New Opportunities

It seems like it’s taken forever, (although I know it’s actually been an exceptionally speedy process) but I’m pleased to announce that I’ve got my first contract to do some photographs. Oh, and design a website too – although that’s nowhere near a first. But the photographs are the real thing, I can’t believe it, it’s a start. It’s for a local charity dealing with soup-kitchens, the homeless, and disowned and dispossessed around the area.

Over the next month I’ll be out with the people involved in the charity, doing photos at the soup-kitchens, and also in the red-light areas. We’ve discussed some ideas already, and then we’ll see how it goes. It’s a start, and if it does work out, it’s got the potential to open up a lot of other markets for me too. Where it’ll all take me, only time will tell – but these first steps feel damn, damn good.

Bizarro Mundo

This announcement has just come round via work e-mail.

THe Café – the Civic Centre’s new dining area – is now up and running.

THe café (the ‘e’ is for electronic, as in e-mail) will serve lunches between 11.30am and 1.45pm every day, with coffees and snacks also available until 4.00pm.

The new facilities include a coffee area where you can relax, chat and enjoy a drink or snack. There is also a more formal seating area, with tables and chairs, where you can enjoy a lunchtime meal.

Yes, they’ve finally added in a canteen. There used to be one years ago, apparently, which was then withdrawn because it wasn’t cost-effective.

I’m still to work out the relevance of that “the e is for electronic” – corporate bollocks at its best.

Incomprehensible

I’ve just taken a call from a telesales person, trying to sell my company “mobile upgrades and savings”. Supposedly the company was called “amoco” (pronounced “ammer co”) only she didn’t explain enough for me to be able to get any kind of link or website to verify.

However, considering they were calling a business *cough*, they were amazingly incapable of providing any details. In fact, the conversation ended up with…

Telesales : “We’re offering to get you some upgrades and savings”
Me : “Ok, what’re you offering, how much will it cost me, and what does it do?”
Telesales : “Oh, it won’t cost you anything, it’s just some upgrades and savings”
Me : “On what?”
Telesales : *click*

So it was a completely wasted effort, and I’ve still no idea what they were bollocksing on about. Most bizarre.

Progress

Well, the entire Content Management project is progressing slowly – the new site will go live on Friday in time for the CPA starting on Monday, although there will be some bits that won’t be working immediately. With luck (he said, hopelessly optimistically) the idiots in the departments will be able to engineer the assessors away from the missing sections while they get updated/migrated/sorted.

So, a couple more days of struggling against the chuffwits, and then it’ll be back to a slightly calmer atmosphere while fixing what idiots who don’t understand the process have done.

As a result, updates here may be slightly less than normal. As well as the CMS deadlines here, I’ve got a couple of job applications to get completed, and two other deadlines that are approaching rapidly too.

It never rains…

Jungle: The Challenge – BBC2

Can a sales manager from Putney take on the Outdoor Quest in the jungles of Borneo, running, biking, climbing and kayaking over 200 miles in 40 degree heat and 90% humidity?

This is the fastest adventure race in the world, offering four days of physical and mental punishment.

I’ve just watched this programme, and it’s left me stunned. I’d never really seen or heard of adventure racers before – but wow, I’m impressed by them now. 200 kilometres of racing in 90% humidity and 35°C heat over four days, running, cycling, rollerblading, kayaking, swimming, and even an abseil.

So far as I’m concerned, anyone who completes even one adventure race is heroic beyond normal measures. To keep on running them like Team Saab Salomon is dedication bordering on insanity. I’m in absolute and utter awe.

Organised?

Today (and in fact the rest of this week) is shaping up to be utterly shit. Fair enough, for the last fifteen months I’ve been pissing and moaning about not having much work to do, and it’s been true.

However, next week the place I work has it’s CPA (Corporate Performance Assessment) which I’ve blithered about plenty of times before now. However, the arrival of this Inspection and Assessment appears to be news to most of the departments, as they’re all only now going into a mad panic and realising that their web-pages and so on are – to be blunt – fucked.

So not only are we working at getting the new Content Managed site up and working in time for Monday, but we’re getting mad panic from all areas wanting their Internet and Intranet pages updated in time for – you guessed it – Monday.

The entire process should be filed under “Organised, Couldn’t, Piss in a Bucket“. Murder may have been committed by Friday.

You Don’t Say

Ooops. Donald Rumsfeld has now said that he doubts there was ever any connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Nice work, Einstein.

Of course, the problem with this is that the “link” between the two was one of George W.’s main cases for the war against Iraq. Anyone with half an IQ point (which, of course, excludes George) knew already that Bin Laden and Hussein were more likely to be deadly enemies than allies, as Hussein had that eeny-weeny loathing of the Kurds, which is (of course) the main section of support for Bin Laden. So, bit of a clang there then.

Right since the start of this bullshit conflict, I’ve always said that the best thing that Bin Laden could have done would have been to eliminate Hussein himself. I’d love to have seen what the result would have been, had Public Enemy #1 been seen on TV holding the decapitated head of Public Enemy #2 (aka Hussein) in his hands. Of course, it never happened, but I still smile at the idea of GW having to say “Thanks” to Bin Laden….