wallpaper

spent monday in a datancentre swapping various parts in servers. i was there for about 4 hours and spending all that time in a very dry and cold environment like that has given me a sore throat and blocked nose now. what a nice way to start the week.

its a small consollation that the weather has been very mild for the time of year. 18-19C which is very warm considering november starts at the end of this week.

am on lates this week so finish at 6pm which means i join the rush at oxford circus tube station on my way home. its absolutely insane how crowded it is every evening. an unpleasant journey but the consellation is that i only have half an hour of it.

nothing else to say. struggling to motivate myself at work but thats usual at this time of year. still not booked my exam. i will do so this week. actually, i will do it today. i have also been missing gym sessions and my revision for my exam has been sporadic as well. i just feel so lazy.

oh, one last thing. my boss just told me about a really funny incident just now. a few days ago the desktop background wallpaper on all the desktops was changed to a new design. anyways, one of the heads of the development teams downstairs spoke to my boss saying one of his developers was distraught because he had a picture of his family as his desktop wallpaper and now it was the new design and he didn't like it. my boss just thought, yeah whatever, but the guy told him that the developer was almost in tears and that now when he looks at his screen it just looks like he is staring into space. ha ha ha!!!. all this is true. he is asking for an exception to be made on his desktop so that he can put a pic of his family on there.

i don't know this guy but i can tell you that he is the laughing stock of all the admin and support teams right now. well done mate, you have made yourself look like a prick.

thank goodness its friday tomorrow.

first application

like a person training for a marathon and going on short jogs around the block, i have started preparing for my exam, which is good. will build momentum and look to peak in mid to late november when i take it, but at the moment its just the equivalent of light jogging.

saying that though, it is fucking depressing at this time of year and then to spend time studying as well just makes it worse. strangely enough i have tended to do most of my exams between march and september when the days are a bit longer and weather not as shitty, which is odd because you would think the last thing you would want to do is stay in and study. oh well.

was also thinking that i will have the hassle of having to get changed for interviews, if and when i get them. at my current job i wear jeans and trainers, but for interviews i will need to be suited up, and there is no way in hell i could come to work in a suit. it means lots of changing clothes. i might try and utilise my gym which is just down the road, as its better than going home after every interview. time is money baby and i don't want to start taking whole chunks of time off.

i applied for a job yesterday that i saw on a website. i know i said i didn't want to screw my current employers over, but it looked like a decent roll and it was paying quite a bit more than i currently get so it was worth going for. it is my first application but surely not the last. am sure there will be dozens of application sent off before anyone gets back to me, let alone offers to give me an interview.

today i have mostly been listening to nine inch nail and gary numan - cars, recorded live in london. i was there!!!.

take care my friend

its starting to get cold

a quiet weekend just gone for me. did nothing much apart from go to the gym and do my laundry and watch tv. i was supposed to be studying for my exam but i only managed about 20 minutes which was a pathetic effort.

it is the hardest thing to do though, starting to study for an exam. once you are in the flow and in the routine its fine, but just getting started is a bit of a shock to the system. in that way its quite similar to training in the gym when its really difficult to start with after a break.

anyways, starting from today i will force myself to study. i have a time limit of the end of the year and i need to get it done. i will make the booking for my exam tomorrow and i think i will try and aim for november 20th as a target.

the weekend was cold. i have had to wear my fleece when i have been cycling the last 3 weeks but last weekend was the first time i had to wear a woolly hat. the cold is coming.

am on earlies this week. i really don't like it but at least i get to leave the office at 4.30 which is good.

today i have mostly been to angels and airwaves - the adventure. the album that this song comes from is just epic.

juneau

fridays are a beautiful thing. the end of the week and 2 days of rest ahead over the weekend, though its only one day for me as i am working tomorrow. even so, its not a proper work day tomorrow and i will hopefully only be in for a few hours to do what i have to get done.

my book arrived that i am going to use to study for my exam and its a bit bigger than i thought it would be. i should know a lot of what is in it but its still a lot of material to get through. i think end of november or beginning of december is a more realistic time to take my exam. i shall get the booking for it done next week because as we all know, until you get it booked you won't actually do any study.

