Change of address…

The story continues, all be it with a slightly different focus, at www.endorphinaddict.wordpress.com

Back (Engaged)

That didn’t really feel like two weeks, well, it doesn’t now that I’m back.

As the title hints, I have news; I asked Girl to marry me, and she said yes. She had no idea it was coming, and the ring (which she is, apparently, very happy with) fitted perfectly, so I’m pleased. Of course this means that I don’t get to turn the ring into a new MacBook, but I think that can wait.

It’s going to have to wait a long time though, I heard weddings are expensive.

Still, we are both very happy, Girl hasn’t stopped looking at the ring since she got it, and she’s been running around the building today showing it off to everyone who’ll look.

So now it’s time to get back to life (along with organising a September 2010 wedding), before I headed off I was promising myself a new pair of trainers and to get back into my running, it’s time to deliver on those promises, starting with the trainers which I just ordered, and moving on to getting back outside and doing some bloody running, which I will start tomorrow (one last hurrah for my current trainers). I did promise myself that I would find some events in the early part of next year as well, but that is proving difficult due to the fact that all the events that I would be willing to travel to take place on days when I already have something planned, which is more than a little annoying. Still, I’m sure I’ll find something.

In the meantime it’s back to the gym with renewed vigour, and maybe time to try and find a nearby pool that isn’t going to bankrupt me or give me legionnaires.

The Last Day for 2 Weeks

As the title says, today was my last day at work for two weeks.

That’s awesome.

So we’re off to Australia tomorrow evening, in fact, by this time tomorrow night we’ll be on our way and somewhere over Europe. I will likely be watching Harry Potter, or maybe Star Trek.

Standing between me and that though is a teleconference that someone has lovingly booked for 10:00 tomorrow morning, which I will dial in for (I may even pointedly remain undressed for it) and a gym session (legs, with a little running); but once they’re done I’ll come home and it’ll be just a case of waiting for the ride to the airport; I’ll officially be on holiday.

We’re spending a week in Melbourne and a week in Noosa, so I might be able to update but we’ll see. Rest assured however that there will be sun bathing, reading, surfing, running and generally relaxing. There may even be some exciting news upon our return, but I’ll keep that a secret until we get back.

Right now though I have to sort out the last of the washing, it’s a desperate attempt to get eveything sorted before we go so that we’re not coming home to a pile of housework.

I don’t think anyone ever actually achieves that.

Damn I’m Good

How to replace a broken plastic luggage clip with garden wire… Not bad if I do say so myself!

The Late Night Double Feature Picture Show

Two posts in two days, I’ll never keep this up!

Me, Girl, my Brother and his Girl went to the theater this evening to take in the rocky Horror Show, and it was, as expected, excellent! It’s not my first time, I have to say, I wasn’t a Rocky virgin before this evening; it was, in fact, my fourth time. Girl, however, had not seen it before. In fact the ticket was a birthday present for her from a family member.

She loved it, needless to say, it really is like no other show out there, with the history that has grown up around it, the audience participation, the time warp… it’s amazing, and I’d go back tomorrow and watch it again.

Although I can’t, I have to pack tomorrow.

I managed to get onto the treadmill today for my 5 mile run, it was excellent, I felt very strong throughout and I think that I’m getting the bug again. I do  love running so much but every now and then I need to take a break from it. Like all things I guess. However, having seen the physique of the guy who played Rocky this evening, and realizing that I’m not far off having that level of muscle tone (I’m not showing off and no, it isn’t wishful thinking) I have decided that it’s definitely time to get that focus point I was talking about yesterday. So much so that I think I’ll start looking tomorrow or Friday before I go away so that I can put a goal in plave when I get back.

Back

I’ve been away for a while, the truth is I’ve been trying out Tumblr.

One day I might bring the blog posts over from there to here, but I wouldn’t hold my breath if I were you. It’s a good site, but at the end of the day I think it’s aimed at people who want to be a damn sight more creative than I do, at the end of the day I just want a blog.

So what have I been up to? Plenty, but I wont bore you with the details, suffice to say it’s been a busy period in my life and it’s about to get busier.

