The lust....

... to do something significant.

In those 6 words I've effectively summed up my feelings of the last few months, I'd say probably about the last 3 - 4 months of this year. 

Last year until November, the IT department of VMP [MySchool] consisted of 4 people. That was one IT manager, one IT support lady, one "developer" who was writing custom queries against the database to get information out of the collective 68GB beast that is the VMP database, and one php developer. 

That changed in November when the data guy left the company and the desicion was made that he did not have to be replaced.. at the very least not immediately. At that time I was / still kinda am the php dev at the company. In short, I haven't written any decent php code, or any decent amount of code for that matter, for the last almost 3 months now.... in short that means I haven't been building or upgrading any systems to make the work of others easier and thus I feel like I'm not doing anything worth the salary I'm being paid for.. at the mo I'm a glorified report manager, in the SQL 2005 / 2008 way, not the manager with a BMW type... altough I am driving my dad's old BMW 1991 3 Series boxie at the moment, because the Suzuki is still leaking oil... but my dad and I are working on that one.. slowly but surely, but we are working on that.. I have pictures to prove... 

In a week's time we're going on holiday, and I can't begin to explain how both of us need this. Grieks needs because she's been working like a wild person for the last 6 months, she's been a working demon and not been letting up at all, she's deserved her holiday. I feel unlike myself. I need this holiday to break my mood... to get my head back into the right gear, to look at things different again a little.. to sort my shit out in my own head. 

Sat in the car this evening on the way home, and I was wondering how awesome it must be for some people to work in a job they love every day.... and it hit me.. writing code, making a difference in the way people work, making things easier for them.. that's my ideal job.. that's what I love doing.. 

I'm an odd kind of developer. I know this because I've had friends tell me a lot that I'm odd.. so I'm extrapulating to say I'm a odd / weird kind of dev :o) I've worked in the enviroment where we did a project in two weeks. Anything from ecomm sites to NGO work and the likes in a month... informational websites to active and very intensely used online reservation system for a travel agent company.. all that at one company here in Woodstock, Cape Town.. to working in corporate enviroment for the first year of two we were in London.. upgrading internal systems to better fasilitate people's everyday functions.. and that there.. that's what I love doing.. 

After I've written a system or helped in writing such a system and I see people doing something that used to take them ages to do a mere few moments I'm a happy man.. sure.. my work, especially in the ever changing and fast paced world of web dev, won't last forever... but that's another post all on it's own that I've been tinkering in my head with.. but for the time that it runs, runs well and true I'd dare say I'm happy then.

I'm missing that... I feel I go to work as a drone.. I log into the IT ticket help system in the morning, then start to pick the requests I'd like to do, and like most people I pick the easy ones.. the ones I know that marketing requires accurate data for, otherwise money is going to be spent that shouldn't have been. Lately I'm looking through the list of requests for the really tough ones.. so that I feel some challenge. 

All that's set to change when we return from Mozambique though. We've found another dev to work with us... something which I believe our designer hopes will "push" me up the ladder of "wanting" to work.. I dare say it's not a lack of wanting to work, but it's a lack of doing the kind of work that I love.. the kind that makes a difference.. the kind of work where I get to learn new things on a regular basis and have to learn it quickly because it needs to be used.. I've worked with our designer before, and although I think she has some understanding of how I and other development / engineering people work / think, I firmly believe that she thinks the driving forces that drive her is the same for everyone else.. 

Apologies for anyone trying to make sense out of this post, I think it's just been an outlet where I could throw what's in my head space out onto a place where I can read it again back to myself to try and sort it out and figure out what to do with it all. 

I have to make some choices.. some decisions, but I feel it might be best to let those wait until I'm on a warm, sandy, white beach... enjoying the weather and great company that's going with.. including my brother who's returning to the motherland in a week's time.. I've missed him, massively and I hope to spend some hours just chatting and going on walks with him and my g/f to go take photos and play cards or board games.. 

To everyone out there, who might be reading this.. please do yourself justice in this world, do something you really love, because as the proverb goes : "If you love what you do everyday, you'll never work a day in your life".

[Z, out]

Gym, Carpel Tunnel,lens probs.. and deserving...

It has been a long time since I've posted anything here.. and rightfully so it's an interesting title that I throw up as well.. 

Let me break it down. 

Gym : We [myself, Grea and Rudi], have been hitting the gym at least 3 times a week for the last almost 3 months now.. and I have to admit I am a much happier guy for it. Granted, getting up @ 5am is something to get used to.. especially if you're not really a morning person like either of us, but it's either that, or getting home in the evening and not being keen to go at all, after a day's work and the likes.. weird thing, although we have been hitting the squash court and the swimming pool fairly hard (I'm far more fit than I was in the beginning of the year), I haven't really lost weight through it.. 

