chairs >>

as you may be able to tell from the last few posts I am not really having a great time of it at the moment, selfish and boring to others I realise. so I am consciously thinking in a more positive way.

for some reason I have been reminded today of the dinning room of the house I grew up in. my father (a man who is and has always been very particular about every thing) spent money wisely. especially on furniture when I was a child. we had orange and blue eames chairs in the dining room. I am wondering whether this has had a lasting effect on me as I have always liked them, I know it is a kind of obvious like amongst the supposed 'design world'. 

a well designed 'whatever' can make a massive difference even the obvious use-ability benefits, I believe just the look of a product can make you feel better.

illegitimi non carborundum >>

I was pleased to recieve this (in an email about something else) from my soon to be ex-boss this morning 'illegitimi non carborundum'.

its time to stop the complaining and get on with stuff now, in as much ignorance as usual.

disappointment >>

I thought I was prepared for the (professional) disappointment happening in my little life but I don't really think I was. I am more than aware of just how lucky I am and feel a little selfish to be this disappointed. but I should learn and be looking for the next thing as always.

oh well to tomorrow then.

I didn't even get to talk about the things I had worked on, perhaps I just didn't work enough? but perhaps ......

this didn't help even though I thought it looked good,

but perhaps .............

the surf directory >>

with so many new web sites every day (especially surfing sites) many do not last. or to be honest aren't very good. in the last month or so a new site the surf directory has gone live. I never see a new surf web site as a threat to my surf site (of 10 years already) surf98 in fact it simply increases the flow of web traffic to all of us. any way if you are so inclined have a look, I think it is a really good interactive site with loads of information as well as the usual surf reports and beach info.

oh well >>

so very often I am surprised at the way things work out.
today things work-wise have not worked out in a way that I would have liked. (if fact I am very disappointed).
I wonder if we only remember stuff when it goes against what we would have liked, rather than when it worked for us.
hopefully I will learn from today and be better if there is ever a next time. (and there is sure to be more disappointment on the way).

art or information? you decide >>

so often when you see a surfing photo, a postcard or a beach scene with a sunset. corny and cliched will often spring to mind. so thought I would provide you with another. though this picture (another taken by moby in morocco) fits this in a number of ways. it also supplies a surfer with a number of other things as for a surfer it is a great photo. rather than thinking of colour, design and composition and all 'arty' type of things you probably are. a surfer will see clean lines of swell a good size wave and a car roof to lean on when you are watching or checking the surf. 

skateboarding is not just for teenagers >>

I am sure that good friend moby (pictured above skating at the weekend) will not mind me saying that he is not the youngest skateboarder in the country. but the fact remains that he is still at the skatepark and having fun, as well as being the MD of a successful auditing company and gets respect for it.skateboarding is a strange thing, I still skate and I am nearer 50 than moby but because in sports terms is is relatively new if you are older than 15-16 and still skating people think there is something wrong with you that you haven't grown up. something that doesn't happen if you are playing tennis or golf.

I hope to still be skating in 10 years, I am sure moby will.

perhaps its time to 'go surf'

every now and again I have so much going on in my working life, much of which I can do nothing about I just have to see how things work in the future. so I just have to stop for a while and think about what I have, rather than what I want! I think today is one of those days. I am not trying to purposefully trying to make out that anything is more interesting or difficult than anyone else's as it probably isn't. what I do know is that I should have been at the beach on saturday when the picture (taken by chris cockett) was taken. that is a pretty well shaped wave; the sort I look for.

RGB and hex >> pantone

its been a day I though it would be a 'take it easy' end to the week, no chance had a whole heap of reports that I thought I had done to re-do. then it was time to match colour.it is funny how everything seems so straight forward until you look in to it. I had been a little bit involved with a project but not much when yesterday I was asked to do some more.
I actually like being busy I really do I enjoy the idea that I have lots of things lined up to do. but what started out looking like it was half an hours colour matching turn in to an awful lot longer.
I had a problem with finding the correct cotton thread for a design (not mine) to be sewn. the image was just a bitmap. the yarn company as most still do work to pantone. so it meant matching a rgb hexadecimal number to a pantone number. I know you can simple pick the pantone colour in photoshop but the colours had been changed manually and already printed on a business card.
the yellow was easy but the blue, a particular two shades were very difficult. it is hard to explain to anyone that a colour on screen is not always, if ever the same as a colour that will be it this case sewn on fabric, (its hard enough when is on paper). I used a couple of sites to help me 1 & 2
hopefully I have got it sorted though I am sure it will come back again.

max bruch, sunshine, and my old school >>

my old school (now)

I am not sure why but today when I got home I felt much better than I did yesterday. yes it was really sunny and that always makes a difference even had a meeting after work that was productive, its not always the case.
then after having a think I decided, for some strange reason decided that I needed to listen to bruch perhaps an odd choice but still. the piece that he is most famous for his violin concerto no.1 in g minor makes me think of going to school in sussex seems a very long tine ago now (over 30 years) but more that so much has changed rather than the actual number of years past.

thinking too much again >>

luckily as it doesn't happen that often but every now and again I wake up with the most horrid headache, (nothing suspicious). 

today was one of those days. might have been something to do with the planning stuff I was doing late in to last night last. I still haven't got it all done as there is many more hours of planning to do, and what is worse I felt too rough to go it to work today, still don't feel good now. I never learn, when I get busy with something I seem to never be able to stop.

