Snooker

I've been playing pool for a local league team - Menai B since September last year. The team was new for this season (the season started in September). Tonight, we chalked up our first victory (after, according to the league, 6 draws and 4 losses). We're all rather pleased, to say the least :-)

I've been utterly crap at keeping the blog up to date recently, so what better time to look back on the year, and also conveniently put everything that I've not put on here already, er, on here.

December is, as is now standard for me, panto season. It's been a little bit more busy this year as December also saw the first data return to the Welsh Assembly Government for the University. This was a little bit stressful as most of the providers had either forgotten, sent in incorrect data, or submitted their data late. Lots of late nights and whatnot, and it was in on time, and I'm pretty happy with what we've sent. I'm also working on some new stuff for the website which includes media management and a Health & Safety system. All of this will only be visible to the providers, so not something for the general public. This is all tying in to a presentation I'm going to be doing to the other University techies on what I've been doing for the past year, how it's all come together, how it works and whatnot. I've got a few ideas for the presentation, but not started writing it yet. Panto - I said I wouldn't take that many shows this year as I'm fairly tired, and also it's not really financially viable at the moment for me (I get paid less at the theatre than I can justify). So I only ended up taking 20 shows this year (I think I did about 40 last year). Sioned still thinks that this is far too much. Ho hum. Only a few more left to go, then that's it for another year. Christmas was spent at my Mum & Dad's, and was rather enjoyable this year. Sioned & myself received some very nice gifts, there was excellent food, and the company was good.

October and November saw me working on an interesting project for another department in the University which caused a hefty political argument, eventually seeing the whole project canceled. Fortunately, I think I've come out on the other side without too many battle scars.

The department within the University that I was seconded away from (Work based learning within the School of Lifelong Learning) has slowly been making more and more people redundant. The have a contract with the Welsh Assembly Government which is typically renewed each August. This year (August 2007) the renewal was, financially, much lower than in previous years. This put a large amount of pressure on to the department. As a result, in March, the department will begin the final wind down. Students currently on program will be moved to other providers, and remaining staff will either be made redundant, or, where possible, be re-housed elsewhere within the institution. What does this mean for me? The department I'm now working for (Canolfan Cymraeg i Oedolion) has funding for a further three years. After this time, we either get more funding or I'm looking at redundancy. We're in a pretty good position within the institution, and within the country as a whole. Hopefully it should be ok.

The summer saw Sioned finding out that she's pregnant. We're going to be having a baby in late February/early March. Sioned is feeling poorly pretty much constantly, and seems to have a pretty much endless set of appointments with various people within the medical profession.

Also over the summer, we got rid of the Saab and now have a BMW 3 series diesel. In some ways, I still prefer the Saab, in others (especially the economy), the BMW is a nicer car. Ok, it hasn't got the pickup that the Saab had, nor the top speed, but it's still just as nice.

March this year saw us getting married, and then heading around Western Europe in the car. Absolutely brilliant time, really enjoyed it. Germany is a brilliant place, especially the Nurburgring.

I've also started playing in the Bangor pool league - I've got a win rate of 50% which is pretty decent, I think, for someone who's only just started playing. We're a new team to the league, so to also not be rooted to the bottom of the table is pretty decent, too.

As posted on the blog, I changed from my slightly-long-in-the-tooth Nikon D100 to a D2X. I've used the new body in anger a few times now, and it's a joy to use. Over the last week, I did just over 1000 exposures in a few hours and the battery is still over half full. The images it produced, in quite a few cases, required very little processing/colour correction. It's a brilliant piece of kit, although as you'd expect, the noise at anything above ISO500 is noticeable. I gather this is well corrected in the Nikon D3. Hmm... ;-)

This year also saw the purchase of my Macbook Pro. I'm really getting on well with it now - there's quite a few shortcuts and the like which, once you get to know them really do increase productivity. The machine was, within a few days, my main development/production machine, and has since stayed there. It's a brilliant bit of kit. It's been dropped once and - as you'd expect, hasn't suffered any illness as a result of it.

