2(00)7
It’s now a week into the new year and to heighten my perception of the passage of time my birthday fell on the 3rd, making me a ripe 27. I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I want to achieve this year and the essence of my ruminations was progression: my goal is to make progress in all my hobbies and interests and, of course, life in general. Some prominent points which came to mind are to:
WinForm Woes
I’ve been finishing off the next release of vdaExtensions seemingly forever and have had all the functionality sorted out for ages and without much in the way of trouble but I’ve been struggling with the user interface. The only contents of my main form are a MenuStrip and the meat of the app, a DataGridView. Throughout the use of the program the DataGridView can change dimensions: information can be added/changed/removed and I’ve also added the ability to show/hide the various columns of the control, with the constraint that at least one column must be visible at all times.
WordPress 2.0.5
I’ve been spending the festive period with my family and have almost enjoyed not having a computer, online and logged in, within eyesight for the majority of my waking hours. I’ve read and responded to my email and forums and was checking my blog when I noticed I wasn’t running the latest version of WordPress, so I thought I get back in the saddle and upgrade. I started by backing up the database using the handy Backup Plugin and creating a copy of the entire blog directory using cp -R.
Secret Santa
It’s that time of the year again and is customary at the VDA we had our Secret Santa jollifications this morning. Once again, Paul proved himself man enough to fill the big guy’s boots and surprised us all by making his entrance with a guitar and serenading us with a rendition of Slade’s Merry Xmas Everybody. Good show old chap! Next up was the main event: the distribution of gifts, yee ha!
Friday Funk
I got into the office this morning and went through my usual routine; I’d put in a good workout and the weekend is fast approaching: life seemed good. I was logged on to my workstation, launched Outlook (I know, I know) and attempted to connect to substance via Jabber and SSH. My heart fell. That Slackware box has been online for nearly a year now and other than my own lack of technical ability, the only problem I’ve had was when I upgraded my version of OpenSSL and OpenSSH refused to restart.
Bulk Powders
In my time honored tradition of bulk purchasing I placed an order with bulkpowders.co.uk, which arrived last week. I refrained from documenting it at the time as I’ve only just had the opportunity to sample the produce and here is what was waiting for me at reception last Tuesday: I’d been meaning to start buying my supplements online for a while but I wasn’t going to be saving much going for brand name products, especially when delivery costs were factored in.
In Pursuit Of vdaExtensions 1.1
The past fortnight has proved fruitful: each weekday I have risen early, went to the gym and spent the rest of the day at the office plugging away in Visual Studio. It’s been good to get back into developing vdaExtensions: it’s first incarnation was completed in August and I asked a few members of staff to try it out and Phil was the only one to give me feedback, I don’t know if anyone else even used it!
Continuing Fitness Fanaticism
This morning, like the one before it, was another 6:30am start. Tough to get used to but ultimately very rewarding. I’m enjoying getting my training down early and having the rest of the day to pursue the other areas of my life. Deciding to take a week off from strength training has been refreshing: I’ve been able to catch up on cardio, which I haven’t been doing as much of recently, so hopefully I’ll be a bit fitter before I hit the weights again!
Early Morning Swim
The alarm went off at 6:30am, I got up, put the coffee machine on and went to the bathroom. I’d finished my breakfast by 6:45am which consisted of ground oats, semi-skimmed milk and whey protein, blended. The stage was set and after a couple mugs of java I was good to go. I had often toyed with the idea of getting my training done and out of the way before work, leaving me with the rest of the day to relax, recover and enjoy the endorphins.
Blades By Mail
My shipment from Blademail.co.uk arrived this morning: I put the order through on Monday morning for a “Pillar Pack” of 100 double-edge razor blades which I’m hoping will last me for the duration of the next year: The pack contains 20 dispensers, each delivering 5 blades: I originally read about the traditional wetshave on Lifehacker, but paid no heed to it until one fateful day in Boots when I was in need of blades and low on cash and noticed how much of a difference in price there was between the “novelty” multi-blade shaving systems and the traditional single-blade setup.