Go me!

Years ago, one of my online hobbies (the one most frequently referenced on this blog), was writing consumer reviews. I got paid for it (pennies), but it was fun, there was a bit of a community (I 'met' A, F, K, USHW and others). Writing helped me order my thoughts and improved my written communication. At least, I believe the latter to be true. I guess only someone else can actually say whether it was good or not.

Regardless, it wasn't all consumer reviews. Sometimes it was creative writing (urgh) and sometimes it was opinion pieces. It's the latter that I want to talk about. I wrote a piece on artificial intelligence. It randomly popped into my head earlier, so off I went to find it. It's no longer available online, but most of my work was drafted in Microsoft Word and I still have copies of most of my pieces from then.

So the last edit date on the file is 11th October 2001. 25 years ago. And I have to say that it's fucking excellent. Well, maybe not excellent. My writing has improved a lot since then and I could be a lot more professional and clear if I were writing it today. But what is excellent are my predictions:

• Natural Language Processing
• Speech recognition
• Autonomous vehicles
• Image processing/recognition
• Chatbots
• Portable translators
• Programming assistance/debuggers 

That's not bad for 25 years ago, is it?

Safe to say that I am feeling quite chuffed with myself at this point. And I'm semi-disappointed that the websites in question no longer exist because I would be doing some serious gloating around now. There were a few members who claimed to be experts that were nowhere near as prescient as I was.

It's date time.

Today is an anniversary of sorts. It's the day I joined my current company. Well, it's not really. That was actually 2 weeks ago, but through some legal shit, they never counted the two weeks of training and I only signed my employment contract on this date. But this time twenty and a bit years ago, I was sent to the States to work for three months.

I remember telling F all about it - we were chatting regularly on MSN at the time. That was the trip where I met V. She was very excited for me.

I'd forgotten all about it until I got an email in work this morning from our HR system reminding me of the fact.

Oh, and it's also CC's birthday today. I sent her a message wishing her a happy birthday, but I am a little surprised she didn't suggest dinner.

Out and about.

I spoke with Ideas Girl today. She's part of our social committee, so she knows what's going on, what's being organised etc. Sadly, we're not having a Christmas party. We haven't had one since pre-Covid and I haven't been to one since, I dunno, 2016 maybe? But I quite liked the idea of getting dressed up again and putting on my suit.

And there's no work thing this month. Well, there is, but it's not our usual trip to the pub and it's on a Saturday night. Quiet Girl said she didn't know if she would go, but I'm already booked up. It's the same day that I'm taking KfW2 out for dinner.

Speaking of that, we've finally chosen a restaurant. It's one of KfW2's favourites, which I knew, but we try and go somewhere new and I couldn't think of anywhere. I might have posted before that KfW2 rarely makes decisions about these things.

All we need to do now is figure out a time. I'd prefer to meet late afternoon and maybe go to mid/late evening rather than an afternoon start and dinner time finish or a late start and late finish. But kfW2 is the one with commitments, so I've asked her. 

Feeling off.

I've been feeling off over the past 48 hours or so. I'm struggling a little to make sense of it. I'm definitely feeling overwhelmed, and that's being fed by the house stuff that I need to do and the logistics around that. 

The family stuff hasn't helped and it's ongoing - it'll take up some of my time today and tomorrow for sure. I took all last week as annual leave, but I don't feel recharged in the same way that I did with a week off at the start of July. There's other stuff going on as well, but I can't identify what it is or how to process it.

There might be an element of work stuff, but work's OK at the moment. It's just a general long-term worry that I have.

And the result, when I'm feeling this way, is that the loneliness kicks in. At least part of it is a need or desire to talk to someone. Someone close to me, but not family. Talking to my sister doesn't really scratch that itch. The night out with KfW2 will help, as long as there's no mucking about. And I haven't ruled that out and it's still 2 weeks away.

Not quite the Friday evening I had planned.

Sadly, I had yet another evening of indulging my appreciation of women in scrubs. Thankfully, it wasn't anything hugely urgent or life-threatening, but no-one wants to spend 5 hours sat around A&E waiting for a doctor to come "soon" to give you information about an elderly relatively illness.

And as cute as the nurse was who was attending to my relative, she was unable to offer anything concrete in terms of information or time scales. I left the hospital after midnight with no further information than I had when I first arrived at 7PM.

In fact, he wasn't actually seen until just before lunchtime today. That's over 12 hours lying in a bed in A&E before he was seen by a doctor. That gives you an idea of how serious the illness is but also how busy A&E was (or maybe how poor the A&E processes are that it took 15 hours for a 5-minute diagnosis).

