menus of life

I had a whole post planned out and sometime between getting off the bus home and getting to sit in front of my computer, it all just trickled away.

Work is going really really well for a change. I’m stressed as hell and I have this constant feeling of being in somewhat above my head but I’m still managing it all and I’m actaully really pleased with some of it. There are times when you just know you are doing something well and while it may not feel like it so much, I think I’m hitting that stride.

Tomorrow I go off on a three day training course in business report writing and I’m looking forward to it. It turns out to be a bad time to be out of the office and I’ll have quite a bit in the evenings to keep up with but ah well such is life. Then on Monday I officially start my new job. This I’m looking forward to a lot. I’ve spent a long time working to something like this and I’m pleased, yes pleased.

It helps that the course is very close by and I can walk there in about 25 minutes so yay for not having to run around like a madman.

I’ve just started reading William Taubman’s biography of Khruschev. In a very unlike me way, I have started reading no less than five books recently and given up on all of the within the first couple of chapters. Nothing wrong with the books at all, just me and my mood not being right for them.

Mary, answer your damn email!

Now to sleep.

I feel somehow that I should say something about the recent events in London. We were joking around the office how the London police force have now got Jack Bauer working for them. Chasing a guy onto a tube, tackling him to the ground and then shooting him 5 times in the head! Pretty fucking hardcore allright…

Except; oops. Turns out he’s innocent.

“As he got onto the train I looked at his face, he looked sort of left and right, but he basically looked like a cornered rabbit, a cornered fox. He looked absolutely petrified…”

I don’t actually have any words on that, it just makes me want to cry.

jigs and the reels


world in motion
Originally uploaded by davebushe.

This morning, I have gone shopping. I’ve booked some gigs for the rest of the year as it was starting to look a little light and I wanted to make sure I had some stuff sorted before they sold out. Also somewhat of a present to myself for a new job. So I have
Aug 19th: 22-20s
Aug 23th: Death From Above 1979
Aug 25th: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds
Sep 15th: JJ72
Sep 18th: Trivium
Oct 11th: Queen Adreena
Oct 17th: Garbage
Nov 20th: Bob Dylan
Nov 23rd: Bob Dylan
Sep 25th: The Frames

Not all booked today I hasten to add. That’s just how the calendar looks right now. Pixies still to go on sale for end of August. I am annoyed that I missed out on Kaiser Chiefs, I shall have to keep a close eye on the internet for some more.

Now off to buy some more shirts.

silver linings


Clouds
Originally uploaded by davebushe.

I’ve been doing some interesting stuff in work for the past few months. I’ve not being doing anything like my job for a long long time now. At the moment I have two “acting” titles and I’m covering some stuff and modesty aside, I’ve been doing it well.

So based somewhat on that and somewhat on where I want to go, I’ve been trying to get a new job out of it. This morning, I did. Effective August 1st I move into a project manager role. I’m very pleased with this It’s not perfect, the money and the profile change are not as good as I would have liked but I have a good chance to make something of this and to build on it. So that’s the plan. It’s my 4th position within the company since late 1999 and not bad given that I did start in tech support.

So as I may have mentioned, I am pleased. It’s going to be hard work for a while but that’s a good thing, I’ve been working hard for the past few months once I was finally given something to do. My annual review happened at the same time and I officially exceeded all expectations which was nice. I’ve exceeded in a few things before over the years but never so across the board. In one of my weaker areas, I even managed to pick up a single distinguished. So, yes, pleased 🙂

The weekend should be quiet enough. An old friend from Dublin is in town and I really hope to catch up with her. I haven’t been able to talk to her much in a long time and it would be good to be able to sit down. It might help sort out some other shit going on. Also nice to have someone to ping stuff off. I may buy my camera tomorrow. I’m thinking about it, I’m not sure I can really afford it till next month’s new and improved pay packet.

Now, after a long and hard week. I’m going to head to bed.

Sky is reporting breaking of the seventh seal, seas turning to blood, horses eating each other. Thousands dead, trillions injured.

The BBC is reporting that some tube stations have closed.

From Mr. Wheeler on the V.

It sums up the media here quite well.

All is fine and we shall head to the pub before trying to get home!

Set adrift on memory bliss


Set adrift on memory bliss
Originally uploaded by davebushe.

People, people are perhaps my biggest problem in the world.

Over the last couple of nights I’ve been pinging something off some friends. I’m worried about something or at least I was, and I was very worried about it.

I’m not so much now, it struck me this evening that perhaps, through it all, I was just worrying too much to notice that I’m actually doing it and dealing with it just fine. The only problem I have with the way I’m dealing with it is that I’m worrying too much about it.

Before any cries about self-confidence, even leaving all that aside for a while, people are not always that hard. I’m coming to rely more and more on the phone than on email and IM which is good. It’s easier sometimes to talk to people, I mentioned last week about flat words on paper and fuck if that isn’t causing me such a headache in an IM conversation right now.

