2020-07-17 17:00:08 +0000
- Freddy is 5! Happy Birthday Freddy! We kinda spoilt him with a new bike, new helmet, Brio trains (including a remote control one), marble run, books and an awesome Octonauts cake Sam and I made on Thursday night.
- Freddy also finished school, no more reception, he gets an actual number in his new year, Year 1! His new class teacher did a zoom call and that was good, she seems nice and am looking forward to meeting her in person. His class is also named after Amelia Earhart so will get to do fun projects on successful women and planes I hope!
- The Octonauts cake was good fun to make and we had some creative time. Playdoh tools work well for baking too, we found.
- I went to LRUG (virtually) and enjoyed that meetup a lot. I’d only been a couple times in person, despite wanting to go regularly so it was good to see some ruby again at least.
- It did inspire me to try and get a talk written, so I’m going to start that soon and the topic will be something along the lines of why a senior engineer doesn’t need to be awesome at a particular language (trying to talk from experience of contributing to a team despite not being an experienced python engineer). Hopefully I can get it done for August LRUG and speak there (remotely!)
2020-07-10 17:00:08 +0000
- This week was OK at work, Toby is back and I could actually contribute when some front end stuff cropped up late in the week.
- Picked Freddy’s bike up from the eBay seller (red frog 48). It’s not too bad condition, but I’ve sanded back some scuffs and repainted some bits so it looks a bit shinier for his birthday next week. Lockdown is good, I could affrod to buy it out the current account, which would never have been possible with trains and lunches etc to pay for.
- Got the planning application site notice up on the garage, so hopefully no other problems and I’ll get approval by 18th August and can get a garage to put the mini in, and start working on it now and then!
- Guitar still getting played - this week was ‘year of your birth’ open mic night - so set list was Just Can’t Get Enough (Depeche Mode), Don’t you want me (Human League), Don’t Stop Believin’ (Journey), Kids In America (Kim Wilde) and Centrefold (J. Geils Band) - They all went down brilliantly and I didn’t muck much up (apart from Human League a bit, but whatever). Kids In America is a new favourite!
- Imposter Syndrome course going well, if I can call it that. Everything lines up, I think I fit all the criteria, lots of information but not many coping strategies yet.
- One thing that has helped is I mentored some Made Tech Academy applicants with their tech questions and hopefully helped. Lovely feedback from one I helped so I’ll assume I helped them all that well!
2020-07-03 17:00:08 +0000
- Toby was off this week and bloody hell I struggled with some tests and sorting out some work we had to do. Hope something clicks soon with Django.
- I facilitated the ‘Technical Architecture, Microservices, APIs and ADRs’ LearnTech session this afternoon for work.
- Remote presenting and facilitating is HARD, I did not enjoy it at all. Last minute tweaks to make the session make sense were made, which probably didn’t help, but also most of the lead and senior engineers were in this session which scared the hell out of me.
- Afterwards though, Clare one of the Lead engineers gave me some lovely feedback and the last minute changes to remote friendly exercises went down a storm.
- Last Saturday we went to Bewl Water, and totally misjudged the weather. I was freezing and it was very wet! But still, kids had fun and a rainy picnic with the Goulds was had.
- Adventures with Georgia on Tuesday while Sam worked was mainly watching trains go past. I suggested other things, but she wanted to see trains!
2020-06-26 17:00:08 +0000
- Open mic night was great! Not flawless performances, but Live and Let Die was not terrible and Stuck in the Middle and Love is All Around seemed to go down really well.
- Mini has been welded, they did a pretty good job of it for not extortionate prices, so happy that is done.
- I did have trouble getting the new bumper on before dropping it in to be welded though. Someone nudged the old one off, although the brackets had corroded as usual - and managed to pu a hole in the back corner. Think it was already filled there, so no trouble, just stuck a bit of filler in and sprayed it red with a rattle can.
- Work was OK, I remembered somethings, but it’s still pretty rough being remote and struggling through python/django that I’m not massively familiar with. I don’t know if I even remember Rails to go back to that!
- Starting the FutureLearn Imposter Syndrome course on Monday, hopefully that will help with some of the things I’m struggling with.
- Not much else to report, lockdown is still rubbish, and no, I won’t be going to the pub when they open!
2020-06-19 17:00:08 +0000
- This week I’ve been off so Sam can work for a week. It’s been great hanging out with Georgia, heading to Herne Bay (even a massive downpour didn’t dampen spirits too much), mountain biking at Bedgebury, hangin at home and a walk at Haysden Park. She got to go in the mini too and she loved it!
- Mini is booked in for some welding so I can get something else ticked off my list and maybe get the brakes rebuild in the next couple of weeks, as well as the grill and bumpers fixing and a few cosmetice repairs where needed.
