My Life on the Net

Happy Birthday Corinne

July 3rd, 2009 | Announcements, Life | 3 Comments »

This was written before the passing of my mother. I’ll get to that soon. Just a bit shell-shocked. But it’s still Corinne’s birthday, and that needs celebrating too.

Well, today is the day my dearest Corinne turns from being a teenager to a young woman. She turns twenty.

How I wish I was there to wish her the best in person. I had plans to fly over unannounced and only tell her mother I was coming, wait till she said something like “I WISH CRAIG WAS HERE!!!” and then pull her around and surprise her. That plan, unfortunately, was hard to act upon due to lack of funds. That definitely sucks.

I got pissed off from one little opportunity I had. My father was ranting on about dell offering a free trip to the US. So I checked it out only to find out that it had just expired. So close! I could have got a £500 flight for the price of a £500 laptop. Drats!

So life has seem to have conspired to close us off this summer. Living in a long distance relationship is hard enough but seeing plans to meet collapse sucks–especially when the date to meet was so important to each of us.

While I wish her the best of birthdays, and that the presents that I got for her brings a smile to her face. It’s the best I could do, but I’m sure she’ll love them.

But just think–twenty. She’s survived the trails of the past 7,300+ days. She’s managed to get through them almost unscathed from the trails of time, although it’s not been easy. She’s survived through television shows of the 90s that freak me out to this day. She’s lived long enough to see the world change, and new lives made. She’s lived through worried sickness and even worrier times, only to become stronger from it. It’s made her the loving, compassionate and fun-loving woman that still surprises me to this day–and that’s why I love her.

Happy birthday Corinne. Let it be a good one.

The elusive job hunt

July 2nd, 2009 | Life, Ramblings | 1 Comment »

I have, unfortunately, little experience when it comes to jobs. I had little use for them while in high school due to the parents wishing that I paid attention to my studies. So, I’ve reached the end of my second year of university with only a little litter picking job on my CV (which lasted a week during the Highland Show).

It’s left the hunt for jobs during the summer a very hard one. While I know many who can get jobs easily, or easier than I can, during the recession and during summer–I’m left clinging onto the prospect of a couple of freelance jobs to keep me going.

One dream job of mine is working at a coffee shop. I love coffee–it’s a major vice of mine. I own about 5 coffee machines, but I mainly use my two espresso machines. I also make a pretty darn good latte. So, at the start of June I went around most of the Starbucks in Edinburgh handing in applications in the hope I’d be picked up.

Out of all I entered, one asked me to come for a recruitment drive. I was elated, despite the fact ‘recruitment drive’ is far from an interview, it was something.

It was one hot Wednesday, and I was dressed up a little. I wanted to impress, so I made sure that I knew all about the company and had a few questions lined up. Despite trying my best to convince them of how awesome I am, I guess the lack of experience caught me out of the list of applications to be chosen. 80 people turned up for 8 positions, and of course they’re going to take someone with experience over someone who doesn’t.

Their loss.

The sad fact is that it’s hard to find a job during the summer as a student. Despite the fact the Fringe festival gives a lot of extra jobs for students, it’s only on for a month of the three I’m off for. When my parents hassle me for not getting an interview, they don’t seem to understand how hard it is to get one.

It took my sister a month to get a job, and she just got one a couple of days ago. For someone with little experience, it’s going to be a little longer.

Wish me luck on this very elusive job hunt.

Back to the routine.

July 1st, 2009 | Announcements, Life | 2 Comments »

I lost last month. I’m sure I left it somewhere. My ability to do things slipped through my fingers like water, and that was it. There were many reasons, most of it stress. Emotional stress predominately, which finds it’s way through my personality making me a little more short-tempered than usual. I’m not completely over it, I won’t be till September, but it’s becoming manageable.

I blog today due to the fact a new month has started, and yet another NaBloPoMo has found itself coming my way. I love NaBloPoMo. Although it’s harder the month gets further in there’s a lot to talk about–and a lot I haven’t shared (I’ll make it interesting, I promise!). It’s an auspicious month, with both me & Corinne turning twenty. Whoah. Does this mean I don’t have long to keep having mood swings and sleep in till mid-day?

Routine is the name of the game this month, and it’s something that has become ever more hectic the longer I remain in my old house. Trying to get a job in various places has me running around, but my late nights playing a popular multi-player role playing game leaves me getting up late. Routine is something I’ve lost in my life.

I probably won’t stick to this month’s theme, but I’m sure we’ll still have fun.

Wanna have an adventure?

The dentist

June 23rd, 2009 | General, Life | 5 Comments »

I have always been in a love/hate relationship with dentistry. Well, manly I didn’t like it. While most of the dentists I have had in the past have been nice, it’s the news that’s odd. I, in almost twenty years, have never had a filling (in my adult teeth).

