I got the gig!

Come September, or maybe a little sooner, I will be a part-time HTML lecturer. Oh yes.

In the meantime, I have to become more than competent in Java, Frontpage and Dreamweaver. No mean feat, but perhaps, with the help of several "idiots Guides" I'll be up to the challenge.

Only problem is, I don't think I get paid for it, so I'm back to trying to find someone who'll actually pay me a living wage. I still need £150 a week to break even, but now things are getting frantic, with deadlines looming all over the place. I still don't know if we'll cope, but if just one thing goes right in my grand scheme, the rest of my plans will fall into place like a line of dominoes.

Until then, more sleepless nights number crunching, more gnawing fingernails wondering when that first domino will topple and more hoping that someone, just one person will give me an even break.

I've had it with working in pubs. I've worked in every good pub between here and Town - and a handful of the bad pubs and I can't be doing with that anymore. Also, the plain fact is that I just can't make any money out of pub work if I want to see anything of my family. Truth is, I could easily walk into an Assistant Manager's job, work 16 hours a day and have my name over the door in 18 months' time but I always said I wouldn't sell my soul for a job and somethng happened today while I wasn't here that meant I'm more certain than I was before that Charlie isn't ready to take on the responsibility she needs to. I could go for it and run any pub I wanted, but the price would be my family and that's way too high a price for far too little payout.

What I'm looking for is a simple, challenging, averagely powerful position that I can settle into and plug away at with no overspill into my social life. Tech support might be an option. I'm told schools are crying out for competent IT Support chaps, so that is going to be something I start looking into next week.

I still haven't put my stuff on Ebay, which is very slack of me. I've got three gigs of stuff downloading right now, which should be finished tomorrow evening, so I'll probably get it done then, in time to start the auctions around Saturday lunchtime. That should pay the deposit on the Holiday.

My targets for the year break down something like this: I need £3000 to put the Beast on the road and learn to drive, £3000 to clear all the debts we have completely and start the next financial year with a completely clean slate and something like £3000 to cover all the other little things like Holiday spending money, Birthdays, Christmas and all the little expenses that get littered throughout a normal year.

I'm so tempted to put a Paypal button somewhere, but begging ain't my style. I know this year is going to be hard graft, but the payoff is that next year we'll be £4000 better off, I don't have to work so hard, and we'll be a massive way further on towards my ultimate goal.

Of course things will go wrong, there'll be setbacks, but the way things are planned, that shouldn't be a problem. I'm good at dealing with eventualities, so once that single first step into a £10,000pa job is achieved, we'll be sailing.

I've overcome one problem today. I've now got some precious hardcopies of my CV (resume in yank speak), which is something that's been holding me back. Now I can hit the photocopier in the shop up the road and build up a big enough supply to mailshot a few places. I just need covering letters and the Yellow Pages. That again is something for next week.

Saturday is gonna be a bitch. I have to clear out the Living Room and lay some new carpet. If you could see the shit that's hiding behind the sofa right now, you'd appreciate what a mammoth task that actually is. But once that's done the rest should be child's play.

So anyway, that's the story of my mundane little life. A little stream of consciousness outpouring early on a Friday morning. Now I have to put the rubbish out, relight the Central Heating boiler and put some clothes on to wash. Then, maybe 5:30 this morning, I might be able to get my head down for a couple of hour's sleep before the school run and a day of grocery shopping.

God, I wish I had an interesting life...