Eventually
Posted: Thu 11 August, 2005 Filed under: News, Resolutions 7 Comments »Well, that’s one success that was well and truly deferred.
Test One was back in ’98, down in Dorchester in Dorset. I failed horrifically, having stalled the car on a hairpin hill curve while on the way back from Weymouth to Dorchester. And rolled back bigtime. Not an auspsicious start.
Test Two came three months later, and put me off driving for a very long time, by the forty-five minutes I’d spent with every other road user trying to kill me. It was market-day, and (among other things) I was nearly side-onned by an idiot coming out of a side-road, rear-ended by a speeding coach, and narrowly avoided a slow-moving (OK, Stationary) skip on a blind corner.
Test Three was in 2003 in Manchester. Another failure for “failing to do proper observations”. I still argue the toss on that one, but well, it’s all in the past now. Bizarrely it again involved a skip, but this time on a junction so I couldn’t see round the fucker. I pulled out to see round it, and then went. The examiner said I should’ve stopped at the line. The response “Could you see round that fucking great skip? Because I bloody couldn’t.” didn’t go down well.
Test Four was in April this year and failed due to fucking up my clutch control at a junction. Unimpressed, but fair to fail me on it.
Test Five was taken in June, and failed for exactly the same reason as Test Four, bizarrely. Not the same junction, but exactly the same fault.
Test Six was today. And yes, at fucking last, I’ve passed. Halle-sodding-lujah!
Competitive
Posted: Sat 30 July, 2005 Filed under: Animals, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 1 Comment »Part of my Resolutions this year was to start working harder on my photography stuff, and to both enter more competitions and build up my portfolio. All of these things are now happening, slowly but surely.
Currently, though, I find entering competitions to be quite a demoralising experience. Last month I sent off one I’m particularly pleased with (and, in fact, that we’ve had printed up and framed for the house) of The Hound, taken when we were in Somerset earlier this year. I sent it in to Amateur Photographer‘s “Amateur Photographer of the Year” competition as part of their “Pets” category, and – I can’t deny – I was optimistic. Technically it’s pretty much spot-on, except for the fact it can be a victim of the “it’s not an SLR” snobbery occasionally evidenced in AP, because I took it with my Fuji S5000. But there’s been no alteration to the image at all – no curves adjustment, or white-balance alterations. Not even a crop to make the photo better – that’s how I took it, and as such, yes, I’m bloody pleased with it.
The results were published from the Pets round this week, and of course it came nowhere in the top 30, which is all that’s published in the magazine. And while I can see why some of the images won, there are others that I simply don’t rate at all, and wonder how they were class as winners.
Photography is a horrendously subjective discipline at the best of times, and I suspect that there are hundreds (if not thousands) of entries in each round. I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes, because it isn’t – I’m not going to throw my toys out of the pram screaming “It’s not fair!”. I just wanted to write out some thoughts about the entire thing. I’m not going to stop submitting photos I’m proud of – in fact, there’s two more competitions that I’ll be entering this weekend – and I’m not going to stop working on building a portfolio.
But yes, sometimes I do find it demoralising, sending off stuff I’m pleased with or proud of, only to see it fail to even be rated. Maybe I’ll learn to harden myself a bit to this sort of thing, I don’t know. For now, well, we’ll see.
Photo category
Posted: Mon 18 July, 2005 Filed under: Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts 1 Comment »While I’m stumbling around thinking about how to write a CMS for a photoblog (yes, I think that’s the way I’m going to go with it – having looked at a couple of photoblog templates, they’ve annoyed the shite out of me very quickly for not doing stuff the way I want – oh good, more coding work) I’ve changed around my blogroll a bit.
There’s now a new category, simply named “photography” for the photographic sites I look at regularly, such as Chromasia, DDOI and so on. I just want to keep the two sections seperate for a while, and see how I do with it.
I’ve got a lot of photo stuff coming up – for our Anniversary thing, Herself bought me a portfolio (I’ve been saying about doing one all this year, and hadn’t got round to it just yet) so I’m also going to be working on building that up in order to whore out sell some of my stuff, with any luck. It’ll be interesting to see who says what when I get round to touting it about a bit.
All of which makes this kind of thing a lot more interesting, of course…
A Walk down Memory Lane
Posted: Fri 1 July, 2005 Filed under: Health, Resolutions, Thoughts 5 Comments »Via bsag, a fairly interesting little meme about time…
10 years ago…
Hmmm, 1995. I was working in Rugby, as the manager of the Three Horseshoes hotel there. (Nasty website, but I had nowt to do with it. Promise) Working from 6am-ish through to midnight/1am, with (if I was lucky a break in the middle somewhere. Insane hours, little to no sleep, running round like the proverbial fart in a fit. It was brilliant, and in some ways I’d still go back to that kind of work, if I could sort out the hours a bit. Mind you, that’s hotels for you – the breakfast bit is the killer.
