Not quite a start I expected, but came down with a cold, gets worst than that though..
Category: Uncategorized
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I know I’ve been quiet
Its not deliberate… honest, just things have taken a change for the worst or better.
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Happy new year.. 2024 to 2025
I wrote this ahead of time, so it may well be about 7 days out of date and anything can change. So you are hopefully reading this on the 31st December 2024, that means…
Happy New Year
I hope!
So I’ll do this review thing, what happened?
- Got promoted to CO4 from CO3 in July 2024, that was a really unexpected thing to happen. I failed my first CO4 interview but I was suffering at the time and so I was expecting it.
- Learnt another trade at work. I was previously in Timings, I’m now in Train Crew and one of the things I’ve made a habit of doing now, is asking train crew for their diagrams and get feedback on how its gone, I’ve learnt a lot and so have they.
- Actually volunteered for several events at work. Worked at Ascot, Portsmouth AND Twickenham. More than I did last year.
- I don’t like talking about money, but that has got a lot better as the year has gone by.
- Seen more of the UK, done the Far North Line (Inverness to Wick/Thurso) on a really warm March day! That was a big thing as its the furthest north I’ve been. Previously, it was Dingwall. Also been to the Isle Of Man for the second or third time in my life.
- Finn and Bailey have now formed a very strong bond to me, these are 2 dogs, both setters that I haven’t talked much about but will do one day. Finn is particularly interesting as he is a rare breed.
- Joined a gym!
- Finally and this is a thing for me, been on a century old tram. Why is it big? Well, the only place you can find them next to the newer trams is Blackpool and every time I go to Blackpool, I miss them. I also did the Blackpool North tram extension not long after it opened by mistake.
The bad bits though and thus missed the mark.
- Still single which is really dragging me down
- I’ve done one unexpected thing this year and I’m not proud of it, its to do with my personal life and very few know about it (I want to keep it that way).
- I’m still living in my dads place – I live with my dad that I’ve probably never mentioned and sometimes, it gets very heated with how things go in the house. He has a physical disability but still can do things, but I feel I do a lot more than I should and it drains me.
- I’ve not done as much Trainz work as I like.
Now you may of noticed a theme, I didn’t mention the blog, which is the start. The reason I didn’t is because the first 3 bad points is the reason I started it, my mental health has been quite frankly appalling this year for stress reasons and for once, its not my job. Interestingly, I go to the office, I want to go in every day despite my dad telling me to work at home. I’ll even work as long as I can or need to on something and if I am knee deep in deadlines, I will basically work until something gives in, like I got pretty dry one day and started coughing as I was focused on my deadline. My fault entirely. Then my eyes started stinging so had to take a break. These are things I am bad at. I also bottle up a lot of problems, with the problem on the train, it had been going on for 6 months and if I am honest, its a 2 way thing. I got an interest in this individual, I’ll be open about it but what worries me is the answer of “no”. Like a lot of things, I had someone at work about halfway through the year, I knew her name anyway but I wanted to keep it quiet, however I wanted to point out something about ASD, she may of dropped loads of hints of interest I am guessing, but I was cautious because I was worried that my interpretation of “interest” is different to theirs. It’s not their fault, its a compatibility problem between the genders that we can all learn from.
Likewise, someone I travel with occasionally, yes, I have an interest, but as soon as I saw a ring on her finger, I didn’t bother, I also struggled to talk to her to begin with. However, more recently, I discovered more about her and was surprised that the ring wasn’t on her finger and interestingly, talked quickly about university and our immediate family, which I had to go away and think “Oh wait, what? I missed a trick there!”.
This is where I wonder that in the office, am I really alone with single life? I was under the impression most (I’d say 95% of them) are married at least and with happy families – if I was really honest, I actually felt pretty much alone. Likewise with my ASD difficulties, I honestly thought they were not many on the spectrum in the office and more normal. I only recognised one and that was it. The interesting thing is, I am discovering I am not the only one, although I feel alone with my journey through life and my difficulties, I’m discovering I’m working with others who have the same problem and the discussions in the pub outside of work is proving it.
