Reign of evil

  Finished upgrading the code analysis thing at work and now my reign of evil over the other developers can begin. I can make their code look as bad as I want to with ease. Considering the quality of some of the code it is not hard to do so.

  Hey, here is a question. Say you have done something for 3 years, would you try to tell someone who has successfully done it for 20 years how to do it? Didn't think so. Just wanted to put that down so that people think next time they try to advise someone on how to do something (my wife knows what I'm talking about here).

  Enjoying this working at home stuff. I've been as productive as I am at work but don't get bothered by other people quite so much. A little cramped on my laptop screen and keyboard compared to my big monitors at work but I can live with that. Just need to get work used to me doing this more and more and then the switch to being at home all the time will be easy when we move.

  Just a little bit more time left to work today and then I can relax with my wife again. No commute, no hassle, just get up and leave the room with her so we can do anything we want. It is a nice feeling.

Feel better

  At home today and I feel so much less stressed. Strange how easy it is to do things here rather than sitting at work.  Already got quite a few things done today and I'm not worrying about them like I normally do. Luckily nothing particularly brain taxing today so I can keep it light and easy.

  In other news I finally got the car in for a service a the place we bought it and used to service it at before it shut down. It opened up recently and after dropping the car off and getting a lift back they still recognised me, well at least the shuttle driver did. Clearly an Englishman who drives a high mileage car that came in every other month left an impression. At just about 275000 miles now I'm happy with how long this car has lasted and intend to make it go even further assuming the slight vibration it currently has isn't a serious problem. Even if it is I'll get it fixed as long as it isn't hugely expensive since I suspect we'll get double the mileage we are currently at the way this car is going.

  Finally today good luck to my wife. She has just started some dangerous antibiotics that have all sorts of possible bad side effects but need to be really strong to get rid of some persistent thing she has blocking up her sinuses and throat. If it gets her past this thing that keep hanging on though it will be worth it in the end.

Am I losing it?

  So much stuff to do at the moment that I think my brain can't deal with it. Moving stuff, work stuff, not wanting to do work stuff, daydreaming about my wife. You get the idea. Some of these things are much more enjoyable than the others but just trying to keep it all straight and on track is taxing my worn out old mind. I really don't feel as mentally agile as I once was, I still do lots of things to keep my mind busy but I can feel it and that is a little scary. I'm maybe half way through my life and don't want to turn in to an idiot. Is mental exhaustion a thing that you can get better from?

  Trying to see how much work are willing to pay to assist with the move at the moment. Annoying considering they have basically said they have no problem with me living where we want to, it is just down to the money side of it now really. Working out if it is worth selling our current house, what we need for a deposit on a new house, arranging flights and trips to look at new houses, so many numbers going around in my head.

  Time for more meetings now so that more work can get shuffled around and reassigned. Then once that is over lunch, another meeting and get home in time to take my wife to the doctors to sort out her stuffed sinus headache problem again. Hopefully this time the doctor goes whole hog on it and stop the pain and misery it has been causing my wife.

The last one?

  Heard from my parents that my last great aunt is on the way out. She was the youngest sister of my paternal grandfather who died over 20 years ago (in fact a week before I first met my wife). As far as I know there are no more relatives on either side of my family in the "great" range that are still alive. All my aunts and uncles are still around although some of them are now over 70 but it is weird to think that she is the last of a whole generation of my family. There might be one great aunt on my maternal grandmothers side still alive but I don't think so, you lose track of them all especially when you consider one grandmother of mine was one of something like 13 children.

  Another day of server upgrading today, lots of boring fiddling around for hours and making sure it doesn't fail badly like it did last time. Quite a few things to organise as well, car servicing, doctor visits and the big one of moving. Busy busy busy.

Save me

  Had a strange dream last night. It involved driving around some place that I have no idea where it was. As I was doing so huge lava flows suddenly came down the road so I had to abandon the car, dash in to a nearby building and start going upstairs to escape the incoming lava. It was a weird building that had a thin spiral staircase around the outside and a small hole going from one floor to another that I had to struggle through. As I went up each floor the lava kept coming and I could even see it through the window outside as it rose up (although how it didn't burn through the window I don't know). Then just as I thought I would get trapped my wife came back to bed after being up from having a bad headache and woke me up. Phew, I was saved by my wife again.

