Walking 500 Miles would be very Slow, 1000 would be worse

Wednesday morning I got up and went to the Java lecture where I learnt very little. After Java I decided that I needed some Sunglasses and Chocolate. After comparing prices I found some nice glasses for £2. here is a picture of me wearing them. I packed and got a train to London. At London I met my Dad and we travelled by train to my Uncle (Brett)'s house. When Coel, Brett and one of Brett's friends Anthony arrived we all tucked into some Kebabs. It was really nice to see Brett, Coel, my Dad and to meet Anthony. The Kebabs were really nice and we had a really good time. That night I went to bed about midnight and despite the heat I got a decent sleep. At 0600 my Dad and I left Brett's and headed for Newcastle. The roads were near dead and we made good time. Once we got some distance I started to rest my eyes, I was feeling semi-sleepy. I was jolted awake when my Dad yelled "No no no!" I thought I'd had some sort of a bad dream and then the car started to hit the hard shoulder. No, my Dad is actually a very good driver and it's because he's such a good driver that we were not in an accident. A truck on the left-most lane moved into the center lane just behind a car with a very low trailer. The truck could not see the trailer and as such moved into the trailer, we were to the right of the trailer and thankfully my Dad saw what was happening and accelerated while dodging the moving problem. Later we passed something with a cherry-picker, it'd happened probably a minute before we got there and so didn't hold us up. We heard on the radio it took an hour to clean up. At Newcastle I was to have an interview with HP. The interview was at 1500 and we arrived at about 1000. This was very useful as it allowed time to relax a little by visiting the Angel of the North (a big metal sculpture). Here are some pictures of me standing by it. Click to Enlarge. We also walked around PC World where I poked around with Vista for a good 15 seconds. I can see that the interface is laid out almost identically to XP but with more of a Mac OSX look to it. The computer I used it on responded fairly fast but I don't know how fast that computer was, I have doubts it was 400mhz with 1GB of RAM (which is what I have found you can comfortably run Mac OSX on). I put my shirt on and we took some pictures of me in it later that day, note how non-photogenic I am. The interview with HP went really well. I first had to give a 10 minute presentation with 5 minutes afterwards for questions. First of all I gave them a plastic sleeve of 3 handouts, in the sleeve was a biscuit which they obviously asked about to which I replied "Well, I put it there incase you were hungry, my Dad and I figured it'd lighten the mood a little". As predicted, it did. The presentation was about a Database system I wrote for WoA. First of all I outlined the system, I then explained how I made two key choices, they were.... 1) The old system was Paper Based, did I really need to change it? 2) Should the system be part of the phpBB forum we use or should I make it standalone? The first two handouts listed the pros and cons for both sides, I elaborated on the pros and cons and used these two points to show my logical thinking and analytical approach to problems. I then moved on to explaining how I overcame problems that arose during development and testing. They were... 1) Where to host it? 2) Dealing with Users that made typos 3) Storing the key data These points showed how I looked into things that people suggested, how I got as many of my users onboard and provided a very "customer focused system". The last point was crucial as it showed that I am not afraid to re-do what I've already done if it is needed. The final section involved me telling them how great the users thought the system was, how they really appreciated the open-beta (where anybody can test out the system) and finished by giving them login details to a test account I'd setup on the system which they seemed quite impressed at that. After the interview my Dad and I went to Tesco to get some food for that night and the next morning. We would be staying at a Travel Lodge in Newcastle. Newcastle was blocked up as it was rush hour, we sat in a slowly moving car, me alternating between shoving pringles into my mouth and placing pringles on the dashboard for my dad to eat without needing to take his eyes off the road. We got to the travel lodge and watched some of "My name is Earl" and a little "Scrubs". We both started feeling very tired so went to bed at.... 2100 However, we did get up today (Friday for those that have managed to not keep up so far) at 0500 and left around 0530 where the roads were again clear. Amazingly we got into Birmingham without hitting a load of traffic and walked around. We had a Mc Donalds breakfast (mmmm) and then visited the Apple Store. I really really like the look of the 30" display, however, I am not sure that it's anything but a display and I believe other places might make them and sell them in at less of a price, if I ever get a desktop Computer I might invest in one :) At 1030 my Dad dropped me off at the station and continued on his way to Wales, I waited for my train. Normally I get a rubbishy looking "Alpha Line" train to Wales and get onto a more normal sort of train which has a smoother ride to it. The train from Portsmouth to London was also in the "Normal" category. The train I got here was a Virgin train and it had a power supply in it! I spent the journey writing everything above this line and listening to some music (Nightwish are really good). I really appreciate all the help my Mum and Dad gave me. They sorted out all my travel arrangements, my Dad helped loads with preparing the presentation and also Drove me all the way to Newcastle. It's just a shame that when I checked my email when it read the following. Dear Teifion Further to your Interview Day with HP, we are writing to inform you that you have been unsuccessful in meeting the required criteria on this occasion. May we take this opportunity to thank you for the interest you have shown in HP and we would like to wish you every success with your future career. Now for the reason that I am very very confused. I am not confused because I think that the interview went well, I think most of my exams go well and I fail those. It's quite possible (and quite likely) that someone else was more suited to the job. No, I am confused because everything up till this point has "worked". I've been praying to God that He would be in control of the situation and direct it, I believe others have been doing so too. God's hand has been apparent over the past couple of days, so why make it abundantly clear that I should go to the interview if I would gain nothing from it? The CU did a Social thing on the Southsea Common. I went and we were going to play rugby when it was changed to touch rugby. I was not in the most amazing of moods, probably tiredness. So when people kept moving when I touched them or tried to bend the rules I moved to simply stop them. It turns out that when people move from "fast" to "almost stopped" in under a second they also move from "vertical" to "almost horizontal", the rate of the two changes appear to be correlated. So, touch rugby was abandoned (I did tell them that it'd fail but they ignored me) and we played Baseball. Overall the social was nice but it was overshadowed by the whole interview thing. I am very confused as to what God wants me to do. There has however been 1 good thing today. Recently I began the creation of a second game, it was put on hold due to time constraints, I have no figured that I started it because I was not happy with the way WoA is being run and felt I had no way to solve the problems. I've since decided that's silly and with the tact of a honeycombed brick I will be solving the problems, should that fail I'll use the tact of a normal brick.