Andrew's diary

Tuesday, 30 September 2003

Seem's like Tom is having problems with vague, clueless leadership too ;-)

In the new "Total Cash Summary Statement" meeting, I got a rather nice pay rise. Woohoo!

Monday, 29 September 2003

CPW sent me a £10 cheque as trade-in, but without a stamp so it cost £1.20 to collect it. It should've been £17 anyway!

Bloke came round to do the lawn. Although it was cash in hand it looks very good, but - to be honest - AstroTurf would've been an improvement.

Accepted the development job: at some point in the future I'm going to be doing full time development again. Specifically on CICS Transaction Gateway. Exactly when is being decided on between Adrian and my new manager.

Sunday, 28 September 2003

Church Family Day. High levels of evangelism meant David and I often struggled to keep a straight face.

Saturday, 27 September 2003

Allen and Carol arrived at 11.30am; after a cup of tea trekked out to Leamington to try suits on for the wedding. To cut a long (and I mean long) story short: we've sorted suits for me and David, and different ones for everyone else. After a meal at Wetherspoons, Allen and Carol headed off back - must've been a very long day for them.

Friday, 26 September 2003

ThinkPad Challenge itself. I rang a game called "Countdown" which involved the teams having to recreate an egg timer. Of the six teams who played it, only Oxford, Warwick and Sheffield completed it successfully - all used a pendulum. Egg timers did not work.

Whilst trying to do this, however, I was running around trying to talk to a manager in HS&T after I got a cryptic phone message about possible opportunities. It turned out to be nothing really new though and a fairly big risk (on my part).

Afterwards, headed up to Stockton for the weekend.

Thursday, 25 September 2003

Fairly tedious day at work followed by a free meal in Southampton to launch this year's ThinkPad Challenge. Although driving, I had a good time - glad I wasn't organising it though. Our table lost an informal quiz to UMIST due to inconsistent application of the rules, which was rather guiling.

No news on job front either :-(

Sunday, 21 September 2003

We decided to go and see what the big fuss about Blackbushe market was about. We knew it was at an airfield, but had no idea it was so permanent or so big. Bought a Dorling Kindersley book on Cuba with lots of pretty pictures and a nice big pork roll stuffed with stuffing, a sausage and some apple sauce. Mmmm, meat.

Friday, 19 September 2003

Met Dave and Linda in Basingstoke for a meal out before going to see Underworld. The meal was really good (went back to the Apache Steak and Grill where we'd been with Robert); unfortunately the same couldn't really be said about the film. It tried very hard to be stylish, mysterious and cool - and, to be fair, largely succeeded. However, the obvious "we want a sequel" ending and the lack of plot really let it down. Kate Beckinsale was rather nice though, even if the rest of the vampire mythology was screwed up.

Wednesday, 17 September 2003

"Unofficially" offered the development job. Adrian says that the hiring manager has offered it to me, the job web site says I've been offered it, however, I haven't actually received an offer directly. Ho hum.

Monday, 15 September 2003

Adrian called the group together to deliver some important news. Unfortunately, I was in a meeting and missed it and if not for a throw away comment in a later meeting, would never have asked and found out. It's always nice to feel like you're in the loop :-/

Day got even more interesting, when a usually dull "what's happening this week" meeting turned into a fairly heated debate about the perception we've all got that an in-house tool is continually changing, however we're supposed to be using it on a day-to-day basis.

Unfortunately, towards the end of the day it got even more eventful, albeit incredibly annoying when my nominal replacement and our team leader started having a long discussion about the current state of the intranet, where it should be going etc. Apart from the fact this is all laid out in the strategy document I was asked to produce, Nik didn't seem to like me actually joining in! Fortunately, Paul and I seem to be on the same wavelength.

Watched Sunday's Scrapheap Challenge and Enterprise. Need a bigger telly in the den: Mel wouldn't go and watch Coronation Street elsewhere as she "can't see it properly". We'll fix that ;-)

Sunday, 14 September 2003

My neck's started to hurt again, which provided me an incentive for us to crack on and get all the housework out of the way by 10:30am - including changing a tap. Unfortunately, at about 11:30am, Mel was in the bathroom and heard rain - despite it being sunny outside. The pressure of me turning the water supply back on after changing the tap ruptured the copper/plastic join that John was so worried about last time.

Left a message on Heather and John's answer phone. In turn for a very cheap (but well done) job, we agreed to go round and help John cut back his leylandii - and, in turn for that, we stayed for a barbecue. Cool eh?

Saturday, 13 September 2003

Went to Blockbuster in the evening to get a DVD out, once again was deeply shocked by how narrow and shallow their stocks are. Firstly, very little range: no Clerks, Dogma or Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (and still no The Birdcage) and very few copies on the shelves. Of course, only ones with the "Blockbuster promise" are guaranteed to be there "or rent it free next time" and, of course, if they've not got it on DVD, but do have it on VHS - that doesn't count.

Ended up getting Two Weeks Notice which, despite being a formulaic romantic comedy, wasn't on the whole too bad. The longest deleted scene was the last scene of the film and would totally have changed the ending! The trailer, which was also on the DVD, showed lines from the film and scenes from the film - but from two different parts of it! It raises an interesting question: is it unethical for the entire trailer to consist of a condensed version of the film, made specifically for the purpose? Will it go as far as the trailer being a totally different film?

Friday, 12 September 2003

Discussed the two job opportunities - interestingly, the one which I seemed less likely to get was the one I felt leaving most positive about. The one which was all but promised to me doesn't look so likely: "no, I don't have any 390 assembler skills i>per se" [note: not my actual words ;-)]

Tuesday, 09 September 2003

Got my appraisal. Overall it was "fine", however there were areas I could score but didn't since it was done before my patent went through - despite it being in the system, and definitely happening, for over two months now. The only other guiling thing was that I'm no longer an expert.

Ranking: (compare with Dave's)

customer	3	delivery	4
process	2	skills	3
innovation	3	collaboration	3
leadership	2	professionalism	3
influence	2	give-back	3

Monday, 08 September 2003

Damn, damn and damn again: was in the corridor with my Psion in my pocket when I bulky guy basically pushed past me. My leg slammed into a door knob and with a worrying crack, the glass cover on my Psion's cracked. The touchscreen is now useless, but fortunately the display itself is fine.

Did some Salvare work and released a developers' version to console myself.

Thursday, 04 September 2003

Woke up with bad head, but went into work anyway as I had a meeting regarding a job in HS&T. Conundrum: take decent job in development or wait to see if you get a great job in services? If you wait you may miss out on both, if not you may miss out on great career opportunity.

Tuesday, 02 September 2003

Day two of the course. Megan, my technical mentee now, gave us a talk on being a technical leader. This seemed rather incestuous :-)

Got home to see the fence had been done: it looks very smart, just need to get the lawn sorted now and the garden'll look great.

Watched the taped Scream 3 and noticed that Jay & Silent Bob have a very short cameo - cool :-)

Monday, 01 September 2003

"Technical Professional Development" course, day 1. Having seen the list of people who've been on it before, though, makes me think they're not that selective in who they want to develop technical careers.