  Weird how those things work out. The one person who I want to be in my life is the one person who rescued me from my scary strange dream. Shame that she was feeling terrible and couldn't sleep to do it but its the thought that counts right? Or something like that. I know I had another weird dream last night as well but have no idea what it was. Even the slightest detail escapes me but I know it happened. Can't have been important then.

I was right

  It seems my good feeling was right yesterday. I've been told I could if I wanted work from home from almost anywhere work are so sure they want to keep me. As long as it is capable of me to go visit a work office every so often they have no problems. All (hah) that needs to be worked out is where we want to go and sorting out the money and stuff to make it happen.

  On a totally different note I finished Assassins Creed 3 last night and poor old Desmond really had a naff ending to his story. It is obvious that the main designer for that series left after the first few games and the team left behind didn't have the right direction to pull off the story they were trying to tell. Still a decent game though. Just a shame Connor wasn't as nice as Ezio.

  Now I need to get back to my server stuff, been upgrading and fiddling with it all morning and I'm almost there. I'm glad these things only come along once or twice a year they involve a lot of work.

Not much today

  Strange day today. It actually was a productive day at work. Great night with my wife last night. Yummy lunch. No idiots bothering me at work. Looks like a bonus will be coming at the end of March. Basically nothing naff happening. Now looking at the clock there is less than an hour until I get to go home, even better.

  Dunno, just feel like things will get better from today onwards. Just a feeling I have that I've had before other good things have happened. Totally against my logical way of looking at things but whatever.

Persistent bugger

  Realised something today, I don't give up very often. True I won't even try something a lot of times but when I do try something I'll keep at it until I succeed or something happens that ends up in a result. Not everything I keep at results in anything real, just look at the amount of game playing I do to realise that, but if I can keep at something enough I usually get what I want. Admittedly it is not always speedy but I do get there in the end.

  I suppose that is how I get things done really, just keep at them. Sure things I'm good at or have done lots of times I can get done quickly but I can't think of much in my life I've given up at. Other than bothering with idiots I suppose, dealing with them is just not something I can be arsed to do. Heck even with work I've managed to make things work that people said couldn't be done just because I stuck at it and proved them wrong.

  Now to keep going at getting my wife and I moved while I watch a progress bar that is performing a database schema upgrade on the system I'm upgrading.

Still not stopping

  Not really getting much of a break here at work. Stuff is coming in thick and fast and I'm just really treading water trying to keep up with the work to do. I can farm out some of it but I have my list of things I need to do that seems to get bigger and bigger. After this merger it seems a lot of the old bureaucracy that we had removed is getting in the way with the interactions with other parts of the company. Stupid stuff like changing my password, you can only do it at a website, that requires password access, that can't be accessed with an expired password which happened over the weekend... Yeah, really clever guys.

  Add on to that the fact that I really want to get my wife and I out of where we are to somewhere quieter that we can be happy in and want to be able to support us properly while doing it and I'm a little stressed at the moment I suppose. I'm trying my best to make things happen but any progress is slow. I know what I want and that I'm capable of it, it just seems that other people really don't want to help it happen or can't help and without some help it is going to be much slower than it should be. I have a vision of what our life should be and how to get there but making it happen is so frustrating.

  Time for me to go beat up a server that we need to upgrade so we can update our code analysis tools so I can point out more flaws in other people's code I think. Then a quick lunch, a little bit more work, drive home for dinner with my wife and then out for a hair cut later.

Buns and their contents

  Just got some buns so we can have yummy hot dogs later today. The vast majority of sausages and hot dog type things over here really have no taste and/or texture but we finally found a hot dog that is half decent. As a result we have gotten that particular brand and type over and over. Growing up we both loved sausages and living together when we were first married and poor a lot of dinners were made from cheap sausages.

  Mind you thinking of this I realise I like those german brand sausages you get in jars as well but my wife really doesn't like them. Something about that long piece of flavoured meat is really tasty to me. A good bit of mustard on top, maybe some grilled onions. Nom nom nom nom. My mouth is seriously watering right now. Not long until lunch.

As if by magic

  Here come words. No idea what they are going to be other than these ones but words are arriving. Another of those weird holiday days today, presidents day just seems strange. Take a day off to celebrate the person in charge of the country, kind of silly don't you think. Why not have a day off just because you want time off work not to celebrate anything in particular?

  Going to be busy at work again soon especially with the guy who is leaving. Losing someone that is actually very capable leaves so much not getting done and it will fall to those who are capable of picking up the slack until a replacement is found. This is either an opportunity for me to force getting what I want or impetus to get out of there finally. I'll try both methods but still a lot of work and hassle coming up in my future. I much prefer the easier life here at home with my wife.

