Warning: Creativity At Work

A short update tonight, because Chrissi and I have been busy. Busy doing what, you ask?

We've been baking a pirate ship cake!

Words cannot describe the awesomeness. It took me about two hours, perhaps more, to build a mast and get it to hold together. But I managed it in the end. Chrissi managed the hard part of baking the cake - I simply added decorations for guns and bowspits and the eventually-completed mast - bedecked, of course, with the Jolly Roger. A good night's work.

Knocking And Letterboxes Are Beyond Us

One of the benefits of working at home yesterday was that I was in to collect the Amazon delivery. Well, it didn't help as they still didn't bother to knock or post it through the letterbox and just propped it up against the bin - fortunately I was going out for a breath of fresh air and noticed it, bringing it inside before the sudden downpour a few minutes later.

The bounty it contained was four CDs and one DVD - the CDs being Jake Bugg's self-titled album, an album similarly and imaginatively named after themselves by The 1975, Imagine Dragons' debut album which with astonishing creativity they managed to think of a separate name for, Night Visions, and the compilation mentioned last weekend, Teenage Dirtbags. The DVD was the magnificent full collection of Thunderbirds, which is one to add to my growing stash of TV series as I see them on special offer at various times.

I've not really listened to any of the albums fully enough yet to give a proper opinion on them, but the compilation album has made its way to my car where it is now the soundtrack to my drive to and from work. This makes my trip considerably more pleasant (although today it was much nicer anyway as the traffic didn't seem quite so bad). I may swap to disc 2 tomorrow - watch this space for more such crucial updates.

Car Foibles

It is additionally frustrating on a day where I had been ready for work keen and early for any day, let alone Monday, to be then hamstrung by car problems once more. The consequence of a cold night and a sulking battery meant that while I was awake and ready to head to work, my car was of a different opinion. Fortunately I had my laptop still with me from working at Wimbledon on Friday, so it meant an unplanned day of working from home.

On returning to the house I called our breakdown cover to get someone out to at least give it a short sharp shock awake - and not long after (only about twenty minutes), someone arrived. Which is where the comedy of the morning starts.

As the car was parked down the street, I had to rush outside quickly to intercept the van, point out where the car was and the like. This was done, my battery was jumped, the car turned on, and I was advised to give it 25 minutes to charge up. As my phone had been left on the kitchen table I entertained myself by reading the car manual and staring out of the window, idly wondering why I hadn't seen Chrissi go past me yet on her way to work.

After giving my car the 25 minutes running to recharge the battery (and a couple of extra minutes for good measure), I left my car and started to walk back up the road to the house. In doing so I met Chrissi who was heading down the road and rather relieved to see me. Apparantly in my haste to catch the breakdown man I had allegedly left the door slightly ajar (the door is also in the sulking club and sometimes doesn't close properly when you think you have closed it). Coming down to the door not closed, my phone on the table, my laptop on and me nowhere to be seen, Chrissi was puzzled. Wondering if I had popped to the shops, had gone somewhere else or simply been stolen, she waited a little while as she didn't know if I had my keys with me. I understand that she was going to see if my car was around when I passed her in the street. Relieved, she headed off to work, I returned to the house.

This entertainment over with, I resumed the day and continued to work from home (by the time the car was running it would've been far too late to head into work), although I did take the car on a short drive at lunchtime to make it less moody for tomorrow - we can but hope!

Playlist Challenge III: Nationalities

Again nothing inspired this in particular, besides the random thought of a song and then the increasing extension of the theme to see how far I could go with it. Usual rules apply, cannot repeat theme items (particularly as some nationalities, such as 'American', are repeated many times over!):

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - American Girl
The Beatles - Norwegian Wood
The Vapors - Turning Japanese
The Bangles - Walk Like An Egyptian
Maximo Park - Russian Literature
Sting - Englishman in New York
Cold War Kids - Mexican Dogs

There are probably many more I've missed as well - I tried to identify songs by mentally walking around the globe from country to country and identify songs on that basis, although I don't think I added a huge number that way!

Repeat Trips

Today marked the second day in succession when I headed to Raynes Park. Yesterday's trip was motivated by poker, and due to bad traffic avoiding an accident, and then planning a shorter route but then losing my route twice (and effectively bypassing my shortcuts in the process) I arrived considerably later than planned! Having arrived this much later I made a strong effort to stay in as long as possible to make my trip worthwhile - not only because I wanted to do well, but a quick blowout would have made the long journey even more ridiculous!

Today I was in Wimbledon for work, and as it had been mentioned yesterday that folks were going out for drinks tonight I thought I would gatecrash and invite myself along - as I was located so close! In the end, for bonus irony it ended up that people headed into Wimbledon after a couple of hours so I returned home at that point (as did Chrissi, who had joined me after a kind-hearted invite only because she thought it was my way of sneaking a lift home despite my driving in the first place). A good evening to catch up with people and good to see some less-frequent faces, but I can also increasingly tell I've been gone for nigh on two years and there has been turnover in those who are there.

