Diary

Promise T.V.

2006-04-10T21:25:00.000Z

After a short break, the site is back in action, and to start with I've uploaded a few pics from the talk about Proimise T.V. given by some of the recoil recoil crew.

Update

2006-01-14T18:04:00.000Z

Prague and People Galleries are now up.

Happy Birthday!!!

2005-12-14T12:27:00.000Z

Not to me, I'm a paltry 30 years old today, but to paul.recoil.org, which took shape many moons ago on my 24th birthday.

It's been though a few different looks and styles over the years, but has always adheared to it's strict code of larthargic and sporadic updates, broken links, spelling mistakes and insuferable interface design.

Break open the Cristal.

Mange Tout, Boyce, Mange Tout.

2005-11-05T11:31:00.000Z

Just back from three days on a training course in Germany, where I spent most of the time hidden away from the daylight messing about with a film scanner.

Being just oustside of Frankfurt meant I managed to get away long enough to get a brief look at the strangely American looking Darmstadt, with it's block like layout and sterile street life, and the much more interesing and traditional town of Mainz.

To top it off, I was unfortunate enough to be booked on to the 10:25pm return flight to Heathrow on a Friday night with non-transferable tickets. This crappy flight was improved imeasurably by the fact that landing around 11pm U.K. time meant that I got back just in time to see dozens of separate firework displays from the air over the whole of the city.

Photos from Darmstadt/Mainz now up.

Gallery Update.

2005-09-30T08:19:00.000Z

Finally! The New York gallery is now up, with 40 photos from my recent trip to the states, there are now over 160 images in the photography section.

Out of Action

2005-09-22T15:52:00.000Z

Well, I'm back from N.Y.C, and having been several months without serious injury, am suddenly recovering from an operation on my left hand. I have snapped the tendon in my finger, have 25 stiches, a cast, and am out of action for the next 3 months. No gym, no running, no Nike 10k, nothing.

Inspite of the injury, the site update continues apace, and there are now plenty of galleries up, with the biggies still to come. The latest New York pics will be up in the next day or so...

Time passes... You are in a darkened room.

2005-07-29T08:06:00.000Z

It's been a month since the last entry, during which I have left Hensons, spent a week in the Portugese island of Madiera, drunk a substantial amount of the aforemented, and arrived back to take on the mantle of Head of Technical Operations and Engineering at dailies specialist Midnight Transfer.

So far I have mostly been sat in a dingy grading suite honing my sys admnin skills, but apart from that I am loving it.

In the meantime though I did manage to put up a few more galleries, and as ever there are more on the way, including some of the last trip.

Talking of trips and picutres, Andy's wedding in New York next month should provide some enternainment and a bag of pics. Any tips on where to stay are welcome.

Harmless Fun?

2005-06-28T09:27:00.000Z

In the dying weeks of the Jim Henson's Creature Shop I was fortunate enough to get a look around in the tunnels that stretch out underneath the building.

There is a deep history in this place and the damp, gloomy caverns hint at the rich and creative past, containing relics of productions gone by. It's not a trip for the faint hearted though, and with the all tunnels full of life sized casts and mouldings it's no wonder it's known as the 'catacombs'...

About time!

2005-06-26T02:17:00.000Z

Well, here it is, a site update at last!

It's not 100% finished, but it's here. Amongst other things, there is a gallery or two, and also, more worryingly, some writing.

In additon, to get things moving I needed an ftp/sftp tool for file transfers, so I have been using the wonderful Filezilla. Fast, Free and err, fun.

P45

2005-06-24T15:26:00.000Z

I just got my notice.

One week left.

It's been a stange month since the news broke that the Creature Shop would be 'considering it's position' and word spread around Soho and the media pretty quickly. But after sitting here in an increasingly sparse office for the last few weeks I think it's time to move on.

It's like funerals, they're never nice, but there are good ones and there are bad ones.

This one, y'all, ain't been purdy.

Who loves you and who do you love?

