Mark Dalton

Since returning from India last Friday I have felt absolutely terrible. At first I thought it was just Jet Lag, and then a chest infection (Man Flu). Now I”m not sure what is going on but I have done nothing but sleep, and I”m talking sleeping 18 hours a day. I generally feel like I have flu and a cough, but every now and again I feel fine and then a couple of hours later I just can”t function and need to sleep. I saw the Doctor on Wednesday and she referred me to Basingstoke District Hospital for a chest X-Ray and blood tests which I had done yesterday but otherwise just told me to rest and wait for the results. I am really hoping it”s Indian Man flu at worst, and not some of the alternative on the table.

During my good moments however I have been looking at ways to improve my web site and blog. If you have been following the “Playing with Technology” posts I have made you will have learnt that I am trying to get to the point where I am not reliant on a single machine, and can work regardless of where I am.

Well I am slowly making progress and one of the tasks that was really annoying me was that I was tied to my MacBook Pro and RapidWeaver to update my website. Now I love the ease of RapidWeaver but it means that I have to carry it with me. This is not ideal as it weights quite a bit and should anything happen to it, I am well and truly stuck. So after looking around I found WordPress, a great free blogging solution that was remarkably quick and simple to install.

I have been playing with WordPress and it seems to work well so I have decided to go with it for now. I am still keeping the RapidWeaver site which you can find here, until I have migrated everything over. Be sure to let me know how you find the new site, and any problems you experience, as I am still learning the software and there”s quite a lot to learn.

One of the biggest items to migrate is my Photo Library. Now this is one of the area”s I still haven”t figured out how manage completely, but I am getting there in a round about way. At home I use iPhoto from Apple. I have my main photo library on my Mac Mini and within RapidWeaver I simply created a new Photo page and selected the pictures from iPhoto. Now that I am looking to stop using RapidWeaver I needed a way to do this with WordPress. I found a plugin for WordPress called FlickrExport (£12) that allows you to upload your iPhoto pictures to Yahoo”s Flickr service. Now I have been playing with Flickr for a while and it”s Pro Service is pretty good value at $25 a year. Flickr is basically an online photo gallery, like Google”s Picasa. The plugin then allows you to display the photo”s you have in your Flickr albums on your WordPress site.

I am in the process of uploading my photo”s to Flickr, and as there are quite a few this is going to take a while, but you should start to see them appear shortly. One part I haven”t quite figured out yet is when I am on the road I can upload my photo”s to Flickr but I now need to figure out how I bring the photo”s from Flickr back into iPhoto.

Okay so I arrived back in the UK Friday afternoon and was met on time by my taxi for the 40 minute run down the M25 / M3 to Basingstoke. Walking through the door I felt I could finally relax and kicked off my shoes and through myself on the sofa with a cold beer. I chilled out for about 30 minutes before I grabbed a shower and changed my clothes which made me feel about 10 times better, but I still couldn’t face unpacking so resigned to leave that until Saturday. I grabbed another beer and through myself back on the sofa. I managed to last until about 19:30 before I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer and headed for bed. It was so nice being back in my own bed with big soft pillows I fell straight to sleep.

Saturday morning I was awake at 04:00 and ready to go. I had a bunch of shopping to do and Williams 3rd Birthday at 14:00. Then I remembered that the shops didn’t open at 04:00 so settled on unpacking my case. Now one thing I am not going to miss about India is the dust and dirt. This time around I brought the majority of my electronic equipment home. However before I could set it up I had to wash everything down as it was coated in a fine layer of dust. This is made even more fustrating when your an apple fan and most of the kit is white, well was white when I brought it. Once I had done this I needed to let everything dry off so I laid a big towel out on the landing and set everything up so it could dry.

At 09:00 I headed into town as another side effect of being away is that I have lost a lot of weight and none of my clothes fit me. So after buying a couple of new suits and half a dozen shirts I was feeling a little peckish. I headed to nearest cafe, where I found Mum & Dad just finishing lunch and joined them for Sausage, Egg, Chips, and beans. After lunch and catching up with the folks I had the energy to finish my shopping so headed back into the crowd and cringed everytime I handed over my credit card. It’s going to take some time getting used to spending in pounds again!

13:00 Mum & Dad picked me up and we headed to Katrina & Rob’s for Williams 3rd Birthday party (Photo’s here). Katrina & Rob had setup an big marquee and laid out sandwiches, crisps, and a variety of sweets. The kids all had fun playing with Williams toys and playing the party games that Katrina had organised, while the adults enjoyed a few beers and chatted. About 16:00 we set off as I was feeling knackered and Mum & Dad had things they needed to do. I got back home and had a couple more beers and contemplated how I was going to try and stay awake. I ended up washing down all the electronic’s equipment again as it all still looked dirty. I managed to stay awake until 21:00 but once again had no problems getting to sleep.

Sunday I managed to lay in until a respectable 09:30, and actually felt a little more human. I finished unpacking my suitcase and set about setting up my electronic equipment. I then set about catching up on my personal email and sorting through my post. By 13:00 I was about 50% of the way there but decided to head up to Mum & Dad’s as Mum was cooking Roast Beer and I thought it would give us chance to catch up. We had dinner about 15:00 and then were joined by Clive & Sue (Friends of Mum & Dad’s). I walked home about 17:00 feeling tired but mainly because I had eaten a big meal and enjoyed a few beers. I set about finishing sorting out my email and post and then sat and watched TV for an hour. I lasted until about 21:30 before I felt my eye’s straining to stay open and decided it was better to not fight it.

Monday I woke up at 08:00 and headed into town as I had realised that I needed a few more bits and pieces. I was finished by 10:30 and decided to take the car for a spin as it had been sat there for a while. I headed home for lunch and enjoyed my first salad since coming back. It was paradise! I spend the rest of the day sorting out the house, and a few personal things with the bank and insurance companies before chilling out on the sofa and watching a couple of films.

Today I woke at 09:00 and feel that I am back in the mix. I had a few personal things to sort out and it was nice to have the extra days to do them properly. It’s back to work tomorrow and I am looking forward to being back in London, if not the commute. It’s going to be slightly strange going back and picking up my new responsibilities, espcially now that former peers are reporting to me. I think the saving grace however is I know they are professional people and honestly don’t believe they will have any issues, as they are as eager as I am to see improvements, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

So another busy week that finished with the announcement of my promotion and return to the UK. It’s now official I will be flying back to the UK on 11th July and taking up my new position as Senior Manager Systems Support. I will be sharing my time equally between the UK and India for the next month or so until my replacement starts, so expect to be even busier than normal, if that’s possible.

I have really enjoyed my time in India and have learnt a lot and made some good friends but I am looking forward to the new challanges ahead. I haven’t really missed anything about the UK until now, but with my flight booked I can’t help think about a nice roast beef dinner and a few beers with friends and family.