Different precipitation(s)

The weather in North Cork has changed significantly. The temperature has risen (according to the thermometer), but it feels much colder! Yesterday we had rain and just a little sleet. Today it seems to be rain only.

The birds (large and small) seem to be less active today. There was one crow perched on the ridge of the garage roof, but even he is gone. There is no sign of the small birds on the patio. I'm going to check the bird-feeders in the front garden and then leave a handful of seeds on the patio. Perhaps the birds have eaten all the seeds that were there (there's no point in them visiting a restaurant that doesn't have anything on the menu!). And as if to taunt me, a robin has appeared!

More on ice: as a lubricant and as an adhesive

It's now St Stephen's Day (26th December or "Boxing Day" England). Christmas night was very cold here in Ireland. The thermometer in my car indicated -7 degrees Celcius, and the one associated with the house (which has a rather sheltered external sensor) said -5. Whichever way you look at it, that's darned cold.

Although we had no snow falling, Christmas day started out "white". Then the air temperature started to rise and the rain started to fall, softening and washing a way most of the snow that was lying on the ground. Unfortunately the ground temperature did not rise that much, and in places the rain turned into sheets of ice, making any movement outside potentially hazardous. My mother-in-law (who lives a few miles away) reported that it took her nearly one and a half hours to return the 3 or so miles from Mass because during the service the roads had become to treacherous.

Today we woke to find that it had rained again in the night and that the drive and any paths around our house were covered with a thin film of ice. This is bad enough where the ice is visible and appears slick. In places like that, the need for caution is obvious. Much worse are the places where the ground appears to be clear of ice but is in face very slippery. Conditions under foot could reasonably be described as "treacherous". A further surprise awaited me when I tried to open the garage door (roller shutter), to bring some peat briquettes in for the fire. The door was completely stuck! Once I had freed it (with the help of a kettle of boiling water), I found that the rubber seal at the base had been stuck to the ground by a film of ice (and only for a foot or so of its length. It just shows how strong ice is).

In conclusion; it's nasty outside, it's warm inside, I'm staying put for the rest of the day!

Ice Crystals

It's still cold here. The sun is shining and sky is clear, except for a few wispy high-altitude clouds, and is that pale blue colour I associate with intense cold.

While digging coal from the bunker earlier this morning I noticed the snow had changed overnight. I can see where moisture has condensed direct from the air and extended the crystals, froming little whiskers, some a couple of millimetres long. It's very pretty to look at close up, and gives the snow a sort of "knobbly" appearance from a distance.

When on a walk down to the village a little later I started thinking about "why does traffic turn snow to slush?" (assuming no use of salt). There seem to be two candidate explanations:

1. The traffic gives energy to the snow, raising its temperature briefly,
2. Increased pressure decreases the freezing point of water. This is sometimes demonstrated by the "wire passing through the block of ice" experiment, and is given as the explanation for why ice skates glide over the surface of the ice so well (but there is some debate about whether this is in fact correct).

I doubt I will bother to do the sums over Christmas.

Birds

I'm sitting in my usual (warm) spot, looking out of the patio windows. It's amazing how much separation double-glazing can create between us and the outside world. According to the thermometer, the inside temperature is +18.5 Celcius (which is ok, but not warm for living space) and the outside temperature is -1.5 Celcius (which is probably considered tropical in some parts of the world, but I think is darned cold). That means there is a 20 degrees Celcius temperature difference across two panes of glass and the intervening 1 cm of dry air, or whatever it is. I've just reached out to touch the window. The glass is cold, but not expecially so.

There has been no new snow for the last couple of days, though I thought I saw some flakes falling a few minutes ago. There has certainly been no thaw! The air temperature has been around zero and the snow has remained but it has now become a crisp crust which covers almost every surface.

We feed the wild birds in our garden. It is quite surprising how much they consume. I can almost see the level of seeds and peanuts falling in the bird feeders we have suspended from a tree-branch in our front garden. I remember reading somewhere that a small bird (sparrow or similar) can lose a significant part of its body mass in one winter night, so they need a substantial input of food to sustain themselves. One of my daughters decided it would be a good idea to scatter a handful of seeds and nuts on the patio. I have been watching the birds gathering them up. I'm not sufficiently knowledgable that I can identify them all, but I have seen a robin, several sparrows and two or three other different species, not counting the two varieties of crow, who are reluctant to approach the house. The birds are so confident that they will come to within inches of the window. They make an entertaining spectacle.

