A year of work in progress – day 57

Day 57 – 27 March 2014 I thought I’d get the train in this morning as I was in County Hall all day. I tried to check that everything was running fine on the national rail web site only to get a run time error. I must admit to experiencing a little schadenfreude at the … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 57

A year of work in progress – day 56

Day 56 – 26 March 2014 I’ve started to read ‘Fluent in 3 Months’ by Benny Lewis (Benny the Irish Polyglot) with the promise of tips and techniques to help you learn any language. I’m still persevering with my Dutch but progress has stalled even though I’ve been through the CDs twice now. What I … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 56

A year of work in progress – day 55

Day 55 – 25 March 2014 By my calculation I think I am a quarter of the way through the year. I’m assuming that there are 365 days less weekends, bank and normal holidays and this comes to 220 working days. It may be one or two either way. I’m not counting any time I … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 55

A year of work in progress – day 53

Day 53 – 21 March 2014 There is more light than dark.  Spring has sprung yet it’s not very spring like outside.  It was cold and windy when I left home. First up was a meeting with a doctor from Dryburn Hospital to talk about Big Data.  After I’d explained to him what the expression … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 53

A year of work in progress – day 52

Day 52 – 20 March 2014 Today is International Happiness Day, so happy happy day.  I set out to enjoy every day at work this year but is that the same thing?  Can you enjoy yourself without being happy?  Are happiness and enjoyment variable measures of the same thing?  I don’t know and what’s more … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 52

A year of work in progress – day 51

Day 51 – 19 March 2014 I’ve been asked to speak at the first Dynamo conference at the beginning of May.  Dynamo is a new group that has been set up to represent the ICT sector in the North East.  I’ll not get carried away however as I think there will be forty of us … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 51

A year of work in progress – day 50

Day 50 – 18 March 2014 I had a day off yesterday, the last of this year’s.  I’ve timed it quite well as there are only eleven more days left of this fiscal year.  Holidays have always presented a small problem for us as the year in which you an accrue them and take them … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 50

A year of work in progress – day 49

Day 49 – 14 March 2014 It turns out that Durham County Council has won the ‘Council of the Year’, a prestigious award promoted by the Local Government Chronicle.  It’s like an Oscar for best movie, an excellent achievement and some reward for the five years of hard work following Local Government Review when the … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 49

A year of work in progress – day 48

Day 48 – 13 March 2014 I woke this morning feeling a little nervous.  I was up for re-election.  Since Tom left Sunderland I have been the chair of the North East ICT Managers group (NEICT) and today was the Annual General Meeting.  It’s something I’ve enjoyed doing and I think the group is more … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 48

A year of work in progress – day 47

Day 47 – 12 March 2014 Management Wednesday and what is worse it was also password change day.  It used to be so easy, your pet’s name, your address or your favourite holiday destination.  Stick a number on the end if you needed to change it.  Now it has to have capitals, numbers, Cyrillic script … Continue reading A year of work in progress – day 47