Monthly Archives: November 2016

“If I could build, it’d be somthin’ new”

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Cheesy line I know, but after this week’s opportunities and the previous feeling I got building up the Steam Machine mentioned in my Friday blog posts I’ve found a sense of happiness in creating things or building anew again. This week through building this year’s award ceremony for my directorate at Lancashire Teaching Hospitals as well as having a say on the rig for it to be played back on and designing our own local setup for said rig, helping to set up one new Amazon Fire Stick for a friend and troubleshoot another, slowly plan out the future for the network (sorry for some of the random design choices in the process) and come up with new projects for things very close and one smaller and another big project for the future to hopefully be hosted on the site here.

It’s quite motivating from seeing the success of my friends lately, such as (to name but a few)  the premier of a recent composition by a dear former coursemate and housemate from university, Mr Ben Fowler (MA), being diffused in the newly refurbished Middleton Hall at the University of Hull, the TV spot of another School friend, Mr Lamar Francois, on local station Notts TV and the release of his latest calender with a selection of his own work on each month and the front cover, The not so, but recent enough announcement that my other old coursemate and housemate, Mr Tom Wright, will be working on the sequel to the first game he got to work on, No More Room in Hell 2 and the brother of one (for there are many) of my oldest friends from years I’m scared to count making it big playing stadiums across the country and the continent on tour with Rationale, the unbelievably talented Mr Dino Franchi.

With these successes, it’s given me a sense of real drive, to go beyond the wild thoughts in my head and to climb out of the pit I entered in 2014 of not pushing myself anymore to focus on my former partner’s dreams and the inevitable rut I then went into after we parted ways, despite having the opportunity to seize the day there and then.

So expect big things coming this way soon, once I’ve gotten over the insanity of the never ending high capacity workload that’s currently consuming all my energy in my day role.

Happy Sunday all and I wish you a productive week!

Mike

(Many) Holidays Are Coming

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As we reach the end of the year, many national and international holidays alike for people are coming. With the launch of the many retail adverts (in the UK we had the Sainsbury’s, John Lewis, ASDA and Aldi ones hitting YouTube and TV screens nationwide) and the famous Coca Cola adverts (normally the year’s rendition of  ‘Holidays are Coming’ being the biggest one), it’s no secret that Christmas is on it’s way (though I think it’s still too early for decorations!!) as well as Hannukah for the Jewish also approaching. Following this there’s Hogmany for the Scottish and New Year to come. Previous to all of this too, there’s Thanksgiving this Thursday for the USA and Black Friday following for both us and the Americans. Finally, between all this there’s the Christian (but not public holiday) Observance December 8th for Canada for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception and the Prophet’s Birthday for Muslims on the 12th.

So that’s plenty for the world to look forward to and it’s no wonder that this time of year is focused on family and friends.

I hope everyone that’s reading has some great plans to get together this year. I know it’s cliché to say, but let’s also spare some thoughts for those whom it might not be an easy option. Two years ago, I experienced what it was like to experience Christmas on my own due to a series of complex communications and bad timings. Albeit my experience was under completely different circumstances (I had food, presents and some contact with both parents and limited contact with my former partner – I won’t lie that it did get lonely through the day and I can’t even begin to imagine what those in far worse circumstances will be going through. So if you have time, do something special for those who may be facing struggle this season.

Be it inviting someone you know over for the celebrations to spend time with you, volunteering at kitchens for the homeless and less fortunate, saying prayers to your respective God(s) or giving to charities such as the Salvation Army who will be out supporting those in Need this December, any help will both be good for you and will really make someone’s Christmas this season (whether they meet you or it’s more of a Secret Santa). Just the same way Christians believe we were given the gift of God’s son over 2,000 years ago, we as people should extend the hand of family and friendship out to as many people as we can – especially to those whom 2016 hasn’t been their greatest year, just in the same way you surely hope you’ll be treated this season (no matter how selfless we all try to be!), whatever you celebrate.

Hope you all have a wonderful week, Happy Thanksgiving to you in the USA and be careful out there on Black Friday! (I’ll be sticking to the Internet personally).

 

Mike

 

 

Just A Thought

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This week has been one of remembrance for many. For Americans a historic period came to an end on the 9th November and Veterans Day took place on the 11th. On the same day in Britain and the commonwealth Armistice Day occurred with Remembrance Sunday following today. At the time of writing, I’ve also heard that New Zealand has had a powerful earthquake with a Tsunami to follow.