5 years ago…
I was definitely in Manchester by that time, but where was I working? *racks brain* I think that I was actually working for Ebookers in London. And commuting between either Manchester and London or Bath and London, thanks to a friend with a flat in Bath, and depending on what else was going on. It was hugely expensive, immensely stressed, and probably overall not many hours less than I’d been doing five years earlier. The pay was better, but was swallowed up by travel, rent, that kind of thing. So, a major change of jobs, but no change in financial status, really. And still as daft as ever.
This time last year…
I was working in Oldham. Less money, easier job. d4d™ was going great guns, and was nearing its second birthday. Tim Henman had collapsed out of Wimbledon like the wet fart he is, and I was looking forward to seeing Herself properly for the first time following on from when we’d been together at the wedding in June. So… shite… that means it’s our first anniversary soon. Flippin’ ‘eck. Time flies when you’re having fun, doesn’t it?
Yesterday…
All very domestic. Working at the new place continues to be cool as chuff, and really rather satisfying. The cycling’s also going well, and thank christ the weather’s cooled down a bit too. Home, and cooked up some seriously yummy Goat’s Cheese and Caramelised Onion pasta, (cheers, Waitrose) although Hound® nicked some of it before it got cooked. Fucker. Ended the evening by watching The Punisher, which was just as brainless and shite as I’d expected, but entertaining all the same. In a dumb “can’t be arsed to do owt else” kind of way. Oh, and started work on two of the websites I need to get sorted.
Today…
A load of work has landed on my desk, so I’m going to be busy for the next couple of weeks with it all. Which is no bad thing at all. Other than that, sorting out events for next weekend, which as well as a certain anniversary is also Father’s birthday, plus the fete where the charity will take part. Oh, and just for good measure there’s the christening of my god-daughter too. Nothing like a quiet weekend. And yes, that one is going to be nothing like a quiet weekend.
Out tonight for a curry with some of Herself’s friends, and I guess we should walk Hound® at some point too.
Tomorrow…
Shopping, Gardening, more website work, and sorting out some photos etc., I think. Oh, and doing some fruit picking somewhere along the line. No solid plans just yet, but I’m sure we’ll be busy. After all, it’s a “quiet” weekend. Ha.
Consistent
Posted: Mon 20 June, 2005 Filed under: Resolutions 6 Comments »Arse. Failed it again – on exactly the same thing as last time. Two minor faults, and one fuck-up.
To say I’m pissed off with myself would be an understatement. What’s more, because Reading test centre’s so busy, my next one isn’t ’til mid-August. Fuck it all.
Driving
Posted: Thu 16 June, 2005 Filed under: General, Resolutions 1 Comment »Oooh, pooh, I’d (almost) forgotten that I’ve got a driving test on Monday. Fark.
So yesterday I had my first driving lesson since the last test. Oops. OK, so it’d kind of passed me by as a “really should keep doing that”. Spoons.
I started off thinking “Sod it, I’m in trouble here, I won’t remember a knacking thing”, but within five minutes it reverted to “Ah, I remember it all. This isn’t so bad”. And it did go really well – I actually enjoyed it, which is more than I was expecting to.
Now, roll on Monday. Eight bastard Forty in the morning. Aargh.
Weight Loss – continued
Posted: Fri 29 April, 2005 Filed under: Health, Resolutions 2 Comments »It’s been a while since I last wrote about the weight loss.
It’s frustrating, but it’s been a slow process. I thought I’d be losing it a lot quicker than I am – but at least it’s still going in a downward direction. I just wish the fucker’d fall off faster. Still, maybe if it comes off slowely it’ll stay off. Or somesuch garbage. We’ll see.
Anyway, as of last Sunday, I’m 19st 10lb. I’ve lost a full stone this year, and it’s stayed off. I still want to lose more – and I think that with the cycling and the more sensible diet (by which I mean “the stuff I eat” not whether it’s Weightwatchers, Atkins, HighGI, F-Plan or whatever) it’s going to keep coming off. With more exercise in the lifestyle too – and a fair amount of gardening and dog-walking into the bargain – I’m still optimistic about losing the weight, and gaining the target weights I want to. I’m not demoralised – well, not too much – and I still want to keep on with this plan.
We’ll just have to see where I end up.