25 August 2005

Out with the old, in with the new.  The old job ended - it got outsourced to St.Petersburg!  But all good things pass. And now I've got a new position that sounds ideal for me.  C# ASP.Net developer with special attention on the web GUI for a world class consultancy company.  I may even be able to walk to work, as it's very close to Tower bridge and the new headquarters of the London Mayor on the banks of the Thames.

23 August 2005

After many false starts it looks like work on my flat is nearly complete; or at least the first part. The Kitchen is nearly done, and the bathroom is all but finished. But, by the gods, this has been the most stressful period in my life. The companies supplying the applicances are stonewalling. The goods have been paid but can you get them delivered! I tell you this, it may be more expensive to buy from a high stret shop than off the internet, but at least you can walk back in the door and shout at someone until something gets done. And don't even get me started on the kitchen company. They didn't deliver two of the doors and won't send out replacements because I didn't let them know straight away. And the free door replacement insurance (which cost over two hundred pounds) doesn't kick in for another twelve months.

19 August 2005

The damn architect I was using to help design the refurbisments on my flat is now demanding payment on work that was never delivered to me. The bitch has absolutely no morals. First she promises to do work that doesn't get done. Then takes the hump when I complain. Doesn't respond to my emails, and just blanks me. Now she has the nerve to set the debt collectors on me when I don't pay for work I've never received. Unbelievable! The woman has balls. She reminds me of the worst of designers in my industry - people who want to get others to pay for them to design what they feel like. Guess I'll see her in court.

12 August 2005

I'm trying to book flights for a holiday back to see my family in New Zealand at Xmas. The cost is astronomical! I know fuel costs are high, but this is taking the piss. It's nearly twice the cost of a flight in Winter. Not only that, but the cost of a return flight for my nephew from Auckland to Los Angeles is nearly as much as my London - Auckland flight, and it's half the distance. We are getting screwed by the Airlines.

12 July 2005

I've had virtually no holiday this year (and a few days off sick doesn't count). So I had a long weekend away with some mates in Budapest, which was an enlightening experience. What a city. So much history, and so much of it is literally rotting before your eyes. The buildings need lots of restoration and its a real tragedy as there are streets that match Paris for grandure. Hopefully membership of the EU will enable the Hungarians to invest enough in the city to save some of these buildings before it's too late. But it's not all bad news. The history and culture is amazing, and the Danube makes a wonderful way to see the city. Particularly the Parliment buildings which share a similar gothic style as the Palace of Westminster in London.

1 January 2005

Another year over (boy was was that ever quick) and what a year. I bought a new house in St.Albans, a new flat in London (look left), and I'm still trying to sell the old house in St.Albans to fund all this. Not easy in a house market in which the prices have stalled. Fortunately the tenant who is renting the old house is happy to buy (after driving a hard bargin) so maybe I can start to do the renovation work I want to my new flat. I am so looking forward to being in London. The flat is Coptic St, not far from one of favourite parts of London - the British Museum, of which there are many pictures on this site.

30 October 2004

Just got back from a week spent in Croatia helping a friend to look for a holiday home. Glorious sunshine, temperate, stunning scenery, and cheap beer. A fascinating place; a mixture of post-soviet concrete blocks and magnificent walled Roman and Medieval towns. But the greatest pleasure was the time spent in the Adriatic island of Brac. Here the clocks seemed to have stopped in Medieval times, skipped the Communist era, and rapidly entered the twenty first century. Water so crystal clear you could cut yourself with it.

5 October 2004
On the move. Bought a new house and moved. Also in the process of buying another flat in central London and hopefully moving in soon. In the heart of the West End, so I'm not far from the theaters, cinemas, resturants and bars.

You've got to make the most of life while you can.

29 December 2003

Well, you wait a month and three jobs come together in a row. Now working in Watford which has the distinction of worse traffic than the M25. At least the work is interesting and above all, pays! Had a brief holiday in Florida spending quality time with the mouse. A few holiday snaps taken in the Disney and Universal parks can be found in the usual place. I also added a new page showing what I'm currently listening to.

