Today's a day for talking to people.
CryoBob - if you're talking to me (and you are, 'cos you're answering an email I sent you in your diary entry), then out with it, boy! Anyway - quit complaining: you've made it to Journeyer already, so that's cool. Also, you Jtrix folks need to stop posting at the same time - do you all have a deadline, or something?
I'm pleased that it's going well, and congrats on starting off. I have to say that it gave me a warm feeling to have suggested someone for a job which they actually got - that's two now (Mr Plant, if you need to know, CryoBob, the g*t with the Elise...).
Waldo - congratulations to you, too, you superstar, you!
Mulad - maybe Sarah likes spending time with you. Relax into it. The best relationships work because people like spending time with each other. It sounds like you've got some chemistry there from time to time, even if it's not the sort of chemistry you might like - yet, but maybe not ever. You're empathising with her about her job, chatting - sometimes you don't need to have something to say. People like being empathised with - guys and gals.
Phoon - nope, you're not a genius: that's the ephedra pills talk^H^H^H^Hsweating. (-8
Not much about the new car there, so here's a bit: it's a Renault Megane Coupe, metallic black, and I'm currently running it in. Happy me.
PhD
Need to rewrite my proposal after some serious talks with
one of my supervisors. Spoke to the other one today (this
one is in the Computer Lab, the other is SPS - Social &
Political Sciences), and they both seem positive. The
problem now is getting a faculty to accept me part-time - a
new thing for Cambridge. I'm hopeful. Once again, if
anyone's interested, get in touch via p2ptrust.org. Rob -
I'll get back to you!
Music
Barenaked Ladies are excellent. Just got
Maroon, the last album that I didn't have, and I'm listening
to it at the moment (whoo - "Tonight is the night I fell
asleep at the wheel" is wierd!). After that, it's Bill
Jones' Panchpuran - I loved her first one, and this has got
excellent reviews, too.
Phd
We're getting there - I've got two supervisors, and one
referee for definite (I need to decide who to approach to be
the second). I'm looking into the issues of funding, and
getting accepted to do it part-time, which is more difficult
than you might expect. Went Cambridge University
Library yesterday to find out about getting a card
again. It was strange being back there after so long, but
great, too. Booked a time next week to get a card, and I'm
seeing one of my supervisors on Wednesday to discuss the PhD
proposal. Once it's a bit more refined, I'll post it on www.p2ptrust.org.
Work
I was in Paris for some of this week at a trade show. A
complete wash-out - though got to meet a couple of
interesting sets of people. My boss and I left early. The
poor organiser had such a cr*p time (two laptops got stolen,
to just help things along) that I ended up buying her
flowers. Seemed to go down well - a little later, one of
my females colleagues came round to mention how bad a
day she was having, and didn't she deserve flowers,
too? No, but (-8.
Life
Catherine's away for a week and a half in Portugal from next
Wednesday, but as I've got MBA work to do, and my sister and
her husband (Polly and Lee) are likely to be coming to stay,
I'll probably have enought to do anyway.
Had contact with a long-lost friend (sort of an ex-) from about 12 years ago. She had better memories of our time than I might have expected, which was nice, as I was very fond of her, and felt that things had been somewhat unresolved. Catherine was amused by some of the comments about me "confident and cultured" in particular. Heigh-ho - she (Catherine) was the one who described her first impression of me as "an arrogant b*st*rd", but then again I thought she was "prim and proper", so at least one of us was wrong. And she did marry me.
Me
A quiet weekend after a frustrating week, hopefully.
There's rugby on the TV, and there'll be a fire in the grate
and I'll have Catherine asleep next to me on the sofa.
Bliss.
I've got a marvellous pair of parents-in-law (not to mention a stupendous wife). They've been around for the last couple of night, and we've had a great time all round.
Work on PhD going well - both co-supervisors seem happy, and all I need to do know is write a proposal and find some funding. Should be pretty simple, yes?
Good to seem some discussion in the articles section on documentation: it's not sexy, but it's really important. Take the time out to read it, folks.
Looks pretty certain that I'll be buying a new system pretty soon. Debian, here we come. It's going to be moving from potato to 2.4.x & reiserfs that's going to be fun.
Good night.
Was away for a week in Skye - lovely, and it rained a lot, and we didn't care. Read lots, including some relevant hacky books, including the O'Reilly p2p book (I'll write a review at some point, but suffice to say the that "Trust" chapter is about distrust, not trust.)
We're hoping to buy next door. Planning permission issues, as we're both "listed buildings". Both around 15th century.
Planning my PhD. Getting there. Update sometime.
Job. I dreamt that the head of the organisation told me to
get a new one. Let's leave it at that.
Greg Hamilton. Melissa Scott. Bl**dy marvellous.
One of the sets of people who were flooded out are staying in our house and looking after the cats, which is great, so we don't need to worry about that - or evil Badvogato people looking at this entry and deciding to find out where we live and taunt the feline population.
PhD
PhD preparation is going well, and I'm pleased to see people
responding to my article (see the front page of Advogato,
peeps). I'll check things out when I'm back. It's really
wierd knowing that I'm going to miss people's diary entries
- I've become so used to reading them over the past few
weeks. Issues for PhD:
See you soon, folks.
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