In life there will always be great experiences, they can be fast paced and exhilarating or absolutely terrifying and go at a snails pace. It’s really all about how we choose to react to events that come our way. I choose to jump on and get on with it.

So the flat I live at is on the property market, and so far there have been a steady stream of viewings each week since the first week of this year. Now I’m never at the flat when this happens, I gave the estate agents a spare set of keys as I don’t feel comfortable with the idea that strangers are walking around in my personal space, perhaps being critical, if not certainly scrutinising the space as a potential investment.

I imagine that as these strangers walk from room to room, they are thinking and creating an image of the person who may inhabit the space. How much does a teddy sitting on my bed, or some of my paintings on the walls give away? What story do they tell to others? Can you tell how old a person is by what they own, they type of furniture they own, how clean, neat or messy things are? I wonder…I suppose it’s only natural to assume certain things about persons such as whether they are male or female by how homely perhaps flowery or girly a place is decorated, or what interests the person via the subjects of books and magazines left about. It’s just strange to think that during the day people are walking around my home, just taking a look, it feels a bit odd and I can’t wait to move to a place where other people don’t have keys to come and go.

I have to wake up every morning and make sure that the flat is in a fairly reasonable state, as I often get a call from the agent during the day telling me that there is a viewing in the next fifteen minutes. This way I don’t panic by the news that someone will be visiting my humble abode and it’s a total tip, unless as it happens from time to time when I’m in a zombie like state in the morning and I don’t tidy up or my lodgers overslept and left his room looking like tornado just passed through. Ah well, I guess in the end it’s not how well decorated, tidy and clean the place is to a buyer but how the place will suit their needs and also if the price is right. Sometime soon I’ll be the one visiting new possible places to live and making assumptions about the peoples that have lived there too, it goes in roundabouts!

Creative*

I’m an enthusiastic amateur photographer, and in my collection I have amassed over 14,000 digital pictures of friends, family, holidays, objects, landscapes and random shots over years. I had a lot more pictures but I’ve been *aherm* been selective and deleted a few.

Now with regards to backing up I have an external hardrive which was bought specifically for this task. Now I’m not as organised or persistent when it comes to backing up my pictures as I should be. I am well aware that a corrupt hardrive may mean the non existence of all these pictures which I haven’t got round to printing just yet….and I will just not right now :S

I had a devastating moment when I kept ignoring my Mac’s requests to delete files as my start up disk was almost full. Ok granted I ignored this warning for a solid two weeks, as I failed to see my Mac struggling to start up and run as effectively as it used to. I took no heed to the warning as two weeks later when I desperately needed to use Photoshop to alter a flyer, a plain blue screen stared back at me. Nothing happened… just the deep blue, blankness of my screen. Calm down, breath in, out, and don’t scream I thought quietly trying not to panic. Panic then sets in, and the thoughts of all the pictures of the last six months which I haven’t backed up on to my hardrive and just carelessly left on my desktop fly through my mind. Bugger.

So what did I do next? Called my super Geek boyfriend and another Geek friend to come and fix it. They congregated in my living room and teased me endlessly for my stupidity. After many hours they managed to track and back up my pictures which I’d already lost in my head, much to my relief. Geeks rock, or at least come in very useful when I’m close to meltdown after my stupidity!

Backing up is vital, lesson learned.

*creative

I start my new job tomorrow. w00t! After 5 months or so of being in work limbo working part time and a nu,ber of job interviews and false job starts i;ve finally reached that place where i can get settled once again down in a new job.

I like people and i like IT, it’s an odd mix that is actually quite rare. I’ve had a number of managers of late tell me that i have “too much personality” for IT, or that my skills at human interaction would be far more useful in the worlds of marketing or PR. The reality is however that while I agree I got humans down to a T, I like messing with computers, the anxious staff member who can’t remember how to open a spreadsheet, the project work, cooing at the latest graphics cards or getting dizzy at the thought of having a quad core Mac next year. It’s a strange mix to be sure, but right now in this world of job losses and all other of craziness in my life the thought of computers that dont talk back really appeals.

So thy account details are ready, i have my start time, i have my pen ready to sign a contract tomorrow. My travel card is as ready as it’s going to be…. I think i’ve blinking darn tooting got myself ready for the next chapter in my life.

Deep sigh of w00t – The Geek

I had a strange thing occur to me today. One of my friends and my boyfriend met up, purposefully without me and met for the first time, ever.  Now its just one of those things, pre-arranged with my knowledge and it just so happened that I’d not had the chance to introduce them before today with my presence. Its not exactly awkward as I had a feeling that my male friend and my boyfriend would get on, as they both have inquisitive minds and could both talk tirelessly and both happen to be intellectual beings. It just so happened that my boyfriend required the assistance of a professional in a particular field of which he had little knowledge and I wasn’t available due to work commitments, so I asked my friend to step in.