I should have gone to bed early and then would have achieved more today, perhaps next time.

noise awareness day >>

strange but a few years ago I would have hardly noticed that it was noise awareness day today. I never really thought about it. my hearing is ok, my tolerance to certain noises is becoming more noticeable. things like ill fitting ipod headphones leaking sound or a nintendo ds too loud or even the TV turned up too loud (for me any-way).

the main reason I even thought about noise awareness day is because of my son (ben) he cannot hear in the same way as me or perhaps you. he is classed as deaf and needs hearing aids. I am amazed that people think that hearing aids return his hearing to normal whatever that is they don't. all things considered he does very well indeed in a hearing world. hearing sound or silience is so important. perhaps the best thing we can do today (if possible) is be able to listen to the silience.

bit busy today >>

I am a bit behind time for a deadline for go2 magazine today/tonight so I will catch you later. I should have finished it sooner but you know how it is!

I like this >>

I like this sign not necessarily because of the type face or the colours, more the sentiment. it kind of sums up the surf for this coming weekend as well as the lack of my surfing activity of late. have a good weekend.
king surf is a surf school in mawgan porth, cornwall.

people still like to actually feel stuff >>

I had a strange but enlightening moment today when one of my students with about 20 pieces of paper (printed out work) said 'this the most work I have done for ages'. the strange thing was he hadn't really done any more work that usual but because he was holding it in his hands he felt that he had worked harder?

I thought that most people under the age of 20-25 would consider things created stored and read, seen or watched didn't have to be 3-dimensional to realise they had achieved something. after all you can't hold a web site or a blog for that matter.

I remember probably 6+ ago now, I was at a seminar run by intel where one of the their development team was expressing his enthusiastic ideas of the future and that they had already developed a P5 to a P10 chip and dual core was the way forward, even mentioned that the reason we couldn't use them then was because good enough software hadn't been written yet?

then he stopped for a moment and said sadly of course we will never be able to reproduce the feeling of standing in the middle of a pond digging in the mud no matter how fast their processors get. the man was right.

meeting's aren't always boring >>

strange perhaps to be reading another post about a meeting I have been to today, at another conference room. especially as I am not even going to start explaining what the meeting (it was a very successful and informative one though) was about. quite interesting though.

I will however talk about the view from the window the fantastic location, (looking out over the atlantic ocean, above mawgan porth, nr. bedruthan steps) even the really nice wash basins. the food was good as well.

I wonder if the location of a place is always conducive to good productive meetings?

james taylor | just because

just from watching later with jools holland this week I was reminded of how much james taylor's music I have kind of grown up with. my father listened to his music, or at least didn't turn it off when it came on the radio, he would say.
I have always had some of his music on what ever (record, cassette tape, cd, mini-disc, mp3) music-player I have had with me through my adult life, and now even my own son has jt on his ipod (& nothing wrong with that). jt's official site

its back to roads and signs again>> must be spring

this is taken from the guardian yesterday, full text.

Too many road signs could be making driving more dangerous, according to a new study. Psychologists said that the amount of advertising and signage typically present in a city centre could be pushing up the number of accidents. (Alok Jha)

I have mentioned before in this blog about the way some signs can sometimes be not just difficult to see and read but they don't look good as well. I realise that safety is second to aesthetics but shouldn't they follow each other? over the last few days I have driven many miles in and around the south west. as usual it seems that the yearly road works in the west country (cornwall) where I live have come back with some incredibly difficult signs understand. especially singnal s for a contraflow and the many often over use of cones and confusing directional arrows.

taken from the british driving theory test

I am in no way suggesting that signs shouldn't be used but feel that there has to be a better way, most of the signs were designed (I realise that they are constantly revised) in a time when there were fewer cars on the road and far less congestion and most cars weren't as powerful (or had the acceleration).

I am a simple observer rather than a militant anti- sign campaigner I just think we could do it so much better and still use signs.

funny how being not that busy is stopping me blog

it is strange that on the days when I have more freedom as far as not working to the usual timetable of my academic life (as I am still on easter holiday) I am finding less time to get to this machine to post stuff.

it is not that I have nothing new to say, last weeks trip to bristol ikea could fill many pages, we have decided not to move but to put all our energy into making our home fit for purpose. so two wardrobes, a nice small steel filing cabinet (for me) a new work desk for luca as well as three sets of book shelves, and a strange bed canopy thing that ben wanted were bought not to mention a whole heap of other stuff that should/will make a massive difference to our home. however a broken windscreen of my land rover, luckily caused by me (not luca or carol) pushing a flat packed wardrobe too hard to get all the stuff in the truck. combined with me getting hot and bothered at driving from cornwall to bristol and back and then having to ask some-one else to collect our stuff on their way from yorkshire, made it more of a 'everything has gone wrong' road trip. this is the concise story.
suffice to say the windscreen has now been replaced (more expense, luckily my insurance covered the bulk of it), but there was nothing wrong with the old one till I broke it.

I have spent too much time in the last few days searching for a cheap ibook/powerbook for a training project of mine, it is amazing how frustrating it is trying to buy a used mac at reasonable price seems their price is more stable than house prices or gold, never mind the £, oh well back to e-bay then!

I really know that there are much bigger problems in the world and I do not intend to feel sorry for the very lucky position I am.