Nearly done

I'm nearly up to date with transferring posts from Furthermore - just the end of 07 and 08 to go + a few longer pieces that I want to maybe re-work a bit. I seem to be quite busy at the moment with work and home projects - I'm building a raised bed so we can grow some veggies, and we're just starting work on packing stuff up so we can re-do the dining room.

Running is on hold again due to more knee problems, but I have finally booked a swimming lesson, so I'm hoping that with a bit of help I can get some confidence in the water and then I can mix and match swimming in with running so I can do some exercise when my knee needs a break.

I've been fiddling with various tasks on the PC this morning, and surfing youtube while I'm doing it. I stumbled on various covers of Smiths songs - there are a couple by Jeff Buckley, which were interesting, but the recording quality is bad. Muse have done Please Let Me Get What I Want but while it's quite original, I can only agree with the commenter who labelled it an unpleasant surprise. My favourite of the day is this Radiohead cover of The Headmaster Ritual. I wasn't a big fan of Meat is Murder but seeing someone else do this song with a little bit of a harder edge really makes it stand out for me:

Furthermore: August 2007

August 24, 2007

Kitchen Update

It’s progressing, albeit more slowly than we’d like. To be fair, it’s not the builder’s fault - he’s been very good about getting on with things - it’s more to do with needing a steel lintel to support the bit of wall we want knocked out, and arranging to get the structural engineer to tell us how thick that has to be.

However, we’ve now got the new room built for the toilet, and the new back door and windows are in place at the back (giving us a temporary open-plan toilet back there). Hopefully at the weekend the toilet can be plastered and then that can be fitted out. Then next week the lintel should come and the kitchen should finally move forward.

Running

I skipped last weekend’s run, but on the Thursday before I did 26.02 which is another best time. Interestingly this Thursday I did 28.40 - partly because the weather was terrible, but also just general tiredness I think. It was quite amazing just how the change in mental approach slowed me down - by the corner of Cherry Hinton Road I was already 30 seconds behind the 3.30 I’d expect to get there.

August 13, 2007

Ian and Clare’s Wedding

Had a really good time at Ian and Clare’s wedding on Saturday. Weather was great, the college was a beautiful setting, and the food and drink were excellent. Too much of a good thing for our younger daughter, who ate a whole adult portion of chocolate mousse and then had to throw it all up afterwards - fortunately H had decided to take her outside as she didn’t like the clapping during the speeches. Also fortunately, someone lent us some clothes for her. Ella’s comment “I ate too much chocolate”. I don’t think it will put her off somehow.

We took the girls home in the afternoon, and then I went back for the evening do, which was also good fun - met several people I hadn’t seen for quite a while, and generally had fun drinking and dancing to the indie hits of my youth.

While I remember - Thursday’s run went really well - I did 26m05, and I would have been quicker if I hadn’t stopped to warn a cyclist about an eye level thorny bit of hedge sticking right out across the footpath.

August 7, 2007

Stag Weekend

I went up to Sheffield last weekend for Ian’s stag do. It was good fun, and good to see some old friends. I felt slightly strange going out in a big group of “lads” - clubs and pubs are not keen on you, and since nearly everyone already has a wife/partner, the point of the game is less clear than it used to be. Also, once you get past 30 or so, the attractions of being in a loud, over-priced club seem to pall somewhat compared to sitting in a quiet pub where you can talk to your friends (about house prices or something

I got back to Cambridge on Sunday to find that summer had arrived. I went over to Jay’s boat to have a look round (it was the boaties open day, and I hadn’t seen inside Jay’s boat before). Ended up staying for most of the afternoon, drinking wine and chatting to Jay and Al while a steady stream of visitors came by. Very relaxing.

Running seems to have suffered a bit - I skipped a couple of Tuesdays for reasons I won’t go into here, and my times have slipped back to around 27.15. Hopefully I can get it back down again. I’ve just binned my London Marathon magazine for 08 - I may do another in a couple of years, but I don’t feel the urge to just do it again for the sake of it.

Furthermore: July 2007

July 19, 2007

Kitchen

After many false starts, it looks like our new kitchen is finally going ahead next week. We were originally going to do a big extension, but we eventually decided against it after finding it wouldn’t add any value to the house (and we might want to move to get more space at some point, or if they put bus lanes on Perne Road). So now we’re just moving the loo from the back of the house to be off the hall, and the kitchen to the back so it will face into the garden. Builders should be coming next Wednesday or Thursday - I’ll let you know how we get on.

Another good run this morning btw - 26.29.

