Rodent Trouble! Again

Last year (or maybe the year before) over 40 mice in the house and I got a chap to come and fix the holes in the house and additionally do some pointing and tidying up at the same time.  Up until perhaps a week ago it seemed to have done the trick and no mice in my traps so much so that I moved the traps for a few days - I keep them active from around October to March.  I was pleased as there didn't appear to be any around.

Last week though I noticed the tell-tale signs of a few mouse droppings, set the traps and had two on two mornings.  Then we though we saw one in the living room so I set a trap and that went off within half an hour and this morning I was greeted by two and on resetting them a further one so it's looking as if we have a nest of them somewhere.  I dislike having to trap them and kill them but all the humane traps I've used do not seem humane at all and so I've gone back to the tried and tested method.  I'm not happy about it but there you are, needs must and having been ill through injecting a mouse dropping (I can't even tell you how awful that was I had to have an ambulance and crew out to me) I'm convinced that a swift dispatch is better in their terms and indeed mine.  

I cannot tell you how many times with the humane versions I found the mice dead.  If they weren't you needed to take them a number of miles away and release them into an environment they were unfamiliar with.  In one case a local cat got one of the released mice.  I was then told that moving a wild animal or relocating it was illegal!  You can't win can you?

So just another "thing to do" and an unwelcome return of a nuisance I thought I'd solved but, as I often say, we live in the country, when it's cold or food is available readily this is going to happen.

Hopefully it won't be up to the numbers of a year or two ago that was just mental and you'd get a short time with none and the next day you'd have about 4 or 5.

Concentration Or Rather The Lack Of It

 I hate being a Treasurer.  I find it one of the most difficult things because my programme and project logic is at odds with financial logic.  Whilst I grasp the concepts of a balance sheet it doesn't come naturally to me so things like in arrears and in advance payments and accruals somehow hit an invisible mental roadblock in me.

A task that an Accountant could take a few minutes doing takes me hours as I have to work out how I treat any entry that is out of the ordinary.  If it was straight income and expenses it would be easy of course because that is how most of us run our home accounts but because if the precise nature of the balance sheet and not always understanding whether an entry should or shouldn't be there is another thing.  

An advance payment made in the previous year for example was shown in the bank last year but needs to be accounted for in this year when that payment should rightly have been made.

Anyway, sat here for a few hours and all the figures are merging into one now so time for a rest and I will have to renew the efforts again tomorrow or maybe this afternoon if I feel up to it!  Such an annoying thing because really I shouldn't have problems grasping this at all but somehow my mind doesn't work the way it does on other problems that are not financial in nature albeit project accounting is no problem at all!!!

The harder I look at the figures the worse it gets and it is easier to just stop for a while and come back than making a rushed decision and then having to un-knit the work I've done.

What A Time To Be Alive?

 There's lots going on in the world and so many interesting things happening and I, like many others I imagine, watch on as our "elders & betters" make decisions based on school playground logic and turn around endlessly as their ill thought out ideas get challenged.  It does remind me of school though, the stupid unscientific assertions and I'm just waiting for one of the Cabinet members to state "My dad's bigger than your dad!" or some such unqualified statement.

When you are a Director or a Manager you actually have to be good at your job.  I think I had to be more than that, I had to be outstanding in it as I dealt with so many numpties and Muppets.  If you weren't good you got found out and those small chinks in your armour became gaping chasms and that's what we see with this government.  No one seems to actually do any real investigation before coming up with these stupid ideas, there's no foundational premise to start with either.  No coherent strategy and no integration or leadership.  It's like sailing a ship without any Captain, no Navigator and all the crew are inexperienced have a go sailors who've never sailed a ship before. But worse!

My old boss used to come in to work on any given day and like Michael Caine in the Italian Job state "I've got a great idea"  - he may well have done but generally you could drive a bus through his ideas and theories and that idea would be superseded by the next idea.  None of them had any chance at being successful as he didn't realise that having an idea and making it happen are quite different things.  Driven by ideology these imbeciles come up with ideas that turn out to be faulty and built on sand.  Rudderless, they pitch and toss around in the wild seas and become overwhelmed by the waters.

Our old work saying went along the lines of "His men would follow him anywhere...... But only out of curiosity!"  "Somewhere a village is missing it's idiot!" "Like a six pack without the plastic bit that hods it together!" and so on.  If it wasn't so serious it would be funny.  Watching us (the UK) and the rest of Europe getting roasted by President Trump was an education.  Let's hope it shocks these weak lily-livered excuses for human beings into doing the right thing.  I can only imagine the fallout from the resent WEF meeting.  Although many won't understand that the criticism was justifiably about them such is their cognitive dissonance.   

