My new/old band have had our 1st gig only a month or so after finalising the lineup. A birthday party for about 40 people, not a massive crowd but we still got the whole live gig expereince, and we fecking Rocked...
Was so nice, I had to do quite a bit of singing as Rosemarie has not learned all the songs yet but I actually got complimented on my singing....I was mega chuffed to hear that.
Rosemarie's vocals are amazing, and when her co lead singer Helen joins us after the vacation we'll have 2 awesome leads, I mean awesom, so I can back off and pick a few choice songs that I can do well. I don't mind singing as much as I used to, I think I''ve improved a huge amount, but its clear when we have singers like Rosemarie and Helen up front, there's no sense in me doing mroe than a couple of blues numbers.
What a fun fun gig, so easy and calm, even with a few errors, and false starts...So very please
now, that's cheered me up after a slow week with rows and hassle... Once I get the car unloaded I can chill, and ger ready for the week to come.
Can't wait for Mondays rehearsal with the full crew
:D
Ahthankyew
Saturday, 27 August 2016
Wednesday, 24 August 2016
working woes
Back to work, and on only my 2nd day I'm involved in a massive argument with a collegue who seems to feel my only role in our team, is to rubber stamp his methods...no sorry. Can't do that..
Teaching beginners is what I do, I know what I'm doing, there's ways to engage them, encoruage the bright ones but keep them on a long rein, and give the slower once the chance to catch up. He advocates letting the smarter ones run ahead of the pack and go beyond the outline lesson plans....that way leads to madness and serious issue of despair for the weaker ones. A group that can excel together is more impressive than a few sprinters showing off while the others feel left behind.
But rather than see that point I was called obstructive....I had little or no input in the plan, and I agreed with all the main points put down but urged caution on some issues, only to have this collegue attempt to browbeat me into backing down...
Its very annoying, but also what is even more annoying is that when you have a bad day at work, you come home to an emptry house, there's no one there to cheer you up, push you through the anger and let you move forward...this is definitely one of those times when being single sucks.
Can't sleep either, probably related, no doubt I'll have to have a less heated discussion with people tomorrow, but really I'm close to throwing in the towel here.. I hate conflict, but I'm not being used to my best abilities anymore, and if all I am is a rubber stamp, my skills with 1st years and engaging students is just wasted and I have to try to compete with more skilled coders inisting on mastery of tech skills rather than focusing on the understanding of the methods, pleasure and joy of coding......
yup...very fucked off/
Ahthankyew
Teaching beginners is what I do, I know what I'm doing, there's ways to engage them, encoruage the bright ones but keep them on a long rein, and give the slower once the chance to catch up. He advocates letting the smarter ones run ahead of the pack and go beyond the outline lesson plans....that way leads to madness and serious issue of despair for the weaker ones. A group that can excel together is more impressive than a few sprinters showing off while the others feel left behind.
But rather than see that point I was called obstructive....I had little or no input in the plan, and I agreed with all the main points put down but urged caution on some issues, only to have this collegue attempt to browbeat me into backing down...
Its very annoying, but also what is even more annoying is that when you have a bad day at work, you come home to an emptry house, there's no one there to cheer you up, push you through the anger and let you move forward...this is definitely one of those times when being single sucks.
Can't sleep either, probably related, no doubt I'll have to have a less heated discussion with people tomorrow, but really I'm close to throwing in the towel here.. I hate conflict, but I'm not being used to my best abilities anymore, and if all I am is a rubber stamp, my skills with 1st years and engaging students is just wasted and I have to try to compete with more skilled coders inisting on mastery of tech skills rather than focusing on the understanding of the methods, pleasure and joy of coding......
yup...very fucked off/
Ahthankyew
Friday, 12 August 2016
Aaaand Breathe
Dammit,
After an absolutly cracking week of steam rolling productivity, I find myself dead in the water, no insperation to work, no insperation to write, other than put to todo's on the whiteboard.
I think I need to reset my body block, and get back to sleeping at nights and try to work again in the morning.
On the good news side, my cheque cleared, bank took 52 euros for the privilidge, but oh well, its nice. It can go straight to the credit card to knock that back again after a teeny bit of abuse in London.
Better to knock it down and pay bit less interest than spend it on wind women and pork pies..
hmmm pork pies!
Danni, sent me an amazing video of Harvey2 now getting onto his feet with the aid of a tv unit. Such a lovley thing to see, he's progressing really fast 9months and standing :D
oh well. I'll go watch one of my movies upstairs to chillax and drink a lot to aid sleep
what can go wrong?
Ahthankyew
After an absolutly cracking week of steam rolling productivity, I find myself dead in the water, no insperation to work, no insperation to write, other than put to todo's on the whiteboard.
I think I need to reset my body block, and get back to sleeping at nights and try to work again in the morning.
