Sometimes in life you have some fairly mad times when things happen all at once. Such has been my life over last 2 or 3 months.
Firstly of course was the birth of Tabby (we called her Tabitha Catherine – tabby cat – get it? Heheheh…I kill me) at the end of June.
Shortly after that (and possibly not entirely unrelated) was a marked downturn in my health. I have alarmingly high blood pressure necessitating frequent trips to hospitals for EEG’s (or ECG’s I can never remember which) and blood tests for liver function etc (did someone put me on a course of EDTA without telling me? OK, ok, cheap shot). Thats been the case for a couple of years now. Anyway over the last 2 – 3 weeks its got bad enough to cause me to look for a job closer to home. My current job necessitated a 5am start and a 7.30pm return home, usually punctuated by a 2am wake up with Meggy and a hungry baby at some point!
Anyway, I got a job closer to home and a very exciting one it looks too. My current job entailed a total development lifecycle from brief taking through development and design and promotion – I was the inhouse designer/developer for a financial services company.
Whilst I enjoyed it, I was feeling towards the end of my time there that I’d taken the role about as far as I could. When I started the main website was averaging 9 unique visitors a week and was basically a brochure site. At this time its a standards compliant (XHTML 1.0, CSS 2) semi-portal that handles online mortgage and loan applications and inserts them into the companies offline systems automatically. All this coming from approx 300 unique visitors per day. The website has taken nearly £1m of business through a mix of traditional SEO and online ads with AdWords and Overture. All in all, I’m very happy to be walking away now and am pleased to have achieved everything I set out to achieve. Its time for a new challenge and one thats easier to fit into a busy life.
To that end I’ll soon be working with a Software development company. All their software has a web interface accessed through an Intranet environment and they use a Unix/Java programming environment. Its an exciting opportunity as my role will be centred around standards, usability, accessibility with an emphasis on AJAX scripting on the front end. As a company they’re very into standards and open source development and were particularly looking for someone who was active in the web design/development community.
I also made it abundantly clear to them that any career progression on my part would be limited. The majority of my time must go to my family – its not easy to climb the career ladder when you parent a special needs child – and I don’t have either the time or the desire to network in the way one must in order to move one’s career significantly forward. Its a simple question of priorities and I’d rather have happy kids than an iPod.
Its also time to get more serious about my health. I’m not 25 anymore and can’t tuck away the Grolsch and vin rouge as I used to. Since I stopped smoking 6 years ago I’ve fleshed up alarmingly. Again, some of it was due to being so busy – you just grab something quick and bung it in the microwave – but thats got to change. I’ll also be (gulp!) buying myself a bike to get around. My doctor snapped at me alarmingly at my last check up (“what good you do your kids if you dead eh?”) so I think its time to start listening.
Left Brain Right Brain 
Hooray – finally it’s public news so we can all congratulate you! Well done on the new job – we’ll be expecting a whole series of “responsible and accessible uses of Ajax” over the coming months.
I’m supposed to be buying a bike to improve my health too, but now that the weather is beginning to change, I’m starting to think if maybe an iPod isn’t a better purchase… ;o)
Well done on the new job!
Ive been looking at a bike as well, altho I brought a laptop and spent money on some other work (:))instead!
Makes two of us for a new job eh?
Oh My,
Kev take care of your health.
I’m glad you got a job closer to home. Time to start eating like a health nut, well, at least part time.
I think you’ve had ECG’s electrocardiograms. No more fried stuff and try to do deep breathing or something to relax when you are at work. Maybe a weighted lap pad or soothing music. Don’t you geek guys have office massage therapists who will give you a shoulder massage once a day?
Do not die, Kev.
Do not.
I’m impressed with what you did at your old job, and happy you have an interesting new one.
Id like echo the dont die message
Well done Kev.
Well done on the job Kev, hope it goes well along with your health – best not return to DDN for a while longer, hey? 😉
I hope the new job goes well Kev, best of luck with it!
Sounds like you have a good doctor who is being very thorough with the tests and is making sure that your blood pressure meds are not causing any liver problems or other complications.
