It struck me earlier this afternoon that I have not been writing in my Blog regularly.
In an effort to put a stop to this inexcusable procrastination, here is an update from my little soapbox atop the third floor of the offices.
It’s been an interesting week - both at work and at home. On Monday I rolled into work to carry on slogging away with the helpdesk calls - the company is trying out an idea where two developers at a time take turns to man the 1st line support for six weeks at a go. It means I’m not doing project development work while I’m on helpdesk, so am free to do research while calls are not outstanding. My computer screen is therefore filled with documentation on all the stuff I have been meaning to study for a long time - arcane subjects such as optimising MySQL queries, and Apache security…
On Monday I also discovered that the local brewery (of which I am a member of their beer club) was holding a “members open night” on Tuesday night. The members nights mean that each member can take 4 friends along, get a tour of the brewery, and drink as much as you like of the beers they are currently making. Of course it was sods law that I had to go to visit a client site first thing on Wednesday morning.
In the end I had about 3 pints on Tuesday night. I went and took along a couple of friends, and somehow one of them managed to out-drink me almost 2 pints to each of my 1. I’m getting old… or I’m just a lightweight. Gone are the days when I could down 6 pints and still roll in for work the next morning.
The more wise among my friends and colleagues booked the next morning off, so they all wandered off to various other bars as soon as the brewery called time.
Wednesday was spent at a client site in Hillingdon. The day started pretty badly - I usually catch a train through to West Drayton, then a 10 minute taxi ride to their offices. Except it took 45 minutes for a taxi to turn up. I can’t really blame the taxi company - it was one of those rainy mornings where all the mothers give their children a lift to school.
What is it with kids getting driven to school? We used to walk about 2 miles to school and back every day in whatever weather. I can’t ever remember being given a lift because it was raining - that’s what our coats were for. Actually, thinking back, we walked to junior school too. Once my brother was about 11 years old we would walk to school together (he is 3 years older than me). I remember spending a few mornings stood waiting outside my brother’s best friend’s house while he had his breakfast.
What is it with friends always being late for things?
I’m slipping into a rant. I can feel it. It’s funny - while travelling back from Hillingdon yesterday towards the station in a taxi, I realised I had been bitching about all kinds of things with the driver all the way; and the thought struck me “Oh my god - I’m turning into a grump old man”.