  Wouldn't things be even easier though if we were all Bod? Just tootle along and turn up when you need to, get stuff done by magic and then be on your way. Doot de doot.

Words and stuff

alkdjfhaslkdhf asdlkfasdlifhavzxc;lvjozrif lfe  There we go, that is how words are typed out according to the mimicking from my wife. We just had our eye tests and nothing really that different. A slight change in prescription for both of us which means new glasses and sunglasses for my wife and new sunglasses for me. Even with insurance it came out to a lot but we have the money for all that.

  As usual my wife managed to find the perfect frames for me right off. They are similar to what I have now and look good on me :) . Also nice to find out we both have no other problems with our eyes going on beyond what we already know about. Even the doctor was less of a garlic smelling lounge lizard today. Relatively painless all told.

  More change at work it seems, the other senior guy I work with is leaving. One less person who actually knows what he is doing it seems. Time for me to really push my advantage. I'm going to have a long chat with him next week about it and see what I can get out of this opportunity.

  Enough for now, I've done enough work type stuff today and still feel a bit naff so I think just a bit of time online sitting with my wife and then a weekend for us to recover from being ill is all that I can manage right now.

Name sake

  Living up to my name yesterday and today and probably for a few more days. Got a cold that made for me being coughy and sniffly. Even better I did actually manage to give it to my wife even though the last couple of colds she has had I avoided getting. It is getting harder to do stuff though I did successfully make dinner last night which was good. By the end of the evening though I was worn out and when we went to bed I was asleep almost immediately. Clearly my body is using lots of energy to fight this off.

  Another day at home today then although with a bit of work thrown in and a trip to get an eye test. After that I'm not sure I'll manage much else, we have enough easy food so we can feed ourselves and other than that I think we will be snuggling up together recovering from this. Blergh. Why do other people have to spread their sickness to us, it makes for a crappy time.

So far so good

  Despite getting a cold and suffering from it today I've managed to make valentines day what it should be for my wife. A nice croissant breakfast, a trip out together during the day with presents and a good time together. Later I'll be making dinner for us, something nice and not too complicated that I can successfully make. I'm surprised that it has all gone well so far, I usually mess something up so it is nice that it is working out.

  As for me I'm currently wearing a humerus tshirt that I find to be humourous obviously. One of the several cool tshirts my wife got me along with a nice new bracelet since my old one kept falling off due to the clasp not staying put.

  I just wished I felt better today, still feel stuffy if not with a runny nose. I've also managed to spread the germs to my wife as well unfortunately. Looks like a sick long weekend for us.

  Still a day with the woman I love and married all those years ago is a treat when you are ill. I love my wife.

Too much shit

  Far too much work type stuff going on today. Especially annoying since I want to be home with my wife right now. At least I'll be with her tomorrow and Friday. Just freaking annoying that lots of work is going on right now when I really don't feel like doing much.

How the hell?

  A strange thing happened to me yesterday. An update for a game I play on my phone came out so I played the extra levels. Checking the game in game center then showed me something weird. Somehow I was number 1 on the leaderboard for that set of levels. Out of over 165000 people. WTF. It was a bit of a shock to say the least. Sure I'm fairly good at games but I've never pretended like I'm the best. To me though to suddenly be at the top was a strange feeling. For proof here is the picture of the leaderboard

  I've grown accustomed to being good at things I like. Never the best (although sometimes in the limited world that is school I was academically) but pretty good. When these things come along where I suddenly find myself at the top of the pile it seems alien to me. What did I do to get there when I wasn't even trying? How can I make this kind of thing happen in other parts of my life that will have a material impact on it? Am I really worthy of being number 1?

  Kind of a bit of self doubt there I think. I've never thought I deserved what I get sometimes. To me things that I am good at I don't think I should be rewarded for doing, they just come naturally to me. I've never had to try in school to pass exams, I never revised, I never did anything but the lessons and bits of homework, no extra learning. Even university was like that for me. The few times I tried to expand what I knew didn't lead to any results so I've never bothered. Even this course I just went on, now that I know what this product is capable of I'm not going to learn anything new about it, I already know everything it can do. Now I just need to use it which I'm not going to have any trouble doing so. Sure with practice at things you get faster and more automatic in how you do things but not what I would call any better. You still end up doing the same things just in a more efficient manner. The act of coming up with something new or expanding the range or applicability of something is alien to me.

