29th January 2006:

I miss my schools teachers - my Art teacher and my English teacher...

My English teacher would not let me get away with the bad sentence structures that I have on this website... She really made me work hard and scrutinise my work in depth... she would say 'what are you trying to say here?' and then I would tell her and she would say 'why don't you just write that then?' - ie use plain English... I have a clumsy style - clauses everywhere... now my writing has gone to pot...

Just what am I trying to achieve here? - using all those abhorrent slashes, dot, dot, dots, and hyphens... - something in the midst between email-talk, and just how I talk verbally - I would like to reply sheepishly...

though, Jim and other people have commented and said they liked the style that I write in... it suits me... (hee, hee) should I be pleased or try harder? - and write like the rest of people who have blogs - change my subjects too and write meaningful pieces that would provoke thought in people...

But that's why I didn't call it a blog - but a webdiary - so basically I can talk about what I want because it's essentially written for me first, and if it is thought-provoking to others then that is a bonus...

Jim is ranting and raving about MSQ Ledger... it is a bit... uneasy to adapt... :-|

I would just go with it/ work round it and face it's limitations but Jim is trying to find out more... how to get to do what we want it to do...

Hmmm... At the moment Jim is trying to sort out what Vince has done to our site... doing stuff and not documenting it and changing passwords to things which we have to search through loads to find out where things are now...

I am at a loss... we didn't have the right lead for the printer... will have to ask my brother what he did with it... also, will probably look at the website at work in my lunch hour...

I should get an IPod... listening to the radio at the moment - i feel like being vocal but it's been a long time since I tried belting out tunes and my voice sounds so awful - got no control over it at the moment... plus I did have a sore throat and so on... but anyway...

... ok - I am going to laze about - it is getting quite uneventful today - except it's Chinese New Year today :-)

28th January 2006:

I work up at 8am today - fairly refreshed... This weekend is a staying indoors weekend... I am working on website templates for a client for Jim's business... Just hope we can hook up the old laser printer to one of the laptops - needs a parallel port... Jim says then we can use that laptop as a server, etc... unfortunately, it will probably be my really old slow one - with not much memory - I think it will kill it - but we will see...

Then I can at least print them out in black and white and then change and adjust things and colours on it... and then give back to Jim to do the coding... but I will watch over his shoulder to learn it...

27th January 2006:

I went to galleries and exhibitions in London today... an interesting day out... This weekend we are going to work on the business... Things are coming together... Jim has gone out at the moment to get take-away...

I am generally, ok, happy... Perhaps a bit tired at moment from being out and about...

26th January 2006:

Time for the IPod nano, I think... my CD player at home has conked out...

de ja vu - happenning all the time these last two days - am tired out though...

I got some statements in the post from my pensions... they are doing quite well - I had an investment gain of about 15% for last year... :-)


Sometimes it is difficult for a person who designs buildings in a certain style to be told to change and design something convincing that is totally different...

It is as if they are a relunctant child forced to eat something they don't like - continously telling their parents that they are going to be sick with each mouthful.

The building in the new style turns out stunted, un-flowing, odd - how was that particular feature of the building arrived at? - the answer is weak and muddled.

Somehow it doesn't surprise me that this occurs in the architect's office - it is the local planning authority doing the 'force feeding' and the architect not wishing to budge from the design they submitted - the 'relunctant child'.


(de Bono cont.) It is important to note that what has been _________ influences the ___________

25th January 2006:

Everyone seems to be exhausted today - me included - but I am still being hyper - though think I got a cold - runny nose, plus running up and down the stairs - my legs are aching more than usual...

we perhaps got the flu bug in the office :-|


24th January 2006:

Must stop reading the Orbituaries on the Independent online! - it's so addictive...

Today I have been doing some odd jobs for Stuart... - working out areas of all the rooms in a project - because a colleague is ill and not here to do them, and I have a few spare moments...

Been doing lots of thinking as well... Now it is lunchtime...