- Sam’s knee is getting better but isn’t right yet - hopefully will keep getting better, but still warm and swollen.
- I loved Spiderman in Captain America: Civil War.
- Started learning Live and Let Die and a few other challenging songs for Open Mic night Movie week, got to concentrate and slow it down to pull them off, but hoping it’ll be fun even if I muck up a few bits.
- Got full on post holiday blues I reckon now, not looking forward to going back to work, will I even remember Python and how that works, what work will there be that I can pick up, will I be have as productive as I hope?
2020-06-12 17:00:08 +0000
- I’ve been brushing up on photoshop to do some face mash ups for a quiz this week, quite pleased with the comedy results, of course I probably made the quiz too easy but it’s hopefully going to be funny instead of competitive.
- I also resorted to photoshop to do the garage technical drawings. I think I am a technical person, but tried a few Computer Aided Design (CAD) programs and couldn’t get my head around any of them, nor Inkscape so hoping I can makes something work in Photoshop that is accurate enough.
- People not following the lockdown advice and being a bit hypocritical about it has wound me up a bit this week. Although I completely believe the governemt are making everything so vague and difficult to understand so that they can absolve themselves of blame when the time comes and say it was the people not following advice that was the problem, not their weak and misguided leadership.
- The Polo has started to play up, the stop start has stopped working and has an engine light on so that went into the garage - but turns out while it did need a new tyre urgently, the diagnostics gave no help as to what is wrong, so just gotta take it to VW to get it sorted. That’ll probably be expensive.
- Well the weather changed a bit this week, makes a difference going from paddling pool wether to puddles everywhere when you can’t get out much.
- And to top off this week, Sam has hurt her knee quite badly, with a swollen, warm, painful knee I’m raising my game to try and keep her off her feet.
2020-06-05 17:00:08 +0000
- Freddy back at school was fine, he ran in everyday and the weekly report seems that they all had a good week. Only about 6 back in his ‘bubble’ so it’s probably a really nice experience and no doubt he’ll catch up easily on anything he missed.
- So planning folk got straight back to me. As expected I need to provide drawings, but also got a full planning application form to complete, most of which looks irrelevant to a basic garage job, but will get those done and submitted. And an attempt at doing drawings myself which should be interesting.
- Again, no idea what else in lockdown is worth reporting on, aside from the fact I’m incredibly pissed off at all the pathetic measures and constant shifting of advice from the government, it’s like they want it all to go to shit, but make sure they can blame the public for not following really wooly, interpretive advice to the vague letter, with the government defining that letter after the fact.
2020-05-29 17:00:08 +0000
- This week in a change to the usual Saturday quiz fun, we had Marcus’s birthday and a themed pub crawl where we each host a themed session. Magic shows, Gay bars, Working Mens Clubs all featured and I had the bravery to do a comedy night. I wrote and borrowed jokes, had 3 characters (compere, comedian and singing comedian) and it seemed to go down really well. Good feedback and praise for having the guts to do it and pull it off were nice to hear!
- I navigated the complex world of planning applications this week, finishing the planning application to get the new garage erected in place fo the rubbish old one which is about ready to fall down. Submitted all the documents they asked for, paid the £200 fee and see what happens next. I expect they’ll ask for drawings of the old and new garage, hopefully what I come up with will be fine as the £700+ VAT estimate I got for helping with this was completely not worth it for something I won’t even own.
- Freddy starts school again on Monday, but apprehensive but it’s best for him and us I think - so hopefully it’s all good. School are doing their best and it shouldn’t be too weird for him.
2020-05-22 17:00:08 +0000
- The new guitar is fantastic, officially. I did focus on just one song, Bittersweet Bundle of Misery for a few days having already known most of the words and that mean a much improved performance at open mic night, partly new guitar, partly more focussed practice, partly knowing words and chords off by heart. Need to keep trying to learn everything fully before performances.
- Not much else to report. Standard lockdown.
2020-05-15 17:00:08 +0000
- My new guitar arrived this week! Tanglewood Java TWJF S model. A beautiful Amara/Spalt Mango split back and plays beautifully, for all the 10 minutes I’ve played it to date! Can’t wait for open mic night now! In reality and lockdown open mic night.
- Hope the new guitar helps since this week was a car crash on open mic night, even mucking up a Ramones song, (Blitzkreig Bop, if you’re interesed)
- On that note asked my friend what he thought on improving guitar was, either just pick one song and practice the hell out it until I know it, or a number of songs to a half decent level - they reckon practice technique with one song and technique on that song, so that’s how I’m going to go. First up Bittersweet Bundle of Misery!
- Still watching Elementary (on Season 6 now so not long to go) and enjoying that. It’s mindless TV that I enjoy but means I end up staying up too late watching TV, but it mean 41 minutes when everything seems normal!