Winter evening, and a book review of "Flow"

It's evening and I'm taking a step towards making regular updates to this blog. If I succeed then this will be a public part of regular journal writing and "reflection", all part of my new life. Wish me luck!

The evening meal is over and my family are sitting around, each doing their own activities: two reading, one drawing a cartoon strip and one (me) writing a journal (this). The television is chattering away in the corner, providing background noise, but otherwise being ignored. The fire is glowing warmly in the grate. For those of you who are not familiar with it, the smell of burning peat is particularly evocative.

This morning I walked down to the village again. I decided to exercise a pair of boots I haven't used for several years. These are heavy leather boots, as opposed to the light canvas ones I have grown used to using. At first they felt rather stiff, but as time passed they became more supple. I think I need an extra pair of socks though. The winter weather has made the wild birds bold. On my way to the village I saw two robins and two wrens, all of which came within an arm's length.

I've spent some of the day "re-making connections". I've sent out several notes and updated stuff in Facebook and LinkedIn. I suppose I should get in the habit of doing this regularly.

And finally the "book review" ("Flow"). I'm in the process of reading this. For anyone (like me) interested in psychology, and particularly "Positive Psychology", this is a really interesting book. The blurb on the cover over-sells it a bit - "The classic work on how to achieve happiness", and makes it sound like snake oil. It isn't like that at all. "Flow" is a state of mind achieved when I am giving my complete attention to an activity and the challenges it presents are well matched to my skills. This state is associated with happiness and personal growth. The author describes the state, why it is desirable and activities (some of which might be surprising) which can be used to bring it about. It's an accessible mix of academic and popular writing.

Oh dear! Christmas came early for the turkey!

I live in rural Ireland and we had snow last night. Today was bright and fresh, so I went for a walk down to the village before lunch. The road conditions are very slippery. The minor roads here have not been gritted at all and in places are covered with ice. On my return trip I was met by a surprising sight, a 50 or so yards short of my home.

As I came round a bend, and approached a dip in the road, I could see two large pick-ups at the side of the road, both with hazard lights flashing. I assumed (rightly) that there had been some kind of incident, but I couldn't have guessed what I would find. As I got closer I could see several crates in the road, so I thought that perhaps one of the pick-ups had shed its load. When got to the actual scene I found something rather different. Between the two pick-ups, and still attached to the front one, was a small horse-box, lying on its side. The horse-box had jack-knifed. Had the pick-up been a lighter vehicle, I expect it would have been turned over as well.

The crates were the load which had been being carried in the horse-box - live turkeys for Christmas, on their way to slaughter. As you can imagine, being upended like that had not been a good experience for the turkeys! Some of the turkeys were alive and unharmed but looking a bit puzzled, some were dead and some were injured. The people in the pick-ups were in the process of separating the living from the dead and dispatching the seriously injured at the side of the road. Everything was under control, even if the scene was a bit chaotic. Fortunately nobody seems to have been injured. I don't know how they are going to right the horse-box, but I'll check on progress a bit later.

All in all, not a nice experience for the turkeys, and not a good start to the Christmas period for those involved... and my wife has already ordered and paid for our turkey!
---
And a brief update on Christmas Eve:
This even made it into the local press. The Corkman (Wednesday December 23rd, 2009) has an item "Turkeys killed" on page 2. The story says there were "at least 40 turkeys in the trailer" and a Garda (Irish Police) spokesman is quoted as saying "The rest of the turkeys were fine, but four didn't make it". I'm disappointed that he didn't say that the rest were on the critical list, and not expected to survive the week. Unfortunately the story didn't make the front page, or a mention online! I suppose the editor was using it as "filler" (or maybe that should be "stuffing").

Planning changes - and a white field of view

It's happened at last. The end is in sight. I can see the objective (metaphorically) but I can't see that far into the distance (literally).

I'm writing this looking out of my patio doors across the garden in the direction of the other side of the valley. The ground is covered with a light dusting of snow (not more than half-an-inch or 1 cm) and there some fog which limits visibility to 100 yards or so. Sometimes in the fog I can see the ghosts or shadows of trees. According to the digital thermometer, the temperature outside is just below freezing. I slightly distrust an instrument which declares "-0.5 degrees C", but I'm sure it's right, at least within the limits of its own accuracy and the location of the sensor.

