Work was Interesting today. Things went A Bit Wrong due to one thing and another, so there was a fair amount of firefighting, while I fielded phone calls pretty constantly during the first part of the day. A bit like the Old Evil Job, really. The contrast was pretty clear, as I was actually able to see what was happening to fix things, instead of getting vague ideas from on high several hours late.

Work was also very, very hot. I was feeling kinda queasy for most of the day, too. Okay, as a hardened Ozzie I should be able to cope with temperature – but, as they always say, it’s not the heat, it’s the humidity. All that darn water in the atmosphere. Stupid place to put it.

Bike, meanwhile, has gone back to the shop for a bit of corrective surgery on its back wheel. This is something I’ve meant to deal with for a while but it all came about at the same time as The Move, so that back wheel went on the back burner.

It was all kind of annoying – I’d just put it in for a service, getting the back brakes fixed. So all is well, and I’m heading down to the train station, raining a bit, just after a hill, so I’m going reasonably fast. Traffic. My turning coming up. Time to slow, thinks me. Light touch on the back brake.

And suddenly the back wheel skids to the right, like it’s greased, nearly dumping me off the bike. Into the aforementioned traffic. I recover, but still have to slow. Back wheel skids again, although not so much this time.

Then I’m off into my turning, away from the traffic. No more excitement after that, but ever since then, my back wheel has had a distinct wobble. Probably it just needs a tweak of the spokes, but that’s a professional’s job, that is.

It does make me glad that in Livingston, I can get pretty much anywhere, with but the most fleeting contact with Traffic.

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!

The rest of the Intrepid crew are staying overnight in the Glen Cova Hotel bunkhouse, with barbecues aplenty, ghost stories around the fire, and all that good fun. Should give them a nice long day for filming today, as well.

Today, I’m going to keep of my sore feet, and try and recover…

And all because I wanted to see the final episode of The Ultimate Fighter at midnight…

Strangely, I also nearly broke the 10mph barrier going to work, too. And that was without any particular motivation. I seem to have stepped up a gear, figuratively; it’s like the extra day off cycling (I was ill Wednesday) meant I got that little extra rest & recovery. Or maybe it’s just all the good work I’ve been doing up until now just paid off…

And so it was tonight. Which meant that I had to choose between maybe cycling home the usual route without lights, or seeing if the nearby Tescos on the other (slightly longer) route was open for battery-buying.

Turned out Tescos wasn’t open, so I had to go the rest of the way being very carefully, and mostly on the pavements. Luckily the streets are deserted at night – one of the few benefits of working as late as I do…

Strangely enough, I don’t seem to have slowed down as much as I thought – average speed of 5.82 miles per hour… The interesting thing about this route is that there’s a great big hill close to the start, and it’s almost entirely downhill from there. Whereas my usual route is pretty much a constant uphill, with a long uphill stretch at the end.

I think I’m going to start taking my lights and/or batteries out whenever I leave my bike anywhere for any length of time…

Well, the only way is up!

Still, managed to get to work on time, and it only took me 30 minutes 57 seconds to go 5.04 miles – which my little spreadsheet tells me is an average of 9.77 miles per hour. To compare, my previous average is 10 miles per hour pretty much exactly.

Tomorrow I’m not cycling as I need to be suited up for an internal interview, which is why I did it today – seemed a bit stupid to only cycle one day on my first week. At the moment it’s pretty okay, apart from the fact that they’re digging up one of the streets on my route, requiring a detour (which I think is responsible for the .04 miles); and I am no longer confident enough to deal with the Big Roundabout on the way. Maybe I wasn’t going at 2-ish last time I was doing this; it certainly seems busier than it was. Either that or I’m getting scared in my old age…

It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes me getting back tonight!