Dom Barnes’s Blog

So ever since the news came out at work about there being redundancies, the office has been really quiet. Consultants and IFA’s alike are staying clear of the office, only coming in when they really have to. And work wise, its been dead. So much so that I have spend a large portion of the last three days sitting around staring at my empty inbox and todo list seeing that there is nothing I can do right that moment.

So what did I do today? Well besides checking my account to see that I had been paid, I read some of Getting Things Done by David Allen. I also looked on Flickr and on some blogs for Moleskine ideas.

I got my first Moleskine at Christmas and haven’t actually done anything with it yet. But today I started on that. I printed out  a handy year planner, as well as setting up some pages. To keep in line with GTD ideas, I’ve got my Next Actions page, Someday/Maybe lists, as well as a Douglas Furs page where I have made some notes about the band. Have a look at the photos below.

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I went to ikea the other day and bought this:

I may have mentioned iBoughtAMac.com - Its a website run by Brent. Well he had a daughter recently, Cadie Spore (lovely name) and it looks like she’s going to be a geek baby. Why is this important? Well because you can get some fantastic onesie’s from his shop at CafePress. If I had a kid, or was going to, I would be buying about 10 of these. They are great. I love the TCP/IP, Beta, and I’m Cute.So if you’re having a kid, like Merlin Mann, and Alex Lindsay did recently, then head on over and buy a few of these. I know I will be when that time comes. iBoughtAMac at CafePress 

I had planned to do this for a while, and the other day I went for it and bought myself a domain.

I haven’t had my own site since I 199-something and I built a very web 0.5 site and hosted it on Freeserve’s space. Now I have my own dot-com domain and hosting space thanks to GoDaddy. I’m in the process of building the site (still stuck on picking a base wordpress theme) but once thats finished and uploaded, I’ll be loading all the content onto it.

I’ll be moving all this stuff over there and will cease to update this blog. There is no point running two duplicates after all.

For now, as I said I need to find a good wordpress theme to start with. If you want to help I’d welcome the assistance.
I’m looking for a two column theme, two tone, black background with a light back to the blog content with rounded border edges, a section for a header image, a date button/box on blog post titles, a button style background on those titles, and widget ready.

Not too much is it? I also need a header logo. I am not much of a designer really, and don’t have the software for it (should’ve bought the MacHeist bundle - support isn’t an issue as I never ask for it) but since this is often a tech-themed blog something like that, with my name in it or the domain name.
I like Brent’s blog over at iBoughtAMac.com and DaringFireball.net. I like the really simple designs, nothing to busy.

So if you fancy helping out with design, or can point me towards some good themes, then it would be grately apprecaited, of course with adequate publicity. drop me an email. My address is on the right in the About section.

Other than that, look out for the new website launch hopefully not too far away.

So back at the start of January, I wrote about my mini-365 project, and we’ve now gone past the 1 month banner. So check out the flickr set for the full photos.

You’ll be able to see the ever changing hair length, and notice when I got my hair cut, and the varying facial hair choices I make. Its fun to see (at least to me)

Having done it this far, someone said why not carry on. So I’ve decided to continue and do this, but not every day, (partly because I forget), but I’ll try and do one or two a week. I also want to start a new project.

I think that my next photo project will be the home. I plan to take photos of something in my house, a bit odd or interesting, for 30 days. So check out the new flickr set here to see them as the get added.

Leave me your thoughts on the photos or here on the blog.

Today I received a bit of bad news. My company has decided to close all its sales offices in the UK, and centralise the work in Manchester. This, as you can guess from the title, means bad news for me. My office, along with a few more from around the country will be closing in the next few months. We’ve entered a consultation period at the moment, and that will finish on 5th March. Then notice periods will be issued, or at least begin to be issued.

For me, this means that I will get my 1 month notice either in March or April. During that time, we’ll have to pass on our group schemes to Manchester as they all get centralised up there. And then we will probably have to clear out the office, so relocate files, remove the literature supplies we have, the desks, computers, switches and servers, phones, chairs, and everything else. Everyone else in the office is in the same boat, so we’ll all be looking for new jobs.

I guess I’m in a slightly better position as I’m already looking for new jobs in IT. But everyone else will have to adjust to the fact that we’re being fired, and then get into job searching mode.

In terms of redundancy pay, since I’ve been there for 19 months, I should get about 5 weeks pay, which isn’t fab, but its better than nothing and it should tide me over till I can get another job.

In the mean time, I’m sure business will dry up, and the attitude in the office will be low. No one is going to have the spirit to work particularly hard, which will make things more difficult.

So over the next few months I’ll be blogging a bit more about my job, and keeping you reader(s) up to date with the comings and goings of my job. And of course my hunt for a new job. For now, I’m just dealing with it, and thinking about my trip to Athens that I will probably never get.