On the good news side, my cheque cleared, bank took 52 euros for the privilidge, but oh well, its nice. It can go straight to the credit card to knock that back again after a teeny bit of abuse in London.
Better to knock it down and pay bit less interest than spend it on wind women and pork pies..
hmmm pork pies!
Danni, sent me an amazing video of Harvey2 now getting onto his feet with the aid of a tv unit. Such a lovley thing to see, he's progressing really fast 9months and standing :D
oh well. I'll go watch one of my movies upstairs to chillax and drink a lot to aid sleep
what can go wrong?
Ahthankyew
Monday, 8 August 2016
Ultimate laziness
I have not hoovered my house in over a year, well the stairs a couple of times but thats it. Why? Becuase I have a Roomba, I love my Roomba, it went a bit funny on me last week, due to getting clogged up, but a strip down and clean and its back to work.
I have it set up to run twice a week, and on my hardwood and tile floors in the kitchen thats all it needs The house is dust free and clean without any effort from me.
I love that!
But even though taking it up stairs is not a massive hassle, I tend not to. I like the automation of the system. Its set up and forget, aside from the once a month empty and clean process. I'd conisderd buying another one for upstairs, but at 600-700euros for a new Roomba it seemed to be madness, even for me.
So I have bought a cheap chinese clone, which incidendly also does mopping :D Anyway, its really cheap so I'm going to set it up to do the upstairs once a week, which will keep the buildup of dust and dog hair that tends to accumulate upstaris. I doubt it will be as reliable as my roomba, but its not being asked to do as much so it should be good to go. it will also encourage me to pick up my dirty socks
Ahthankyew
I have it set up to run twice a week, and on my hardwood and tile floors in the kitchen thats all it needs The house is dust free and clean without any effort from me.
I love that!
But even though taking it up stairs is not a massive hassle, I tend not to. I like the automation of the system. Its set up and forget, aside from the once a month empty and clean process. I'd conisderd buying another one for upstairs, but at 600-700euros for a new Roomba it seemed to be madness, even for me.
So I have bought a cheap chinese clone, which incidendly also does mopping :D Anyway, its really cheap so I'm going to set it up to do the upstairs once a week, which will keep the buildup of dust and dog hair that tends to accumulate upstaris. I doubt it will be as reliable as my roomba, but its not being asked to do as much so it should be good to go. it will also encourage me to pick up my dirty socks
Ahthankyew
Saturday, 6 August 2016
A picture paints a thousand words :D
After a bit of a search I finally found a way to grab screenshots on the Raspberry Pi. This finally means a lot of my entries in the book can now be completed. That really does make a big difference now, I can show steps in images on screen. and of course that pushes the page count up quite a bit now, so I'm really pleased that things are starting to move foward on that front, I was pissed at not being able to show screen shots of the Pi side...but that's done
The games are still taking too long to get in a clean and easy format to start, add to, and then finish. So that time sink still exists. But I am pleased now that the content can finally move on with the images to explain the text.
I've got about 6 games all done and playing, with various levels of completeness.
Still 6 more to go, and only a few weeks left.....will have to keep my nose on the grindstone.
Ahthankyew
The games are still taking too long to get in a clean and easy format to start, add to, and then finish. So that time sink still exists. But I am pleased now that the content can finally move on with the images to explain the text.
I've got about 6 games all done and playing, with various levels of completeness.
Still 6 more to go, and only a few weeks left.....will have to keep my nose on the grindstone.
Ahthankyew
Thursday, 4 August 2016
Mornings still suck
Had to get up early this morning after offering to give a friend and his family a lift in their car to Eindhoven airport.
Still I got some onions and other perishable foods back :D, better giving them to me than going to waste while they are away.
I was planning to make some mince and tatties tonight anyway.
The book is bulking out now, as I add code, but the projects are taking far far too long to complete so that I can move forward, I may not get it done in time, I really badly underestimated the time it would take, even though the games are highly simplified, (open to expansion) it does take time to get them written, and most importantly store the works in progress in a decent format that allows the readers to type content, rather than cut and paste.
Anyway, will spend the next week or 2 getting as much done as I can and see where it stands, I still have all the 3D stuff to write too, though like the 2D the framework is very simple its just time....time.
Ahthankyew
Still I got some onions and other perishable foods back :D, better giving them to me than going to waste while they are away.
I was planning to make some mince and tatties tonight anyway.
The book is bulking out now, as I add code, but the projects are taking far far too long to complete so that I can move forward, I may not get it done in time, I really badly underestimated the time it would take, even though the games are highly simplified, (open to expansion) it does take time to get them written, and most importantly store the works in progress in a decent format that allows the readers to type content, rather than cut and paste.
Anyway, will spend the next week or 2 getting as much done as I can and see where it stands, I still have all the 3D stuff to write too, though like the 2D the framework is very simple its just time....time.
Ahthankyew
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