Yesterday I was at the Web Source East conference at the King’s Centre in Norwich.  And all told it was alright. Not brilliant, but alright.  I’m going to write more about it over on my company site, but thought I’d put a brief review here as well, just for the hell of it.

I think I’d probably have been more impressed if it had been a bit more organised. For a conference based on web stuff, it’s a bit of a worry to go in and be checked off with bits of paper, no tech in sight at all. It’s even more of a worry when it takes them the whole morning to sort out internet access over the wireless network.

Those niggle aside though, it was a pretty good day.

For me there wasn’t a mass of new stuff to take away from the conference, but there was enough to keep it interesting, so that’s all OK then. Some interesting ideas and bits, and it’s always good to see what other people are saying about the same subjects.

Tonight’s actually been fairly productive.

With Herself away I’ve been able to catch up on some rubbish TV and get cracking on the website work I planned to do this weekend.

So all in all a quiet night, but a productive one.

This weekend was supposed to be a quiet one. Herself was supposed to be really busy throughout, and staying elsewhere for two nights. She was going to be out on Friday at the theatre, on a course over the weekend, and then down to Basingstoke for a work-related course on Monday. Which meant a nice quiet weekend for me – allbeit looking after the animals etc. – and getting some outstanding work done.

At the last minute though, the weekend course got cancelled “because there weren’t enough people signed up for it”. No bad thing really, it gives Herself  the wekeend back, but still quite a pain in the arse – especially considering that it had been paid for, along with buying specific materials for the course. We’ll get the money back for the course, that’s not an issue. It’s just all deeply annoying.

So the weekend changed a bit, and today I also ended up driving over to Fakenham to pick up the stuff we’d left there. (at the request of the course organisers)

Still, I’ll do some of the necessary work tomorrow while Herself’s off down to Basingstoke for Monday. Better than nowt.

One of our plans this weekend was to go over to the NEC and visit the International Spring Fair, a massive trade fair held every year.

However, somehow I’ve managed to stuff my foot (again) which means that walking is currently pretty painful. No idea quite what I’ve done to the damn thing, but it’s becoming a more regular occurrence round these parts, which isn’t a good sign. Thing is, it’s not damage in the same location as before, so it’s not like one weak spot or anything.

We could still go, but I think it’d be pretty silly to do a two-hour-plus drive each way and walk/limp round the NEC while on a dodgy foot.

For the rest, I can hold off ’til the Autumn version, so it’s not a massive loss- just a delay to a couple of things.

All told it’s a bit of a bummer, but for once I’m trying to let common-sense take over from ‘Well we’ve planned it so that’s what we’re going to do.”

As well as getting rid of the poxy hire car (with luck), we’re also getting shot of some other stuff through eBay.

Admittedly, Herself is being the driving force on it – the majority of the stuff is hers, which makes it a good reason for her being so – but we’re working on it.

The really big lot is the floor tiles – we bought enough to do the floors in all the rooms in the house, plus the extensions we initially thought we’d do.  However, we’re now pretty sure we won’t be doing the extensions in the foreseeable future, and the thirty-odd remaining boxes of tiles are taking up space in the garage. So they’ve been on eBay, and we’ve already sold a third of them, with people wanting the other twenty as well.

The next big set of lots is going to be Herself’s doll’s house and furniture. Nothing’s been done with it as long as I’ve known her, and again it’s all taking up room in the garage. We’ve looked at other options before, but now it’s going on eBay, and we’ll see how it goes (or even if it goes) from there.

And my part in the proceedings? Primarily, it’s been about taking photographs of the stuff that’s for sale, working in some small way to build up my photography portfolio a bit, see how things go on that score too.

Well it’s New Year’s Eve, so it’s time for me to have a few thoughts and ideas for 2010.

As always, there’s a number of ideas and plans coming together at the moment, but whether they’ll all come into fruition or not is something only time will tell. But for now this is the list of what’s in my head, and we’ll see what happens. I’m trying to keep it down to four or five categories, just to simplify things a bit.

• Photography : I really want to make some progress on the photography side of things, work towards selling some bits if possible. I’ve got some contracted work to do for the charity I worked with a while back, and from there see what progresses.
• Writing : Again, I want to get to the point of having some stuff actually done and finished. I planned to do this in ’09, but that hasn’t worked out. There’s a few bits that have been started, but I need to finish at least a couple of them and work that way.
• Work : I’ve made the commitment to stay in the current job throughout 2010 – allbeit with the “unless everything turns to shit as a result” proviso – which will keep the bills being paid and me in general work. But I still want to get some of the outstanding projects and ideas into some version of reality.
• Social Life : Over the last couple of years (really since moving to Norfolk) I’ve been utterly shit on the social side of things. So I plan to spend some time getting back in touch with friends around the place, and seeing them etc.
• Money : For me, 2009 wasn’t a good year financially, and want to spend 2010 getting back into a place that I’m happy with. Currently I’m not happy with the situation for debt, and I want to get a significant dollop of all that paid off if at all possible.

And that’s it. There’ll be more detail over time, I’m sure – and there’s also stuff on the domestic side – but that’s the rough plan. It’ll do for now.