Day 3? Nope, day 4

Yesterday, something did not want me to leave the house. The car was completely frozen first thing. It had snowed in the early part of the night, and then frozen afterwards. Whilst the "snow" was removable (in sheets), there was a thick layer of ice underneath that scraping had no effect on. By the time I got it sorted I had missed my train. I got to the station easily for the next one only to find it cancelled!

Meetings forced me home at that point as the next train would have put me underground in the middle of a conference call. And home was where I stayed.

Yesterday evening I attempted to go swimming. We got little one down at an early hour, and tried to make the most of it. I sorted out my towel and trunks and headed out. The place was shut for maintenance! Back home I went.

This morning, completely different story. Up on time, showered, dressed, hot drink for my wife. Out to a car with no ice, just some condensation. Easy drive, and trains that arrive when they're meant to.
Incidentally, commuting problems aside, the early rising and new routine is being stuck to. Even if I've had no exercise this week.

Dentist appointment tomorrow, so no commuting for me, then the stag weekend. Should be fun, but some sleep wouldn't go amiss, and I think that might be in short supply.

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Day 2

I brought my wife a hot drink this morning. I half expect it to go cold on the bedside. Little one was bathed when I got home, and did go down 20 minutes earlier, but it wasn't the great time gain we hoped it would be. We used the time well, but still had jobs to do. We turned the lights out at 22:45. We'll get better, and sort out the kinks regarding jobs and chores. It may make the initial phase hard, but hopefully it's worth it in the end.

In between cooking, jobs, and tele, my PC broke. I now have a grub error 17 on boot. The timing ties up with wanting to re-build the thing anyway, but I don't like having my hand forced. Once I work out what the problem is I'll put something here. (Lucky you eh!)

Work continues to be tough. Too many crises, not enough time (or people). Lunch is now someone getting me a sandwich, the time taken to do it myself is too much!

All I want for christmas is more time. Easy request eh?!

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Yes, I know it's only Monday, but...

We're doing well. I was up, showered, dressed, and had made my wife a hot drink by 06:45 this morning. And my wife appreciated it! We're changing things round. The clocks going back have given us the chance to get the little one up earlier, and, hopefully, get her to bed earlier too.

We we're up and dressed at 07:30 yesterday, and made our way to a local food store to get some xmas presents (side note, my brilliant and fantastic wife has just about finished all the xmas preperations. Cards were all written ages ago, most of the presents are now bought, and everything is wrapped and tagged.), and, I my case, pick up some lunch. Then we were off to Cliveden.

Disaster struck early on. My wife needed to "relieve" herself, and moved off behind some bushes. Now, in hindsight, we could have planned this better but little one was wandering free with her little pushchair, and wasn't waiting for anyone. At the point she decided to trot off down the path, a couple walking their dog appeared, approaching from the other side. I had no choice but to follow my daughter, so I passed a warning to my wife and followed little one. A short while later, the conversation went something like this:

Wife: Thanks!
Me: What?
W: You could have warned me people were coming.
M: I did
W: When? You just wandered off.
M: As I left I said, "People are coming, sorry, have to follow little one."
W: Yes, and I asked if you were talking to me.
M: And I said, "Yes, but I have to go"
W: Oh, I thought you said, "No". Well I wasn't very well hidden, I got no warning, and I'm sure they could see me. As soon as I saw them I stood up. I've got wee down my leg, and I've got a nettle sting on my bottom.
M: rofl
W: It hurts

In the afternoon I did some paperwork, and my fantastic wife wrapped xmas presents.

I didn't get out for a run yesterday. It was far too wet early on, and remained damp throughout. It's not a good idea to do running in the wet when you get asthma, the two things don't tend to work well together!

Now the clocks have finally gone back I feel more righted again. I mentioned this at the beginning of the year, but I feel slightly off kilter when the clocks are forward. I don't know why, but as soon as things right themselves it's as if a low grade headache suddenly goes away. I firmly believe that time should be based on when the sun is highest in the sky. Midday should be exactly what it sounds like.