A Quiet Day Coming Up

 I've done a little every day on the business and gradually working towards seeing if it has any potential.  Quite a lot of activity yesterday means that things are now in approval and so nothing is happening until that has been done.

So I can get on with other things today.  My other accounts for example will need to be sorted and a review of finances too as I may need to support the business for a month or two whilst this work is ongoing.  I am comfortable that I've given it every chance so far - what is needed is to get it in front of enough people to see whether or not it will be a success.

At least I get the day off today as it is quite intense when you get the previous results and then have to adapt to it.  Not today though so that's good.

The Waiting Game - It Will Happen In Its Own Good Time

 I hate waiting, I like action this day and getting stuff done.  This latest iterative work really doesn't suit that approach at all.  Mainly the market is in the US and so I cannot see any results on something I do now until tomorrow!  Also waiting for approval can be 24 to 48 hours between submissions and so once again, it just means you have to wait and measure your responses..

I used to have this problem when I first wrote this blog about how you'd wait around for ever waiting to be seen or waiting to go home and concluded that it was just the speed that they worked at no matter how much I wanted it.

So it is now, I think I want an answer to my business question so I can make decisions but in reality I need to just let it work its own way out.  I am learning to live with it, I can't make it speed up and so just have to ride with the shots and then get my answers when they do their bit not when I want it.

It is giving me the opportunity to use the waiting time to do other tasks and to reflect too so it isn't a problem.  Maybe I am finally calming down?

Slowly Paying Dividends

 Last year was a bit sh1t for me and whilst things are better, there's still some of the left over disappointment and a little anger at the way I was treated.  This year I am moving slightly differently and taking stuff as it happens.  My testing of the App is going not so well these last two days but went brilliantly the previous two days.  Why's that?  Well it;s an iterative process and I need to know what works and indeed what doesn't and it doesn't matter if a day goes past without some positive result.  A negative result is just as good when you analyse it.

So I cannot do anything about it until tomorrow and that's it.  So rather than worry about it like I would have done last year, I am getting on with something that I would normally put off and rather than doing that in an intense way, I am taking my time and taking short breaks in between.  Accounts are notoriously difficult for me I really do not enjoy them at all but they need to be done and as I have to do some other work on the figures, why not tackle it and get it done?

I am also prepared now for things to go wrong with the business as well as (if I can work it out) for them to go right.  A decision point needs to come in the near future and I am comfortable with either of the outcomes, in fact I'd probably prefer the failure of the business so I can walk away from it once and for all but if there is life in it, I need to see it through and determine that commercially it is (or is not) viable.

But it is no longer the be all and end all, far from it, it's what will be will be and that is the way I am treating such things from now on.  I'd far rather be enjoying my time like some of my friends who are retired in going on holidays and trips - they are in sunnier climes and good luck to them.  I think that I would prefer to do that with my time but let's see how this short period of market testing goes and we can decide from then.

Cutting Through The Static & Gloom

 With all that is unfolding around us both at home and abroad you can be forgiven for feeling the weight of it all.  I know that I do if not for me, for my children and grandchildren.  In many ways it appears the world has gone mad and perhaps it has?  The tail wagging the dog must soon stop before the dog bites that tail clean off.

The vast majority of us live in a consensus way and I think we still have the British tolerance and spirit of fair play but, by heck, it's beginning to wear very thin indeed.  The pathetic politicians, the "be kind" brigade who are so full of tolerance only as long as you think and act like them.  If you don't you will quickly see that veil fall and a diametrically different attitude come into play.   Witness their inability to logically and calmly discuss any subject that goes against their narrative and you will soon see that you are dealing with cult like opinions and scratch beneath that surface and you will fine the worst in humanity posing as sweetness and goodness.  

I think that people have had quite enough of this, have stretched to try and meet these ignorant low IQ individuals halfway.  Remember never argue with an idiot because they will bring you down to their level and beat you with their experience! and more memorable perhaps is to "Never wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty, and the pig likes it!"

When things don't go their way watch the way they react.  For us, the sensible normal people we accept if we have been out voted or perhaps well argued in a discussion with facts and logic.  Not them, a loss is greeted with screaming insults and behaviour you'd expect from a small toddler.  Gradually they are being exposed for the lunatic fringe they really are and it will be delicious to watch them as the world turns against them and their woke, cultist, non reality stances.  They obviously didn't go to the right schools as their sort of behaviour was beaten out of them by the time they were 16 and if not, by the end of their first week or working in the wider world.

Sit back, grab your popcorn and enjoy the bottom falling out of their world in the next 5 to 10 years.  

