Flat3D

And all I got was this crummy iPod Touch…

When my brother, dad and I used to go on weekend trips with the caravan we had a tape of Bob Newhart that we would listen to over and over again.  One of the stories he did was about a guy called Chuck who had retired after giving the best years of his life to his company and they presented him with a wristwatch, not best pleased in his lubricated speech to the party shouted “and all I got was this crummy watch!”

Yesterday (Friday) I finished my time at GCD,  I originally was going to go on til the end of September, but with my dissertation and other things to be done before the OMF deadline of 25th September it became clear that I needed more September to get things done and so, reluctantly, I handed in end of August notice.  My reluctance wasn’t because I want to make more money, or because I like getting up at 7 so I can make it for 8:30 (ish!)…  I genuinely enjoyed working with the guys at GCD.  I’m only 26 so I haven’t had too many jobs, but I haven’t experienced a workin environment or job like it; the work itself was interesting, fun, often challenging and only sometimes annoying, the lunchtime Halo matches and great attitude of all the guys (and later girls too) at GCD made for fantastic team dynamics and working relationships and of course the leadership team of the two Andrews made my two years (just under, but I’m rounding) without question the best job I have had so far!
Now every job has its down sides, but to be honest I’m struggling to think of them, even the annoying bits lead to great office banter and fun times.

So now I am full time dissertation for two weeks with smatterings of OMF thrown in.  I have to complete my introduction (the last bit believe it or not), then collate my references, proof read and redraft however many times, get it printed and bound and handed in before 1pm on the 15th September!

So what’s that title about an iPod Touch?  Well yesterday, as it was my last day, we all went out for lunch at Gowdy’s (local regular of GCD celebratory lunchtimes), then after a great lunch (as always – only downside was a sleepy afternoon!) Andrew G pulled out a box and a card, so I thought, “Great! sweets!” or something along those lines, but when I had fought through the sellotape I opened the box to find an iPod Touch 32GB box!  Of course I thought it was a joke, I mean an iPod Touch?!  But no, on opening the (smaller) box I found not only a sleek, shiny piece of 1 Infinite Loop’s finest hardware, but it had been engraved:

To John
All the best
from everyone at
xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx*

So now I have an iPod Touch and it is very nice, I’ve used iTunes a bit before for the store, but it is nice to now have everything in one place, at least for a while, and I am looking forward to a host of funky apps!  There were a few initial hiccups (mostly file formats, I had an MTP Creative Zen then a Sony Walkman, so I had windows media and atrac files all over the place) but the only crappy bit are the earphones!  Now this is my first foray into Apple technology (at least first piece I have owned) and no question it is a very shiny gadget…  I hope I don’t get sucked in to Jobs’ pie-chartless, spreadsheetless world of photobooks and floppy hair! ;-)

Thanks GCD, for the experience and fun of the past two years and for the ideal geek toy as a parting gift!

*the xs represent the GCD local network’s external IP…  Funny if you’re a geek like me!