Posted: Mon 11 January, 2010 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Own Business, Photography |
As well as getting rid of the poxy hire car (with luck), we’re also getting shot of some other stuff through eBay.
Admittedly, Herself is being the driving force on it – the majority of the stuff is hers, which makes it a good reason for her being so – but we’re working on it.
The really big lot is the floor tiles – we bought enough to do the floors in all the rooms in the house, plus the extensions we initially thought we’d do. However, we’re now pretty sure we won’t be doing the extensions in the foreseeable future, and the thirty-odd remaining boxes of tiles are taking up space in the garage. So they’ve been on eBay, and we’ve already sold a third of them, with people wanting the other twenty as well.
The next big set of lots is going to be Herself’s doll’s house and furniture. Nothing’s been done with it as long as I’ve known her, and again it’s all taking up room in the garage. We’ve looked at other options before, but now it’s going on eBay, and we’ll see how it goes (or even if it goes) from there.
And my part in the proceedings? Primarily, it’s been about taking photographs of the stuff that’s for sale, working in some small way to build up my photography portfolio a bit, see how things go on that score too.
Posted: Thu 31 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2009/10, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, Resolutions, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing |
Well it’s New Year’s Eve, so it’s time for me to have a few thoughts and ideas for 2010.
As always, there’s a number of ideas and plans coming together at the moment, but whether they’ll all come into fruition or not is something only time will tell. But for now this is the list of what’s in my head, and we’ll see what happens. I’m trying to keep it down to four or five categories, just to simplify things a bit.
- Photography : I really want to make some progress on the photography side of things, work towards selling some bits if possible. I’ve got some contracted work to do for the charity I worked with a while back, and from there see what progresses.
- Writing : Again, I want to get to the point of having some stuff actually done and finished. I planned to do this in ’09, but that hasn’t worked out. There’s a few bits that have been started, but I need to finish at least a couple of them and work that way.
- Work : I’ve made the commitment to stay in the current job throughout 2010 – allbeit with the “unless everything turns to shit as a result” proviso – which will keep the bills being paid and me in general work. But I still want to get some of the outstanding projects and ideas into some version of reality.
- Social Life : Over the last couple of years (really since moving to Norfolk) I’ve been utterly shit on the social side of things. So I plan to spend some time getting back in touch with friends around the place, and seeing them etc.
- Money : For me, 2009 wasn’t a good year financially, and want to spend 2010 getting back into a place that I’m happy with. Currently I’m not happy with the situation for debt, and I want to get a significant dollop of all that paid off if at all possible.
And that’s it. There’ll be more detail over time, I’m sure – and there’s also stuff on the domestic side – but that’s the rough plan. It’ll do for now.
Posted: Wed 2 December, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Cynicism, Festering Season, People, Photography |
It seems like loads of people around us spent last weekend putting up all their fucking manky house decorations for the Festering Season. some of them really do have to be seen to be believed.
In particular, two houses on my regular commute have gone hysterically over the top. I’m going to have to stop off some time this week on the way home and see what I can do about getting a couple of photos.
The TV’s full of shitty ads about perfume, CDs, chocolates, and fucking scumshit bastard Iceland.
And to top it off I’ve just had a spam email of “Festive Offers from Tesco Credit Card”. Fuck off, you dirtbags.
Well hellooooo, December.
Posted: Tue 17 November, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Own Business, Photography, Thoughts, Work-related, Writing |
Over the weekend, I’ve made a decision and a bit of a commitment, which came as quite a shock to me once I’d decided on it.
Up ’til now (a whole month!) I’ve been looking at the current job as a six-month contract that’s likely to extend, rather than as a permanent role. My aversion to permanent roles is well-documented (and recently re-witnessed by Herself when this job came up) for a range of reasons, so seeing it as a contract role was more of a sanity thing than anything else.
Anyway, I’ve made the decision – allbeit with the proviso “Assuming that it doesn’t go as horribly fucking wrong as the last one” – that I’m going to be here for the next twelve months, through to the start of 2011. After that, all bets are off – but I’m going to do my best to stick out this role for the whole of 2010.
As you can imagine, it’s all been a bit of a shock to the system , but I do have my reasons for making this decision/commitment.
First of all, I’d quite like to have a year that’s considerably calmer than the last two years have been. In this case, while I’m still going to be doing work for myself (and for the clients of my own company) I’d rather reduce the stress levels a bit by not having to keep on chasing new contracts. Making this choice will basically put contracting “on hold” for 13 months or so. With the way contrating and work has gone this year, I can certainly live with that.
Additionally, it means that (hopefully) Herself will be less stressed out about my work situation. She’s never been a great fan of how contracting works, and this year has done nothing to help her opinion of it. That’s completely fair – my own impression of it has taken a pretty big knock this year, and that’s as someone who prefers it. So it’s no surprise at all to know that Herself will be happier if I’m locked in to this for a year.
Another reason is that – as others have said this year – I need to give “proper jobs” a fair crack of the whip. My experience of them ’til now has been unremittingly negative, but I need to give it another go.
