing myself that I don't want to be a support technician! I installed a DVD burner and 160GB HDD just before I left for Eastern Europe, and when I got back I bought an 8 CD Debian set. So just operating system wise, I've been installing Debian and fixing up windows (which is a little unstable!). Just a warning - there's another weird hard disk size limit at 137GB, and it's fun to work around... although my case is complicated because I'm using a free four or five year old computer with two operating systems. At the moment I've only got 1/2 GB that's not working properly (it was to be my Linux swap space), so I don't think I can complain too much!

I'm also thinking about changing the site design here quite a bit. You've seen my maps? I'm really beginning to like CSS - they didn't really take too long to sort out. The map creator is quite hacked together, but usable enough (it's only really supposed to be used by me!)- but if you're curious click here then try dragging the map star around yourselves.

I'm intending to artsify the website. Functionality is good, experimentation is better. This current design is a little too cold for me at the moment. The problem is that (apart from increasing the font size, which I should have done before) usability will have to go down slightly for creativity to increase... and I'm not artsy in other ways at the moment, I need an outlet! So you'll have to put up with changes in the next couple of months. It does mean it's sidetracking me from uploading photos, but they *will* follow soon-ish! Let me know what you think of the changes when they appear - constructive criticism is always good. [Last minute addition: Check out a conceptual sneak preview]

Ummm OK I was going to add more. But... it's late and I need to fix my body clock!

Till next time :-)

Posted by Sam at September 01, 2004 01:32 AM