i had football last night. a few of the guys along with me were planning on going to liverpool for a weekend at the beginning of september. guess what?. its all fallen through and been cancelled. ha!, useless. they can't even organise a trip to liverpool so god knows why i ask them to go to los angeles.

thats it really. am in 2 minds about actually applying for jobs before christmas or if i should wait for january. will keep an eye out and if anything good comes up i will go for it but i think i will wait for the new year to really get my cv out there.

also if i get something in january it means i can leave at the end of my contract. if i were to land something before then i would have to hand in my notice and then they would be a bit screwed trying to find a replacement for me over christmas and new year. its not my intention to screw this place over and i am not completely with out heart. one doesn't want to antagonise or make enemies or be unproffessional. they have been good to me and you never know when you might work these people again.

today i have mostly been listening to funeral for a friend - juneau.

dominos

i signed my new contract and sent it back and it is all done and dusted now. there is a chance that this will be my final 3 months here. new year is a good time to start a new adventure.

i also ordered a book and will schedule an exam that i want to take. i need the book to get delivered from amazon and depending on how fat it is, it will determine the exact day of when i will book the exam for. i have to do it before the end of the year, so am most probably looking at the first half of november. that gives me enough time to do a re-sit in case i crash and burn on my first attempt. if i do pass that is definitely me done with exams for the near future.

aside from that life is mundane. i have football on thursday night which is the highlight of my week. the rest of the time i will be just studying, but its got to be done. i have also been casting an eye over some job sites recently just seeing if there is something that just jumps out for me. times are getting slightly better it would appear.

heard from some friends that they were organising a trip to liverpool at the beginning of december just for the weekend. that was a couple of weeks ago. have not heard anything since. i will wait till i hear back from them that they are all booked and ready to go, before i book my ticket and hotel. not wanting to sound like a snob, but i suspect if they do go they will book the cheapest shittiest hotel they can find. i don't roll like that, and will arrange my own hotel somewhere a bit nicer. i think there is a nice place down by the docks. its a few quid more, but i don't slum it these days.

thats all folks. today i have mostly been listening to, the big pink - dominos.

maybe my last contract extension

my contract got renewed for another 3 months which will take me upto the end of january. i still had a few more weeks left before it was due to run out, but it looks like they wanted to get things done early.

i had also asked my agent about an increase in my pay. he said it wouldn't happen on this extension but that he would try again next time its up for renewal. he was bullshitting and i am a cash cow for them and i think they are taking me for granted. they clearly don't know me very well because they should be worried that their easy money will walk away, because i will. i am not like a lot of contractors that just want to find somewhere comfortable.

anyways, regardless of what their response was to be, it doesn't change my plan. i am going to test the waters and see what the market is like out there. have seen a few interesting things out there already and will go for some of them. also it works out well bacause at the end of january i will have done a full year at my current place.

thats it for this week. have been doing that thing where i have been saying to myself 'friday 3 weeks ago i was having lunch on melrose in the sunshine instead of at my desk at work'. it would be depressing but it actually makes me feel better.

i saw one of my friends that i asked to go to cali, and who turned it down (for the 2nd year in a row). he asked me how it was. i told him it was lame. all there was out there was sunshine and beaches, nice girls at beaches, lunches in hollywood, nights out at the music box, la galaxy, san francisco, san diego, driving along the pacific coast highway..... it was all pretty lame really. he then asked me if i might be going next year. yes, i think i very well might go next year, i replied. right then, i am going to try and make it on that trip, he said. in the meantime he also tried to convince one of our other friends to make plans for it next year, but he has already turned it down and listed off a ton of excuses all of which are very lame.

he started bitching to me about this other guy making excuses, and i told him to just let it go. he is a fine one to talk, after blowing it out 2 years in a row himself. i told him i was not bothered, and if i have to go solo i will do so again. i am not relying on anyone or anything. i find in cases like this its best not to pitch your destiny in with a bunch of people that couldn't organise a bum rape in a barracks.

anyways, today i have mostly been listening to perry farrell - song yet to be sung.

have a lovely weekend.

little lion man

rain, drizzle, dampness in london town. here comes the shit weather and there is months of it to come. god help me get through it.

also had to pay out lots of money to the tax man today. :-( what a lovely day.

anyways, some wicked new music to help me get through the oncoming winter.

today i have mostly been listening to mumford and sons - little lion man. it kind of reminds me of early kings of leon before they got their big stadium anthems.

i have also been listening to some other stuff on spotify. its not launched in the US and is a european service at the moment. it is wicked.

