• About
  • Archives
  • Categories
  • Archive for October, 2015

    Secured But No Bondage…


    2015 - 10.28

    Well the Apache server has been configured for SSL now, and all sites will automatically redirect to the “https://” protocol. I just hope most can work out that the new Certificate for each site can be trusted! 🙂 Anyway that’s one more step towards getting Shards of Arcadia online store operational. In addition Chemoux is starting to get demanding about a blog and Tiggakat is encouraging her so I’m in a losing battle.

    Work is improving, access is slowly forthcoming and there’s new areas of Windows Administration for me to learn. Depression’s been mostly non-existent for the last few months. I’m still getting the drop in mood every four or five weeks, but it’s nothing that’s debilitating or even particularly noticeable until after the fact. Hopefully that’s the way it’s going to stay now. It seems that there’s at least about a dozen & a half people still working where I’ve returned to work again, and I genuinely believe all of them have been happy to see me again. That’s a remarkably enjoyable feeling. It’s good to once again feel that you make a difference for people and it’s good to know you have a positive impact on people.

    There’s been a few new games creeping into the list, and a couple of useful books arrived for furthering my identification skills for the tiny beasties. That’s good since I seem the warmer days are bringing the wee beasties out now finally! While in the subject of Photography, I went for a shoot at some friends’ new house where they have a derelict Dairy. Their intention is to renovate it into a working Dairy again. It’s only a 6 cow at a time Dairy, so not huge, but still it’s something they want to do and good luck to them. Anyway the purpose was to document the way it was before they started to work on it, and then document the journey along the way to finishing. I should have some of those photos up on Mirrormere shortly.

    So it seems I have no shortage of things to do now, and so little time left in a lifetime to do it. *sigh* Such is the way for many of us I suppose…

    Late October…


    2015 - 10.25

    So it’s been just on three months since I resigned my last position gave myself some time to heal. Not that I was doing nothing, obviously I wasn’t as there were things to be done. Clearly you don’t recover from Depression by doing nothing, that’s exactly what Depression does to you!

    Anyway things have a definite positive shine to them these days, and I started work again last week. At this stage the position I have is four days a week. This leaves me three days to devote to myself and my photography. It’s been a good start, the team I’ve joined are young, friendly and have a sense of humour. The pace is not overwhelming, and there’s no mad changing of the ground rules 6 times in a day. Additionally I’m not likely to be sent off at the drop of a hat to the other end of the State, although admittedly that wasn’t happening too often the last couple of years. So in reality what I have at the moment is another job like I had without the madness. Morale is not fantastic, but it seems nowhere in the bottom echelons of IT has good morale anymore. Too much Bean Counting taking place.

    I confess to feeling quite tired by the end of Thursday, but I found myself feeling quite refreshed after a morning shoot at a derelict Dairy with a friend on Friday morning. The trip to the Grampians didn’t eventuate this weekend, but that’s fine, there’s plenty of other opportunities for that option. It’s a blustery day today, warm as well. Good washing day! So now to finish washing and get it hung out.

    On the Rise & Looking Over as Sol Rises…


    2015 - 10.04

    Moving into October already, it’s hard to know where all the year has gone. However, it’s winding to a close in much better space than it started. Clearly events seem to be unfolding as close to my intended plan as I could have hoped. A good 2 month break from work, and now some part-time work about to start. All that is left is to achieve the right balance between work & required income. Hopefully those conditions will become clear soon.

    The hope is that I can manage enough free time to be able to really apply myself to the photography business and create some solid foundations there and still be able to pay for the mortgage & cat food. If I can’t the Furbags may be unhappy to say the least!

    I’ve still not yet got the online shop up yet, but I’m prioritising it this week, as I don’t really know how much time I will have after this coming week. I’ve updated the server and the Apache and WordPress installations in preparation for moving over to full SSL before putting the online store up. After consideration I didn’t want to proceed with going live with the production version until the SSL was in place and fully tested. Hopefully that will be sorted by Wednesday and stock will go in the store that day. All looking good, it should go live for the Weekend.

    Clearly my Depression has been halted from worsening, and has certainly lessened to the point I’d say it’s improved to the best it’s been ever. I don’t want to say it’s cured, I don’t think I’m at that point, nor if I’ll ever be, but clearly I’m fully functional and been experiencing a significant amount of happiness over the last couple of months.