What happens

I’m back in Glasgow for a few days to pack up my things and prepare for the move to Dumfries and Galloway where I will start work at The Green House, the main offices of Natural Power (See more on The Green House itself at this link.) My title there will be marketing assistant though my role will focus a good deal on internal communications (the company is rapidly expanding and we need to keep track of what everyone is doing in the several offices worldwide). I’ll also produce design and layout work (something I’ve been wanting to do more of) as well as put those cinema and video production skills back into play.
We mostly consult on the design and construction of on and offshore windfarms (the company is well respected and has a 100% success rate for planning acceptance; this is from a combination of careful sighting and a good ethos for working with communities where farms are proposed). They do everything from small sites of a couple turbines to very large offshore installations (such as a 1100 MW site in Ireland that will provide 10% of the country’s electricity).

This will be a big change for me after ten years sporadic freelance work; however, If I’m to take a “proper job”, I’m glad it’s at a place such as this. I think energy is the topic of the moment (how it’s produced, used and abused). I’m looking forward into getting into the thick of it with a group of people who are at the forefront of renewable energy (that’s not an attempt at marketing spin, they really do good stuff). The friend who originally told me about Natural Power said this is one of the best working environments she has encountered (she was working as a headhunter for the renewables sector). These are the “bright green” people who are changing the face of “corporate society”.

Much much more to follow.

New Job

Sorry for the long absence here; between finishing up my dissertation, having visitors afterward and starting a new job, I’ve not had much time to compose weblog entries.
I’ve started a job at Natural Power (see: www.naturalpower.com) in Dumfries and Galloway in southern Scotland. Right now I’m in Malvern in England at our office here for about two weeks of training and rope learning (this morning I had a technical orientation to ZephIR, our laser wind measurement device; it’s really keen but involves the measurement of particles and something about the Doppler Effect).

I’ll write much more on all this later!

Seems logical

I’ve just had a new visa issued from the Home Office. My previous visa was issued in Prague; the passport itself was issued in Miami. This visa is from—Vulcan. Place of Issue: Vulcan 2. That would seem to considerably extend the boundaries of my residential options!
For everyone wondering what I’m doing; I’m in the final stages of finishing my dissertation—trying to plough right on through and get a complete draft finished in the next few days so it can sit for a bit and I can revise before submitting it on 8 September. I’m slightly miffed with my supervisor as he is off in France somewhere and apparently won’t be able to read and comment on a draft before I turn in the final copy. Update: he returned and made comments; I’m now much less miffed.

As a complete aside; I just walked from town back in to the West End of Glasgow. On the way two fellows passed me, turned, looked about, and crossed the street. I noted how—Glaswegian they looked. There was a haggard leanness to them; both looked ill-nourished and pale. Their bodies had the look of men overwrought by too much drink and smoke and I could see the tension in their shoulders. They moved with a permanent stoop as if they are constantly crouched down waiting for a blow. Though, in many ways, this is a great city at ease with itself; there is a whole “segment of society” that desperately needs healing.

Scotch around the world

I went to a community ceilidh on Saturday evening in the Highlands (to celebrate the opening of the new community hall in Arnisdale). It was good fun, food, and music (there was plenty of fast whirling dancing which I was not adventurous enough to get in on).
To raise funds for the community there was a raffle. I bought a ticket and won (of all things) a little bottle of scotch whisky and a flask. It’s packaged in a cardboard and plastic box; the back label states, “Whisky product of Scotland, Hip flask and funnel product of China, Bottled in the UK, Packed in China.” So…this little bottle of whisky was made in Scotland, then shipped to China and packaged, then shipped back to Scotland to be given to me in a village one-hundred miles from its origin. It was shipped around the world and back to go 100 miles! That is seriously screwed up.

Vegetable Provinces

One of the great joys of research archaic topics is the wonderful language one unearths. I just read this:
bq. And certainly if we observe the special and peculiar accommodation and adaptation of Man, to the regiment and ordering of this lower World, we shall have reason, even without Revelation, to conclude that this was one End of the Creation of Man, to be the Vice-gerent of Almighty God, in the subordinate Regiment especially of the Animal and Vegetable Provinces.

Interviews

I had a job interview last week (rather suddenly; I am looking but was not expecting to start interviewing this early. It’s in a very keen energy consulting company; I’ll know in the incoming week whether I’ve the position).
I’m not entirely sure what it was; but there seems to be a marked difference in the tone of interviews here (in Scotland). While it was demanding on a professional level (it took me some time to complete the application; for the interview, I was expected to make a presentation and do some on the spot writing), it was more significantly focused on what kind of person I am rather than my technical qualifications. I wonder if there is a shift from skills focus to something more essential to who people are and how they interact with others. Part of it may be this company in particular; they have an open organisational ethos (not especially hierarchical) and some of it may just be the position I’ve applied for (which would involve working day to day with internal and external communications).

It is something I would like to explore a bit more (If I get the position, I’d like to sit down with the HR manager and discuss it). As we become more interchangeable in technical skills (e.g. many people are able to use similar software, etc.) there is some fear that people themselves will become interchangeable. However, I dare say that it’s just the opposite; as technology advances, the people and their personalities will be able to manifest themselves more and become integral parts of the whole.

Saving Paper

I have recently devised an innovative way of saving printer paper—make printing documents a convoluted involved process! Earlier this year I salvaged an old Apple Laser printer from the bin at school; the test page said it had printed only a bit over 7000 pages (which is nothing for a laser printer). However, it uses the old AppleTalk networking standard which is incompatible with my shiny new laptop. So, it sat patiently under a table in my room biding the time till its re-awakening. Last week I spotted a (truly ancient) Macintosh in the bin at school and brought it home. I plugged it in and it booted right up with the happy Mac sound (its 18 years! old and I found it sitting out in the rain; the last time a file was modified on it was 1996). But it connects right up to the printer and everything works in harmony now; the only hitch in the system is that I have to convert the document I want to print into a .pdf, save as a raw PostScript file in Adobe Acrobat, put it on a floppy disk, open it in the old computer and print it from there. I think this will ensure that I consider carefully what I want to print before doing so. But, I saved some working stuff from the landfill and got a decent laser printing set-up for free (and the old computer is so quaint looking sitting here by the desk—I might just write some of my dissertation on it’s tiny little black and white screen—or, no, that would not be such a great thing on second thought).