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.