So, 2025, I already know of some big changes, the company I work for is going from private to government ownership and the phrase that is being used is “Lift and Shift”, now goals I have:
- Lose weight
- Apply and become a CO5
- Actually be a bit more confident with women in particular, at the moment, I have no confidence in myself in approaching women or even talk to them, maybe make friends with them rather than look at them as potential dates? Which may lead to dates? Maybe I should start with the person on the train and just somehow get talking to her?
- I also got a lot of cleaning up to do at home and I’m selling a lot of stuff that basically has no use for me, despite my large computer collection.
The last one has been a challenge, I started this year but I’m trying to go further and further. One of the biggest things I’ve done is basically digitalise everything and whatever loose papers I have, shred them, its saved a lot of shelf space and its something I want to keep going with. Perhaps digitalise my books now I got a Kindle.
Oh and here is some hopefully interesting photos of 2024:
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Talking about old buildings
Its coming up to Christmas as my older and myself have an affectionate view on a building that sadly was long demolished. It also comes up in my work environment..
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Small problem I have (Part 2)…
So I wrote a few months ago about my issues with a lady who sits opposite me and getting the body language confused (this post). Well, it gets more curious – now she knows my name. I’ll be honest, ASD doesn’t help me here and I am not one to talk to someone unless I find something common to talk about (hard when you are on a train) to get over that first bit of anxiety.
I know this person has a couple of friends that join at Haslemere occasionally. I mean, like once in a blue moon. I was talking to someone about my anxiety with this issue who I know, what doesn’t help me is that I often have staff around me. Some that fall asleep on the train. Guess who is the rude one to wake them up?
Yep, that’s right – me.
So, left it at that, since then, a number of things have gone wrong to get the pattern absolutely right, avoid them, I know her friend has referred to me in the past as I have a table all to myself, I only ever use table seats due to my high laptop usage.
Now more recently, I started seeing her friends (not the person concerned) and the question was, “Are you going to sit next to <my real name>?”. I didn’t hear the response however, so I don’t know what it was, but I’ve heard myself being referred to twice. So the more I think, the more I’m curious. However, there is one big disadvantage I have, age.
With myself and women and still being single, some other interesting problems have come up. They’re being trying to understand one of the people I work with. Admittedly, I know them more and have a little interest, but some of the conversations I’ve had with them and its taken me a long time to talk to them, mostly if I am honest, I’m scared to even talk/ask someone out, especially with the company I work with due to 2 reasons A) the public interaction I have, B) actually get into trouble where someone puts in a pretty serious complaint (often blown out of proportion), end up in a bout of depression and again, cycle repeats which I may of explained before. This is the problem I face with office and railway romance, not that I won’t consider it (there is some I’d like to date and move on with), but the risk without getting any help is just too great – that is what scares me.
In fact, worried me so much, I finally brought it up in private with my manager in a recent TWYM – the railway doesn’t have appraisals, we have TWYMs (Time With Your Manager). These are mandated twice a year by the company, our department (the TPU) mandates them 3 times a year, one manager does them 4 times a year, which is good as it helps get any problems you have off your chest. TWYM’s are a way for my manager to explain how the company is performing, what the future holds and as we are the next TOC to go under Operator Of Last Resort, this is one of the points that would have been discussed, what happens next and what it means for us. We also discuss performance, discuss progression, discuss problems at work and one I brought up and I thought it would be good, is my current anxiety with women. Oh and to be clear, I’m straight.
So at work, I described someone incorrectly, not deliberately, but I couldn’t find the right words. I mentioned the problems that stayed between the 4 walls, floor and ceiling of “The Snug” which I’m not talking about it on here or who, but what took me back and shocked is that actually, my boss had a lot more understanding about the problems. Genuinely, I was in a good way.