A quick hello to my Mum to let her know we're thinking of her. Even though she won't read this until afterwards, and I'll probably speak to her before she gets to a computer.

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Complaining (whinging)

Tired, depressed, but hopeful. Work and real life are getting on top of me. I have so much to do and no where near enough time to do it.

We got to bed "early" last night, lights out at 10:50, but a disturbed night, and early morning have left us feeling as knackered as normal. My poor wife is in some discomfort. Only a minor ailment, but I know she's hurting with it (probably because she keeps telling me :p ), and, as with anything that hurts for a while with no relief, it's affecting her disposition. Hopefully the Docs, today, can give her something to fix, or at least relieve, the problem.

I had a long conversation with my boss yesterday off the back of the long e-mail I sent yesterday morning, and a large part of the small stuff that needs doing but is just the day to day beauracracy I'm now getting assistance with. This has allowed me, for the first time in weeks, to actually do *my* job!

Home stuff just needs bringing up to date. I have a number of outstanding things I need to respond to, and this months bills and paperwork to pay and file. Time is being set aside this weekend. Monday will bring a brighter day (especially with the stag weekend at the end of the week). I know that once everything is up to date I'll say, once again, that I'll keep on top of it, but I know that 2, 3 months down the line I'll be back here, needing to do it again.

On the plus side, the exercise is continuing, I swam again this week, 750m in 30 minutes, and I've run for the last few weekends. The effects seem minor so far, but the trousers do feel slightly looser.

So, in short, delegate, and keep on top of the paperwork. That, and find some planet that has a 30 hour day to allow you to get everything done!

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No post

No post this morning as I've spent the last hour writing e-mails and whinging to my boss. Hopefully I've sorted some issues out.

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Run down

Off yesterday. The sore throat I've had for the last few days, and a cough that developed Monday, combined to give me a bad night, compounding weeks (years) of poor sleep to leave me incapable yesterday morning. I eventually got up just after 11, had a shower, watched "The Incredible Hulk", phoned work a couple of times, and generally took it easy. In the afternoon, my wife and I managed a little shopping, and the fresh air certainly helped.

I'd love to say we got an early night, but we didn't. Little one needed a nap in the afternoon (which, with my Mother-in-law babysitting, was how we got to go shopping), and wasn't ready to go to sleep until later. She shared some food with us all, had a couple of books, a couple of abortive attempts to sleep, a number of cuddles, and finally went down after 9. When we did, finally, get to bed, I woke once with the cough, but slept fine the rest of the time. I feel a lot better today!

That's it really. A lazy day, and no real news. Journey is slow this morning, I'm already over 15 minutes behind schedule, but it's ticking along. Roll on the next holiday!


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There's a storm coming

The light this morning had a yellow quality to it, the air was too warm, and the wind too unsettled and gusty. The clouds above were scudding across the sky, and things had that slightly apocalyptical feel. I have a feeling I'll be wet before I get home this evening.

The weekend saw us doing stuff! We went to Cliveden on Saturday. Eventually. We all had a lie-in first as little one had us up at 03:45, and I'd got in late on Friday after meeting some work colleagues for a drink. (Not a good combination!) The compulsory weekend trip to the supermarket in the afternoon, and my wife and I got some jobs done.

Sunday saw me out for my weekly run. It was cold out, and I took a while to warm up to it. Did ok though, and it's getting *slightly* easier.

Once I was back and changed we went to the seventh circle of hell, or, as some call it, the NCT nearly new sale. We were only inside for 30 minutes, but I'm sure I'm about 5 years older now. We did manage to get a coat for my daughter though as her current one just doesn't fit properly anymore. Escape from Hades saw us heading home for lunch, followed by a trip to the garden centre for some soil. On return, little one went down for a nap, and my wife and I finally re-potted three plants which we've been meaning to do for months.

