therolfefiles.com

Well I have finally been given admin rights on the Rolfe files so thought I would take advantage to make my first post.

As Nathan has said it’s been a really busy couple of weeks, with lots going on but there is now light at the end of the tunnel with the approaching European Adventure and only six, count ‘em, yes SIX days of work left! (can’t wait!)

We are off to dinner tonight to catch up with some friends, hard to believe it’s the last time we are probably going to see them unless they make it out to Australia. It’s a bit sad really, but trying to remain positive and think of all the exciting things coming up for Nathan and I such as moving back to Oz, meeting Nathan’s family, seeing my family and friends again, getting set up in our own home, finding new jobs and planning our wedding…..hopefully there will be lots of good times ahead.

Better sign off now – till next time………..

The last couple of weeks have been rather busy and stressful.  While this is the case we have been pretty productive, catching up with lots of people, crossing things off the list that we wanted to do in London and arranging things back home.

I have had an interview with the HR department for a web development job.  After that I was giving a programming test, which I passed, and I have been moved to the next stage of interviews which is a technical interview.  At this stage I am not too sure when that will happen but I would imagine in the next week or so. It definitely sounds like a good opportunity but we will just have to wait and see.

Work in London is majorly hectic.  I have been working on a stock management system that will be used by Three mobile across the world for the last 6 months.  I was hoping to have finished it before I left but no such luck due to various reasons. So now I am just cleaning up bits and pieces and starting to hand it over.

Back in Australia we have bought a car!  We started out by looking at an Astra or something like that but figured that we would probably end up replacing that within a year or so, so we ended up buying a BF XR6 Falcon.  It is a really nice looking car from the photos and should do us for a number of years!  It only has about 50,000kms on the clock and has been fully optioned, except the iPod cable. L A big thanks has to go out to all the people who made it happen, Lesley (Kelly’s mum for making phone calls, organising inspections, viewing the car etc), Wendy (who is garaging the car until we get back), Marion (for chauffeuring Lesley back to the airport) and Dad (for organising the bank to transfer the funds etc).  It was a big effort and we really appreciate it. Can’t wait to get home to drive it!

I think I have ran ove my iPod cable one to many times with my work chair.

So whats been happening? Well quiet a lot since my last rant about bike theft. So lets get to the details!

Holidays:
- Paris
- Amsterdam
- Dublin
- Prague
- Bath

Day trips:
- Oxford
- Stonehenge
- Brighton

Work:
I have acquired a new job in Egham as a Senior Developer (ASP.net) for a small web company called Fantastic Thinking, which obviously means I have left TLC. It was sad to say bye to some of the people but will keep in touch with them socially anyway. My leaving gift from the guys I worked with (and Kelly) was a Wii and Wii Fit. SCORE!!

Visitors:
We have had Kelly’s mum staying with us a while now and also her best friend came and visited.

Other highlights:
- Bought a BMW 525i
- Converted my old XBOX into a media centre and it is awesome (geeky I know)

So I have been doing a lot of SQL at work lately.  I have had the problem that has ended in some very ugly SQL.  Basically when someone calls us we create a record for this.  Some calls will get a sale value, when they are sales obviously.  So I needed to get a count of the calls and a total count of sales.  After speaking to our DBA of the time he said the only way was to create 2 queries and join them and use appropriate where clauses.

So being the DBA I took his advice.  After implementing all the stored procedures I found the following syntax which I am sure you all knew but thought I would share:

Select dbo.ContactLog.RedirectionDate, 103) AS Date,
COUNT(dbo. ContactLog.Calls) AS [TotalCalls],
Sum(case when SaleValue is not null then 1 else 0 end) as [ToatlSales]
from dbo.Contactlog
where Somewhere clause and Group by clause

Hopefully it helps someone to avoid the world of hurt I ended up in!  I am now busy making the SQL more logical and quicker.  I guess it is all a learning process but frustrating to have to revisit again!

You know you have lived/worked in the one place too long when the following happen:

- you know the exact sequence of traffic lights on your way to work

- the barista where you go knows your name and your coffee

- you know the voice of the person selling “The Big Issue” over your music

- you know one of the bar tenders at your local bar (admittedly he is one of Stuarts friends from SA but thats beside the point)

It really is turning into groundhog day for me. Ah well I will soon be on holidays back in Australia and you never know I might just stay

Let’s just do a quick run through my emails from the facilities department at my company from yesterday! I just included the subject because i am sure you don’t need the full details!

Time: 08:05

SVG – Stairwell Banister:

People have been ripping the banisters off the walls at one of our buildings. Not just once but multiple times in the last week.

Time: 09:18

Staff using the Floor and Sinks as Urinals at SVG:

Self explanatory.

Time 16:19

Re – TLH Ground Floor Gents Toilets:

Please be aware that somebody has put a whole load of toilet paper into one of the gents toilet bowls on the Ground Floor – TLH.

Self explanatory.

Time 04:33

Re – SVG 3rd Floor Gents Toilets:

I am sorry to report yet again that somebody has also blocked the 3^rd Floor Gents cubicle toilet bowl, with toilet paper at SVG.

Self explanatory again.

What a joke! It would seem I work in a company full of complete animals! I can’t imagine how these people live in their own houses! I think I need a new job! And SVG is not a shortening of savages. It is the name of one of our buildings.