Heart of Gold

despite it being a monday, i feel much better than i did last week. i got my sleep back into a routine over the weekend, and i also went training and out for a bike ride on sunday. i have lost quite a bit physically but i think i can get back to where i was in about 3 or 4 weeks, but its definitely a strange feeling when you can't do stuff you could do just 3 or 4 weeks ago. i used to be able to lift this and now i can't????.

i also have to do all my accounts because it was the end of the quarter and i need to get all my stuff sent to my accountants so that they can go over it and then tell me how much i have to give to this government, who i didn't vote for and who will probably spend the money i give them on bombs to kill poor people, or spend it on trident nuclear submarines, or aircraft carriers or fighter planes. basically lots of shit i don't want my money spent on.

actually the good thing about contracting is that i pay quite a bit less tax than i used to, so the government will hopefully not be able to afford to buy weapons and thats a good thing. me being tax efficient is saving lives.

weather is drizzly and grey in london. i miss LA.

today i have mostly been listening to Neil Young - Heart of Gold. this is from before i was born, but i saw it on a music documentary a while back and its just a great great song and it also has a west coast feel to it as well (even though he is canadian), which is also why i am listening to it today.

don't you just sometimes wish you could go back in time to see some shows. neil young in 1971, led zepplin in the late 70s, prince playing at first avenue in minneapolis in 1981, springsteen playing in asbury park in the mid to late 70s, janes addiction playing in LA in the late 80s. if the government was spending my taxes on developing a time travelling delorean, i would be more than happy to contribute.

stellify

its always a tough week back when you return from holiday and this has been as expected. even when my plane landed last sunday afternoon and i switched it on, i got a text from my boss telling me i was on the early shift this week. i always feel tired when i am on earlies but when you have missed a whole nights sleep at the beginning of the week, i just knew that this week would be tough. it also meant i didn't get the chance to get over my jet lag by having 1 night of sleep where you can just reset everything and wake up naturally as opposed to by an alarm and some un-godly hour.

anyways the next day i had to be up at 6.30am and have been struggling ever since. i will be fine tonight as it is a saturday tomorrow and i can lie in and recover. i also have got a chesty cough and a sore throat. i think my body got used to the warm southern californian climate and although it hasn't been particularly cold, it is cold compared to LA.

i went to the gym on wednesday evening for the first time in almost 3 weeks. i have completely lost any conditioning, so i was careful not to go too hard and injure myself. if you pull a muscle that could mean weeks of no training. anyways, i took it easy and although i felt weak and tired i got through the session unscathed, but then last night i went to football and i fell over and landed and on my shoulder and have injured it and it absolutely kills. so much for me being worried about hurting myself at the gym. anyways i doubt i will be able to train hard for at least a week...i hope. actually with this cold i have picked up i wouldn't have been able to give it 100% anyways.

to top it all off, i got caught it in traffic after football at 11pm last night and got home just before midnight. by the time i had gotten showered and into bed it was 12.30am. imagine my joy when when my alarm went off 6 hours later.

and thats it so far. have dreamt about california the last 3 nights in a row. london looks even more greyer and dirty and crowded than it usually does.

today i have mostly been listening to ian brown - stellify. he was the lead singer of seminal manchester band the stone roses. if you don't who they are, all i can say is that in england, and in terms of influence they were like niravana ..... multiplied by 100 in terms of how inflential they were. anyways, carrying on with the nirvana comparison, the band split up and whilst you wonder what the quality of the material will be from members of the band when they go solo or form other bands, ian browns solo stuff is really very good. i thought it was a bit hit and miss earlier on but he just seems to be getting better and better with each release and is adding to his legacy and reputation...........which unfortunately can not be said for dave grohl. he seems like a really nice guy but my god!, some of the foo fighters stuff is just so boring and dull. i heard his new single on the radio yesterday and it was more generic radio rock. come on dave, is this the best you can do?.

anyways this is how its done. enjoy.