Matthew Knott - Blog

Well I'm writing this while finishing out some project work, just wanted to document a challenging week. I'm actually starting to think there is a karma is doing this on purpose so am going to try to live a better life, a bit of a lifestyle tune up.

Work-wise, nothing's gone to plan. The biggest challenge was sorting out problems with the Marksheet module of the Sims Learning Gateway. There were huge css and JavaScript issues when the webpart was added to our template. Working through what could be causing it, it turned out in the end to be our use of Doctype. SharePoint, by default, does not implement a doctype, our template did, and it was only by removing the doctype that the webpart would function. Of course doing that felt wrong, from a semantic point of view and also a best practice point of view. Unfortunately, I don't have the time to re-write Capita's JavaScript for them, and will be raising this as an issue which I'm fairly sure they'll do nothing about.

My car has gone from bad to worse and I fear the end is nigh. I've been using it less and less, and I think that, in it's own way, is contributing to the current set of problems. If the warning lights will just go off, I can get rid of it, otherwise I don't know what to do.

To add to the weeks woe, I found out that the house I fell in love with won't be built at the site by us, really upset about this, it was a dream home. I'm going to double check with the site tomorrow, but suspect there's nothing that can be done. On a more positive note, I've looked around and houses like ours are going for 10-20k more than our mortgage, so I actually have equity. We're planning on doing a 5/10% deposit paid when going to market so that'll eat that up, but it's good news, won't make a loss.

Finally, went for the 20 week scan on Friday but couldn't get a clear shot of the babies sex. Sooo, with an element of risk, we're fairly certain it's a girl and are sticking to that until the birth. It's disappointing not knowing the gender, we were looking forward to finding out. We're happy either way. A girl would be great, but if it's a boy then that's two Ospreys centres in the pipeline.

So, looking ahead to the coming week, I find myself searching for positives... really looking hard. Let's do this together.

Firstly, Demetrie, from NinePlanFailed kindly sent me what will hopefully be the studio version of Transiberia. I'm going to enjoy listening to it through the week, it's distinctly different in terms of delivery and complexity to the live version which is great as I know Dem wanted that definition. I really does sound great, I have a few reservations about what I would have done differently in the mix, but it's his baby and ultimately I think a lot of the attraction to their music is the artistic integrity, the uncompromising nature of it all, dare to be different and all that.

Secondly, I hope, things will go to plan and I'll finish phase one of my admin tool project in work. This is a bit of a barrel scraper to be honest.

Okay, this is another barrel scraper but my Blu-ray copy of Labyrinth should arrive tomorrow. Sweet. A classic film I can't wait to watch it with Michael when he's older. Assuming my PS3 survives that long.

Finally, the one positive I can always rely on it the love of my family and spending time with them. I often think I wish I didn't have this drive to move house and could just enjoy them. That said, I know after 12 months I should be in a better place physically, and mentally, and will have endless joy from coming home stress free and playing with the kids.