I've lived near Edinburgh for getting on well over 6 years now and, aside form the odd show here and there, I've never really done the Fringe. As in, really dived in. Since moving up here my life situation didn't quite allow for it and then the pandemic hit and... well, you can imagine. Every year I've been up here I've managed one show, at least, but this year I want to try and make myself get to a few.

Maybe one per week. Possibly.

Might not happen, but I'm going to try. What can I say? I don't live in Edinburgh, I'm not a big "be out amongst people" kind of person, and the activation energy to get on a bus into town vs what I can do in my little part of Scotland is a constant battle.

But this year I'm going to try my best.

This evening I've booked a ticket for an artist I've been a fan of since the 1990s: Nick Harper. I saw Nick quite a few times in the 200xs (see the image above, I think 2009 might be the last time I saw him!) and then my going to gigs tailed off somewhat (again, life stuff). So seeing that he's playing here for a few days was something I could not ignore.

This weekend me can thank Monday me for committing him to doing something kinda sociable. I'm sure he'll be mad at me most of the day it's happening, but once it all kicks off and the music is flowing he'll be thankful.

Right now, at this moment... I'm rather looking forward to it.

Anyone who was (un)lucky enough to follow me on Twitter back in 2020 will know that, starting January 1st that year, I set about losing weight. At the time I was very overweight and wanted to get into some sort of healthy state. By August that year I'd managed to drop 30kg and hit and then went a wee way under my goal.

These days I'm back up a wee bit. Not much: generally about 5kg or so above that goal, most of that having turned up on the last 7 or 8 months (not exactly coincidental that it's happened in conjunction with the new job, the new work location, and the new commute). While it's no real cause for concern -- I'm still generally careful and still get plenty of exercise (normally walk around 35km a week, run 20km, get my 10k steps in every day)

About a week back I decided that it was time to give myself a bit of breathing room, to try and at least drop a couple or kg; so with that in mind I set a lower daily calorie goal in my tacking app.

When recording my weight first thing this morning (yes, I'm one of those people who records it every day and have for a few years -- it makes for interesting data!), this is what my calorie/stats tracker had to say:

I guess it's putting a positive spin in things? (for the record, I'm 5.3kg above my absolute goal).

I moved into my current place back in August 2019, bringing with me a fairly small desk. Originally, many years back, I'd had a pretty big office with lots of office space but, upon moving up to Scotland back in 2016, I needed to go with something a lot smaller.

Which was perfectly fine. Me and that desk wrote a lot of code. Me and that desk transitioned from one job to another, and then another. Me and that desk made it through the pandemic.

It's been a good desk.

But it was small. I'm in a place where I could spread out a fair bit again, but I also kept putting it off and putting it off.

Earlier this year I decided that it was high time I actually upgraded; I also promised the desk to someone else who I know will get a lot of good use out of it; so finally earlier this week I put in the order for something bigger and fancier.

Yesterday, with the help of a very good friend (thanks Mariëlle!), I got the desk built and roughly in place, and then today I've been putting the desktop back together and adding extra bits.

It's so nice to have more space to spread out, it's also nice to have a black desk again! (the last one was white because... reasons) But what's really exciting is that it transforms into a standing desk at the touch of a button.

I've been trying it in the standing configuration today and, while I doubt I could do a whole day of coding with it like that, I'm already really liking it as a way of breaking up the time at the keyboard. On the days I work from home, or the days of my own where I get sucked into a personal project, I can absolutely see me swapping between the two states.

All that's left now is to get used to it. The screens are ever so slightly further away, the height is ever so slightly different (although I can adjust it, of course, but what I've done is adjust the sitting position to a nicer one and that's going to take some getting used to), my iPad and Stream Desk are in just a slightly different location, etc, etc... So I'm sure there'll be a few days of sitting here and making small tweaks to the spot where things live.

Before I know it I'll be used to it. It'll be "my spot".

Just over five years ago I got a message from my then employer to say I was going to be made redundant after 21 years working for them. After the 3 month notice period the final day came. Meanwhile, I found something new that looked terrifying but interesting. In the end it was less terrifying and way more interesting than I imagined it would be. It was fun too.