Hopefully, this week will go ok... and we will get everything done for Thursday...

... sometimes I live in awe - and feel indebted to the ingenious things human beings have made come about... we couldn't have done all this as individuals - but as a group we can achieve lots of things...

It is 4.30pm... I am at a loss at what to do... I've done most of my work today...

... for Jim's sanity - I am going to stop reading the orbituaries on the Independent... from now on...

23rd January 2006:

I am glad I am still young... there is so much to learn and so many things to do...

I have provisionally taken this Friday off as a holiday... will visit a few galleries and spend some 'me' time alone... However, we are quite busy again and I might have to work that day as well... - which I will do, but we will see...

Horrid – blathering writing:
From de Bono writes – how the structure & set of rules applies to each individual – how it affects them, how they perceive it differently = different mind structures?

- he talks about this as 'Universes' – with set rules – how one thing might have a certain impact in one 'mind' and another in another 'mind' – mind = universe with its set of rules - how it processes it, what the outcome is…

 Memory-surface – deflects/ compresses – basically contains the information in a certain way. This might at first seem hap-hazardly 'contained, but due to certain factors that distinguish the memory surface – it is not by chance how things are stored on the memory surface.

22nd January 2006:

Jim has broken his mini ITX box... Trying to run it without fans - the fans are there for a reason... hmmm... but then he says he can get power to it - it is probably the hard disk which is really old that failed... but he says he can get to it...

My cute mouse that I bought from the computer fair is still working - I am still pleased with it...

At 1pm we walked to Peckham to watch King Kong in the cinema... I realised that Jim likes to watch things about social history* - while I like a good film about love and relationships... I wonder if it would have been different if I was a man? - all this love stuff - why do we women get so obsessed with it all? While the men are free to chase other subjects... or it could just be me, but majority of people out there are men - top of their fields...

*by social history - I mean in the King Kong movie it was about the time when 'educated' human beings were interested in 'the savage' and what existed in worlds different... also like Henri Rousseau painting scenes in jungles when he never actually left Paris... but that also in King Kong - the film maker was trying to make people see what bad things they were doing in order to be entertained...

I like love stories... everything else is in the backdrop... shame I see things this way - it limits things if I want to become 'top' in any field...


21st January 2006:

We went to Tott Court Road today... I saw Janet Ellis (from Blue Peter, mother to the pop singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor)... I was getting money out at the cash machines - there weren't many people around... and I heard someone on the mobile phone - she was tired and saying to someone that she was going to catch a taxi home... I looked up and saw it was her... I was well chuffed - she looks exactly like she does on TV... - though a bit older...

In Prague, I was walking down a quiet street in the evening with a then boyfriend and I heard someone walking towards me talking in English and so I looked up and saw it was Rory Bremner and his wife? - someone with blond hair... he was complaining about a restaurant - saying it was 'completely awful'...

In the Texaco petrol station in Camden Town, I went to pay - and I saw someone looking at the crisps section who had come in to pay before me... then someone else came in and asked the way to a place in London... the petrol pump attendent didn't know - and then Nicky Clarke spoke up and told the person the directions... It was him - as he looks on TV with his mane of blonde hair - he was driving a small convertable car - that was parked opposite mine...

All these people... though I see them and know it's them - i don't want to go up to them and pester them (hee, hee)... Am just chuffed that I saw them...

20th January 2006:

I am feeling really happy... I went for a blood test this morning at the hospital and they managed to take my blood - quite easily infact - the nurse was very nifty... Blood splurted out quite strong and healthily :-)

Before, at my GP's they had to stab me three times in either arm to no avail, and then I come away with nothing... - plus having taken time off work and fasted 12 hours for the cholesterol test :-(

There are only a few tweaks to be done to my internal window and hatch detail drawing - I am quite pleased...

... I am into drinking hot water in the affternoons now... a thin slice of lemon even with hot water is good also.