They met, all went well and I even managed to make a whirlwind appearance during my lunch break to check that my boyfriend had indeed met the right person, and not plucked some stranger off the street. I had given him my friends number and a rough description for their rendezvous. As I ran back towards the tube having torn myself away from my boyfriends embrace, I saw that both men were on their way to sit at a nearby pub. I would have happily spent a lazy afternoon chatting and chilling out at the pub on a Wednesday afternoon, but I had to return to work. As I sat back and sipped coffee at my desk twenty minutes later, it dawned on me that my friend would be quite happy to share his views on my boyfriends past and how much I happened to love the man in my life, much to my embarrassment.>_<

I got a text message saying that they were indeed chatting away like old men and sharing their views, much to my amusement though I only wished I could have been a fly on the wall to know what they were really talking about!

 

I seem to live in a world of clones; they are not clones in the sense that they bear any resemblance to me in any physical sense. Only in name, and this is enough.

I have a name, like you who would read this, a popular name with origins from the United Kingdom.  For examples sake I’ll say my name is Jessica.

 There are many and have always been many other Jessica’s in my world other than me, some are Jessica’s, others Jess and some are known as Jessie then there are other stranger nicknames. I would say that the latter would cause me most outrage, as it immediately conjures an image of a schoolgirl, clumsy, geeky with braces and pigtails. Let just say I’m not the biggest fan of that particular nickname. I am known by the first two.

 Now since I’ve been with my boyfriend we have discovered that many of his closest male friends have girlfriends, daughter, sisters etc also with the same name. I would like to say I was there first, I’ve known him for half my life and that’s got to count in ranking. So each time we go out to a dinner or whatever it may be, there is a high chance that there will be another Jessica in the room. So what happens in these scenarios? Well one of two things….

 1-     The people around both us Jessica’s start getting very confused as to how to differentiate between us, so they decide usually to call one Jess and one Jessica. I find this sometimes amusing, as both of us Jessica’s don’t usually look anything alike so it cant be that hard to differentiate us surely?

My only rule is that I don’t get branded Jessie- that would be my worst nightmare, and should anyone call me that they will not get an answer. The thing that amuses me is that no matter what people try to do in this situation it will not stop both Jessica’s snapping their heads whenever their name is called, a perfectly natural response.

 2-     The other Jessica will feel the need to take control, and will start telling everyone what her preferred nick name is, whether its Jess, J, Jessica or whatever it may be and the give me whatever she may not want. I think this too is a pointless exercise, as I do not like to be dictated to as to what my name is. I think having been called Jess since birth it’s not going to come as a shock to me when I hear it. I just sit back and relax, being completely secure in the knowledge that I know what my name is.

 Ok so I like my name and it suits me just fine, but I’m not about to change it just because there are millions of clones of my name out there in the world. There no one quite like me.

 So what’s in a name? Plenty, just remember to say the right one especially if you expect a reply.

 Creative*

I’ve just finished an extremely annoying and time wasting 45minutes ringing up apple to sort-out the only macbook in the entire office.

What really gets me is what a shockingly tight fisted and down right awful customer experience Apple offer. Forget your cool design style adverts. They really poorly back up their products with honest and reasonable customer service. Up until now I haven’t had reason to think ill of apple. Okay that’s a lie, the iPod’s i have owned have all died from really really crap build quality. But there customer service is even worse.

The MacBook in the office hasn’t been used for a while and when I powered it up today the battery wasn’t charging, further  any network cable plugged in wasn’t being recognised. I ring up apple and the long story short  is that i wasn’t allowed ANY phone support because i don’t have apple care. I rarely say this but WTF! I just wanted advice on the device, i didn’t even realise the battery was faulty. If i just wanted to be told something basic would I still have to pay for that? what the hell. Now the guy on the other end in all fairness was a decent chap and was apple to sort me out a replacement battery in the end but it took 45minutes to get there. 45 minutes! Not only that but we have to pay £90 for the battery if we fail to return the fault one…… Errrrr how much are they new again? The man at the other end must have known what a piss take the process was. He said if we defaulted we would be charged £50 which rose to £60 then by the end £88.

