What makes you happy ?

This blog feels – to me – a different place. Not wrong, not uncomfortable, just different. I blog less and I blog differently and I’ve been pondering why…….

Over the life of this blog in it’s WP form (Jan 2004-) various things have happened to myself and my family. In terms of health and money we were disenfranchised.
J’s health problems in particular have no cure, they have little in the way of relief and they can massively impact our day-to-day living. Mine are present but lie subdued in a dark corner where they are chemically coshed every 24 hours. These problems have not gone away but right now the anger/frustration/sadness they generate is much lower than it has been. I have not the slightest doubt that both of these are sleeping leviathans who will return with a vengence.

Financially we were beholden to the Govt. We sat at the end of whatever political and financial processes were deemed to be good enough. It was not where we wanted to be but we were in no position to be able to change. Unless you have been there you have no idea how angry and humiliated the system can make you feel. You literally “get what you are given” and if the computer forgets to give? Tough. I’m not saying it should be easy – it should not – but as people with some pride the way we were made to feel was at times very ….. words fails me. Think humiliated / angry / sad rolled into a tight explosive package. The effects of that still linger and will do for a long time I’m sure. Things have changed though – the dependency is gone (almost) so while financially we are not much better off the direction of the cashflow is different and is more ‘normal’ which is a positive thing. That of course generates it’s own form of pressure – but one all working people have. So financially things have improved.

These two elements I think drove a lot of my anger – and they probably will do again at some point. But they subsided and with that the posts probably slipped away. What I was blogging about also poured some cool water onto the keyboard….

Back in April I blogged about “My first…” and in that entry I said this: I can’t remember the first time I got dumped. I wonder if D’s now ex-boyfriend will remember the event…. well….I thought at that point that D had finally got round to telling the then boy-f that he was no longer welcome. Thing is….. she hadn’t, he didn’t know how she felt and he was reading this blog. First I know is D flying downstairs saying “What have you written on your blog??” after chatting on msn. The boy-f should remember that though – he was dumped by the parent’s blog :) So that event (I didn’t get into too much trouble there) was a wake-up call of sorts. Couple of weeks agao I blogged the cheek piercings? That wasn’t exactly a ‘family harmony’ post either! So I know D is reading this thing. Her friends know of it. I don’t want to blog too much about her because her ex reads it and maybe others and I can’t intrude on her privacy. It would be unfair to blog about P too for similar reasons. There were probably other posts which generated comments here at home. I begin to censor myself.

The fact I work for Automattic has zero influence on my blogging – apart from the fact I devote a huge amount of time to Support. It’s like any job in all respects and if I want to blog stuff I will. It has been suggested that I can’t say what I think. I most certainly can. I just have little to say on that – it’s work and while you might think your boss and colleagues and customers may or may not know what blogging is … ;)
Then what has to be added in to this mix is that in now trying to work for myself I am very aware that this blog will be read by people I will actually meet and they will have the actual power to give me money. Or not. So while I don’t want to brown-nose anyone or anything I equally don’t want to offend unduly – after all, cash is cash.

A year ago I was disempowered. I was angry and saw little direction. That almost certainly was reflected here. Yet now I find myself in a position where I can influence things positively and the focus moves away from negativity. The bad things are always easier to cope with when there are some good things to see just ahead. I’m not uncomfortable with these changes – far far from it – but the depth that I see this has affected what I write has surprised me. I don’t know, maybe if you read this you have detected a difference, maybe not. Maybe you see different reasons from what I write – because I still don’t recall things I’ve blogged about (You know those people who have a “On this day 12 months ago I blogged…” thing? I tried that a couple of times and looked back a year because I do tend to post most days. And when I saw the entries on both occasions I wondered if it was really me that wrote it. I was angry and ranting in both.)

Strange thing is blogging..

