Tuesday 26th January 2010 12:36 am
I am getting too many super, new, shiny things at the moment. I am facing the very real risk of becoming spoilt!
If work give in to my forthcoming demands for a pony made of diamonds and a golden crown with giant rubies then there is no hope…
I received my iPhone over a week ago now and at work yesterday my new server and new screen were delivered. The server is nothing spectacular, a few-year-old rack mount one that I shall transfer Ubuntu Linux onto when I have time – currently I have my old work desktop PC box as my linux server but after proving the benefit of one, a proper server has been bought. We also acquired a server cabinet to slot it into today. My new screen at work is lovely, I had been using an old 19″ standard widescreen 1440×900 screen but after a few too many hints and a small amount of sulking/whinging I now have a brand new 1920×1080 HD widescreen screen, and I love it. I might get one for my desk at home to go with the new laptop when I buy it if the Apple Cinema screen is too expensive. I also have plans to possibly buy myself a DSLR camera this year. Like I said, spoilt.
It will actually make my job easier and save time because I can get more data on screen and won’t have to keep scrolling across or switching between open files – which was a little infuriating.
Also, my old screen and old desktop PC which was the temporary linux server shall be combined and reborn as my second work PC – with a desktop version of Ubuntu Linux installed. I’m getting a desk extension to fit this in.
I also got another pay rise, moving my salary ever closer to the amount deserved for the things I do. I’m happy to have it bumped in increments and I really cannot complain about my salary increasing by nearly 30% over slightly more than six months, taking all three pay rises since June last year into account.
It wouldn’t be entirely incorrect to say I’m doing really well when it comes to my career at the moment. I’ve had a few setbacks and low points but I’ve got an environment where I can do well, and they don’t come with most jobs/companies for me. I’ve always been the poster boy for unrealised potential – the one who could do really well if he just got on with it and stopped fighting authority and fucking everything up by doing stupid things.
I’ll give everything I have if people just let me be me and I think it is worth it. I don’t know how long I’ll stick with my current career but I have no current plans to do other things at the moment. I’d like to move back to London one day, but that’s not going to happen until I can replicate my current living arrangements at North London prices.
The only thing I have conflicted opinions about is being ‘management’, at the moment this is not an issue as there are only five of us working full time and we all have very specific areas of responsibility – I am going to find it very difficult having someone looking at me as some kind of manager/supervisor, it is going to be the most difficult thing I’ve had to cope with since I joined this company eighteen months ago.
The only thing worse than accepting authority figures is becoming one…
Posted by Chris Pixie under Bloggery
Tagged with: cameras, computers, iphone, life, linux, shiny things, work.
Thursday 1st October 2009 6:44 pm
Things have been hectic recently. I’ve been working full-time and studying part-time all year. I started in January with an OU course and I just handed in my final piece of work just over a week ago. Suddenly I have free time!
I wrote 4,500 words about Carlo Crivelli’s Annunciation with Saint Emidius for those who are interested. If you’ve been to the Sainsbury Wing of the National Gallery in London you may have seen it, and other work by Crivelli. My mark won’t be very good, I didn’t have the time to do enough research and spend as much time as I would have liked.
It has also been a hectic year at work, I started back in January in a new role and this has continued to expand and change to the point where I’m now considered part of the ‘management’ and have to do things like attend meetings in the board room and occasionally go for meetings with clients and potential clients if it relates to my particular areas of responsibility.
This week at work I’ve mostly been building my server. I took my old work PC, installed Ubuntu Linux Sever 9.04 on it and set it up to host an internal web based database system. I have called it ‘Fintan’ after the Salmon of Knowledge. There was also a little catching up on other things to do because I had Thursday and Friday of last week off.
After I had posted my essay off to the Open University I went for a few days in London, because I badly needed a break and to recharge a bit. I had an excellent time doing various things, including…
Kinky Friedman gig in Camden. This was extremely enjoyable and made me less upset that Schelmish had to cancel their gig. There was also a guest singer called John Joe Mayo, who was superb but I can’t find anything about him online. I was hoping to buy some CDs.
Dalek & Delta exhibition at the Elms Lesters Painting Rooms (now finished) near Tottenham Court Road. It is a fantastic gallery and the building is worth seeing on its own. I liked Dalek (James Marshall)’s work more than I had in pictures online, I think it works best on a larger scale though and I am still unsure about the smaller paintings but I do find them fascinating. Delta (Boris Tellegen)’s work was fantastic and I enjoyed that significantly, his style is much more my thing when it comes to contemporary art. The textures and colours are just great. I shall post a few photos of the building when my friend Gem put them online. I didn’t take any myself, I don’t currently have a camera.
This coming weekend I actually get to relax and do nothing, by Monday I should be in some kind of fit state to face the world and not appear to be held together entirely by coffee and sheer bloody mindedness.
Definitely looking forward to the weekend. One more day to go!
Posted by Chris Pixie under Bloggery
Tagged with: art, camden, carlo crivelli, dalek, delta, elms lesters painting rooms, gigs, john joe mayo, kinky friedman, linux, london, music, national gallery, open university, schelmish, work.