nother week has officially begun (one might say Sunday is the start) and today I should have a lot of free time (after a visit to Town) in which to publish many detailed articles. 31 days from now it’ll be 15 years since I met Rianne. It’ll be a Thursday, so we’ll try to do something more special.

I am told that 15 years is a long time for a marriage.

It is more so true that 15 years is a very long time for a happy and healthy marriage, which isn’t the same thing.

few hours ago at the local Sunday Market a friend asked me, your wife buys you flowers??? I said, yes. Another friend was surprised by this (and the greeting card as well).

The lady said to me that many couples, after nearly 15 years, barely talk to one another. I explained to her that our relationship is a healthy one.

And yes, we both buy one another flowers and gifts, also many greeting cards.

Age means you get to know other people better, it does not mean boredom or resentment.

I know many couples aren’t like that (for one reason for another). But it’s totally feasible.

I get the feeling relationship between people were a lot stronger before computers.

week in November is over and we’re fast approaching the last month of the year, which is also when I celebrate my birthday (yesterday was the birthday of a site). December 10^th this year marks 15 years since Rianne and I first met. Our online photo album currently has 8,494,869 views (since after the wedding when we created it). That’s just a little shy of 8.5 million.

Next week we plan to relax and next year we’ll work more on focus and health. We’re not young anymore and we’re not “growing up”, we both “grow older“.

Each couple has some unique story; ours is actually rather typical. We always had good conversations because we have a Computer Science background and we’re practical.

he local Arndale Centre has changed a lot in recent decades. I remember how it was several decades back and how it made the city (or City Centre) as a whole look or feel. I purchased clothes and CDs, I bought some fresh foods there, but it was still considered a poor people’s “mall” or shopping centre.

Manchester has come a long way since then, not just because of the skyscrapers.

Today I follow some football (ManCity) and tomorrow I’ll go to the City (Town) to study why the City Council is so incompetent. I’ll bring Rianne and a notebook with me. I’ll report the outcomes here.

I love Manchester, I really do, so when something doesn’t work right I will try to fix it.

lmost a year ago, after a trial, I said that when I married Rianne I promised to protect her, as any good husband should and would.

When Rianne was abused online it was very important for me to step in and do the right thing. I believe that I have and I still have no regrets. Principles matter and the cost of them doesn’t matter. It had to be done.

There’s further work left to be done – holding accountable the culprits.

People out there often choose what’s easy and convenient, not what’s moral.

If more people did the moral thing, evil people would perish quickly (or faster) and the world would be a better place for everybody.

oday “Sweepy” (formerly “Sleepy”, but she sweeps seeds a lot so the name changed) brought the partner. I think it’s the first time. It’s not hard to know it’s the partner because they kissed.

The birds are getting increasingly dependent on human-supplied seeds because tomorrow it is November already. It’s still not cold though, I nearly decided to sunbathe again (same as yesterday), but eventually decides not to because of plumes at the distance. Besides, I’d rather write articles than sleep while listening to Discman.

Tonight it’ll be the time kids ask for sweets, so Rianne purchased some packs of treats. I’ll need to keep the volume down (music) to hear when they knock.

Hard to believe it’s already end of October. On October 31^st at this time of day last year the trial was over already.

his year is strange because the weather is unusual. It’s mostly sunny today, so I spent hours organising the home. Along the way I found the blood pressure meter and we decided to test ourselves. We’re still both in the normal range (mine in the ideal range, as before, despite me gaining a lot of muscle mass this year).

The temperatures are something that feels like late summer. October 30^th is not meant to be a good day for sunbathing, but it is this year.

Seeing/hearing/reading/checking that Japan (Tokyo) even had 30 degrees a couple of weeks ago and northern European countries (Scandinavia) and North America have hot days (fans running in late October!), I reckon it’s premature to fold the chairs in preparation for winter.

The weather is broken. Treats in a weather like this???

I managed to be outdoors, shirtless in the sun, for nearly an hour. Got some tan, too.

I can’t believe that this weekend it’s going to be November already. Tomorrow ManCity needs to win (not on penalties) against Brighton in order to stay ahead in the PL.

The plants are getting direct sunlight right now (even indoors) and I think tomorrow will be the same. Maybe we can go out somewhere (in nature).

One week we have a storm, the next it feels like the exact opposite.

oday the weekly plan has definitely changed. It’ll be a rather different Sunday. We might not even manage to go feed the birds at the park.

This awful wind, which makes a lot of noise, makes walking and driving unpleasant and dangerous.

Umbrellas in this wind? No way.

I managed to sunbathe a lot this month, but this past week the weather was rather bad and next week it’s Halloween already.

ODAY we are two weeks away from 20 years of Techrights and above is my birthday cake for 40.

For nearly half my life I’ve written for Techrights. That says less about my age and more about how important Techrights has been to me.

I sometimes say that the Web won’t last for much longer (several reasons for this, not the subject of this blog post), but Techrights can outlive the Web and I hope to do it for another 20 years.

BBC Media City Bridge – Salford (Greater Manchester)

his is the final (for now) part of a short series (see first part, second part, and third part). My intention today is to summarise my findings. A follow-up series may or may not follow.

Based on my written notes (handwritten), upon coming to Manchester City Council Customer Service I discovered that one was unable to pay with cash except via the Post Office, one cannot update one’s details without going through some online portal (which only works with few browsers and naively assumes one has an Internet connection), the phoneline ‘fallback’ was understaffed and thus altogether out of service (at the time; definitely not rush hour), the people at the Manchester City Council Customer Service could not explain anything about the site and would not receive any constructive feedback on how to improve it. On top of all this, no assurances could be made regarding basic services; they seem to lack access to any system of relevance despite 3 or 4 of them being at the desk, unoccupied and yet sedentary (they mostly chatted to one another to pass time).

There seems to be a staff misallocation problem.

When I attempted to make a polite complaint via Manchester City Council Customer Service they pushed back and tried to escalate (or intimidate). I wrote down the first names of two members of staff; I said I would not publicise these, they were not hesitant to give their names; this was not a personal issue whatsoever, but that seems to have motivated them to approach me and try to become more helpful. They didn’t want bad publicity or a word to their superior/supervisor to raise “awkward” question.

I credit one of two of them at the desk for ‘de-escalating’ and ameliorating a hostile (from them) situation. I left in good terms.

I was there around 1PM for over half an hour on October 22. I was told 5-10 working days may be needed for my input to be handled and taken into account.

Part of my input was of a technical nature, so if it’s relayed to some technical team some time by the end of this month, then maybe I should allow them a month or more to take action.

Manchester City Council Customer Service, in my opinion, can be better trained to handle opinionated people whose intent is benign.

I did not go there to argue.

My guess if that they attract some very difficult people, so they have a short fuse and presume malice.

It’s also what has happened to many cops. They handle hard situations with “rough people” – a term they might use on occasions; that makes them more impatient and suspecting (of anybody).