About this time last year, I wrote this, a review of 2008. I did one for 2007 too, so might as well do one for 2009.

2009 started with some uncertain ill health, that turned out to be gall stones. I had my cholecystectomy in February and have been a reasonably good health ever since. My weight has slowly crept up toward my pre-illness weight, but thankfully still about 5kg down.

There was quite a lot of travel in 2009, starting with a long weekend in Dubai in February for wife’s birthday. Amazing place.

At Easter, we had a long weekend in Cornwall/Devon, giving Herman a mini road trip.

In June we had a much longer road trip; two weeks through France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Italy, Switzerland and Germany, taking in the Alps, Italian Lakes, French Riviera, Black Forest and generally some of the Best Driving Roads in the World.

We were to return to Belgium in August – Antwerp this time for a minibreak, and another chance for Herman to play with the trains.

In September, we left Herman at home and travelled to Turkey for a week and met up with my mother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece, and a very nice time it was too.

We would have gone to Belgium (Brussels) again a couple of weeks ago if it wasn’t for the wrong kind of snow in Calais

Finally, for travel, I took Herman up to Aberdeen for Christmas, visiting my dad and stepmum. A bit of drama on Britain’s roads, but generally OK.

Work wise, this year started out very well, rebuilding business with Nomura and generally things were good.

By the middle of the year, long hours and weekends were ramping up my stress levels and I began to look for an exit strategy. This culminated in a move to Barclays Capital in October, where stress and work levels have dropped to the floor, so much so, that I’m seriously craving challenges for this year.

Family life took a bit of a dent toward the end of the year, and apparently there was a credit crisis too.

So, for 2010, I will try to strike a better balance of work, personal and family life, reverse the weight gain trend and generally stay healthy.

(see what I did there?)

Well, I’m no longer at Nomura, taking a week off, then off to pastures Blue.

I have mixed feelings on leaving. The people at Lehman (and Nomura) have been great and a pleasure to work with and I’ll miss them, but the job itself wasn’t quite right for me, so I am pleased to be moving on, hopefully in the right direction.

There are some other definite advantages to moving to Barcap:

1. It’s a five minute shorter commute, so only about a 15 minute walk now.
2. They don’t have a subsidised staff restaurant, so I’ll have a fighting chance of losing some weight (though see point 1 for less exercise)

So another chapter in my career ends and a new one begins.

We’re off to Turkey!

Mother-in-law, sister-in-law and niece are already there (a beach resort near Tekirova, apparently) and we’re heading off on Saturday to meet them. I’ve never seen niece before and haven’t seen the others for a few years, so very much looking forward to it.

I’m also half way through serving my notice in my current job and start my new job on October 12.

All in all, makes for a relaxing time

The last few weeks have been quite difficult for me.

Work has been generally unsatisfactory as there is way too much support/management and not enough hands-on development work. This was made worse by my boss taking a couple of weeks in Asia followed by three weeks on holiday, and all this at a particularly busy time.

Net result? ultimate responsibility, 60+ hour working weeks and being permanently on call.

Well he’s back now, so at least I no longer have to cover his role and generally having an extra body in the team spreads the support load around a bit more.

I even had yesterday (Friday) off in lieu of the bank holiday I had to work a couple of weeks back. Very nice turning the raspberry off

Good news now is that I have one more week in the office, then two weeks off on holiday. Hurrah!

We’re going on a Euro road trip, in part, inspired by the Top Gear search for the best driving roads in the world.

Itinerary goes something like this:

• London -> Luxembourg -> Geneva -> Nice+Monaca
• Nice -> Menaggio (Lake Como) – staying 3 days
• Menaggio -> Davos – staying 3 days
• Davos -> Baden Baden – staying 3 days
• Baden Baden -> Spa -> London

The six days in the lakes/alps will see us visiting Col de Turini, the San Bernadino Pass and Stelvio Pass as well as many other interesting bits. The trip up through the Black Forest is supposed to be amazing too.

