Long time no see...
So what have I been up to in the past three weeks?
Not as much as you might imagine.
I've been working a lot in Walsall. Paul, the new owner of our business, has a shop in Walsall which is short-staffed due to a long-term staff illness. It's a longer commute and longer hours and it's a very busy shop so it's hard work but the staff are great and it's been fun working there so far.
On May 4th I didn't get elected as a councillor, as you've probably guessed. I got 559 votes which, having done no campaigning, isn't bad. I imagine I would have got more but there was a Green Party candidate standing in my ward who, by his own admission, probably took votes off me. If I was planning on winning I probably would have minded but as I stood no chance of winning in the first place it really wasn't a problem.
It was the annual FA Cup final BBQ at Ed and Jenny's house yesterday. Watched the game, ate some food, drank some beer then went out in town for a few more. The game itself was pretty good and was made even better by the fact that I had 3-3 in the correct score sweepstake. Scooped 20 quid which made the day even better. Pete and Clive, two friends from school that I haven't seen in 6 years, were there. Pete randomly bumped into me on MySpace recently and thus we got back in touch.
In other football news I went to the Liverpool and Sunderland games which completed our dismal season. Beating someone was a nice way to end the season but as it was against a team which has just broken its own record for fewest points won in a premiership season it was hardly a big surprise.
Besides all that, I've been having computer issues. Firstly, my internet server was switched off by the host due to non-payment of the lease. Administrative oversight on my part, clearly, but it happened on the Friday before the Bank Holiday weekend so it took a while to sort that out. Had no e-mail for several days which was...bizarre. A few days after that was sorted out my home server died on me. I still have no idea what the problem is/was - it froze and refused to boot. There were no mobo beeps at all which suggested the graphics card so I replaced that with a very old one and it sprang back to life...for a few hours then it froze again and refused to boot as before. So something weird was going on there. Because of work and weekends and stuff it took a while for me to sort out. I ultimately replaced it with a machine from PC World but then decided to have that as my Windows desktop and turn my old Windows desktop into the server. I took the opportunity to install FreeBSD 6.2 on the server so now it's nicely up to date. Don't have a clue what the difference is between versions. On *n*x systems you only notice changes when something like KDE updates...but I'm sure it's great :)
I've also been shifting stuff around the house. The old 'room full of junk' is now a computer room with a bed in it. The old computer room is currently becoming a 'spare bedroom'. The plan is that I'll occupy that but it can be spare when anyone needs it to be and I can sleep in my current bedroom. Basically the reasoning is that I don't have enough space to exist in so...I'm getting more.
And finally, I went to Portmeirion last weekend for my cousin's wedding. It was very nice and if you've never been to Portmeirion I would heartily recommend it. I might put some photos up at some point. We shall see.
And all of that rambling means that I'm alive, I'm well and I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth. You may rest assured.
Not as much as you might imagine.
I've been working a lot in Walsall. Paul, the new owner of our business, has a shop in Walsall which is short-staffed due to a long-term staff illness. It's a longer commute and longer hours and it's a very busy shop so it's hard work but the staff are great and it's been fun working there so far.
On May 4th I didn't get elected as a councillor, as you've probably guessed. I got 559 votes which, having done no campaigning, isn't bad. I imagine I would have got more but there was a Green Party candidate standing in my ward who, by his own admission, probably took votes off me. If I was planning on winning I probably would have minded but as I stood no chance of winning in the first place it really wasn't a problem.
It was the annual FA Cup final BBQ at Ed and Jenny's house yesterday. Watched the game, ate some food, drank some beer then went out in town for a few more. The game itself was pretty good and was made even better by the fact that I had 3-3 in the correct score sweepstake. Scooped 20 quid which made the day even better. Pete and Clive, two friends from school that I haven't seen in 6 years, were there. Pete randomly bumped into me on MySpace recently and thus we got back in touch.
In other football news I went to the Liverpool and Sunderland games which completed our dismal season. Beating someone was a nice way to end the season but as it was against a team which has just broken its own record for fewest points won in a premiership season it was hardly a big surprise.
Besides all that, I've been having computer issues. Firstly, my internet server was switched off by the host due to non-payment of the lease. Administrative oversight on my part, clearly, but it happened on the Friday before the Bank Holiday weekend so it took a while to sort that out. Had no e-mail for several days which was...bizarre. A few days after that was sorted out my home server died on me. I still have no idea what the problem is/was - it froze and refused to boot. There were no mobo beeps at all which suggested the graphics card so I replaced that with a very old one and it sprang back to life...for a few hours then it froze again and refused to boot as before. So something weird was going on there. Because of work and weekends and stuff it took a while for me to sort out. I ultimately replaced it with a machine from PC World but then decided to have that as my Windows desktop and turn my old Windows desktop into the server. I took the opportunity to install FreeBSD 6.2 on the server so now it's nicely up to date. Don't have a clue what the difference is between versions. On *n*x systems you only notice changes when something like KDE updates...but I'm sure it's great :)
I've also been shifting stuff around the house. The old 'room full of junk' is now a computer room with a bed in it. The old computer room is currently becoming a 'spare bedroom'. The plan is that I'll occupy that but it can be spare when anyone needs it to be and I can sleep in my current bedroom. Basically the reasoning is that I don't have enough space to exist in so...I'm getting more.
And finally, I went to Portmeirion last weekend for my cousin's wedding. It was very nice and if you've never been to Portmeirion I would heartily recommend it. I might put some photos up at some point. We shall see.
And all of that rambling means that I'm alive, I'm well and I haven't disappeared off the face of the earth. You may rest assured.