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2012 [10 Jan 2012|02:33am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. 2012, year of overblown predictions of Mayan doom. I also predict a year of less posts than last year. That’s an impressive prediction since I didn’t even reach double figures last year, in fact I barely struggled over the half-way line. Maybe it’s time for another revamp where I try and do something clever. In any case you can follow me on various other sites where there may or may not be more information, including, but not limited to: Google Plus (and Google Schemer — mail me for an invite if you want), Facebook, Linkedin, Flickr, Twitter, Dopplr. Normally, around the start of the year, I’d have posted some sort of resolution — but truthfully I don’t have any real ones this year. Or nothing interesting at least. I was going to resolve to travel from Manila to Edinburgh without flying, which is still something I’d really like to do but it’s not happening this year. One last unresolved item, my resolution to visit 12 ‘new’ places over the course of the last year. So how did I do, well in the Philippines I got to, er, one new place (Boracay) although I did go back to two places I’d been previously (Cebu, where I did manage to actually do some sightseeing and Puerto Galera, where I saw slightly more of the place than I did last time). Outside the Philippines I fared slightly better visiting Thailand (mainly Bangkok), Cambodia (Siem Reap, Battambang, and Phnom Penh — pics), and Vietnam (mostly Ho Chi Minh City — pics). If you count places I went for work (or as side trips to work destinations) then you can add Florida, Hyderabad, Singapore, and Shenzhen, China. So, if you’re feeling generous we can maybe call that 12 places … in any case it’s not a bad tally. Those picture links may not work (Flickr is acting up), I’ll update them if I can — also this should serve as a reminder that there’s at least a handful of pictures that haven’t made it online yet … another thing for the To Do list. Happy New Year everyone.

Presented without (much) comment [11 Aug 2011|12:36am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Facebook Status Updates: Google Plus Updates: (I’m not dead, just busy, updates may or may not return at some point later in the year)

Faulty [23 Mar 2011|01:57am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Shortly after the news of the Japanese quake hit the ‘net I started to receive concerned e-mails from people wondering if I was OK and asking why I hadn’t posted here or on Facebook to say things were fine. It was a little strange because nobody in Manila seems even faintly worried about the quake or the possible after effects. Most locals I talked to weren’t aware of the tsunami warning, or if they were they weren’t worried. Which is fair enough, Manila was on the wrong (right?) side of the country for this one and I hear that most of the coastal areas in the danger zone were successfully evacuated. And in the end the tsunami and pretty much worn itself out by the time it hit here. But on Monday a 5.4 magnitude quake did hit the Philippines around 50 miles out of Manila. (Looking for the details I noticed there was another one on Sunday). There was some shaking but it wasn’t too bad, people did the normal stand-up and wonder if they should leave the building routine. There was some nervous laughter, but no-one bolted for the door. There seemed to be a little more panic on Twitter but it subsided when it became clear that this wasn’t going to turn out to be a ‘big one’. The earthquake that hit Japan would have been around 4000 times stronger. Which is pretty scary, I can’t really imagine what that would be like. Gazing out my window at Manila I don’t want to imagine the destruction that it might cause. Even buildings that are supposed to be earthquake proof probably wouldn’t fare well in a 9.0 — and lots of the smaller buildings and shanty towns are all self built from whatever people could find. It’s fairly clear to most people that the Philippines isn’t prepared for the a big quake, the government is working on it but I’ll not hold my breath. There’s a lot of confusion about exactly what to do, annoyingly the instructions hastily posted in my apartment building refer to the dubious Triangle of Life rather than using the more sensible advice from FEMA. Compared to Tokyo, which has defined safe gathering points and regular earthquake drills, it’s all a bit depressing. Of course there’s nothing much I can do, it’s practically impossible to predict quakes and I knew about the Philippines and the Pacific Ring of Fire before I moved here, although I wasn’t aware that the Marikina fault line runs less than 500m from my building … So I’ll try and do what I can and hope for the best …

