Been made redundant from Anchor Engineering -- got my week's notice on Monday -- and managed to line up a new job by mid-week. It feels like everything's going scarily quick. Went down on the Tuesday (I booked the day off just for handing out CVs and the like) and had a quick chat with the guy who runs the shop floor. Got the phone call on Wednesday that they wanted me to run down for a meeting with the company owner, and do a weld test. (6 HV T-fillet, turn same into 3-run multipass. And a vertical downhand.)

Two days ago, a great disturbance was felt on the roads. ...Okay, a small -- somewhat tatty -- disturbance. It's green, boxy, and had a whopping 67 rampaging communist-remnant ("Made in Chechoslovakia") horsepower as new. It's a 1994 Škoda Favorit, in Caribbean/Sea green. And it's mine!

To those good friends and acquaintences past, who drifted away over time; to those who vanished overnight, with no time to say goodbye; to those who passed beyond the dark veil into the eternal night beyond... To all of you, who made me who I am today; who stirred passions and debates; inspired dreams, intriqued, criticised, improved, and helped me explore...

And, as is routine, another "Holy hell, I'm lousy at this blog thing" post. I think it's pretty much required by now; the kind of thing I must produce occasionally or I'll not be allowed to claim I have a blog. Perhaps I shouldn't. If this blog were a potted plant, it'd be a little brown, shrivelled stump.

I am freaking awful at maintaining a blog. Also, apparently, awful at maintaining blog^W software. HEY GUESS WHAT! I fixed the borken RSS feed! Turns out that return does not do the same thing as next; who woulda thunk? So it was adding the first post in its stack, then returning out of the damn function; rather than just jumping to the next one on the

An expensive lesson was learnt the hard way today, because of my ignorance. The Kindle Fire HD 2013 (Angular thing, speakers either side of the back.) is NOT a Kindle Fire HD 7, despite what its owner says, and does NOT appreciate having a KFH7 bootloader flashed to it. By which I mean it now won't boot, and doesn't appear in the list of

Today's been an interesting day. Nearly got walloped on the head -- twice -- by three quarters of a tonne of steel; gained a bunch of new micro-cuts on my hands -- cuts which later ended up being marinaded in kerosene, because I had to remove some paint; and choked myself on some rather horrible fumes. (Yellow, smelt absolutely dire, and made my lungs burn.) I'm still somewhat shocked that I've managed to stick with this apprenticeship so far, because it's the longest I've ever had to do something work-like in a long time. Though I am struggling a little with the early mornings, and not having as much free time. (I'm not really very good at this 'work' stuff.)