Archive for the ‘Baldy Tales’ Category
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
December 20th, 2009 | 
Author: 
Well with Christmas almost upon us, time to take a break and concentrate on other projects and other people. The political scene which has been unbelievably dull and boring with journalists and news articles to match, will do little between now and the New Year when the campaigning for the General Election will start to gear up. In theory and given the state of the Country, there should be a March General Election to avoid Labour having a pointless Budget but given the usual dithering by Gordon Brown, it may well go through until May anyway.
I will check this blog over Christmas if only because I have Russian Spammers who mail in all the time. Why don’t ask me it is the most idiotic waste of time imaginable because it all gets trapped and deleted, even they are giving up on being spammers, the messages are now all in Russian not even English still I suppose it keeps them amused in their Gulag.
Cheers and see you on the other side.
PS. Yes I know, looking at the above I really can’t resist a ‘story’ !
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A Lost Month
At the beginning of October I mentioned in another piece that I had picked up a rather nasty bacterial infection called Cellulitus which inflamed one leg to twice the size of the other. I detest being “ill”, have never been the kind of person who described a cold as “Flu” and have a reasonably high pain threshold but I must admit that in the earlier stages, it was very painful.
Still the main problem was that as I have a housebound 89 year old Mother to look after, being “not well” can only be a part time activity at best and so all activities have to be prioritized into essential and non-essential tasks. To me though the biggest loss due to necessity was having to suspend my morning bike rides.
Tags: Cutting Through the Jungle…
Over the years and sometimes painfully, I came to learn that most things “take twice as long to do and cost at least, twice as much in resources – generally money, as originally planned. As a consequence, by the time I hit 40, I had evolved into a pretty reasonable Project Manager who delivered to time and to budget on the things I undertook.
However, the real “breakthrough” for me had come when I realised that the “development” elements or phase had to be totally separated from the “production” phase. Now whilst this may seem an obvious move, if you look at the most spectacular project failures, at their heart lies just this very problem whether it be on Military, Business or Civil Projects. It is sometimes simplified to a question : “What real problem are you trying to solve ?”
Missing but Found…
To most I suppose, it may mean nothing but over the past year or so I have become very attached to our local Herons and perhaps simply because they are such magnificent looking creatures. I am no ornithologist and what I know about birds could be written on the back of a postage stamp but whether the pair of Seagulls I inherited from my Father who like a breakfast to the Herons on the Brue, I really like my “bird people”.
There is a very large old Heron on the Brue, he is a magnificent creature, pretty cool and not easily spooked but, for the past 6 weeks or more, I haven’t seen him and I worried. He probably has many fishing grounds and two younger Herons were fishing the Brue but, was he okay I asked myself. Then yesterday on the high tide, there he was, just lovely and to share…
Back to the Craft – Ink Jet Printing
Although I have used computers to generate graphics and obviously as a keen digital photographer to manipulate photographs, historically I have rarely needed to print pictures out and as a consequence, haven’t bothered too much with printers in the past however, that had to change.
Looking ahead and contemplating just how I might make a modest income in the near future, selling original prints of work I have created seems an obvious route to explore however and in order to do this, I would need to spend some time in mastering the “craft” side of printing which has a direct effect on how you prepare images for printing in the first place.
I Just Don’t Agree
I may just be getting more deluded but I find myself increasingly at odds with the average journalist writing on most subjects. Sure there are times but infrequently, when someone just writes simple common sense stuff such as Matthew Parris in today’s Times, “This stupid child protection law will turn us into outlaws” : http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article6831413.ece
But the following two examples which are more connected with each other and Matthew Parris’s piece, I have reservations with.
So Much Fun !
The following story may well be more one for the “anoraks” than the rest but I hope I can make it interesting for anyone to read and in the process, not over simplify for one or, over complicate for the other so that, is quite a challenge.
But in a sense and although about computer software, perhaps the main ingredients of the “tale” are little different from all those Hollywood Blockbusters in the sense of the “individual” taking on the “big guys”. However, it does all get a bit complicated in the sense of just who are the “big guys ?” I will start my story with a simple description of probably the No.1 software package for web design, Adobe Dreamweaver…
Time for a Holiday – Of Sorts
This has been a difficult week with my Mother’s health but what does one expect when someone is an invalid and coming up for 89 years of age ! Against this background I continue work on my various projects which I apply the same kind of rules and drive that I did to any project I was in charge of for an employer in the past.
My nature is a pretty determined one and I am currently engaged in putting together a web project. This is a battle with web standard technologies which to be honest, is little better than digging the footings for a building, important, must be right but not totally what the project is about and certainly not highly motivational.
Windows Seven
Although I normally avoid Beta Testing of new software – a real pain unless crucial to your business, I did download and install the Beta of Windows 7 and frankly was impressed so when the RC version came along, – RC stands for “Release Candidate”, the final product apart from minor tweaks if you like, I downloaded and installed that too, excellent.
I am not an over enthusiastic “fan” of anything from large “American Corporations”, they only think “our needs” not “my needs” and the only reason Microsoft is being “nice” is because they caught such a big cold over “Vista” the “Edsel” of the software world and gave their loyal customers nothing but “Vista Blisters” but perhaps, a Window of Hope beckons.
Peter Tatchell
Last weekend was the Gay Pride March in London and as a result, there have been a fair number of articles in the media about ‘gay issues’, Cameron apologising about past Tory attitudes towards gay issues, silly gay Labour politicians trying to smear the Tories as anti-gay and so on. On Sunday Peter Tatchell wrote an article in the Independent challenging David Cameron if he became PM to deliver on a number of “outstanding issues”.
During the late 1980′s whilst retraining, I supported myself by working evenings as a doorman at a London Gay West End pub. Despite my being straight it was not a problem for me nor, once the customers understood the way I worked, for them either. At the time and quite unfairly I thought having some gay friends so that I was ‘aware’ of it, the age of “consent” for gay men was still 21 although the age of majority had been reduced to 18 sometime earlier.