Final week of first aid course

I passed my first aid course, during the assessment I got marked down slightly for not talking to someone whose uncoincious, but from my POV didn’t seem to be a high priority. Mostly this week was just on what happens with multiple injuries.

I spent most the afternoon enjoying the last of the sun in Leeds and my feet hurt afterwards.

Today when I gave my temporary certificate to the HR bloke at work he mentioned he was thinking of getting an AED. Bit nervous about my pratical driving test, but loads of idiots can pass it, it shouldn’t be that difficult.

Some misc stuff

I seem to have suspended juggling for a while, it just doesn’t seem to happen. Will probably go back to it soon. My back has been painful today (probably due to all the kneeling yesterday and chest compressions (I really wouldn’t like to have RSI in my hands with that)). The sunburn from last tuesday is still really quite bad.

I seem to be spending most of my life outside work trying to catch up with myself, the pots the laundry and never seem to do much else. I’m also trying to go to bed earlier since I’ve been rather tired. I tried going off caffine for a few weeks, seemed to improve things, had my first cup of tea in weeks today.

Decided to change my theme for the blog for a little while, I really should get around to putting a photo up. I don’t really like photos of me. I’m once again doing the “What the hell should I do with my hair” question, I never know, eventually I just walk into a hairdresser and say “Do something with this”. To be honest, I want to go shorter, something I haven’t tried in a while.

I often feel that I’ve done nothing interesting in my life, unlike most people I don’t have juicy stories to tell. I never did really stupid/interesting things at Uni.

Third week of first aid (Rescucitation and CPR)

This time we did rescucitation and CPR, to be honest I felt it was a bit rushed, I didn’t drill it enough to make sure I got every bit of it down, I had a little bit of trouble getting a proper seal around the dummies mouth, if that is a dummy or not who knows. They also made it easier as nobody can take pulses so if you see someone not breathing you do CPR no matter what their pulse is like.

It was interesting to get a semidecent explination of what a defribrilator does (pauses the heart and gets it to ‘reboot’ for want of a better word) and when your flatline, it does nothing. We also got told that if you have a AED (Automated External Defib) around use it, even if you aren’t trained as the things will detected if the casualty actually needs shock (either they don’t, or their dead)

Coming out… again

Back in my good old college days I was fully out, but then during my uni days I seemed to walk back in, except for one or two people. Then at my last job, I didn’t come out at all and I still haven’t done it.

Every time the conversation comes around to that aspect of life I freeze up, something inside me doesn’t want to let it out, even with me wanting to all the time. Even when the conversation was about someone else in the company being gay (male) I still couldn’t say anything.

I will eventually get around to it, it seems hard to slip into conversation. But on here I am out again.

Cucumber sandwiches

Today I went down to London, had lunch at parliament thanks to my dads MP. Interesting tofu burger. Then on to the main event a garden party in the palace.  The nibbles were interesting and I found out that cucumber sandwiches mostly taste of fennel. The deserts were nice. At 4 pm the queen came out and walked down the rows of people standing around gawking at her, I wouldn’t want to be her if that was a part of the job.

I felt strange with the various armed forces uniforms around, I’ve never really felt comfortable with the military and especially when pollice are carrying guns. My feet had already started to hurt before I had even left Leeds, when I walked in the front door my feet were screaming to get them off and I my shoulders have hurt for the last two days with sunburn

One thing about the iPhone battery life sucks noodle, it didn’t last till 5 hours today, but that might be because I’ve been using it a lot, but it does mean taking the charger with you on trips out thankfully the train I was on has charging sockets on the train.

I still am wondering about volunteering for St johns, I want to go further than the current course goes and I want to make sure I really know what to do, without having gaps in my knowledge. I don’t know what to do.

My driving practical test is on the 18th of August, I hope I don’t have to do reversing round a corner, I can do it, but probably not quite how they want it done.

Second week of first aid course

I’ve just finished the second day of four of the first aid at work course. I am a little surprised at the ordering they have chosen to use. They still haven’t done CPR, I would have thought it one of the first things done as it is used in nearly everything we have done at other points in the course. Today has been major bleeds, conditions such as seizures, hypogyclemia, asthma, allergic reactions and major burns (he still hasn’t gotten a promotion)

I think I want to do more after the course learning how to use an automatic definrilator. I sometimes wish I could take it a little further I have idly considered volunteering for St Johns. I also wonder if this current desire to learn more about first aid is connected to my desire when I was about 11-12 to become a vet.

I finally have o2 on my iPhone it is working rather well, except the battery life being rather poor lasting under a day on my current usage, the other strange thing is the maps thought I was in worksop when I was in the centre of Leeds and had a hard time convincing it I was really in Leeds.

Going to London tomorrow. I wonder if the iPhones battery will last the day especially since I’ll be watching movies when on the train.

Iphone 3G

I managed to Get my hands on an iPhone 3g and I am typing this on that. It works quite well but o2 haven’t set up the account on here yet so I am having to Use wifi.

It does ‘t feel like the normal mobile phone input I am managing to type on here reasonably quickly. I also quickly tried transcoding 2 minutes of BBC news 24 from freeview into mpeg 4 and it worked without a hitch, I shall include the settings on here. The transcode ran at 0.849% real time

ffmpeg -i $(INPUT) -f mp4 -vcodec mpeg4 -maxrate 1000k -b 700k -bufsize 4096k -g 300 -acodec aac -ab 192 -s 480×320 $(OUTPUT)

Two annoying things happened today first I misplaced my train ticket, second when I was in keighley I got on the wrong train and had to go to skipton instead of steeton and it took me far to long to get back and I was quite late for work.

Mythtv, lighter and more efficient

After about a month and a half of mythtv it still feels to me far big for what it needs to be, it’s nice having a web browser and all that in mythtv but the core of it isn’t mature yet. I still cannot get it to play perfectly without skipping frames once in a while, when I play the same transport stream using mplayer or xine it works fine. I’m not sure why.

Updates and Downdates

Coming off antidepressants is an interesting thing, at first I felt very little and it is now about 2 months since i’ve been completely off them, the only problem is I’m starting to feel anxious, more so than when I started the antidepressants. It almost feels like during the time I was on the drugs it released that part of me that usually kept the anxiety in check and I’ve lost some of the ability to control it.

But I want a proper solution that don’t involve drugs messing around with my brains neurochemistry, a lasting solution and I think the best way forward it to open up to people.

I sometimes think about seeing a shrink (I can never spell psychiatrist) but I find it hard enough opening up to people I trust, how can I open up to people I don’t?

I’m 26 and I’m still fighting my childhood demons.