Learning the Routes

Over the past three days I've experimented with at least five different routes over the six trips to and from work, with varying degrees of success. I've definitely ruled out a couple and am increasingly coming to terms with the realisation that I will have to face the M25 in rush hour twice a day.

One thing that is a positive is that I do have flexibility in terms of timing as to precisely when I leave and arrive at work (providing I am at least working my core hours and do all my hours I am due to work within the day!). It means that even once I settle on a likely route I then have the entertaining variety of changing my departure time to try and find the optimal point for both leaving and departing. It's a balancing act, as the earlier I leave the better my traffic is on the way in, but the more I hit rush hour on the way home instead.

For the moment I'm getting by with a grudging tolerance of this. Tomorrow I'm due to leave earlier so as to get there in plenty of time so I can leave early in the evening - all with the aim of making it back to Raynes Park in time for poker around 6:30ish. It's going to be a little ambitious but should be achieveable, although as I write this I recall that I haven't actually filled up my tank tonight, which I should have done, and as I've likely not got enough for a full trip this would be sensible to attend to prior to departure.

So an even earlier alarm time it is.

Landmarks

So I asked Chrissi on Sunday, "I presume we're not planning to do anything particular on Tuesday?" to which she responded with a baffled "Why would be doing anything on Tuesday?"

Having duly banked my credit for (a) remembering and (b) for one-upmanship as she had not remembered, we didn't do anything after all. However, it is still worth noting that today marks us being together for ten years. I'd call that a landmark worth commemorating if not necessarily celebrating (particularly as we have a wedding anniversary to mark in exactly a month's time!).

Well Known

So today was the first day at the new office in Reading, and this was marked by our new co-residents in the building (HR and Finance) welcoming us with cake. I'm sure this was (a) not necessarily pure generousity but had been arranged on our behalf by the management that had moved us here and (b) entirely planned based on the knowledge of our fondness for cake, chocolates, baked goods and general sweet things. There were carrot, chocolate and lemon flavour cakes offered - I only sampled the carrot cake, but that was good.

The main inconvenience of the move, the increased journey was definitely exacerbated today by the fact that I wasn't fully familiar with all the routes, shortcuts and sneaky ways around the worst of the traffic that need to be followed to make any journey bearable. As a result I managed to get stuck in four separate traffic jams - two on the way in, two on the way back, and three of them due to roadworks that I simply didn't know about to be able to avoid (the fourth being simply good ol' M25 congestion). Tomorrow should be at least a smoother journey as I'm at least aware of what I'm facing!

Musical Nostalgia

I had mentioned that yesterday at work had felt like an end-of-term feel, and one contributing factor to that was the music. We typically have the radio on, but often will have someone's music playing. Yesterday one of my colleagues had a newly purchased album which was definitely worthy of an airing - a compilation album titled Teenage Dirtbags.

This was an immense trip down teenage nostalgia as it contained almost exclusively turn-of-the-century pop-punk and 'alternative' tunes. Tunes featured include classic pop-punk such as Blink 182's All The Small Things, Bowling For Soup's Girl All The Bad Guys Want, Fountains of Wayne with Stacey's Mom, American Hi-Fi's Flavour of the Weak - and obviously the titular track, Wheatus' Teenage Dirtbag, which kicks off the whole caboodle. Ska was represented in the form of Reel Big Fish's Sell Out, Goldfinger's Superman and Less Than Jake's She's Gonna Break Soon (not their best, but still good).

There were more tunes on the second disc - yes, this compilation contains a stonking 44 songs - starting off with Weezer's Buddy Holly and Bloodhound Gang's Bad Touch, although less of the pop-punk focus with efforts such as Celebrity Skin by Hole and Fall Out Boy's Dance Dance, the cheese-nu-metal (is that even a genre?) of Andrew WK's Party Hard, matched in lyrical ingenuity by Metro Station's Shake It (which I hadn't heard before but could sing along to by the end of the first few lines), the 'take us seriously we know more than four chords honest' effort I Feel So by Boxcar Racer and a host of others inbetween.

I have several of the songs on various albums I own, or compilation efforts such as Kerrang, but it was still a fantastic guilty pleasure to go through all those songs in succession. It may be one that goes onto the shopping list.

Office Goodbyes

As per yesterday's blog, today was the final day in the current workplace. To celebrate / commemorate this we were due to have a barbecue in the afternoon (I think this was also in part to get us out of the building so that our equipment could be packed ready to be moved to the new office for Monday).

Much of the morning therefore revolved around packing and getting ready for the move. In theory some of this had been done all through the week, but on my part (label my pedestal, desk and screen, shred scattered paperwork on desk) there was minimal effort involved - I've simply not been there long enough to collect the level of clutter that seems to have hampered most people. As a result there was a significant end-of-term feel about the day; jokes and minimal work being done. Around midday I relocated myself from upstairs (where half the people were working and half were pretending to work) to downstairs (where there were no pretences about working) - and ended up standing around chatting to people for a while, a significant improvement on actual work.