I don’t understand how this has happened. I can admit to being a brit who despite the stereotype does have good looking nashers, but my care of them is less than spectacular. I can often forget for quite a while to brush my teeth. My teeth aren’t white (mmm… coffee) but apart from that, they appear to be perfectly normal to the naked, non-dentist trained, eye.

But that doesn’t mean I am invincible from tooth decay and erosion has been going on. I’ve hardly been having anything acidic in the past two years in the attempt to falter it’s progress–but it has gone to far. On Friday I will have two fillings on two of my rear molars. It was going to happen eventually.

There was once a time, embarrassingly, for about a month that I aspired to become a dentist. I didn’t take into account that I dreaded dental hygiene and would avoid it by any means necessary or that I don’t find anything appealing about putting my hand into an OAP’s mouth. Nothing at all.

I’m kind of proud that I’ve managed to survive this long without a filling, but with the dull ache from my two molars hitting me… it’s about time I do something about it.

It makes me wonder… when did you get your first (adult) filling?

Thanks to get directly down for the photo. : )

5km

June 19th, 2009 | General, Life | No Comments »

So my father signed me up for a JogScotland 5km run which is happening in about two weeks.

Let’s take one little note. If there’s one type of exercise I despise… it’s jogging.

I find it the worst thing ever. My lungs try and expand out of my rib cage, I get stitches, and who knows what else – it just doesn’t work for me. I’d more than happily visit the gym or cycle instead, but here I am trying to last half an hour of jogging.

I’m getting nowhere, but I’ll try my hardest not to at least get up to that. I just won’t enjoy it.

I was just wondering, do you jog? If not, what forms of exercise do you most enjoy?

A small bit of work each day…

June 16th, 2009 | General, Video | No Comments »

So, I met Ian Sheddan on twitter almost two years ago. He’s a great guy and recently he’s been doing 5×5s with his Flip Video Ultra.

He’s been doing them for two months now, and in that time he has recorded close to two hours of footage documenting his daily life.

Not only do I think this video, which he basically mashes up all of his previous 5×5s, is awesome–but I’m amazed how much dedication he’s had for this project. Some may not find the subject particularly interesting, but I think that documenting 25 seconds of your life differently each day but keeping it interesting for everyone to see–is a fantastic effort.

Good on you Ian.

Homestead

May 24th, 2009 | Life, Ramblings | 2 Comments »

So I started the long and dutiful task of unpacking a few days ago. It’s only now that i realise how much useless stuff I actually own and never use.

I have two very large boxes to unpack which, at the current time, I am sure I will not need to bring with me next year.

My room, in which I spent much time after coming back from Egypt uncluttering and cleaning, was found in a state–thanks to my Dad’s powers of forgetting what I told him. “If you put anything else in my room while I’m away, I’ll kill you”. That, somehow, doesn’t apply to sails, televisions, wind generators as well as a variety of other furnishings.

Be this as a warning, students leaving for faraway cities for education. Don’t leave without somehow blocking your family from entering your room. A simple lock would suffice, or a death threat that you’re feeling capable of upholding. Otherwise, you’ll find it becoming a storage room that you’ll never, truly, get back.

The end of a nine month odyssey

May 19th, 2009 | General, Life, Ramblings | 3 Comments »

By 12pm on Wednesday–a nine month odyssey will be over. What you say? My second year at university.

So, it is time for a recap on how I feel it’s went. Overall, I’ve learned a few things–but I think I’ve let myself down.

The word that’s hit me with the past year is ‘potential‘. Knowing that I could have achieved so much, why did I just waste my time? I don’t mean in just the educational front, but the social front too.

Education

I’ve had some excellent times to strive for something awesome this year. I’ve been given projects that have tested my knowledge in some frameworks and I’ve enjoyed going further than I knew and being forced to learn new things. But I felt that this year has been a little bad in it’s structure, and I came out of it disliking most of the design staff at Abertay since they didn’t structure their work around our course. When they did seemingly have a plan for us, simple questions from other course-mates left them dumbfounded (such as “what’s rendering?” when talking about video editing).

Some things just didn’t make sense. A module on Law was included, which from what I heard was interesting–but turned out to be 95% irrelevant. When I’m doing a Web Design & Development course, I don’t expect to need to learn how many seats are in the European parliament. Just my two cents.

Other courses were difficult to understand and the course material hard to follow. One was a module called Designing Interfaces, which was my worst scoring module of the year. And by worst, I mean it. While I was good at all other subjects, I almost failed this one. That’s a big no-no for me, who strives to do well in what I do. One of the development modules was bad as well, giving us files with redundant code that hasn’t been used in XHTML in over 5 years (for a second I thought the <marquee> was going to rear it’s ugly head).

