Finally Done...

I've finally finished re-posting all the material from Furthermore, except for a few bits and bobs I want to re-work, so hopefully I can get onto writing some new material here, and also taking down the old blog so I can do something new on that site.

What else is new: dining room is done, and everything is re-arranged - I'm now working at my new desk in the corner. Just got to put up my picture.

After last week's disappointment, swimming went well this week - my teacher was away, but he arranged for me to get a pass to Quy Mill, so I just practiced on my own. The thing I realised during the week was that I needed to get over my fear of going under the water when I started to swim. So I found a way to trick myself: I practiced quite a bit with just putting my face into the water and holding it - I don't like it so much, but I can do it if I feel prepared. So then the trick is kind of obvious: to overcome my fear of going under the water when I start swimming, I just start with my face in the water, and then I have nothing to worry about but getting it out! This worked really well, and I was able to swim several metres independently. I thought that was a good point to leave it, and I hope to pick up from there with Ed next week.

I also saw the physio again on Friday, and that went well. I cycled in with no problems, but annoyingly, I found cycling home triggered some knee pain again. Still I think I'm on the right track, so I did a short run this morning - some twinges but nothing major. I think I just have to take it gently and be more conscious of how I control my leg from the hip.

Furthermore: November 2008

November 19, 2008

ORG Founding Thousand Badge

Hey, it’s nice to be recognised. I will eventually get this pasted into the sidebar when I get round to fettling the blog a bit.

November 9, 2008

Long Past Time

Not sure what makes me want to post again after so long. I find myself remembering quite a few things I’ve done, but not blogged or recorded, so it seems like I’ll forget about them. One of the things I like about the blog is looking back to see what I was doing at different points in the past.

So on Saturday I took the girls to Ely fireworks in the evening. H was feeling a bit ill so didn’t come along. We were going to meet up with some friends but a combination of bad mobile reception, darkness, and crowds meant we couldn’t find each other. Ella found the evening a bit wearing - too long stood around before the fireworks started. She did enjoy them - and her descriptions of the sounds were very impressive - she said some sounded like bubble wrap, or people crunching on gravel. L enjoyed them too, and it was a good evening generally.

Working back in time a bit, let me think - we had half term week off and went up to Lincoln to visit my parents. We stayed at the Hillcrest Hotel again for 2 nights. It’s friendly, the food was good, and you can borrow a baby-listener to just keep tabs on the girls so we could eat dinner as a couple - the hotel dining room is at the top of a hill looking out onto a park and the city, so it’s a beatiful place to eat.

Before that, hmm, I went to India for a week - I was in Pune for work. Very interesting trip - the most jarring thing in some ways was the way the city seems not to be planned to any great extent, with different types of business and residential use thrown together without the largely invisible guiding hand that makes British cities look coherent.

Anything else - I went to see Morrissey play at Hyde Park. It was a one day mini-festival, so there were lots of bands. I managed to get right to the front for Morrissey himself - it was a fantastic gig. I do feel it rather made up for the very poor concert I went to of his when I was around 18 - only had to wait till my thirties for another chance.

That’ll do for now - I’m going to go and watch Stephen Fry in a few minutes.

Furthermore: June 2008

June 14, 2008

General Catch Up

Seems like a long time since I wrote anything, what have I been up to?

I just finished Season 3 of The Wire - in some ways the best yet I think. Almost anything I say about it will spoil some aspect, so just go and watch it.

Running - not much happening. I’m doing 2-3 shortish runs, and I’m still trying to get my time down on the Cherry Hinton circuit. I seem to be able to get to about 26.30 and struggle to get beyond that.

Just got a new bike through the cycle scheme - there’s some sort of tax break if you use your bike to commute, so you can effectively get about 40% off the cost. I got a decent road bike with dynamo and hub gears, so if anyone wants my old bike (still serviceable) I’m open to offers.