I think that’s one of the reasons why I want to start blogging again. I think that speaking to, and seeing a couple of friends who I know also blog, and reading their entries has reminded me of how cathartic I find it, and how much I enjoy getting my experiences and thoughts out into the world in some form.

I’ve made a couple of decisions in the last few days, mainly around my training. I’m going to stop messing about, basically. Despite the fact that I’ve had a damn good year for training in terms of general fitness I have managed to drift for more than 12 months without actually having a serious goal, or, indeed, any goal.

I don’t think that’s good enough, so I’ll be looking for a few 10Ks in early 2010 and then trying to get into the pool and out on a (hired) road bike with a view to maybe some sprint Tri mid year or some half-marathons, moving on to a marathon sometime around October.

I love running, and haven’t been doing enough of it lately, I think that’s the first thing that needs to change. I have a 5 miler planned on the treadmill tomorrow, but that’s not the sort of running I’m talking about. I mean getting out there, in the wind and the rain, braving the elements and the dark and really doing it, I miss that. I miss the sense of adventure and achievement that go with that, I need to get that back.

Although, first things first, I have a 2 week holiday in Australia starting on Friday, once that’s out of the way it’ll be time to get some new trainers and hit the roads.

Time to get some focus, time to take control back and stop drifting.

Time to walk on the Average Side again.

Quiet and slightly boring

That just about sums up work at the moment.

The project that I’ve been working on has moved into a stage that is entirely my responsibility, although there isn’t really a deadline for the work that I’m doing so there isn’t that much, well, any pressure. Other than that, there isn’t anything else much coming up on the horizon, certainly nothing challenging, so I’m kind of eking out as much as I can from the little, simple work that I currently have, which means that work is mostly quiet and slightly boring.

I haven’t heard anything from the backup Dream Job, even though it’s only been a week, actually less than that, it’ll be a week tomorrow, so I suppose I shouldn’t have expected to hear back yet. As it is the job only closed last Wednesday so I’m assuming I’ll hear something back within the next week or so.

The weekend was good, mostly uneventful; dinner with the folks on Friday, just the four of us, which was nice. Saturday was shopping for cricket kit and chilling out, the other half and I watched a move in the evening. Sunday was spent playing cricket, well, I say that, it was mostly spent stood about next to the pitch seeing as I was out for a duck after facing only 3 balls, not exactly a stellar performance. The team won though, by 100 runs, got to be pleased with that.

Other than that it’s been pretty chilled, as I said, quiet and slightly boring.

Spotify

Awesome, seriously it’s an amazing service, I’m listening to it now and I love it. Only problem is that the interface keeps hanging on my machine at work and the machine actually needs to be reset to clear it. This wouldn’t be a problem if it happened once every week or so, but it did it three times today, not on.

Starship… awesome.

Anyway, this week is going pretty well so far. The system in in place and is slowly coming up to speed, I’ve been putting the new ways of working in place to cope with the changes from the upgrade and sorting out some of the junk data hat managed to make it through the transfer. Tomorrow starts the interesting work of incorporating some stuff that we currently do in Excel in it, that should be exciting, in a very nerdy way.

I ended up playing cricket on Sunday rather than sitting about on the sofa, I love playing cricket, even though I seem to suck hard at it. I was out for 6 on Sunday, including a very sketchy 4 to third man. I don’t care though, I just enjoy the act of playing the game, and I’ll get better the more I play so I’m just enjoying it at the moment.

The last few days at work have been made a little more interesting by the new office layoout, which has seen us all lose our resident desks and go to hot desking. It’s a difficult change for some, but I have  to say that I like the new environment. You don’t know who you’re going to be sat with day to day and you can move about at will, taking in different places to sit every day, I’m really enjoying it. I’m especially enjoying screwing with the people who can’t handle the fact that the desk they’ve chosen for a couple of days in a row isn’t “their” desk.

