Ballog 6 -

Breast Feeding Debates
Ball Family Oscars (Boscars)
Dream Jobs
Tw@ Parking Pass
Tory erosion of the minimum wage

Day 8 of (Bob) Dylan
Our new baby, Dylan ball is on Day 8 post partum.  Nice. Its been a roller coaster ride for @elizabeth and her breasts. (this is the point when my dad stops reading...bye dad). Liz is giving a really good run at Breastfeeding this time and I am ever so proud of her.  She is knackered and undergoing amusing cognitive fail due to sleep deprivation.  Yesterday she happily handed me my dessert, a bowl of meringue, cream and strawberry's.  She and the swarm love that dessert... I however, have not ever eaten strawberry's, except once when I tried one and spat it out, in front of her, in 12 years of marriage and 15 years of being together.  When I pointed this out to her she looked confused and said she thought I had always eaten them.... its funny how <4 hours sleep a night for 10 days can really screw with your perception of the world... just look at Lady Thatcher and the destruction of UK industry....

So anyway,  I have decided to nick-name the new boy Bob. This is because my friend Stu Love often called his cousin James Robert Williams "Jimbobwilly"... as a result of that cool abbreviate I often called my son Thomas "TomBob", even though his middle name is not Robert.  I really don;t fancy abbreviating Dylan to Dyl...or Dill...I have debating nominating Donald as his middle name - so we can call him Dildo...but Liz's not buying that for a second.  So I might settle on Robert as a middle name, so the Bob Dylan reference makes Bob his legitimate nickname.


Dream Jobs
Today I turned down a dream job. I have had 1st and 2nd interviews at an engineering company doing tech work, and i was offered the job on Friday (they described me as the "outstanding candidate").  It was more money than I was on at DMU, high promotional prospects, ok hours, decent pension and medical, and most importantly work I would have enjoyed with some cool people.  But I turned it down.  I think I might be mad. 12 months ago it would have been a dream opportunity, to move from academia into industry....especially industrial with promotional options which could have lead to directorship in the next 4 years and options like working in Portland, Oregon or one of 15 other USA locations..... One reason why I took the Voluntary redundancy at DMU was that it'd put some money in the bank for me and let me have more of a consultancy lifestyle, hopefully earning near to what I was on as PAYE, but paying less tax (Dividends at 20% instead of PAYE Tax & N.I. at 40%) as a Ltd company - and spending more time at home with my family.  

Having been off now on paternity leave for over a week, I have certainly come to value the potential freedom and enjoyment of being at home in the day, seeing my kids and wife more, and spending more time in natural daylight.  I have really bonded heavily with Emily over this last month, she doesn't just run past me shouting mummy any more if she needs something... she seems to consider me a useful parent too now, which makes me happy.  I have other job options, but I hope I get to spend more time with my wife and kids.  This is why I am slightly torn in half by the opportunity to have an interview for another job for which I would have to work away from home mon-thurs...trading my family time short-term for big bucks, but becoming a weekend dad.

Not even heard if i have got the interview for that, so we'll cross that bridge if and when we come to it.
 

On now to the Boscars (- or Ball family oscars).  
I need to put out a few thank you's to people for the help they have given the me, Liz and the swarm over the last few years.  

• The biggest shout goes to mum and Rod, because without them we would have really struggled.. They help with the school run, and always have milk.  
• Liz's mum Jenny ( and her husband peter) also helps a lot and is good for bouncing HE idea's and career decisions off.  
• My dad's also good for career and 'tech' talk, so thanks to you guys loads for all that you do to help the swarm in its first shaky steps to world domination.
• Get well soon Anne, if you are reading this still from your hospital bed in Belgium, best wishes and our thoughts are with you.
• The Widwives, one trainee in particular, and the ladies that came to our house when liz was struggling... those ladies do a very important job in society and i wish them all well.
• DMU colleagues - thanks you guys for being so supportive of my decision to swan off and leave you all holding the broken pieces of the processes and systems i have been supporting ( mostly atlas style) for that last 12 years.  I wish you all the best, particularly ISAS, BSG and QL support team-mates who have stretched, challenged, supported and shaped my skills, knowledges, techniques and opinions for the last 1/3rd of my life!  I hope you all get something good and satisfying out of the new order, or out of your redundancy, may you all get what you wish for.
• I'd like to thanks everyone who commented or "liked" my facebook marathon of updates during the course of Liz's labour.  3&1/2 years ago when we had Emily, I had neither an internet phone or a facebook account and the whole process of the labour experience was a very lonely thing for Liz and I. This time, for Dylans birth, with facebook and my N900, I kept the world thoroughly up to date on the rate of contractions, Liz's cervical dilation, and how we were feeling, and as a result we got a constant stream of jokey / supportive comments, requests for pics and information and it really bouyed us up and kept us going...between contractions Liz occasionally enjoyed being read some of the best bits.
• On the job front, My friend Matt is deserving of a golden Boscar envelope because in his own way he has helped to set me free from  my old career and given me a chance to try something new. To a lesser extent so has my friend Nige. Check out both their music projects on their reverb nations...well worth a listen

