Weblog entry #140 for ajt
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I've been far too busy of late.
At work we started a QA project earlier this summer. It was a typical badly organised project in that many elements are actually prototypes that are being then developed into real applications all in one go. It's inefficient and means than any project planning goes out the window as you can't really put any serious figures to anything. To make matters worse in the middle of the project I have my summer holiday booked, two off-site training courses to attend and another project impinging on my time...
The project started well enough in July/August and things actually went quite well. It's all a "mash-up" of technologies, SAP, Perl, Shell, XML, Linux/AIX and it's even got Apache/HTTP in to act as my RFC layer. It's technically quite messy but it has enough checks and balances in to make it acceptably robust.
At the end of August we went off for our summer holiday. It was a well needed break in Brittany away from work and away from the bleakness of the UK. The food was excellent, we had good weather and we were very happy to be away from home.
Returning to the UK we found it was in the same mess as we left it:
- Politicians blaming everyone else for the financial crisis they slept-walked us into (there is no credit crunch in France - or at least not on the same scale).
- The media in denial about the falling price of houses. Though to be honest a few elements of the media are now admitting that most people are actually better off if houses get cheaper.
- Work is in the same mess: too many projects, not enough people or time to get them done...
- Even the weather was c**p when we got back..!
I started back on my project but other things kept getting in the way and I've not had enough time of motivation to really get back into the swing of things. While I came back from holiday relaxed and re-motivated that was quickly beaten out of me by management!
Last week I had a training course at SAP's facility near Heathrow. It wasn't perfect but it wasn't that bad and I wish I'd had the course a year or so ago as it would have made some things so much easier. Now it's technically obsolete technology and the course I'm going on in a few weeks is probably more relevant if less useful at the moment. Useful though the courses are, it's not the best timing (it never is) and the travelling doesn't half take it out of you.
There are days I think I give up all the c**p I put up with and go of to Brittany to make and sell my own jams. I'd probably need a part time job to stay a float though: I do Perl/XML/SAP/Web and Debian and would be happy to telecommute!
Comments on this Entry
For us it's a 30-45 minute drive or train trip to the port, an overnight ferry crossing and we are in Saint-Malo for breakfast.
My French is terrible - essentially useless but my partner is French and her father's family are Breton, so the holiday has lots of "insider" detail which always makes a trip better.
This year's holiday has been blogged here.
I'd really like to give up my current job and do something different in Brittany. I like the geography, the weather is similar to what I'm use to, I love the food and cider, and it's in better condition that England. However given the terrible state of the EU economy at the moment it's better to wait to be made redundant (nice tax-free redundancy cheque) than it is to try a new job when everything is falling to prices. Instead I shall try again to learn some French and time my rat like escape from the UK.
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
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Sounds really nice, I haven't been to most of those places as haven't travelled that far west (family is in Rennes)... think the furthest I went was Carnac
You could really mess yourself up and try and learn Breton instead of French :D I tried that for a brief moment
Reckon there's a dire need for Debian in Saint Malo? Surely... mmm
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Pictures need processing yet... However some will follow somewhere sometime...
Breton is wierd, I find Breton place names easier to say that their French equivalents, as they sound more familiar - a lot like Welsh or Cornish names. Obviously I don't know Breton and a quick look at it shows that it is a lot more complicated than Welsh/Cornish place names...
Plenty of good places in Brittany. It also has good TGV links to Paris, plenty of ports with ferries to the UK and Eire, several regional airports. The food is excellent, the cider is good, and it's a good place for walking, biking, water sports - what more is there? It even has an established tourist industry so there is plenty of restaurant/hotel/motel/camp site capacity.
I'm really jealous of the place, even the supermarkets have Linux magazines, one had a lead story on installing Debian on old SPARC kit - that I thought was of a much higher technical standard than a UK Linux magazine!
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
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I find Linux Journal etc much more bland or drab... Linux Magazine seems to copy Linux Format's previous month's edition every time (same distro on dvd, same features etc)
Yeah Breton is very familiar to Cornish.. almost as extinct too... I think it was my great-grandmother who could only speak Breton and not French.. so it got stamped out pretty quick.
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It's good that there are British Linux magazines, but they are really targeted at new users, mostly using Ubuntu. It's not that they are terrible but sometimes I'm not convinced the advice is good or correct and there is nothing for the more experienced user. I'm really jealous of the French who have more than just newbie level magazines.
My partner's father didn't speak Breton, it was forbidden when he was a child, but his mother did as first language and some of his siblings and relatives do. When we were there this year you do hear things that are clearly not French. Cornish is dead but Welsh is alive and I'd say that Breton is the same. It should do okay if the French civil service isn't allowed to stamp it out!
--
"It's Not Magic, It's Work"
Adam
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I'm half Breton myself, and live/grew up in Australia. Let's go there and start a Debian consultancy ;) Linux and galettes every day would do me fine
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