Mike's musings

Good work, bad work

So, a fab day in terms of the work for Australia: all the problems seem to be fixed. This means that subject to some testing by the customer on Monday, I'm likely to be heading off to Australia around the 22/23rd July for a couple of weeks. I'm so relieved - it's been really hard work getting this sorted, with lots of dead ends, so thanks to everyone who's helped me.

On the embarrassing side, it looks like I've managed to destroy a Windows 7 installation on my new laptop. I've never managed to destroy a partition by putting Linux on the same machine before. Well, I've told our main IT guy, and we'll see what he says.

Labels: geekery, work

Sunshine

(backposting) A beautiful day today, and I managed to get out with Moo and the girls for a few hours - though I ended up taking a number of calls and when I got back, had lots to do. So, worked a little later, but that's fine.

Labels: weather, work

Stop

I decided to stop work at a sensible time today, and managed 1940. This is the best so far for the past 2 weeks (bar my last day in Oz). Barbecue (as the last 3 days), and now watching "The Thick of It". And I'm going to take some leave next week. I really am.

Labels: holiday, home, work

What did I do today?

(backposting) Worked too bl**dy hard, is the answer.

Labels: work

Back to the grindstone

Jo was in with us around 0230, and I moved out to the spare room. She was up till 0500, but luckily she and Moo then slept through till 0745. Jo definitely not well enough for school and again, though she picked up during the day, she was pretty terrible by 1600 or so.

Any hopes of a quiet day were dashed, of course, by the realisation that I've got major work to finish today that didn't get done last week. So - a hard day at the computer(s). Grr.

Labels: work

Incomplete

I've not managed to complete the work I came out here to do in time. Hopefully I can finish it off on Monday, when I'm at home, but I just don't think I have the information I need, and that's the way it is. The customer was very cool about it, and can see that I've put the hours in over the past 2 weeks. Tomorrow I fly home. On Sunday I see the girls.

Just 2 more sleeps.

Labels: home, sleep, travel, work

Expenses and lateness

(backposting) Time to put in expenses. Over £4,900 for the month. Which is quite a lot.

And then I had to work late. Finished around 0030, but got the stuff done I needed to. Absolutely shattered.

Labels: sleep, work

Staying late - but starting early

Early, because today was Ascension Day, and I wanted to get to a Communion Service. As this was a 0800, and 20+ minutes walk away, that meant getting up and heading off pretty sharpish. It was good to go, and I enjoyed it: I later discovered that there were (excluding the celebrant) 2 priests and a bishop in a congregation of around a dozen!

I got to the office around 0845, and headed off to buy a white shirt (for a charity picture as a reaction against Australia's "loud shirt day" - huh?) and chat to the crazies on Skype. Then back to the office. Until 2145. A long day, but things were working by the time I left, with many thanks to a couple of colleagues who helped things along.

Labels: communion, work

You know you're working to late when ...

... all the lights in the office go out. The working culture where I am is clearly somewhat different to what I'm used to (not that I'm complaining), but people start to clear off around 1700, and the lights all went off at 1800. I took this as a sign, and headed off, too.

We seem to have a new government at home. Will wait to see how bad it is before hurrying back. ;-)

Labels: work

Heresy discussions

In these enlightened times, we are able to discuss the heresy of others without burning them at the stake, because we don't actually have to meet them face to apostatic face: we can have discussions on the Internet. The last couple of days have yielded some very thoughtful comments, and I invite you to have a look here, on my Sunday post.

Today's been another productive day at work - more so than I'd expected, in fact, which is rather pleasing. And to top it all off, I've done some hand-washing my hotel bathroom: oh, the excitement. It's astonishing how dirty clothes get, too: though that's probably related to the fact that I wore one set of them over 26 hours of travel. Yeuch.

