If I thought that I was tired last week this week is worse. I think it started because I was paddling all day on Saturday at Winsford Flash which made me tired and I haven’t managed to get my head back together. My Dharma practice has suffered. Despite being tired last week I had plenty of energy. This week has been a real uphill struggle.

Programming

I thought that the deep copy program was finally buried but it just won’t die! I’ve had it in the coffin, waiting for the cremation, and the damn thing keeps getting up and saying oh, by the way, have you thought of … Last time I buy proper lillies, let me tell you, it can make do with some brown daffodils. Because I was translating the strings using the dbms_xml package it meant that translating single quotes stopped working because it was done before the unescaping of the XML. Then I had a load of problems with PVCS getting the wrong version of the file, then in the middle of testing the server went for a walk up the Khyber Pass to see the faeries. I was fitting this in while going to 2 hours of back to back meetings. What a day! Mind you, yesterday the heating went nuts and we were trying to work in 26 degrees C, oh what fun we had!

By the way, if you want to know how to escape quotes in a string that you want to insert as part of a dynamic sql statement try replace(string, ’’’’, ’’’’’’ ) – trips off the tongue doesn’t it?

I can’t start properly on my next piece of work because deepcopy and other things related to it keep pulling me every which way.

Creative

The first part of Grunts (Bay Sick Training) is being written but it’s not funny enough. I need to put more description in as well. I can see the space station and the people and keep forgetting that the reader can’t. So it goes.

Jobs

Sent the CV into one of the big consultancies but I cocked it up because I put my email in wrong at the very beginning. The CV had some formatting problems where text from a table wasn’t spanning pages (don’t ask me) and I wanted to resubmit it. I couldn’t because it was using the invalid email as an ID and I didn’t have the password but it couldn’t send it to me because it was wrong. Try again tomorrow methinks. Their website insisted on me selecting where I had seen the ad, even when I hadn’t used that particular medium.

Diary

Got the Volvo back but the lens for the reverse light on the back has been knocked off. Lights weren’t working properly either. Allegedly repair place are ordering new lenses but I should have heard from them by now. Hmmm. This made me mega late for the paddle mentioned earlier.

Took the family out for a meal on Saturday. Went to the Orient@l in the Ellesmere Port McArthur Glen (kids’ first choice, Pizza Hut, was full). Very nice oriental buffet, as much as you can eat for about 8 quid plus drinks. I’m definitely becoming a fat bastard, need more exercise and less food.

Then went to Borders, which is open until 10, and had a total frenzy and spent over £100 on books for all the family. I have been reading a graphic novel set called The Authority and they had the next four bound together in a sexy hardback. Was going to be good and not buy it but Rosie said what the hell? So I did.

Got the first book in the Wheel of Time series: The Eye of the World. Well written and an interesting take on the swords and sorcery thing.

Weekdays have been the usual bollocks except I have been working on Grunts when I haven’t been lying awake reading in the middle of the night.

Went to the gym today. No coin for locker, back to car, coin in locker, no shorts, shorts in car but I’d lost interest by then.

Volvo’s engine doesn’t like damp at the moment. Need to get the replacement air pipe fitted. Suspect that this is making it misbehave. It’s fine once it’s hot. We’ll see.