I think next year is going to be a whole lot different.

Just been playing in a pool competition in Bangor. 24 people started, I was knocked out in the semi-finals.

You don't win silver, you lose the gold.

:(

As Sioned found out, steelies can be an absolute God send. I'd left a UPS in the kitchen (rackmount APC SUA1500RMI, which, apparently weighs 29kg, or 64lb in old money. Problem being that after struggling to get it from the kitchen to the bottom of the stairs (heading for the office), she gave up and went to put it down, but dropped one edge on her toe.

Ouch.

Unfortunately, I was out at the time - one of the University clubs I'm part of was having a social, so Sioned decided to have a tidy up.

Ho hum.

Played Snooker for the first time in weeks today and managed to win, which was nice.

Various blog entries have probably alluded to me not being quite right at the moment. I'm still not sure what's causing it, but today I had a whole raft of nice things happen which have cheered me up somewhat.

Firstly, I had an e-mail today about one of my contracts which is due to finish next Thursday asking if I'd be interested in continuing for another semester (about 3 more months), since they're impressed with the quality of the work I'm doing. This is rather nice, as I was preparing myself for the financial drop associated with this. I've asked for further details (as it would involve a slight change to times that I do stuff), but they've prepared to get a contract out immediately. Which is nice.

Secondly, I put an e-mail out yesterday asking for cashmoneyplease for work I did on another contract 6 weeks ago. Reply within a few hours saying something like "Oops, forgot! Want more work?" - obviously, I shall wait for payment from the first lot of work first, but it's good that I had an immediately (near enough) reply, and also that I'm being offered more work here.

Thirdly, I spoke to someone in another department at the University who is extremely interested in some of the work I'm doing within the University, and wants to use my work elsewhere. This gave me a good push to get my code tidied up so that it's ready to go live shortly. I've got to write in the error catching, but then I'm happy that it's good to go to bug testing/beta. I'm quite pleased and proud that someone is prepared to take my work on for pretty wide usage. Whilst it's not paid work (I've got enough of that at the moment, to be honest), I'll be getting my name spread around, which is perhaps more useful to me.

Fourthly, arriving home elicited a nice surprise in the shape of a cheque from my secret project, with an e-mail later on in the evening leading me to expect another one. It's all rather woo.

I was wanting to go in on the bike to the University tomorrow, but with the weather being like it is at the moment, I'm really not going to risk it. The car was getting blown around horifically on the way home tonight. This week is probably going to be one of the last chances before Christmas with the panto coming up.

In other news, probably one of the few times that I'll ever be picked first for a team (remember when you were at school all the sporty kids got picked first for football?) - I'll be representing the University Snooker & Pool Club at a match on Sunday night, which I'm rather looking forward to.

I also now have a standard answer to When did you last take a day off?"

...or wave goodbye to December, since I've just had my call sheet. Effectively, December won't exist for me. Woo. Going on last year, I'll come out of it about a stone lighter, a lot richer, and absolutely knackered. Hopefully I'll have the mistakes made buying a certain person a Christmas present ironed out as well, this time around.

Steve & Marie visited us over the weekend - we went out on Friday night to Bangor where, conveniently, the Snooker & Pool Club (University Society) were having a social which we tagged on to for a while, before splitting off and doing our own thang.

Saturday was a day of getting Steve's suit sorted out before mooching around Conwy, then heading into town where there was a Celtic Festival on. Saturday night I was doing the out for Amazing Grace which didn't go too badly, nor take too long - I was in bed for 1.

Sunday - Steve & Marie left pretty early on, so I had a relaxing day - wound down after work the previous night. Today was another theatre day - Status Quo (and all their associated fans). As mentioned above, I've also got my panto shifts sorted out.

I'm also starting to feel old as I've found myself listening to Radio 2 increasingly over the last couple of days. This isn't a good sign.

Busy busy busy.