I could write something long and sentimental that wound up slowly to the point but that would probably upset me so I’ll skip it.
We left the hotel on holiday, go into coach, go out of coach at the airport and 20 minutes later I realised my camera was still on the coach. The holiday company did a spectacular zero about it. It was entirely my fault for not remembering to get it but I expected a little bit of help trying to get their coach back. They have since told me that it was not on the coach. Yeah yeah – it means that someone found my camera, switched on my camera, saw all the pictures of my family – and decided to keep the camera as their own.
I hope that karma bites them and their family in the ass now and for a long time. I may have left it but they stole it.
We got a claim form through from the holiday company. They had already completed the value of the camera as £500. That’s very nice but it’s a lie and it’s fraud. They never asked me how much it was worth. Actually, when I rang them and said “It has therefore been stolen I want to report it to the Greek Police” the rep said they never report anything to the Police over there. She said they do things too differently and no-one ‘back home’ would use their forms and things so they didn’t do it. That’s nice too.
So.. yes, camera gone. But it was a camera with a 1gig card in it. That card had over 500 images on it. All gone. We don’t have single image. I was angry at them for not helping but I was incandescent at myself. It was all I could do to not cry about it. Spil milk and all that though …..

My laptop arrived back today with 4 working USB ports so that’s to be setup tomorrow with all the work information that I had erased before it went. And I got a new camera too – Fuji25600 It does more than I need and it looks like a camera too. So tomorrow I can – weather permitting – wander around the village taking a large number of shots.

I’m not reliving it now. I can remember debating swapping the memory cards and keeping the main card separate. I can remember looking down on the coach and seeing it. I’m randomly remembering pictures I took. And I’m randomly clicking around flickr in the vain hope….

I wish I’d picked it up..

So I ordered the new Swatch from http://www.bablas.co.uk on Sunday. Monday lunchtime I got an email saying Sorry, out of stock and offering a refund. I said Yes to the refund then they mailed me saying another model might be okay – it was close but it wasn’t what I asked. They refunded my Paypal account within the hour. Damn good people! Off to Switzerlandwatch.com where I found my watch. Paid for the watch Monday afternoon and it was fedexed to me this morning. Not bad either. Very positive experiences with both companies.
New watch – thinner than the previous. Less than 4mm and it’s okay .. different strap, different ‘feel’ – but it’s so light it’s cool.

I want to write about something I wrote a few posts down but seeing as this blog gets read in this house….. I don’t think I will. Currently though – because to leave it at that might prove odd for those of you who read it – there are no additional perforations.

And it looks – and I really really hope it’s not the case – that the MonSter has arrived back. All the effort J put in on holiday seems to start to be taking it’s toll. We are hoping – obviously! – that it’s not going to be so bad and it may well not be but the pattern seems right unfortunately. Unpredictable thing is ms. And P had a hospital appt this morning – the ultrasound was okay apparently though we see the consultant tomorrow (fortuitous appts rather than anything urgent). So that’s good.

I just changed a few. AIM / MSN and Yahoo are all ‘planetpodz’. Why change? Because I just got one wrong and it annoyed me :) GTalk remains the same as does ICQ.

My existing Swatch Skin has no problems both in working and appearance but it’s a slightly brushed metal face with metal hands – and that can prove difficult to see both in the day and at night. Annoying at times.

This Swatch Pure Black looks like it’ll do the job. Still thin and light but with less added squint from me. The material strap I may well not like – I hate straps that feel sticky like leather/plastic can – but that is easily sorted.

Swatch Skin – superb watches. None of the big clunky stuff with lots of buttons, dials, bezels and whatever else they can jam into that little space. It’s a watch, it tells the time and that’s all I want it to do.

Does a big watch indicate an inadequacy (real or imagined) elsewhere? Discuss :)

It’s 01:11 as I start this and yet again I find myself in the wrong timezone. Not that it matters hugely, but I;ll be tired Tuesday when I have to get up so early to leave for the plane. Did I say my trainers were x-rayed twice in when boarding the flight back to the UK? I didn’t bleep going through the detector but I knew that one of the guys had his eye on m. I heard the word ‘tattoos’ and was then asked to take off the trainers I have just put back on after they had been examined in the scanner. Not that anything came of it of course. “Tattoos” “Bad guy” – that obviously makes perfect sense. Silly me for thinking they were clueless idiots. Not as bad as the dicks in Immigration though. Now they were dicks. I thought their eyebrows would have jutted out further though…
And onto a plane we go Tuesday. Am I bothered? Why on earth should anyone on a plane not bound for the USA be bothered? If an American is not involved then GWB and his little coterie of hawks don’t give a damn. So no, I don’t care. And even if I did, even if there is someone plotting to down that plane what am I meant to do? Not go out? Whatever.

I’m more bothered about being away from a keyboard for 2 weeks :) I never trust computers abroad for anything more than IRC so there is no blogging, no email, no support – nothing. This is a holiday from all things kb. I wait to see if I get any reaction to wearing the Wordcamp t-shirt though. That would be neat.