All in all, should be eight countries/principalities and something between 3800 and 4000 km

Can’t wait. Herman’s quite excited too

Hurrah! Bank Holiday long weekend!

Oh wait, it’s 6am and I’m working. Got shed-loads of stuff to do today.

Fortunately, I’m only on call tomorrow and have a few system checks to do. No stress. It’s just the last chance to prepare everything for the big MSCI rebalance next Friday.

Monday, I’m in the office all day.

Why do they call it a ‘bank holiday’ when everyone has a day off except banks?

I’m also creeping up in weight. Am now 103.5kg, so up about 2kg from low of a few weeks ago.

The last few months have been very busy at work. It’s not just the long hours, but the lack of genuine free time during the evenings and weekends.

I manage and support a system than runs from Saturday afternoon through to the following Saturday morning. All maintenance and upgrade work happens in that window on the Saturday.

When I do get a bit of free time, I just want to chill out.

So it’s fortunate that this weekend, I have no work scheduled (thank’s Rich!!), it’s Eurovision and that’s an excuse to revel in silliness and have not a care in the world.

At least until that Sunday 3am bing.

I got an email from a pimp (employment agent) today.

Now I’ll say first off that some are very good and do an excellent job, but by and large they do make me giggle.

So today I received the following. Given that I architect, build and manage software systems for a financial institution, this is rather wide of the mark.

I am contacting you as I have an old copy of your CV and would like to bring to your attention a position that we have available in East Sussex.
An Arboriculture/Forestry Lecturer is needed by a College set in a scenic location in a 800 hectare estate. The college has been awarded Centre of Vocational Excellence in ‘Rural Business Management Training’, ‘Horticultural Technologies’ and ‘Sport and Recreation’, TQS accreditation.
They are looking for applicants who ideally hold a degree or similar professional qualification in forestry or arboriculture, have excellent organisational, communication and time management skills, are flexible in their approach and are IT competent.
Previous teaching experience and qualifications would be beneficial but are not essential.
The position comes with a salary typical to FE Lecturing roles(£22,000-£28,000), 40+ days holiday, pension and training for Teaching qualifications.

If this type of position matches your skill set or aspirations and you are interested in a career in Further Education, or know someone who is, then get in touch.

I wonder where they got the “old copy” of my CV ?

Anyway, if anyone is interested, I can forward this email on.

Last September, my employer’s holding company went bankrupt, taking all our money and forcing us to go into administration.

An evil British company bought out the bulk of the parent company in the US and a very nice Japanese company bought most of our business here in London, parts of Europe and Asia.

All very good, but it was always on the cards that a merging of staff would occur and that people would move to a different building.

Now our building is by far the nicest, so nearly everyone came to us. We also had a lot of space left by the thousand or so people that lost their jobs.

Unfortunately, my group has now had to move. Not to the City, but to the darkest, most miserable part of the building we’re already in.

No longer can we wave to Reuters employees who have nothing better to do but take pictures of us and publish stupid stories. No longer can we admire the views of All Bar One on a summer’s evening. No longer can we complain about bright sunshine on a fine autumn afternoon.

No, we’re in the cave. Miles from any window. And no pencils in the stationery cupboard.

Still, at least the tea machine is a bit closer now.

I tried to go back to work today; well ‘go’ is not quite right as I’d be working from home as I don’t want to risk having a full normal day, with commuting, wearing trousers (belt line rubs against lower incision), being jostled, etc.

However, my two methods of remote access are broken. Bit frustrating really.

Also, my raspberry is useless as receiving 10 days worth of email (at about two messages per second) seems to be all it can manage so the interface freezes up and I can’t send email because my mailbox will be filled up.

Tricky. I want to be doing something.

Hopefully, my remote access can be sorted out sometime this morning.

I had a pleasant surprise at work the other day. 

I was called into big boss’s office (oh know, should I clear my desk?) and was told I had been upgraded.

Quite a pleasant surprise and it’s always nice to be appreciated and rewarded for work done.

No extra money though