  Gah, all this from a surprise number 1. What the hell would I do if something important to me came out on top? Marrying my wife, which is the best thing I've ever done, changed my life so completely it was hard for me to comprehend all the good things it would do to me. Will other things at that level ever happen again?

Iffy stomach

  Had another sign of getting old yesterday. Normally my stomach can take anything but yesterday it got upset over probably nothing. It felt rough most of the day and actually gave me a bit of a head ache. As usual my wife came to the rescue and a yoghurt later it was all settled. Still it is annoying that it got upset since it never really does for me. I can eat pretty much anything and nothing happens. Sure I may regret it a little later on the toilet but still :| .

  I don't want to slow down or not be able to do everything I used to but it seems I have no choice. Even some light gardening this weekend was harder than it used to be. Sure I'm not in perfect shape but I'm not unfit by any stretch of the imagination. Heck even a small meal leaves me full now rather than the huge plates my wife and I could put away in our younger days.

  As for now I think I'll stick to my usual day, already had breakfast (cereal), normal lunch (sandwich) and whatever delicious meal my wife will make for dinner when I get home. I think my habit of sticking to easy food I don't need to think about works for me, like most things I do. Find something I like and stick with it. Change, what change?

Wake up

  Waking up today was weird. Normally I wake up a little bit on the weekend and then fall asleep again. Today I woke up at my roughly normal time and was suddenly wide awake. Even during the week when I get up early it takes me a minute or two to get going, enough time to get washed and dressed. Today I was laying in bed and just realised I was awake. No gradual coming to just a sudden realisation that I was laying in bed.

  That kind of thing is strange to me, I'm usually aware of coming in to consciousness but that immediate switch threw me. Still I got breakfast made for me today, lots of nice yummy stuff in a warm cooked breakfast. True it was because I was too slow in making breakfast but still having it made for you is great.

Hard stuff

  Had a great experience with hard stuff this morning. Being with my wife again in a serious way, the letting go and screaming kind of way, is a great way to start the weekend. Being together and just losing yourself in the other person so that everything else around you is blanked out brings you so close together. Sure there is the mess clean up afterwards :| but that is a minor thing in the overall picture of adoring each other.

  As usual though this kind of thing has left my brain numb and lost in a happy stupor. Makes it really hard to do anything other than just flop down afterwards and for me just about fall asleep. Kind of dozy right now. zzzzzz.

Back to normal

  I feel so much like the normal me now. Getting home yesterday was such a relief. Seeing my beautiful wife for the first time in days was amazing. The world made sense again, being away doing something out of the ordinary was supremely weird for me. It's hard to say much more since for me writing about my feelings is really hard and this situation is all feelings to me. It is how I feel in my gut and heart as it were. Trying to describe it comes very awkwardly for me.

  Suffice to say I really don't want to do that again. Sure it was a useful training course that I can use in my career but the fact that I had to spend time away was so hard.

  Why is this so hard to describe for me? I know I feel these things but putting them down in words or expressing them to someone else is so so hard to me. Compared to the ease at which the complex code analysis I learned about was understood I really wish my brain was better at some things.

Weird as I thought

  Well the last couple of days have been as weird as I thought they would be. Sitting in a classroom type place for most of the day learning stuff. Then realising that at the end of it I don't get to go home to my wife. I go to my hotel room and sit there and play around on the computer. Nobody to talk to or hug. Nobody to share some food with. Nobody to listen to as they discuss whatever was on their mind during the day.

  It is definitely a clear sign that I would be terrible as a single man. Being a married man for so long now has gotten me used to how great it is that being away from my wife, even for this relatively short time, is not what I want out of life. Looks like I can get out earlier than normal by quite a bit on Thursday when the course finishes though and that means I can drive home, hold my wife and not let go for hours.

  I think I just want to get this over with so I don't have to feel like this. It takes me back to my lonely days before I met my wife. No real friends, just the computers I fiddled around with. I don't want to be that guy again.

Brain no worky

  Really not getting much done today. Sure work is being done but nothing complex or amazing. It seems my brain is on strike today and won't let me concentrate on anything too much. Even writing this is taxing my brain too much. Rather than a fixed monday through friday work week why can't we have a list of stuff to get done and get it done when we can. No need to work at particular times, just work through it when you actually feel like it.

  At least I can just do a couple of small simple things for the rest of the little time I'm at work today then I get the fun of the training course next week.

  So close to the weekend now, nearly there.....