Life & stuff

So, how are we all doing? I know updates here have been pretty non-existent this year, but I’m pretty active elsewhere, and the longer you leave it, the harder it gets (fnarr). Probably safe to say the last 18 months or so haven’t been the easiest for me but I want to get things back on track. My dad’s estate is now sorted out: I finally got a grant of representation, paid off all the bills, got the energy ombudsman to tell EON to go forth and multiply, disposed of most of his guitars (apart from his oldest one that I want to get fixed up so it’s in half decent shape) and even ended up with a small amount of money left over that I split with my brother and put my half towards a new bike. That was particularly satisfying because the bike shop had a sale on and I got a much better bike than the one I had planned, reduced from £1300 to £850. A couple of weeks later it was back at £1300. That’s my kind of sale. Sorting out dad’s estate was hard work but I think it I hadn’t done it none of the bills would have been paid and his money would probably have disappeared into a bank suspense account, or worse, been appropriated by George Osborne as bona vacantia. Urgh.

Looks like I may have also finally ended up with a job at work that isn’t project based so I can spend time on developing in one single area. After nearly 11 years at the same company you do get a lot of experience if you do it properly, but bouncing between projects and being redeployed can be pretty disruptive. It’s become pretty clear that what I’m good at is web based development in front of chunky databases, with a bit of low level systems stuff and ugly maths in the form of stats. Consequently it shouldn’t be a huge surprise that I didn’t get on too well with a support role earlier this year where the bulk of the work involved installing patches and doing basic sysadmin work on Solaris systems. On the project I had before I was getting pretty intimate with the Google Maps API and doing weird and wonderful things with Oracle business analysis functions so it was a bit of a change. Sometimes the best way to find out what you’re good at and enjoy is to try something that you don’t get on so well with. I’m back to doing Oracle web development for now and the new job (still with the same company) starts at the beginning of August. I’m not sure yet exactly what I’ll be doing but it’s in a department that does secure networking stuff. Doing stuff in-house is cheaper and better than buying it in from companies like RSA, but muggins will have the job of creating it.

I tend to react to stress by being susceptible to colds, and over-eating, and it’s probably safe to say I’ve had quite a bit of both. Since 2010 I’ve put on quite a bit of weight but I’ve just started to make the changes to what I eat that I’ve done in the past to bring it back down. I’ve got a fair bit of bulk to get rid of so it won’t be quick, but I’d like to get back to my fighting weight. Wish me luck…