Uklug Coming on

I have now got,
A login facility.
Agency Ratings.
Job Postings.
I have also added a few other bits and bobs. I am hoping to start adding some agencies to the database so that we will at least have some content that users can browse.
I will write all this myself initially but I really should investigate some of the Forums and other tools that are out there at the moment. No doubt they will have done a better job at this stuff than me.

Started Recruitment Agency Ratings Website

Managed to get started on uklug for the first time today. I have been meaning to get stuck into getting something up for a long time and this has been my chance. I need to be doing something to hone my programming skills and I think building a dynamic site in Perl although corny is as good as place as any to make a start.
This project was originally on Sourceforge as Jobix but due to lack of interest it kind of faded into the back ground. It is still a one man show which means that features and developement will be fairly slow

Left Job

Officially left Colt-telecom today. If anyone is ever offered a job there, take it. It is a nice place to work and they have a go-getter attitude in everything they do. There was quite a bit of restructuring that was taking place when I left but I imagine once that is over it will be an even nicer place to work.

Gardening Leave

I was given “Gardening Leave” today. What this means is that I am on paid holiday. Colt did not have to do it but it is nice to get some time to decide what I want to do with my life. I really want to become a developer so I am going to concentrate on that. I also need to decide if I am going to look for a job straight away or not.
I have decided to do Maths next year and I have not done any since Collingwood 94. This means that I am tempted to take the year off work to refresh my Maths and to concentrate on some personal goals. The thought of doing Maths and building websites in my spare time while trying to hold down a job I do not want to be in is not very appealing to me.

Accident

Was in a horrendous crash at the weekend 8 Aug 2002. A 40 ton truck decided to move from the fast lane into the slow lane immediately on coming out of a roundabout. Needless to say both Jenny and I where in the slow lane. We where pinned in front of the truck for about 100 metres before we where flipped into the central reservation. We where close enough to the grill of the Lorry to feel the heat from it.

Family Tree

I was rummagin around in google a while back looking to see if I could find anything relating to my family and I managed to turn up the following link.
http://home.alltel.net/fjingle/jackson.htm
The guy who runs the site is a relation of mine who now lives in America. It took me by suprise to realise that this information has probably been on there for years without me knowing. I also had no idea that I had these relatives living in America.
Its a small world.

A few days in Israel

13-18 April 1997
We found ourselves in Haifa, Israel. The strangest thing for me and this is coming from someone who has lived in Northern Ireland, Nearly everyone carry’s guns. We were in a bar and behind it we could see several automatic weapons. The waitress’s who happened to be all teenagers were doing national service and in their spare time they would wait tables etc. it was them who owned the guns.
I might add that in Israel or at least Haifa these young fly by night waitress’s did not get paid by the bar, they only got the tips punters provided which we were blissfully unaware of until one of them who got a bit disgruntled with our lack of generosity was kind enough to tell us. Needless to say that we got a bit more generous after realizing that a disgruntled spotty teenager with a semi-automatic weapon at her disposal was probably not going to do anyone any favours.

Arrive in Tunisia

01-05 February 1997
We arrived in Tunis to join HMS Birmingham, thankfully the whole thing was relatively uneventful except we where chased along the jetty by people trying to check our visas. They managed to catch up with us and we were meant to have had our visas stamped at the airport. We had no idea what was going on but it all got sorted out eventually.
Tunis is a bit crazy. On our first night into town get we got accosted by a man who promised to show us all the sights of Tunis in a night, having been continually hassled by all and sundry up until this point we decided it would not be a bad idea to get ourselves a minder of sorts and it worked. What we didn’t know at the time was….. “next stop….. the casbah zone”.
We were dragged through endless alleys deeper into the heart of Tunis and I am not scared to admit that coupled with it being near midnight and not another person in the vicinity looking remotely friendly I was getting goose bumps. Listening to our guides endless chatter about a king, a big bed and lots of women in it we persevered for what seemed like an eternity. We finally reached the big bed which was very big but there was no naked women which was a bit of a let down. We were told that the king who had owned the bed had had a lot of women in it which is a different thing entirely.
Our untiring guide motivated us into going to the roof where we could see most of Tunis or at least in near pitch blackness most of the lights in Tunis were visible from where we stood. It was actually worth the entire journey just to see it.
It was at this point we then started our decent back into the casbah and the old saying “no such thing as a free ride” started to resonate around inside my head. We first payed a visit to a rug merchant who proceeded to unroll enough rugs to line a bridge to Sicily, the rugs were all very nice but for two young sailors with no money they were a bit too expensive. After much haggling, mostly with himself our illustrious rug dealer must have realized that his time would be better spent cultivating money trees, we where on our way again.
On and on into the casbah night we trod, at no point did we ever consider going our separate way from the guide, it would have been like eating your compass in the Sahara. I did notice that we spent an awful lot of time visiting cousins of our guide who all happened to own perfume or tobacco shops. By the time we had got half way back we were convinced the guy was related to everyone in Tunis.
Just before we left the casbah to breathe real open air again we where offered some hubbly bubbly which considering neither of us smoked was another non-starter. We walked for a few yards and we seemed to magically stumble out onto the street where we began our journey. This meant it was time to bid our guide a fond farewell and I was uncomfortably aware that we had not bought anything at all which is probably how he makes his living. We tipped him and he seemed rather pleased with this, we were just glad to be alive and back in the general vicinity of where we left off.