Apple are supposed to be about high quality products….well they are until they break and then you have to really REALLY take your chances with their support. I shouldn’t have to pay for phone support. Period. HP, et all don’t take the micky like that and there products are bloody cheaper to start with! Apple if you ever want to be taken seriously in the business world, your service need stop be so money whoring. I’m seriously now doubting if I want to purchase a  macbook pro out in the new year. Basic support should be free on products especially when they cost such an incredibly high amount of money to purchase. That “apple TAX” should at the very least get me good customer service, not a emo hair gelled twat in the apple store trying to sell me something, glossy advertising on TV and a feature gimped set of hardware.

Give me style by all means. But not at the cost of reliability. Where is your substance apple?  I’m a professional, i pay professional money for professional goods and i expect professional services to support them. BAR NONE.

Apple you have severely dropped the ball here.

Vexed. – The Geek

Don’t you hate it when you come across incompetence? I know I do. I originate from a country that requires me to have a national identity card. Even though I don’t live in that country I still need one by law, and it would be essential should I ever want to go back to travel and look around to see from whence I came. Two years ago I put in my order for my I.D card as I only had one as a child and it required updating, not only did it require me to go and faff about with people at the consulate but I had to give in some passport photos.

I wasn’t told however that the passport photos they accept have to be taken by a specific studio in the centre of town. I queued and eventually seen by an imbecile with a rude manner who suggested I ran/walked half an hour go and pay extra money to have my picture takes, then come back and wait in the queue again. This guy though I had all the time in the world to waste my time queuing. I went to have my picture taken by the specific place requested, and there was nothing that distinguished these photos from the ones I had taken in the photo booth, minus the agitated expression. Its all a scheme they have to gain more more via any means necessary.  I went to the embassy and eventually got it all sorted and sent off to be created back in that country. I was told that the current wait was two years……it’s a good thing my life didn’t depend on bureaucratic backlogs.

Flash-forward two years. I didn’t event get a letter of notification to say that my I.D had in fact arrived, my grandmother goes fairly to the consulate and enquired on my behalf and was notified that it had landed. So off I go during a quick break from my office, and sprint down to the consulate (I was excited to have an end to the whole arduous task) as it’s close to where I work. I get there and I didn’t even have to queue, I was led straight into the office- a very good sign.

I sit down and wait to be presented with the magical card, which has taken 24months of carving by blind mice. I look down at it, the back at the gentleman- anger, rage and passive aggression start to seep through my pores as I tell the gentleman that my name is spelt wrong. Two years of waiting and its wrong!

He checks the database, and the documentation for mistakes. None, my name was perfectly spelt on each and every necessary document except for the one that mattered. He looks at me and asks me what I would like to do. I can accept the card, go through hassle when I travel and get it changed down the line or change it now. I chose the latter option. So how long will It take? Another year, perhaps longer but he could not give me any definitive date. I cant quite begin to imagine what chaos it would cause to implement I.D cards in England.

The incompetent fools.

Creative*

Something extraordinary happened to me the other day when I was volunteering at a kids Sunday class. I was called ‘miss’ by a child for the first time in my life. It took me a few seconds to realise what had been uttered, I froze momentarily in shock and disbelief, I then snapped out of it to direct my attention back to them. Why was I in such shock? Well I’m one of those people that don’t look my age (it’s in the genes), and I still get asked to provide identification to shop owners when trying to buy any age specific items to prove that I’m not -under age- to my annoyance. I get frustrated at having to prove my age in shops, but when a child looks to me and basically tells me I finally look like an adult I’m terrified and in bits!  

It dawned on me that the way we as adults discern the age of other adults works in an entirely different way to children’s. As a teenager I remember looking at people in their early twenties in complete awe of how they had their lives without restrictions, parents, boundaries, wore cool clothes and generally did what they wanted.  I wanted all of that, and now that I have it, I realise I’m not all together in the least and neither are any of my friends, my life is just messy and not as I’d naively imagined it to be. I should have picked up and been aware of this ‘responsibility thing’ that leeches itself onto each person as soon as they get a job and jump on the carousel of life.

In the eyes of children I guess I may mean something else to them, which forces me to think and Re-evaluate how and what kind of role model I portray.

Sigh, ah to be a child again and just sit and play with crayons.

*Creative

I resently upgraed my iPhone to 3.1.2 jailbreak stylee and came face to face with the error 0xE8008001 whenever i try and sync my apps.

The solution is this. Open Cydia > Manage > Sources > tap Edit then tap Add source http://cydia.hackulo.us 

With in Cydia Under Section > Hackulo.us > “AppSync for OS3.1″ > Read info Install > done.

Sync works perfectly again, the world can breathe a sigh of relief.