I put the application in for the backup dream job, and at the same time received an email from the Dream Job manager telling me that it would be a good idea to put my CV in for the backup and that he will have a chat to the backup’s hiring manager. I haven’t heard anything back yet but then the CV is still only showing as submitted, something tells me it’s made it past that stage and they’re just working outside of the system, at least that’s what I hope is happening.

Saturday

So the week passed without incident, and almost without the new system going live. The consultant managed to get it up and running yesterday afternoon, only 5 days later than planned. I wouldn’t have minded had there been any genuine reason, but in fact it was simply a series of things that he’d missed that caused the delays. Rubbish.

Still, it was up by the time I left yesterday afternoon, far from finished but at least it existed, now I just need to do a whole heap of work to get all the data in place and the system up to speed.

Not that I can do it on Monday morning, instead I’m going to be handing out anti-virals to the people in the building. Not actually handing them out personally, but I’ll be heloping with the whole process, so that means that my week will start on Tuesday. I did a bit of it yesterday, it’s a pretty good way to spend a few hours at work.

Today is going to be spent mostly chilling out and playing some games online, we’re off out for a few beers with friends this evening, I’m really looking forward to it, it’s been a while since we’ve all been out together, although it invariably ends with a stinking hangover, that I’m not looking forward to.

Tomorrow I’ll probably me mostly sleeping on the sofa I think, as well as sorting out my CV, there’s another job out there that I wan’t and I haven’t heard back from the hiring manager from the Dream Job so it’s time to take things back into my own hands. I have no doubt that I will hear back from him, but as I said beofre, I;m just not a sit on my hands type of person.

Funeral One

Today saw the first of two quick-fire funerals for the family, the next is scheduled to be on Tuesday, it seems my family go in pairs. Last time we had a death in the family it was my Great-Grandfather, who followed in very quick succession from my Grandfather. So close were they in fact that when I went to the chapel for Grandpa Shaw’s funeral the priest said “Nice to see you again.”

I didn’t tell him that the feeling wasn’t mutual.

So today I sat, once again, and asked myself whether I was finding any solace in the words of the man up the front, reading from the fiction. I did not, I’m not sure what sort of person does; I know that people do though, and that’s not meant to sound derogatory, it’s just that it’s so far removed to me that I just don’t understand how people find anything in it. I guess people need to believe in something, and they need hope in those times when it seems that there is no point.

So that basically wiped out my morning this morning, and as you can expect, I didn’t really get a lot done in the afternoon.

My project has gone a little off the rails, through no fault of my own, we’re coming up on a week late getting the system back up again, and that’s basically because the vendor lied to me, and then stopped returning my calls. I’m not really happy about it, and to be honest I don’t think I’ll ever work with this particular consultant again, he’s forever missing things, he’s too casual, and he, frankly doesn’t understnad the system or the customer. To be honest I’m not sure what the hell the company we’re working with see in him, but there must be something I guess.

Other than that this week has been mostly about the move to our new office space and the handing out of flu medication. Tomorrow I’m going to be spending half the day helping people get hold of their flu meds, which promises to be a nice break form that whole work thing. Over the weekend they’re moving us to the new office layout. To be honest I’m quite excited, although I know that’s pretty sad, but they do say a change is as good as a rest, and I like the look of the new offices.

The weekend looks interesting with a party on Saturday night with some old school chums and then, hopefully, a game of cricket on the Sunday.

I haven’t heard anything about the dream job since having coffee with the hiring manager the other week. I did bump into him last week and he said he was still working on it, but that was the last of it. Another role in the same organisation has come up and I think I’m going to apply for it. It isn’t as senior as the dream job but it’s more of a stepping stone, and while I really want the dream job, I think that the stepping stone maybe more realistic.

I have tried to get hold of the guy though to talk it through and he hasn’t got back to me, either he’s tired of me bugging him or he’s really busy, I tend to think it’s the latter but I’m not going to sit on my hands while I wait to hear back, it’s just not the sort of person I am, especially when I’ve decided that I want something. I’ve given him until Monday in my head though, so hopefully I’ll recieve a call tomorrow afternoon while I’m handing out drugs and we can get together for another coffee, or even sort out an interview.

It’s a nice idea.