  There's probably a lot more Boscars to come, but i am running out of mind power AND time, and i want to add a few more observations.

TW@ Pass
Firstly, what's going on with the people who park on the school run ignorantly or antisocially just to get 10 yards closer to school, for example parking over people's drives or in the Yellow "school no parking" zone.... I propose some kind of name and shame sticker campaign, provisionally named "TW@ Pass" - Which could be designed, distributed, and stuck onto their vehicles every-time they are spotted performing such misdemeanour's. There's a dad on the nursery run who regularly drives right up to the school gates and parks in the Yellow zone rather than normal spots for parking 20-50 yards further up the road.



Tory Erosion of the minimum wage.... 
Just when you thought the TORY's had copped enough of a facefull of backlash over their devious NHS refroms, one of them comes out with a ludicrous IDEA to wave minimum wage for disabled people to help them get jobs . At least the government stepped out and refused to back him up..eroding the minimum wage....so you can pay your immigrant philipino pool cleaner£1 an hour to fish champagne glasses out of the filter?  Suit you sir..

Ball Blog 6 - A father of four!

Facebooking the Birth
Missing System of a down at Download
Assisted Suicide and Granddad
Cognitive effects of sleep depravation

Well folks... Dylan is here.  Those who don’t know me on Facebook will have missed a very exciting time in my life....most notably enjoying a baby birth whilst in possession of an internet enabled phone.  Many people who know me know that I am very open about what’s happening in my life... my own fathers (himself a father of 4 too)comment on my status update about the current diameter of my wife’s cervix was "TMI!", but apart from that every one of the over 400 comments on my various updates was positive and supportive :)

So this is day 3 I think...Dylan was born at 18:24 on Sunday 12th June. We finally left hospital at about 01:00 and I got into bed about 02:00... the little boy was hungry and Liz spent most of the night with him on the sofa feeding.... the good news is last night he fed at 8pm, again at 11, and then at 7am!  So, although we took shifts on the sofa, we both got a good few hours to catch up from being awake for 36 hours with only a few cat naps from Friday night through to Sunday.

Back when we found out System of a Down were playing at down load, we knew we were not going to make the gig.  I just hope there is online footage :)  We were hoping he'd be born during their set... but it wasn’t to be.

We watched the Terry Pratchett TV show about Dignitas last night(link to iplayer).  Made it through to the end, but I did get upset when I watched poor peter and his wife when he took the final draught.  It reminded me of my own grandfather, who died horribly and painfully of cancer, in agony, over about 3 weeks, in 2000.  Since my Nana had died in January 2000, he was distraught for something like 6 months and regularly cried and told me he wanted to die too.  He hadn't told any of us he was already dying of Prostate / bowel cancer... so he got his wish in the end from mother nature, but the programme made me think what a painless and dignified end he could have had, opposed to the writhing agony and prescribed heroin (dia-morphine) which was his sad demise.

After Lord Sir Terry's programme there was a Paxman debate in the intro of which he asked whether assisted suicide should be legal... Some bishop immediately made me cross, he thought the situation was coercive - but then...so is the church, so I imagine he'd be an expert in spotting coercion.

In my opinion, the debate is not whether or how Assisted Suicide should be legalised, the answer is clear really...the debate should be when it will be legalised, and how will we write good legislation so that the system cannot be abused.

All of the above is my subjective opinion, and frankly I reserve the right to change my mind entirely when I have had more sleep.  I have already seen the effects of my cognitive function impairment based on sleep deprivation.

I play a face book game called gardens of time, in which the player plays spot the difference, or spot a list of items from a picture on screen.  Speed of spotting gives more points and silver, which can be spent on objects to be placed in a game garden...buying nice things gives you experience and reputation, which in turn unlocks more scenes to play.

I am usually quite quick at it and have progressed through the game, but I tried to play for 10 minutes last night, whilst very tired, and was barely able to find 6 differences in 2 pictures in 5 minutes...usually it takes me 20 seconds max....So I now have firsthand experience in how badly I am effected by lack of sleep...

