Work

What is your dream job? I've been thinking about this a lot lately. In High Fidelity, Rob compiles a list of his five dream jobs and, although he is reluctant to add it, he is forced by his girlfriend to admit that his current job of owning a record store is up there in the top five. I feel a little like that right now - it feels like there's a lot of stuff I'd rather be doing, but for the life of me, I couldn't name it. In fact, I can't remember a time I've ever not wanted to be a programmer - I chose my GCSEs with college in mind, and picked the college courses I needed to get into computer science. My dad first taught me to write code at around 10 or 11, I guess, on our old BBC, and I've never really stopped. The idea that I've always wanted this job, and now I'm doing it, is a little hard to process. Surely this 9-5 grind couldn't have been my dream all along? The reality is, my job's pretty damn good. Most of the time, I love it. I don't think that humans cope well with long-standing routine, and as such, we are always prone to grow tired of anything we do day in, day out - that is what makes work seem so dull sometimes. I guess the challenge is finding enough variety in your life to keep your employment interesting. So, top five, all time, desert island perfect jobs? It's hard to say, but programming is definitely in there. I think I'd like to work for myself, some day, coding something that I want to make. Writer would be up there too. Apart from that? Maybe shopkeeper; I think that running my own shop would be a rewarding job, in a weird way. DJ'ing would be fun. The fifth is tough; maybe events promotion. Tough call.

Holiday

People have often said to me that if they didn't have a job they wouldn't know what to do with themselves. That's something that I've never understood. I heard, a few years back, that the total hours of film released in the cinema now exceeds the average human lifespan, and I'm quite sure that you couldn't get close to reading even half of the books ever written in one lifetime, so that's me busied up for life right there, and I haven't even started on videogames. I hear some people even get bored on holiday. That's definitely not me. I'd be on holiday all the time if I had the chance! I swear I could lie on a beach all day and I'd never get bored of it. This holiday we couldn't afford to get anywhere hot so we decided to stay at home and pretend, and mercifully Britain decided to play too and gave us 29 degree sunny days for most of the week. Hooray for that! I didn't get round to getting much of a tan though, we were too busy doing other things: mostly eating. Can't complain! I am pleasantly surprised, however, to find that I'm looking forward to getting back to work. As much as I love the time off, I do like having problems to solve and I can't wait to get back to that. I feel refreshed and productive again. It was really nice to think like a human instead of a computer for a week though: I wish I could do more of that.

2008 in Review

Well, 2008 is over, which is good, because it brings us another step closer to leaving the "naughties" or whatever this stupid decade is supposed to be called and joining the, errr, tens. Personally I can't wait for the forties where we all get to be in black and white and enjoy quaint wartime propaganda and rationing. I won't talk about the traveling thing, because you've heard all about that enough already, but yeah, this year, on the 28th of June, I stepped off a plane to begin real life again in the UK. Traveling was interesting, and for the most part, pretty good, but I was very, very glad to be back. Looking out of the window on the ride home and seeing how green England was really made me very happy indeed. So, of course, did my wonderful girlfriend Kristy, who met me at the airport and pampered me and was generally brilliant. I spent the first week or so back in absolute bliss, relaxing at my mum's house with Kristy, being fed and watered and recovering. I would have enjoyed the summer a lot more if it didn't feel like a mad dash, but unfortunately putting your life back together again is a big task, so I didn't get to do a lot of what I'd usually get up to in Summer: juggling in fields, parties, etc. Not having students around makes Summer a little harder to enjoy because it feels like less of a break. Around the end of July I started a job at Optimor working on BillMonitor, a mobile phone price comparison engine. I started out as a java programmer, but quickly took up a python job when one of our programmers vanished off the face of the earth, and ended up taking on even more responsibility as our workforce decreased in size. It's been a hard job but for the most part it's been pretty cool and it's been an incredible learning experience. When I got my job, I had nowhere to live in Oxford, so I spent 3 weeks sleeping on the floors and couches of Simon, Plau and Kate, and Maisey and Sam. I am indebted to all of them for their amazing hospitality - thanks guys! After that I found a house with Simon, Anya, and Rich. It's a lovely house with lots of bare floorboards, a garden, a conservatory and a lovely lounge. We do a lot of cooking and we generally have a nice time of things. The house manages to stay more or less warm through Winter and we often seem to be very grown up. I spent most of my wages from it buying all the things I was missing: a bed, a new phone, a new PC... The stuff you'd expect, really. I've now pretty much got myself back on track and I'm starting to save some money, but unfortunately pretty much every penny I earned over the course of 2008 went into necessary purchases. The Winter malaise has hit me hard this season and I've felt somewhat stifled over the last few months, but finally it seems that Spring is coming and my 2009 can start properly. I swing from hopelessly creative to paralysed by writer's block on an almost daily basis, but I'm hoping that this year a good Spring and Summer will sort me out. New year's resolutions include: go out more, learn about whisky, get more things done.

