Changing Situations

Today (April 1st) marks the day that I start at my company as a permanent employee, and also that day that I cease to be a full-time contractor, at least for the time being, anyway.  It’s brought about an aura of uncertainty, not because I’m unsure of what I’m doing, but because of that fact that taking a paycut is often hard to justify.

I’ve had the choice though, to stay on contracting and miss out on possible bonus’s, promotions, as well as all the normal benifits like holidays, sick pay (hooray, I can take a day off again) and private health care.  I’m hanging on to the thoguth that whilst I was getting better money contracting (by no means, fantastic money, mind you), with the holiday and sick pay, I’m not that much worse off.  And I found about a fantastic little nasty called Employer’s Natiional Insurance Tax, which for some reason I was stupid enough to have been paying myself, missing out on the grand total of almost £1,000 cleared cash in hand per month.

This is what I’ll be expected to wear to the office, now that I’m permanent

Renewed Motivation

But the worry at the change in career path has renewed my motivation to pursue out of work projects and whilst I’ve had a couple of fairly unproductive months, I think I’m well back on track down the path of success. At least I hope so, anyway.  So far I’ve:

• 75% completed the first of the ShanCo projects, an experiment in collaboration, team work and fighting the good (SEO) fight to thrive for a win in this web world.  I can’t say too much because not only would that ruin the surprise, I’d be sure to dissapoint as well.
• started to draw up plans with an old mate from University;
• and done the same with some friends from work, thinking about a couple of huge ideas one of the guys came up with that could quite likely revolutionise the London Texas Hold’em scene as well as a couple of other ideas as well.  If I can help, that is!

Budgeting & Finance

Another thing I did, whilst fretting about the incoming financial situation was draw up a quick budget for the next few years.  I’m amazed time and time again, just how much money we waste, and how easy it would be to save a fair chunk if you put your mind to it and watch out on the frivilous bar rounds (£36 on five drinks on Saturday night!).  I’ve found in the past if I’ve had something that i’ve needed to save up for, drawing out a budget and clearly working out exactly much we needed to save, and exactly how much we can save if we stick to the money we intend to live on each week.

It’s probably a no brainer for most, and a sign of immaturity, but sticking to my money guide, which took me about 20 minutes to knock up in Excel should help in this matter, especially when I consider all the things we’re going to have to pay for in the next few months, such as the Big Event and the nicely priced Holiday to Russia in July.  Hell I’m going to enjoy my holiday pay though!

I got into work yesterday after my week long holiday and by 9:00am I was back over at the old office (the <insert exploited minority here> Wallet making Sweatshop, aka Casa Bolton) working on a couple of things for another of the company’s projects. Within two hours I’d been told to grab my PC and all the contents of my desk and move back to that office (Casa Bolton).  I knew it had been coming for a while, as I was never permanently placed there in the first place, but it was all very sudden anyway.

The weird thing is within the time span of that morning I’d gone from Shannon, C# extraordinare (not really) to a completey different role, that being to build/commission a group of Redhat/Oracle servers for the new production environment.  I’m not sure if its a step forward, or a step back, but its definitely something new and breaks up the monotony of the last few months work.  The good thing is, it’ll give me an extra insentive to get this ShanCo work up and running, as I feel much more inclined to put in the required hours to get said projects up and running, especially as I don’t want to get rusty.

This afternoon, office politics took over, and the wrath of an over zealous trigger happy manager got a little tacky and crackheaded on my ass.  but thats a story for another day.

I still don’t know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I’ve never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I’m much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don’t want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)

- Changes

Ever since learning the meaning the word Ubuntu on the National Geographic channel (or was it the new Tv show Life Is Wild, i admit it, i’ve been watching it), it’s been popping up all over the place. I’ve seen it on TV, in the newspaper, and even heard it the other day on the Tube. It almost seems like the perfect example of the Baader Meinhof phenomenom (this is where a person hears, see’s or really notices/understands something, then by sheer coincidence the person hears/sees/notices the word/object/saying over and over again). Of course, as the Damn Interesting article suggests, in all likelihood, the word Ubuntu is probably used/seen every day, which of course it is, given the huge popularity of the Ubuntu Operating System. But as the theory suggests, I think about the word differently now that I’ve put thought into it, it’s no longer a label, a thing but a story, all in one.

Yesterday, whilst perusing the highly dissapointing Covent Garden Lolly shop, Cybercandy, I discovered Ubuntu Cola, a fairtrade soft drink made with fair trade African sugar. Given I drink hardly any soft drink anymore, and my days of coke bingeing are all but over, I thought I’d give it a go. To say it was terrible would be an understatement, I’m just too much of a Coke snob I think. But I like what it stands for, and it has a cool name. Here’s hoping the bin enjoyed the other half of the can as much as I did!

Ubuntu Cola

 

Update 28/02: By some freak of Beider Meinhoff coincidence I saw an article on the morning paper about the word Ubuntu and this particular cola.

I was at our local weatherspoons, the William Webb Ellis, the other night, and they had an interesting sign on the counter comparing their prices to local pubs. This was all very interesting as some of the prices weren’t just less than others, they were a half for even a third.