Out and about.

FBS messaged last night. Not specifically to me, but in the group chat with D and Friction Guy. So we could potentially have a night out in October.

That means that before the end of October I could have about 4 nights out. Next Friday, I'm out with my sister at a pub quiz. the following week, I'm out with KfW2. Potentially there's a work night out at the end of September, and if not, a near-guaranteed one in October.

Plus this planned October night with FBS etc. 

I'm looking forward to them all. 

Weird.

I'd say that 90% of the work is now done. And that's all of the work internal to the house. Some bits and pieces to finish off outside, and that'll be this stage of the work done.

For some reason when the last guy left the house about an hour ago, the stress just left. I don't know why. I didn't feel that stressed. I mean, yes, I was stressed (I have posted as much about it this week), but I thought only a little. 

And horny too. Is that weird? Is there a link between stress and horniness? Literally, the second the guy drove off, the stress left and I got horny as hell.

There's still work for me to do: the entire house needs cleaned, vacuumed and mopped. While it wasn't as messy as I'd expected, there's still a fair amount of dust and rubbish generated. I also need to move some furniture around to compensate for my lack of usable space in the kitchen. But I can't be bothered with that right now. Those are jobs for tomorrow and the weekend.

Celeb-a-like

There's a woman who pops up in my online dating apps every now and then. She's attractive, has a great figure but isn't really doing anything for me. I swipe right every now and then, but nothing's ever come of it. And even if we did match, I'm not sure I'd progress anything. She gives off "high maintenance" vibes and that is sooooo not what I'm looking for.

But today's perusal of social media and up pops attractive comedian Ellie Taylor (you know where this is going, right?) and slap me silly if doesn't look like the online dating woman [in this particular photo]. I think it's the dark eye makeup that's doing it. The online dating woman seems to wear that all the time (at least in all her posted photos).

Ellie Taylor is a fine looking woman.

And another thing...

Going back to the post I made yesterday about the anxiety kicking in with regards the home improvements. It's more than simply not being able to deal with people, but something akin to decision paralysis as well. I see the work that needs done, but I can't get my head around where I should start. It's why I've always wanted someone to oversee the entire project (for a fee). Yes, it might cost me an extra couple of thousand pounds, but the work would have been done long ago if that were the case. Managing it myself is where the delays come in as I procrastinate due to the anxiety/stress that it all causes me.

Additionally, I rely on my sister and brother-in-law for advice, for two reasons. Firstly, my brother-in-law is kinda in the construction industry and secondly, they've had LOADS of building and renovation work done to multiple properties, so I go to get feedback and bounce ideas off them. But as I've said before, they're massively inconsistent. Advice they might give me today would not be the same advice they give me at the weekend. That breeds doubt. Doubt breeds stress and anxiety.

And while it might seem minor to other people, I'm really proud of myself that I've started this work that could take until next summer to be complete.

Just do it.

Today, I've been swapping text messages with USHW, and as part of that, I've been sharing my plans for the house and the work involved. And, I'm not going to lie, it's made me anxious. I think it's the scope of things that need done and especially the number of people I need to talk to in order to get the work done. Until now, it's all be compartmentalised: plan stage 1, do stage 1, plan stage 2, do stage 2 etc. but chatting with USHW has reminded me of the scope and it's something I'm not really cut out to deal with on my own.

That's always been an issue for me. I'm just not great at dealing with people... strangers... especially in real life. I worry about getting out someone who will do shoddy work, for example. Or get someone who's difficult to deal with. And I know it's all worrying about something that will likely not happen.

I know what I want to do. I'd say that the actual planning is 90% done. The remaining 10% is picking out a new kitchen and fine tuning some bits and pieces off the back of that. But I kinda know what kind of kitchen I want, what colours I'm interested in, the layout, where the various appliances are going to go etc.

I just need to put on my big boy pants and do some fucking adulting. 

Research.

It's been a couple of days of research. I'm off work due to the house stuff that I'm getting done this week. As a result of that, I need to look at outdoor storage: sheds and the like. 

Additionally, I'm also seeing where I can go with KfW2 in a few weeks time. She typically doesn't make any decisions. In fact, the last time I recall her making a decision was when she took me out for a milestone birthday celebration. That's possibly the only time in the past decade. I can't recall any other time she's made a decision.

I'm having a hard time finding restaurants that I've not tried before or would like to try again. I still have a few weeks to ponder this, though.