The only half-serious 'weird october' stuff takes a turn for the serious. Still have the capacity to be shocked I suppose. First of a couple of 'birthday-avoidance' days off. Spent it wondering what on earth is happening to the world, and what I should do next? Finally got commit access to cvs.gnome.org, which is a bit of a landmark. Refused some Foundation Applications which lacked evidence of contribution. Felt slightly guilty, but I guess there is no room for this. Strange flurry of OU/T171 related mail asking for advice on the course. Answered honestly. Some concerns about returning to work on Monday, but there are more immediate tricky situations to confront I suppose.
Predictably strange week reaches the half-way point. Work seems to have collapsed into an acrimonious mess of intrigues and duplicity. Everyone feels like they're being messed around with and played off against each other. Once again, I'm sort of skirting the issues and just getting on with things as best I can, but it is getting harder not to notice how deeply unhappy people are. Mary Gaultier at the Bristol Comedy Pub tonight. Truly amazing - lots of folk standards thrown in, including a final "This Land Is Your Land" and Mary's own "Lucky Stars". Weird venue - the dilapidated back room of a modern pub. I'm not sure how I feel just at the moment. Its a busy week, which is a saving grace I suppose.
And I thought it could get no stranger....weird prank call, someone with a gripe with the owner of this building at a guess, suggesting I was to be arrested by a couple of police officers at 7:30pm on drugs and violence charges. What kind of smart policemen announce such things to targets they have been "watching for ages"? The call became less and less convincing after a passably realistic start, and the guy became more and more rattled by my hard-learned local government stoicism. Unsurprisingly the promised PCs failed to visit. Otherwise, overslept for the first time ever today! Luckily a work colleague who was waiting to give me a lift rang me - I washed, shaved and dressed in a record 7 minutes. Never quite got it together at work however, despite attempts at some statistical analysis later in the day. The logic of current events continues to elude me, but at least its getting funnier....
Slept remarkably well in the circumstances, but I was very drunk and absolutely worn out last night. Tried to work out how best to deal with the day ahead. Went shopping and ate too much improvised paella. Reinstalled and set about updating the laptop in preparation for some mobile hacking on libwvconf and gtkdial 0.5.x. Thought long and hard about my situation, and generally feel oddly placid, if lonely and disappointed. Much to look forward to this week, including Mary Gaultier show in Bristol. Still, even these diversions will present their own awkwardnesses I suppose, but they are my problem and I don't want to bother other people any more about them. A phone call later means I'm feeling 100% better. Weird waves of happy/sad washing around. A strange week lies ahead ....
Lost::MikeGTN
I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.
I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.
