Captain Janeway Lives in Wales

August 2010

At the risk of losing you

I realise that a blessay about Star Trek is likely enough to make one half of you beam with joy while the other half leap to force close your browser. This is about my story and nothing to do with increasing power to the pattern buffer, inverting your tachyon beam through the deflector array or ejecting the warp core.

This is not a picture of Captain Kathryn Janeway of the Intrepid-class USS Voyager. The devout amongst you will know that this is a photo from the filming of the pilot episode of Voyager featuring the actress who got the gig before Kate Mulgrew made the role her own and that this character played by the French Canadian actress Genevieve Bujold was named Captain Nicole Janeway. Luckily for the series she walked out after day one of filming.

16 years later I took it as a sign of divine providence that my newly assigned Welsh Assembly Government business adviser is named Jane and that this Jane married a gentleman named Way.

Jane Way Captain of Industry

I met Mrs Jane Way upon registering my interest to receive free impartial business advice via the Welsh Assembly Government. Being fortunate enough to live in the Celtic red corner of the UK known as Wales (see map) and being forthright in my desire to create jobs (for myself), the government is keen to make sure that good business ideas flourish. They fulfil this desire by subsidising the commercial business support entity Business in Focus.

Procurement Fun 1. The Welsh Dresser

This little beauty came courtesy of Anthemion Auctions of Cardiff who provide a rather fantastic general auction on every 1st Wednesday of the month.

This is a traditional Welsh Dresser. There are two things I was determined to have in my tea room which I was prepared to splash out on.  A beautiful Oak Welsh Dresser was one and now I own it.

But can you guess how much I paid?

a.) £240 b.) £440 c.) £640

I can't tell you much about this one, other than it has been hand crafted clearly with a lot of love.

To a Mouse ... about that weekly update ...

April 2011

For the more observant of you, my last post was 263 days ago.

No Excuses

I certainly remember feeling, as I was composing my introduction to this story, that it was something best communicated live as a weekly Blog and despite the effort involved that this was indeed an interesting enough life gamble which merited documentation in my own bungling, bumbling, this, that and the other way.

I did not however write my story weekly. Looking back I can not think of an excuse although I do have an explanation for why I missed the first week. Upon finishing the introduction and hitting PUBLISH POST, I realised that in telling you what I was going to do I also risked telling my employer my plans before time.

After flamboyantly venting my intentions in a blog I had a vision of my story going a bit too public a bit too quickly (See http://goo.gl/fattr). It was then very easy to not write, with the thought in the back of my thinking space **blog? yes very important, must prioritise this, no wait, time not right, besides time better spent writing business plan/eating/sleeping/distracted ooh a pretty flower**. Missing week 2 meant missing week 3 and I could go on, but promised not to, you get the picture?

Somewhere in the Middle - Part One

The Dramatic Arc

Like all stories you have an introduction, conflict and resolution. This is a simple story being written in real time. Today is the introduction, to come is the conflict and fingers crossed for the rest...

For my sanity and yours, here are some intro facts; last time I wrote any kind of story was over 12 years ago, I have done no research into writing methods. This will be spell checked, read once then published so if you spot any SPAG errors turn your rage inwards and keep it. For my part I will keep to short sharp points (where possible) to keep it brief and punchy, with at least weekly updates. This is an open forum so comment away I won't edit you if you don't edit me!

Well back to basics, introduction.

Working Life

My name is David, at this moment I work in Sales for a four star International Hotel chain. This decade I cultivated approximately £30K of debt split evenly between the Student Loans company and various high street bankers in the pursuit of a degree. In completing my wonderfully expensive degree I worked in a Cardiff hotel moving steadily then quickly through the business to where I am now working for head office. Tough work during a recession, but rewarding in a lot of ways. The debt is gone, my name is known in the industry and by boss is generally pleased. However and here it comes, I have an amazing life outside when you take the work part out, this isn't a forum for that, but it kicks off my new story. The work life scales tip both ways, currently they are out of kilter, but I know the old saying work hard play hard. So keep your head down, bring in the cash, and push on with the career.