Ah well. I learned loads, anyway. Days 1 and 2 were a lot of stuff that I've done before and was doing anyway but didn't know what it was called. Now I have names for the faces, so to speak. I've been unconsciously using inheritance, polymorphism and interfaces for ages but not been aware of it. Does that make me a better programmer than I thought I was? I choose to answer "yes" to that.

 

Days 3 and 4 were more of a challenge. Stuff I've heard of but never been brave enough to use. One apparent thing was that .NET introduced about 5 more ways to do everything, all of them really ending up being as good as each other. Most of the current programming languages seem to be about adding choices in how to do stuff rather than innovation. Even LINQ is just another way of writing SQL queries, but (typically for Microsoft) having to do it slightly different to everyone else.

 

Ah well, I've learned LOADS. The hotel was nice too, and BB was kind enough to pay me back for the meals I had. I managed to refrain from having three course restaurant meals every night though. The hotel restaurant's pizza was too nice to pass up. I had planned on having a Chinese meal on the Thursday night, but the pizza on Wednesday just had to be followed with another performance. Nom nom nom.

 

Now it's back to the grind, and trying to use all these new concepts and this new ability for good instead of evil. Mu ha ha ha.

 

Yeah, so the excitement of using new code concepts dulled somewhat during the subsequent week, when I mostly copied and pasted and wrote tests. Not very exciting.

 

Kids started back at school/college. David's doing well there at the moment, but he's already started chasing skirt around. As soon as he gets dumped that'll be one black mark against going to college and we'll find him lurking about the park cos he doesn't want to face her. Wait for it.

 

Derri's the same as always, except puberty is really hitting him now. He persists in his all-encompassing belief that he is the Curry God of Britain. He was adamant that he could eat as hot a curry or chilli as anyone could make, and that vindaloo and phal curries would be nothing to him. I made a chilli on Sunday. He asked for it special, as hot as I could make it. So I rooted around and found a bottle of hot Jamaican pepper sauce. Three tablespoons went into his single portion of chilli. Anne wasn't happy about it, but he learned an important lesson from it. It's better he learns it now rather than when he's 18/19 and at the curry house and decides that twelve beers and a vindaloo would be a good idea. Wouldn't want him grand-slamming someone else's sofa now, would we? :-)

 

Westfield Derby got evacuated yesterday because someone left a bag in there. Three hours of disruption at rush hour cos some daft bint left her shopping behind.

 

A bloke at work called Tom Clancy is retiring this week. All I can think of is that on his last day I'm bringing my copy of "Hunt For Red October" to work for him to sign. I already stuck a photo of the front of "Without Remorse" to his card and signed it.

 

Hot Wheels (you know, the toy car maker) have brought out models of the Back To The Future Time Machine (the DeLorean one). It's pretty. I must have them all. They also have a plain DeLorean DMC12 model.  Yes, I have them both.

 

Mum had a cyst removed from her abdomen the other week. It was the size of a football.

 

Anne has constant head pain and light sensitivity at the moment. The lumbar punctures she has had since last November have all been failures and the neurologists have just stopped calling her any more to have another one done. In the meantime the "suspected" overpressure in her cerebro-spinal fluid isn't getting any better. If that's what it is. She hasn't had a night's sleep in three months, but no-one's really bothered apart from me.

 

Gardening has been an epic fail this last month. My big plans for the garden won't be happening if this blasted rain doesn't stop. Looks like it's going to be next year now until I can even get the first stage finished. If I can get some dry time over the winter then I can at least try to get some of the crap covered. Weeds in this garden will be the death of me. Mind you, rain might be useful, as apparently pouring sugar on lawns improves the soil for grass and makes it hostile for weeds. Could be worth a try... The front garden is going to be killed – rock salt on the soil will make it hostile for everything. Which is good, as the weeds on that part of the garden are fruitful and unnecessary, and Anne wants to chip and bark it all anyway. The only side effect might be that it might kill off some of the neighbour's front lawn, but he's an inconsiderate cock anyway, so I won't lose any sleep over it.

 

Speaking of the garden, I need to seal the concrete shed base before cold seeps in. If it snows, water will get into all the cracks and when it freezes the water will expand and assplode the concrete. Not really keen on that happening, to be honest.

 

I did a webcomic once, and it was a very satisfying project. I still can't draw for toffee but I would love to do one again. Problem is, I promised that I would do a publishable book of the comic and I just haven't had the time to put one together – it's a big job with a Word file that's HUGE and it takes forever to format the pages.

 

If I was going to do another comic I would love to do a more up-to-date (and possibly slightly more mature) version of a comic that my Best Mate Martin McMann and I did when we were kids. It was called "Kirk: The Mad Killer From Outer Mongolia" and was an exciting tale about a bloke and his sidekick fighting off two alien factions that wanted to wipe each other out. I can't remember any more than that. Martin also created a character called Lada Len, which was a bloke who drove a Lada Riva (Niva?) kitted out with all sorts of heavy weapons and stuff. Maybe combining the two would give us a character called Len Kirk, who drives a super-modified Lada Riva Estate which has a transforming rear half with all sorts of cool stuff.

 

Yeah. I'm rambling. Today's blog is more in the style of a telephone conversation with a family member than directed at any one subject. Despite the title, there's nothing really to think about. If you were curious about my general "train of thought" then here you are.