Just buy the damn ticket … [01 Feb 2011|05:18am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Twelve places in a year — that shouldn’t be difficult. Or at least that’s what I thought when I decided on it as a target during a drunken moment. But the Philippines have changed how their national holidays work, previously most would be moved to the nearest Monday or Friday meaning that last year there were 16 national holidays that fell on a work day. This year there’s 7, meaning that I’m effectively working with two weeks less holiday than last year. So I’ve been over-analyzing everything, is two nights enough? Would I be better to go for fewer longer trips, or lots of weekend hops? Is it worth the money? Etc. While fretting about this I got an e-mail from our local budget airline Cebu Pacific (think EasyJet but with singing aircrew) offering cheap flights to China at around 40 pounds each way and local flights for only a few quid. Not bad! But I continued to deliberate and by the time I decided just to book it the offer was sold out. There’s a lesson to be learned there, and I did. So today, when they offered the same deal on trips to Bangkok, I jumped on it with as much enthusiasm as I can muster on a Tuesday morning. Upshot: I’m going to Bangkok in June and I’ve decided the best way to ensure I actually go different places is to just book it and hope for the best. So here’s todays travel tip (which I’ve heard before, most recently on an annoying Discovery channel advert with the particularly annoying Ian Wright): Just buy the damn ticket and sort the rest out later. Simples!

Returning … [13 Jan 2011|03:14pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. I think it’s normally about this time that I write a post about my feelings on returning to Manila after a few weeks back in Britain. Which is what this is, but not really. Because I managed barely 30 hours in Manila, much of it sleeping, packing, travelling, or … er … boozing and didn’t really get settled at all. So now I’m in China. In the rat tail of the dog end of the Shenzhen in the south of China, in a hotel with no heating and not much of anything surrounding it. But I’ll leave that for the moment, I snapped a couple of pictures on my phone that I can’t upload right now. So I’ll talk about the hotel and the surroundings some other time (or maybe never if the muse leaves me again). It’s odd having resolved to try and go different places that I find myself sitting in a hotel room writing this with a beer, instead of being out exploring. I did wander around a lot but my sense of adventure has deserted me at the moment, I don’t even feel bad that I’m not out trying something different. Sometimes I would try, sometimes I would definitely feel I should be trying, but not today. Actually I crave familiarity, routine, the knowledge that I’m going to be in the same place for at least a few weeks. Basically I’m ready to go back and stay in Manila, or possibly a nearby beach, for a while. It was lovely to go back to the UK and see everyone, but it was all a bit hectic and here-and-there. I was originally going to write ‘back home’ instead of ‘back to the UK’ but decided it didn’t feel right. I know I’ve definitely caught myself referring to Manila as home recently. It’s odd, I’m not sure when that happened. Or when I started to notice. Or if I should care. So I’m here, drinking Tsing Tao, about to head to bed for the early start on this course tomorrow. And then Hong Kong and another hotel (two in fact, I need to change on the Saturday). When I think about it the longest I’ve stayed in any place for in the last twenty odd days is four nights, and I’ll have stayed in ten different places by the end the time I get back to Manila. Not to mention spending almost a tenth of that travelling around by one method or another, with another chunk spent killing time in various departure lounges. Wow, no wonder I’m traveled out. I doesn’t help that I’ve just been run over (well, knocked down) by a cyclist. I’m completely unhurt, but if I hadn’t already decided to abandon exploring and head back with a beer that would surely have been the sign. Too be fair I made the (understandable?) mistake of trying to speed up to get out of his way, while he swerved assuming I wouldn’t. Creating a feedback loop that led to the inevitable. However, he could have swerved behind me, which I would feel is sensible. And he had, you know, brakes. Probably. Or he was just trying to hit me. Which is stupid, ‘cos I was fine — if a little startled — and he probably had a good chance of coming off worse. Although I didn’t hang around too much longer that a quick check to make sure he was OK, because I didn’t fancy him deciding it was my fault and us ending up in an uncompromisable shouting match in the middle of the road. Still, Hong Kong is always good to perk me up. I get the chance for a decent sleep in, I’ve some Christmas money to use for a bit of gadgetry retail therapy. I’ve fortunately researched online to discover that that place I was going to go shopping is most likely a rip-off of some sort. And then back to Manila to relax. Except probably not as I’ve seen some of the stuff coming up at work and it doesn’t look like the start of this year is going to be any calmer than the end of last year. It’s enough to make me want another holiday.

Unresolved [29 Dec 2010|04:19pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Well, that failed then didn’t it. 52 posts in a year, it ain’t happening unless I aim for around every two hours between now and the end of the year. And frankly that wasn’t the point. I’m not sure what happened, I had lots of ideas for posts but never the motivation to write them (or at least finish them). Perhaps sitting in front of a computer for countless hours a day removes my will to do the same in the evening. Perhaps it’s the weather. Perhaps it’s just that in the back of my mind I don’t really think that what I’m writing is that interesting. Whatever, all I can say is, sorry. I will try and post when the mood takes me, I don’t intend to let this site die on the vine but perhaps I just need to find a few more … unorthodox … things to write about. Anyway, hope you’ve all had a Merry Christmas, let’s see what the new year will bring.