I might ask if I can leave at 5pm today instead of 6pm... I got some things to do when I get in... and we are not too hectic... and seem to be on top of most things...

19th January 2006:

Instant Messages between Stealthy_cat88 (Me) and Paradox_Bound (Jim):

stealthy_cat88: yippee! <:-P
stealthy_cat88: morning :)
stealthy_cat88: >:D<:-*>:D<
paradox_bound: >:D<:*>:D<
stealthy_cat88: \:D/
paradox_bound: Google isn't spidering freesolutions.net :-?
stealthy_cat88: see - told you - that's because you are connected to me - and they are out to give me a hard time - remember Truman Show voting - they voted for this...
paradox_bound: I refuse to give up always remember the end of the Truman show, we will win in the end. >:/
stealthy_cat88: no -that what he made of it - they have closed that loop hole now - and I can never escape
paradox_bound: They are not as good as they like to make out, they fail all the time you just have to look for their mistakes and hide between the cracks. There is a whole world of wonder between the cracks.
stealthy_cat88: no that you talk just about the system...
paradox_bound: Explain
stealthy_cat88: you - don't understand that the cracks are still part of the system... - you are a germ on the cloth hiding in the stitching - but hiding in the stitching still means you are in the cloth - to escape we need to get off the cloth...
paradox_bound: You are talking about transcending being.
stealthy_cat88: no - i'm just talking about getting off the Show
stealthy_cat88: >:)
paradox_bound: :P
stealthy_cat88: <:-P
paradox_bound: NO you are talking about transcending being. >:)
stealthy_cat88: but sometimes its fun to be on the cloth - I have all I need here and it is a fairly safe environment...
paradox_bound: The weave and weft of your life is an ancient symbol. :)
stealthy_cat88: yeah, yeah what ever... :-P

19th January 2006:

Being ill - realise it might be like class C cannabis...

TV giving you special messages etc...

but also it's bad, once you experience it - life is never the same as before...

Today I am doing a internal window and a hatch detail drawing :-)
 
It is going ok... it's good to be able to just throw things on the computer and then arrange and tidy up the drawing afterwards - after all the working out has been done... getting quite efficient at this... and it's an enjoyable way of working... Hooray to computers!
 
I am putting together the details - using other drawings and adapting them to suit the dimensions...
 
I have finished doing the the drawing now - it is 11.30am :-)

It is now 3.20pm... I have caught up with David... things are on his desk now... - am just doing things like printing out extra drawings for Building Regs applications... plus writing a bit here and there on my webdiary.

18th January 2006:

I am depressed... Me & Jim can't solve the problem... of where to live... - so that no one has to travel too far to go to work...

- been reading the Orbituries on the Independent...- they are depressing me :-(

17th January 2006:

I'm just reflecting on my work situation... My boss Stuart is a good boss... I like the values reflected in the office... I think I am quite fortunate to have a good boss :-)

Getting back to normal now, was going a bit mad also during the weekend... too much engrossed in following a particular thread... goes nuts... maybe it's like euphoria like on drugs... making this connection with that connection... brain working faster than I can think!!!

something like a tune - still keeping in time but getting faster and faster and faster... - and then you are flung off the feris wheel... because you can't hold on any longer...

well, this time, with the help of me being on medicine - when I got flung off, this time I landed on my feet - like an agile cat - and am continuing on with my life :-|

It hasn't disrupted my life - but got processed into it - and it has actually enhanced for example my ability to work and concentrate yesterday - but working in a different band width than my usual jolly 'hyper' self...

Just finished one of the bedrooms - which will be the typical one - it is now 11.36am... I lunch at 12noon... will start to look at its bathroom now...