July 17, 2007

Things

Went up to visit my parents over the weekend - we were all going to go, but then dad had a fall and broke his pubic bone (very painful apparently, although you can still move about). Since he’s a bit frail now anyway he had to spend some time in a home before mum could get him back to their house (hopefully he’s back today). Anyway, it didn’t seem fair on the girls for them to have to just sit with me and mum and dad all Saturday and Sunday, so I went up on my own. It was nice to be able to spend some time with them both - just a shame about the circumstances. I’ve brought back a big load of their old photos which I’m going to try to put into some kind of order.


This was also the first time on a long journey in the new car - ahh, so much easier to drive. Faster, much more powerful - the kickdown is really good fun. For some reason, this was also the first time I missed the turn-off towards Newark and Lincoln so I had to go on a bit of a loop to get back to where I should have been.

I took Monday off, which was a good break. I ran this morning before work - 26.40, so that’s another best time.

July 13, 2007

Bit of a catch up

Let’s think, last weekend I took the girls to the Big Day Out - great fun. L went on the bouncy slide and bouncy castle. E tried to have a go on the bouncy castle but it was too big for her. We had ice cream, and then the girls had a go on the roundabout. H was feeling poorly that day, so I went out in the evening (instead of her I mean) to meet Jay for her birthday. Met some interesting people.

Started running again in the week after feeling ill with colds and general blocked-up nose stuff. Thursday I got back to 26.49 so hopefully I can get that down further next week.

This weekend I’m off to see my parents in Lincoln. Dad’s not well after a fall, so hopefully I can cheer him up a bit with some stuff from the girls - I have a very cute video of E saying “hello Grandpa”. It’s my first chance to take the new car on a long journey too.

Furthermore: June 2007

June 21, 2007

Runs this week

Tuesday - 27.10

Thursday - 26.45 - below 27 minutes for the first time.

June 14, 2007

Runs this week

Tuesday - 28.30 - not bad, particularly as I had to stop for a minute to check something.

Thursday - 27.16 - best time yet. Maybe next week I can beat the 27 min barrier.

Mrs F has also started running again, and seems to be enjoying it so far.

June 13, 2007

I can has a car?

(sorry). We’ve bought a shiny new-to-us Skoda Octavia. It’s a real joy to drive compared to the Citroen - much quieter (petrol rather than diesel), more powerful, and oh yes it’s an automatic. Neither of us had tried one before, but we both immediately took to it - I feel like driving a manual is a peculiar kind of practical joke that’s been played on me - why would I want to be constantly fiddling with the clutch and gears when the car can do it all for me?

June 10, 2007

Looking for a new car

The Citroen has finally reached the point of being more expensive to fix than to replace, so I went out on Saturday to look at some potential replacements. I saw two Mondeos, and a Skoda Octavia - the latter looks promising, so I brought Mrs F along today to have a go. I’m going to take tomorrow off and we’ll check out a couple more Octavias before we make a decision.

If anyone wants a K reg Citroen ZX to run into the ground (it still goes okay) then get in touch.

June 5, 2007

Tuesday Run

27m30 - I think that’s about a minute better than last week.

June 4, 2007

Le Weekend

Quick roundup on running - didn’t go Thursday as I played 5-a-side at work on Wednesday and it pulled muscles I don’t normally use. Saturday I seemed to be a bit off form - I started off well but I was well over 1h08 by the time I got home. I think I was a bit distracted by various things, and also it was a lot hotter than it has been lately, so maybe I was getting a bit dehydrated.

Apart from that it was a pretty good weekend - I managed to do some good work in the garden edging and weeding, I started looking at my new book (Wilmott Introduces Quantitative Finance) - so far it seems much more user-friendly than Hull, and I played with the girls and generally had a good time.

Annoyingly, the car now seems to be slightly broken - the rear suspension isn’t right, so that’s yet another thing to add to the list of stuff that must be fixed, along with dripping taps and leaking roofs.

Furthermore: May 2007

May 12, 2007

Endless Things

I just got my copy of John Crowley’s Endless Things today. The booklist shows I read the first part of the AEgypt quartet at the start of 1989, so that makes it over 18 years to get to read the last part. There aren’t many authors I’d have this much patience for.

Shiny New Blog

I’ve found a WP theme I’m reasonably happy with (AndyBlue if you were wondering) so I’ve made the switch to WP and also demoted the blog from the root - I have vague plans to do some other projects on this site as well as the blog.

Furthermore: April 2007

April 24, 2007

Valedictory

I think that just about wraps it up for Furthermore in its current incarnation. I shall leave the current pages up for a while, but then I think I’m going to move the site and its archives (yes, I know, a blogging sin - so shoot me) and start using Wordpress. There will be occasional updates, but I doubt it will be more often than monthly.