Similarly I was trying to cook dinner for the kids last night and had a meltdown because I couldn’t find anything in the freezer potatoey to give them as their carbs... I freaked back and forth between freezers looking, and eventually my mother-in-law went to local Tesco to get me potato waffles and chips...it was only when the dinner was done and I was stacking the dishwasher that my analyst mind pointed out finally that I could have just shoved on some penne, which the kids love and would have cooked quicker too.

Ballblog 5

11 days overdue....evening of day 10 waters broke....

last night i dreamed weird dreams, because i was expecting at any minute to have liz go into labour.... the weirdest dream was that the kitchen has flooded with about 6 inchs of water, and i was sloshing about in there trying to make her toast in the toaster!

So the midwives came this morning, cheked her out...induction tomorrow if no labour sooner.  Liz is nervous bless her... i am just anxious to get my first baby cuddle with my new son....so hurry up woman! :P

Kids and wife watching liar liar and loving it...emily going up for a nap in the moment, will see if Granny and gramps will have the D and T so liz and i can nap too...may as well, we might be up all night...all our other kids have been evening / night labours, and born at dawn.... all hail SOL!

So, just a mini blog... hope baby comes soon as i have 2 job interviews next week for two really excellent posts.

More soon.

Ballblog 4 - Tai chi, stress, and Voluntary redundancy

So its been a hard day.
Did I mention I don't believe in horoscopes.
I've often wondered why men are like dogs and women are like cats.
Where do all the lighters, pens, pencil sharpeners, tape measures and tweasers go?
Why do the magic words "its famine or feast", when said to you, immediately cause the universe to shove you into a situation where you either have none or too much of the thing you want/need/lost.

Its been a very stressful day....
 Although stress is relative isn't it....There are soldiers at war, parents with dying children, chldren with dying parents, and lots of other people who have probably had a much more stressful day then me.  Lets spare a moment to send them positive thoughts for a moment before we proceed with my pathetic rant shall we....


Working hard at the higher education coalface for 12 years brings mixed rewards. On the one hand I've done an MSc, I have learned lots of technologies and skills. On the other hand It can be woeful trying to cut through the redtape and corporate treacle to get things done.....

This year I was offered an opportunity to see if the business I work at values my skills and wants to keep me.

There had been a lot of changes e.g. all the staff above me in the management hierarchy, except my immediate team leader, had changed in abouter 12 months by february this year...  From group leader, IT director, Pro vice chancellor, Vice chancellor and many members of the board, and i thought...none of the people to whom I report know me any more.  They don;t know what i do, how hard i have worked, or why i have done these projects.

I asked around and contacts i had made over the last few years, no one was hiring, then a flippant comment to a close friend opened a very exciting door, which meant i could try something a bit different, something i enjoyed, and which would pay enough to keep the ball boat afloat....maybe even keep sky and upgrade to HD!  So i handed in my forms and applied for voluntary redundancy.  6 weeks later, I got handed the white envelope....and the Ball is out of there.

Part of my logic was that there might be compulsory redundancy's later with lower payouts, and i figured if i applied for voluntary and did not get it, then they wanted to keep me because i was bright and good and special....and i would be safe....

Another part was that, if they were going to pay me to not go there anymore, i'd have a buffer before going consultant so i could find work and not be nervous for a few months...

Another part was fear of the unknown... it felt like, if i stayed,  i was going to be probably sitting at the same desk, but doing a new job, on new projects, in a new business... what if i didn't like it? i'd have missed out on the redundancy bucks...what if i had to start coding in JAVA?  the horror!

So anyway, someone decided to let me go.  and pay me to not go to there every day any more.  no idea who  actually made the decision, but i am sure i will eventually want to thank them...just not yet.

Since that day in april, there has been happiness, joy, excitement, depression, remorse, guilt, confusion, and panic..often all within the same waking hour.  I have been a loyal member of staff for 12 years, through thick and thin, and have only been for 2 interviews in other firms in that time.   I feel particularly guilty because:

• i have built lots of systems to make things easier for staff, to make things cheaper and more efficient for the business which has paid me so well all these years...and some of those systems are not robust enough to work without someone keeping them rolling... 
• now that will have to be done by one of the colleagues i am leaving behind, who already have lots of their own systems to support....  
• people i have brought into automated processes that i will no longer support. 
•  i have not done enough technical or user documentation over the years.... I always thought me and the uni were a job for life pair..