Now I don’t drink redbull and vodka, but a double smirnoff and redbull for £3 is awesome, especially the rice elsewhere was £7 or more, and i can remember paying at least $10AUD at clubs for a single back in Perth.

When does this type of advertising become slander though? In this age of law suits and rules about vendor verdicts, why can a store hang a sign stating how much better their prices are than competitors? But i guess it happens more than i first thought.

I know, before I say anything, its been a long time between posts, and before my last it was a fair while between those. I’m in a definite state of limbo recently, in regards to pretty much everything and I’ve just let a few things slip. Like my bear for instance:

… Only Kiddin, it doesn’t look near this bad.

Anyway, I just worked out, within the last week that the British Home Office was in the process of tightening up their immigration laws, and as of March 1st 2008, its not going to be so easy to get the Highly Skilled Migrant Visa (HSMP) anymore. This sucks for me, as after July 1st this year, I’ll have used up my allowed employment time (12 months out of the 24 month holiday Visa).

I have earned enough, however to apply for the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme, which allows me to work pretty much anywhere, and 5 years in the UK without restriction, and best of all the time counts toward residency. The rules change slightly after Leap Year Day Day (29th Feb, 2008) though, the main causes for concern being that the cost now rises by £400 pounds (from the already expensive £750), and you need to go back to your home country to apply for it. There are many other changes to, like the fact having an MBA doesn’t automatically qualify you for the Visa now, and some of the points for various skills have been reduced somewhat.

But then the story gets worse….

Not only will I have to go back to Australia (if I chose this path after the cut off date), I’ll have to wait 4 months killing time back home until my visa request is processed so I can come back again! So, on current flight costs I’ve worked out the total cost of getting a new visa at:

Cost Of Visa: £1150

Cost of return Flight: £900

Lost income in work time: ~£16,000 (minus £ lost to tax)

Time spent saving up now so I’ve paid my share of the rent and food, and general bills/expenses: at least 2 months

That hurts, it really does. So I’m in a mad rush now, to try and organise all the paper work and cash required for the visa application (I’m willing to pay the £200 person to person interview fee for obvious reasons) by the 28th of February. It just depends how quickly my university can send me over the Proof of Completion of Studies form. I have my degree, and my transcript, I even have my high school transcript. But to the British Commission, that’s just not good enough. You need a letter from the chancellor of your university stating that at the majority of your course work was taught in English.

The fact I went to an Australian university (and have a degree to show for it) doesn’t cut it. They need proof, and solid proof at that.

I will do whatever I can to avoid making the trip back home though, not that i woudn’t mind seeing friends and family, on the contrary. I’d love to, just it is a huge drain on time and money.

Visa time it is….

With great regret, I announce the Monopoly Pub Crawl, was not an astounding success.

As many would know, its not often I fail at anything, and certainly not when the job at hand involves alcohol. But alas, 26 pubs in a row, is just a little bit too much. After 12+ hours, 17 pubs and what must have been close to 6 or 7 miles of walking, we gave up, and the Monopoly Pub Crawl for January 2008 came to an unfortunate end. Yes that’s right, navigating for 30mins+ for a quick sit down (15 minutes) and a half pint continuously throughout the day is just not worth it.

We will try again though, in May or June, and it shall be finished. Note to self, wear looser, more comfortable jeans (my good ones were wet), and rely more on public transport as opposed to walking some of the longer stretches. All in all it was a fantastic day though, and the people, beer and fun made the whole thing worth it.

Euston-rs!!!

Hi all,

On this eve of maximus greatness, I’m going for a bit of a change from the pro-Nokia Technobabble (resulting in a continuous burst of traffic ever since) of my posts from the last couple of day. Yes tomorrow is a special day, Monopoly Pub Crawl Day, its somethign I’m surprised we haven’t done before, considering my previous obsession with London placenames and the original UK Monopoly Board.

The Game Board

The Monopoly Pub Crawl involves getting a group of people together and visiting each “property” or pub, (on that street, in that area, railway station or utility if you will) and have a drink at each, with the goal of the day to complete the board in a reasonable period. This will, unfortunately, be done in no particuloar order at all, purely to save on travel time in the already tight time span required to complete the journey.

The Crawl however, isn’t a new idea, as a little bit of research into the craze returned a lot of people who’ve done it before, along with people who’ve done it in other cities around the world. What really caught my eye was the guys over at www.monopolypubcrawl.co.uk came up with the idea of issueing chance/treasure chest cards for a select number of players at each pub, allowing for things such as:

• Pass on drinks for this turn (I don’t agree with this though)
• Swap drinks with the person on your left (imagine the possibiblities, swapping a double Havana Gold Rum for a some iccy Malibu mix)
• Collect on… Get free drink from the group
• Taxes, involving the purchase of a persons drink, or whole round
• Go directly to jail (sit in the corner for five minutes!)
• and so on

Imagine what the pub crawl could grow into if it became an annual event? One Saturday a year everyone could don their battleship, car, iron, thimble or dog costume and do the crawl, though I can’t imagine how to implement the ownership of properties, houses or hotels, but I’m sure there’s a good way to increase the gameplay required but not reducing fun, or drinking time in the slightest.