I’m also thinking about posting to my LiveJournal. I use it for private posts and commenting at the moment, but I’d like to have somewhere to be able to blog some more personal stuff without having it easily linked to me by anyone who cares to google my name. So if you want to see that (I’m not promising how much there’ll be yet) and you don’t know where my LJ is then mail me.

post Marathon

I did it! I ran the London Marathon in 4.43 and finished 19,360th! It was a hot day - I remembered to bring a hat, but I forgot suncream. I think the hat was a lifesaver in actually allowing me to get round - I was very worried I’d get heat exhaustion. The suncream would have been nice though - I’m quite burnt on my arms, neck, and backs of my legs.

I felt pretty good through the first half. The low point was at around mile 17 when I somehow lost track of how far I’d gone and was expecting mile 18 to be coming up. Big disappointment when I saw the marker.

Fortunately I got a lift soon after when I saw my friends Alison and Chris - it definitely helped to see some friendly faces on route. If I do another then I will get my name printed on my shirt - I hadn’t realised people gave shout-outs as they saw names pass by.

The last section was tough. My legs were very tired, but I stuck to my run/walk cycle and it did seem to help stop me seizing up. The feeling when I finished was incredible. I can’t really describe it - just a kind of cathartic wave of emotion. I shall probably look very strange in the photo.

After the race I staggered across the river to meet H (we thought it would be a bit less crowded on the South Bank). We had a snack at the NFT cafe and I got changed. Then we went on to eat at Strada - it was pretty good (though I suspect almost anything would have tasted good) and then back to H’s parents in time to see the girls before they went to bed.

Here’s my official time, and here’s a random picture of me on Flickr - I literally picked it out a big page of thumbnails.

Furthermore: March 2007

March 21, 2007

Marathon Sponsorship

I’m running the marathon for myself primarily, but I wanted to raise some money for charity too, so I’ve chosen Amnesty International, as I’ve been involved with them for a long time now. I’ve got a JustGiving page up here, or the button below should also link to it.

Thanks in advance to anyone that will sponsor me! Amnesty have been campaigning for the human rights of victims of oppressive regimes for many years, and unfortunately there are still many countries that practice torture, arbitrary detention, and “disappearances” - ie state sponsored murder.

March 18, 2007

Marathon Training

Looking out the window now, it looks like I did well to go running yesterday. Still, it was the toughest run I’ve done yet - my body seemed to rebel from the moment I set off. My left foot had been aching a bit in the week and it started playing up almost as soon as I set off. I think a lot of this was also psychological - all the negative parts of my brain trying to make excuses for me not to finish. Normally it wears off after a while but this time it just seemed to be continuous.

Fortunately, after a couple of miles, my foot felt better and I did have a fairly good run for an hour or so. But I wasn’t even up to 2 hours before I started feeling a bit tired - which is quite unusual.

By 3 hours out I was really suffering, and my right leg almost cramped. Fortunately that kind of made me realise that a big part of the problem was dehydration. I stopped at a random stranger’s house and asked them if they’d refill my bottle (thanks, random stranger). Previously I seem to have got round nearly 20 miles with just 500ml of water and whatever I drank before I set off, but yesterday I just needed more - I had to stop and ask again before I finished.

Anyway, I finally struggled home in about 4.13 (predicting a marathon time of just under 5 hours). I’m pretty pleased I did it, and didn’t jack it in - I think it will really help build some mental toughness for the big day. OTOH, I’d really like to do better than 5 hours on the day, so I need to make sure I stay more hydrated.

I got my pack through from the Marathon telling me where I’m starting and such like. And Amnesty have sent me various sponsorship stuff - I’m going to set up a justgiving site, so it should be available in the next few days - I’m just waiting for some Amnesty bits to customise it.

March 6, 2007

Winding Down

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I don’t seem to have posted for a month or so, and I think that may be a sign that this blog is going out of commission, at least for a while. There may be a new Furthermore when I have something new to talk about, but don’t expect many more updates here. I will let you know how I get on in the marathon though.

Furthermore: February 2007

February 4, 2007

100 miles

I did 20 miles on Saturday, in just over 3 hours 30. I think that takes me to just over 100 miles run so far this year. Conditions were good on Saturday though - I did the same route as for the 17 mile run, but I just added on a couple of loops of the science park, and a wrong turning to make it up to 20 miles. Definitely more aches and pains on this run though - my right ankle started to twinge, and every walk break I had to stop and rotate it a few times to get it feeling right again.

