Big up the Graffiti snaps!

I‘m enjoying the artsy habit I’ve developed of taking snaps of cool bits of graffiti or silly/cool phrases on signs that I spot on my travels. I popped a few on facebook, and this one has been getting a load of attention:

This picture can be seen, along with others like it can be seen on my flickr page which can be found here at http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimiminar/ so go check them out.
At the moment, they have all been taken on my phone camera with questionable quality. The plan is to purchase a compact digital camera so I can have it on my person literally all the time. I think it would be a very cool habit to have a camera, see something smart, take a snap, and then stick it up on my flickr page, literally every day. Of course these snaps can be seen in the slideshow in the left sidebar, but check the flickr page for full screen goodness.
Enjoy!

Add this to facebook <click here>

Just a quick post mentioning something I should have done a long time ago and that is add some blog presence to my facebook profile.
It’s quite funny that I added the BlogFriends application, a viral take on blog sharing, the premise being that other blog posts which I would be interested will be highlighted to me, prompting me to click, and vice versa with people potentially interested in my posts.
This works fine, and it showing a blog post made in the news feed is cool, I often check the facebook home page to check the news feed items of friends, whether that be status updates, new photo albums, one of the better things about facebook. Ok, so I must resist a rant about what is wrong with facebook and we all know what it is, and so do the 100+ invites I currently have – and that’s probably too much of a clue. Anyways, no sooner had I added BlogFriends, that the developers go ahead and announce that they can no longer continue the project. Great, I think, is there an alternative facebook app out there. Now before I stumbled I checked out Widgetbox and there clever idea of taking a blog and making a widget out of it, which they cleverly called a blidget – pretty clever guys…
Whilst great in principle it seemed a bit clunky with the facebook integration, and at the end of the day it was nothing more than a list of post titles which can easily be pulled from the RSS feed and placed into a shiny box.
I had a look a few hours back, and a quick search later, and FlogBlog was offered to me. Yes, the dream of joining the Flogosphere and other bastardised terms await me.
It lists a number of recent blog posts on my profile which will click through to the blog thanks to a quick tinker with the settings. Not sure what will happen in response to a new post, if it adds a mention of this, along with title and linked up back to the blog itself then I will announce myself chuffed.
Yes, this has been a bit of a contrived post, a small milestone, this is post #50. Whilst that’s great, it’s not that many when considering the lifeline of the blog. I’m thinking of really getting the hammer down and working on developing a new positive habit, to go along with the others (more about that in a later post). Thinking a target of 10 posts a month should be achievable, that’s approximately a post every 3 days. Like with new habits I’ve found it’s all about little steps, so expect smaller bitesized posts to go along with the number of the themed posts which I have currently in the works.
Wow, that was actually much longer, enjoy and if you’re coming from Facebook and have a blog of your own, then add the facebook app and I’ll become an avid reader – I’ve been meaning to add some more links as I promised, so a set of links of blogs which I actually read on a regular basis would be a rather cool segment.
Take it easy.

New blog stuff

Hey ho! Here I am putting off doing some work so I thought I’d waste time by playing about with the ol’ blog.
Couple of changes, some more noticable than others. First one should be pretty obvious if you were to scroll down, and that’s the inclusion of two tag clouds. It’s probably the only thing lacking from Blogger when compared to WordPress is a native tag cloud implementation (oh, and trackable statistics, but that’s really for us admin folks). Of course there are a couple of scripts out there that can parse the standard “labels” list; I probably could have knocked up something myself, but why reinvent the wheel??

Yeah, so I found two scripts out there that can do the job, and not wanting to commit to one just yet, I’ve thrown them both into the sidebar to see what they look like. Also, I’m trying out the (semi-)new blogger widget, the poll widget! Yeah, so it would be great if you could place your vote and after a bit of time I’ll commit to a cloud and remove the rather lame looking current list.

Another change is the inclusion of the twitter badge. I’ve been aware of the micro-blogging tool but had been hesitant to adopt it. Saying that, I was over on Major Nelson’s site(Xbox live updates + other news) and noticed he had the twitter badge up and running and thought it actually looked quite neat. It’s very much like the “status” feature on facebook, and I usually try and have a bit of fun with that, so thought I’d chuck it on the blog as well – in a small effort to try and get me back into the blogging routine. I have a few more interesting pics taken on my phone which I may well share, but the quality’s not great; especially with my shaky arm LOL.