Personal/Professional Side

While it helped not having a TV this year, I still didn’t get many side projects done. It’s taken a long time for me to get motivated to do anything. I could blame this on thoughts back home towards my mother, or just plain laziness… but I feel I could have done so much with my free time. I’ve had ideas that didn’t pan out, blogs I’ve wanted to start, and I never get around to them.

After Corinne went back to the States that changed though. I got out of ‘slob‘ mode and started being productive. I started building websites that were long overdue but other things, like this blog, got put to the side. I’m going to have to find a way to be productive while still keeping true to the things I love doing.

Social Side

If you don’t remember, most of the people at my current residence are French. When they get back from classes, the promptly proceed to speak French to other French people, or they quickly rush back to their rooms in search of solitude. I, a perfectly well-mannered Scotsman, capable of only speaking English (I forgot most of my French about a week after my final exam) cannot fathom the language spoken by these people. Although they are capable of speaking in my tongue, they often decide not to, and keep themselves in their little French lives. Therefore, I have lead a quiet life of isolation most of the time I have lived here.

That started to change after Corinne left too. I pushed myself to meet people (not the French though, they stand against reasonable chatter and socialisation) I should have gotten to know ages ago. I even played football.

Where do we go from here?

I’ve tried my best to change and manage my life after all these changes have hit me. They’ll keep hitting me, but now I’m prepared. I’m able to manage my projects–both educational and personal–a lot better. I’m no longer afraid to meet new people and go to events where I’d usually feel uncomfortable. I’m starting to enjoy it. I just need to get better at it.

Bright & Funky

May 10th, 2009 | Announcements, General | 4 Comments »

People, do not panic.

There is nothing wrong with your screen. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. I am controlling the design. For the next little while, sit quietly and I shall control all that you see and hear. I repeat: there is nothing wrong with your screen. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to… My Life on the Net.

If you haven’t guessed yet, yes–I have changed the design on this blog. Why? I was getting sick of it. I’ve been meaning to do it for a long while but I never found a design I liked.

This particular design is going to stay at least a week, as I’ve got things I need to do before I work on any more websites.

However, it doesn’t mean the rest of the designs are in ruin. They may replace this current one. It’s very possible. Any that aren’t chosen, but have still been coded, I’ll release on fusedrealitystudios for a free download. How about that?

~~With those 100+ posts gone forever as well,~~ I’m hoping that this design reflects what I want it to become… A new chapter in my life… to something more calm, serene… more like me.

There’s still stuff to finish (archives, comment form), but I couldn’t stand that design for much longer.

Right now I just need to get away from the computer. Adios.

Don’t forget to backup.

May 10th, 2009 | Announcements, General, Life | 3 Comments »

Don’t worry, this has all been fixed since then.

I managed to do something stupid two weeks ago that I just noticed.

When I was developing the pinker33 theme for Corinne I tested it on my blog. I noticed loads of strange characters and found that the answer may have been something to do with my database. So, I ran the plugin suggested and let it do it’s job. It did it’s job but didn’t do anything to help the situation. Later I found a corrupted font to be the problem.

Today I was testing another theme, and noticed that it seemed to be clipping a lot of my posts. That was odd, so I switched back to the old theme to see if it was just that. Nope. I had lost a variety of posts for no reason whatsoever.

My new server doesn’t backup like my old one and I couldn’t find a backup that was a month old, so I scoured my hard drives for the file I thought I made before running the plugin. No luck. So, I’ve lost these posts forever.

How many have I lost? Well, I seem to have lost the majority leading up to September. Nine months worth of posts just gone, like that, and as far as I know I have no backups that I can use to resurrect them. I’m going to private a lot of the damaged posts and throughout the next month try to remake them the best I can remember… but it’s a shame they’ve disappeared. It’s a shame I didn’t make a backup.

Let this be a lesson. Keep things safe. Make backups. Be secure.

Also, I might just have to go and start backing up my computer too after this. :O [I know, I'm stupid...]

Extra:

Ok, I may have been a little conservative with the figures. I’ve lost a lot more than just up to September. Aww crap… all my hard work. I’ll detail what’s broken forever tomorrow. Thankfully, it seems to have picked the majority up till September to ruin… Others are picked randomly.

Extra Extra:

I just finished marking all the posts. 103 posts were wrecked (which is about a third of my posts). This REALLY sucks.

Extra Extra Extra:

Well, it seems that with the help of google I only lost two posts. Phew! Sorry for freaking you guys out.