Matthew Knott

It's been hard to find time to get much done this week outside of work, what with rugby and spending time with Michael and Lisa, but the ideas and output are still trickling through.

Digita Solutions

Every time I look at the v3 design for Digita Solutions, I come up against the same brick wall, what do we want to offer. I keep bouncing off the web design question, do we? don't we?

It's very frustrating not having the confidence in yourself to commit to an area of the business, my initial fears were over making it pay, but I think if the quality is there then you make it pay through competitive charging for the product, but not selling yourself short.

I really do believe that once we've finished the products we have in development then we'll have the capital to start looking at different services like web design.

This site

I'm planning something revolving around a photo gallery Silverlight application, and also setting this blog software up to post to multiple blogs simultaneously. With dual posting I can post items of consequence to other sites I maintain such as the digita solutions site. Would be great to do it form a single admin suite.

Life

After I was deeply disappointed with the shortages of Wii's when they first came out, a few years on we've finally bought one. Lisa want's a Wii fit, which frustratingly are in as short supply as the Wii's were. Very frustrating that Nintendo seem to want to create demand for the product even greater by not supplying in sufficient quantities, and then we end up with a situation like this, where hoarders buy up a large volume of the item and sell for £120 plus on eBay. Rediculous profiteering.

I've got dentist Friday, argh, no fillings please.

Work

It's been a slow week, but looks like things will really pick up tomorrow, may be a late night on the cards, I stayed on a little tonight, but the flexi will be useful for a long lunch in town next week I'm sure.

Tags: Rugby Work Blog Site Digita Solutions Lisa Webparts Wii Nintendo Business Plans Dentist Slow Moodle

I thought that a new job and a new baby together would be a clean break all-round. As it turns out it's about the hardest thing I've ever been through, and on top of it all I've got a cold.

But enough moaning, on to some updates.

Firstly, week two at work is over, and things are getting better! More structure, more idea where things are going, more settled and more vision for the future.

On the back of work, I'm learning asp.net, amongst other things. I always knew it would be a huge leap going from asp 3.0 to .net, and there is that ever-present, inherent fear of the unknown to contend with. Now I have no choice but to learn it, and thankfully it's not as hard as I thought. In fact I'm enjoying it, which definitely helps.

Outside of work it's been a tough week. The amount of work that goes into raising a baby is starting to sink in and take its toll, and I'm only doing a quarter of the work (if that). Lisa has been amazing taking care of him, but it's still draining. You just don't have time for anything, and sometimes knowing that just eats away at you, even if you don't have anything to do anyway. I can only update my blog at crazy times of day. It's a tough lifestyle change but I'm getting used to it. Single parents have more than my admiration, they have my vote for sainthood. 

The run of failing electrical items has progressed today as I ordered a replacement fridge freezer. The old one doesn't keep milk for more than a couple of days, bugger. That's now the Xbox, the Camcorder, The Tumble dryer, and the washing machine that have bitten the dust recently, as if things weren't strained enough.

Another positive is that I found a little motivation, and a little time to start working on a few project ideas. Unfortunately I have little of both and things haven't worked out very well so far, but progress is progress. I want to build something to help me save money, and will probably make it into a web service, all singing all dancing. I'm also working on a VLE of my own, probably open source. Hopefully it will be my first asp.net project release, although I plan a php version also.

Well the room is starting to rock back and forth which means one thing, need sleep.

Tags: Work Baby Lisa Michael Tired Sleep Progress ASP.NET Silverlight SharePoint Open-Source VLE Electrical Moaning

Well, Wednesday, Lisa was sick all day on and off. She's 35 weeks pregnant by the scan date, and as the day went on the sickness became more and more frequent, until it was exactly 20 minutes apart.

After each spell of wretching, she was having contractions, and other pains. She also had a number of pre-labour symptoms. Freezing cold extremities (since becoming pregnant she's always got warm hands and feet), super-heightened sense of smell (I was told to take a shower before getting through the door) and lower back pains.

At 2 am, after having called the hospital once for advise, I phoned them again and was told to take her in. We were seen to immediately, the staff there are top-notch. They put a drip in and gave her an anti-sickness table, which was a relief and helped her get some rest. The stomach tensing had been causing the babies heart rate to drop, but he was doing great so no problem there. They decided to admit her about 4 a.m. and took her down to the ward around 6 a.m. I was home myself by 5:30 and totally exhausted after 24 hours on the go.

I'd already advised my manager in work of the situation and was not going to go in, but didn't want to let down the friend I give a lift to work. So, I thought I'd get my head down for an hour, drop her of, it's only a 30 minute journey and I still felt fine to drive. I set the alarm clock for 6:45 as usual, and woke up, except it was not 11:00 a.m. ooooops, I must have been more tired that I though and switched the alarm off when it went.

Went straight up to get my mother in law form Ammanford, then back down the m4 for visiting time. Once that was over I dropped her back home, and by now had a splitting headache and felt pretty sick myself. Went over to my Mothers house, who also lives in Ammanford and slept till 6, at which point I still had a headache and felt even worse.

There were a few things lisa wanted, including food and a change of clothes and visiting was 7 - 8:30. I went home to get the bits she wanted, feeling awful, and managed to stop myself getting into bed. Couldn't face making sandwiches so went to Tesco, loaded up of snacks for her and Gaviscon for me, and set off again to singleton for the third time today.

Lisa was much better but a bit lonely. Apparently she had a kidney infection which cased the vomiting but she's getting much better now and with any luck will be home tomorrow.

Tags: Hospital Baby Lisa