Week 361

After going on holiday it’s been hard to get back into writing weeknotes. I’m also frequently unsure whether to continue writing them. I enjoy reading those from other individuals and companies but, after the initial enthusiasm, I haven’t been sure what they’re for in my case.

Other individuals always seem to be doing more varied and interesting projects — the number of things I’m working on in any one week is usually one or none. And writing about processes, problems and ambitions is an interesting insight when it’s about a company, but can seem a little emo when it’s from an individual.

So we’ll see. It could be I don’t try and do this every week. But, to catch up…

The project at Somethin’ Else is nearing its conclusion. The couple of weeks before I went on holiday, and the couple of weeks after, are now a blur of identical days as I worked my way through tickets, tweaking, fixing, adding, updating.

[Incidentally, we’ve been using Lighthouse for issue tracking. It’s been simpler and less annoying than FogBugz — I could never tell who would be notified of issues or updates in that — but not perfect. I keep wanting to combine tickets, which Fogbugz can do, but I don’t think Lighthouse can.]

While I enjoy doing development work — and it’s a large chunk of my work these days, in one form or another — I have realised I put myself in the position solely of making stuff that other people have specced and designed. In some ways this is wonderfully simple — tell me what you want and I’ll make it work — but in others it’s frustrating. I want to be more involved in deciding what to make and why, using more of my experience than my technical skills, such as they are. The concept, the ideas, the design, etc. This is something for me to work on, rather than something that will magically happen.

I have a few more days left on this project over the next month, making changes after more testing has taken place, but, assuming all goes well, we’re in the home straight from my point of view.

I’m now back in the office I share with RIG, BERG and others, which feels like home, and have also had a little flurry of emails about new work. Good timing.

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23 May 2010 in Photos

23 May 2010 at Twitter

  • 8:14pm: Wasn't going to get Red Dead Redemption immediately, but my friends have. I feel like the kid in the playground wearing the wrong trainers.
  • 3:12pm: GSD. It's like Getting Things Done only even more satisfying.
  • 1:12pm: @chrislunch Field Mice can be slightly angry! "That you have a life, A life besides me, Bothers the hell, The hell out of me" Ooh! Fury! er.
  • 12:18pm: Just noticed that for four days in 1987 I wrote my diary in runes from Lord of the Rings. #helloiamageek
  • 10:34am: @timd If someone on the walk says "The air smells so fresh out here!" then it's a ramble.
  • 10:31am: Throwing away a large pile of paper about the future that I barely remember reading or writing ten years ago.
  • 9:30am: Favourite new (to me) word from the world of outdoors equipment: Ramblesack. Bigger than a daysack, smaller than a rucksack. "Ramblesack"
  • 9:27am: Pleased to see on Dr Who that Rory colours in the North Face logo on his clothes. I do the same, but his is better than my Sharpie attempt.
  • 9:23am: @chrislunch What's wrong with The Field Mice?! I'm going to have to look for the Drums now.

23 May 2010 in Links

On this day I was reading

Music listened to most that week

  1. Saloon (17)
  2. Man or Astro-Man? (13)
  3. Saint Etienne (12)
  4. The Field Mice (9)
  5. Michael Jackson (6)
  6. Kode9 & The Spaceape (3)
  7. Zomby (3)
  8. Burial (3)
  9. Pomplamoose (2)
  10. Samiyam (2)

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