Anyway, time will tell to see how it goes, but expect to see photos, news and a pub/travel/drink/crawl log soon

And yes, I’ve no doubt they don’t serve beer at the water works or the power station, but I’ll be sure to try and get a photo of me with tinny outside at least one of the utilities

I got a nice surprise in my inbox this afternoon, a quick message from the staff at Google Offices in the UK wanting to talk about a possible job offer and relocation in the Sydney Office in Google.  I can’t even remember when I sent my resume in to Google (I think it was just after I got to the UK), but it was nice to get a message anyway.  If I had have been in Perth, I would have jumped at the chance, but I’m not even going to think about relocating back to Australia, as we all know, I’m enjoying the UK too damn much.

I might give them a phone call tomorrow and see if they have any positions for work going in London, as I’d imagine out of all the companies there are to choose from, for the work I’m doing, that would have to be an awesome oppurtunity.  Time will tell!

There’s a few things I’ve really wanted to do since moving to the UK, and visiting Scotland and seeing snow were a couple of them. I was lucky enough to be able to see both on the weekend as we flew to Glasgow Prestwick airport and drove to Edinburgh to spend friday and saturday night.

OMG, Snow!

Before Friday morning, the most snow I’d seen in my life was summer sludge in the mountains in Canada when I was 12 years old, so this was awesome. After I got over this monumentous event, we quickly got on our way to Edinburgh, with a couple of sneaky detours to check out the snow covered landscape.

Note to self, “When driving in snowy, icy conditions the car (quite obviously) does not stop, or handle as well as it would on a normal dry road, its more like driving a boat, ‘Oh, you want to go that way, waaaaiiit a second’, and so on”

Edinburgh is a small-ish city (Yes, even by Perth standards) , of around 400,000 people, even though I’ve been told this balloons out to over 800,000 during festival time in August. I didn’t hear this until we were about to leave, but was shocked by this, as walking down the main street on Friday afternoon (admittedly it was peak knock off time), was possibly worse than walking down Picadilly in London in the same time period, in regards to pedestrian congestion anyway. What was also interesting, was that the way we approached the city was from the south, saw the first sign alerting us to the fact we were approaching Edinburgh City Centre (at this time we were still in snow covered farmland), and within about a mile we’d gone over a hill and were suddenly smack back in the city centre. I found this odd, as I’m used to the usual suburban sprawl for kilometres and kilometres in directions from the CBD. We did notice, however, that leaving the city in the other direction on Sunday there was a much larger distance to the cities edge, so basically its just a strange shape.

The really striking thing about Edinburgh though, is the amazing amount of things you can do within walking distance from the centre. The entire city is overlooked by the Edinburgh Castle, and there’s at least two or three other palaces/castles in the immediate area, as well a host of cathedrals, churchs, museums, galleries, etc all within minutes of each other.

The view of the castle from the Street just outside the Hotel

Looking back toward the hotel from the street below the castle

On the second day we went straight to Edinburgh Castle in the morning, the castle itself is absolutely amazing, perched so high above the city. The rooms and apartments are nothing like the English castles I’ve seen or Versailles in France, as they were very basic, but the rest was definitely worth seeing, and the Audio Guide is packed full of useful tidbits and stories about the history of the castle and how it survived so many seiges by the English over several centuries.

Awesome, isn’t it?

I’d highly recommending seeing this fine example of a city if your in Scotland, or the UK, its small enough to do most things in a few days, its got a whole lot of history, and a whole lot of character, and appeared to have a good night life with a feel good attitude toward getting horrendously pissed. Enjoy!

A few facts (should be much longer and more interesting, but this is me):

• Haggis is especially tasty, I’m just annoyed I didn’t get to feast on Black pudding again.
• Scottish Beer (Tennants, McEwans, Caledonian, etc) is sold with a number designation in shillings, like McEwans 60/- or McEwans 90/-. This apparently was a the traditional measure of alcohol content by the monetary amount worth of grain that went into each bottle (I hope I explained this right)
• King James VI of Scotland (Mary, Queen of Scots, Son) became King James I of England a year after becoming king of Scotland. This is significant as he was the first King to rule over England, Scotland and Wales. Why they allowed him to take the English throne considering how much the English and Scots were at battle I’ve no idea. I can do history, really I can.
• Edinburgh to Glasgow Prestwick airport is about 60-90 minutes drive away, though surely its just easier in future to fly straight in to the cities airport.

We went out for what was a good, cheap New Years Eve at a local pub. I have to question, is drug use becoming such a problem you have to check everyone’s nostrils as they enter the pub or each time they leave the toilet. After I made the mistake of breaking the seal, I was forced to tilt my head a total of about ten times as a burley looking bouncer shined a UV light in my nose. Funny at first, annoying as hell after the first few times though!

Note to self. Next year start saving in October/November so I can afford Christmas and New Years and go to a classier establishment. Weatherspoon’s, pretty much the cheapest pub in town and attracts a younger rougher crowd.