Monthly Archives: July 2008

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I’m a bit narked. Open Office didn’t close down cleanly after I saved a … rather large spreadsheet I’d been working on the other day (ZUM! catalogue data normalisation) & corrupted the data in the file. With (the much appreciated) help of Paul at work I’ve managed to recover A to K, but L to Z plus some sundries are gone – lost – kaput – GAH!* I’m not what you might call happy. I guess it wouldn’t be so bad but I’d nearly got to this stage of Data sifting before when I lost the memory stick I was storing it on.

At least I have a portion of information to go from thanks to Paul & I realise that I did make back up a week or so back which s going to have a bit of useful raw data on it (so I don’t have to compile the rest of the spreadsheet from). A lot of time saved, but a lot of time lost. It’s going to take me long enough to figure out what I’m supposed to do to get ZUM! running from a database & have a CMS allowing contributions…

*For the record the .ods file format that Openoffice uses is basically XML data, but it seems that the file format is a compressed container file which can be opened (change file extension to .zip & open in decompression utility) there you see the .xml files. The ‘content.xml’ (which contains the raw data from the spreadsheet cells) was corrupted in this case, It was too difficult for me to spot where – I did note corruption but as the xml file is all one long line (to safe file size) but couldn’t get a grip. Paul could get the data separated out into something readable (using Perl) & then chop out the bad data leaving recoverable data, dropping the recovered context.xml into a new blank ods file.

Rain awoke me this morning – a tremendous downpour at 05:20 or so. Peeped out the velux before closing it & the world was a pale orange – the sunrise through the dense rain. By the time I was out of bed 15 minutes later the glow had gone (the rain slightly less intense)

As we’re stuck prior to summit tunnel this morning it seems likely that there’s a certain amount of flooding in there, but as a train has just come through from Manchester I’d say it’s just causing signaling problems (train proceeding with a toot of horn).

Forgot to mention yesterday that Esme slept through the night in her bed (well, the futon). She woke up as I came back upstairs to rouse Louise for the day. I tried taking Esme upstairs to see she might settle to sleep again (it being a bit early, really) but she was too happy to be awake & therefore gave up & took her downstairs to let her play. Louise likes to have a little peace in the mornings before the kids wake up but Esme couldn’t allow that yesterday.

More den building for me yesterday – more Jack pestering from Jack, rather than Jude. I hung out for quite a while before popping over when I got home, because Louise wanted some adult company & I needed a rest. This frustrated Jack a little as I was ‘professionally fence sitting’, “I refer the [honorable] gentleman to the reply I made earlier”. Still – Jack had me over there before & after tea – bashing big 6″ nails into wood & working up a sweat (sweaty sweaty work). I’ve given him hints on how best to progress today – using some twine rather than just nails. That should help with strength in some areas (I have no building skills, but it seems i have reasonable bodging instincts).

done with these:

Typing on the train home as i didn’t catch the usual train to work (missed it) & so was indulging in a little reading this morning.

Hot again today (or in tabloid speak, “Phor! What a scorcher!” – with accompanying photo opportunity).

I got The Spiderwick Chronicles for the weekend from the library for the kids to watch (& I rather hoped to watch a bit myself) but the kids were too busy to pay attention to the film & were off doing other things. Granted one of those things on Saturday was ‘watching a film’ – but nonetheless it’s a good thing, I guess.

Saturday we met Caroline on the train to Halifax/Bradford; Louise & myself, with Esme got off the train at Halifax in order to do a little shopping (mainly for Jack’s new uniform). Caroline stayed on with Jack, Eve & Jude & they all went on to the cinema in Bradford to watch Wall-E (something I wouldn’t have minded doing myself).  They all enjoyed the film & are reported as all being very good..

Jack has a blazer (made from recycled plastic bottles, (it says on the label) which fits him OK. Louise is worried that it’s not quite right, but we’ve plenty of time to change it (that’s one of the reasons for buying it from Marks & Spencers)

Annnd then there’s the den. On Friday night, before setting off on Friday, after getting home on Saturday, on Saturday night, on Sunday morning & various parts during the day on Sunday I was asked if I could go to the den; to help at the den & asked if permission was allowed for going over to the den. The den is back. he irony here is that as Jude is allowed to go now, he pesters Jack like Jack pesters me. Jude pesters me as well, but for the sake of a tiny bit of schedenfruede, I’ll say it again: Jack gets pestered.