2005-06-23T15:29:00.000Z

With the Nike10K a few months away, I have been getting slowly back into running, with the aim of having a proper attempt at it this year.

More to the point, a bit of nice weather gets me feeling all sporty, so I just picked a pair of Ascis Gel1100's from Runners Need in Camden. They really know what they are doing, watching you run, and then giving you the right type of shoe with support for you running style.

In addition, I have a few friends that are going for the Bournmouth Triathlon and they have been getting suplements from SIS that seem to be pretty good, so I may be putting in an order.

And finally, I want a new toy.

So, no excuses. This week I ran 8k in 40 mins, now I have a log, and a time to beat.

Re-entry

2005-04-07T09:37:00.000Z

The Grand Slam party may still be going in some places (and will untill next year probably) but it looks like we are back to earth with a bump after loosing twice to Austria and going out of the World Cup already. Ho hum.

Anyway, lately I have become Alfred Boy, and have been doing a lot of work regarding improving the efficiency of our 130 node render farm. Among other things I had toyed with the idea of some AI to figure out ways to set the farm up. A little nosing around brought me to this.

Quite simply this is the best links page I have ever seen on anything. If they were all like this, the world would be a much better place.

Two words...

2005-03-21T17:08:00.000Z

Grand Slam

Busy Bugger

2005-03-14T09:47:00.000Z

treetops
Originally uploaded by paulshore01.

Over the weekend Rob and I spent some time with a client and then then the rest of it on me learning the content management system.

Rob has already spent a lot of time on it, and his ASP is light years in front of mine, so while he finishes it off I am takng on all the design work, which means I now have 3 on the go at once.

This is all a far cry from a month ago when I was desperate to get something under my belt!

In the meantime I have now signed up to flickr to test out their photoblogging and this entry, along with the eerie tree tops photo, was blogged from there. Tidy. The picture was one of the first I ever took, scanned in from a Canon APS print, and always makes me feel a little unsettled, but with all this work on and coming back to the big smoke, it's nice to be reminded of the great outdoors in someway.

...and it was all a dream.

2005-03-10T08:50:00.000Z

I think the last few weeks are going to change my life for ever. My anxiety attacks have already calmed down a lot. Hopefully I have finally figured out what it is that's been holding me back and getting me down all this time.

The Cog is moving forward. I finally have some clients down London way, and in addition we are coming up with our own CMS. Rob and I are hooking up back in 'Gods Own Land' over the weekend, and smashing out the rest of the first phase.

While we are at it we are going to nail a few other details, the busniess card design and whatever, and after that we are set.

I have a feeling this year is going to be a very positive one.

Cutural Alka Seltzer

2005-02-21T08:35:00.000Z

Saturday morning gave me a good opportunity to clear my head from alcohol, so I grabbed my camera and headed in to Brixton, hiding in the market from the world outside. Wandering amongst the Caribbean clothes stalls and fish-mongers, Columbian butchers, shoe stalls and other exotic dens is a real wonder. It's parts of London like this that make it special, a real mix of cultures and oddities that are a stark contrast to Oxford Street and other generic parts of the city.

The smell of jerk chicken cooking in a big drum helped too.

Later on, with a clear head and a new crop of photos, I went for another back treatment, before we finished up the day in a Polish restaurant in Hammersmith eating saurkraut and kielbasa 'til closing time.

I spent yesterday preparing a bunch of photos for the web, and installing putty to get back into recoil. All will soon be revealed...

The longest Journey

2005-02-17T08:56:00.000Z

I have started integrating the blogger page into the rest of the recoil site. So far, this means the links in the site map point to the relevant pages, but right now those pages have not been updated, so the reverse links are dead ends at best.

Further updates will keep happening all week, including... some new colours (Oh my god! Who put this idiot in charge?)

Fully Exposed

2005-02-16T10:53:00.000Z

It's been a long time since I did anything with the photo page, and in the meantime I've taken quite a few shots. So the section is undergoing a revamp, and soon I'll have a load more pics up on the site.

