Kates Journal

So, yesterday, as the sun blazed (well, in winter-terms) and the clear blue sky sat above my head I spent the day working on the laptops. They’re both now working, and shall both be photographed and whisked onto e-bay (along with my mum’s old pashley trike, in need of some renovation, but she’s got a multi-geared beastie now).

Of course, to do this requires batteries in my camera. My camera, as we’ve discussed eats batteries for breakfast. In fact, oh internets, should I get it a decent set of batteries? It killed the Uniross ones in fairly short order, so I’m not sure it’s worth forking out for decent batteries. It took about the same amount of time to kill the (alledgedly 3000mAh) MultiplePower batteries (about 1/2 the cost of the Unirosses) but they were new, whereas the Uniross batteries were quite old when I started to put them in the camera.

It does say in the manual “This camera will stomp all over the batteries you put in it, sucking out every last ounce of power before ritually disemboweling them” (or words to that effect). Since I can’t afford a new, a second hand, or any sort of camera (specifically a Micro 4/3s Lumix would be nice, I imagine, although I’ve not played with one and may hate their UI) I’m thinking I need to get a new set of batteries. If anyone requires batteries for low power usage these are fine, they run my CDPlayer and the TV’s remote control absolutely fine.

Or does anyone have a way of reviving NiMH batteries?

Anyway, off topic. So I’ve only just remembered to put them on charge so that I can photograph the PowerBook and the iBook. What I wanted to to put my mind to today was sorting out the DAF. It is, therefore, misty and cold today. The sky is a pale shade of grey and I can’t see the houses at the other end of the street ‘cos it’s so misty / foggy. If it hasn’t cleared up by lunch time I’ll go out there anyhow :-/

So I’m kind of at a loose end at the moment…

So yesterday, after getting very down and frustrated I finally sat down and spent the afternoon fixing laptops. The G3/Wallstreet now has a 6Gig Hdd, and the G3/Clamshell now sports an 80 gig drive *and* a fixed power connector (the soldered joint had broken). I thought the wallstreet was a pig to take apart, but the clamshell is whole new levels of pigness.

What really left me in a rotten mood though was that having finally got it all back together I couldn’t find the powersupply. Something which I, thankfully, found today.

I had hoped that I would be spending the day doing animation, but I’ve been struggling somewhat with the interface of the software in question. In fact, nothing works the way I expect it to, and after a full morning of working (well, playing) with the software I can safely say that I can do no more than I could ten minutes in.

I think I need to sit and read some destructions.

I also want to get the second screen up and running, because at the moment it’s far too hard flicking back and forth between the interface I barely follow and the instructions. I can’t get any kind of flow going. It is, unsurprisingly, frustrating. I’ve been a user of Photoshop for a while now, and can kind of do what I want with it. I’m certainly no genius with it, but I can get about. But this is just, well, hard. 30 day trials are all very well, but I’ll never get it finished in 30 days.

Either that or buy it, which ain’t cheap.

Although it’s not quite so unreasonable if I end up doing some course at work and thus being a student again.

Instead of animating my afternoon away, I’ve spent the ‘noon doing work on the laptops. I’ve got absolutely no-where. It turns out my 10.0 CD went walkies about the same time that the dinosaurs disappeared. The 10.1 CD won’t install without the 10.0 CD.

The 10.4 CD won’t install because it’s evil, and both the laptops predate firewire. I need to locate a 10.2CD, I’ve feelers out. All this just to get them prepped so I can sell them. Having fixed the Clamshell and sorted the PowerBook (it’ll be sold with it’s upgrades, even if I can’t make them work) I just want to get an OS on each so I can make sure they’re both actually working properly, and then they can go on e-bay with my mum’s trike. Once that’s done I’ll stick the Dell on there, cleaned up and running Win2k or somesuch, and then we’ll see what we can afford. I’m thinking 2 postage stamps and a bag of crisps.

They seem to vary from about 10 quid to 100. The latter would, obviously, be more handy.

I must admit to currently having a strong desire to clear out all the computer stuff, more or less, and land up with a shiny laptop. A new Apple intel laptop seems like a better solution to me, than the current state of affairs. It’d not really be fair though, ‘cos Nikki gave me the G5 (on which I’m typing this), and while I organised getting it fixed and sticking drives in I’ve always had a bit of guilt about the fact it was still under warranty.

I suspect the status-quo will remain, at least for the time being. The G5 for serious work and some shonky laptop from e-bay to replace the Dell.

In general I’m having a ‘clear out’ urge. Which is always interesting. Especially since I’ve got rid of a lot of the stuff I didn’t need. I don’t know what I want to clear out. But stuff needs clearing out from somewhere in my head.

So, yesterday we made vegetable jalouise, or some such. It required approximately a packet and a half of butter (about 3 sticks, I think). 2 and a bit sticks in the puff pastry (home made), and a goodly chunk to fry the veggies in.

On top of which it contained milk. It was delicious, and each of us ate half of it…

On top of which we had Cornmeal pancakes for breakfast, with butter on.