Now if you go back to what I said earlier about being scared, this is where attitudes need to change and I’m going to specifically relate it to dating. It is inevitable the situation at work is going to be “boy meets girl”, “boy wants date”, “girl rejects boy” and then it’s a HR thing and what worries me more is being lead on and of course, I don’t know the difference. Now my previous managers in my old role – well the role before my current one is the same, but before that, would only know the basics, they wouldn’t know how to treat someone with ASD correctly but the tick box exercise of “you got it, but anything goes wrong, we have to tell you off and bring you into the office for a stern talking to”. In fact, in all my previous jobs apart from the CO3 role and CO4 role, it’s the same. Not to say all managers were like that, but a lot were what I felt was rough and ready. The same could be said at college as well, university, I just avoided the issue of dating and my argument is how we deal with ASD is wrong.
Yes, I accept the fact I’m going to make someone feel uncomfortable but what it has done , rather than make me as a person, its destroyed me as a person and my relationship prospects, especially with the way I am treated. The worst bit is, I’ve told them about it, but there is no support in going “this is the body language of how dating works”. “These are the signs”, I actually don’t understand any of that, I suspect it, I get very scared of getting it wrong and that just makes life so much awkward.
And I know what happens:
They wash their hands of the problem and go “its not my problem”.
Yes it is actually, if you expect me to take responsibility of my actions, I expect you to do the same, not palm it off onto some process or some technicality that means you get away with it. In other words, A) stop hiding behind an entity (such as “the cleaning team”) – that really drives my head in because you KNOW someone won’t take responsibility, B) take this as a big learning curve and use it to treat other people a different way.
As to my current managers, honestly, I can’t thank you enough, best group I’ve ever worked with and its so good, I’ve recommended the place to other staff. Honestly, the whole setup is so different, its not just treatment, I’ve even had managers even apologising for a small mistake they’ve made and not any manager, a very high up manager. That really says a lot.
Now why am I bringing this up now? Well, progression and jobs have always been a sticking point and if I am honest and REALLY embarrassed, I kept applying for jobs, I kept getting rejected time and time again, not knowing what was wrong with me. The support I could have had from my family could be better and if I ever have kids of my own, I learnt a lot. First job, sit them down, look at what they are good at and pick loads of jobs out that you think “You’ll be good at that”, give them that encouragement and teach them how the job market works. Its not a case of “do it for them”, but equip them with the skills to be A) resilient to rejection and B) actually work out what they need to do. The education system goes only so far. Now I got that sorted and it took me 24 years to get where I am. I didn’t have my first job until I was 24 and that was through a friend.
Before that, I was on benefits, that’s the bit I am honestly embarrassed by, because of the stigma that comes with it, Disability Living allowance, then Income Support with Incapacity Benefit with the shortest interview going. I was in the room for 30 seconds or less and the doctor made their assessment there and then. So why relationships? Well, I’m struggling. There is a goal I would like, just to be loved, that would say a lot. No, not from family, not from friends (as I don’t consider it the same way), but from a lady I can stay with and get married with, that’s ultimately what I am after. However, as far as I know of, there isn’t much in the way of that and with the mess I am in, I’m getting less and less hopeful I’ll get something, especially by the age of 40, which is as I write this, just over a year away.
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Proton VPN and Linux
Oh what a headache. Well, it was easy once I figured out what I needed. 2 versions, 2 tutorials, so as of October 2024, the easiest way I found to set it up is to use the Proton VPN gtk app from the AUR. I’m running Arch so, it was a bit more difficult.
Anyway, you need to build and compile a lot of source files from the AUR. To make things super easy, I created a very quick and unprofessional script. It also saves you hunting around for the repositories. Tested on my computer and it works, I need one however, that I haven’t tested it.
If you want to download the script, you can…
Download it, make a directory (I called mine git), copy it to that directory, then type without quotes “sudo chmod +x proton-script.sh”
Then
“./proton-script.sh”
It should work without any issues. You will need to put in your password in several times however, so you can always mod the script.
If you don’t like downloading, copy and paste the below:
(Awaiting plugin)
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Freebie Mac
Apart from the introductions, I thought I’ll open this blog with something a little more interesting, I tend to mess with old computers and this is one of them. Its quite wordy and long, however, you might want to have a laugh at my expense. I also have no photos of said machine yet (I didn’t think about that bit), but I’ll put one up later.