But... (there's always a but isn't there?)

In the four and change years I've been there the company got bought out, and then the result of that got bought up. As I've mentioned before I'm generally not a "big company" kind of person; in all my years I've found that I'm happier working in a smaller place. After a couple of buyouts my employer had gone from being 10s of people in size to 100s of people in size (and technically 10s of 1,000s of people in size depending on how you look at it).

This change in ownership and size meant the culture became... well, let's just say not as friendly as you tend to enjoy when it's a smaller group of folk. On top of that I was starting to notice that my efforts were making less of an impact as things got bigger, and I started to feel like my contributions weren't really relevant any more. There were some problematic things happening too: undermining of efforts, removal of responsibilities without consultation or communication, that sort of thing. Plus worse. There's little point in going into the detail, but it's fair to say that work wasn't as fun as it used to be.

That felt like a good time to start to look around. If work makes you feel unhappy and you can look around... look around.

Thing is, I wasn't sure what to look for. I was in the comfortable position of, unlike last time, not needing to find something, so I could take my time at least. Over the course of the last year I've spoken to many different companies and organisations, some big (yes, I know, I said I don't like big places -- sometimes what's on offer deserves a fair hearing), some small, but none of them quite said "this feels like me". In some cases the whole thing didn't have the right vibe, in others the industry either didn't interest me, or felt uncomfortable given my personal values. In one particular case a place looked interesting until I checked the CTO's socials and OMG NO NO NO AVOID AVOID (that was a fun one).

Then I saw Will McGugan saying he was hiring to expand Textualize. This caught my interest right away for two good reasons.

I can't remember how long I've been following Will on Twitter; I likely stumbled on him as I got back into Python in 2018 and I also remember noting that he was a Python hacker just up the road from me. We'd vaguely chatted on Twitter, briefly, in that "Twitter acquaintance" way we all often do (I remember one brief exchange about fungus on The Meadows), and he'd seemed like a good sort. A small company run by a "good sort" kinda person felt like a damn good reason.

The second reason was Textual itself. I'd been watching Will develop it, in open, with great interest. I had (and still have) a plan to write a brand new CHUI-based (okay fine TUI-based as the kids like to say these days!) Norton Guide reader, all in Python, and Textual looked like the perfect framework to do the UI in. The chance to be involved with it sounded awesome.

Now, I said two reasons, but there's also a third I guess: Will's pitch for applying to Textualize felt so damn accessible! I'm on the older end of the age range of this industry; for much of my working life as a developer I've worked in isolation from other developers; while I first touched Python in the 90s, I've only been using it in anger since 2018 and still feel like I've got a lot to learn. Despite all these things, and more, saying "aye Dave this is beyond you" I felt comfortable dropping Will a line.

Which resulted in a chat.

Which resulted in some code tinkering and chatting.

Which resulted in...

Something new.

So, yeah, as of 2022-10-10 I'm on yet another new adventure. Time for me to really work on my Python coding as I work with Will and the rest of the team as part of Textualize.

Or, as I put it on Twitter a few days ago: I'm going to be a Python impostor syndrome speedrunner!

Today is a fairly significant day for me. For the past 21 (and a bit) years I've worked for the same company. I know that, for lots of people in my industry, that's a hell of a long time to be in one position. It was a setup that served me pretty well; the company was small (I'm not much of a big company person), I generally got to dictate the development tools and direction, and I also got to work from home.

The working from home part was especially helpful as other life events involved me and happened around me. The job I've been in has seen a marriage come and go, and a move from Hampshire to Lincolnshire, and then from Lincolnshire to Midlothian. There's been a few adventures along the way.

But, three months ago, I got a call to say that I was to be made redundant. This sucked, obviously. It also appeared pretty stupid on the part of my employer: a company that is based around software had decided it no longer wanted an in-house software developer. A bold, and I think unwise, choice. From this point on they've decided to only go with contract developers and only contract developers from overseas (or so the story goes).

