Missingtale's Blog

Starting life

missingtale — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:34:53 +0000

Just watched the BBC’s brilliant Bang Goes the Theory this week they showed some footage of IVF, whilst this technology raises many ethical questions for many people this is not what got me. They had shots of the different techniques used and it struck me that how something so complex as the creation of life can be achieved with such a crude technique. Now I am not belittling the the effort that has gone into making this possible but it basically comes down to hit a sperm over the head so it dosn’t try to get away and stuff it into an egg. Stick it into the incubator for 2 days and then if all looks OK implant it into mum and hope for the best. This just blew me away and to think that is the creation of the next generation. WOW, WOW, WOW

Instantaneous life

missingtale — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 09:35:33 +0000

Last night whist drifting off to sleep I was thinking about about a post I head read on another blog about about the unseen umbilical cord, and how this feature of modern life has actually made us all plan less, and live a more instantaneous life. I am not sure that this is a good thing, it seems to me that credit crunch has to some extent been brought about this need for every thing to happen NOW.

For example if may parents generation wanted a new sofa they would probably only be able to afford a second hand one NOW (which would reduce the number of sofa’s in land fill) or they could live with what they had and start saving up to buy one. Today I can if I have reasonable credit record wander into any large furniture shop and leave with a sofa on order, complaining that it is going to take them 4 week deliver it with little or no actual money changing hands. I would just have to pay for it over the next four years.

I don’t think this is always a bad thing, this kind of deal has certainly made my life easier over the years but I also think there should be place for planning and dreaming about something achievable. I think the instantaneousness of life is to some extent reducing hope, there is a tang of if it can’t happen NOW it will never happen. People seem to behave as though the only source of hope is in the lottery and sudden massive gain in material wealth.

I think there is still hope, in the form of God, in my case that is Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit as well. But this is not instantaneous, living a life in God is like saving up for that sofa its achievable you will get there if you keep at it. The difference is putting that little bit away for God often turns out to be many times more rewarding than you can ever imagine, and sofas may become of little consequence.

4 Weeks Old

missingtale — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 22:39:40 +0000

Wow, My son was born on Christmas day 2010, that made him 4 weeks old yesterday, and looking back through some of the photos of him I realise how much he has changed already. When he was born he looked very distinctly like my father however now I am not so sure and during that time people have commented that he looks like both his grandmothers and I think he now has slight look of my farther in law. But at the same time it is enchanting to see him growing and learning new things but at the same time I have learned so much about bringing up a baby so I thought I would try to capture some of them here as every body says you forget the first 2 weeks so here we go.

you will not get any sleep in the first week

babies do have opinions on their comfort and if the mosses basket has a saggy bottom they will not sleep on it.

Try to look at the situation from the babies point of view

nappies are expensive

The other night we could not get baby to settle, we have bouncer with a vibrate function which is almost guaranteed to settle him if he is tiered. It was obvious he was tiered but it was 4 in the morning then I had a brain wave, we had an adult toy with a removable vibrating part, which was connected to a control box by a wire. As Mrs Missingtale is still recovering from the birth it was not likely to see action in the immediate future so I threaded this under the mattress of the mosses basket and switched it on. Now this much faster than the vibration generated by the chair but worked like a charm, Baby asleep in 10 minutes, just hopping grandparents don’t spot it and start asking questions…

The other thing I have found is that singing to baby can work wonders, I personally end up singing a selection of bits of modern worship songs to much to my own annoyance as I can generally only remember the chorus and bridge. I find these great as they are so variable you can find a slow calm tune to send baby to sleep or a bouncy tune to stimulate baby and the most durable ones are written to be sung by musical incompetent’s like me. All I need to do now is learn some verse’s as well, and perhaps improve my singing but baby doesn’t seem to mind.

Mind blank

missingtale — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 17:42:08 +0000

I keep thinking of things that I should write about, however, being a new dad I am can not drop every thing to start typing (I’m not very good at this anyway). However at the minute I have nothing I need to be doing and have sat down to do something on the internet that I promptly forgot a what it was, so I thought I would write some of the stuff I had thought about recently but actually, I can’t remember what that was either. I think my brain might be suffering from being a parent. OK I guess this post actually could be summed by I have forgotten allot of stuff.