I cooked our Sunday dinner after that whilst my wife cleaned the house. Dusting, tidying, vacuuming; a small tornado of cleaning moved through our house. Anyone would think her Mum was coming over today. Oh. :)

Little one was in a strange mood last night, fixating on buttons and lights and just acting weird. Her teeth seem to be bothering her too. She finally went down at about 20:30, and was asleep about 40 minutes later. We watched Fringe, tidied the kitchen, and went to bed.

The journey this morning has taken ages. Every train seems to be on a go slow. I, finally, have 1 more stop, and then I'm there.

Friday night out was good. I didn't end up in Oxford, I left at the right time, I caught all the right trains. It was good to see those I was out with, but, as always, I could have done with longer to chat. The world was nearly set right, but the clock caught up with us.

Escape is almost at hand, so I bid adieu. More tomorrow. (You just can't wait can you?!)

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Beautiful dawn

If only I had a camera on my phone. For those who missed it (easy to do at 06:57!) the dawn was glorious this morning. Yellow orange horizon moving through cornflower blue to deep blue further up. 1 wispy looking cloud, there more for decoration it seemed. If only I wasn't hurrying for a train in the pre-dawn chill. Time for my coat to make a re-appearance. It was a chilly 5 degrees this morning, and is due to be a fresh -1 on Monday.

Forgot to charge my iPod last night, so no music this morning.

Went swimming last night. First time in years. It was harder than I remember it. Did a constant 45 mins, so not bad. My legs twitched something cronic last night though. Painful too. Not too many aches this morning though which is encouraging. Should get a run in over the weekend.

The usual load of jobs are lining up for the weekend. We have an NCT sale on Saturday to go to too.

Tired, but glad it's Friday.

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Late start

I worked from home for a couple of hours this morning as my wife needed to pop to the docs; doctors and toddlers don't mix, so I did baby duties (and e-mails, and phone calls)

My parents popped over last night on their way home from 2 months in France. It was good to see them again, even if only for a short time.

Little one was up in the night. 03:40 feels like a truck has hit you. A second call at 06:55 didn't feel much better. The "easier" start to the day, and an early lunch on the way in has helped, and I feel mostly human again.

I think it's time for a bit of a lifecycle change. Talking to my wife this morning we both agree that more exercise and earlier nights are called for. The difficulty is where to put all the stuff that has to happen. We're generally down to 40 mins of telly an evening which gives us 1 program a day. We're fine with that, but can't cut it any further. Cooking, cleaning, sorting general stuff out all takes time. We don't eat anything pre-prepared (except the occasional soup), and we don't go to bed until the washing up is done, and the kitchen clean. No compromises on time there.

We'll sort it. Much as it may seem a hard option, I think the only way forward is for my wife and daughter to get up earlier, and therefore my dughter's night time routine can start earlier, and so can our evening. We both dislike this option though as it means earlier mornings for my wife, and less time in the evenings with my daughter for me. I just can't see another way of acheiving what we want though.

It's a bad time to try anything like this too as it's so dark in a morning at this time of year, and it just makes getting up that much harder to do. Maybe we could get it going at the clock change. That might soften the blow a bit. Hmm.

Right, enough blathering. I thought this would be a short one today! Work finally approaches. Time for another Thursday.


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Clarification

As I'm in trouble :(

My wife does the majority of our housework. Vacuuming at least once a week, and the more frequented areas daily (if not more). Keeping our bathrooms clean and clear. Washing up twice a day, and keeping on top of loading the dishwasher. At least one load of laundry a day.

Whilst I keep on top of benches and cleaning the hob in the kitchen, she is always the one to clean and wash the floor.

She does a fair portion of the shopping too, which is extra difficult with little one in tow.

In short, the house would be a wreck if it wasn't for her, and whilst I may put in a reasonable contribution (especially at weekends), the bulk of the work is done by her at times when she is 'free' from the little one and would like nothing more than a quiet sit down with a hot drink and a book.

Right, hope that sets things straight.

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Quicker one

Running late into the blog post this morning. We're already at Westminster, so the Waterloo crush is about 2 minutes away.