For some reason the big psychological hurdle for me was the 17 mile run - maybe because I hadn’t run so far before. Ironically that went very well, but this one was much harder. I definitely got some kind of second wind towards the end though - I felt tired, but my form imroved, and I was able to run strongly to the finish.

Next long run though, I have to find some more places for comfort breaks!

Cotto

It was my birthday yesterday, so Mrs F and I went out to Cotto for dinner. It was fantastic. We got off to a slightly shaky start, as we were greeted by a woman who looked at us in a sort of “what do you want?” way, until we said we had reservations, at which she rather directed us upstairs. Anyway, the food was really nice - I had a salad with stilton, and then mackerel with a dhal. H had pork rillette and then a tagine of lamb. All really full of flavour. They were able tweak the dishes slightly to cater for H’s dairy intolerance (always a good sign), and they even had a dessert she could eat. Fairly expensive (~?80) but I’d definitely go again for a special occasion.

Furthermore: January 2007

January 31, 2007

Tuesday

I had an amazingly productive day on Tuesday - I got up about 6.30 and went running, then spent the morning at work fixing a problem that had been bugging me for several days.

I took the afternoon off, did a bit of shopping and then went to CB2 to meet the MySociety people to see what I could help them with. They were very friendly, so we had a good chat, and Tom put me in touch with Richard Pope who’s hopefully going to help me get going with a screenscraper for his planning applications website.

After I left there I bought some food for tea, then headed home to eat and help put the girls to bed. Then back out to the Alexandra Arms to host the Cambridge Amnesty group’s letter writing evening. Fortunately for me I had been given a bunch of template letters by a friend in the Blackheath and Greenwich group, so we were able to use those to write about 20 letters between the five of us.

Still managed to get home in time for a reasonably early night.

January 20, 2007

Not blogging but running

Not a lot to say at the moment I guess. I am thinking of porting this site to Wordpress (that is, I’ve done it, except the style sheets, but I can’t be bothered to finish) so maybe that’s why I’m reluctant to post here - it’s the Furthermore-original-flavour epilogue.

Anyway, running is going well - I did just over 17 miles today, in just under 3 hours, so that’s about a 10m15s per mile. For some reason the 17 mile run had become something of a source of anxiety. I’ve never run that far before, and I was afraid I was going to screw it up I guess. As it was, the weather was nice, and I even managed to get on the road before 8am so I was back just before 11. Here’s the route - the section by the river up to Baits Bite, and then Milton Country Park was very nice. Running back down Milton Road, not so much.

January 6, 2007

Running this morning

I did my longest run ever so far this morning - just under 15 miles. Took me about 2 hours 40, which is a bit slower than I’d like. Conditions were okay when I set off, but my hands started to get really cold after about an hour - I think I need some thin gloves that I can take to prevent it as this has happened a few times now. I find if I take my normal gloves my hands get too hot, and the gloves are too bulky to easily put in my waist bag.

It rained too in the latter half of the run, and I finished the circuit by going round Nine Wells, so there was quite a lot of muddy ground to cover. Bit of a slog to be honest, but I feel good now I’ve done it. I’m going to aim for 17 miles in a couple of weeks time, and that should pull me back just ahead of the schedule in Galloway, and give me some slack in case I lose more time later on in the year.

January 2, 2007

Torchwood

We watched the Torchwood finale last night, and I think that’s it for me and Torchwood. Much as I love Mr Barrowman, the penultimate part jumped the shark during his snog with the doomed airman. We got the point already - can the writers not express a subtle emotion without smacking us over the head with it?

The last one was even worse - pure self indulgence by the writers. There’s a scene where Capt Jack berates his team for all being idiots, and for a moment I thought there might be an explanation why the whiny, hysterical fools had been recruited to their positions of global importance. But no, it was just more emo wank before they brought on the demon that they’d already shown us in the trailer. Then the whole sorry mess finally dragged itself to its obvious conclusion.

What annoys me is that it has moments of brilliance, and that the same people who seem so able in Doctor Who, seem to lose all sense of characterisation and ability to write a good plot as soon as the constraints of a family drama are relaxed.

Furthermore: December 2006

December 30, 2006

More about Today

I wibbled on so much about running and coughing that I forgot to mention that after yesterday’s rather disastrous trip out, and with today being such fine weather, we thought we would go out into town today.

So we had a good lunch at Teri-Aki. L protested, but then she did try a few things - she liked tempura, and she even tried one of the fish eggs from the sushi, but decided that was nasty. That’s the sushi that is marked “challenging” in some restaurants I’ve been to, so I don’t think she did to badly.