I’m a dad

missingtale — Mon, 03 Jan 2011 18:11:43 +0000

OK, as of Christmas day I am a dad, obviously this is not a surprise I have had about 9 months to get the idea and it was a planned thing as much as these things can be, but what is worrying me is the lack of attachment I feel towards the little man. I think I am working through this but how do you “bond” with some one who can’t focus on you or hold a conversation? I am really struggling.

Presenting

missingtale — Thu, 23 Sep 2010 20:27:38 +0000

OK, so work has been interesting and really busy for the last few months, and now we are about to launch not just a new product but a technology which has been in development for well over a decade. With such a long development cycle I there is a big risk that the initial market might not be there any more. Thankfully it looks like it is and we are starting to get requests for quotes.

However as this is more than a new product it is new Technology I am now getting asked to explain it to more and more people. There is loads of funky methods to do this but so far I am finding the best thing to do is talk to people in small groups. There is one event coming up in the next few weeks which is going to require a much more formal presentation and I am not sure where to pitch it. If any body can point me in the direction of a good guide to new technology launches it would be appreciated.

Living up to my Tag

missingtale — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 21:02:33 +0000

Ok so the tale is defiantly missing from this blog, however it has just served one good purpose which is to augment my memory. I am sat here thinking my potato sets should of arrived by now and sure enough by this time last year they had arrived and I was setting them out to chit. So I have hit the e-mail to see what is going on. Anyway this is a message to my self to try and keep this more up to date with stuff as it is great to be able to know what I have done and when I did it.

Christmas

missingtale — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 09:23:39 +0000

Christmas is just about over for another year, just the big family party this evening, and so I thought I should reflect on what has happened since last year.

Good things,

General makeing good on house has been really rewarding

New bathroom, involving nice new tools

Allotment

Bad things

NO pay rise!

Fairly depressing work year

Generally I think I have to count myself lucky that I still have a job but I can’t say its been rewarding. However at home we have improved our house garden massively.

GIMP SCM Script Files

missingtale — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 07:34:04 +0000

Quick note this, I have just spent a good few hours looking for where to put an SCM file so that GIMP 2.6 running on windows will find it. Surprisingly this info is not easily found in the GIMP documentation or in the forums so it here it is.

C:\Documents and Settings\[user]\.gimp-2.6\scripts

On my home PC this is on the C drive however on my work PC it would be my D drive so change it accordingly. I believe but have not tested on Linux and Mac the following paths are aplicible

MAC: /Library/Application Support/Gimp/scripts/

Linux: /home/[user]/.gimp-2.6/scripts/

Hope this helps somebody as I find GIMP a really powerful tool which I recommend to any body who will listen to me.

HBOS Moan

missingtale — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 08:37:25 +0000

I need to get this off my chest, and this seems like a suitable outlet. Why are banks (in my case HBOS) so rubbish, ignoring the crap interests rates and changing policy every 30 seconds, there is no consistency. Earlier this year the bank sent me a few trees worth of junk mail proclaiming they could now do Faster Payments (FP) but there system has a few major down falls as I see it.

The gripe I have had since the system was launched which is a minor one, is that the Halifax web system only allows you to make same day transactions on the Faster Payments system, or 3 day transactions on the BACS system, so if I want to pay my visa bill when I get paid and I think of this the night before I get paid, I can’t do it I have to log in on pay day to do it. This regularly annoys me, the other banks I use although not for my main banking activities seem quite capable of this. They just take it and que it somewhere and then the transaction goes through on FP at the right time.

My second grip is that it appears the system takes an arbitrary approach to when to send scheduled payments by FP, for the last few months my Credit card bill has been paid with in hours of the money leaving my account. This month when pay day and payment day are at there closest 4 days apart with 2 of them a weekend, the system has apparently decided that BACS is best as the payment has not arrived in my credit card despite leaving my account on Friday! (its now sunday)

So I try to ensure at least the minimum payment is covered, and to my surprise I can’t make that payment by FP either, it will only allow slow old BACS! If I was being cynical I would say they are out to screw me, as I am not (yet) I just assume a pointy haired manager fired all there decent programmers in the credit crunch and got a load of script kiddies in Elbonia to implement the system in stead.

Grrr Rant over, except to say I am now seriously looking for a different bank!