I also just had a big clear out of books and old stuff - I’m fairly good at getting rid of clutter, but I just felt the urge to make a clean break with a load of old things I’m never going to look at again. I do feel better for it too, although possibly it was just a kind of work avoidance scheme so I don’t actually have to get on with any new projects. I’m currently trying to get back up to speed with some more advanced maths, and I want to learn more about web programming. Oh and I started learning Devanagari script.

We’ve also been on holiday, to Weymouth, but I think I’ll save blogging that for another time.

April 20, 2008

Not Dead

Only the blog is a bit moribund. Everything else is going fine. Work is keeping me very busy trying to get up to speed with my new role, which I’m really enjoying so far. At home I’ve finally finished laying the path I started 2 months ago. I’m hoping it will give the girls a bit more opportunity to practice with bikes and scooters than going across the patio could.

Furthermore: March 2008

March 5, 2008

Latest News

Lots going on, so I’ve not really been blogging. I’m very busy at work - I’ve started a new role managing all the maintenance development on our product. We’re currently testing the latest release, so plenty busy with that really.

Running is going okay - I got back down to 28.22 on Tuesday, but my knees are still not quite right, and I just seem to be in maintenance mode for running at the moment anyway, which is okay.

We downloaded our first bit of TV the other day (I know this makes me positively medieval compared to some) using the BBC iPlayer. The interface is a bit shonky, and it’s a bit crap they don’t make it clearer that the p2p stuff keeps running even when you’re not using the iPlayer. Still it did remind me of the first time I used a video - suddenly a whole different way of using the TV opened up. What did we watch you say? Being Human - a BBC3 one off/pilot about a vampire, a werewolf and a ghost sharing a flat. I thought it was really good and well-written. Knocked spots off Torchwood anyway.

Last weekend I filled a 6 yard skip with garden rubbish and rubble from breaking up the old concrete path. The girls helped a bit, but I did it nearly all myself, which I found quite therapeutic. Now I’ve got to get the new path laid - need to get some boards first to edge it.

Tomorrow I’m taking the car to have the cam belt replaced, before I go up to visit my parents on Saturday. It will be good to see them again - I’d like to go more often, but it is hard to fit it in with everything else.

Furthermore: February 2008

February 17, 2008

Weekend

Quick catch up as I’ve not written anything for a while. I finally started running again this week - I did my normal circuit on Thursday (29.50), and a somewhat truncated run at the weekend. I seem to have lost a lot of fitness, or at least oomph while I’ve had a little break. I stopped partly because I seemed to be getting some knee pain, and I wanted to try to strengthen the muscles up a bit, and also get some new trainers. See how it goes I guess.

H had her Latin OU tutorial on Saturday, so we met up afterwards at the Fitzwilliam museum, as L had been saying she wanted to go (although I think she actually just wanted to go for lunch!).

Today I’ve just been fettling the car and bike a bit. I’ve also got a book on PHP web projects, so I want to have a play with that (if it’s any good I’ll talk a bit more about it). I’m still waiting for Amazon to send me my MP3 -> cassette adapter for the car, but that’s another story.

Also just got the first disc of The Wire season 3, which is already shaping up to be a classic. Go get season 1 now - you can still beat the crowds. Season 5 is underway in the US, so I’m assiduously trying not to hear anything about it.

L has lost her first tooth - apparently the tooth fairy’s going rate is now £1 per tooth. This could ruin me…

February 3, 2008

It’s my birthday…

Unfortunately H is ill, so I’ve also been looking after the girls (so they got quite a bit of TV - they were watching Laputa - Castle in the Sky as we’re working through the Miyazaki films).

It hasn’t been very birthday-ish, but it’s been quite satisfying.

Furthermore: January 2008

January 20, 2008

More Music

More tracks from my ancient past:

• Cud - Only a Prawn in Whitby - there’s lots more on that site btw, it’s a real treasure trove of old indie stuff.


• Madder Rose - Beautiful John [YT] - another very good example of the twee genre. This was in the 1993 Festive 50 at number 36. The one I really want to find from the same year is Attagirl by Heavenly. So far no joy.


