…he was writing some other blog.

I, meanwhile, had just left my old, evil job, for a bright shiny new one. So now it’s the better part of an entire month later. What’s been happening?

Well, to begin with, I very cleverly didn’t arrange any kind of accomondation near my new employment – a bit of a problem, given that the job was in Livingston, just outside Edinburgh. A good 60-odd miles away. Not clever.

Thus began what turned out to be a month of three-hour commutes. That’s three hours each way.

My day started at 5, I cycled the 2-ish miles to the train station, board the 6:40 to Plymouth, change at Haymarket at 8 for the 8:22 to Livingston North station at 8:45, and cycled one-and-a-bit miles down to work. After knocking off at 6, reverse it all, getting in 8:30-ish, to get to bed for 9 in order to start the whole nonsense all over again. Assuming the trains ran on time. I was literally travelling, working, travelling, sleeping, travelling, working, travelling, sleeping.

Never, ever do this. And let’s not talk about the money, ‘kay?

Eventually, of course, I did come up with a place to live in Livingston – although not without some conniptions along the way. At one point I thought I had it, then called my new letting agents a call to discover that it was now taken. Oh no! But then it turns out that the person who had taken the flat was, in fact, me.

So, okay. Then we get the usual forms to fillout, and references to obtain. And then it’s like the Thursday before I’m due to move in, and it turns out that none of the reference requests have gone to where they should have. Not to my former landlord, not to my bank. And the character reference, which I’d handed to SixFootHobbit personally, didn’t make it back. Basically, nothing reference-related got through Royal Mail.

So it took a lot of phone calls, and a lot of faxes, from my very nice bank manager (thanks, Hayley!) and a variety of letting-agents folk, to get things sorted. So with just enough time to get to Livingston to get the contracts, I set off down, 2pm on Friday (I’d taken some time off work, the idea being to accomplish The Move in this time), only to find that GNER can’t be bothered to get their trains to run on time – meaning I wasn’t going to get there in time to sign the contracts. So that was four hours of travel for nothing.

So I decided that on Monday I would take enough to get through a week on my back (that was one well-stuffed duffelbag), and just move into my new place, regardless. Fortunately it’s a furnished place. Actually, more furnished than I expected – I even got a TV! And two sets of knives! But it was still a pretty sparse week.

And, just for amusement value, my washing machine died most spectacularly the first time I attempted to use it. I’d put it on overnight with the first batch of clothes, and in the morning I notice water all over the place. Turned out (after a plumber autopsy) that the fanbelt had snapped, zinging about inside breaking whatever washing machines have for internal organs. It died instantly, poor thing, but not before losing a lot of water.

The lady downstairs from me was amazingly nice to her new neighbour who had flooded her kitchen. She even kindly phoned the landlords direct (I have to go through the letting agents), which apparently sped up the replacement process.

And the flat, to be kind, is tiny. As in really tiny. I have no idea where I’m going to put all my stuff!

However, I now have a seven minute commute to work! How cool is that? And ten minutes back (it’s downhill to, uphill from). I’ve never been home ten minutes after leaving work before! So much spare time!

Plus, I have a shed! To begin with, it was full of random junk, but while replacing the washing machine, the landlords cleared much of it out, leaving enough room to store the bike away from the rain. Just in time, too, as the weather seems to be dampening. Soon, the big fridge freezer will be taken away too, so I will actually be able to store things there.

This weekend, I went back up to Dundee, with the intent to arrange the final stages of the move. Anyone who knows me will be able to guess how well that went. Anyway, I eventually decided on taking the Big Expensive Things from the Dundee flat; the electronics and such. That made up a nice back-of-carful, which Hobbit was kind enough to drive down. I’ll be up again this weekend, and should do much more work this time – especially as I will no longer have the aforementioned Big Expensive Things to distract me! Except my TV, which was a bit huge to fit in. But the analogue reception is so dreadful there I probably won’t even be watching TV!

I’ve got the gear all set up in my living room, and it doesn’t take up all that much space. Almost all the cable tangle comes from the fact that originally my network stretched out over several metres, but now those long network cables are for a network barely two meters across. I’ll get some cable ties and tidy it all up, honest.

Livingston itself is a strange place. It’s a “new town”, meaning it was put together deliberately as opposed to growing organically. Apparently, it started as out-of-town-shopping for Edinburgh, which rather strangely means that the big out-of-town soulless shopping precinct is right in the centre of town. So far, I’ve found the library (a few minutes away), but not the cinema (somewhere in the aforementioned centre).

It’s very green, and there are cycle paths all over the place, meaning I can get pretty much anywhere from anywhere without interacting with traffic all that much. The only major bit I have to deal with is right outside my close, where I have to go along a road for about a hundred yards before getting on the paths again. There’s an entirely cycle-path alternative that’s about two minutes longer; I’m seriously considering using it on the way back from work, as there appear to be cars that only appear when I’m trying to turn right into my street. Long lines of them, evenly spaced just close enough together so I can’t cross.

My new job is extremely cool. I’m working for a web hosting company, as one of their support staff. Most of the queries come in via email, with some on the phones. It’s kind of like my previous Evil Job, with two basic differences: One, I’m working nine-to-six, instead of three-to-eleven; and secondly, instead of working for a Great Big Company with lots of different departments where 90% of the time I’m shunting cases off to other places that may or may not fix the customer’s problem and may or may not tell us if they do, I’ve got access to all the relevant systems, and I can fix them myself! It’s so cool!

And things are much more relaxed than where I was before; I’ve never gone into a company where I felt more at home. Basically, we’re all computer geeks of one kind or another, so we’re doing the job because we love it, rather than because that’s the campaign we got put on. The company even has a quote sheet!

Plus, it’s all on Linux systems, with the exception of two Windows servers for those customers who need ASP or FrontPage. It’s just really nice to be working full-time on Linux again – especially creating, and using, shell aliases I first used fifteen years ago at Uni! I’m learning so much every day, as well. Bliss!

Anyway, it’s time to get breakfast and head to work. But I’m back! Buahahahaha!