Having just blogged about getting new housemates and signing contracts on this very evening, guess what comes up.
One of the recruitment companies I contacted has found what sounds like the IDEAL job (see below) the problem? It’s in Oxford.
After a lot of thought I’ve decided to apply, I am not too keen on moving but if I don’t get offered the position I won’t have to worry about it.

Electronics Design Engineer circa £22k

Graduate/Junior role requiring Hardware/Software knowledge & experience

Solid State Logic has secured an unrivaled reputation as the world’s leader in design, development and manufacture of professional audio production systems for the music, broadcast, video and film industries.

Our products are comprised of high speed multiple processor systems, designed using the latest technology and components.

It is with this in mind that our R & D Department now have a vacancy for a Design Engineer, a role that encompasses both software and hardware design. This challenging brief calls for a methodical and analytical individual with,

· An understanding of the requirements of a real-time system
· Experience of high level embedded software design and implementation
· A good understanding of digital and analog circuit design concepts
· Experience of using CAD tools for schematic capture
· Experience of VHDL design would also be advantageous.

To succeed in this demanding yet exciting post, applicants should be qualified to degree standard, possess excellent problem solving skills, be self motivated and have the ability to complete designs to the highest standard.

So I’ll have to see what comes of it, Oxford is about the same distance from London as Guildford so it’s ok from that point of view.

This always seems to happen to me, two weeks after signing the contract on the house last year I got a call from ARM saying there were now openings.

I’m not sure if I want to crosss my fingers or not, if I got it, massive dilemma. If not, then I’m stuck where I am.
It would mean I’d live in the same city as my cousin when she’s at uni, which can’t be a bad thing.

Mmmm, well I’ll keep you posted, gentle reader.

Wahoo, I’ve now got more posts on my website that Denyerec. It was not that long ago that I noticed I was kinda catching up with his perma-link post id numbering (the number of the post). So I decided that it would be great to beat him.
It this a stupid boyish competition to enter into?
Well yes of course it is, especially if you take into account the fact that Denyer was blissfully ignorant of the contest.

You could say this makes the whole thing pretty unfair. So what, if your still reading then you’ve been enjoying my posts.

So there.

Tomorrow three guys are coming to sign the contract for the next academic year.

Finding housemates this time round seemed to be rediculously easy, Mark (the landlord) showed them round when I was away. They liked, but wanted to meet with me, which makes perfect sense.
So pretty much the only involvement I had in filling the house for next year was going out for a drink with three lads which seem like pretty sound guys.

If only everything in life was like this.
Of course my friends would point out that you need to factor in my ‘Jam factor’*

*For those not in the know: Jam = Luck

A while ago, last year some time, I was having a good chat (listen?) with Jenna (one of my housemates). This was a fairly regular thing at the time, it was during the hoildays and she wasn’t mad busy with her play, as she is now.
Anyway, Jenna was explaining about Jehovah’s witnesses, as she and her Dad follow this belief structure. It was all very interesting with something about angels and the end of the world. All good stuff.
She then went on to say that she felt that she had been ‘sent’ to help me. Before you go leaping at conclusions she wasn’t claiming to be one of these angels or anything, which is good as that would be terribly arrogant. Needless to say I was pretty skeptical at the time, although I didn’t say anything to that effect.
Truth is I think she has helped me a great deal, probably without trying or realising it. She managed this with a single sentance that was a passing comment in another discussion. Seeing as I found it so inspiring, I’ll share it with the world on the off chance that someone else will find it equally helpful.
It will be slightly para-phrased seeing as I can’t remember the exact wording:

In order to feel completely alive you need to be willing to step out of your comfort zone.

Obviously you can take this in whatever way you want, personally I feel that it wasn’t intended to be refering to physical comfort but more to mental comfort.
Don’t find the idea of talking to your boss about a raise comfortable? Thats ok, you need to go out of your comfort zone once in a while.
Can’t think of a good way of approching that beautiful lady?? Leave the comfort of avoidance and give it a go.

Does this leave you open to the possibility of difficult or awkward situations? Yes, yes it does.
Does it make you feel alive? Damn right it does!

Well last night I was incredably pleased with myself as I managed to cook some salmon steaks in the oven with no sauce or anything like that.
Cooked wrapped in foil with lemon, pepper, garlic and some crushed chilli flakes for 25-30 minutes at 200… served on a bed of rice infused with the garden goodness of minted peas and subtly enhanced with chopped red pepper…

Admitedly this isn’t a particularly difficult or complex recipe, but it is the first time ever I’ve tried to cook ‘proper’ fish. By this I mean NOT fish fingers or tuna-from-a-can.

Master chef here I come…
or not

Well as you can see things are a bit different round here. The upgrade to wordpress 1.5 went smoothly, which was a relief seeing as part of the upgrade process involved deleting EVERYTHING.
You’ll have to get used to this new look for the next few weeks, as I’ve decided to re-design to celebrate the new wordpress version.

This is a good idea as the theme-tastic nature of 1.5 means that it would take me a while to transfer my old (inferior) design anyway.
So enjoy the spangly nature of the site, I am finding it quite exciting!

Well I got back without a hitch from my weekend with ‘the lads’ in Cambridge. I had a really good time, it’s always good to see Greig (and Kat) and Andy again.
I was quite supprised at the ease of the return journey, seeing as Guildford station was closed for the weekend so I had to get a bus from Woking.
I even left Cambridge a little early to be sure I had time to faff at Woking. This was not really required as I walked out of the station entrance and the bus I wanted pulled up right there! Jam!

I was glad to get home a bit early though, gives me a bit of time to do stuff before I collapse in bed (like blog).
I don’t think I’m quite eager enough to do the wordpress upgrade tonight though.

Although there is nothing worth watching on TV, so you never know.

Wiki wiki is hawian for really quick, in my case it wasn’t.
My wiki is now functioning, although seeing as it took me 7 months to actually get round to getting it sorted quick is not really the word to describe it!

I’ll put a link to the Wiki on the front page after I upgrade to wordpress 1.5 (seeing as there are changes to the style layout). So don’t go holding your breath, although you can of course use the link above until then.

It is at the moment, completely blank, the only content is that which comes with the default install. I’ve forgotten my original motivation for putting one up. I suspect it was just to see if I could get it working.
Anyway, add to it as much as you like. As long as it’s not spam.

One idea I had was a collaboration on some kind of fiction, sounds like an interesting idea and to my (limited) knowledge hasn’t been done by anyone else yet.

[EDIT]:For those that don’t know, a wiki is collection of web pages that anyone can edit. All you need to do is sign up and have a go!

WordPress 1.5 is out, and the features list looks fantastic. I don’t have the time to spend updating and making sure that everything still works right now. Hopefully I’ll get it sorted some time next week.

This is largely irrelevant to most of you but when I do upgrade, hopefully it’ll reduce the amount of spam I have to contend with 🙂

Well today, this morning, before breakdancing, I went to get my hair cut.

I was hoping that I had found a cheap and good hair dresser…
The ‘stylist’ asked me how I found the place, I said I was just walking past and popped in. She was surprised. I asked why.
Apparently most people that go there have had recommendations or seen/heard (wasn’t sure if it was radio or TV) their advert. Their advert with a voice over by Joanna Lumley.
It was when the words ‘Joanna Lumley voice over’ and ‘advert’ appeared in a sentance about a hair dresser. The hair dresser that I was currently sitting in, flicking through a classic car magazine. It was around about this time that I started to get that sinking feeling, in my wallet.
….
Things were about to get worse.
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