My dad

The person who I thought was the greatest man in the world passed away in the early hours of this morning. He made me push myself by the example he set in deeds he did and by what he accomplished.

We disagreed often and we had different personalities, but even when I thought he was wrong I never questioned the sincerity and integrity of his opinions or actions.

He was the best footballer in the world when he kicked a football in the park with me when I was 7. He was the strongest man in the world when he would swing me round in the garden. The best engineer when he fixed my bike, the most skilled carpenter when he put up shelves in my room. The cleverest man when he would check my honework and the most strategic brain when he would thrash me at chess.

He always wanted the best for me and all of us and he took care of his whole family. He left us no debt or mortgage but the goodwill of dozens of people who were fortunate enough to know him and us. I had and have enormous respect for him.

He was my dad and he has passed but he will be with me forever.

orange crush

i have 2 more weeks till i leave which is fine by me. my manager agreed to let me go early as officially i was contractually obliged to give 4 weeks notice but there is never any point in keeping someone around if they dont want to be there, and they were good enough to let me go. 
it will be nice to have a relaxing 2 weeks before i start the new job. i wont be starting any big new pieces of work and i have just finished a project at work so it should be a quiet 2 weeks. 


the other guy that has been working from home might be a bit screwed. he will need to be in the office when i go away as i have been the only presence there and i am who people tend to come to when they have a problem. that guy needs to buck up his ideas a bit and behave a little more proffessionally. what with the team having a new manager i can foresee problems for him if he doesnt change his ways. still, its not my problem. 


weather is still shit in london. its not been as wet and rainy recently, but its still dark and cloudy all the time. its soooo depressing. forecast is for the first week of nice summer weather this coming week. 


today i have mostly been listening to Editors - Orange Crush

maximo

it all happened rather quickly over the last day but i had an interview this morning at an investment bank and this afternoon they made me an offer and so i spoke to my manager at my current job and told him i was going to resign. 


the new job will be more difficult and there are some early 7am starts and there will be on-call. its going to be difficult, but it also looks like i will learn some interesting things and i know i would not have, had a stayed where i was. i would have just been picking up the money, but i would have been wasting my time professionally and i dont want to waste time. if you spend a year or 6 months at a place you want to have gotten some good experience and skills out of it and i wouldnt have in this case. time to go while i still know how to do some things and before i get used to the easy money. the new place will be hard but so be it. 


i hate moving jobs and i hate having to learn the systems of places when you start new, but i also hate the idea of just rotting away somewhere and just picking up pay cheques for work i dont really deem important or of any value professionally. i dont want to be the smartest person in the room because i am not very smart and i want to learn from people more talented than me. maybe i am supposed to be just motivated in trying to find a well paying easy job, which i have now, but i am not and i cant force myself to be. 


today i have mostly been listening to maximo park - hips and lips. great new song. 

45

the reason the sky is blue is because of a gas called ozone in the upper parts of the atmosphere. its is a bluish coloured gas and from underneath (on earth) you are looking up through it and see its blueness. once you go beyond it (approx 60 miles) into space you reach the blackness of nothing. i mention this because the last 6 months in london you would have thought the sky was a grey/white and you may have thought ozone was a grey/white thick gas settled at about a mile up. it isn't. 


today i got to see ozone. it is a most beautiful gaseous compund of 3 oxygen atoms fused together and for what seems like an eternity i also basked in the light produced by the star around which this lump of rock that we live on, orbits. the forecast for tomorrow is that ozone shall be observable from ground level again and electromagnetic radiation produced by the star we orbit will also be directed at our planet, and in levels that could be dangerous were it not for the ozone layer and the magenetosphere protecting us. 


i cycled to the gym today and will do so again tomorrow. will hit it hard tomorrow. 


work was ok this week. tolerable, and we cant really ask for more than that. i have an interview on monday mid morning so will have to make an excuse to go missing for a couple of hours. it sounds like it might be a good job and its a good firm (an investment bank) so will see how it goes. 


in a strange coincidence, the bank that i had a telephone interview with but didnt call me in, because i was unenthusiastic about the work they wanted me to do, is the same bank that announced it lost $2bn last thursday on some bad trades. they probably sensed it that i like to use my brain. according to their chief executives comments on thursday, it seems like there maybe some people at the bank that really could do with using theirs as well.


today i have mostly been listening to the gaslight anthem - 45. these fellas are turning into one of my most favourite bands. this is a new song from their new album thats due to come out soon.  

fear

had a telephone interview a couple of days ago at a very prestigous american investment bank but the job sounded painfully dull (for less money). it was to work on a DNS project and raise change requests to update the DNS settings on what might have been thousands of servers. no VMware, no AD, no networking, no messaging, no Storage, just DNS. i think the fact that i talked enthusiastically about the others and only gave passing mention of DNS must have given them the idea that i might not be ideal for it. i heard back that they would not be calling me in for a second interview. thank god. i know i would have got bored in a week. i would love to work for them, but to do something worthwhile and interesting. not changing DNS settings for 6 months. 


am still up for a couple of jobs at a couple of other big banks. will see how they go. if they come through great and if not, thats fine too. california in september is calling me ever louder and especially since we had the wettest april in a century in london. May has started much in the same way. it was actually cold outside today as it has been for the last month or so. i am still wearing my winter coat and boots. its shit. 


bought another book yesterday. one day in my life. i have read about the hunger strikes before but this is a book by bobby sands detailing a day of life in prison. as the republican prisoners were protesting for politcal status and not co-operating with the prison authorities, this book was written on toilet paper with a biro refill and hidden inside his body. it was clearly very important to him, and i am curious to read a book that was written so tortuously. 


anyways, onto lighter things. today i have mostly been listening to ben howard - fear. enjoy. 

productive

work is busy as it has been since i started there, but the only difference now is that i am productive and so its not as frustrating. i didnt like it before when i wasnt achieving anything but its a bit better now. i still would rather have a more interesting job where i could learn something but this is fine for the meantime. they treat me well and they pay well. i really dont have it bad at the moment and we have gotten through those painful first few weeks. 


saying that i had a couple of calls about some jobs that might be going at other places. will see how they go. a couple of them sound really good but i dont have the pressure of not being in work and feeling like i have to land one of them. 


the other guy is still working from home. it means as i am the only face in the office, everyone comes to me when they have a problem. i really have no idea what he is doing at home but thats up to him i guess. personally i think it doesnt give a good impression when you are negotiating and trying to justify a higher rate but hey, thats just me and what the fuck do i know. 


have told the guys i wont be playing football this week. weather is supposed to be lame like its been for the last couple of weeks and i dont like playing in the cold and rain and i havent been enjoying it recently so i think i will go to the gym instead. i can get a good work out and get home early for once on a thursday and can be fresh on friday morning. 


bought a new book about cambodia and pol pot. have almost finished reading my book about the FARC, and this will be next. 


read on a forum that hertz will be getting silver mustangs with black racing stripes on them this summer. i had a blue one with a white stripe when i went cali in january. am definitely going to get the silver and black one when i go in september. 


today i have mostly been listening to paul thomas saunders - a lunar veterans guide to re-entry. good tune. enjoy.