It is now 12noon... I don't feel hungry - I had a snack bar at 11am... might continue working - but feel saturated - since worked so hard/ concentrated on getting the bedroom done on the computer... need a break - just did some filing - printed off some emails... just checking David's diary to see when he comes back from his meeting... then I know how much time to myself I have to complete these drawings... I would like that he is away for the whole day - because I envisage/ aim I will be finished with them by the end of the day... then when David back approx 4-5pm... along comes the onslaught... the new work/ goodies he has got/ brought back from the meeting... ie. new jobs, things to fit in... best to try to clear some of the stuff we have on the go at the mo - so that I not too stressed when he says we have got to now produce X now for X deadline, etc... the new work - got to make room for it...

ok now, will go downstairs to microwave my meal... now I am absolutely starving!

Been instant messenging with Jason... Websites/ weblogs... I think that's the correct phrase for it - i only feel comfortable reading jim's site - when i go to other people's i feel like a ... perv... (hee, hee...) it is a very odd experience reading someone else's blog... it is slightly uncomfortable... I am thinking that that must be true for the people who read my webdiary...

Am back home now - it is nearly 7pm... going to chill out this evening...

16th January 2006:

Feel awful today - got a sore throat... now Jason from the philosophy group has IM -ed me (Instant Messenged me) and told me I missed a good debate on saturday... I feel a bit of regret now for not going... but then I wouldn't have produced what I did these last few days...

Unfortunately, David thinks we need to do the elevation of the balustrading at the top of the stair as well... Also, he has had second thoughts and thinks that for safety, the balustrading should be vertical and not the horizontal ones that I have drawn... I will amend the drawing...

I quite like my job - I like how it has turned out...

Will be plotting out some planning drawings that I worked on in a minute... we are waiting for the planning fee cheque to come in the post still though...

At the moment, I am plotting out some survey drawings - making them fit floor by floor onto an A1 sheet... - for David to take round as he goes to meeting for that hospital... - a big job coming - to refurbish it...

I feel slightly depressed/ different... the weekend was good - it was different... it opened up another world - when I was devoted - to reading, writing and making my musical piece... i don't know quite what to make of it... feel dazed...

like adrenaline has been running through me - and it's quietly still there in the background... I am working in a daze... but able to concentrate - some things that were holding me back - don't hold me back any more - it's as if they don't matter...

- could also be the effect of going swimming on saturday at 4pm... slight break away from it all...

will hopefully be continuing with reading the de Bono book this evening...

At the moment, these next couple of days, I will be looking at photos of insides of rooms and transfering the information onto my room layout drawings - we are refurbing another hospital - lots of stuff to keep though - controls/ nurse call etc...

but bathrooms will be more or less completely gutted and made over.

15th January 2006:

Got home early to upload my webdiary and I find that the wifi thing is intermittent again!!! and now it is 9pm and I haven't been able to achieve anything!!!

Plus I lost that hour in bed reading the de Bono book... plus lost the time trying to explain to my mother that No added sugar jam - has just as much sugar in it as normal jam - if not more - it's one of the St. Dalfour one... and that the weight-watchers jam has half the sugar and so is it is the weight-watchers one she should be eating - since she now has type 2 diabetes - but there's a concept missing - she's taken in the hype that 'no added sugar' means sugar free ... indeed I think concentrated amounts of sugar in conserve might be worse for her - but how can I explain it to her - there's some concept missing... just please don't eat that St Dalfour jam I plead!!!!

And now it is 9pm and I am all stroppy!!!

but feeling a bit better for writing... will try again with the website - I think I managed to upload it - it's just testing out the links - to make sure they work...

15th January 2006:

The brain is a bad memory-surface... It takes external things in and stores them away but unlike a computer it does not do an exact copy but it changes things - it misses things out, it distorts things, it emphazises one thing over another...

That is how it functions - (it's interesting to think about this and relate it to things/ outcomes...)

de Bono says something along the lines of the above...

14th January 2006:

Right, I have moved on to only using google mail - gmail - for writing emails while at Jim's place - since gmail does not log me out after 15minutes, stays on indefinitely... twice orange has logged me out while I went away from composing an email on the computer and it didn't save it for me in draft either!!! - annoying... never again, never again I tell you...