Live

It's always exciting when software gets finished and milestones get hit, so I'm very excited to tell you all that the site I work on (as in, for money, not the junk I make in my spare time) is now in beta and is ready for your visitation. Head over to BillMonitor and check it out, if you like. Also, I now blog for money occasionally, which is very exciting. You can read me on the BillMonitor blog.

Dragged kicking and screaming

A big aspect of my job is knowing pretty much everything there is to know about mobile phone tariffs, and it turns out there's a pretty massive community about this sort of thing on the internet. While it is totally awesome that there are domain experts on everything under the sun these days, it's pretty hard to find them all and keep track of them, so it looks like I'm going to have to join web 2.0 for real and sort my life out. First, the easy bit: getting a newsreader up and running. I've used NetNewsWire for a while, and it's awesome, but with 23 feeds running (and counting) I get at least 10 news stories an hour, which is a challenge to keep up with. This morning I had 200 unread posts to sift through. Next, Delicious and Digg. It's not easy to shift your web habits into a new format: you don't really realise how set in your ways you are until someone goes and changes them for you, or you make a concious effort to change them. For an example of that one, see the current backlash to the new Facebook. It's better, but no-one can understand that. All the consumers know is, the links have moved and they don't know where they are any more. I'm feeling the same way about using things like Delicious. Suddenly I have a new way of marking things as useful, and I know it's a good idea, but it's a little jarring to switch over to. Digg, on the other hand, is complete information overload. Suddenly I've gone from having 1 or 2 interesting leads to chase up to having pages and pages of them. It's pretty traumatic. Anyway, my Digg and Delicious links are up in the sidebar for your amusement. My Delicious profile will be largely work-based - I might make a new one for personal use if I get into it. Digg, on the other hand, is likely to remain a little bit e/n.

Maintenance

Shrieking was long overdue for a bit of maintenance, and it's finally got it. My old hosts refused to upgrade my server to MySQL 4 or PHP 5, which I think is a fairly basic duty of a webhost (For the non-techheads, you can do this in about 20 keystrokes - it's not hard) so I've moved on to the rather excellent SliceHost, who just give you a virtual linux box to play with so you can update the software yourself. About time I found myself something like this. I'm now up to Worpdress 2.6.1, and it's very nice. Well done you guys at Wordpress. Along with Shrieking's update has come a wave of new ideas, creativity, and motivation. I've recently been edging in on the Rails community and it's made me remember what I love about computers. Slowly, all the stuff that I always thought would be cool but never managed to express is becoming a reality in the computing world and finally I've got the means, time, and expertise to get stuck into it. I've got a few projects on my mind and I'm looking forward to getting on with them now that Shrieking's admin is all done and dusted. Everyone, programmer or not, needs to read Why's Poignant Guide to Ruby. This is how books should be written. This is how people should think about programming. My job's been pretty hectic lately but last week we released the alpha, which is very good news indeed, and explains why I'm sat in a coffee shop in London at 5:30pm on a Friday instead of crying into my aluminum keyboard in the office. I'm really enjoying the job: it's nice to have something to do with my days. I find it helps me to focus my free time. My house is also lovely. it feels like a real person's house, and I'm living with some awesome people who are doing a fantastic job of acclimatising me to life back in England. I suppose I should probably also mention that my girlfriend is briliant. She'd tell me off if I didn't. Overall, life's pretty awesome. I promise I'll get back to writing stuff that's not just about me now that I have ubiquitous net access again.

Projects

One thing I've always had difficulty with is finishing the personal projects that I start.  I'm pretty sure that everyone suffers the same sort of thing to some degree, so I thought I'd ask my readers - what do you do to make you finish your own projects?  What drives you on?  Do you have a workspace full of unfinished ideas like I do?  If you had to write a list of things you'd really "finished" in your life, how long would it be? On the personal front, my life is going swimmingly, thank you very much.  Work is cool (Check the company y'all) and I have a house on the horizon, all being well.

Returning to reality

This weekend I officially re-entered the world of employment and as such I'll be starting work on Wednesday in the beautiful city of Oxford.  I'm excited about having money again and I'm looking forward to working on something meaningful again, but I'm a little bit unsure how I'm going to cope with the whole thing.  I'm sure it'll be fine. This means that I could really use a place to crash in Oxford for a while until I get myself a place.  If you have a sofa to lend me for a few weeknights, please let me know!  I won't outstay my welcome, I'm tidy, and I'll cook and clean and pay my way and keep your wine rack stocked.