Patience - Not My Best Trait

 Honing in on advertising keywords and the like is an iterative process and you cannot rush it.  Sometimes it yields great results and other (like today) zero results.  You have to logically go about it and you then learn from the results and then adjust and wait again.  It's only been 6 days and I'm half way through my budget spend and results have been mixed but that's the way it is.  If you knew the right way of going about it in the first place, you'd not need to hone in this way and of course I am dealing or competing with large well funded businesses with years of experience.

I am having to learn all over again the slow and methodical process of having a plan and following it.  Follow the process as I am wont to say.  I have to wait between 6 and 12 hours after each iteration to see the results, analyse them and tweak the settings.  Only 6 days (5 and a bit to be exact) and I have had more downloads in those days than in the 3 months previous so it is doing something.  It's getting the volume that is the next step and quality and quantity too.

You cannot rush it I have to continually remind myself and the USA / UK time difference is also a determining factor. 

Twenty Years Coming Up

 How utterly crazy is that?  It will be 20 years this July that I presented with Bladder Cancer and so close to 30% of my life I've lived with that although of course, in reality it was probably 2 or 3 years of treatment and operations followed with regular check ups until about three or four years ago when I finally got the nod and was discharged.

I find my mind turning to mortality more these days.  I suppose as you start losing your friends more often and your Christmas and Birthday card lists get smaller you tend to reflect on it.  I've got my Lasting Power of Attorneys sorted out and I must sit down and finish the wishes sections which are missing some final in depth details that I need to add.  This to make it easy to erase me from Social Media and to close down my civilian and social media lives!  

I might get wobbly around July it's always bad as so many things happened at the same time and in the same year and across the years it's been a funny old period of time.  My friend and I diagnosed around the same time,. certainly in Hospital around the same time might grab our traditional breakfast meeting and perhaps react like Samuel Pepys may have done when he yearly celebrated the "Cutting of Ye Stone"

Samuel Pepys' "cutting of the stone" refers to his successful, but agonizing, bladder stone surgery (lithotomy) in 1658, performed without anaesthetic by barber-surgeon Thomas Hollier, a notoriously risky procedure where he was strapped down as a surgeon made an incision in the perineum to remove the stone, a deeply traumatic event he celebrated annually for the rest of his life. 

I believe the stone itself was displayed during the festivities!  This was the surgeon who operated on my ancestor for the same problem.  We think that by the time he was operated on the surgeon's operating tools were septic and it eventually killed our man.  You cannot even begin to imagine the painful procedure - thank goodness most of my procedures were with anaesthetic (not all).

Anyway, not that I kept any souvenirs of my procedures so they will not be produced at the breakfast in question.

Now That's Interesting

 I've been working with AI on this Advertisement campaign.  It's been very interesting and I'm massively impressed with this "teamwork" as within 4 days trying various iterative keywords we have nailed it to getting really decent hits and downloads.  Because the sales data is disconnected by two days I cannot see if we have actually sold anything yet but the download rate is now excellent and interestingly yesterday alone I had more downloads in a day than I have had in three months!

What I like about this working with AI is that I can ask stupid questions and interact with it in such a ways as to have built what looks to be a successful campaign in just a few days adjusting and refining as we have gone along I am very impressed with the results so far.  If it converts to people buying then I will be happy but also I will be in a quandary as to what to do next.  I really didn't think that it would be this successful an exercise and so maybe, just maybe, it will bear some fruit 9 years after planting the seed!  Nice.

Will The Veil Fall From The Eyes Of The Masses?

 The unbelievable erosion of our way of life continues and the writing is on the wall for those who can lift their eyes from their doom scrolling mobiles long enough to read it and moreover understand it.

This morning's ONS stats showed a 0.3 or 0.1 % growth in GDP and was once again hailed as things aren't so bad it's all going to be OK.  Of course, look a little deeper and one part is showing a recovery from the JLR hack and so that is a correction but what disturbed me was the loss of construction contribution of 1.3%!  That's huge news.  We always used to say that you could work out how economically good or bad things were by the number of cranes over London.  Coming in on the train you could see it and working in that industry you knew things were tough or booming.  

It was also telling that you can feel something boiling under now.  More elections have been delayed, things are getting progressively bad in terms of free speech yet again.  The "be nice brigade" are being anything but nice and in many ways there are things going on that should not be happening in the UK.  Banning people coming into the country because they hold a differing opinion to the Government.  Our local water company has seen massive infrastructure issues lack or no water, treatment systems gone wrong, tens of thousands affected and questions asked whether they can provide new provision for the thousands of new homes proposed. 