My parents are visiting this evening (and tomorrow), so the house is now fairly spotless. (Until my daughter gets up anyway!) They've been away in France for ages, so, no doubt, they'll see big changes in little one that my wife and I don't notice as we see her daily.

My wife was out last night pampering herself at a spa. So after doing ALL the housework (only kidding babe) I settled down with pizza and ice cream to watch 'Vanilla Sky'. It was alright, but I think I could have found a better film to watch with my time. Still, it clears some space on the Sky+

We're now hardly moving, crammed in like sardines approaching London Bridge. I'm hot and just want to get out. I've had enough and I'm not even at work yet!

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Surreal

I'm standing on the bakerloo line at stupid o'clock in the morning listening to Barbara Streisland singing about being a woman in love. It's certainly an interesting way to start the week!

The weekend went like most of them do; too quickly. We had a lovely lunchtime / afternoon at Winkworth Arboretum. A picnic lunch to start in a leafy glade, and then an autumnal walk through the trees. My daughter walked for the vast majority of our time there, and then promptly collapsed into sleep when we got back to the car.

Sunday saw me get up and go for a run. It wasn't that early, and I procrastinated a bit hoping the mist would lift a bit, but I did get out and managed 2.5 miles.

Music update: Goldfrapp whilst stood on the platform at Baker Street waiting for a Jubilee line train to make an appearance. Not as surreal.

However, Was not was walking a dinosaur on the packed Jubilee line seems to be a return to form.

Anyway, the rest of Sunday was taken up by a bit of gardening. Finally all the vine eyes for stringing the roses and clematis are in. Now all I need to do is finish wireing them up.

We watched the first episode of 'Fringe' last night on Sky+. It wasn't bad, but the pseudo-science bit was quite clearly rubbish, as expected, and I found it a bit difficult to suspend belief. Enjoyable enough to give chance to though, so we'll try episode 2 this week.

It was pitch black when I got up this morning. Doesn't bode well for when I'm really tired later in the week. Clocks go back soon though, so that'll give me a short reprieve.

Crammed in like sardines now having called at Waterloo with only London Bridge left to completely pack us out. Joy.

Right, one handed typing now, so probably time to sign-off. One last music update: absolutely rammed on the jubilee, listening to Robbie Williams singing about Hot Fudge. Moving to LA doesn't sound too bad at this moment in time!


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Life in slow motion

Not really, but I was struggling for a title.

Another Friday dawns, and it's a beautiful one. The sun is out, the clouds are fluffy and sparse. It's not too cold. I've decided, once I get my new phone in December, to take a photo once a week from the edge of the platform at 06:59(ish) and automagically post it on Picasa and here on the blog. I thought it would make a nice record. Or be incredibly boring depending on your point of view.

The weekend approaches, and with it a myriad of jobs. I know the garage needs doing, but I fear it isn't priority. The glass bottles definitely need recycling though as a mountain of them collapsed the morning when I took the plastic out to be recycled. Why can our council pick up "green" waste (of which we have none as we compost), plastic and paper, but not glass? Or cans for that matter, not that we have many of them either.

Our draining rack needs a serious clean, and bits of the kitchen could do with a scrub. The conservatory needs a good tidy-up, and the rest of the house needs it's usual clean and polish.

Right, that's my interesting life planned for the weekend, so what else?

My course yesterday was on managing office politics. Where I learnt that I deal well with self serving machiavellian types. Probably because I get so much practice! Apparently we have a few "total losers" too as I recognised the tactics they used far too easily!

Back to the issues today; storage and location. I doubt I'll get a solution this week (today), but 2 steps forward, 1 back is the usual pattern.


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Thursday catch up

No post yesterday due to other working arrangements. This also meant I didn't read any of my RSS feeds. So catch up this morning has taken a while.

