I had grand plans for this weekend, but somewhere in the mix I have become side-tracked by some irritating minutiae. I have a To Do list on my laptop, constantly lingering in view, so I have no excuse to lose focus.

I have managed to remove a couple of things from the list – like preparing guidance documents for running a WordPress QuickShop installation and adding a very obvious ‘contact information’ graphic to the South Manchester Wildlife Rescue web site. I had just done that graphic and needed to upload it when the first problem of the weekend reared its ugly mug.

I seem to have lost FTP access to my domains. Not from all source, just from one device – my laptop. So, the one place where I do all my work suddenly hits a dead-end for uploads. I could do them on the desktop or my iPhone probably for that matter, so why has my laptop suddenly stopped working. Investigation followed – and went on and on.

Sunday comes around and I continue with my To Do list; but, my efforts keep coming back to the damned FTP and why it isn’t work. I need to know what’s wrong. My curiosity refuses to abate without a resolution. I manage to do some work on another site without need for FTP and do some reading, but my searches eventually return to the problem again. I simply can’t let go.

Now, I face the gathering gloom of Sunday evening and I haven’t done half of what I really wanted to get done. Mind you, I could do without posting on a blog at this moment as well, because this isn’t on my To Do list. Not my current ‘Get It Done Now’ list.

Suppose I should go help make dinner now…

I have had a slow Saturday where, despite having the time to do all the things on my To Do list, I have managed, largely, to do a whole load of things I hadn’t intended to do. I haven’t been wasting time, by any measure. However, in the greater schemes of things I have erred on the side of doing low priority side-projects rather than the stuff with red flags on top.

I need to clean out one or more hamster cages, complete editing on two h2g2 articles I have had for too long, fathom some jQuery validation I need for a piece of work from my almost day job, write some simplistic documentation for someone I’ve created a blog for, and watch the Grand Prix.

Instead, I have created a new background image for my Twitter profile, created a matching background for this blog, had a walk, revived a flagging blog about my back garden, done some washing up, and watched the Grand Prix.

So, I’m not completely off target – and I’m quite proud of the image I’ve created for the backgrounds on here and Twitter… but those articles have been begging to get finished for months, as has that documentation for the blog. I think I may have to set my alarm for extra early tomorrow and get down to business before the house rises and the telly becomes a distraction. Yes, our nation may be facing economic struggle and political upheaval, but if I can’t get some basic writing tasks completed then I’m in serious trouble. That To Do list won’t sort itself out if I can’t put pen to paper and bang-out a basic set of bulleted guidelines and correct a few errant typos in an article or two.

Last week I had a conversation with someone at work and said that I could manage my time just fine. I think that’s true at the moment where I’m handling work, but home tasks… there I fall short of the ideal. I can little afford to find stress at home when I get more than my fair share from work. I need to keep my home life in order to provide some sort of foundation for greater calm.

Ohm! Ohm!

Right… a little calm sorted – now, back to that list.

Shit!

Now I’ve written a blog entry instead of what I’m supposed to be doing…

Everyone has a talent. I don’t mean a skill or a qualification, I mean an innate talent. In many instances, people use that talent to help them in their work; in others, the talents is meaningless in any useful context. I think I may fall somewhere in between with mine.

I can ‘Xerox’ something with my bare hands. If I write something in a certain way, I can almost certainly replicate it – again and again. I’m not gonna forge anything with this, because the accuracy comes close, but not that close. If I create a typeface and write something, I can repeat ad nauseum. Over time the quality of the copy might degenerate a little, especially if I don’t keep the original close at hand. Also, I happily emulate the fonts in greetings cards, often with such accuracy that people have to ask me how I did it, or whether it was there to begin with.

Yes, I have to concentrate a lot – if I don’t the copy tends to be adequate rather than good. I guess that applies to anyone. If you have a talent for painting but your heart isn’t in it, you probably won’t be creating a masterpiece.

I just sat for almost two hours creating labels for my wife’s homemade jewellery and charms. In the process, I did several fonts and logo designs – all pretty rudimentary considering the timeframes involved – and I had to repeat them three, six or a dozen times. I grumbled. If I didn’t grumble, it wouldn’t be worth the effort. However, somewhere, deep down, I enjoy the whole process ‘cause I’m quite good at it.

If anyone can suggest a career path with high salary potential to which I might apply this skill, by all means leave me a comment with the details!

I suffer from a persistent cough. Some suggest I take up smoking just to make all the coughing worthwhile. I take such comments in good humour. In fact, I have only smoked a single packet of ciggies in my life, and that was some seventeen years ago. About nine years ago I had a lung infection, which seems to have weakened my resistance. Last year I got pneumonia, which wasn’t pleasant at all!

I have been feeling a tad rough for the last couple of days with sinus pain and an upset stomach. My appetite has faded somewhat and I’m plagued by a tickle in my throat. I daresay it’s a cold to be, or some ailment without the energy to put up a proper conflict.

Last night I got a jab for flu and one for swine flu. Now, I really feel stuffed up and my shoulders feel like the worst kind of sunburn. Prickly discomfort combined with sore muscles. I realise I should have better protection now against infection, but that’s no compensation with the headache I’ve got!!

I have been getting up 5am every morning this week. I know I should be getting up at that time anyway to get in some writing, but it rarely happens. In this instance, it has been a matter of necessity rather than choice. Someone has ruined my already horrible commute.

I travel about 75 miles every time I go to work. That represents a round trip. In theory that should be 50 minutes in each direction, fair weather and sensible traffic permitting. In reality it can be as much as twice that in bad weather and heavy traffic. Last week someone thought it’d be a good idea to complete work on the Runcorn Bridge and reduce it to a single lane in each direction.

Heading out from Liverpool, four lanes of traffic get on the bridge, so last week that meant a phenomenal amount of congestion. It took me about 45 minutes to travel a few hundred yards at one point. I tried alternate routes, but each seemed to be clogged with congestion all of it’s own. I didn’t do anything less than a 90 minute return journey and in one instance it took more than 2 hours. At the end of a long day, that can be soul destroying… It isn’t as if you have a lot of beautiful scenery to lighten the experience.

This week I hope all will return to normal. Work on the Bridge has been confined to overnight activities, so now there’s just the standard traffic to contend with. I’m done grumbling for the moment…