Older blog entries for MikeGTN (starting at number 45)

Work

Preparing to move office to a woefully inadequate portacabin on an industrial estate. Still, remaining philosophical here. I could still be working in dodgy circumstances in central Bristol

Gtkdial

...and gwvedit are currently with translators awaiting 0.4.0 releases. Plans for 1.0 are finally afoot.

The Rest...

I've refrained from comment about events, since I'm almost certain to upset people. However, someone using the World Trade Center tragedy to justify our move to bad accomodation seemed undignified and wrong. Why do people assume it's theirs to use as they will? I suppose I can be smug - me, and everyone who is important to me is living, walking, talking etc.

Pizza

Finally tried it last Monday, and yes, I liked it a lot. To everyone who wrote to me expressing surprise and dismay, you have no idea what life is like when you're convinced cheese is horrid! Still, now I have another reason for getting even fatter!

The last-ditch run for the finish line with kabalak's latest release of gtranslator must have inspired me, because I ended up spending time working on both gtkdial and gwvedit today, rendering them both almost release ready!

Real life

Visited parents, saw their soon to be new car, cleaned my house, prepared for some time off work next week where I have several 'special missions' to complete.

Pizza Virginity

This was to be the weekend when I tasted pizza for the first ever time - however, the offer of a good home made effort instead of what would likely have been a dreadful store-bought frozen effort has persuaded me to postpone this seminal moment.

Another long, entry-free period.

Skipping happily from one funding crisis to another at work. It's what I'm good at, and what six years of Public Service work has equipped me for! My colleagues are vaguely amazed at how chipper I remain when they're practically rationing pencils, but I guess I've been here lots of times before.

Managing to squeeze in useful activity too - have been planning work on gtkdial2 and working with kabalak on packaging gtranslator.

I've disappeared lately, mainly due to brooding for a while, and then deciding to have a social life for a week or so.

Things are refreshingly stable here. Work is nice and calm - middle of a Local Government budget crisis, but I'm almost comfortable with that,

Principia doing OK - some sales, some money made. Some faith restored.

Finally replaced reposessed notebook yesterday. New Compaq Armada seems to work fine - X out of the box, modem via Lucent Winmodem driver. Generally a good economy purchase!

No entry for a long time, in the main because I've done little of note for some time. Its been a period of consolidation and settling into my new work routine. Getting used to having money to spend again, and trying to reassemble some sort of life.

...as ever. Also joined the EFF this morning in a bleary-eyed state of indignance before work. Nevertheless, its a worthy and sensible thing to do.

Life

Its good to be working a sensible distance from home again, and walking home along the seafront is still a pleasure rather than a chore. Having to mess around with NT is something of an education, and makes the precious moments spent in front of my machine at home all the more pleasant. Literally weeks after taking a vow to 'not get involved with the politics' I find myself absorbed by the complexities of North Somerset becoming the UK's first 'Care Trust'. I think I need to find a new job to protect my sanity....

gwvedit

... is remarkably frozen for translation! It works (OK, for a *subset* of possible wvdial.conf options - but that's what GUI's do, right?), seems stable, and might even prove useful for some hapless folks out there...

A new release of Gtkdial (aka. my nasty little vanity GNOME app) brings 70mb worth of downloads today from my ISP server, and a stern warning about consuming valuable bandwidth! Amusing really, considering that my puny website was previously of little interest to anyone!

Spent a lot of time trawling through my music collection these past few days, ending up with a big Galaxie 500 focus for some reason. I feel like I'm 16 again!

My new job presents lots of opportunities to be productive, but provides only NT and MS Office. Its not an ideological thing, I'm just not *used* to these apps. I ruefully remember Jim Gettys' dire warnings about staying current with competitors during GUADEC (more accurately in the middle of Darin's keynote, but I guess Jim can get away with such things!).

A bloody weird day!

The first week of my job has passed relatively uneventfully. Met a lot of old friends - and I'm amazed that people remember me considering all the changes, office moves and general hot-desking that seems to go on within Social Services these days.

Gtkdial is frozen for a release at last, and has gained some new translations. Got some feedback from a guy who uses it to select from 50+ local ISP numbers, so I figure that concerns about scalability are unfounded!

Lambchop played in Bristol during the week. They were incredible - very quiet, and they even managed to get a grand piano onto the stage!

Finally, after much complaining and frustration I'm starting my new job on Monday. Being off work this time has been no fun at all, since all the novelty disappeared during my extended absence last year.

Its strange how a town can seem completely bleak and empty when just one person isn't around - even for a little while...

My OU assignment is now overdue, mainly because I was being miserable all day yesterday.

Gtkdial

I'm aware that I always promise a release "soon" - I'm not going to do so this time - firstly because no one cares anyway, and secondly because the icons I popped in as placeholders are very ugly indeed. Made an appeal on the GNOME list for some assistance with beautification.

In any case, I'm happily able to work comfortably at a keyboard now (with thanks to my doctors and physiotherapists) and I've been twiddling with finishing touches on both bits of the project

An incredibly busy week, attempting to deal with the various government departments with whom one's fate rests when unable to work. Still, the good news is that I am allowed to start my new job at last next week. Suddenly, I've gone from having all the time in the world and nothing to do, to the complete opposite.

Spent some time chasing leaks around in Gtkdial and its cousin gwvedit. What promises to be a dull weekend might see a long promised release.