Another small change, hardly noticable, is my swapping of my Last.fm profile. I’ve been slowly adopting “Jimiminar” for every online handle/identity out there and well my last.fm profile was lagging behind. Cue a shiny new profile and I’ve just swapped over the quilts/recent tracks but it should be business as usual…

Here’s trying to find something else to put off work…

A New Chapter…

Hey peeps, it’s been quite neglectful of me not to mention what is in fact a new chapter in my life about to begin.  That being that as of next week, I would have started on a training scheme which should (here’s hoping, although the family is that tiny bit more) lead to a nice shiny job in computing.

The training scheme is being put on by JBC Computers which as it happens are based in Coventry – it really is a small world, and if I’m a little honest was a tiny added motivation in going for the scheme.  The scheme itself is training myself to have the skills to fill a desktop/network support technician role.  So that goes right from the hardware of PCs, networks, servers etc, right through to the software aspects like configuration and security issues.

Now, I am cautiously optimistic about the scheme, the main worry is my financial situation which is looking in pretty dire form right now.  Moving on from that I am really looking forward to it, and the new skills and experiences the whole thing will bring.  I am a little apprehensive that it is not software development training, as that area was what I did (still do) want to go into.  But saying that, how much actual programming have I done in the last year since graduating? The answer is very little, and pretty much all of that has been web programming i.e. HTML, CSS, PHP etc

After going to the open day in which they practically offered me a place, I didn’t feel I had to earn it, or convince them – which is a good thing.  The place I have been offered is a sponsored place, and thus all of the fees for the course are void – which is also a good thing, as it would cost upwards and beyond of £5000 depending on which modules are done :S.  That being said they do offer discounted accommodation which I have taken them up on, as well a commute from Wem every day is just silly, and probably not even possible, especially in the morning.  Yeah, so living in their accommodation, which is very much like the place I stayed in back in Uni – the good ol’ Red Faction house.  We got shown one house that the company owns, and that was literally across the road from their main premises, so making it in on time shouldn’t be too tricky.

Also including in the scheme, which is very enticing for myself, is the grooming of ones self in preparation for interviews and then job beyond.  Cleaning up my CV, and those crucial interview skills are something I feel that I could benefit a lot from, so I’m hoping that aspect works out especially.  The whole course is over in about 7 weeks, with the option for the company to keep tabs on you as you/I progress in my new found job and continuing the learning process with more exams and the qualifications that go along with it.  Although it’s probs unlikely, but if I went for every exam they offer, I think I would gain something like at least 7 qualifications in various subjects like A+ networks, Windows Server 2003 etc.

To repeat my newly set facebook status, if you do see me in Coventry, then do not hesitate to tell me how tubular my tie is.  That being because, they are pretty strict when it comes to dress code, so I’m gonna have to look pretty smartish a lot of the time, but that’s no real problem, it may sound a bit weird but I actually am more uncomfortable in jeans now than I am in my work trousers, mmm.

 

Here’s waiting for his transport to the real world. hope the movie is a good un…

Watching other people exercise = 12cals/min…

Hey, another gym-related post as it is something I am very pleased, excited and generally happy with.  The second time I went (Thursday) I unfortunately was not alone like the first time.  It did mean having to potentially worry what other people thought of me, but it was ok, as these two older women come in, and they were larger than me, one in particular was very much so, the mechanics of it don’t bear thinking about (except the initial thought which determined that the mechanics would not be appreciated if thought was applied to calculating their values).

 

Anyways, I can appreciate the social aspect of going to the gym. Many people go with friends/work colleagues.  Some people pick up dates at the gym. Hell, there’s a lot of people that express going to the gym as a hobby, which seems bizarre. Bizarre enough to warrant my current facebook profile (see facebook).  That being said, these girls were coming to the gym, you know good for them, it’s the one of the steps towards improving yourself, but it seemed they spent most of the time chatting to each other, either one of them walking on a treadmill and the other on a bike machine, or one of them on the rowing machine and the other with the crayzee sit-up aid thing, and vice versa.

 

It wasn’t that much of a problem to me, I was pretty much able to use the equipment when I wanted, all the weight equipment was available, and I got in my mile and a half jog so I was ok.  Now, the gym itself is just off to the side of the sports hall which as you imagine is used for extra curricular activities – that evening’s was five a side football.  Anyhoo, the last 10-15mins of their “workout”, which turned out to be about 40-45mins of the allotted hour, was those two watching the football. Now I don’t think for a second that these women were fans of the game, even at this, one of the lowest levels you can technically have, it was just those two checking out the guys on display in the hall.  That made me shudder to myself, but then again, fat girls need lovin’ too…

 

Here’s waiting for the Girl’s five-a-side tourney at the school…