Julianfroment's Blog

The Famous Five

Julian Froment — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 19:42:54 +0000

I think I may have reverted to childhood a little the last few days, ever since I found all of the 1978 series of the famous five on youtube. I used to love this series when I was young, and I even enjoyed the more recent 1996 series. The books have long held a special place in my heart as have other Enid Blyton series like the Adventure series. The secret seven were good at the time, but seemed to be better when young, although the famous five and adventure series I can still read (and enjoy) today. The drama Enid with Helena Bonham Carter in the title role recently screened had prompted my renewed interest. It was a very revealing programme giving a totally different view of Enid Blyton to that expected.

General musings

Julian Froment — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 19:58:43 +0000

Its been a while. Things have been getting pretty busy again at work, which is a good thing, obviously. I have had little time to work on the new web2 site and have been doing only some very minor amendments to the current site. Still working through the supervisor appraisals. Just got two left to do, but given how busy we are its going to be difficult to find time to do them, and not to take up to much employee time when they have many other things to be doing. Been trying to work on the company newsletter also. I realised that there had not been an issue since December 2008, which is shocking as I intended to do one at least every 3months. Nearly have it sorted now, maybe I will broadcast it out to all of the mailing list members tomorrow and then move it to be the first post new subscribers receive. In our christmas card that we send to clients we have a link to sign up to the newsletter and it would certainly be better if they got something reasonable up to date if they sign up.

I should hopefully receive the reading material for the next module of my Open University course in the next week or two – ‘Business Organisations and their Environments’ . That will be good, since it will give me something to read over christmas – although I expect I will be in at work for most of the holiday. I have been invited out for christmas day to my friend’s, so I won’t need to bother cooking again this year. Excellent. Chemex environmental christmas party in a couple of weeks also, then a few other parties and so on. Everything starts to get busy now, until the end of the year.

I think that I will need to think hard and make a concerted effort to try to come up with a theme and direction for this blog, starting in the new year. It has got to be pretty boring to anyone but myself (well, me too really) just reading the results of my rambling.

Back to work

Julian Froment — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 19:42:11 +0000

My first day back at work after a weeks holiday today. Felt knackered all day, it’s not healthy having holiday don’t think. Lots of lovely queries and problems to deal with as usual. A couple of meetings too. Looking forward to my apraisal later in the week, then need to sort out the appraisals for my lab supervisors and then arrange for them to appraise their staff.

Had an interesting query regarding chemical oxidation studies for remediating hydrocarbon contamination. This could be an exciting new project, hopefully leading to long term on-going monitoring activities in support.

Finally managed to get shot of my old Audi. A great car, but was just getting too old. A local garage bought it off of me, for a minimal amount of money saying it needed so and so doing etc, but at least they came and picked it up. It is no longer sitting on my drive, where it has been standing for 4 and 1/2 months. Hooray!

Long day at work today trying to deal with loads of stuff. Back home and my Sky tv is still not working. Great. Got to try and work out if it is the dish and LNB or whether it is the decoder. Better do it soon since don’t want to keep paying for it if I cannot watch any tv. Unfortunately I have no normal aerial either so it is the BBC iplayer at the moment – university challenge in a few minutes. I will need to get it sorted before the Arsenal game next tuesday anyway. Still, it lets me get a bit of reading in without the tv to distract me so much.

Busy Busy Busy

Julian Froment — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 21:13:26 +0000

As the title says, busy again. Things pretty hectic at work and home. Answering a number of queries today regarding the calculation of compound concentrations from soil gas samples that have been sampled using tenax tubes fitted with diffusion caps. Have been looking at calculations using diffusion coefficients for the BTEX compounds with a colleague. Some interesting maths involving diffusion of compounds and the geometry of the receiving surface.

I am looking into the practicalities of writing a white paper to publish on the company website and possibly even as an article in some of the environmental literature. I will also post a link here if I write it. I want to write about methods of monitoring the efficacy of certain types of bioremediation, in particular the use of Hydrogen Release Compound (HRC) and reductive dechlorination in the bioremediation of chlorinated hydrocarbons. Not sure if I will get this done, but I am intending on having a weeks holiday next week, so may get the chance to at least begin then.

Just been putting a couple of updates on twitter. Nice to see that I have been added to a list related to Chemistry by Perkin Elmer, and that I have a big 24 followers now!!