I'm now in Ireland and planning to remain here. I have been persuaded to retire from full-time employment, so there is no longer any real need to base myself in the UK. I need to return there in the New Year to tidy up some "loose ends" but after that I will be in Ireland (unless of course I decide to travel elsewhere! ;-) ). The tidying up will be very literal and practical. I have a house which I have effectively moved out of, but which still contains remnants of my possessions, and just plain junk.

The prospect of impending "retirement" is both challenging and liberating. Challenging; because it represents a major change in my life, and a change in income. I shall have to watch the pennies for a while. Liberating; because I have exchanged money for time, less money (or less certain money) but the freedom to use time as I choose. The question I'm working with, is: "What to do next?". As if as a omen, the fog has cleared, and I can see the other side of the valley. The sky is blue, even if a little snow is falling. Somehow everything looks brighter. A plain white canvas on which to write or draw something new!

Beltanes cheer!

Here I am sitting in an office in Central London taking a pause from a busy day. I have a lot that I want to finish today. I got presented with the challenge of a job which was started late, but the customer still wants to finish on time. I'm making progress, but the results are not going to be all that pretty.

Outside the sun is shining, and I am really looking forward to some things I'm going to do over the weekend. Wish me luck!

Everything changes: It only hurts when I laugh (or cough or sneeze)!

Oh dear woe is me (but it is funny, providing you are not me). For several years I have had what my doctor describes as an "umbilical hernia". It hasn't troubled me, and apart from making me take care when doing certain things it hasn't inconvenienced me that much.

I've got a slight cold and yesterday I sneezed (loudly). Anyone who knows me, knows that I sneeze very loudly, almost violently. It's something I can do nothing about, and which I seem to have inherited from my Father (who also sneezed loudly). Anyway, one sneeze seems to have undone years of care - now I'm in pain, and after a sleepless night, I visited the doctor today. "I'm afraid you need surgery", he said; "nothing to worry about", he reassured me. Well, I am reassured, I'm not worried, but I am in a little discomfort, and waiting for a secretary to ring me back about an appointment with a specialist. All because of one sneeze!
Regarding the title; it hurts all the time, but it hurts more when I laugh, or cough or sneeze.

Focus, focus, focus...

I'm thinking about two things right now:

• How do I focus on finishing the report I'm writing?
• How do I get a client to focus of the issue we are trying to address, while showing empathy and avoiding trying to dominate the conversation? (they keep on rambling off in other directions).

Must go and do that &*()ed report!

Rev Nettleton, not "Down a silver mine"

A little while ago I wrote about "Minor Miracles". I followed up with a little more research in the same place and found this from the clergyman I'm interested in:

THE Rev. Joseph Nettleton recently addressed a meeting of scholars on missions in Fiji, and described one of the chiefs who had seventy or eighty wives. The chairman catechised the children, and asked how many wives a man ought to have. " One, sir," was the ready answer. " Now," said he, " I always teaoh youto give a Scripture reason for all your answers. Can you give me any text to show that a manought only to have one wife?" There was a long pause, and a little boy stretched out his hand. " Well, my boy, I thought some one could give a passage of Scripture. What is it !""Please, sir, ' No man can serve two masters.' "

(The Brisbane Courier, Saturday 23 March 1878, p3)

Now I wouldn't call that the funniest thing I've ever read (or even heard from the pulpit), but there is something touching about reading something like that which is over 130 years old.

By the way, because of an accident in the way the text has been subdivided, the story about Nettleton is attached at the bottom of another unrelated piece called "Down a silver mine"! (the other article is interesting, but nothing to do with my project)

Helping someone with creativity

I have an interesting hypnotherapy commission. The client (can hardly call them "patient" in this context) is a creative person who would like to be more successful at bringing the things he conceives to a successful conclusion. I think you might say that he wants to reinforce the "completer finisher" aspect of his personality. This should be an interesting challenge. In particular defining the "goal" in useful terms may be difficult.

How to assess without any criteria

Here's an interesting little challenge I've been presented with:

• Imagine someone has found they have two computer systems which do very similar things (how they got into that situation is too long a story to relate here)
• They would like to rationalise this into one system (for the obvious economic reasons)
• Let's say they assume that they want to keep "System B", because it seems to have more function
• However they want to understand what they might lose (or have to redevelop) by moving from "System A" to "System B".
• Neither "System A" nor "System B" have formally documented requirements, but both have long lists of Features (should that be "Feechurs"?)
• Of course, because the systems were created independently, the terminology they use is different.
• And of course the assessment has to be done quickly!