Failing … [15 Jun 2010|03:25pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Well, I’m certainly failing at my plan to keep this site regularly updated — and probably failing at my resolution. Maybe I should just accept defeat, perhaps it feels too much like ‘work’ at the moment. Still I have 26 posts sitting in my drafts folder, and while most of these are just a one line idea, if I just finished half of them I’d be well on track. I’ve been back over a month since my last jaunt to the UK. I had a great time there but this time it definitely felt more like I was coming back home. Although my homecoming wasn’t helped by an unfortunate drunken run-in with a wall a few days before, that left me returning with a corker of a bruise on my forehead and no small amount of shame. It does look like I’ll have a nice scar on the middle of my forehand, although not as bad as it might have been save for some expert patching up (cheers, Steve!) As well as that I’d been feeling run down and generally under the weather in the UK, a cold that virtually disappeared the minute I stepped back in the humidity outside Manila airport. And so followed some long needed early nights and lazy weekends. Although I’m starting to get out and about again the weather here puts me off any longer trips — well that and the fact that I can’t really face getting on a plane again for the time being. But the weather … the weather is insane. My first weekend I was back the skies opened and dumped rain on the city, complete with thunder, lightning, the whole works. The word I used at the time, explaining why I wasn’t venturing out the apartment to the pub, was ‘biblical’. Then, an hour after it started, it stopped. And it’s been like that ever since, most nights I can see lightning somewhere in the distance. Occasionally it move’s over where I live and the lightning starts hitting the conductors on the top of the buildings — which is pretty loud if you’re looking out the window on the 26th floor. Still it’s over quickly at the moment, no sign of the massive typhoons that battered the country last year, but it’s not quite the season for that yet. And while it’s not raining it’s just stupidly hot and humid, one place was showing 35C at the weekend. It’s no wonder everyone is feeling tired and wiped out all the time. So what else has been going on here? Well not much. I did miss writing about one major milestone: on May the 12th I had lived in the Philippines for one year! Although given my previous visits and my frequent travelling maybe I can just call today roughly 365 days of non-cumulative Manila life. Over halfway through my official contract, time to start thinking about what I want to this time next year. To be honest I’m fairly sure I’m going to stay in Manila for a while longer, the reasons I took the job haven’t changed, the UK economy is still mostly screwed, and I hope there’s still lots of things I can contribute here. I guess I have to see how the rest of the year pans out — there’ll be far less travelling so I’ll have more chance to really see what long term life in Manila is like. Still, lots to do before that, not least deciding if I want to move apartment again. But this post is already too long, and it’s too hot and too late here to get into the pros and cons of moving elsewhere in the city. Maybe next time.

Choice .. [06 May 2010|11:39am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. As so the UK goes to the polls (or the majority of them don’t, they ignore it and just bitch about it later — I’ll try and avoid the bitching). For the first time I can remember I’m not voting, I could probably have managed a proxy or postal vote but I left it too late (and the Philippines postal system leaves a lot to be desired). I doubt my vote would count for much, my home constituency is solidly red and my parents — where I could also vote — solidly yellowy-orange, or whatever the Lib Dem colour is. I have to clarify as the Scottish Nationalists can’t pick a colour different enough from the other three, what’s wrong with a nice purple? I know I should have made more of an effort to vote, but I’m honestly not sure of who to vote for. Thirteen years of Labour haven’t turned out as well as it might, the economy is in the toilet and our civil liberties are fairly shredded. I used to be very much of the mindset that “if you’ve done nothing wrong you’ve got nothing to fear” but I’m not anymore. Whilst I genuinely think that government did what it thought was best it’s left the machinery there for a later government to abuse. Which annoyingly leads to me liking a Tory policy, as they’re looking too repeal a lot of it. Unfortunately it’s only one policy and they’ve got a bunch of really dubious candidates standing and other dubious policies to match. Although they might be the only party that wouldn’t panic the horses in the city too much, which might prove important in the long run. The Lib Dems are dangerously close to actually having some power, and having to enact some of their policies. Something that would have been unthinkable in any other UK election I can remember. I guess they deserve a shot, but I’ve never really got over the sudden compromises the Scottish LDs made when they got a sniff of power in the Scottish government. I’m not sure I believe the Nationalists argument that they’re still relevant in the UK parliament, previously perhaps — nowadays, not so much. And they trail a distant third or fourth in either seat I could have voted in. Maybe I’d have voted greens or a maverick independent, who knows. I certainly don’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen next either, but I’m going to go out on a limb and make a prediction: The Lib Dems vote collapses to just above it’s usual level as ‘Cleggmania’ fizzles, probably partially due to being given a stupid name. Their vote is split roughly evenly. This gives the Conservatives the most votes and seats, but no overall majority. The LDs could make up the difference for the Tories but not for Labour who come second but with too few seats to make a coalition work. Gordon Brown resigns in a surprisingly dignified goodbye, Nick Clegg starts to make overtures to the David Cameron but insists that electoral reform an absolute must. Cameron says no. Some newspaper makes a Man from Del Monte joke. Cameron goes it alone and forms a minority government. The city has a bit of a fit as it realizes that this might go on for a bit, the FTSE drops along with the pound. In reaction the LDs and other smaller parties agree to support a limited Queens speech and an emergency budget and then ‘address each issue on merit’. The opposition try and push through electoral reform, they may or may not succeed before Cameron calls it quits and goes back to the nation for a proper mandate. All signs pointed to this being the last first-past-the-post election I would see, with reform following rapidly on it’s heels. Now I’m not so sure, I think we’ve got one more old-school election before we’ll see proportional representation … maybe more.