As it goes, things have turned out okay. Today is my last day with my old employer and, as I'm sat here typing this out while having some lunch, I'm actually glad that it's coming to a close and that I can get to move on.

I have a new employer, and will be starting in my new position during the first week of January. It'll be very different. It'll all be different. Not only will I be back working in an office (one where jeans and t-shirts are the norm, thankfully!), I'm also going to be working in an industry (as a developer still, of course) that I have no background in and no real knowledge of. It's going to be a seriously exciting challenge.

Over the next couple of weeks I've got a fair amount of background reading (and video watching) to be doing. This isn't so much that I can get on with the job of development (although there will be a good bit of that to do too -- who doesn't want to be trying to understand new options for development?), it's more about understanding the language of the industry I'll be in and so that I can understand the needs of my users.

Goodbye fashion retail and all related things. Hello genetics and... well, I don't know, I'm going to find out. :)

Yesterday I got the call about the Virgin East Coast Ticket Wallet app that I was promised last week (well, actually, promised a couple of months back). It didn't go well.

Well, I say "didn't go well", the conversation itself went very well, the chap I spoke to was polite and apologetic and helpful, but the outcome wasn't really very brilliant.

It didn't get off to a brilliant start when I was first told that the solution to my problem was that I needed to uninstall and then reinstall the app (something I've done more than once while trying to get to the bottom of the problem). I asked if that was really necessary and I was informed that it was the only way to fix the problem of the tickets not showing. Problem is... that wasn't my problem. So I then had to explain the exact nature of the fault I was experiencing (and also explained my guess as to what the cause of the problem was).

After that, much of the content of the conversation involved vaguely confidential information (nothing too terrible or that big a secret -- just stuff that isn't generally known yet) which I'm not going to repeat here. The upshot of the chat though is this: they can't do anything for me.

Simply put: they acknowledge there's a problem with the app, the problem is at their end, it's a problem that needs to be fixed and there's nothing they can do to fix it any time soon.

The causes of this will sound familiar to anyone with experience of large companies who outsource much of their development and get involved in areas that they might not have much experience with.

I also found out the cause of some of the delay in actually getting back to me: the person who was supposed to originally call me went on maternity leave just after they'd first tried to call and, it seems, nobody thought to pick up their workload. This left me in the bizarre position of trying to call someone who was off work for an extended period of time, and whose phone wasn't being answered in any way.

Of course, it doesn't explain why that person's boss, who I was promised a call from a short while after, never bothered to call.

So, I think, to some degree, that's the end of this silly saga. Their software is buggy, they can't fix it any time soon, and I'm out of luck.

As for the extra free tickets I was promised a couple of weeks back now... they've still not appeared. Time for me to chase that up again.

After my last post I sent off an email to chase up what was happening with the promised phone calls about the Ticket Wallet app and the general delays with getting things sorted. Here's what I wrote:

Hi again Mike.

It's now a week since you replied and, I think it's fair to note, it's no longer "early" this week. I've had no call -- neither form yourself nor from anyone related to the Ticket Wall App -- and I've not received the promised tickets either. While I do try to be patient I have to admit that it's starting to get very frustrating, being made lots of promises about progress that simply never happen. This has been going on for months now and I'm always having to chase things up.

I'd very much appreciate it if you could explain to me what's going on, and why.

A while later I got a reply. He said he'd be getting the tickets in the post the following day (so a Friday, which I think I can safely say isn't the start of the week) and would also phone me.

The following day he did keep his promise. He called (I managed to miss him the first time, but when I was finally free I called back and we got to chat). He promised I'd get some more tickets early next week and also that someone with technical knowledge would finally call about the app problem.

I have, of course, been here before. This is exactly the promise that was made a couple of months ago. It's easy to make the promise, apparently not so easy to deliver on it (or address the issue of not delivering on it).

So now I wait. Again. I'll be sure to update when something happens (or doesn't).