A bike to get around is a good idea. Going running a few times a week would help, too. My husband started running three years ago because he was overweight, out of shape, and had high blood pressure. He lost a lot of weight, improved his health in general, was able to greatly reduce his dosage of blood pressure meds (though he still takes a low dose because he has a family history of strokes) and was in such good shape that he ran a full marathon (coming in ahead of some younger co-workers, who got razzed by everyone in the office).
I hope you’ll post more about how Meggy is doing. Does she still like the Buffy video game? There’s a Collectors’ Edition version of Doom 3 for the Xbox, which includes the old Doom 2 stuff; she might like the older game, it’s not nearly as gory as Doom 3. (My kids were creeped out by Doom 3, but they happily played the old Doom when they were much younger.)
Great move. No wonder you got high blood pressure working at that dalmation thing; any sane designer will 😀 And yes, bikes are cool. If it’s within peddling distance, treat yourself to a ride.
Thanks all, I’m sure I’ll be just fine – Naomi’s told me that if I die she’ll build me a tribute site in FrontPage so I don’t dare risk my health!
Matthew – yeah, the whole bike thing….I know it makes sense but…
Matt – a laptop and ‘other work’ sounds like a much better idea! ;o)
Camille – E_C_G’s – thats it, thanks. Yup, we’ve stocked up on lots of fish, fresh veg and fruit and lean meat all of which I enjoy. My favourite snack is Watermelon and pineapple at the moment.
Helen – hey! Long time no ‘see’. How’s it going? I guess you’ll be back to Uni soon?
H – ta…and yeah, maybe the ‘heady’ atmosphere at DDN is to be avoided for awhile longer ;o)
Bonnie -I’d like to post more about Meggy directly too. Its a bit difficult at the moment for a few reasons. Firstly, its the school holidays and she’s basically grumpy and bored – not a very interesting post! Secondly, I’m getting a bit loth to post anything too personal about Megan on here…there are some, um, _interesting_ people around here these days so I try and make it a bit abstract – don’t worry though, I have got a couple of posts on Megans progress coming up soon. And yes, she still loves Buffy – she’s expanded her love to include The Sims as well now but I leave that to Naomi as games like that make me want to go to sleep! No guns, no explosions, no fighting demons – what the hell kind of game is that!??!?
Prab – they were good employers on the whole and gave me lots of lattitude with Meg so I can’t complain but yeah, I think I’ve done my bit for financial services!
” I think I’ve done my bit for financial services!”
Ill say, for mine too 😉
On a different note, Meg likes the sims? If she can sit and play that shes got a longer attention span then me!
All they do is bloody complain!
Congratulations Kev. Do let us know about your first day cycling in. There’s nothing quite like trying to cycle a few miles on a bike after a couple of years off it.
Kev, glad to here things are panning out well.
I’m looking to buy a bike to ride to work but those saddles look painful!
“I’m looking to buy a bike to ride to work but those saddles look painful!”
That is why they make special bike pants with extra padding for the bum.
Yes, Kevin, it is not only the bike, but the special pants, helmet (that is NOT optional), shoes, water bottles, safety vest with reflective stripes, and all sorts of other gear. There are also gel-seats and elastic straps to wrap around your regular pants at the ankles to keep them from getting caught in the chain and gears.
Which is why I stick to swimming (though I have prescription goggles). Something I’ve been doing since I was diagnosed with high cholestoral. (and cutting back on butter and cheese, wah!).
Keep up your health. And good luck with your new job.
“…special pants, helmet (that is NOT optional), shoes, water bottles, safety vest with reflective stripes, and all sorts of other gear. There are also gel-seats and elastic straps to wrap around your regular pants at the ankles to keep them from getting caught in the chain and gears…”
Blimey! I’d better get a bloody loan ;o)
Thanks for the good wishes HN and Stu – we _will_ meet up for a pint, but mine’ll be a pint of the diet Lager. Bah!
Pierce – I’ll give you a blow-by-blow account of every callous and chafe ;o)
Good Luck! It all sounds like positive change. I’m trying to do some of the same myself. And please, don’t let my comments to your posts raise your BP anymore! ;^)
My only concern is that it sounds like I can’t have happy kids and an iPod! One more reason to keep putting the purchase off.
Shawn