Bring on the trumpets … [27 Apr 2010|03:26pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Almost went a whole month without updates, and still not much to say. I really don’t know where the time is going, the weeks seem to be flying by at the moment. It’s nearly the end of April, a third of the year gone already. The first few weeks of the year seemed to really drag on and now I can barely find the time to do anything. So what have I been doing? Well I’ve been to Sydney — which was ace, I’m surprised I managed to pack so much into the trip after spending my first weekend just relaxing and mooching around. Since I’ve been back it’s just been mental, I spent two days catching up on work then had to go on a leadership training course for the rest of the week. Giving just enough time for the work to mount up nicely again. Meanwhile Manila has been getting slowly hotter, hitting 38C last week, and even the locals are complaining that it’s way hotter than normal. It’s going to be a long hot summer, fortunately I’m off travelling again (for work this time) in a fortnight, so I might miss the worst of the heat. And arrive back in time for the rain. Anyway I’ve managed to get my Tokyo pictures on Flickr so I’m now only two trips behind on the pictures and about four behind on posts. I’ll try and catch up with that over the next few weeks even if I don’t manage to do that much interesting in the meantime.

A trip too far? [30 Mar 2010|02:22pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Wow, I really suck at this regular update thing! Last weekend I was in Shanghai, it’ll get it’s own post in due course, although I have to confess I wasn’t at my best. Just back from China and on the back of several big nights out (courtesy of various visitors to the office) I was feeling under the weather, generally worn out and arriving in a foreign country after midnight (breaking one of my self-imposed travel rules) just wasn’t the best feeling. Made worse when the taxi pulled up to the hotel to reveal an entrance that was properly shut and chained — fortunately the real entrance was round the corner but it’s still not the sort of thing I wanted to deal with at that point in time. Sitting in the hotel I questioned my sanity for shoehorning this trip in, I actually wanted nothing more than to be in my flat in Manila. Sleeping. Which, given my love/hate relationship with Manila this year, was a pretty interesting feeling. Still, I made the best of it and discovered some cracking places in Shanghai, details soon. But a weekend of sightseeing (and occasionally drinking) really didn’t help my overall wellness, and I was even more worn out by the time I got back to Manila. So I’ve spent the last week and a half sitting around watching TV and sleeping. I feel pretty much back to normal now, which is good since I head to Sydney in two days! I still really can’t get my head around the fact I’m going, it’s been booked for so long that it’s just been a ‘thing’ and now here it is. I’ve done hardly any of my normal research for this trip, but that doesn’t matter, it’s not a flying weekend visit. There I’ve got plenty of time to settle in, look around and decide what to do. Plus I have friends around Sydney so I know I’m going to be getting at least some guidance while I’m there. Even better is that this is a proper holiday, previously I’ve been darting away for the weekend or cramming in some travel during work trips. So I’ve had my work laptop and pretty much been ‘on-call’ but this time, although I’ve agreed to ‘keep an eye’ on my e-mail, I’m officially out of the office and out of contact. It’ll be an interesting feeling, I hope I can let go. Of course that just means I’ll have a pile of work to return to and it’ll be just under three weeks before I’m away again. But I’m enjoying my work, I’d rather be busy than bored. And I’m more busy than normal because, although neither my salary or my official job title has changed yet, I’ve been promoted. I’m now looking after a team of fifteen people, which is a little scary and also means that the last flicker of a chance of me doing any proper engineering has pretty much died now. I’m sure I’ll find a way to keep my hand in — I have an evil plan. Overall, despite my body’s protests and my insane schedule, I’m having fun. To go from, earlier in the year, wondering what I was doing in Manila to, on my last trip, not being able to wait to go back means that something must be going right over here. Hopefully I’ll be able to throw something interesting up here when I’m in Sydney — otherwise I’ll be playing a bit of extreme catch-up when I get back.