In the meantime I have collected a few photography links that are worth the proverbial butchers hook...

Digital Photography Review
Megapixel
DCViews

And of course, who could live without the photography section of Dreads awesome Urban75?

All in my head

2005-02-15T09:18:00.000Z

I spent most of yesterday feeling pretty strange. My head has been pretty messed up lately, and I get dizzy and have this crazy sensation in my head, a bit like something is pulling my brain up in the air. I also have pins and needles in my hands and feet, and feel like I am going to be sick.

It's pretty scary.

Funny thing is, that when the doctor told me it was anxiety, well frankly that was a relief. I half expected him to send me for a scan or something.

Going to the gym helps, and I feel better afterwards, so I have been every lunchtime during the week for over 5 weeks now. This has also helped my back out a lot, and as well as my usual back exercises, a friend of Anjali's has been learning The Bowen Technique and has used me for practise. This thing is mental, it's like a manipulation, but it's so delicate and short that frankly if I had paid good money for it, after the first session I would have thought I was getting taken for a ride.

All he does is touch my back a little, and then leave the room for a bit, then he comes back, does something else, and leaves. After about seven or eight trips, we're done. After the first week I was really aching the next day, incredible. This time round I have been in heaven, no lower back pain at all. It's the maddest thing, he practically does nothing, and yet it seems to work better than any physio I have ever been to. If it keeps up like this he'll have a client for life.

Anyway, I guess in the meantime my main problem is still some kind of stress, it seems worse in the week, so it must be work related. Time for another holiday already.

Thankfully, at the end of the day, I decided that maybe the Knorr Chicken Biriani I have in the cupboard was not quite romantic enough for the evenings meal, and so I squeezed us in at Ferndales for some peculiarly french pizza. If ever there was stress relief then it's good food.

However... looking back on a post in which I discussed my anxiety issue, I guess I should be slightly concerned that I subconsiously used the words crazy, mad, and mental.

Make the jump*

2005-02-11T16:11:00.001Z

Okay it looks like I have got this working. I had some log-in issues and extremely slow updates, but am now back in business, talking of which...

For the past couple of months, Rob and I have been proud owners of the Cog. Buisness was pretty slow on my part to begin with, but we are finally building up some clients, and the work we have done for them has helped them a lot, so if you know of anyone needing help, spread the word.

In the meantime, me and the missus just booked up for a weekend in Paris, and then another in Venice, so any tips are welcome. Hopefully while we are there, I'll get to take something decent with my new camera.

A spot of Blogger

2005-02-10T09:06:00.000Z

This blog is giving me a hard time, can't login properly, can't update. Maybe I need to move on already...

Squaters writes...

2005-02-09T13:16:00.000Z

Due to technical problems at recoil HQ, I climbed up a rusty drain pipe, in through a broken window, and set up residence in blogger.com...

It's been so long since the recoil blog started it's overhaul that I can't go over all the things that have happend, but here are the highlights of the last few months, in order, and I'll try to detail some of it in the coming bloggs. I will also update relevent photos now that, shock horror, I have a web connection at home again...

Okay:

1: Set up a web design company
2: Bought some Yahoo and nVidia shares
3: Went on holiday to Sri Lanka about a month before the tsunami disaster.
4: Moved house again.
5: Ran the Nike 10K, all of it, no stopping. Doosh!
6: Got a Cannon EOS 20D for Christmas.
7: Started getting anxiety attacks.
8: Managed to pay the tax man with help of share sale. Sweet! (...and hopefully part of the solution to 7)
9: Discovered a new type of muslcular therpay that beats the hell out of the osteopath
10: Still going to the gym, Anil has slacked off, I rest my case.

Okay, after flogging myself in the gym and finishing up a hefty python script I have been working on for a week, I'm off the The Ivy for dinner with the missus, so no doubt we'll be surrounded by a bunch of b-listers who were not invited to tonights Brit Awards.