The barbecue was excellent, done on a seemingly industrial scale - large barbecues that one of my colleagues actually owns - and huge amounts of charred meat (plus other sundries, but that's just background noise at a barbecue. It's all about the meat). There were drinks and there was standing around talking - the main downside was that because it was raining (as per national weather patterns if you try and schedule a barbecue in the UK), the barbecue and associated standing around took place in the garage underneath the building. It made for a slightly bizarre setting!

After the majority of those who were weak and pliable and refused to stay for to long had left, those of us remaining decamped to the pub. While I don't drink (as is well known amongst my readers), I always enjoy these events for two reasons - (1) it's always a much more relaxed setting to have the odd chat with someone about something work related - talk them around to your point of view, or make a suggestion - in short it helps to build better working relationships, not to mention (2) it's genuinely good fun and enjoyable.

Relocation Relocation Relocation

So as mentioned yesterday, my workplace is moving - lease on the building where I work at present in Godalming has been ended and we are relocating to Reading, starting next week. This was announced in early July and since then there have been several consultations (both individual and collective) to understand how this will impact everyone and to try and agree a support package to assist those who now have significantly longer journeys as a result of the move.

Unfortunately I'm one of those who is adversely affected. The journey down to Godalming is very straightforward, and is around 40m (although my memory of traffic may be biased from the August journey which has been much easier). A journey to Reading is less obvious, and likely to take at least an hour. Probably more.

For the moment I'm willing to give it a shot. There's going to be support in terms of compensation for increased costs, and the ability to work from home one or two days a week on a regular basis. This will help to make any transition easier, and while the new journey is going to be no different in time to my train journey when I started working here, or perhaps slightly shorter, it will still be an increase from my current trip. And as a result interfere with my sleep, a more severe inconvenience.

It also puts a spanner in the metaphorical works of Chrissi and myself looking at a new home, something we were increasingly focusing in the first half of the year. The plan was to move to the Guildford area, between and closer to both our workplaces. Fortunately our lethargy has been to our advantage as we have not devoted significant amounts of time to a futile exercise - now to find a new point on a map which works for both (a) our current workplaces and (b) hypothetical future workplaces, as we're both fully aware of how impermanent such arrangements are!

Titbits from Today

A selection of minor side-comments and activities from today:

Final Chinese: While we will often go to the nearby Chinese restaurant for lunch, today was an emotional day as it represented our final visit (the office is moving - more on this later). This was an unplanned visit, but as I had neglected to pack a lunch (late leaving) I deemed that serendipity had ruled in my favour and so I joined the group heading out for lunch. No tears were shed but it was a close run thing.

One-off Quip: In response to a comment that the strategy for dealing with the increased radioactive leaks by smothering the entire place in concrete: "Well it worked well with Croydon". Always an easy target. Poor Croydon.

Detour Smugness: As traffic came to a crawl on my journey home, a police car came racing through and I could see where it stopped in the distance. Anticipating the crawl would become even slower, I managed to make it across all three lanes to the exit which I had fortunately come to a halt by. I figured that a longer route home would be quicker as I wouldn't expect to be moving too soon. About 40 minutes later - and despite an unplanned further detour by virtue of taking the wrong turning - I arrived back home, and at the same time heard on the radio that the A3 was closed northbound. Smugness level: significant.

Overdue Catching Up

Last week before we headed up to Chester I was idly searching for entertainment, and flicking through the available TV series on LoveFilm I made the fatally flawed decision to start catching up on new old Doctor Who episodes. I say new old because it is the earlier series of the reboot, so the seasons with the Ecclestone Doctor (of which I had seen one episode) and the seasons with Tennant as the Doctor (of which I had seen the third series with David Tennant, but not the first two).

Over the course of a few evenings I've now caught up to have watched the entirety of the first series and have only two episodes remaining in the second series (the first Tennant series). I now have only one series to watch to be properly caught up again.

Having watched these, I can now see what some commentators have said about the more childish nature of some of the Russell T Davies-written episodes. They seem a little too twee in parts - none more so than the ridiculous farts and other bodily noises of the Slitheen family which was encounted with Ecclestone as the Doctor. There are the odd moment which is deeper or shows a more nuanced Doctor, but it seems a little too adventure-friendly and does make me long for the deeper if more frustrating storyline arcs of the Moffat-era show with Matt Smith as the Doctor. At least there were no farting aliens.

Moral Dilemma

Today I was faced with a mild moral dilemma, the sought that cause liberally and socially-minded people such as myself to wring their hands at length. While at work, I was going to the toilet (I'll skip over the irrelevant details) when I noticed a £5 note on the floor that had likely fallen out of someone's pocket. Retrieving this, I was then faced with a quandry as to what to do.

Obviously, being merely a note it would be challenging to identify its previous owner. I could have sent out some form of communication to the building, but that would been as likely to lead to a false claimant as a genuine one. The sum itself was not substantial enough to be significant, but then I also felt that holding onto it myself was equally improper.

The solution quickly became obvious: while I could not return it, and did not want to keep it, tomorrow I will therefore purchase cakes for work with this discovered note, and so share the wealth amongst all.