Live music reviews, backup strategies, and lifestyle changes have all been on my reading list this morning. I wasn't won over by the description of the electro/techno duo who get steaming drunk and smoke during their act. The backup strategy was rubbish (it hadn't worked), and the lifecycle changes called for me to cut 120 minutes of 'spare' time from my day. What 120 minutes of 'spare' time would that be then?

I have a training course this morning. I don't know what in, nor where. Should be interesting.

I plan to finish organising a stag do this week too. Ah, that'll be the 'spare' time I don't have then.

At least I'm not too tired today. Yet.

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Late

Train problems and disturbed toddlers have delayed me some what this morning.

Nothing much to post as I'm gathering thoughts at the moment. A way forward is always that little bit out of reach. Roll on next year, it seems a little more stable from this vantage point.

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What goes around...

Having made it to my interchange in a very luxurious empty train, I made my way to the next one. Which waited just that little bit too long to allow me to swap trains, to tell me that they were experiencing technical difficulties. We left 10 minutes late. I missed my next train by 30 seconds. I've now been stuck, in a dull as ditch water station, for 30 minutes to await my next departure.

Not happy.

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Trains

"Due to a trackside circuit failue, this train will be held to this platform for some time to regulate the service. "

And it was. Just long enough for 75% of the passengers to get off and start trecking for another line. Then it left. No crowd on this journey!

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Monday comes around again

Had a good weekend. My brother visited, and we thoroughly bored him with our mundane lives. A trip to the park, a wander around town (whilst I got my hair cut), a trip to the supermarket. We know how to entertain!

We did pop along to the pub on Saturday evening and had a good chat. So not all bad.

Sunday saw us visiting an indoor soft play area, and then heading home for some play time whilst I cooked dinner. After that I helped load up our old TV for him, and then he was off. Probably with a sigh of relief.

As soon as he had gone, I loaded up little one and headed to B&Q. (Yep, I know how to show my daughter an exciting time!) I got some vine eyes for wiring up outside, and some turps for cleaning. Meanwhile, my wife got on with sorting out our poor neglected garden.

When we got back, little one was tellytubbied, and I joined my wife outside. With frequent checks on the TV watcher, we got some pots moved, a new plant in, and the existing climbers strung up.

Its was food and bed for little one then (who went down quite quickly for a change), a quick meal for us (and the days washing up in the kitchen), and then relax. We've finally finished season 3 of Battlestar Gallactica, so it's off to Ugly Betty, and some backlogged Sky+ stuff now.

A quick nappy change for little one brought the weekend to a close, and a welcome nights sleep.

Tired this mroning, for a change, but not too bad. Another week starts. Wonder what this one will bring.


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Lucky

Driving to the station this morning I was stopped and held up at every possible point, and arrived for 32 past train at 35 past. Taking a gentle stroll into the ticket office I found the train was delayed until 38 past! Walking to the end of the platform, the door stopped just as I reached that bit of the platform. Couldn't have been timed better.

Last night was another tough one. Squeaks at 03:04 were easily quieted and peace returned until 04:04 (she must have a timer in that head of hers) when it took several trips up and down stairs for milk, rice cakes, and more rice cakes, plus 2 applications of bonjela to get her back to bed. She woke briefly twice more, both of which were quickly soothed. There'll be a tired house today.

More meetings today, not many, but some long ones.

Other than that, nowt much to report. Tired, weekend coming, brother visiting.


Note: I've just checked my inbox, and found that this didn't get sent this morning, so here we go again...
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How to clone your linux machine

So, you've had your Linux box running for some years, and it's aquired a bit of chuff over the years. You want to streamline, so where do you go. A rebuild. Maybe, but how do you know what you've got installed.

Well, if you run ubuntu, then you run these:

aptitude search '~i' | awk '{print $1,$2,$3}' |grep A | awk '{print $3}' > installed.txt

aptitude search '~i' | awk '{print $1,$2,$3}' |grep -v A | awk '{print $2}' >> installed.txt

This picks up the dependancies for all your packages, and then all your manually installed packages.