While we were there, we saw Prof Hawking - nice to see that he’s still able to get out and about. After lunch we walked up Castle Hill - none of the family but me has been up there before for one reason or another. When we reached the top, the rain immediately began to fall, so we quickly descended again. The rain then stopped, so we walked back into town through Trinity College, and stopped for coffee and cake at Michaelhouse.

Back at home, Mrs F found that her new OU course material had arrived, so she was pleased, having started the day a bit down after a bad dream and a poor night’s sleep (see below about coughing).

It was a really nice day out, and it’s so nice to be able to relax with my family and not feel the need to be constantly doing things. I want to have more of that kind of fun in the coming year.

Post Yule

Haven’t updated for a bit as I’ve been feeling pretty ropey since before Christmas. I’ve had a mix of cold and cough, but it’s mainly the cough that’s been bugging me - it’s very dry and it just seems to have been going on forever. It was keeping me awake for several nights, but I’ve now discovered the wonders of Cough Nurse (ie like Night Nurse but for coughs) which seems to have just taken the edge off it.

So apart from sickliness, what else:

• Christmas itself was good - we had duck for lunch, with a bottle of Chateau Musar (my favourite wine). Lots of presents were exchanged, with Mrs F particularly pleased with my getting her the DVD of Miyazaki’s animated film of Howl’s Moving Castle.


• Then the 28th was E’s birthday, so we had a few people over (there would have been more, but it seems we’re not the only ones who are ill) but it was really nice to see Jay, and Guy + Susie and family again - Ella loves playing with their older boy Gabriel. I don’t think E could claim to have been hard done by for presents, given the proximity of her birthday to Christmas.


• Yesterday we tried to go out - we thought to go to St Ives, but the weather and traffic were against us, so we ended up having a rather disappointing lunch at Bella Italia (which has previously been quite good).


• Today I managed to go for a run for the first time in over a week. Possibly I could have gone before - it’s hard to judge when running will make you feel better rather than worse when you feel a bit off colour. Anyway, I did about 6 miles, so I shall treat that as the run I should have done last Saturday, and treat myself as just a week behind on my schedule. Of course I didn’t think about losing time in the training schedule when I started running, so I haven’t left any spare weeks to catch up the time I’ve lost. Hopefully I can make up the distance on some of the later long runs, but I think there’s a lesson there for another year.

That’ll do for now. I want to do some end of the year personal round up type stuff, but I need to think about that a bit more.

December 20, 2006

Up and Running

The new site is now officially up and running, if incredibly hideous at the moment. Hopefully that will spur me to actually do something about it.

Quick list of what needs doing:

• fix problem with delicious sidebar being indented so far. Some kind of stylesheet madness I assume?


• make the header links work, particularly the archives.


• change the style of the left sidebar - I don’t like the boxes.


• turn the colour scheme into something more palatable. Probably different than the old Furthermore, but with a hint of how it used to be.


• either work out how to redirect URLs, or redo a bunch of links (eg in the booklist)


• restyle the booklist and CV to the new site style.


• rewrite the main Furthermore page to say what’s happened.



• uninstall Movable Type.


• add a link to Amnesty International in the worthy causes section.

Update 22/12/06

• fixed the archives and the header links (mixture of removal and moving to sidebar).

December 19, 2006

Nothing to see here

I’m just fiddling with WP with a view to converting from MT. There’s quite a bit more to do yet.

Well, I’ve got all my posts migrated. I’ve got a three column layout. Now I just have to turn it into something less hideous.

Harmonica

L got a toy harmonica on the cover of one of her magazines. Turns out to be a swizz, as it only has two notes - the others are intentionally non-functional. This means you can’t get any kind of tune out of it, and the notes that do work produce only a kind of plaintive squeaking - the sound you imagine a gerbil might make if it were pulled slowly into a mincer.

December 18, 2006

The Big Opt Out

I just sent off my opt-out letter to my GP, asking them not to upload a summary care record for me to the NHS data spine. I’ve thought quite hard about this - I don’t have any medical data that I’m actually that bothered about keeping strictly private - but the government’s implementation of central NHS records seems likely to undermine doctor-patient confidentiality, and is yet another facet of the database state (see past rants about ID Cards, the ridiculous children’s database etc).

You can read more at The Big Opt Out. There’s a form letter you can use to send to your GP.