The final reason is kind of related to the first. I want to have the time/energy to get other plans done. I also don’t want the pressure of “my livelihood, paying for the house, paying the bills etc. etc. are all dependent on these plans working”, so it makes more sense to keep my head down for a year, do the things I want to outside of that 40ish hours a week, and know that everything’s paid for, that holiday time is paid for etc., and I don’t need to stress (as much) about it.
So yes, that’s the decision made. Unless all else goes wrong, I’m now in the same place ’til Jan 2011. I’m still torn about whether this is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing. We’ll see.
Posted: Sat 14 November, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Domestic, Photography |
A while back (and I thought I’d written about it at the time, but a search reveals I hadn’t) I came across a project by the photographer David Maisel called “Library of Dust“, and since then I’ve kept on coming back to it.
From the project information page…
Library of Dust depicts individual copper canisters, each containing the cremated remains of patient from a state-run psychiatric hospital. The patients died at the hospital between 1883 (the year the facility opened, when it was called the Oregon State Insane Asylum) and the 1970’s; their bodies have remained unclaimed by their families.
The copper canisters have a handmade quality; they are at turns burnished or dull; corrosion blooms wildly from the leaden seams and across the surfaces of many of the cans. Numbers are stamped into each lid; the lowest number is 01, and the highest is 5,118. The vestiges of paper labels with the names of the dead, the etching of the copper, and the intensely hued colors of the blooming minerals combine to individuate the canisters. These deformations sometimes evoke the celestial – the Northern Lights, the moons of some alien planet, or constellations in the night sky.
Since first seeing the photos from the project (and the associated Asylum project) I’ve kept on coming back to them time and again. I don’t know why they affect me as much as they do – after all, they’re really ‘just’ photos of old copper cans – except it’s not ‘just’ a set of cans. I’ve shown the site to a few friends over the months, and they’ve all been affected by the images too, allbeit not quite to the same degree as I am.
Anyway, there’s also a book of the photos and project which I wishlisted on Amazon as soon as I discovered it, but never got round to buying.
I finally did so this week, following on from my birthday – It’s been something that’s on my mind for a long time, so it was worth getting. The book arrived yesterday, and while I haven’t looked through it properly, it’s already awesome. I don’t know how often I’ll look through the book itself – but I’m glad I’ve got it.
Posted: Fri 6 November, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: 2009/10, D4D™, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Own Business, Photography, The '09 Writing Project, Work-related, Writing |
OK, so following on from yesterday’s post about what’s been done over the last year, this is the list (in no particular order) of the things I’d like to get sorted in 2009/10 as Part Four of the Five Year Plan…
- Mortgage renewal (carried over from last year – we did it, it fucked up, we couldn’t be arsed to keep on with it)
- Build up own business
- Design/Launch some of the sites I’ve got ideas for (I know, that’s an ongoing thing – but different sites/ideas this time, as always)
- Write more – I want to get at least one solid piece done. I failed in 2009, but it’s still a plan for 2010 instead. And if it fails then come this time next year I’ll try to do it as a NaNoWriMo thing, as promised already.
- Photograph more – again, I’ve got some ideas for big projects on this, I just need to get started on them.
- Lose more weight – I want to lose at least another stone in the next year, and ideally more. But a stone will be the target for now.
- Get to the gym more – something I’ve really slacked on this year
- Do some business planning, and figure out (to some degree at least) what the fuck I want to do next with my life.
- Get back in touch with (and visit) various friends I’ve been useless with for the last couple of years.
And that’s “it” for the year. There’s lots of sub-bits on pretty much all those main items, but that’s the plans so far as I can see.
I’ll probably write some more about them over the next couple of weeks, as I get clearer ideas. But for now, this’ll do.
Posted: Fri 23 October, 2009 | Author: Lyle | Filed under: Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Organised, Photography, Web Development, Writing |
As part of the run-up to my birthday – and yet another of the “Five Year Plan” rundowns, as at that point I’ll be 3/5ths of the way through – I’ve been starting to think about some site organisations and rationalising a few bits of what I’m doing.
Of course, that doesn’t mean I’m anywhere even close to having sensible levels of life/work, but I’m trying to do something about some of it, at least. In some ways, weirdly, it means I’m going to have more to manage, but that’s OK too.
One of the projects I’d had on the cards this year was to merge my ‘creative’ sites together, so that the Photography and Writing stuff would all sit under one roof. I did it back in April/May time, and what it’s actually meant is that I’ve not added much to either site – which of course wasn’t the expected action at all. So I’m spending a bit of time separating the sites again, and going back to (almost) how they were a year ago. Retrograde steps or what?
In hindsight, while it was logical to think about putting the two ‘creative’ sides into one place, the two bits don’t actually go together all that well. Putting the two in one place led to more separation and confusion than the seperate sites did/will, and while in some aspects it’s now a wasted effort, at least I know for sure that the idea didn’t work, and (to some degree) why it didn’t. Sure, it’s annoying. But like the man said, “It’s better to regret something you have done than something you haven’t”.
There’s other bits of rationalisation and thought in the offing, but that’s the starting point. I’m sure I’ll write more of the other stuff over the next two weeks. For in two weeks time, I shall be 38. And that’s pretty scary in itself.