Windows 7 [28 Feb 2010|12:00pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. I’m travelling this weekend and didn’t have time to do another Philippines entry, sorry for the tech post. Before moving out to Manila I bought myself a shiny new laptop since it was easier to ship out than my ageing desktop. It came pre-installed with Vista but, at the urging of a friend, I installed the Windows 7 beta. Since then I upgraded to the release candidate and, last month, finally did a full clean install of the retail version. After nine months using the various versions I can honestly say I love it. It’s without a doubt the best version of Windows I’ve used. It’s like Microsoft really took notice of some of the problems with the previous versions. Which is not to say it’s perfect, the full install took an entire evening to do. This is mostly because I had to do it twice, the first time it helpfully decidedly detected the previous Vista install in the partition and automatically preserved all the files. I can see why that’s sensible but I wanted a clean install, I could have gone in and deleted everything but I figured it’d be easier just start again. Easy, I thought, boot to the other (Windows 7 RC) partition, clean the drive and redo. Here I came up against one of Windows 7 safety features, where it refused to delete the system files out of the other partition and it wouldn’t format the drive either. Safe, sure, but I’d rather be able to delete files when I want to regardless of how stupid it may be. There’s probably a way round it, but I remembered there’s minimal partition manager on the installation DVD that would let me format the drive. The second install took a couple of hours, and while it’s pretty painless it still missed a bunch of drivers that I would have thought it should auto-detect. Having to reinstall the video and audio drivers isn’t exactly newbie friendly. I had a fair amount of hassle with the bluetooth and fingerprint-reader drivers, but I think that might have been my fault. I think Windows had already detected them properly but just wasn’t that clear about it. I probably just made extra work for myself with the reinstall. It was once it was running that I realised how much more thought had gone into this version, setting up networking, downloading from my camera and tweaking settings is just so much easier than it was before. The user interface is more intuitive, things just work and once you get to know it you find it’s full of short-cuts and tweaks to make life easier. Whenever I’ve installed XP before I’ve normally followed up installing a whole bunch of utilities and extensions, but here it’s all there for you. Stupid things like automatically changing backgrounds are now built in, nothing special but it saves having to install yet another little program. Part of the reason I installed so little is that I do so much in ‘the cloud’ (as the techies say) nowadays. For the record here’s what I’ve had to install and why: Microsoft Security Essentials: Microsoft’s new virus/spyware checker, I can only guess why this isn’t bundled or offered as a automatic download (probably anti-trust reasons). But it seems secure, non-intrusive and it’s free. I previously used AVG but I got really annoyed by it’s continued version upgrades and associated nagging. Google Chrome: Sorry, nothing will convince me to use IE expect for those few specific sites that only work on it (mostly work-related where they only develop for the officially supported IE). Plus Chrome is just so much better set up for smaller screens, you can tweak other browsers to behave the same but Chrome does it out the gate and still gives you all the same info. Paint.NET: For photo-editing, it’s free and it does everything I need. Although I discovered that I couldn’t access my old Paint Shop Pro files, eventually I had to use my mum’s computer with it’s old install of PSP to covert the files (and I still had to save out the separate layers in things like the banner images into their own files so I could recombine them). I used to use PSP for screen capture too and I can’t find that function in Paint.NET but that’s OK because Windows 7 has a decent built in screen capture tool. WinAmp, ml_iPod, and gPodder: In my continuing quest to avoid iTunes I’m trying this combination of programs which is allowing me to manage my music and podcasts. ml_iPod is a WinAmp extension that improves the iPod support and gPodder is a stand-alone podcast manager. It’s taken a fair amount of tweaking to make them work together and, to be honest, it’s not working perfectly. I may have to cave and install iTunes but I’m prepared to keep fiddling for another few weeks to see what I can manage. Growl and GMail Growl: To get pop-up notifications of my incoming mail. Skype: For video chat and cheap calls back to the UK And that’s all I _needed_ to install, everything I want to do could be done with that lot or on the web. Arguably I didn’t even need the last two. For completeness here’s the less essential things I installed: Flickr Uploader (it’s much easier than using the online form to upload multiple files), Google Earth (because it’s pretty), SumatraPDF (Google Docs will render PDFs but this is easier and fairly lightweight), ECTool (to track e-mail chess) and Microsoft Office 2007 (because I’ve paid for it and because Google Docs doesn’t format text documents nicely for printing). All in all, aside from Windows and Office, this computer is using only free software and for the first time in a while I’ve actually paid for the Microsoft components. I imagine this machine will get cluttered with other programs over time, but I’ve been surprised about the lack of stuff I’ve needed to install and just how easy it is to use. Plus there’s a ton more features that I’ve not had a chance to play with yet. So, if you’ve not tried Windows 7 and your hardware supports it, give it a go.