The outline of the method I've come up with is:

• Develop a simple model that can be used to describe both systems
• Use the components of the model the classify the high-level features of "System A" (the system we expect to remove)
• Ask the question "why do we have this feature?" this gives us a "Reason or Purpose" (which becomes a proxy Requirement). System1-Feature --> Reason-or-Purpose
• For the Reason-or-Purpose, ask the question "what feature in System 2 addresses this need?"
• This should identify the equivalent features, and any gaps (efficiently?), providing the list of Features is reasonably complete
• Which will then identify whether the move is a good idea and what changes are needed.

It's still going to be an interesting problem.

On call, waiting for the phone to ring

My current situation is "betwixt and between". One task has come to an end a little sooner than anyone involved expected (so I'm looking for other opportunities). Another project is coming to a close. I'm not directly involved, but I've been asked to remain available, just in case they want me for something. This is a minor problem, because it means that I should (and will) avoid driving anywhere.
While I've been waiting I've re-typed and edited a couple of hypnotherapy scripts. The process was good for me because I surprised myself by remembering substantial parts without reading them (the good old unconscious mind doing its stuff). It was also interesting to review the structure of the scripts and notice how the suggestions they convey are built up, repeated and presented in different ways. One demonstrated some interesting use of; past, present and future which I had not noticed before.
And now, having had a brief rest and looked out of the window for a few minutes, I'm going to get on with something else.

Uncertainty - one of the products of the "Credit Crunch"

I'm not going to ramble on about how tough things are. I'm probably better equipped than most to weather the current economic storm, but am facing a minor problem which gives me a little sympathy for those who are more vulnerable than I am.

In my "day job" we were engaged by a Customer to do some work, which we were assured they wanted done by the end of March ("to use this year's budget", does that sound familiar?). Anyway, work being scarce, we set about it with a will. Now, we are part way through (but with nothing tangible "delivered") and the customer is delaying making decisions. They are satisfied with what has been done so far, but are taking a very long time to authorise the next step. The problem is, this means we have people idle, or shortly to be idle, and we're all wondering whether we should be looking for other work. Naturally most of us are. I hope the situation reaches a resolution soon, and certainly before we reach a point where I suddenly have two jobs! I've got to sympathise with the Customer as well. Things aren't easy for them either.

Transference and Counter-transference

I've just been writing a few lines about the above subjects in response to some training questions. I'm not going to repeat what I wrote here but "it makes you think, doesn't it?". In this case what it makes me think about is, the way, we react to people:

• Based not on what they are, but on who they remind us of,
• Based on the role we've put them in,
• Based on the way we think they are acting towards us, or the way we expect them to act.

The terminology used to describe these phenomena can be confusing, and downright strange, but there is no doubt in my mind that they partly explain some behaviour I have seen in myself and others.

My name is "Prawo Jazdy"?

I keep on meaning to fill in this blog, and then I forget, but I just couldn't resist commenting on this news story from the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7899171.stm?lss

OK, it's harmless, and amusing, but it also prompted some more serious thoughts.

The first, oblique one, was the scene at the end of the film "Spartacus" where all the captured slaves shout out, one after another "I'm Spartacus!" in order to show solidarity with the real Spartacus.

The second, is that although it is tempting to poke fun at the Garda, we should remember that Policemen are not recruited on the basis of linguistic ability. The words really don't look like anything recognisable in English or Irish, so if you have two people who don't speak a common language trying to communicate using something written down, then misunderstandings will occur. And to make matters worse, in this case the Garda aren't really that interested in the details of the driver, and the driver isn't really that interested in being identified.

The problem is made worse, because people from Western Europe have a sort of word-blindness for things written in Eastern European languages (even if they are written in Roman script).

Third, this got me thinking: with the global nature of communication (where are you, dear reader?), we have to be careful about the assumptions we may make when reading what someone else has written. "Driving License" becomes "Prawo Jazdy" and goodness only knows what it becomes if it is written in Cyrillic (Russian Script - see how twitchy one can get!) or, even more extreme, something Asian, like Chinese.

There is an English saying "It's all Greek to me", meaning "It makes no sense to me". This is all very well, but just look at it from the point of view of a "Greek"!