New Desk

For almost 10 years I’ve used the same desk at home. I originally bought it for the way it could handle a lager CRT monitor. In particular the corner design saved quite a bit of space.

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A new chapter begins

22 years… wow time flies.  Some days it seems like only yesterday that I started working at Anglo Gibraltar Insurance.  Several mergers and acquisitions later I’m leaving AXA and starting a new stage in life.

I’ll spare the fine details but in a nutshell after our company was recently purchased it was decided to close the IT operation in London by the end of 2012.  My last day with the company is Oct 31st,  and then I’ll be enjoying the first break from school or work since I was about 15. The offer the company has given me is very generous and will enable myself to enjoy this period ahead.

Despite Alicia’s horror that I may be underfoot at home I plan to be busy both in and out of the house. During this time I’m going to continue some of the projects I am involved with including the unLondon/unLab and the Downtown London WiFi project. In the new year  I plan to step back a bit and decide what I want to do next career wise and in life.  20+ years is a long time to do anything and it may be time for a change. Now that I’ve made the decision I’m so calm with the idea and looking forward to it.

Think Social Media Doesn’t Work?

Image courtesy http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=1152

For those who think social media doesn’t work…. On Tuesday August 1st 2011.

• Two people asked where they can get umbrella’s downtown as rain was starting to fall; Novak’s replied. Result probably two sales and possibly more.
• Several people noted a error about the Urban League of London in a London Free Press story. The Free Press was informed and corrected the story.
• 2 people had an interesting conversation/debate about how tattoos and other symbols on a person affects other people’s perception of that person.

Not too bad at all. Makes my happy that this technology and method of engagement exists.

Jelly Making

We are blessed that in our backyard the previous owners planted several concord grape vines.  These serve two purposes;

1. Creating a nice patch of shade under the arbor during the heat of the summer.
2. Grapes for Jelly!

This year with all the hot weather and the rain coming at just the right time, we had a record harvest of over 50 pounds of grapes.

I’ve been jam and jelly making for quite a few years and I (and my friends and family) have been very pleased with the results. One thing I always wanted to improve on was the labels.  Until this year my wonderful wife had to hand write each and every jar.  The other problem was when reusing the jar, the label had to be scraped off.

I was on reading some items on my twitter stream last week when someone (I don’t recall who posted it, if it was you please let me know!) Kelly Hunt in her blog eatlocallondon.com posted a link to local kitchen a food related blog out of New York’s Hudson Valley.  Kaela has a great post on making labels using Microsoft Word.

She advised using labels to put on the lid of the jar.  The first advantage is that the lid is never reused so there are no labels to scrape off glass jars.  The second advantage is some great design ideas.

The first task was to find Avery 2 1/2 inch round labels.  Your would think in a city the size of London this should be an easy task.  Several days later I discovered it wasn’t.  Short of ordering labels in bulk (e.g. several thousand) I was out of luck.  I posted my woes to my twitter stream and Chris McInnis suggested getting a full page label sheet and cutting them down to size. From that suggestion I though about my wife’s scrapbook punches.  She didn’t have the right size, but a trip to Michael’s found me the correct size punch.

I then played around with some designs and come up with one I’m really pleased with.

I’m very pleased with it. I will do a similar label with a different color for the blueberry.  Thanks to everyone else who gave suggestions and advice.