Having been a little disparaging there I have to say that they are making reasonable progress this time. It’s in the same place as a couple of years ago (down the street, up the street over the wall behind.. there (why should I be specific). This is the same plot of unused ground that that other kids roam through from time to time (kids ‘adventure’ – so it’s hardly surprising). Thus far it has not been discovered by the elements that found it last year & demolished it & then caused further trouble accusing Jo of doing things that he didn’t (therefore getting him into trouble & allowing the chavvy parent to be sanctimonious). So – so far no vandalism & as a result they have concentrated on building & as i say, made good progress. They have a floor & some uprights. The ground is quite sloped, but the floor (even if ‘stepped’) is …reasonably level. How it will all pan out I dunno. I called Louise before leaving work (checking on groceries0 & Jack was in a grump & had left his tools over there (!) because he & Jude had a falling out getting back over the wall (I think Jack had climbed over & Jude was supposed expected (by Jack) to lift the bag up to him. As far as I know it’s stil there if it’s not been ‘found’)

Page one done – 2 more to do & a rejigging of the cover. might need to see if I can get a better copy of Steve’s centre spread
Comic page for LCC Sept 92 Originally uploaded by jinty

Eve is away for a couple of days staying over at Carolyn’s house with Katie & Benny, so Esme gets to sleep in Eve’s bed fo a couple of nights & there’s one less ego in the house to be considered. Unfortunately Louise will not be feeling any easing of the situation because she’s not feeling so well. Sore throat yesterday seems to have developed into a general grottiness of feeling this morning.

A pleasant change yesterday in that Jack & Jude were sent out together on their bikes to go to Morrisons to do some shopping. Jude really only wanted to go for the chance of getting some more water pistols; a price worth paying. I was already waiting at the shop having gone there arriving back in town from work. They needed to get a new chin for their bikes & managed to get something from The Millennium Store (as it was Tuesday & most shops are shut Tuesdays).

After the water pistol fight later tht muggy evening I noticed that a lot of the painted stones (Monday’s distraction) were down at Louis & Eva’s House (they have parents, but the ‘naming conventions come from the kids relating to the other kids on the street) so I arranged the stones around the base of the lamp post there. I’m curious to see if they are moved again & where they move (patterns of play on the back street).

I’m trying to get a little comics project completed at the moment It’ll only be 10 or so years since I started it; a little comics instruction leaflet that was devised for the London Cartoon Centre with Steve. It’s a bit late now he’s dead, but that’s sort of the point, as the Caption convention honours his name this year. It’s nice to see scraps of paper we devised wile sitting in Café’s etc. There’s quite a lot of messing about & scarce actual useful notes which is a little bit of a shame because I’m sure the text is not going to be what he envisaged…. but still – it actually feels good to be working on it. Jack is also keep to do a comic strip as well – he has a story planned out & is wanting my guiding hands… He still thinks quite statically with the information a comics page imparts so I’m probably overdoing the assistance a little bit (& not enough in other areas) but hopefully it’ll help him to pin ideas to paper better. He has a good imagination, but the pinning downof whys & wherefores & imparting this is a little vague. I’m the other way around – my imagination is a little timid but I’m strong on wanting reasoning, logic & structuring the information for understanding.

Train a few moments late this morning allowing me a few moments to get the Family Railcard sorted out – the first step to getting ready to go to Caption.

Jude didn’t get the water pistol fight he’d been hankering after most of the day yesterday – not through any especially deliberate ploy on my part, but just because he was off playing before it was time to come in & the day just ran out; no more day left to pay in. I also disappointed Jack later on by not doing comics stuff, but messing about updating thoseschroders blog. There’s a lot I could do on there – there’s a lot to ear about how it works & there’s a lot of tweaking I would like to do, but it’ll have to wait; trickle in, because there’s never enough time to do all that you want to do; that’s impossible.

Esme was tired again – it was a hot & weary day, but she kept going – possibly because of playing “footballer” (kicking the ball about on the backstreet – she loves it).

Beautiful morning – if I wasn’t on the train I’d be taking photographs here; it was still overcast in Todmorden, but the train moves on through the low right morning light & the humid air (obvious aerial perspective) makes everything all aglow. Good landscapes.

Well – we didn’t seemingly get that much done… Mind you where does this pressure to ‘get things done’ come from? I’ve no aspiration to have a list of jobs to complete, but I guess a sense of achievement does give a more tangible form of satisfaction – so that might be what I’m hankering after? It’s be a false illusion anyway – but still even a mirage of achievement might be good – perhaps I should make one up? (or would that be cheating?)

One thing I did manage late last night was to dig out some old cartooning work I’d promised myself to finish off. A little disappointed in the paucity of notes, but that’s not so surprising. Slightly more surprising (& delightful) were the doodlings & messing about that rakes the place of notes. Hm – perhaps less surprising that that’s what we did, but pleasantly surprising to find. Also disappointing was that I interrupted the chess game that Louise & Jack were playing (45 mins of play in). Louise was annoyed that Jack was paying more attention to the bits of paper I was rifling through that the game, but calling it a day at 23:00 hrs is probably a good thing anyway.

I’m hoping that I can piece things together & compete what was meant to have been a London Cartoon Centre fold out about drawing figures – I doubt myself as usual but really – it should be something I can manage.

Took the kids to see the new Narnian Film Prince Caspian yesterday (what happened to ‘A boy and His Horse?) & it was good. Quite a few battles in it – not too pleasant, some of them – which is a good thing because that sort of thing was never ‘pleasant’. Quite exciting & the kids enjoyed it a lot. Louise & Esme visited the rebuilt playground in Hebden Bridge while we watched the film, & then after wards we all went back again – Esme keen to show the way). Some misgivings still about it all, but the kids enjoyed it, so that’s the proper judgement.

More Yo-yo’s purchased today & more have died.