23 September 2003
Just marking time. Its a little depressing looking at just how many months can pass without anything significant happening.  Six months of working in Slough and now looking for another contract. Boy, is the job market down. I haven't seen it this bad since I was looking for work during the recession in 1994.

I've finally been able to get the comments section working. Due to the wrong software installed on the server by my ISP I had to resort to DAO to update the database. But it works. Leave me a comment!

10 January 2003
Three months after the web site was converted I finally managed to get it working on my ISPs server.  I've also added a page which shows the internal workings of the site and the C# & aspx source code. There are also new pictures of Invercargill, a small city in New Zealand where I grew up.

1 October 2002
Complete rewrite of site. Moved from UNIX to Windows 2000 and converted from PHP4 to ASP.NET and C#. This has been a fascinating project and highlighted the power and beauty of the new Microsoft ".net" technologies.

3 September 2002

The problems of developing the site on a windows platform but hosting on a UNIX box are becoming tedious.  After yet another problem caused by a difference between platforms I'm beginning to consider abandoning UNIX for Windows 2000. That, or a rewrite to ASP.NET... To the Paintings section I have now added all the works done in the last six months.  Not as much as I would have liked, but the need to redecorate and refurnish my apartment because my last tenant trashed it has eaten considerably into my free time.

19 June 2002

Once again, much time has passed since the last update.  I'm spending six months in New Zealand indulging my creative urges, which means some painting, working on a .NET technology based project and the odd update to the site. To the photographs section I have added a few shots taken in New York (post 9/11), Disneyland, and at various historic sites in Britain (Silbury, Avebury, Tintagel, Glastonbury).

I also (finally) got round to making the site compliant with XHTML and CSS (which, for practical reasons, meant abandoning support for older browsers) as well as multiple architectural improvements. And all the photos (and thumbnails) are now considerably smaller which means they will download faster.

10 November 2001

I just returned from a two week trip to Egypt - cruising down the Nile from Luxor to Aswan and back, and a few days spent in Cairo. Words fail me. It was without doubt the most incredible journey that I've ever had. No, so much more than a journey; it was a life experience...

8 October 2001

Tempus Fugit! Nearly a year on from my last update I've been forced to rewrite several pages in order to make use of PHP4. I also used the time to add several necessary features that I originally put off. Also I've added pictures from my visits to Berlin, Prague, Oxford, Bath, and New Zealand.

26 November 2000
The release of Netscape 6 has required the redesign of many pages. The lack of backwards compatibility with earlier versions of Netscape has proved to be extremely annoying. I just hope that this heralds the beginning of a single standard that all browsers can conform to...

29 October 2000

It's been a busy few months since I last updated the site. I've moved to New Zealand for six months, bought an apartment in the heart of Auckland, and continued working for my London client - albeit, telecommuting from halfway round the world. There are pictures of the London Eye taken before I left London.

27 August 2000

It's been some months since I had a spare moment to update the site. I recently spent two long weekends away - one in Brussels, and one in Bath. Both very different cities, and both immensely enjoyable. Pictures and a brief commentary are in the photographs section.

28 May 2000

I recently returned from a holiday in Rome. It's an amazing city, with so much history that has directly affected the rest of Europe from the days of Empire to the Church. The Forum was the most enjoyable part of the city for me, with direct evidence of the empire from the Colleseum to the Senate house and various temples. The photographs section has a new set of snaps taken while I was there...

10 May 2000
For most professionals, the last thing you want to do when you get home is do what you do at work.  Plumbers hate plumbing their own house; mechanics hate fixing their own car. I build web sites, and I'd long put off building a site for myself.   Well, it's now finished - in as much as any web site is can no longer be considered "under construction".

By clicking on the items listed down the left hand side you can have a look at some of the things that define my life, from work and play. The photography section has shots taken from various holidays I've had, while the poetry section features a number of poems that mean something to me.