I'm over in the US this week on business - training my colleague here about the skills and responsibilities that I had in the DSG in Agilent. Because of what I'm going to do once I've been made redundant - travel for 8 months with my girlfriend - I don't hold the same grudge as some would.

I never quite understood the essence of a holiday when I was young.

I never understood why my mother would get so stressed, hoping to god we'd remembered everything. It wasn't unusual to go round the roundabout at Livingston to go back - to collect a toy I couldn't live without or to quadruple-check that the oven was off.

In Software Engineering, you'll often find that the 6 month project you did ages ago - which was only a temporary solution to a minor problem - is still in place. Probably with more users than originally intended.

And because it was just a stop-gap, it's perhaps not at robust as you like, or scalable, or you would have done it differently.

This isn't unusual...

As a hard working member of the software development fraternity, I often found it quite difficult to motivate myself to stay fit.

A couple of trips to the gym to 'pump iron' and I'd remember how painful it was - 10 minutes out running and I'd remember I wasn't really meant for sweating - and I'd quickly return to the comfort of my cave for a nice quiet game of Company of Heroes.

So the site is alive, but there's plenty to do. I've got to...

- Choose my modules
- Work on a theme
- Make the dinner

So I'm off!