December 13, 2006

As of yesterday

I don’t seem to be doing much blogging lately. Maybe it’s the running using up my time. Saturday I did a ten mile circuit of Cambridge - knees felt fine, but it was very cold, and I foolishly didn’t take my gloves, so my hands got absolutely freezing. I thought they’d warm up after I’d been out for a while, but no such luck. Then in the afternoon Mrs F’s sister came to visit, which was nice - she brought up some presents for the girls, and they like playing with her. Unfortunately Mrs F started to come down with a bug as the afternoon wore on, and ended up having to go back to bed. So that meant I had to cancel my night out at the BBC Backstage party at very short notice (sorry, Ursula). One of those things I guess, but I was pretty pissed off at the time.

Sunday Mrs F was somewhat better. I took the girls up to Histon playground (L likes the little helter-skelter there). It was a bit cold though, so we went back quite early, except that I left a bag behind with all the changing stuff (+ drinks, snacks etc) behind. I had to go back after lunch to look for it - fortunately it was still there. As I was still in quite a bad mood about the previous evening, I thought I’d take a bit of a drive round. I ended up at Upware, so I had a quick pint at the Five Miles, then negotiated the tiny back roads back to Cambridge - I love the sensation of being in the middle of nowhere, and the fen landscape is great when you just want to be on your own for a bit.

I took Monday off as Mrs F had been planning to go to London to meet a friend and see the Holbein exhibition at Tate Britain. Unfortunately her friend had to cancel, and she was still feeling a bit off-colour, but she decided she’d go anyway, and just not stay out too late. I took E into town (had to wait ages for the bus in the rain) and managed to get Christmas cards + various other things I’ve needed for a while. Since Mrs F was back early I was able to go out and see (at Jay’s suggestion) The Scissors at The Cellar Bar. It was pretty good - Jay has blogged it more amusingly than I could. You may have to be one of Jay’s imaginary friends to read that though.

December 3, 2006

Sickly

Ah, it’s all been sickness in the Furthermore house this week. Wednesday night L woke up very poorly, and Mrs F had to stay up with her, with me doing backup vomit-cleaning duties.

Then Friday I came down with the same thing (although not so badly) so I had to leave work early. Saturday was a complete write-off, and today I merely felt grim. Actually I’m starting to feel a little better now, which is good, as tomorrow is Mrs F’s birthday, and I booked it off work so we could go out together.

Furthermore: November 2006

November 19, 2006

bits and bobs

MeFi meetup was good fun, and it was great to go to a formal hall again - real hit of nostalgia for me. I cut my run a bit short the next day - only did an hour.

Today I managed to do quite a bit of my finance course revision + worked on the family tree program for quite a while - I can see it’s going to take a lot of effort to get all the information into it that I have now, never mind adding new people in.

It’s good though, I feel like I’ve caught up with myself a bit, and that I’m doing the things I want to do. I seem to have got through my mini mid-life crisis. I don’t think it was any single thing that did it, just a combination of GTD, and reading and thinking about what I wanted to get out of my life. It’s helped as well that the children are a bit older and more able to play by themselves or with each other.

Now I just have to get over my procrastination demon - but I’ve found quite a good book on that too - The Now Habit by Neil Fiore. Interesting stuff - maybe I’ll write a bit more about that too.

November 16, 2006

Wire and Rain

Had to run in the rain this morning which wasn’t so great. At least it wasn’t cold.

This evening I watched episode 1 of season 1 of The Wire, which teh internet people seem to rave about. I thought it was good, and I’m going to carry on with at least the other episodes on the first DVD (1,2&3). Since it’s on rental, I’ll see what I think after that - all the series DVDs seem pretty popular at Amazon so it may be a while before I can get the next one anyway.

Tomorrow evening I’m off to the Cambridge Metafilter Meetup, so we’ll see what that’s like. It’s going to be at Trinity Formal Hall, which should be good fun at any rate - I haven’t been to a formal hall since about 1993.

November 14, 2006

Roots Magic

I’ve downloaded the basic version of Roots Magic. It looks like exactly what I need to manage all the family history info I’ve accumulated in one place. I’m particularly impressed they’ve thought about the fact that you might want to add sources for where you found pieces of information.

It imported from my parents’ old Family Tree Maker file without complaint, and I’ve added a couple of things since then. Don’t bother with the Platinum edition - the basic is fine unless you need a lot of help with PC applications.

November 13, 2006

This weekend

I increased the distance a bit this weekend - I did an 8 mile circuit + 3 runs from the corner of Chesterton Road and Castle Hill up to the top of Castle Mound. Each run up is just under 1/5 mile, so that’s just over another mile altogether. Time was around 1 hour 30, so I’m reasonably happy with that.

