Meet the new boss, same as the old boss....

Wow, what a couple of weeks it's been... Busy would be an understatement. A couple of weeks ago, I moved into my new place, so a lot of time has been spent getting things together to make the house into a home (Including a lot of self-assembly items - My hands still have the cuts and bruises!). Things are finally coming together, and I have a sofa/couch turning up tomorrow which will be another step closer to completing the jigsaw.

On the 22nd, I had to travel to London to meet my wife at Heathrow. Waiting for what seemed like forever while she went through customs and getting her baggage was nearly a soul-destroying experience, but was more than made up for by finally getting to see her again.. And for good this time. The past week has consisted almost solely of the two of us spending every waking (and sleeping) second together, I don't think we've been more than a few feet apart at any one time. Although the magnitude of the situation still hasn't really sunk in for either of us yet, I really can't describe how happy I am right now - There simply isn't a word for how being around Tara day in, day out makes me feel, it really is the best.

Finally, on the big news front, I quit HEXUS a couple of weeks ago. With my wife here, I don't want to spend long evenings when I should be with her slaving over editorial, and it was pretty clear that the HEXUS job would involve a lot of that. Secondly, I quickly realised that I wouldn't be able to support myself and Tara properly financially from working for them full-time. Thus, a couple of quick phone calls to my former boss, and I was soon invited back to work where I was before at better pay and on some more exciting new projects. I start back there a couple of weeks from now, which hopefully gives me chance to finish all my outstanding HEXUS work and spend some more time with my wife to boot! I'm kind of sad in some ways that reviewing/writing full-time didn't work out, and I had great fun getting to try out the hardware I did, but my private life and family is way more important than satiating the geek in me. It's something I'd try again though, but I think the circumstances would have to be hugely different to those I encountered this time around. Maybe if I win the lottery I'll give it another crack on my own terms... :oP

At the end of last week I finally got broadband back into my life, as my 1Mbit service was transferred to my new address. I'm very tempted to move up to the 2Mb feed available at this new property, but I'm holding out for the time being. This morning a whole load of 802.11g kit that I'd ordered turned up, so today so far has mainly involved me getting that all set up... I'm done now, and I have to say that it feels good to have a completely wires-free 54Mbps network. Everything was beautifully easy to set up, and all in all it took me no time at all to get to exactly where I wanted to be network topology-wise. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of downloading to catch up on... ;o)

I hold in my hand....

...the key to our bungalow. Yep, I got everything finalised today, and it's now mine to keep. Well, rent, but don't spoil the imagery. ;o) I also have the water, gas and electricity connected, so all that's left for me to do now is get the phone line connected and sorted, followed by an ADSL link up and running, and I'm 100% sorted. Well, apart from all the furniture and the like I need.

It's been a busy time in the HEXUS department too, with exciting things coming my way almost as quickly as I can deal with them. Today saw the release of my preview of Corsair's new RAM, which is pretty darn cool I must say, and also released (sort of, it isn't on the front page but got linked to elsewhere, God knows how that happened) was my look at Gigabyte's 3D1 video card - SLI, but on a single board... I don't need to explain to you why that's cool I'm sure. ;o) Still plenty of interesting things in the pipeline too, so I don't think I'll be getting bored any time soon.

Aside from that, I'm now counting down the days until I get to pick my wife up on Heathrow on the 22nd... Life is going to start getting very different from here on it, but in the best way possible.

I have a house!!

Well, almost.... The deal is all but done, I just have to stump up exorbitent amounts of rent now and it's all mine!!

All of that should be sorted by this time next week, still leaving plenty of time until my wife arrives on the 22nd. After all, I only still have to sort out gas, water, electricity, phone lines, broadband, furniture.....

There are other exciting things in the pipeline too, but I'm not going to talk about those yet. :oP