We went out for a walk this morning... I got a book from the bookstall in the small market... It's Edward de Bono's "The Mechanism of Mind"... I might start reading it now...

Alain de Botton has finished his new book " Architecture of Happiness"... Hopefully it will be out in the shops in Spring 2006.

Back to reading the intro to de Bono's book...

Unfortunately, I am so excited at the prospect of having made time at the weekend to read, that I am having trouble settling down to do so...

Been onto Radio 3 - and listening to Discovering Music - it is really interesting and the guy Stephen Johnson is explaining the piece of music quite well :-)

... I think the calling of my 'ideas page' the continual string quite fits what de Bono is trying to say about the brain system as we are good at taking in data and then developing it rather than generating data from within - without any external influences... All things we think of have been gathered first from the external world around us and then our brain interprets and gives it meaning so that we can make sense of it and then develop it and put it to some use for ourselves... This is what my continual string page essentially is. I take random thoughts about things/ ideas that are  already in existence and then continue/ proceed with them a slight step further in my mind and arrive at a conclusion to tell you what I make of it... A continual stream of ideas regurgitating out of me and then strung together neatly numbered and placed on a section on my website. The chronological tie holding the string of ideas together could be argued as being fairly arbitary but in some way they are part of the continium of the time path that I am treading...

Annie's Song: A definition/ interpretation: http://jimbailey.org.uk/Annies-Song.mp3

Part 1
The piano is the marker of the passing of Time and starts off the musical piece to denote that we have been brought into the set at a certain point in Time... As a bit of time passes (piano playing on its own) we come to the part where the cello has begun in Time. The cello calls out and gives us his presence... an amount of time passes (piano playing on it's own) and at last begins the reply to the cello - this is done by the violin - which introduces itself as a higher perhaps stronger upbeat tune that echoes along similar lines to that which the cello is playing.

The two instruments converse - slowly echoing tunes back and forth. Eventually they play along in parallel - and cause a slightly new existence/ collaborated tune pattern to occur...

Part 2
Eventually, a different scene is arrived at (the piano doesn't play in the back ground - it fades out).  Starting off with a few notes from one member - There begins an orchestra of instruments playing... - the acompanying instruments join in... Then when they have got going a bit the violin from Part 1 makes an appearance and starts to play, injecting it's offering into the musical composition - note here that the tune the violin plays is that which was produced by it and the cello near the beginning, in Part 1 but also with an added extra bit - a continued evolved part concluded as a response after the cello... The violin seems to convey its message and harmonize with the orchestra quite well and something of worth is in the act of being created... The cello from Part 1 which the listener might have forgotten about, surprises us as it too also joins in - though perhaps quietly in the background-shadow of the violin. Then at the end, the whole effort is translated into a single piece where the whole orchestra combines and sings out their presences harmoniously...

Part 3
Abruptly, in all the all the talk of the talk, the cello is slowly dying and finally it is known to the others (orchestral instruments) and the cello announces this to them barely and honestly - (cello playing on its own, tone pierces the situation - melancholic) The orchestra play on - they play the tune they all created - but the cello answers back with the same 'death' tone response...

At the end the cello appears alone with the violin. The violin plays out the tune it has - conversed with the cello at the beginning... mourning... while the cello repeats and dies...

Then Silence - what should we make of it all?

... A new tune by a new orchestra begins to play... the tune is joyful and full of hopeful expectations... We are then brought to realise that Time brings fresh hope and new voices... which allows the grief of the past to recede and cease being...

13th January 2006:

Here is another tune I produced... I think the correct word is 'assembled/ layered & strung together - from the many parts of tunes available on Apple's Garageband facility...

12th January 2006:

All the set of drawings have been disked off and sent via email to the client/ project managers EC Harris...

Been planning this weekend... this sat is a talk at 2pm at Mary Ward Institute - philosophy - subject - 'What is Love?' - it would be really good to go but I'm declining this weekend - I want some time to myself - to read and write... I want to get further with the Ayn Rand book - but haven't been able to since without central heating in the house and having to keep boiling kettles to wash - it's taken up all my time during the week - I need a break... and need some pampering to myself...

