JJ's Space

Hey,

Although I finished making my portfolio a couple of days ago I have still continued to work on it. I wasn’t quite happy with it and wanted to revisit how I made the header section.

Now, I’m still not quite happy with the way the site is looking.. But please, have a second look, I’ve just finished uploading a slightly newer version. If I had thought about it I would have taken before/after shots before I uploaded..

The sites at http://portfolio.justastic.com if you didn’t already know.

It’s been a while since I posted last. That’s because I have been so busy recently. I still don’t have a job just yet so I have been really busy trying to collate what past work I have done so I can have a portfolio. With thatI can show that I can work and that I am pretty darn good at it too.

It was like an artist saying they are great at art but not being able to show you anything they have drawn. But it is fixed now and you can see it at portfolio.justastic.com. Hopefully this will entice could-be employers to give me  second look.

I have now set up a companion blog to this one. As I mentioned before I’m am trying to get organised and I had moved this blog from the main domain justastic.com to a subdomain of rant.justastic.com. This was so I could easily keep it a separate and personal blog to whatever direction I took the main domain to.

Now I have set up a new blog on another subdomain. A blog that will be targeted towards the more technical aspects of what I do. Reading and commenting on programming and software issues should be separate from what I get up to on weekends. So now when I hit a wall programming or I feel the need to vent on some ridicules technical argument I will post there. Pictures of me sunbathing in my short shorts will remain here.

So go check out what happens amongst the “cogwheels” of my head at the newest branch of my blog http://cogwheel.justastic.com

Look at it, bookmark it, RSS it, whatever.. watch that space

The more observant of you may have noticed the “theme” of this blog has gone back to the default. It does that when you move it around.. But this time I am not pasting back in the previous look. I’m going to try making my own

Being somewhat of a computer person I should be able to do this. So I have installed Wordpress locally on my Mac and and looked into how Wordpress customisations are done, hopefully soon I can have a new look I have made all by myself. And hopefully it won’t look like complete shit.

Hello,

Well I’m back in London now after a fun trip across Europe. For a good story on how some of that went take a short trip to Kita’s blog and read about the bus that we took from Prague to Luxembourg. That way I don’t have to bore anyone with the same story. I was great fun and I really enjoyed it whilst it lasted. I have well over 2000 new photos to sort through now as a result and I will try to get them online somewhere soon so you can all share in my adventure.. soon, really.

Being back in London now though means I have had to get myself all organised and even begin looking for a job. Compared to the few months I can’t even begin to tell you how exciting it all is. Really, I can’t begin at all, the excitement is so non-existent. At least we managed to find a place to live.

The London news reports that unemployment here is at a 12-year high. If you believe the paper, McDonalds takes in 2200 job applications a day. So my chances are not too favourable. Luckily I am not applying for a job under the golden arches.. A job, with some relation to my degree, would be nice and one that pays well would be great!.. I’m still looking.

So I am mostly settled, without a job, trying to organise myself out..

Looking forward to more travel!! Greece in September!!

Phew!
It’s been a while since I had the time to be doing a decent post here. Sorry about that

Since leaving Meribel a non-stop journey of adventure began starting in Paris and including Disneyland and Parc Asterix. Then moving to Seattle (via Vancouver) and then San Francisco, Prague, Munich, Amsterdam and finally Luxemberg. A trip that would take 42 days in total. Currently I am in my hostel room in Munich having arrived here from Prague at 4am this morning. It’s been fantastic so far and there is still more to go!!

I should really get some pictures up and I can assure you they will eventually get up, just not now. I have a huge number of photos to sift through thats approaching 2,000. I should have kept on top of it but time restrains me from spending any real amount of time flicking through pictures myself.

For now you can all know that I am in the middle of some serious backpacker action and am having a great time!!
Peace!

This is a story that I feel needs to be said. It happened whilst I was looking after some guests in the snow..

The Cheese Souffle that I was heavily pressured into making against my will was a hopeless disaster.

The Cheese Souffle begins by making the white sauce into which you blend the cheese, the signature part of the dish. This went fine. Then I had to add the cheese. The cheese is like rock and was hell to grate. So by the time it was done the white sauce had become a gluggy mess. I tried my best to blend the cheese in but because of the glugginess the cheese more swilled around than blended and as such it melted into a cheesy lump and a pool of oil. A decent pool of greasy cheese oil too, like a cups worth that splashed everywhere whilst I tried to blend. It stank too! It splashed onto the burners and stank, it splashed on me and stank. It was feral!

I gave up on that and began trying the egg whites. There are 18 egg whites in the dish and I had only a hand beater to use…  After 15 solid minutes of beating my hand went into a hopeless cramp that I couldn’t shake off. Another 5 min of beating and one of the guests came in to check how things were, most likely because I was making serious beating noise and there was 5 min to go till I was meant to be serving. Seeing the way things were going I roped them in. So now there was myself and two other guests taking shifts trying to get these egg whites to the right consistency. A total of 35 min beating. With that now sorted attention turns back to the sauce.

The sauce was now nearly a solid lump sitting in a saucepan of oil. How that is meant to be folded through anything I have no idea, but I had to try regardless. With three of the female guests now supervising the kitchen, they were drawn to the distress like cougars to a drunk teenager, I was told that it was still salvageable (?!). I drained all the oil out and added flour and milk to make it smoother, a smoother solid lump of stinking crap. The egg yolks were then added and it was taken from me to be folded in. The idea was that it shouldn’t be folded in too much but the end result was egg whites with a marble of cheesy yellow goop running through it. Not the usual smooth blend I am certain. In having it taken out of my hands the mustard was left out and the parmesan cheese not added either. Shouldn’t have affect the flavour though I figured as it was already shit and as the saying goes “you can’t polish a turd”. The mix was then ladled into the awaiting dishes. Not all of the mix made it in though as it was very, very quickly turning back into  lumps, oil and egg white. It came out of the oven and although the guests all said it was good I think it had the exact same flavour as a plain omelette with cheese sprinkled on top. So the effort was really worth it…

A pathetic dish in the end with a superbly ordinary flavour that made my evening hell.