Getting around [07 Feb 2010|02:40pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Well I finally got out of Manila for a day, we had a few visitors in the office so some of the guys took them and me to Subic. It was an excellent day and I’m going to write more about a couple of the places we went later I’ve sorted the pictures out. It did highlight a couple of things, first travelling with a guide is invaluable. I’d been planning to go to Subic on my own and I’m glad I didn’t — it would have taken a weekend just to work out where everything was and even knowing where we were going we got lost several times. Now I know where everything is I feel comfortable going back on my own, and since I’ve done the tourist stuff I’ll not feel bad lying on a beach for the day and sitting in casino all night. Secondly, I was glad there was a crowd of us. I could have gone to the places we did on my own but it would have been a lot less fun. I think I might write another post about travelling on my own in Manila. and I’m coming to accept that I’ll be doing most of my travelling along. But there’s one final thing I realised during the trip, and that is that having a car would be really handy. Seeing all the signposts and roads leading to little villages, beaches, and resorts made me realise how much easier it would be to get around if I had my own transport. Sure I could get around using buses but it sacrifices a lot of freedom, I’d need to check timetables and plan journeys in advance. Having my own transport would give me the chance to change my mind on a whim. The Philippines is a big bunch of islands, so there’s a limit to how far you can go in a on land, but I live on the largest island and there’s plenty to explore. So for the first time in many years I’m seriously considering getting a car. Be afraid motorists of Manila. Be very afraid. Although, frankly, the motorists of Manila are all mentalists it might just be me that needs to worry.

Bit by bit … [01 Feb 2010|01:58pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Urk, three posts behind already (well, almost four). I’m glad I said ‘on average’ in my resolution. I actually have some posts ready to go, but I wanted to post something about Manila rather than just my ramblings about technology and other guff. However I’ve spent a month doing very little post-worthy in Manila, you don’t really need a blow-by-blow account of how I spent way too much money and lumbered myself with a hangover. So, I’m slowly settling back into life in Manila. I’m glad January is over, not just because it marks a milestone into the year but also because I’ve been paid, and can now ignore my over-indulgence last month and concentrate on having a quiet couple of months before I head to Australia in April. Work is proving to be extra mental this year, and will likely be through all of February. This is mostly because we’re transferring a ‘live’ project from our Germany office. I’ve been trying to think of a metaphor for this but the best I can do is it’s like trying to ship a car overseas. By dismantling it in one place, shipping it bit by bit and putting together somewhere else. While the engine is still running. And the driver is still trying to drive it. And we can now see what was becoming apparent during the process: this car is a bit of a lemon. But at least it’s here now, for us to clean up. Just in time for it’s new owners to come inspect it in a fortnight. Fortunately we’re quite good at shining up cars for their new owners, even if underneath they’re still a bit grotty they’ll stand-up to a quick test drive, and I’ll stop torturing that poor metaphor now. There’s a good chance we can actually deliver a decent product on schedule but it’s there’s been so much effort involved and the politics of the whole thing drives me to distraction. But we’re in behind the wheel now (sorry) and I’ve discovered that I’d rather be I’m much happier be wholly responsible for everything even if it goes tits-up in the end. If we get through the customer visit in a few weeks there should be much clearer roads ahead for the next few months and hopefully a chance for a few long weekends out of the city. Sorry for the rambling work related post, I’ve got a few other random ones lined up but I’ve also got concrete plans to get out of Manila next weekend so I should have something more interesting to post after that. Plus I’ve got a work jaunt to China in March and then I’m off down under in April. I’m bound to find some something worth writing about from that lot. Until then I’m going to veg out on the couch, knock back some booze and watch the wrestling. Yes, some things never change.