11th January 2006:

Hooray! Got away with not having to change the ceiling grid layouts to accommodate M+E ducts... the drawings when plotted at 1:400 - strange scale but it makes the building fit onto A3 sheets... when I plotted them out with the new building changes, after I had adjusted them for amended plan changes, I noticed that the task to re-do all the grids in the rooms that had ducts running in them was not necessary, since at that scale the duct 'box' with the cross in the middle hid the grid (drawn in thin pen 0.05) and even hid the colour (denoting type of grid)... sounds like a cheat but it saves me changing a lot of grids - phew... plus saves a lot of time... also - another factor was that these drawings were for tender/ pricing - not building to... (building to - I get to draw out all 300 rooms at 1:50 scale which would include a more precise ceiling grid layout with lights and all other gubbins, which will have to be done some time in the future...- fun tasks ahead :-P

- extremely labour intensive if I had to do them... but I would just go on Autopilot and get through them... plus it always helps to keep an open mind into how to do things - in a particular order which would be most efficient... and beneficial - it also ends up being a neater put-together drawing... :-)

10th January 2006:

Am feeling rather tired today... got to do a staircase drawing... but it is proving a bit difficult in places...

We want to go to Brussels for FOSDEM in February... need to sort it out

sorted a bit of the stair out... it's just how much detail should I go into?

just finished my stair and handrail/ balustrading-detail drawing... it is 11.40am :-)... I think I got away with not showing another elevation at the top of the stair of the balustrading there because generally it is the same as that on the landing part of the stair :-$

been thinking - a nagging feeling that I should be doing more with my life... but reading books like the Ayn Rand one consumes a lot of that passion - but then again it has not been extinguished and threads start running through my life about where I am trying to get to... it actually might not be me personally - where I want to get to... visions...

been thinking about blogging software - but thought I would let Jim do that - and we can see how the two compare... I quite like using my out of date version of NetObject fusions to make my website ;))

it's now lunchtime... 12noon... it's freezing in the office... might put my coat on...

It is now 1pm... David & I are going to look at the changes of duct positions on a different project... All these need to be translated onto the drawings and pdfed and emailed to client by end of Thursday... it will hopefully be ok - as long as we can decide where to put the ducts... It's quite a lot of drawing work though on the computer and will be a rush perhaps...

9th January 2006:

It's cold in the office... Feel a bit dazed... the boiler at home is not working... but now at work someone told me about a switch to the electric immersion heater filament thing...

To do to the website - a next and previous buttons...

Went to see the Eileen Gray exhibition at the Design Museum... - while looking at a model, I thought I stood next to someone I knew from Bath University - Giles - but I couldn't properly know for sure it was him and so I didn't try to make contact... it felt weird... It's now over 5 years since being at university... a long time really...

We also saw the Robert Brownjohn - graphic designer - exhibition - some of his work was really good - I liked it - it was very innovative... Jim has written a blog entry on our visit see: Jim's Journal

I was glad I saw the Brownjohn exhibit :-)

It does help a lot that the internet is now fairly accessible... - so much information can be gained from it without too much effort...

3rd January 2006:

Am reading again... just started Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand... It was very difficult to get into... but now on page 18 things are starting to get clearer and I am enjoying and captured by the book...

got to wish everyone a 'Happy New Year!'

been talking with Grainne - a colleague at work - we might start some design courses - graphic design... I would like to do something that involved pattern-making - as in with colours and geometric shapes - nice new combinations of colours and shapes not previously or barely touched on... I like Bridget Riley's stuff but I want to strike out the tessellating shapes and start by just creating one-off inspired patterns - could turn to chaos a bit... - I mean learn from a more rigid design base and then adapt it to let my unique spirit shine through...

ok - back to reading Ayn Rand...