So I sit here in the office awaiting the end, surrounded by packing crates. The rest of my colleagues have technically moved out of the office, but their stuff remains.  Like all moves its total chaos, with horror stories from the other end of the New Building that the rest of the school is moving into being not fit for purposed and actually damaged as heavy desks go crashing into glass doors/windows/partitions. Me and the rest of IT are moviing to another building which I’m sure will have its own challenges, but my colleagues feel a certain amount of smugness as the people they feel have betrayed them in reacent months move into a nightmare of a building.

Personally I’m in a more reflective mood, as  I sit here on my own I feel as if I’ve come full circle to when I started this job over three years ago when I had the office to my self. Ho hum, time to move on….

Time for a quick post, before I head off to the pub and our IT Section’s Christmas curry (at the wonderful East Z East which I’ve raved about before).

Life is settling down again, to a nice comfatable pace. Its a bit weird that I’m not leaving afterall, but a relief that I am leaving in a couple of weeks (see I told you it was weird). My confidence is increasing by the hour that this is the best ‘move’ for the long run. I’ve even spent the last couple days happily coding away.

Righty ho off for beerz!

“What the hell was I thinking?” is what I’m left thinking after the last five days or so.

Putting my CV up for the Agencies to find me work was like a cold bucket of water in the face!!! I won’t trawl over the details, but an interview on Monday made me realise what a good deal I’m getting in my new job at Faculty in the New Year, when my current job at the School of Nursing ends. So yesterday morning I took myself off the ‘job market’, as the Recruitment weasels call it, and I’m now looking forward with positivity to my new role at the University, rather than dwelling in negativity on the recent past. I’m still going to be pursing the idea of working freelance, but I’ll be doing it part-time with the comfort of my day job behind it.

One thing however I’ve realised from the interview I had on Monday, is how much I’ve let my programming skills slip over the last six months. Time to start reversing that.

Better get down the boozer before Reagan and George drink everything in sight!

More Agencies have been ringing me up this morning, the phone didn’t stop from 9am until Lunchtime.

Good news is I’ve got an interview on Monday!!

10:30 Today I uploaded my CV to jobsite.co.uk

11:00 First agency rang me to have a chat.

4:30 Spoken to five agency reps and applied for 10 jobs via Jobsite!

After no movement on the job front, its like the flood gates have broken!

Its dark, its cold, its permanently grey. I’m tired, grumpy and with a snotty nose/sore throat.

Therefore I am left with no choice but to open positivities against  this non-sense no fun weather time of year.

Seeing as the British winter is a mild and timid affair, compared with say the infamous Russian Winter, I expect it all to be over by Christmas.

HUZZAH!!!

Having another chill weekend here at Castle Von Newport, so as the ladies sleep peacefully I sip coffee and quietly reflect in a playfull way about the Future

IPODs – my nano is definitely dead after going through the wash (DOH!), so Rach has put her foot down and said I must have a new one for XMAS. Its a hard life but after much agonising I’m getting a 80Gb Classic. Oh the humanity!

Job – definitely going Freelance/Self employed. My subconscious is working on it and its being worked on more consciously. May in the short term go for another job, closer to home in the commercial sector, but definitely out of the cosyness of Uni/Public sector. Recent informal meeting with new uberboss in new year, convinced me despite his nice words that continuing where I’m at will slowly drive me bonkers!!

Important thing short term is that I’ve regained my passion and excitement for webdevelopment!! Doing a couple of personal projects, such as the D101games site and the GoPlayManchester page (full site coming when we work out what  we want out of it) has helped. Also helped Rach set up her Veggie-baby.co.uk blog (which is running along nicely, with posts about vegetables named after ‘testicles’!) was fun to. Building Web sites is fun again, something the white-blah of work’s site robbed me off.

Games – The mighty Continuum and Furnace have been announced!!!

Continuum 2008. John Foster Hall, Leicester University, UK
Friday 1st – Monday 4th August 2008.

http://tavern.zunder.org.uk/tav/viewtopic.php?t=1853

Furnace 2008 is booked in the Garrison Hotel’s Diary for the weekend of 18th/19th October.
http://rpgfurnace.com/

Both brilliant cons, none of the nonsense you get at say GenConUK, and I’ll be throwing myself into both with gusto!

Already plotting an epic Fantasy Ancient Greek game with scads of figures for SimpleQuest @ Continuum, and have at least one gm interested in helping me run games. Also Monkey should be done and dusted by then and out in book form. Visions of running round the con in a Gorilla suit to promote it keep popping into my head.

Been very introspective recently, so I’ve held off updating this until my head calmed down. Coming out of this ‘introspective’ phase now, a much happier person than I went in.

Work – I’m a man with a plan. The restucture of Man University IT is coming to an end. I’ve been told that I’m not getting voluntary severance, boo!, but I have got a direct transfer over to Faculty IT from my present job at School level (which is being disolved at the end of this year). Mixed feelings about this , mainly because I’m stroppy bastard and like to be in charge of my job destiny!!!!! Therefore in the short term I’m looking for a new jobs, outside the comfort/lazy zone of the Public sector and longer term looking for freelance/working for myself. I’d love to jump into the whole freelance/self employment thing but as Rach sagely points out I’ve not done any of the prep work to make that a reality. I’ve made a start over the last couple of weeks, but its not nearly enough to get me up and going by the end of this year or even the start of next year. However I’d still like to be proved wrong on this one 🙂 Main thing is that I’m back in the saddle and guiding my career after having to sit on my hands to see what happens with the IT restructure.

Play – Current RPG campaign (HeroQuest: Black Horse County) really galloping along at a tremendous pace, heading towards the big ending (think Resorvoir Dogs meets the Battle of Tanenburg/Grunwald). Now all I have to do is make sure we fit the sessions in before XMAS hits to keep up the momentum. Go Play Manchester #1 was a big success, despite the small turn out (see previous post) and already planing #2 in Dec. Got John Ottoway who runs Cthulhu Rising coming along to run a Marines game (think Cthulhu meets Aliens). If you are an out of town GM who fancies coming up to Manchester for the day, the venue Fanboy 3 is a five miniute wallk straight down from Piccadilly. Musing on running some form of Savage Worlds, after picking up the Explorers Edition at GPM #1. Work continues apace with SimpleQuest, which is a mountain of work but absolute fun. Currently working on the Character gen chapter, and making notes about Skills and Combat which are next up. Monkey will get picked up and dusted off next weekend since I’ve promised the producers of Huddersfield Gaming Society (HUGS) a game in December and an article for their next society magazine. Pondering having a Newtcon 2 over the holidays and attending Winter Stabcon.

Family- Well we’ve survived the first six months of young Evie’s life!! I’m looking after both the ladies this weekend, since Rach is well beyond knackered. Now looking at ways of giving Rach more of a break, and structuring the day so more tidying up gets done.

Right gotta go Evie is stirring!

Fiddling about learning Flash this afternoon (as previous entry shows).

Found this in my travels through tutorials, simply beautiful.