Diary

Disclaimer: The medical and health information is provided in this post is for general informational and to document my experience only. It is not a substitute for professional advice. Accordingly, before taking any actions based upon such information, we encourage you to consult with the appropriate professionals. I do not provide any kind of medical or health advice. Since it became clear that I could not recover from Long-Covid on my own, I have been working with two Osteopaths to help support my recovery. There is quite a lot of experimentation involved in treatment. Unfortunately, there is limited evidence of treatments that work for all patients. ...

Iain M. Banks died today, in my mind Iain is one of the few people who was capable of building a world so vast yet so detailed that it would take a life time to understand the ramifications and practicalities of living in this kind of pan-galactic near-post-physical civilization. Iain masterfully takes you through a single thread introducing ideas and concepts that underpin something much larger than the story itself. He does this again and again, winding threads together to build a book. Beyond my awe of Banks’ world building and book writing skills, there are some very specific things that he introduced to me that have contributed to me as a person: ...

I spend about an hour and a half on the bus every day commuting to and from work. It was a huge boon for me when I got my HTC Desire as it opened up the world of Google Listen. I wanted to go through some of the Podcasts that I listen to in the hope that someone else in my position can enjoy them and hopefuly learn as much from them as I have. ...

Somewhere in the middle of 2007 I was encouraged to use OneNote to clear my desk and move to a “paperless” system, initially this was a little painful as it seemed a gargantuan task to scan in all of the bits of paper on and around my desk that appeared to contain useful information. As it turned out I realised that if a bit of paper was covered by another (or in fact covered by anything) it wasn’t that important to the execution of my role and could probably be thrown in the bin. At the time I was not using Microsoft Office at home, opting to use OpenOffice for the limited needs I had for productivity software. I did however want a better way of organising my paperwork at home, OneNote 2007 came in at about £70 which isn’t unreasonable for what you got. Then I discovered Evernote. Seemed perfect, I don’t generate so much paperwork that I would bust the 40mb/month limit on the free account. In the end I decided to adopt Evernote at home and continue to use OneNote at work, it proved quite a handy separation of work and life. Recently I have run into two problems that are pushing me towards using Evernote for everything, and ditching OneNote entirely: ...

We often get a bit of my mum’s Christmas cake each year, this year we got given a whole (albeit mini) cake. Whole lot of other treats in a gift bag. Got to be one of my favourite Christmas Presents this year.

Windows 7 turned up in the post today. The red box is Visual Studio 2008 which is there to show that the boxes have a similar profile to the old style hard cases. I have been running the Beta since it was first available to the general public, and I have had Windows 7 Business at work for a couple of weeks now. Bought Windows 7 Home Premium for about £45 from Tesco. One copy for the main PC which I will probably re-build at Christmas and one copy for the laptop which is re-built now. ...

I had been intending to post up all sorts of bits of news about life, driving, programming and cats but it didn’t happen. I have been busy which is good, however it doesn’t leave very much room for blogging. This post is going to be one really quick catch up entry to try and get me back into the swing of it. I finally passed my driving test at the beginning of the summer, it was my fourth try and I passed with three minors which was a great feeling… since then I have driven once, as part of PassPlus, which didn’t really feel vastly different, although it was more enjoyable knowing that I didn’t have a test coming up. ...

We got Zoe and her sister Kerry in the summer of 2000 before I left for University, it had been a few years since our last cat, Emma, had died and my parents decided it was time to have a cat (or cats as it turned out) in the house again. I love cats, despite being allergic to them, so I gladly sat in the back of the car with the two kittens in their travel box, the as yet unnamed kitten Zoe looked a bit pitiful and couldn’t stay standing up I was worried about her, although as it turns out she made the journey just fine. As they had just been separated from their mother they were nervous little things, Zoe hid in the corner of the conservatory, Kerry explored a little. ...

Well another day, another driving test and another fail. I had hoped to say that this was a pass day today but it was not to be. I think the nerves got the better of me, I was okay for most of it although my throat kept drying up. This test actually came out much worse than last time, again I had two serious faults, however more than twice as many minor faults with 14. It was a bit of a shock to me as I had realized I had made some minor mistakes here and there but had not spotted the major faults. ...

The nervousness is really manifesting itself this time round despite taking my hay fever medication last night I am sneezing this morning, I think it is just the nerves. I woke up with a headache, the Paracetamol hasn’t really helped that much I am hoping it is going to clear as I head into town to sit in a coffee shop to relax a bit. I feel nervous about taking the test, although neither outcome has any real consequences other than spending a bit more money and having it hanging over me for a few more weeks. ...