I feel depressed because a tiny part of me was arrogant enough to think that they would say no, Simon, you are one of the best men we have and we cannot afford to lose you.....so maybe i was not as good as i thought i was...

I felt happy to not be going there anymore, especially when some difficult times came along with the restructuring and regradings...but i also felt guilty because my friends and colleagues were going through a horrible time...particularly my long term colleague Judy, who was taking so much on and getting very stressed thinking she would have to take on all the work of the people leaving the team. Seeing her upset realy wiped the disembarkment smile off my face.

Working at a place going through a major restructure is a horrible thing, its bad for the escapees and its bad for those entrenched.  I worry how many friends i will lose before this is done.

 Its all boiling down now to me doing my best to show people where things are, what they are and how they work.( and make those little fixes to make things more robust as i go)..even though the recipients of the knowledge are not those who will be taking the work on... just interim recipients of knowledge to hold it until the restructuring has occurred after i have left.

I wish them all the best of luck in their future endeavors.

Old yang style Taijigung 
Aside from the saving graces of my loving family, the excitement of babyball4 arriving, and playing bass, Tai Chi is one of the best things i spend time doing at the moment.  I have been practicing for 2 years now, and i think i am progressing slowly but strongly.  And its great.

It may be a coincidence, but in the last 3 hayfever seasons my symptons have reduced soo dramatically that i am down from  daily intake of 2 different antihistamine tablets, plus 3x daily nose spray and very regular eye drops, to no tablets, 1 nose spra daily, and occasional eyedrops on bad days.

I am physically taller.  i can run much further, my asthma has lessened, and i am stronger, faster and fitter.  I am still fat of belly, but thats because i take in a lot more calories than i use.

I am calmer in general, and happier.

This is not a scientific study... this is just what i have noticed about my body and ailments over the last couple of years...my wife has noticed it too.

whats the downside...?  i have to keep going and doing it to feel the benefits... and once i started going twice a week, i felt even better, but i felt lousy when i dropped back to once or no times a week when i was really busy earlier in the year. 

But, i enjoy it, i never feel like " oh its tai chi tonight i can;t be bothered", and i wish i had time to go more often, learn faster, learn more techniques, and get better.

The Tai chi I study is an old style, which was apparently kept secret for a long time, and has simi8larities with the other families styles.

Its an ancient chinese martial art, and the exercising of its sequences of moves, the forms, have many simultaneous benefits.  It teaches you how to react to being struck, it strengthens body, muscles, quickens reactions, and changes the way you think.  Its healthy, good for posture, a light gentle exercise which nearly anyone can do, oh, and potentially if someone attacks you, you could use it to incapacitate them without them injuring you, by turning their own force against them, and multiplying it with leverage from your own body. 

Its great fun, and when i have more time, i intend to learn more than just the basic forms, but to move on to the other classes which teach fighting, defense and greater endurance.

Leicester boasts some highly skilled instructors of old yang style and i recommend any one interested to get in and give it a go.

There's no uniform, no gradings, no stress.  You learn a simple pattern of movements which glide together to become one long flowing transition which takes about 5 minutes for the first section... and then you can progress to learning the next section, start varying the speed of certain movements, and begin to watch more closely and learn more about the sequence you already know...weight shifting foward and back, foot movements representing kicks, twists and turns of the waist to multiple the force... its a fascinating and enjoyable pass time.

Frankly, its so good, i think everyone should try it... and maybe 5% will stick with it. 

My instructor is one of the most laidback and capable people i have ever met and i hope to be learning a lot from him for a long time :)

Thats about enough 
So, if you made it this farm, well done.  I am off to think about job interviews, baby delivery pool inflation and maybe have a hot bath with a chilled white wine.

comment me up please :)

Next time on ball blog - 
the pleasant surprise that other companies might actually want to pay me as much as i think i am worth
the benefit of chatting about things to good friends, and finding a mentor or 3
will the baby ever be born?

Blog 03

I wrote Blog 02, about the times higher article about DMU attendance monitoring.


I will release it on July 30th, when i no longer work for DMU, in defense of DMU.



Todays lesson:
Don't always believe what you see in the papers...even if its a paper you respect and which is well known for its high quality journalism...because there might be another side to the story which they don't know, or for some reason don't want to tell you about.   See more below for the rant to back this up...

Good News:

• The promoter  helping me with band stuff has 4 venues who want us to play, and my band have mostly updated the google docs list with their availability - which streamlines mine and promoter waynes process considerably.
• I got lots of small project handover stuff done at work today, which was good because "i wasn't even supposed to be here today" 
• A job opportunity came up, and they want me to go to london next week to meet and discuss..can;t due to baby issues, hope that doesn;t cost me the chance... 
• The Job interview i had last week in leicester want me back next week for a 2nd interview... 
• Not that i believe in horoscopes, but its amusing when my life matches up with russel grants predictions.... apparently every one wants taurus at the moment... so true..