Of course, it’s easier sometimes to have a papertrail. That depends a lot on the people and the situation I guess. I’m not finding I need it as much as I had expected. It’s all about making your case and backing it up and if it comes down to it,and this is something I struggled with, tell someone what to do.

Of course, you can’t always just tell them, even if you should be able to 😉

I’ve learnt a lot lately, I’ve also learnt a lot about myself. I am still annoyed I was not given the chance before now but now that I have been, I know that I’ve proved myself and I’ve proved some things to myself. Now I just need to stress less and worry less and carry on getting it done.

I’m kind of using this as an aside to try and order some thoughts while in a difficult IM conversation with a friend. It’s helping a little but not enough. Friendships come and go, I believe that most are worth fighting for. Friends are important, they are one of the few things in life that we do have complete choice over. Sure there are times when you loose the fight but that’s not a reason to give up the greater fight. The fight that is life and love and everything around that. Blah, I can’t write to save my fucking life. It’s hard enough trying to do it to save a friendship but like a lot of things in life, it’s worth the fight.

I ended a friendship once. In a somewhat similar way to a situation that I’m in the midst of at the moment. I don’t regret the loss of the friendship in particular, not any more than the loss of a good friend which is a loss. I do regret the way that I handled it. I’ve been trying to tell some of the people involved that but it’s a struggle. At the end of the day, everyone deserves to be treated with a level of respect. I regret not doing that I regret seeing it happen to someone and I regret it for the sake of people I held to higher than that.

*sigh*

***

The BBC have one of the stupidest headlines up I’ve seen in a long time: UK prefers broadband to dial-up

Solider Girl


Kew Gardens April 2005
Originally uploaded by davebushe.

I found mine…
She’s so far…
She makes my head…
I found my soldier girl
She’s so far away
She makes (makes) my (my) head (head) spin around

***

I am officially an idiot. A first class, grade A idiot. For just under 6 years, I’ve spent almost every working day, working on the internet. I know how it works, I know how my company’s software works and I know how our peer’s works.

At least I should know. It turns out that I am an idiot and because it’s so common nature, I just didn’t think of it this once. And now, well now of course everything has changed.

Fucking idiot.

Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven


Africa @ The British Musem
Originally uploaded by davebushe.

So it’s a beautiful day in London. I had been very impressed with this flickr set and I wanted to go into Leicester Square and take some myself. Along the way I figured I’d take a walk for a while and take some photos. And so I did. Unfortunately when I got there, I found that tonight is the London premiere and so it was a) packed and b) mainly shut off. So I didn’t manage to get anything good. I’ll probably try again this evening.

I’m more than settled on what I want to go camera wise. I’ve decided on a Canon EOS 350D and I may even be able to afford it around the start of September which would be very nice indeed. Until then, I’m getting a whole lot better results from my lovely little Ixus and I’m very pleased with some of today’s photos. In particular the one I’ve used here.

In other news, my phone bill arrived yesterday. I am really going to have to cut back on using it for calls to Ireland and calls when I’m over in Ireland. I thought it was going to be a bit more than normal, but not over four times more. Ouch. That’s a chunk of money for a new camera gone out the window. Of course sometimes it’s worth it all to be able to talk to a friend.

It’s a quiet Sunday night here. Alex is back tomorrow (I think) so a little cleaning to get through. The Subways are playing a Street Festival just off Charing Cross Road. If I’d known about it before I passed this afternoon, I’d have gone in this evening but it’s just too much hassle right now. Seen ’em a few times and they are allright, nothing as special as I thought they could have been.

R.E.M. last night was my 6th time seeing them (Dublin, Brixton, Glastonbury, Hammersmith, Live 8 being the previous). I suspect that’s about right. Radiohead is 4, U2 is 4, Kings of Leon is 5, Hope of The States is probably 5 too. The good stuff adds up 🙂

I was going to buy a new CD today. I had picked it up and was pretty much going to go and pay and then I thought to myself why. One of the things I had been talking to Mike about before the gig last night was people queuing for Harry Potter. We both agreed that we might someday queue for a book but couldn’t come up with an idea of what we would queue for. A new album on the other hand could have us there in line waiting for a midnight opening. And in fact if the net does not come through with a copy of Sigur Ros’s new album before release date, I will be headed into work early to stop off and pick it up. But, the main reason I didn’t buy the cd today, I could not listen to it then and there. Previously when I had a discman it was great, I could just pop it in, turn it on and away I’d go. But now, with an iPod I would have had to wait for hours till I got home.

In Virgin, you can listen to any cd at all at a listening post by scanning it’s barcode. Now I don’t believe for a second that is anything other than comptuerised so why not offer anyone with an MP3 player, who has just bought the CD, an instant addition of their new music? How cool would that be? Just pay your money, plug into a cable and bingo, walk out the door with sweet sweet new music going strong. I guess it’s all DRM related but it has to happen sooner rather than later.

Music: People = Shit – Slipknot