I’m a big user of Facebook, I have to confess and I tend to look at Facebook a bit too much for my liking (note to self, find a different hobby) – but unexpected things do come up from time to time, especially freebies. Well, actually, this wasn’t free to me, the “seller” offered it out for free, I gave them some money for it because I am nice like that. I thought “some money would do” and miscounted.
Anyway, it came up in a local group, saw it, asked my dad if I should get it, he was like “why not?”, contacted a seller within one minute of it going up, arranged a time to pick it up when the rain eased off as it was chucking it down and I only had to walk 300 yards and collect the machine, box and all.
For a freebie, it was complete, everything to get you started with a Mac, said the inevitable thank you’s and told them “the first thing I’m going to do is hack the (removed) out of it!”, I sort of have and use it as my main PC. I got loads of dust issues which is why and I’m trying to avoid using anything with a fan or anything that overheats too much with a fan. It also went a little like this:It spent the first week in my bedroom rather than office, so I plugged it in, switched it on (yay, boots!) and proceeded to try and wipe the hard drive..
… someone got there before me (good!). But this was the start of my fun! “Oh well, get an ethernet cable, plug it in and see if it will download an operating system”.
NOPE! 403 Forbidden!
Ok, ok, maybe we try something else, the WIFI?
NOPE! 403 Forbidden!
What about my phone?
NOPE! 403 Forbidden!
Ok, what about the GL iNET modem?
NOPE! 403 Forbidden!
Ok, ok, got to think here, the problem is either my credentials are wrong as Apple want me to sign in with my username and password to my Apple account or the modem is blocking traffic, which I am getting with my windows PCs, as I cant set them up.
So, a few terminal commands to find out what CPU it is, ok, it’s a Core2Duo E8315 (OLD – 2008) which means last supported is OSX 10.10 Yosemite which came out around 2014 or was it 2016?
So downloaded a disk image from a third party site as I couldn’t find a first party site (Apple) that had the image available.
Now it won’t boot from that drive. Dragged out an old mac (I have several!) and didn’t want to boot from that either.
Right, trawl the internet for a DMG file, that was VERY difficult to do, found a site that would do it, can download it on one device but not the other – great.
Lets bring out the MacBook Pro 15” 2013 – oh the USB ports stopped working now. Lets do a PRAM reset then an EMC reset, right they are working… oh they stopped again.
Time to find the MBP 2013 13”..
Success we got somewhere, lets plug the mac in, right we have 10.10 installing from the USB drive at last.
Here it is in its new place! By this time, it took about a week on and off between work and a lot of head scratching!
Installed OSX 10.10 and got some programs on it, went and searched for “opencore” and RDP… wait, half the keyboard is dead. Ok, right its only in Microsoft RDP, oh we only have 2GB ram so the machine was SUPER SLOW, with web browsers, get some more ram, can only address 6GB so got 4GB DDR2.
Got opencore to install macOS 11 which went smoothly if slow, by now I am in week 2. Ram arrived in week 3 “You can upgrade to Sommia”, great, I’ll take that, left it overnight and it cooked itself the next day. Opencore to the rescue again and now working ok, if very slow, next fun part is to put my mac programs on – that will be fun and oh, I need Virtualbox as well.
Next step? Find a small(ish) SATA SSD and use that as the boot drive. Oh and the keyboard has gone completely dead on one side. I’ve got some Mac specific keyboards I can use, including a not-so-magic mouse, which I can use to replace the oh-not-so-mighty mouse.Edit much later:
God, its soo slow! And the USB keyboard is well and truly knackered. ZXCV keys don’t work at all, I pulled out 3 keyboards from the “awaiting use pile” and all 3 ended up on the “dead keyboard pile”`, it also crashes a lot. So, cheap SSD and a good clean is required. I dread to think how much “dust and goch balls” are in that thing. I suppose I should give it to “the greatest technician that ever lived” to fix, but he is the other side of a big pond and its no fun for me.
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WordPress sometimes
The purpose of this blog is to be really simple, I.e. the site uses one method to display content (using NetObject Fusion – there is a custom template I plan to impliment at https://wessexelectricnut.co.uk/test/test.html to see what you think) and have it as an iframe on that part of the site as a different heading.