Based on the theme of ‘Rethink Remembrance’ by the Royal British Legion this year, here are some thoughts for this week.

In today’s busy world it’s easy to pass things by that are happening around us, only to stop and remember when big events happen. It’s interesting though that as the years go on it’s easier for many people to ‘forget’ or to not understand the importance of stopping and taking time to think. It’s easy to think disasters happen all the time and to remember everybody’s incidents would mean stopping everyday. That may be the case in a multicultural society with different historical disasters both national and close to home, but does size matter?

Before you answer, take time to think on what I mean by size – it could be a family member that went to war. It wasn’t a world war, but fighting nonetheless and they never made it back. If that was your family member, it would be a huge deal to you so take that time to remember. For others it may have been a different war than battles and conflict and may be a loved one fighting for their life over disease. Whatever the case when it’s close to home it definitely hurts more.

With the bigger events, to some it might on face value not seem as big a deal if they weren’t directly affected (e.g: If their family wasn’t in service or part of an incident, or if they were it was several generations up). However these are just the same as if you lost your loved one, for many people across the world, or may still be alive and struggling now – be it in action or in hospital or even after a situation and feeling the after effects of disease, service or a disaster.

Whatever the situation, use this Sunday to respect those that have fought well, to protect themselves, to protect us and to protect each other, much in same way you might hope be remembered for safeguarding your own future.

For Brits, whether you’re a supporter of our current defence force activities or not, these men and women gave their lives for us in both world wars and in more recent conflicts to help keep us safe and to keep us where we are today both in other countries and close to home. So whether you took your 2 minutes on the 11th (which I sadly missed in resolving an incident), today at 11 (which I didn’t) or both, or even in your own time – remember those who were there for us long before we even knew it.

In addition to remembering, where you can, reach out to those in need either through donation, though physical or verbal support or to just let them know that you’re there.

For those outside of Britain with your own days of memorial and honour, remember those that have kept you and are keeping you here today and spare just a thought and rethink remembrance for those in conflict or struggle right now or grieving battles of all shapes and sizes from the past and present when you see them and you’ll soon find that all of our battles matter just as much.

Happy Sunday all and Never Forget.

'Remembrance Day' by Petr Kratochvil. Used under Public Domain

‘Remembrance Day’ by Petr Kratochvil. Used under Public Domain

Mike

The Conveyor Belt

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One week on from blogtober and a short break from blogging whilst I assemble a proper schedule, you’d think I’d be well rested and have stockpiled millions of posts and with a smaller schedule take a more relaxed view to writing to you all.

No.

It’s been busy. Very busy. I was lucky enough to have a week’s annual leave towards the end of October which allowed me to start planning on this new venture, but of course I was stillwriting each day and planning for the next. On Halloween, I was back at work and glad I started the draft of the announcement earlier in the week as ir wasn’t a particularly quiet day. The next one got even busier, keeping me past my normal finishing time with extra work added on. The next day was just as jam-packed running our major annual symposium for the RCPE with no real time to stop over the 9 hours so we worked for. The final two days were down with trying to catch up with where I was before my leave began and the evenings and the weekend were time to just unwind so I could rest for the next day ahead.

Without meaning to sound like I’m compalining it’s quite scary at how quickly our work escalated after summer (considering summer was a continuation of the spring and was meant to be a quiet period), but our workload now feels a lot like the classic comedy factory conveyor belt sketch that apparently was made famous by the I Love Lucy show version, but there are many varients out there including the original from the film Modern Times (TV Tropes explains here the mechanics for those that aren’t sure what I mean) and right now we’ve reached the “speed it up a little!” stage.

With this in mind, blogging won’t be as frequent I’m afraid to save things going into a constant stream of “overdrive” (and possibly becoming a “new normal”) – not through laziness but as a fellow human being I do need to eat, shower and unwind so that I can sleep in time for the next day (which is really important or the next day will be even more stressful). I’ll still post here weekly though and ensure you get at least one post a week on each blog (except for Friday which is still fortnightly).

I hope you will all understand and hopefully over time things will be able to become more frequent again as demand changes, or at least becomes more managable.

Hope you all have a great week and nobody feels too overloaded

Mike