Saying that losing weight is not part of my ultimate plan, would sound like sour grapes, but in truth all I ever wanted to do was increase my down time for diving with the Wessels family by dropping into the pool 2 - 3 times a week in the Planet Fitness in Claremont, and that we've achieved. I can now play a full 60 minute game of squash against Rudi and 5 minutes after leaving the court be back to normal breathing.. with the swimming it's getting there eventually, but the 30 minutes I did on Tuesday was a good indicator that I'm on the right track, something that puts a little gold star in my own mind next to me.

Carpel Tunnel : Well, that's the inevitable pain of being a developer who decided to bring his personal notebook to work when he was doing contract work for the company I'm now permanently employed by. It's not as serious as it sounds, but it has been causing trouble with doing photography, especially in portrait orientation with the 40D as I am yet to get a vertical grip for that [ in the process of dealing with Jacs about that though].

Lens probs : Ja eina.. this one is going to hurt. Around August 2007 I decided to get myself and Grea a decent walk around lens each... this was back in the London days... that said, also in the good London days.. I've been reading and hearing things lately.. anyways. I bought two 17-85mm EF-S IS USM lenses. Took one for myself and gave the other one to Grea.. all sorted.. or so I thought.. fast forward about a year... and my 400D starts acting up and giving me Err 01 problems.. I take it to ORMS in Cape Town who send it up to JHB [ as there is apparently no one in Cape Town area that's Canon certified to perform maintanence and repair on Canon bodies.. great].. Camera returns two weeks later... and about 40 minutes after I get home with it and put in a CF card, it starts giving me the same error. 

Now, I'm not an unreasonable man... most of the time not... but this pushed my blood pressure way past the norm of 120 / 80 [ I wish that was mine ], and had me back in ORMS the next morning as they opened the doors before I even went to work... great guys that they are, send it back up to JHB [courier service now being free.. thanks again guys ], and the camera returns a week later.. with a completely new PC board inside.. yup.. they replaced the whole brain of my camera, and the shutter mechanism which had been faulty originally... and because they didn't detect it on the first go, they didn't charge me for the additional repair.. VERY nice of them.

Righto... so when I start getting Err 01 messages on my 40D about a month or so ago you all can understand my worry.. my intense worry... as a 40D is a lot more expensive and let's just say there is really no money at the mo for expensive camera repair... but I was getting the error only with the one lens, all my other lenses were working perfectly fine on either of the bodies I have.. uhm...

To complete the story...spoke to someone this week who told me of a camera repair shop in Durbanville, that specialise in lens repair.. I get the number from my contact, phone them up and the heavy American accent at the other end of the line asks me which lens it is, how old the lens is.. and what the problem is.. I explain and after a bief moment of comtemplative silence he utters that it is a common problem with the 17-85 that their aperture circuit packs up and cracks.. leaving the lens unable to step down so as to focus especially from the wider angles... the fix.. he has to order a circuit from JHB [ normally takes 3 - 4 working days to get here] and then "rebuild" the lens with the new circuit.. essentially servicing the lens in the meanwhile as well.. 

TCTM [total cost to ME] : in the order of R2000. For the moment being my 17-85 is living it's quiet days on my bedside table at the moment.. sitting next to the lamp waiting to go to the "doctor"... just for a little while longer still....until payday.

Deserving : Feels like the one that doesn't fit in sequence.. [you know the tests : apple, pear, tomato, bananna.. which doesn't fit]... 

A giant friend in London has been in the photography game for a while now, not as per say pro but he's been doing a lot of stuff with his work and is starting to feel the rewards as he's starting to get some paying clients.. whoop whoop.. and deservingly so. He twisted my world view a little in the last 3 weeks or so.. and the effect of that has had me thinking for a while now, about a lot of things, to many to mention here.. I digress. 

He sent me his radio triggers that he's been using for a while, and that I showed an interest into when we last saw them in London, which was at our leaving lunch on Guy Fawkes day in 2007, and then continuted to say that he couldn't think of anyone more deserving to send them to.. Yeah, I'm making way to much out of this, but it struck a chord (who wouldn't like hearing that though)... am I really ? I don't think so. Sure, my pics are ok, and in some occasions I'm lucky to get the odd really good capture, but not deserving :o)

Mr G-Unit, thanks for the radios. I'm going to have to build a Faraday cage around our bedroom though in the flat, as I never knew the amount of radio noise that's present in there. Two laptops, my Archos, the wireless N-draft router in the living room (very close to the wall), 2 mobiles and apparently a plethora of other devices emmiting something radio like.. ( I really have to stop playing with plutonium and uranium 238). 

With something that seems like such a small gesture you've altered a mindset, know that much.

Greets to all

[Z, out]