The bad news:


 I've been working on a project for 3 years.... I came up with a brilliant solution..I thought...



After several years of fighting to get the project recognised up the corporate ladder.... finally it was discussed and approve at the executive board...... the minutes of which are published.... and which have been read, misinterpreted and incorrectly lambasted by our friends at the times higher!

I'm....waiting for my son...

Thought it was bout time i made a start on my new blogging route to world domination.  I've been thinking about blogging for a few weeks, since I read Career Renegade.  I've been wondering where to start... so I thought I would start today and work backwards.

The background to the current state of my life is:

• My wife is pregnant with our son, 4th child, and now 4 days overdue
• My wife got made redundant this year... once her employer knew she was pregnant, her 12 month contract was not renewed......
• My work has had a major restructure and I decided to see how highly I was valued by applying for voluntary redundancy..turns out, they will pay me to stop going there from 29th July!
• I am in the late stages of an MSc in Information Systems Management, working on my dissertation on Attendance Monitoring in Higher Education
• I am setting up my own limited company to sell Consultancy and Contract work in IT 
• I play Bass guitar in one active project ( system of a down tribute) one mothballed but soon to resurface metal band Halo of Crows, one mothballed but occasional band No Junk Promise, and occasional covers / one offs for Allstars
• I run a Leicester / Firebug quartely gig night called Leicester Allstars - where local musicians or bands form one off covers / tribute acts for one night only...Loads of footage of covers on my youtube account http://www.youtube.com/user/Mhunky
• I co-admin and develop a very niche web-game called Age of Chaos which has been running since 2002.
• I am currently addicted to a darned facebook game - Gardens of Time. Blogging this to keep myself checking my account! 

So I am very busy, but life is for the living, and being bored is dull...although my friend merryn (THE IRON DUKE) tells me to shut up about all the stuff i choose to do to keep my busy, so he will like being mentioned in my blog,  but diss me in the comments section about all my activities... I like to be busy

Not so good news:

• Still no signs of Baby number 4 making his exit from Wife.. Bless her its getting hard to walk, although she said today was not so painful as yesterday.
• Didn't tidy my study 
• reached a sticking point in my development of a board game clone (Creature Castle) in MS Access which means I might have to restart from scratch... will probably treat the current as a procedural prototype and write the next version in php
• Car exhaust (section 1 of 3) has started "blowing" since service... so the garage man's prediction it would last till November looks to be about 84% over exuberant. 

Good news:

• Had a good day.  Went to Leicester's Riverside Festival (twice), saw my friend Mr Plow and his band playing some new hits from the brand new vinyl LP due out next month.  Love those murder ballads...worryingly, so does my son Tom.
• The kids got to meet the excellent Mr Bloom from Cbeebies.. ( i had no idea who he is or what he does, other than a hazy recollection of puppet vegetables), but the Swarm (my pet name for my kids) had a lovely time and were very well behaved and i managed to get a lovely photo of them on my N900
• Got the email saying the deadline of my MSc has been extended...so the immediate pressure is off (Could have been due to hand it in end Sept this year..) but i am still going to keep working on it
• Liz and i managed to put away about 6 bags of clean washing
• Had a lovely dinner at my mums
• Kids watched the return of the king 
• Had a week off work
• Had a job interview
• PRIMUS TICKETS ARRIVED 

Bad news:

• Back to work tomorrow (7 weeks left until Voluntary Redundancy end of "Notice" period, of which 3.4 weeks absent due to paternity and holiday)
• No shirts Ironed, again
• Kitchen not very tidy.

To Do List:
SHort term:

• Sleep! a baby is coming
• Contact Accountants
• Register Business at Co's house
• Get Corporate Bank Account 
• Learn about book keeping
• Insurances
• Write outline for garage conversion to get quotes 
• Download and install sweethome 

Longer Term :

• Finish MSc
• Finish Creature Castle
• Improve Age of Chaos UI and graphics for Facebook game release
• Make enough money to take Liz & Kids to Euro-Disney
• Get System of a down tribute band members availability for Wayne 

Very long term:

• Make enough money to take Liz & Kids to West Coast America RV traverse, from seattle to LA, via all the cool places in between
• Buy a big house in Leicester, and a holiday Home in Penarth