I must remember to go a Google Earth map of all the places I went to in SF – from the Burmese arounnd the corner to Alcatraz. It’ll be interesting to do and to put with my photos.

Has the price of drinks gone up on planes? Or can’t they carry their own drinks? Do they frisk for Mentos?

I just noticed that comment#83 on the What makes you happy? post (top right) has the name Noel Edmunds in it. He’s an odd little man. Saw him once at some Mr Blobby thing we took D to when she was really small. His beard is too trim for me. I bet he spends hours grooming himself, aligning those little whiskers, tinting them carefully to match whatever vision he has of himself. Like I said, Odd. And those jumpers. And that tv show with the boxes? wtf is that all about then eh?

Bookmark this: http://www.asofterworld.com

An amazing suspension photograph (NSFW)

Play: Arrow Tag (did I blog this before?)

Bryan is asking for opinions on the Write screen which will be getting some attention. Given that unless you ask you’ll never get, go post. Be positive!

And autosave is now in WordPress core (svn core that is). The little letters just under this box tell me it’s been saved at 1:45:29 – I’m sure I said autosave was a bad thing when it was proposed ages ago on hackers and I have no idea why I said it. It’s unobtrusive though, it’ll no doubt save the odd post. And this sort of thing illustrates perfectly why someone like me should not do any sort of code stuff. Fickle. You want to know who should do code? Nerds :)

A couple of months ago I blogged that I had been successful in applying for a place on a teacher training course. I’ve been trying to get into teaching for a few years because it was something I really enjoyed as a nurse and in general. Because of when I took exams and when I did my nurse training convincing educational authorities to let me in without having to do additional pre-training was always fruitless. But things change, goalposts are moved and like I said, I was offered a place for a course starting next month. And then something else happened – I started work for Automattic.
So I was left in a position where I could almost choose:
- Teaching. Always wanted to do it. Decent salary from where I was looking from. I’d not actually done it though. I would not be in control. Long hours.
- Automattic. I keep doing what I enjoy doing. I control work conditions. Hours would still be long.
There are more factors but I think they are the main ones.
A lot of thinking has been done. It was resolved ages ago because it had to be, because I needed to know where to focus my energies and because sometimes only deciding something and deciding to live with that decision makes you face up to what is actually in that decision. Dithering around helps no-one. It’s no surprise probably that Automattic won.

1. I really do enjoy doing what I do. Sure I have some requests / feedback that make me wail – and that’s the case right now which is why I’m taking 5 to blog – but overall I love what I do. I know I’m good at it and that I’m delivering a good service.

2. Because I set my hours I have the flexibility I need when J has a relapse. No training or traditional employer would tolerate that need and I doubt I would if I were in their shoes.

3. Automattic and what I do is a known quantity. I know what I am doing, there are no surprises involved and that helps keep things on an even keel. Teaching = stress.

I could still do the training next year, or after that and I know at times I’ll wonder about what could have been because being a Teacher probably offers me more security in various ways, but then it isn’t doable just yet, it may never be doable and possibly I’m just a little tormented by the closeness of the dream I’ve had. Heh.. I just wrote I could do the training next year. That’s not going to happen is it? Hardly likely J will make a miraculous recovery. That sounds like it’s after sympathy – it’s not. It’s just a statement of fact. (Which sounds the same. Bah)

I’m not unhappy to have made the choice I did. In fact last week in San Franscisco just confirmed absolutely that my decision was the correct one and I am very happy with everything involved with what I do. It means that I can now focus not only on Automattic but also in expanding other online interests I have – nothing big, nothing that will ever make me pots of cash but it’ll buy the odd thing every once in a while (I’m hoping it’ll buy more of course!). So teaching will not be – their loss, wordpress.com’s gain :)

Check-in: 14:30
Flight: 16:30
Arrive: 10:30
Coach: 12:00
Leicester: 14:30
Home: 15:15

Wednesday – sleep and blog stuff.

They talked about some of the criminals, a lot of what happened, much history but they did not say just where Nicholas Cage stood in The Rock.

I’m not blogging much about what is going on here because it’s all work and doesn’t need to be blogged as such really. I just met Mark Jaquith !

And it’s 22:38 here on 3 August but at home it’s 4 August. D is 16 today. I really really wish I was there for her today.. I’ll try and ring later.

It’s tough :)