Labels: theology, work

SoW

I was not expecting that my day would be taken up with the writing of Statements of Work, but that's how it would work. Luckily I managed to get some other work done, too: which involved actual code. Not much of it: the real fun was working out why there was a problem and what could be done to sort it out.

And tomorrow I'm going away to Australia. I'm going to miss the girls, and Jojo's getting very sad. She really feels emotion now, and misses people. It's going to be very hard.

Labels: family, girls, travel, work

No way

(backposting) No, I'm not going to head into London today. Not if I'm heading off to Norwich tomorrow and then Bristol, and Cardiff on Wednesday and Thursday. Luckily my boss is pretty cool about these things.

Labels: home, work

Architectural thinking

(backposting) One of the joys of my job is the opportunity to do some thinking at an architectural level. This isn't just in terms of the systems that we deliver to customers, but also to have some input into the base product that we produce as a company. I've been thinking about a particular technique recently, and had the chance to present it to the CTO and a couple of other people. I got a reply back from the CTO which just said "thinking...", which is about as good as you get. If I've managed to make him think, even if we don't end up going with the particular suggestion that I came up with, then hopefully some good will come of it, and I'm happy. I'm not the sort of person who gets territorial about ideas that I have: if they're not great, I'd like to explore them further. I'm an INTJ, and this is how I work!

On a more ENTJ issue, I was very pleased to hear from my previous employer that they're pushing through a patent application that I came up with. I'm very pleased: again, it's an idea that I had being followed through. Yay.

Labels: architecture, work

New stuff

Finished a document that I'm rather proud of today: we'll see how it goes down. I also got more fully involved with the company's Center [sic] of Excellence. There's a balance there between the work that's billable, the pure CoE work and other work that my boss wants to happen, but that's all good.

In London tomorrow, rather than at the cathedral for the blessing of oils, but that's rather how things go when you have a full-time secular job.

Labels: work

All tired

Got some good work today, though not quite as much as I'd hoped: Jo took a while to get back to sleep, though it wasn't her fault. I'm working on a discussion paper for work which I think should get an interesting response. I wrote one which I'm now editing down: my boss reckoned it was worth focussing it down a bit, and he knows the company better than I do, so I'm taking his advice.

Labels: work

I've never been to Wellingborough

(backposting) Before today, that is. Was hoping to see my friend Gary, but he wasn't available. It was quite a drive, too, which wasn't much fun, but I had a pretty productive day with a customer. And I'll be back tomorrow, too.

Labels: work

Into London again

(backposting) Ooh, so busy. And so into London. A meeting with a customer - in fact, an important presentation, and it went rather well.

I'm enjoying the breadth of work that's happening at the moment, and it sounds like we've got something else coming up soon, hopefully. There's also the question of whether I'm going to be off to Australia or not. And for how long. We'll see.

Labels: travel, work

"Toddler" and "Vomit"

(backposting) These are never two words that you want to associating with each other of a morning. Unluckily... Poor Miri. Anyway, it seems to have helped a lot - as did the 2 hour sleep she had in the morning.

I headed into London in the morning, and had a very productive day. A couple of things came up which I thought were going to be a nightmare, but both of them turned out OK. And I was able to help a number of other people with issues, too, which is always rather pleasing.

Labels: illness, work

London time

A day in London. An early start, and a morning with a customer where it wasn't clear whether things were going to work out or not. But in the end, with help from Mike, one of our support guys, we got it sorted. Good thing.

Bought Mothering Sunday cards for Moo and mum, and a present for Moo. And a very nice new coat for me. It was reduced: what can I say?

Labels: work

Functional Specs

(backposting) Now, this may sound strange, but I rather enjoy writing specifications: functional or technical. It can be hard work, and there's usually a mix of dull boilerplate work and complex creative pieces, but I don't mind that. What writing a specification should be about is moving from something which is solely in one or more people's head to a document which shares that knowledge with anyone who reads it. There will be discussion and misunderstanding and rewriting, but I find it very interesting going through that process.

Labels: work