Author: Andy Ferguson

CVs, and why I don’t currently have one

I’m on a course on Thursday and Friday of next week, and one of the things I’ve been asked to bring is an up to date CV. Now, I’ve worked for the same employer for 10 years now, and we have an in-house application process which involves filling in a web (previously paper) application form. This means it’s been at least 10 years since I’ve really needed a CV (and subsequently at least 10 years since I’ve tried to write one).

So yes, tomorrow I will be writing my CV from scratch, which is something that actually fills me with a great deal of trepidation. Largely because I can remember the last 10 years with a decent degree of clarity, but everything prior to that is a bit hazy and is likely to be full of gaps and vagueness. But at the same time I think it will highlight exactly how far I’ve come in the last 10 years, which might be an interesting exercise if nothing else.

It’s purely academic of course. I have no intention of applying for anything new at present, especially as I only signed my new contract last week.  But I’d also hate to turn up on Thursday without one, because I hate being unprepared and I do actually see the value of having a document that summarises all my achievements to date.

Hopefully by Thursday I will have a CV, and also a vague action plan to update it before 2020.

Hotels, and what makes them good

I’m currently in York, staying in a very nice hotel for three days. I like this hotel because it provides free wifi and enough tea and coffee to get me through an average week. These things are important, and I think I probably judge hotels quite a lot on their ability to provide me with the facilities I actually need, as opposed to ironing boards and hair dryers and things I generally just don’t use.

So yes, this hotel seems to tick all the boxes. I’ve often said I could easily live in a hotel room if there was a decent net connection and easy access to food. This is the sort of place I mean.

The Chokehold of Calendars

Mule Design Studio’s Blog: The Chokehold of Calendars.

Meetings may be toxic, but calendars are the superfund sites that allow that toxicity to thrive. All calendars suck. And they all suck in the same way. Calendars are a record of interruptions. And quite often they’re a battlefield over who owns whose time.

In my experience, most people don’t schedule their work. They schedule the interruptions that prevent their work from happening.

I largely agree with this. For a while I’ve been booking out huge blocks of time to ensure that I actually do what I need to do and to match the tasks I have to complete with the time of the day I’ll be at my most productive.

It makes me wonder why more people don’t do this, because from where I’m standing it really works.

New BlackBerry PlayBook & Tablet OS

New BlackBerry PlayBook & Tablet OS at BlackBerry.com.

Visually this looks really good, although I think it would be much more useful to someone who actually uses a Blackberry.

In other news, I’ve been taking the iPad to every meeting I’ve been to over the last few weeks, and have actually found I’m getting a lot of use out of it. Somehow it seems rude to pull out a laptop to demonstrate something quickly, but the iPad seems totally permissible in these circumstances. Yes, there are things I’d change, but it is certainly an enjoyable mobile computing experience.

Instapaper

Instapaper is something I think I’d use a lot if I had an ebook reader. Basically, it takes web pages and turns then into ebooks for offline reading. At present it’s not a great deal of use to me, but for anyone with an ebook reader or an iPad it might prove very handy.

15 albums in 15 minutes

15 albums in 15 minutes is what I’m aiming for here. I think the idea is to pick the 15 albums that define me and have stayed with me through the years, but I have a feeling this is going to concentrate on my late teens/early 20s more than it probably should.

So here goes…

  1. Lloyd Cole and the Commotions – Mainstream
  2. Sonic Youth – Daydream Nation
  3. The Cure – Disintegration
  4. Pixies – Surfer Rosa
  5. Pixies – Doolittle
  6. Joy Division – Closer
  7. The Stone Roses – The Stone Roses
  8. Rage Against the Machine – Rage Against the Machine
  9. R.E.M – Automatic for the People
  10. Manic Street Preachers – Gold Against the Soul
  11. Manic Street Preachers – The Holy Bible
  12. Jim O’Rourke – Bad Timing
  13. The Beta Band – The Three EPs
  14. Radiohead – Kid A
  15. The Arcade Fire – Funeral

I could easily name another 15, and may very well change my mind on a lot of these by tomorrow.

Concentration and distraction

It’s good to take a week off work when I’m actually not too tired or stressed to enjoy it.

This weekend I’ve largely caught up on washing, shopping and other dull household tasks. I’ve also watched the whole of season 1 of Twin Peaks, in readiness of season 2 arriving on Tuesday. What with that and with my current aim of watching every season of X Files as fast as Love Films can send them to me, it seems like I’m going through a bit of an early 90’s phase as far as TV watching goes.

I’m hoping I might soon be at the level where I can concentrate enough to watch a whole film, and eventually to read a book. The fact that I used to do these things all the time makes me realise how far my concentration has lapsed over the last few years, and I’d really like to watch a few films in the near future without my mind wandering off somewhere.

I’ve also been checking out my extensive collection of archived MP3s, and copied a few GB of stuff I’ve not heard for years to my computer and iPod. I think I’m at a point where having all my electronic media in one place would make me happy, and I’m in the process of sourcing out a solution to this issue.

This makes me sound busy, although it is all largely an illusion. Despite all this apparent activity, I have still found plenty of time for doing what I can only really describe as absolutely nothing. It’s the kind of inactivity that is only really possible when there are no distractions, and I think this weekend has probably been my longest consecutive distractionless period for years.

Talking of distraction, and of music, I was having a quite interesting out-loud-thought on Thursday about listening to music when I’m working. I’m probably the only person I know who doesn’t find music in some way useful when working, and I think it’s largely because I listen intently to music, and find it very hard to concentrate on anything else because I tend to give it my full attention. I’m generally ok with instrumental music that I know really well (like Jim O’Rourke’s “Bad Timing”), but anything new, or anything with vocals is going to draw me away from what I’m doing. I’m also very bad at doing (or thinking about) anything else when I’m listening to music through headphones. It makes me feel closer to the music, and the thought of putting headphones on to “get into the zone” for coding or other development work just seems alien to me.

It’s taken me far too long to write this, for this very reason. But I think I’m done now.

A few thoughts about music

For a couple of years in the late 90’s, I couldn’t really afford to buy new music, and lived a fair distance away from any decent record stores. I think it’s probably the only time in my life when I’ve felt totally disconnected from the world.‏

These days, thanks to the wonders of the internet, it’s possible to listen to new music every day without spending a penny, although thankfully I’m now in a position where I can justify a 50 song a month emusic subscription and can buy a few other bits and pieces of music each month without it really impacting on my standard of living.

I’m not sure if this makes me feel more connected, but it certainly makes me happier.

This week I’m listening to a lot of music released on the Captured Tracks label. They don’t release music on CDs, only on vinyl, cassette and digitally, and they remind me a lot of how Creation and Cherry Red were in the 80’s. They also are home to Wild Nothing and Veronica Falls, who are two of the groups I’m listening to a lot at present.

I’ve also recently discovered The Love Language, and am also very much enjoying the new albums by The Arcade Fire and Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan. I am also not yet anywhere near bored of the Indelicates album, and there is another one on the way soon as well.

2010 has been a good year for music, and promises a few more interesting releases in the autumn.