It's all gone to hell in a handcart and it's no wonder that the people are beginning to stir.  These people have one job and they fail utterly to do it.  Keep the people safe and deliver services to protect and grow the nation.  They keep failing miserably, trying to fix stuff that isn't broken and then when they screw that up double down and screw it up further.  Utter shambles the lot of them.  They are so out of the depth on just about everything and incompetent doesn't even go part of the way in describing what it is like.  No plans, no clue, no vision, no ideas, no leadership just nothing an abyss of low IQ mediocrity.

But I still hear people coming out with their BBC headlines completely missing the point.  Follow the money, scratch the surface, chip away the thin already cracked veneer and gasp in horror at what these people have done and where they want to lead us. Dinosaurs led by Donkeys.  It's getting worse by the day and somewhere it has to be halted when the Emperor's New Clothes are exposed for what they are.  I feel a number of us are there before the remaining citizens.  We just need to drop our gaze from our TVs, mobile phones and devices to actually see what these people are doing destroying our once great country. 

More Evidence, If Any Were Required

 In a few areas.  Initially the Digital ID about turn from the Government and this wishy washy Prime Minister who wanted to turn us in to a "Ihre Papiere, bitte!"  state.  I think someone said it was the 11th about turn and he just doesn't appear to get it does he - or his amateur school ground MPs either.  Rather than fix the problems the country has, you've bought a bloody great digger and are trying to get to the bottom as fast as you can.  Total destruction and not one thing you can look to that matches their mantra of growth!

Secondly, my App isn't performing well either and so a decision will need to be made on that.  Perhaps a few more tweaks today and see how we go?  It's all data points for whether we go forward or shut down the business (I say we in the business sense in reality it is only me).

Edit - it is 13 U turns now and perhaps some more coming in.  His back benchers can see the writing on the wall and they must be getting furious correspondence from their constituents!  

Tuesday A Blues Day?

No, not this Tuesday it isn't although it is a quiet sort of morning.  The advert I set up yesterday doesn't appear to have done much at all really so it has been tweaked to see if any traction can be had from that.  It's important as it is an experiment on the App and whether it can be seen, downloaded and more overly bought by some of the people who download it.

It's the acid test really to see if it is going to be viable.  I need to have given it every chance to succeed before pursuing it or closing it down.  There aren't that many options left open to the business if no one sees it or buys it.

It's one of those things isn't it? It is out of my hands at the moment until the results arrive and frankly the overnight results were - well - nothing at all! So a few tweaks to see if the system needed a few more dollars spent to get it to activate.

I feel that I have given it enough in the past 9 years and so it only really remains to give it the final acid test and if people buy it, great and if they don't well I tried.  

Blue Monday Apparently

 follow the money!:

"Blue Monday, typically the third Monday in January, is popularly dubbed the "most depressing day of the year," a concept created for a travel company's PR stunt, not based in science, but it serves as a timely reminder to check on mental well-being during a gloomy winter period of post-holiday blues and bad weather."

My Monday is going to be a bit different I think.  I have some accounts to complete and then I am going to do some business analysis and do a short exercise in sales and advertising / marketing.  Having got a very few downloads I am going to try an experiment with paid product placement and see where that goes.  When the period of experimentation is up or I run out of £s to run it, I can review the success or failure rate and then it gives me the information I need to either go forward or rethink the whole venture.

I would imagine that either way will be interesting as an intellectual exercise but in the back of my mind I am coming around to the idea that if I close it down then I at least get my life back and can properly retire something that this has prevented.  But who knows?

Interesting Week Coming Up

 Today I am off for my Lodge meeting and I have a fair bit of work to do, tomorrow will be banking and doing my Treasurer bit and then on Monday I will do either the first or last thing with the business.  What do I mean by that?  Well it is a make or break exercise to determine if there really is a market for the App.  It will be an interesting exercise in an area that I am unfamiliar with and we will see if people like and more importantly will buy the App.  It is a freemium offering which means you can download and try for free and if you like it you can do in-App purchases but it isn't a subscription model.

Based on that exercise, I can determine if it is worth running the business or just pulling the plug on it.  Either way, it sets the direction for 2026.  In some ways it is a key moment as in my heart of hearts I've had enough of it and I really don't feel like going through all of hassle I've suffered this past 18 months or so.  

It may be that it is freedom calling and freeing me from any further obligation to people who 2 to 3 months ago didn't want me to run the company on their behalf.  I probably should have let them win then and sit back as it all fell apart as they have / had no idea what was setup and how to operate it.  It would have crashed and burned.  It will be what it will be of course and that will be that.