Or maybe this will give you an idea? Small problem, I had to deal with the default profile for some time, as it has a lot of default stuff added to it (twenty-twenty four, I was not happy!). Trying to convert over to other profiles – i.e. simplistic ones to give a more consistent feel became a bit difficult as my site needed yet another update. Oh well, I’ve done it now, only took 2 weeks! Depends how busy I get.
You might see some more entries soon, I wanted to talk about my experiences of “Blackpool, UK”, listed as one of the most deprived areas of the UK and how I would fix it – its bad. #not_recommended (unless you like trams.) and projects I’m working on, several I have started or restarted and most were missing one model to make them look the part. Plus the site may change IDC with the template I designed.
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Welcome
Welcome to my blog, its a new blog and it started from one problem with my life.
I’m on the ASD (autistic spectrum disorder) and more recently, I have had a lot of issues with my personal life (thankfully, not my work life). I won’t go into the past but I have produced blogs before on this site and on previous sites (pre 2008 can be found here: (link to find – from Live Journal), most of this is between my teens and early 20s when I wanted to show the world the work I produced and back then, the frustrations I have with society as a whole and the unique way I see the world. I also wanted to talk about my frustrations about finding jobs which I eventually solved but that wasn’t the end of the story. (I gained my first job in 2010, started working in my dream industry in 2013 which is the UK railways, progressed and as I write this, I have progressed in the same company, now planning trains.)
My mum suggested more recently as my mental health keeps collapsing, that should write about it and my trigger points, I also want to show the world what I have been working on despite being quiet on a community I contribute to – Trainz – these days. There is a reason, time management or lack thereof.
I appreciate feedback, I may discuss topics like as I write this (21st July 2024) how the industry is changing as a result of politics pressure, within reasons as I have to adhere to my workplace’s social media policy. Some entries, I already have a draft and they are pretty heavy reading.
IF you like it, please say and drop me a message, if you don’t, please do the same. I’m planning to allow my intermediate family (sisters, parents, I don’t have anyone else) to also add to the blog when required.
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The hardest software/hardware I’ve ever tried to find.!
And it was for an old laptop! In fact, it is for an old Panasonic Laptop, more specifically, a Panasonic Toughbook CF-18 (I love Toughbooks! But their optional extras can be a pain!). Mine is fitted with an additional item called a GPRS modem, or General Packet Radio Service or 2G (Or EDGE which is 2.5G if you like, but my Toughbook called it 2.75G!) I have 2 newer toughbooks and 2 newer laptops (a HP Elitebook 2730P and an Elitebook 2760P which is a US import) which have 3G modems installed in them (which is faster than EDGE and GPRS – you may of heard 4G and even 5G, these are just faster data standards). GPRS for my use as long as its not Youtube I found to be quite quick, if I could get it to work to begin with. Now these laptops have a Siemens MC75 USB modem in them, the drivers of which are dead easy to find.
The software not so, for a start, you have 3 options:
- Create whats called a Dial-Up Networking profile (DUN) which is hard as I found out with Vodafone as the customer service agent couldn’t work out what I was trying to achieve, well the laptop is 12 years old at the time of writing.
- Use Panasonic checknet sofware (Available from here: ) but you need to still do the above. (From: http://business.panasonic.com/support-computerstablets-downloads-wirelesscarrier – and a right mission to get working in Windows Vista and Windows 7)
- Find the BVRP software, hard to find, trust me, the original software I used was Norwegian of which I know someone who would understand and know it, but they’ve decided to ditch me (in 2006) for better things which is the story of my life – I’ve changed since then a lot. I eventually found the software on this site: http://www.helpjet.net/Fs-75078872-19927365-95508474-extract.html
A couple of observations, it works VERY well. But, it can be temperamental, for a start, you have to use the driver that came with the program or it won’t work, secondly, you may need to (as I use it in Windows 7 for which it was not designed for!) run it as an Administrator on Windows Vista or Windows 7. Other than that, it works. Just make sure your phone operator supports it, I know I had trouble with Three or otherwise known as H3G.