I seem to be getting a bit of soreness underneath the outside of my right knee though, so I’m going back to the physio to get it checked out.

November 7, 2006

Le weekend

Friday I was in London again for a presentation skills course. It was pretty good, but a secondary reason for going was to see the shiny new offices in the CitiGroup tower in Canary Wharf. We were pretty high up and the weather was clear, so the view was incredible - you could see right across to Wembley (if you had good eyesight like I don’t). You could really see the smog over the city as well. The course finished quite early so I managed to meet up with Rachel, who had to leave early to revise for a ton of job interviews she has lined up, and then Tony, who I was at college with, and I haven’t seen for a few years. He and his wife had just had their second child, so he was quite tired, so we had some food at a nice Italian place near Farringdon, and then I headed back home.

Saturday H went into town in the afternoon. The girls and I went out in the garden until teatime, when I thought H would be back. Since she hadn’t turned up, I thought about what to get them for tea and came up with boiled egg and soldiers. Just as I was about to put the eggs on, H arrived home. “Sorry I’m late - the bus didn’t come. Did you get my message?” she said.

I didn’t know anything about the message because we’d been out in the garden. H played it and it suggested that I give the girls boiled eggs and soldiers for tea. Obviously the mind-melding is proceeding apace.

I took L to the fireworks in the evening. Really good this year I thought. L liked them, but she got a bit bored after a while. Next year I think we might try to bring everyone into town, which will make the logistics harder - with just L, I can take her on the bike (although I need to get a trailer bike, as she doesn’t really fit in the child seat any more).

H and I watched Torchwood on Sunday, which I was quite looking forward to from the trailers. It was absolute cobblers though. (Spoilers follow). I don’t believe for a second that Ianto could keep his partly cyber-converted girlfriend, Lisa, in the Torchwood base for months on end without anyone knowing. And that was just the start, after that the implausibilities came thick and fast, culminating in Lisa’s self administered brain transplant into a Pizza delivery girl (whose brain death doesn’t even rate a mention from the team). The team then casually shoot her body dead to kill Lisa. No consequences follow for anyone (although I guess it’s going to be hard for them to get any more pizza).

Might give it one more go, but that’s it.

November 2, 2006

Bike bits

I’d been thinking for a while of buying a mirror for my bike, but having now done it, I have to warn you not to waste your money. At least, not on a handlbar mounted one. It doesn’t stick out far enough, it moves when you steer (duh) and generally I got no information from it that I wasn’t already aware of by just listening and glancing behind. Don’t bother.

Gloves on the other hand - I just bought a pair of “sealskinz” waterproof, breathable mountain biking gloves for a small fortune, but they’re great. Finally, gloves that actually keep my hands warm now the weather is cold. I got them in the outdoor shop on Green St - can’t remember the name I’m afraid. I did try Halfords, and they had some quite good ones, but they had incredibly tight cuffs - I don’t have outlandishly large hands, but I could hardly get them on.

Londonist

I had a course in London on Tuesday, but it was only in the morning, and they even finished a bit early, so I booked the rest of the day off. I went up to Euston and met one of my Woolwich-era friends for lunch. Then I went to Tate Modern to have a go on the slides.

Unfortunately I hadn’t reckoned on how popular they would be. Tickets (free) for the highest levels had all gone, and the level 3 slide only had times for about 4.30 which would have meant hanging around for 2 hours. I’ve been on slides before, and it didn’t quite seem worth it. Fortunately, there were two slides that were just queue and go, so I went on those and called it a day.

Then I did a bit of shopping, although I only managed to buy a few stocking fillers for the girls. Probably a good thing really as I would have spent a fortune otherwise.

Finally I met up with a couple of friends at a pub and we had a good evening of catching up. Gotta go to London again tomorrow for another course, so hopefully I may be able to catch up with some other people after work then.

Furthermore: October 2006

October 29, 2006

Weekend

It’s been a pretty good weekend. I cooked on Friday night - just steak with potatoes+bacon in a vinaigrette and some purple sprouting broccoli. The Jamie Oliver 21-day matured steaks in Sainsbury’s are actually very good - I cooked them properly this time, but last time they were still tasty even after I overcooked them horribly.

We started watching Sideways, which we rented from Amazon’s DVD rental service. We’re on the basic ?5 a month for 2 DVDs package, but I don’t think we’ll get through many more than that. We both enjoyed the film - very nicely observed, and there are some hilarious scenes - mostly nearer the end. Not much happens in the film though - it’s just two middle aged guys in the wine country of California.

