steve.berryman.org.uk

I feel like i should have appologised in advance for my ukulele obsession. Well, not appologised as such, more just forewarned. The only people reading this blog should know already that when I get in to something I tend to constantly go on about it until the next shiney thing catches my eye. So at the moment it’s ukuleles. I have been playing quite a lot since I got mine, and am definitely improving. I can now play Somewhere Over the Rainbow reasonably well, and Bright Eyes slowly and fairly poorly. Just locking away the chord fingerings is a challenge, and then working out how to move from one to the other quickly is so very different from any other instrument i’ve played. Fear not – I’ll get there (sorry Phil, Ali and Kev – you will have to put up with this for a while).

Right. For all those people who say that the ukulele is a toy instrument, and shouldnt be taken seriously, check this guy out.

Ukulele Weeps by Jake Shimabukuro

Right. Again I have failed to update my blog more frequently. I’m not even going to promise it this time around because I’ll probably forget/not have time/some other exuse. But I’m back for now, with a new design. Some things still don’t work. For example: Internet Explorer. PNG transparency just doesnt work without hacks. Hacks which I have not yet implemented. I’ll get round to it soon. The ‘About’ and ‘Contact’ page are also very bare. I’ll update them in the next few days or something…

So… What have I been up to? Not much. I have a job. I am a developer of sorts, working for Markit. I don’t really have a job title as such. I work on the database, write various scripts for things, generally make things behind the scenes better in one way or another. General Developer Dogsbody could be my title I suppose. I guess I am a fairly small cog in the grand scheme of things there, but have you ever tried removing the small cog? Sorry, that sounds horribly arrogant but I like to think I’m doing something important, even if it doesnt often relate directly to the products. Oh, I also wangled Sofian (friend from my course at Manchester) a job here! It’s almost like I’m back at uni. But I’m not in Manchester, work a lot more, have more money and less holiday.

Anyway, apart from work I have also been failing to take photographs (severe lack of inspiration), started singing lessons (just because), and generally pondering life. I have a few projects on the go. Opuscopus.com is almost ready to go live, Snowplease is in the making (more on that sometime later), and I’ll keep tweaking this site.

There are many other new things, and not so new things with me. I’m still thinking about exactly what I will and won’t talk about on this blog. I probably won’t ever decide, so it will just be a constant (or very sparodic) stream of mostly uninteresting crap. I’ll appologise for this now to save me the trouble later. Sorry. I doubt many people read it anyway so I’m not sure why I’m worrying.

Right. It’s late, I have work tomorrow, and need to catch up on some beauty sleep. Goodnight.

Yeh, another couple of months without posting. But i have a valid excuse. Exams, and finishing my degree. I got a 2:1 by the way. For all americans who dont understand the british university system, that’s pretty good.

I have also started redesigning this blog. It’s not finished yet, and some things dont work (some links, the search bar), but it’s getting there. probably looks horrible in IE as well, but i’ll check that later on.

Ho hum.. what else is going on in my life… Well, phil and i went to NYC for a few days a week or so ago. Went to some sights, had some nice meals, went to see Coldplay at maddison square garden. Saw Jed and Kim, Anna, Ramona and Dan Drake (Dans a friend from uni, working in boston for OLPC at the moment, and the others i know from Long Lake Camp). So that was fun.

Right now i am living in Streatham with Ali, Kev and Phil, and also job hunting (do you work for a company with a software development dept of some kind? do they want to hire me? do YOU want to hire me? call me!).

That’s about it. I’ll be updating this more now. Keep reading.