Long rambling blog warning - long rambling blog warning

Long rambling blog warning - long rambling blog warning - please ensure that you do not leave your luggage unattended, and take care when alighting -

Now that I think about it, I'm not actually sure whether alighting, is a-getting on, or a-getting orf a train. You only ever use the word in the context of trains, so it must be particularly helpful advice for foreigners with only limited English.

Various matters afoot.

Finally, finally ordered a laptop, which will bring us back up to a two computer household, the old one went phut a while back, which meant that we have all been queuing up around the single computer, albeit a very fine computer. I'll get another iMac in due course, and the old iMac can go to the girls room, but in the meantime, handy for me to have a laptop. I keep an eye on the refurbished stock on the Apple Store, and was holding out for a decent laptop, for under a thousand. Obviously, if I was looking at a non-Apple computer, it would come in a lot cheaper, and as the new basic mac laptop, is pretty cheap anyway, the savings on the refurbished ones are good compared to what they would have cost new, but less startling when compared to a brand new computer. Plumped for one with 1GB of RAM, which is more than my current desktop, and took out three year AppleCare, as the laptops are more prone to problems than the desktops. All in, not too expensive.

I really don't see the point of having a laptop that is so shiny, new, expensive, that you are afraid to actually use it.

Of course once it arrives, I will need to figure out how Migration Assistant works, and whether I will need to buy Family Packs of software, etc. Oh the life of the family tech support guy, is an exciting one.

It will be one of the white laptops, which I like, though maybe not as manly as brushed aluminium, they seem jolly things. The ones with the really big screens, just don't look like laptops to me. The whole point of a laptop is that it is portable, not carrying about something the size of a easel all day.

Other stuff - been out plenty lately, probably worth a few notes on what I have been upto. Of course the flipside is that I have a vast pile of paperwork for dealing with, today is Sunday, and I'm back at work tomorrow, unalloyed job.

Apple Store - again - another trip to Glasgow, another trip to the Apple Store. Asking about the rumored new chips, but they were all toeing the party line, and saying they knew nothing. A bit of an internet scour, there are new Intel chips coming out, but not clear when they will find their way into Apple computers, and the chip in the MacBooks was updated in early November. Thinking logically, the iMacs are pretty new, so by elimination, wherever they were putting new chips, would not be the desktops.

Bought myself another LaCie hard-drive, which means that I could start backing up immediately, if/when I got a new desktop. My existing external hard drive is partitioned, so could easily back up a laptop on there too.

Police HQ - went to the police HQ a few weeks ago, rather like the school trip to the fire station that I never got. The place was deserted and dark when we got there, strikingly geometric, and squarely lit, we got in by speaking into a speaker at the main door, and were then trapped in a deserted reception, found a door open from there, wandering round locked offices, headed towards a slapping noise, and found a cleaner in the gym, she directed me to a traffic policeman sorting envelopes in the mailroom, and he phoned up to find our host. After a presentation, we saw the large, larger than a basketball court, and tall too, room where all the urgent and routine calls were handled. Relatively tidy desks, but each had two, three or even four flatscreens on them, fixed to metal poles, with different data screens on them. All the time, large monitors at each end, relayed through a series of messages, red tickertape messages too, and a big plasma screen of the News. Whiteboards round the walls with more data. They were constantly logging the number of calls, and longest wait, via big red numbers displayed on the wall, and when pressed, folk would be pulled off tea breaks. Apparently the break during Coronation Street, and after an afternoon of drunken summer barbecues are particular times for high call volumes.

Then went to the CCTV room, eighty or ninety monitors, constantly panning and scanning, all over the county. I suppose you could be appalled at the Big Brother-ish-ness of it all, but there were some drunken folk swaying, one lying down, no-one was calling out the police, and from the images, unless you were wearing your football shirt with your name across it, you would not be too readily identifiable.

Striking features - the whole place was like something out of a movie, empty offices, brightly lit, they could even scan the environs, as if in defence against some attack themselves. The vision of people at desks with multiple monitors, was also striking, perhaps the way of the future. Finally shown round an empty room for running emergencies, all the standard stuff too hand, but impersonal, just a place for getting things done. After all - emergencies are just a job for someone.

Did some facilitation work - keeping my hand in, as I have done a fair bit in the past, so it is good to just volunteer and help people out. On the one hand, enjoyable, but also quite exhausting, with just enough of an adrenaline rush to keep you going. There is nothing quite like a mixed group of people, talking through an issue that they care about. I'll have to make time to do more in future.

A couple of evening meetings, one of local groups, and a presentation for those winning awards for their areas, for floral displays and the like. Some interesting people, and what a wonderful way to regenerate an area, these people are complete heroes. It is the local volunteers that turn round communities, and sustain those that succeed. Unseen, unheard, invaluable.

Local meeting of members,and former members of the Cix bulletin board - kindly got an invite (I'm a former member), to meet up, and have a drink. As any big city evening engagements, are inevitably concluded with the train trip home, trains once per hour, usually leaving five minutes before you reach the station, and drinking and promptly catching trains are incapable of being done in the same evening, I tend to be more anti-social than my general preference would be. I had simply intended dropping in, but had such a good time, the time flew by, looked at my watch, saw it was nearly nine, and had to leave. Around 11.00 by the time I actually got home! However fascinating chatting to people who have been bulletin boarding for so long, IT is surely a means to an end, not an end in itself. I rather like techies. They are trying to Web 2.0 the bulletin board, and it was interesting to look at and discuss functionality and ease of use. In many ways the old bulletin boards, which allow threading of conversations are still vastly better than the rather frustrating comments and forums that abound now.

Finally yesterday at the Scottish Parliament - big meeting, as ever bumped into people I knew, but was not expecting, I don't think I'm a full time meeting junky, and I do think that I get stuff out of it, actually it is a good to catch up with folk that are doing interesting things, and often the mingling is far better than the sitting and being talked at, but it was actually an interesting meeting.

At work on Friday with my boss, started off by discussing what tasks I was to lead on, and what tasks my boss was to lead on, and ended up discussing all that we need to do in the next few months, pretty much agreeing a plan of attack, unexpectedly, and now things seem to be kicking off in a more vigorous fashion. I suspect that I might revert to my old role of project managing the different work strands, which does feel presumptuous when I'm not actually in charge of the work, but has worked well in the past, and is probably necessary again.