The initial tranche of electrical work is now done. This is mostly 'small' stuff like a lot more power outlets in places where we want them, but it also includes some CAT5 and some work on the switchboard to reorganise our circuits, replace our old Bakelite switches and add RCD cover for the lot. We can finally run the electric toothbrush charger ( Read more... )

It's been five months since I took redundancy. I've been having a break, which has in many ways been a very good thing. There is, however, a huge list of stuff that I was going to get done in this break period, and so far a lot of it hasn't.

Until this week.

I thought about my "obstacles", in the way I used to get my team to tell me theirs in scrum ( Read more... )

Very much so. Not working. At Webstock again: once again enjoying it, but the messages I take away aren't always the ones offered.

From the last months and days I have observations to make about group dynamics, identity, privacy, do-it-right vs iterative development, management, confidence, the street-performer approach to making money from art, ( Read more... )

This is sort-of a re-run of our previous birthday parties, so let's cannibalise the text from two years ago ( Read more... )

My position at work is being disestablished. I finally received my redundancy letter today. As we've been negotiating over the last two weeks, my last day will be this Friday ( Read more... )

I've been planning to post this for ages, and now my half-joke about scheduling a mid-life crisis for this summer seems to be shaping up just about on schedule.

• Saturday, 13 November
• Our place
• Details still to be sorted: requests considered

I stumbled across the Finnish music group Poets of the Fall at the start of the year. YouTube fed my cravings for a time, then, while in Finland, I bought three of their albums. These were our high-rotation driving music through northern Germany, the Low Countries and a circuit of France. And I still really like them. They deserve more mindspace ( Read more... )

Today the reorganisation proposal at work came out. It essentially splits my team between Comms and IT, and disestablishes my position.

I'm... thoughtful.

(Also occasionally gutted and betrayed. I get the sense it could be a rocky few months ahead.)

Anniversary: 14 years married, which means that in some form or other, calculated retrospectively and with some squinting, we've been together for 19 years ( Read more... )

Yeah, yeah... I stopped writing while travelling in Europe in May, and then didn't start again because -- get this -- I didn't want to have to click the button saying the retro-posts I planned to make about the Europe trip should display out of order.

Not dead. Kinda getting through, week by week. Work is highly variable and we're under review again ( Read more... )