Weeknotes 004
We’re really on the home stretch now, with four working days left at TPXimpact. I’m hoping that my last four days will be as relaxed as possible, wrapping up my time on my project, and saying some hard goodbyes to colleagues and friends.
I wanted to get down to London this week for some in person farewells but it’s been tricky to arrange around half term, a birthday and some other family stuff, so I’ll have to make the most of the Google Meet Goodbyes™.
Aside my project work my final task at TPX was set by Alex – to write a blog post reflecting on my time in leadership. I’m hoping it will be live before I leave (update: it’s live!), we settled on a listicle style ‘10 reflections’ and it almost wrote itself, compared with my usual experience writing blog posts which is proper ‘blood from a stone’ territory (the last blog post Alex asked me to write is still sat in drafts, hardly moved beyond initial thoughts).
I had 11 reflections at the end, and we had to cut one. ‘Take care leaning in’ got the chop, but it might be worth a blog post all of its own one day soon. I’m adding it to my backlog for some quiet time in the near future.
On Friday of this week I officially start my first contract, I’m not going into detail on what it is yet, as I’ve not cleared any of it with the client but it’s a a bit of hands on UX role, on a problem area that is a nice mix of different from the work I've done recently, but in a familiar subject area. And it’s not government, so the onboarding has been blissfully simple.
My last task before then is to source a new laptop, I’ve been waiting weeks now for Apple to announce the new line of M4 MacBook Pros, which will hopefully happen this week. Not because I am desperate to buy brand new, but because it will hopefully drop the prices on the used and refurbished models. I’ve been using a MacBook Air for the last few years, and while it’s mostly fine it really struggles with Illustrator and Photoshop, and I’m already spending a lot of time in both, so need something with a bit more oomph.
And that’s a month of weeknotes in the bag!
Watching
Now the nights are drawing in and its spooky season we’ve shifted gears a bit, right into seasonally appropriate fodder.
We watched 1408, a Steven King adaptation that seems to have passed everyone by, starring (and almost solely featuring) John Cusack. Cusack carries what could be a pretty dull and predictable horror thriller about a man determined to spend a night in a haunted hotel room. It was pretty fun, nicely scary but the ending was a mess, but wikipedia tells me there’s FOUR endings out there, which explains a lot.
We started Agatha All Along with the kids over on Disney+, which has received middling reviews, but I’ve absolutely loved it, it’s definitely the best Marvel show in recent memory, possibly the best Disney+ show this year. Definitely worth your time, especially if you enjoyed Wandavision.
Listening
Amyl and the Sniffers new album was released Friday and that’s been dominating my gym and dog walking playlist. It’s not quite grabbed me as a whole, but my listening habits tend to favour the familiar, and I can tell given time this will grow into a favourite. The opener, Jerkin’ is an absolute banger and the video (18+, only viewable on their website) is great fun.