Staff Meeting

Julian Froment — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 11:14:01 +0000

Good day at work yesterday (friday), except for feeling rough still. Quite a few queries to deal with, especially as I was off sick for a few days. It’s amazing how quick they stack up. Good staff meeting at Chemex in the afternoon to inform all of the staff of the latest management structure, business ojectives, implementation of an appraisal system, results of the recent staff survey and the initiation of a new employee of the month reward scheme. It was amazingly quick. Nobody asked a single question, other than ‘where are the complimentary cakes?’ Hopefully this is just because it is the first real staff meeting we have had. I am sure that there were questions which will no doubt will come out on a one to one basis. I feel this is important since keeping staff informed and involved in what is happening in the company is crucial. If staff aren’t kept informed, how can they be engaged in what they are doing and feel part of the company and that they will benefit from the future success of it.

Performance Management Training

Julian Froment — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 16:45:19 +0000

Despite feeling rubbish I managed to make it into work today. I needed to go in as we had a course at Chemex Environmental on performance management. This was a really informative course concentrating on appraisals, setting of SMART objectives and having difficult conversations. There was an hour or so of role playing which was surprisingly good fun. I learnt a lot from the course and hope that everyone else benefits in the same way.

Now for a long evening of laying on the sofa watching tv feeling grotty, when I really should be exercising and working on my personal development plan with plenty of reading and prep work for my next OU course which starts in february.

Flu

Julian Froment — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:24:51 +0000

Sitting at home today. Second day off of work with a bug/virus or whatever. Flu like symptoms anyway. It’s a little annoying, not only missing work when I have loads to do, but also I am unable to meet my niece who was born on monday.

Still, not sitting at home idle as I have been trying to work on brochure pages on Waste Acceptance Criteria (WAC) and Total Petroleum Hydrocarbons (TPH) as part of the latest Chemex Environmental marketing effort. Unable to concentrate enough to get them done properly but hopefully I have at least made enough of a start for others to ammend and make coherent. Just gonna sit and watch TV and relax now I hope.

Old friends

Julian Froment — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 10:51:12 +0000

Had a great day yesterday. Met up with Mat and Soo who cam up from London to visit. I was at university (UKC in Canterbury) with Mat, which we realised was 20 years ago now (since we started!). Frightening. Went to meet them in StIves then brought them back to mine and we played guitar for a bit, before a fun evening drinking in the village, with a nice Indian for sustenance. Nursing a hangover now, but it was worth it.

Interestingly I also had an email from Nigel from uni days inviting me down to London for beers with himself, Barry and Stuart. A shame that it was the same day as Mat and Soo were coming, any other time would have been great. Still, should be able to arrange something for next time.

Just watching pride and prejudice now, then maybe a bit of work before tomorow.

Reading and TV Day

Julian Froment — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:20:58 +0000

Pretty restful day today after the last few busy days, with the conference and finishing up the End of Course Assessment for my OU business studies course. Received a couple of new books from Amazon today. ‘Managing Oneself’ by Peter Drucker, one of the Harvard Business Reviews (HBR) Classics series, and ‘How to be Rich’ by J. Paul Getty. Just had a quick flick through of those.

Most of the rest of the day I spent watching TV, surfing the web for our competitors capability statements and reading. I was reading the first few pages of Michael E Porter’s ‘Competitive Advantage’ which looks interesting but is pretty thick. TV now for the rest of the evening, so a pretty boring run of the mill saturday really.

The day after.

Julian Froment — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:38:50 +0000

Damn, just lost a couple of hundred words in one go, sodding key fumbles. Well, got back from the conference yesterday after. Had a great time, the conference dinner the previous evening was pretty good, followed by ‘networking’ in the bar until 04:30. Up for breakfast, and back to the technical programme by 09:30. Admittedly feeling a bit tender.

First up was ‘Practical Applications of Disposable Pipette Extraction (DPX) in Forensic Toxicology’ by Simon Elliot from ROAR Forensics.This was followed by Dr Lisa Fitzpatrick from Sigma Aldrich, UK talking about ‘Molecularly Imprinted Polymers – Highly Selective SPE for Trace Analysis in Complex Matrices’. Neither of these were particularly relevant to me, but the DPX was at least an interesting technology that we may be able to adapt. This was followed by an interesting talk by Jonathan Angove from Anatune on something a bit more relevant, ‘Hyphenating Automated SPE with GC-MS and GC-FID Instrumentation.

After coffee came Ms Meike Baden from TeLA talking on ‘Automated Sample Preparation for LC-MS in the Clinical Laboratory. After this was Dr Oliver Lerch from GERSTEL GmbH in Germany on ‘Automated Sample Preparation in Food Analysis’. Then ‘The Use of Stir Bar Sorptive Extraction Back Extraction for the Clean-Up of Clinical Samples Prior to LC Analysis by Dr Prashant Kole from Queens University in Belfast. Not so many relevant talks on the second day, but a very good conference. Followed by lunch then home.

Good nights sleep then a bit of shopping, and finally finished my end of course assignment. Submitted it electronically, and now can relax for a few days. Still have tomorrow off work, so a nice long weekend.