Sad Panda II [12 Jan 2010|07:37am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. It’s been almost three years and three months (blimey!) since my last Sad Panda post, which isn’t bad considering. But I was strongly reminded of that time while flying back to Manila last week. The situations are similar in some ways, both times I’d just left my ‘normal’ life to spend three weeks out having fun with a great bunch of people and both times I was travelling to find myself alone in a foreign city slightly at a loss as to what to do. The difference this time is that Manila is my normal life, or at least it’s supposed to be. So on the plane I contemplated what moving to Manila means and, for the first time, I wondered if I’ve done the right thing. It’s easy to see what’s brought this on, one aspect is that previously I was only ever here for a few months at most. It was easy to view it as a series of jaunts rather than really moving, but now I’m here for a lot longer before I get back to Scotland. It’s finally sinking in that I definitely live here now. At least for the next year and a half. The other thing is that I had a great holiday, not only did I not have to do any work but I got to hang around with a bunch of great people — and one special person. I pretty much managed to catch up with everyone I know, although I didn’t get to spend as much time with any of them as I would have liked. So I find myself back in Manila, and somewhat adrift. But it’s been a few days since I started writing this post, and I’ve already settled back a bit. The last few days have flown by, and I can see me being stuck in a storm of work, sleep and entertaining the parade of visitors that seem to find excuses to visit the office from far flung places. It helps that I really like this job, there’s no way I’d have found a job like it in Edinburgh. I know that, at least until 2011, that this was the right move for me, after that I’ll just have to see where I am. I can already see that once I get through January I’m going to be kept pretty busy with travelling (work and holidays), which means that the next few months are probably going to be a blur. I must make an effort to get out of Manila at the weekends, even if I just end up sitting on a beach somewhere — plus I’m going to need to do something interesting if I’m going to manage to post another 51 entries this year.

Merry Christmas [24 Dec 2009|05:49pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Well, is anyone still here? I have to admit it’s been a while since I posted anything useful … perhaps 2010 will see a better posting record, who knows … However, I’d like to wish all of you still reading a Merry Christmas and ask that you check back in the New Year to see if I have something interesting to share then. Have a great holiday, look for more posts in a few days.

View from the middle … [06 Sep 2009|07:00am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Blimey, you’d think that I’d have something interesting to write about from the last six weeks. But sadly not. The majority of my life has been consumed by work, and I don’t really want to bore you with the sundry details of pissed of customers, mountains of red tape, and piles of random management gubbins. Despite being officially a lead engineer I’m now resigned that I’ve done my last piece of actual engineer, my day to day work is all managing people, planning projects, buying equipment, and working on various initiatives. You can imagine how none of that would make a very interesting post. I tend to spend my weekends trying to catch up on sleep, doing the odd bit of work and also the odd bit of drinking. It’s still raining most days here so I haven’t even been motivated to try and go do anything touristy. The rain should ease off in a few weeks and then perhaps I can go and take some decent pictures. Until then here’s the view from my current flat especially for MasterMuir, although I’m moving out in a month or so to a different flat that mostly has a view of the roofs of the nearby buildings. It does nicely illustrate something I’ve been trying to explain about Manila, it’s mostly just sprawling one/two story buildings of various types but with big pockets of skyscrapers dotted around. The ones you can see from my window is Ortigas Centre [map]. Anyway that’s it, I’d promise to write more soon but for all I knows it’ll be another six weeks before I manage to cobble together another meaningless post. For now I’m just going to settle back and watch the X-Factor which I’ve just downloaded (yes, I am that sad).

Ill(er) in Manila [26 Jul 2009|07:46am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Well I should be careful what I complain about. Shortly after writing my last post, complaining about how expensive it was, I came down with a stomach bug (not sure what it was, maybe food poisioning, maybe just something going round). A weekend of feeling terrible followed by a week of antiboitics and limited appetite really cuts down on the spending. Although I did find the local doctor, who was very helpful. I think I’ve now been to the doctor more times in two months here then I managed in five years in Edinburgh. Still, I feel much better, Now I’m just knackered from work, 7am meetings four days a week (with a customer in the US) really don’t suit me. Plus all the various things I have to do mean I don’t even get to leave early. Hopefully this is a temporary situation that can be resolved once we’ve appeased our (understandably) cranky customer. I did what I always do when I think I’m working too much — book a holiday! Actualy that’s what I do when I’m bored and working too little. I’ve never really needed an excuse to book a holiday. So now I’ve got an five day trip to Tokyo to look forward to in November. It’s a few months away but I’ve got a couple of jaunts back to Europe before then, and a seamingly endless procession of visitors to the office will cause enough distruption to keep me busy until then even if we can cut down the early-morning calls. Illness, tiredness and rain have all prevented me from doing anything interesting in Manila. I’m begining to think I’ll just never get round to it — like living in Edinburgh and never visiting the tourist parts.