Kev visited this weekend, which was a somewhat welcome relief after a hair raising week last week, for various reasons.

o One of my old contracts (finished in February) e-mailed me asking me to do more work for them
o My current employer has said they want 4 hours per week from me after I move departments. More money, but more hassle.
o Human resources contacted me and said something like "You do realise you're not being seconded, and that this is a two year contract?". My response was pretty simple: "I'm pulling out". This, obviously, put the cat among the pigeons and it was sorted out pretty quickly. My contract for this arrived yesterday morning, detailing everything as I expected.
o Various bits of money are starting to turn up now, which is a welcome relief. I've sunk a fair bit of cash into a new project which is starting to come to fruition now. There was a period last week which was getting quite desparate, but, as I say, it's coming good now.

So, with all that, it was a nice break to do very little. The Conwy Food Festival was taking place this weekend. After picking Kev up from the train station, we went for a drive around and I showed him the local area - the seafront, and so on. We then headed back to the house to drop stuff off, before heading over to the snooker club for a couple of frames. From here, we went back out again. There wasn't much happening to do with the festival on Friday evening, but we stopped off at a pub in Conwy, before mooching back over to The Killer a bit closer to home.

Saturday was a bit odd weather wise when we got up - it went from raining heavily to nice and sunny three times in an hour. Me & Kevin took our chances and walked over to Conwy, primarily because I knew it'd be a real pain to park anywhere with the food festival - it's difficult at the best of times, but it'd be like nothing ever seen before. I was quite right. The whole town was absolutely packed. First thing we needed to do was get him measured up for a suit for the wedding. This was all done pretty quickly. We had a look around the festival and I got a few photos, whilst Kev bought a couple of bits and bobs. Back home again, and I decided to take Kev for a look around some of the lesser known (ie off the tourist beaten track) areas to see what some of the areas of beauty are like around here, which he seemed quite impressed with. His train out was at 1400, so that was pretty much it.
Fran, one of Sioned's friends (and bridesmaids) turned up just before Kev left. She stayed around for most of the afternoon whilst we did a few wedding bits and bobs.

Sioned and Fran nipped off in to town, so I took a bit of time out to sort out some more relaxing things - recompiling the kernel on profile (web server/login server/etc), tidying up some bits on sourcefour (fileserver) which needed doing, and making sure the UPS was happy and fed after it had a flid about its batteries recently.

Today has been a day of doing very little. We managed to get up at about 1130, before I sat doing nothing. The Snooker Grand Prix in Aberdeen started this weekend, so I've been catching up on the output from that, as well as The Brazilian Grand Prix taking place this weekend. I recorded the qualifying last night and watched that this morning over breakfast.

That's pretty much about it - as I say - a bit hair raising.

That was certainly one of the best races I've seen this year. The start... the finish - and everything in between. Truly gripping stuff. The move that M Schu pulled at the start to cut the Renault of Alonso off, then the twists in between which saw Alonso finish in second were absolutely amazing. It was a shame to see Kimi have "no rear end grip" after his pit due to a knackered rear left. He seemed to be a bit lost as he sat in the car before taking the steering wheel off. :/
The 2006 season is really shaping up now with just 2 points between Ferrari and Renault in the constructors, and 12 between M Schu and Alonso in the drivers. It really has been blown open again.

Having a really quite nice weekend all in. So far I've managed to give the car a damn good clean - it's rather sparkly at the moment. Gave the inside a good going over as well, cleaning some of the marks off the leather and the carpet. I'm rather pleased with it all things said at the moment. Gave the boot a good clean out and checked the fluids as well.
Sioned is having a kip at the moment. I've just made a quick start on the invites for the wedding since these are likely to involve a bit of work, although on my side it's a relatively simple mailmerge from the SQL database containing all of the invitees (this is the same database that handles all of the wedding website logins and so on - it's nice to have all of this type of thing centralised, so that everything is singing from the same hymn sheet. One good thing about geekery is that stuff like this is pretty well planned).

Snooker later. This is what weekends are for.

