To say that I’m mildly annoyed that the BiB haven’t followed up the other car, is somewhat of an understatement. I’m now left out of pocket, without a useable car and will be spending hours / evenings / nights having to repair the damage to the front clam just because someone decided not to stop when they lost parts of their car on the motorway. Hopefully I’ll manage to get the front clam sprayed and refitted within a couple of weeks – but I’ll still think the owner of “S215 HEH” is the biggest twat on the planet – who will hopefully one day die from cancer of the penis.

Anyway – to get me out of the garage for a couple of hours and actually see some of the British summer – here’s a picture of the Vulcan from this weekends airshow at RAF Waddington. It’s probably the last summer this expensive toy will ever see the sky ( in common with my car ! )

I hate to think how many tonnes of material have been moved over the last 12 months – and I refuse to look at the bank statements to work out how much in materials we’ve used. I do know however, that it is significantly less than paying someone else to do it all.

As the job nears completion, I’ve put up a photo journal of the work along the way.

Another trip across to Barrow in Furness for the NHS and another chance to find some decent driving roads. It was also an opportunity to try out the new GoPro HD Hero camera. The results out of the box were pretty good and already hosted on YouTube.

With University Hospital Morecambe Bay trust about to go live with a new NHS national deployment, I had the task to be up in Barrow-in-Furness all last weekend. With a few daylight hours free on Saturday afternoon I managed to get a quick dash around the lakes.

I’ve finally got around to editing the video footage from Llandow, as well as writing up the days activities.   It’s stuck under the motoring section of the site,   but if you can click on the image above to go straight there.

I’ll admit that I’m not 100% with the YouTube compression on the video. Although it’s recorded in SD, it is still very crisp sharp and well defined in it’s compressed h.264 form.   YouTube however seem to take exception to all my hard efforts and are applying very low quality compression to the sound, producing what I can only describe as ‘warbling’ in certain places.  I’m using the same Apple Compressor settings that I’ve used previously,  so I can only presume that the distortion is something that YouTube is generating when they re-code the content.

Plenty of videos to go on line over the next few days, but for now, lets just say there was a lot of standing water and my driving had to reflect that.

It’s been a while since I published the fact that I’d uploaded new pictures to the Family Album within the Image Gallery. There’s two new galleries – one each for July and August.

Well I’ve now had three days working for the NHS and my head is full of new stuff. It’s clear that it’s a totally different role and working experience. Commuting by train rather better than sitting in the M62/M1 traffic – which is surprising quiet in the morning, but somewhat busy in the evening. (Castleford really has to be seen to be believed)

The most noticeable difference is Theo when I get home – I think he’s got used to Daddy being at home for a while.

After my time off for an operation, I returned back to work at bezier. After only 3 days back (at the end of May) I was asked if I could nip into a quick meeting, only to find the HR director waiting for me. I was put out on gardening leave whilst a consultancy period took place as my role had been identified for redundancy. Well after meetings with HR Directors, ACAS and solicitors, the process ended on the 15th June with me walking away from bezier for good. I’m not saying it was inevitable – but lets just say I filled the car with fuel and took photos of the fuel gauge & odometer before I entered the meeting.

Financially, there was nothing more than statutory offered, which considering my termination date was set a fortnight before my two year point was next to bugger all. Luckily I had a lengthy notice period and payment in lei of notice (Pilon) meant there wasn’t mega-urgent rush to get back to work. Of course, bezier didn’t want me to have the money right away, but spread out over a 3 month period. Thankfully enough there has been a payroll error that has resulted in me getting the money straight away.

Anyway, for the first time in my 39 years of life I got to sign on – Jobseekers allowance and six weeks later, I’ve been paid enough ‘social’ to balance out 1 hours worth of tax (back when I had my own ltd company).

I’ve spent the time since the end of May carefully, balanced between getting those jobs around the home that have been put off due to lack of time – and applying for just about every IT Project Management role in between Leeds and Grimsby. Well I know there is a recession on and loads of unemployment right now, but thankfully my CV was well received and I’ve had a fair few offers of interview.

The interviews were spread across various sectors, but I have been wanting to get back into the public sector – particularly the NHS. That is why despite higher offers and jobs closer to home, I’ve decided to accept a role with the NHS Connecting for Health team in Leeds. It’s actually working for someone who was a colleague of mine back at LeedsMet – only this time he’ll be my boss.

So I’m just waiting for a start date now – whilst Shelley rapidly writes out lists of all the jobs I’ve still got to finish before returning to work.