everytime I go to Commercial Road shopping I frequently accosted by people collecting charities, I think they are wanting the public to give them their direct debit details to give a donation every month, but they are come out with this long spiel first of all, which I tell them I am not interested as many of these organisation collecting in the past are not always what they appear to be, and the people recruited do often get paid well, normally its just easier to shop wearing earphones and they just ignore you.  This saturday was no different, being pounced on by some pretty student girl with some well rehearsed phrase which I declined, however when about to exit the precinct by Debenhams, I was saddened to see this elderly chap looking very gaunt on an electric scooter, a poster hung over the handlebars says he was collecting signatures for a petition for people with industrial illnesses from working with asbestos, to be able to get some medication that would relieve some of the pain but may shorten his life, it claimed it used in other parts of the country but not down here in the south.

This really saddened me, and it seems not to many people had taken notice of his campaign so I just silently prayed for him and went home.

why is that trying to install various well known bits of free software comes with extra clutter you dont want?

Install Adobe Acrobat 7 and it wants you to use Yahoo toolbar, plus some fancy download manager which seems pointles, Winzip was a good simple application which has annoying tip of the day, some wizard which is just playing annoying, an icon on your taskbar to supposedly make things easier.

Having too many items on your desktop taskbar slows down your computer, really the only apps ought to be there is your antivirus, app, VNC (or other remote tool) and sound volume, oh, and maybe icon the shows your wired or wireless network connection status.
So please software makers, just give us the raw nuts and bolts of our applications, cute toolbars,  download managers are just rubbish and make the training process for computer users and support process from the helpdesk more difficult.

yikes, lock up your children, the British National Party are on Myspace and they tried to look me up…

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=194715305

well I meant to be writing some stuff on a proper regular basis, but I havent.

the last couple of months have been a bit crazy, my contract at the hospital came to an end, not completely unexpected, but I was a sad at leaving there, my attempts to apply to be permanent were not successful before and it seems my career plans were meant to be some place else.  Two interviews came about at my last week, one for company making switch panels, one for a large utility company, the former was the I really set my heart on and the second just didnt feel right, I got accepted for the power company doing helpdesk there, but more of a regular call centre job, as the tasks I enjoy like building good relationships with users, problem solving and learning new skills were absent here, the large concrete building had a kind of oppressive feel to it, and just a bad feeling I couldnt put my finger on meant I struggled to learn the ancient command based helpdesk software to log the calls (which were mainly password resets) meant the days dragged on and I yearned to be back supporting the health workers in my previous role.  The interview for the other role that seems right at the time, I got turned down for which I was massively disappointed.  The power company got fed up with me and I got the boot, learning the training was hard when they were already shortstaffed and the guy who was sat with didnt seem like training people was really his thing.

This time has meant I have had to trust in God’s plan for me like never before, and has it been hard..

In late May, I got an interview for the company I work for now making security software, this seemed really consistent with what God has planned for me, after a lot of prayer, I was accepted, the relief and joy was immense.  I have been there for a month and enjoying support the users in our office, on site, and in the other offices in Europe gives plenty of variety and challenges.

I feel incredibly blessed by what God has provided me at late,  I am seeing surprising things with some friends at the moment, and feel continuously surprised God has been providing so many answers to prayers recently, I think there are more exciting times ahead…