I've not been to Swansea before - our digs are in Mount Pleasant (photos to follow - the decorative tastes of the owner are certainly eclectic). Swansea is an odd little place. I'm not really sure how to describe it. It seems to be quite poor economically and socially. Only having been here for a few hours I've already come across some quite open inhabitants. I don't think I'd be too comfortable living here, to be honest. I'll put it another way - I'm concerned that the car might not be there in the morning.
I've never seen hills like they have around here - driving from the Eisteddfod to our digs took us up a hill which on first look seemed almost vertical. Walking back from the pub just now left me out of breath - I'd certainly have some good muscles in my legs if I lived around here.

Life on the road certainly has its pros and cons. On the one hand, expenses are good. We spent 20 quid at the pub tonight which can all be claimed back. Depending on your own taste, never knowing where you'll be is either a good thing or a bad thing.

It used to be that I quite liked this type of thing, constantly flitting about up and down the country. Does it mean I'm getting old if I'd prefer to be back at home?

We ended up getting a couple of people recorded today, which is the reason I'm actually here. I'm quite pleased we've got at least something to show for our time. Hopefully we'll get a lot more tomorrow - another four recordings would be fantastic, but I think that might be being a bit hopeful.

I've checked out the route home and it seems far better. Longer (Just under 200 miles - the journey down was about 140, I think), but the roads certainly look a lot nicer - my route straddles the Wales/England border for most of the way.

I had quite a relaxing night. The guy I'm working with and myself went out and had a pub meal, and then found a Riley's snooker & pool hall, where we got 10 games of pool in. I have to say, he's a fantastic player, although I only just managed to scrape a win at 6-4.

Guess I should try and get a good night sleep.

My alarm went off at 0955 (it really smelt quite bad. Sorry, poor joke) waking me from a very nice sleep. I'd finally gone to bed at gone 3. The rail grinder had set fire to some of the wooden sleepers on the track, so it was rather eventful all things told, with the fire brigade and Network Rail there having a good shufty at things for well over an hour.

The washing machine was delivered and the guys had left by 1030, leaving me to install it. Washing machines are not light things, and subsequently I've done a muscle in near my shoulder. Bugger. Still, at least it's all done now.

I had a bit of a mooch around, before deciding to do some work on profile - upgraded various bits of software and decided to finally upgrade it to Apache2, something I'd been meaning to do for ages. This was not an easy job, something I'd remembered from when I looked into it. Think a maze of twisty packages, all alike. I have to admit, though, it was rather fun. I've only just (some 9 hours later) got everything checked out and done. It should've been far easier, but, well, I like to make things difficult.

Sioned's Dad came over and we had 4 frames of snooker over the road. I have to admit - I was playing out of my skin tonight. I was very pleased with my performance all in. My cue action seems to be coming on quite well.

Got home, and bought a car. I was rather shocked, all things said. A comedy bid on eBay seems me the proud owner of a Saab 9-3 convertible. Problem is, I've got to go to Penzance of all places to pick it up. That is going to be a hell of a long day - 8 or 9 hours there on the train, and then 7.5 hours driving back. Jesus. Mentalist. Sioned was rather pleased to hear it, although I'm still rather shocked that I've got it for the price I have (it's a *very* low price). The guy called me afterwards - he's a dealer and apparently messed up with the reserve price and is making a significant loss on it.

I really could do with getting to bed a bit early tonight. I've got another busy-ish week ahead, although I'll probably have to take Friday off to go and collect the car. Sioned is back tomorrow, so I've had a quick clean up of the house today - the kitchen was pretty filthy after the washing machine delivery (it was raining at the time, so lots of crap got trod into the kitchen). What a busy weekend!

I like to think of myself as being pretty good at pool. Given an opponent I've not played against before, I can usually give them a good run for their money if they're a good player, and in most cases beat them. This isn't blowing my own trumpet - it's taken years of 50p games and a lot of wasted time. I've been playing snooker a lot more recently across the road, and my game is starting to get there - the change between the tables is quite a big step. I've been playing against Sioned's dad with relative regularity. I can usually draw against him, but for some reason, tonight, I had great difficulty in getting a decent score together. I'm not sure why. As soon as someone invents a human that isn't affected by their surrounding, they'll make a fortune