Rebuild the system, (optionally) edit the file to remove the things you no longer need, then run:

for i in $(cat installed.txt) ; do packages+="$i " ; done
aptitude install $packages

Go make coffee.

Once finished you should be up and running with a re-built system.

Now all you have to do is re-build and install everything that wasn't done through aptitude. You did back up you /src directory didn't you?

Thursday dawning

Tired this morning. More than yesterday, the terrible night we had Tuesday / Wednesday is definitely catching up.

My phone is annoying me more and more each day. The lack of bluetooth means that handsfree doesn't work in the car. My calendar sync sends e-mails to all the meeting invitees every time it syncs. Even if it's not my meeting. Even if it's in the past. The software on my PC isn't working properly; so, even though I've re-installed it twice, it syncs my phonebook, but won't start the outlook calendar, so I can't do a manual sync. Annoyingly, it connects fine during the setup, and I can see all the folders, it just doesn't start at all when I hit sync.

This all, I believe, stems from OS 4.5 and desktop manager 4.5 not being tested properly on my phone. I'm no longer a big market, so quality control went on the new kit, the curve and the pearl. Us 8800 owners suffer. I'd drop back to 4.2, but I much prefer the web browser, and the html e-mail makes things much more readable. Other things work so much better, I guess I'll just have to put up with it until December when my contract is up for renewal, and I can get a flashy new phone with some proper testing.

Ok, whinge over.

My brother is heading down to us this weekend which should be good. A chance for him to see his niece, and for us to catch up.

As some stupid woman has literally thrown herself at the mass of bodies on the train at Waterloo just as the doors wre closing, we're a little over packed! Thankfully someone got off at Southwalk, so it's a little easier. However here's London Bridge where it'll get a lot worse all the way to work, so, time to go.


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Perfume

Why do women wear perfume? And, to a lesser extent, why do men wear aftershave?

Three times yesterday I was assaulted by the most overpowering, overwhelming smell surrounding a woman. Joining me in a lift, standing next to me on a tube train, the smell preceded the woman. It's not even that it smells good or bad per se (it usually smells bad), it's that it smells so strong!

Do these women have a major odour problem? Most people don't smell by default, and even during exercise don't smell too bad. The only time a mask is necessary is if you've cooled down after exercise and not showered. That's a bad smell! However, we have anti-perspirants, and odour neutralising deodorants for that. There is no excuse for smelling like, well a perfume department in Boots.

I'm very late this morning. Little one, whilst going down nicely, had us up for 20 minutes at 01:47, 20 minutes at 02:55, and over an hour from 03:56. To say I'm tired would be an understatement. The alarm went at 06:23, snooze got hit 5 times, then I figured I was kidding no one and went back to sleep until 08:15. I feel vaguely human, but it's definitely an early night tonight.

Slow running on the tube isn't helping. There is a train broken somewhere in front of us. At least I get a seat at this time. The 9 people I'm sharing my carriage with are all studiously ignoring everyone as always. We have 2 paper, 2 books, 1 blackberry, 1 technical paper, 1 bored and vacant, 1 with eyes shut, and 1 paying an intensive amount of attention to the adverts above the seats. And me, writing this.

I've brought my ipod along for the first time in ages. I loaded up a couple of new albums; The outsider by Walter Trout, and the new one by Travis, Ode to J. Smith. I've just finished the Walter Trout album, and it's good. A proper guitar driven blues album. No standout tracks on first listen, but no obvious filler either.

Just started on the Travis album. Nothing amazing yet, but I'm only half way through the first song! I think they'd need to be going some to recapture The Man Who, or even The Invisible Band. However, we'll see.

Judging by the amount I've written, this journey must be taking forever. And indeed it is, it's 10:45 now, and I expected to be in work 5 minutes ago. I still have 10 minutes on this train to go, and that's under normal conditions. We're very slow, fast this morning, not quite stop go, but certainly not normal speed.

Anyway, I'm starting (!) to ramble now, so I'll close this post and get on with the day.


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