I think I need to rethink the meaning of the word "certainly". Anyone still bothering to read this blog will recall that, last week, the Customer Relations Manager at Virgin East Coast said:

If you can leave this with me I will certainly be in contact early next week to try and get this resolved once and for all. In the meantime I will pop a further couple of tickets in the post for you, just so you have them incase you need to travel urgently.

That email was received last Thursday evening. It's now the following Thursday. Personally I'd take "certainly", in the above, to mean that there's little to no chance that I won't be contacted in the early part of this week, and that there's little to no chance that the tickets won't arrive in the early part of this week.

I'd have thought that "certainly" would be used to create a huge contrast between what has gone on before, and what will follow.

But, like I say, it's Thursday the following week and I've had no call from anyone about the Ticket Wallet app, I've had no call or email from Mike (the Customer Relations Manager) and the tickets haven't tumbled through the door.

I'm not surprised. I'm not in the least bit surprised. I am, however, rather disappointed.

And, of course, I'm now going to have to chase things up again.

Late on last week some progress was made with the issue of no longer being able to contact Mike at Virgin East Coast. After chasing up via twitter (mentioning the MD as well as the normal support account) I finally got a reply from the support account, saying they'd get a message to Mike and let him know what was going on.

I wasn't really very hopeful about it, if I'm honest. If I couldn't get a reply from him via the channels I'd normally used what hope was there that I'd get a reply this way?

The following day was mostly spent traveling but my phone was on and always to hand. I never received any call. However, late in the day I did get an email! This was the first direct contact, that replied to an attempt to contact him on the current issue, I'd had from the Customer Relations Manager since the previous month.

Here's what he said (quoted in full):

My sincere apologies for the silence, I have been away and it was remiss of my not to advise my regular contacts, of my colleagues details.

If you can leave this with me I will certainly be in contact early next week to try and get this resolved once and for all. In the meantime I will pop a further couple of tickets in the post for you, just so you have them incase you need to travel urgently.

My apologies again David, and I look forward to chatting early next week.

I am, of course, a little skeptical of this at the moment. A few times before I've been told they'll be in contact "early next week", or something similar, and nothing has happened. It'll be interesting to see if this will be different.

Will I get an update? Will I finally get a call about the Ticket Wallet app? Will the extra tickets turn up?

The Virgin East Coast Trains saga gets more and more odd. Following on from yesterday's update I thought I'd give Mike an actual call. As in, a call on the phone.

I don't generally like calling people. I'm one of those people who gets a little anxious about using the phone and much prefer email. I'll use a phone as a last resort and, given how long this was going on for, I thought it time to break my normal "no phone" rule and pick mine up and call to find out what the hell is going on.

Turns out the number is no longer available!

The last email I have that was sent from Mike was on September 25th. The number I used was the one in the footer of that email. It doesn't work. There's also a land line given. Calling that gives the same result.

As of now, if I try and call the customer relations manager for Virgin East Coast Trains, someone who I was referred to by David Horne (the MD), I get a message that the phone isn't available.

I...

Erm...

What?!?

So, given that, I thought I'd drop David a direct message on twitter. We'd spoken that way back on August 9th when he requested my contact details. Nope. Can't send him a DM any more. Guess I got unfollowed.

So I've tried tweeting him instead:

Dear @DavidHorne, I seem to no longer be able to contact the @Virgin_TrainsEC customer relations manager (your idea originally). What next?

— Dave Pearson (@davepdotorg) October 19, 2016

This did get a reply from @Virgin_TrainsEC and I let them know what I was after. They say they've sent him an email too now:

@davepdotorg @DavidHorne I have just sent an email Mike and asked for him or one of the team to contact you asap. ^SH

— Virgin Trains EC (@Virgin_TrainsEC) October 19, 2016

Really, this is a silly mess again. My query is simple and straightforward. I'm simply chasing up two promises that were made by Mike, on behalf of Virgin. All I seem to be getting now on those two points is complete silence.

I'm really not in the business of telling people how to do their jobs but... wouldn't customer relations involve actually talking to customers and delivering on promises made to them when you do talk to them? That strikes me as the sensible thing to do.