Today I took the girls over to see Chris + Kirsty and Xav in March. We took the train, and got there just before 12. Had a good lunch, and L and Xav played together. Neither L nor E were very happy to meet Holly (the family dog). They would both scramble onto my lap whenever she was around, although they did relax a bit eventually. Got home about 5, which meant H had most of the day to work on her history and Latin.

Next week I’m in London on Tuesday and Friday - I have Tuesday afternoon off, so I’m thinking I might go on the slides at Tate Modern or something.

October 26, 2006

Talking to my daughter

(skip if you’re allergic to cute kids stories)

L often asks to have a little talk with me before she goes to sleep. Here’s yesterday’s:


Me - What would you do if you were really rich?

L - Buy 10,000 scooters.

Me - What would you do with them all?

L - Ride on them, and give them to the children.

Me - That’s very generous. Anything else?

L - I’d buy 10,000 glasses for the grown-ups. And 10,000 dressing gowns for the poo-poos.

Me - Why does a poo-poo need a dressing gown?

L - To keep it warm in the toilet of course!

October 23, 2006

Birthday

My eldest daughter L was 5 on Friday. She’s been very excited about this prospect for months now. I took Friday off and H’s parents came to visit. L hasn’t seen them for quite a while so that was nice for her + it meant she got two lots of presents in one day.

Then on Saturday she had her birthday party. We had 5 guests, so fairly manageable, particularly as one of the mums stayed to help, and Jay also came round to provide wine and make party food. My contribution was a treasure hunt, and Pass the Parcel, and that just wrapped it up nicely. L was pretty grumpy the next day though - I think partly because of tiredness and partly because of the comedown to normality.

Her sister E is now saying “Happy to You”, and “Birthday Cake” at every opportunity.

Thursday night

The weekend started on Thursday evening as I had Friday off. I went out to a leaving do from work. Cycling down Mill Road I was knocked off my bike by a woman who walked into the road without looking where she was going. I was knocked flying and was lucky only to bruise my arm and leg (and ruin my coat, break my pen and damage the bike).

The woman immediately blamed me for not having lights. I pointed out my lights, the well lit street and the fact I was wearing a bright yellow high-vis jacket. I suggested she look where the fsck she was going and then one of her friends intervened to calm the situation down.

I’m mostly glad I didn’t notice the damage (particularly to my coat, which I got in New York) till later, as it would only have made me more angry, and I don’t think that would have helped. Still I don’t feel I was as angry as I should have been, given how dangerous the incident was to me. If I’d been driving the car, I think she’d have looked more carefully.

Best to chalk it up to experience - it’s only my second serious incident cycling in Cambridge for over 5 years.

October 14, 2006

Saturday

Here’s today’s route - 7 miles in 68 minutes. that’s about 9.45 a mile. Turnover was about 170, and my legs felt okay most of the time - the left knee was a bit stiff, but the right ITB felt okay this time - I have been stretching it.

My Amazon stuff arrived - two more books to add to my productivity/self-help collection. Dave Allen’s Ready for Anything which looks a bit of a swizz to be honest. Just recycled columns from his website and stuff like that. I bought it largely on the strength of the fact that Amazon users reviewed it favourably. Oh well. The other one is The Now Principle which looks much more promising. Hopefully it will give me some ideas to overcome my woeful habit of procrastinating.

Perhaps it’s working already - I started reviewing my Risk course, and I got through 6 chapters. And I played with L & E in the garden too, and H has finished her OU exams, so a good day all round.

October 10, 2006

34 mins

Got up at six, it was dark but surprisingly warm (given that it’s frickin’ October already). I felt pretty good running, and I measured turnover at around 174, so I’m quite happy with that. I’ve noticed some tension in my right ITB though, so I’m going to have to remember to stretch it.

Other news - been off work since Friday - Mrs F had a minor op (saw consultant Friday, op on Saturday - wonders of private cover) and it kind of knocked her out for a few days. She has an exam for her OU course this Friday, so I wanted to give her as much time as possible to get back to feeling well. Fortunately she seems much better today, and I was able to go back to work in the afternoon.

October 5, 2006

Another day, another run

I did my short circuit this morning. I seem to have got into the habit of doing it twice a week, and then a longer run at the weekend. Hopefully that will see me through my marathon training.

I think I’m going to have to buy some more running clothes though, and also look at getting some energy bars and stuff - I’ve been taking bananas with me to eat, but they don’t react well to being knocked about inside the waist bag, and you end up with a rather soggy banana.

Incidentally does anyone have a waist bag that stays still when running? I can only get mine to keep still by using safety pins. If I don’t it bounces like crazy, and it’s really distracting.