It’s rare that we have quite such a dairy heavy dish, something which my body informed me about (in no uncertain terms of) at 1.30am when I was quite unwell. Twice. And then sat on the toilet thinking ‘oh god, am I going to throw up now…’

So I ended up ringing in sick, and because of my symptoms have to have 48 hours off. Next time I shan’t be quite so generous with the servings, because had I have had less, I may have not made myself sick :-/

My stomach’s still not settled, and I still feel faintly sick (I’ve not had breakfast despite being up for 2 hours)

So, I was all excited about the concept of starting work on the animation today. All excited, I was. Until I realised I didn’t have the software I thought I had. It took a while to work that out too, since it was on the Ent-Mac, and needed to be on the Shiny-G5-Mac, and the network did not wish to play ball.

So, now I’m trying to get the software.

But that means my plan for the afternoon is somewhat spoiled, and I’ve no idea what to do with myself. I wanted to do this artsy creative stuff, and now I can’t I don’t feel like reading or relaxing. I just feel ‘feh’y.

So, I’ve been looking on in joy watching the new Obama led government put a stop to torture in their name, signing orders to close Guantanamo, and generally being shiny in all the ways I’d hoped they’d be. Happily reading good things in the papers. It’s been a bit, well, different.

Feeling quite positive about the world.

And my MP wrote back to my previous ‘please vote against this’ with a ‘already was, but thanks’; which I rather liked. And then I came across this: who needs privacy?

So, today I crafted another e-mail to my MP – I’m hoping she’ll be on-side with this one as well. I never really thought of myself as being a political creature, but as I’ve got older and realised that I disagree with a lot of things that are going on, and I am really unhappy with where the country’s going (in general terms) I find myself being more and more politically motivated. Even though I don’t intend to be here much longer I don’t think that anyone should have to put up with the level of invasion of privacy that they’re suggesting.

The irony is I’m one of these weird people who’s pro the NHS having a massive database of health records; or at least basic information shared across the country. Why? Because I stand there and have patients who are dying in front of me who might have hideous allergies to the drugs we’re about to give them, who’ve been in accidents and can’t tell me that they’ve got some medical condition or other and I think, well, it’d make sense to have that information available. However, I disagree with the way they’ve done it. I disagree with virtually everything about computers in the NHS that I’ve encountered. Ironically the best (and most reliable) systems I’ve encountered are the early 80s ones with the text interfaces running on Unix based systems. Although ours has a really dumb-ass bug where if you press any of the arrow keys (except the up/down ones) it instantly crashes your instance of the software, which can be dreadfully annoying when you’re hurridly discharging the patient walking out the door at 3hours 59mins (4 hours is a breach, and a great sin).

But having the government having access to that information? Makes me want to go back to storing all information on paper cards and in little folders, just to make life as difficult for them as possible.

In other news, the TV appears to be soldiering on, I’m suspecting it was just a loose connector (bad me, should have checked) – it seems happy enough though. I’ve had to give in and order a new HDD for the Hackintosh though, it still freaks me out, that once a 20Meg HDD was ‘huge’ and now I’m about to stick a 1Tb drive into this computer.

I’m actually tempted to keep the 500Gig one as a ‘backup’ and just decruft it a bit and stick it in a box. I’ve no way to back up stuff otherwise.

In other (other) news, it has come to my attention that I’m not being as good about ‘doing things’ as I should be. I’ve got a pile of paperwork building up, again, which needs sorting. I need to get off my ass and do something about my (non-new-year’s but) resolution (all the same) to put in at least an hour a day into my development as a nurse. I need to get the cars sorted. I need to assemble the MZ. I need to finish decorating this house so we can escape this damn country and get (me) somewhere I can get paid a reasonable amount for my skills without pimping myself out to any trust that’ll pay me – no job security there. And to a place where Kathryn can truly start the process of getting the job she wants.

I want to only work one job, not 3. I want to be able to see Kathryn. I don’t want to stand staring at my off duty and looking at the request I do two sets of nights in a month and think ‘well, shit, I could do with the money’ and end up saying yes.

The wonderful nature of the people around me has kept me going thus far, and I shall miss my friends greatly when I leave this little island, but this little island has no respect for public servants. And working 3 jobs means I have no time or energy to express my creativity. I want to be off urbexing, I want to create the animation that runs through my head whenever I listen to Rock ‘n’ Roll or Trains (in fact, quite a few of the tracks on Today Is.. inspire me and I’m wondering if I could animate the entire album).

A lot of this is down to me. I sit down of a morning and browse the internet until I’m bored and then sit and watch Blackadder, or BSG, or House, or Hustle instead of doing things that would actually make me feel a creative and interesting person. I am disappointed in my lack of activity. I’m disappointed that I’ve not written the book that lurks in my head. Even if it’s crap, I should have written it.

I sound down on myself, and sad. I’m not, I’m feeling positive. I have the power to change these things. I have the power to give myself the time to do these things. Not necessarily creative time right now (with 2 cars sick and needing input of time and energy, and a bike that needs assembling, and a house in need of decorating). But I’ve remembered that I can do this. I used to come home after an early and work. I used to make progress on the house. That will start to happen again.

I’m going to finish the kitchen over the next couple of weeks. The walls and the ceiling need washing down (Kathryn’s started). The cars are going to get sorted too. So; so we all know what the plan is:

Late days: Paperwork and Development on Nursing.
Earlys: Work on house or cars
Days off: Spending time with Kathryn, doing creative stuff or seeing friends or family

Uh, and cleaning the bathroom :)

Which I’m off to do now.

Time to decruft :)