Almost a millionaire … [14 Jul 2009|12:58pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. It occurred to me today that, due to some rearrangement of my finances, I almost had enough money to make me a millionaire in Pesos. Sadly the money was still in pounds and at least half of it disappeared to clear other debts almost as soon as it arrived. This occurred to me while I was doing some budgeting, and I was budgeting because I finally have a contract. Not only do I have a contract I’m also now, apparently, on the Manila payroll. I think I now officially work here. Sadly this means that I’m no longer on expenses, the company still pays for my accommodation, utility bills and so on. But now food, transport and day-to-day stuff comes out my pocket. Booze always came out of my pocket (mostly) so no change there. The bill for the first ten days of the month leads me to discover that Manila isn’t as cheap as I thought, even discounting my weekend poker and pub crawling, it still mounts up. Maybe I’m just shopping in the wrong places, or maybe it’s just living in the capital. It doesn’t matter anyway, I have to stop thinking in pounds, I have a monthly budget in pesos which is more than enough. Still whichever way I look at it, Manila’s a cheap place to live. Not expensive, just not as cheap as I thought it would be. Maybe I should just start winning at poker. I guess I should add a bit about how I’m doing. Work is mad, Manila is fun, and I’ve finally moved into a nice new apartment which has internet. Not very good internet, lousy for Skype, but it’s still internet. I know that’s not a great update but now I’m more sorted I’ll try and do some more posting about life over here. I must remember to take my camera out with me and get some pictures.

Excuses, excuses … [01 Jun 2009|03:31am] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. Blimey, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything. I have the flimsiest of excuses. For the first half of my long absence I was running around madly in Edinburgh trying to sort out the details of my impending relocation to Manila. And Manila is where I’ve been for the second half of my absence. Everything’s going about as well as can be expected and I’m enjoying myself but I’m still settling in. Manila is one of those places where everything just takes slightly longer than you expect, so I still don’t have everything properly sorted out. Like internet access in my apartment. Of course that’s no excuse, no ‘net access in my apartment doesn’t stop wandering to the nearest Starbucks (sadly as common here as anywhere else on earth), or just using the connection at work (until the reactive firewall decides to block the site). My excuse could be that I’ve been too busy over here. It’s almost true, I’ve been thrown into the deep end of my new job and I find myself thrashing around trying to work out exactly what’s what while trying not to screw anything up too badly. Planning projects, inducting new employees, interviewing potential employees and – urk – talking to customers has actually kept me fairly busy. But not so busy that I’ve stopped wasting a fair amount of time reading whatever junk websites the corporate IT department deems fit for my time (Facebook is blocked but Twitter is fine, I’m confused.) And if I’d really been spending time settling in I’d have unpacked more than half the suitcases and boxes I’d brought over. I had meant to head out to do something interesting this weekend so that I’d have something to write about today. I’d dug out the camera, charged the batteries, packed the guidebook and planned a bit of tourist trail. And then it rained. And I thought I’ll give it an hour and it’ll pass. And then it rained harder. And than, to hammer home the point, it rained even harder. So I decided to skip the wandering around in the wet, and hung around watching the Discovery Channel. That would have been an excellent point to dart across to Starbucks and do write this post, but I didn’t. I have no excuse. The rainy season lasts for months, but hopefully I’ll be fully connected in a new apartment within weeks. Perhaps then I’ll find the correct combination of interesting content, motivation and free time to return to regular communication. Or I’ll find a better excuse.

Madness [06 Apr 2009|02:09pm] Originally published at UnorthodoxY. Please leave any comments there. And so I find myself back in Edinburgh, for six weeks or so. My calendar is already full to bursting, with every weekend spoken for. I’m trying to do two jobs, and attempting to schedule workmen and various deliveries around my early morning calls back to the Manila office. Add to that the various visitors and house guests I’ll have over April and the whole thing just turns into madness. No wonder my body has given up and decided to give in to some nasty cold bug. Also no wonder that updates to this site have been non-existent. Still, it’s all under control, planned and organised chaos, just the way I like it. Despite work doing their best to throw a spanner in the works by sending me to China for Easter weekend (I said no). That’s about that, I’ve no idea when I’ll find time to write any more but I’ll leave you with this final bit of housekeeping. This website has no wish to indulge in an extended ham-slapping with any other websites so I choose not respond to his thrown gauntlet with a surcial strike. I will respond with a blanket bombing of barbarous baconisty: The Baconcyclopedia. Hock and Claw!

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