• StereoLab - French Disko - from the small sample I’ve heard, this seems to be the only StereoLab track I like.



• Palace Brothers - Ohio River Boat Song - beautiful melancholy American folk music.

I think that’s about it. If anyone’s ever heard of a song by Mighty Mighty called Imaginary Girlfriend then I’d love to hear that again. Oh, and somewhere there’s a really eerie recording of Ghost Riders… at about half normal speed.

January 16, 2008

Running

I seem to have been a bit slack since the start of the year. Still I’ve managed one midweek run this week and last week as well as the weekend run. As a baseline for the year I seem to be doing the weekend circuit in 55 mins (I think it’s about 6.5 miles) and the midweek one in 27m30. That’s a lot slower than my best times of just over 25 minutes last year, but at least I haven’t gone right back to 30 mins or so. So the goal is to get that down under 25 minutes, and then to work on distance.

January 12, 2008

Music History

I recently had a final clear out of audio tapes (well, nearly final - the car still has a tape player, so there are a few there). The only things I had left were a few compilation tapes from the early 90’s, mostly consisting of John Peel’s Festive 50.

I went through them to extract things I still liked, and came up with a few bands I’d like to get “Best Of” compilations for - Billy Bragg, The Jesus and Mary Chain, and Nick Cave. There were also various one-off tracks I liked, and I’ve been trying to look some of those up on-line.

Apparently there was a defined genre which covers most of what I liked C86 or “twee pop” - strangely I’d never heard either term until I started looking for some of these. But there’s a blog devoted to the genre and it’s descendants.


Anyway, I found a few oldies that I enjoyed, and tantalising references to some others that I couldn’t quite pin down. So here’s what I turned up:

Bob - Convenience - Myspace page plays the track as background. An perfect example of the indie-pop genre. There’s a podcast that includes the track as part of it. They actually play the same recording from the Peel show that I have.

I, Ludicrous - Preposterous Tales - once heard, never forgotten comedy song, quite similar to Half Man, Half Biscuit. Alas, the site merely allows you to buy the music, you can’t hear the track there.

Field Mice - Sensitive - covered by the C86 All Stars (so the scene even has a covers band).

Eggs - Government Administrator - I like this one a lot. Quirky.

Hmm, I think there’s quite a lot more still, so I’m going to leave you with those and do another post later. Enjoy!

January 5, 2008

Over Christmas

I eased back into work this week - I took an extra day off after new year, so I only had to go in for two days. I think I’m mostly back into the swing of things now, and it’s now official that I’m taking on a new role: from March I will be managing bug fixes for our product. I’m looking forward to it.

Christmas and New Year were both good - we had Christmas at home with the girls, and they both now have a mountain of new stuff. I went to see my parents on the 27th, which was good fun, and dad was in good spirits. Then the 28th was the little one’s birthday, so we had a few people over for a small party. 29th we went round to Guy and Susie’s so Lizzie could play over there. Then New Years Eve we went over to Stevenage to see Neil and Justine - this was all in the afternoon, as everyone present had small children. Finally New Years Day some friends of ours from Japan came round - they were in Cambridge for a few days and their daughter had been in Lizzie’s class for a while when they were staying in Cambridge for a year.

Running has been a bit slack, but I’ve been managing to go out once a week for a leisurely run round the city. I think I may need some new shoes though - my current ones are the same ones that got me through the marathon, so I think they’re nearly a year old now.

Good Friday... eh, not so much

Well okay, it wasn't bad, but I ended up fiddling with an idea I had about a work problem, which sucked up time, but didn't prove anything conclusive, so it was a bit annoying.

I think I'm also a bit annoyed with myself for not making more progress at swimming too. I had the lesson, but I just sort of froze up when I had to get rid of the float. It's weird - I know that it isn't really supporting me as I'm only holding it with one hand, but I just panic if I don't have it.

Partly I think I put too much pressure on myself to improve in that lesson though, and so I didn't want to mess it up when I had to try to set off solo because it would make it more of a block to doing it again. Naturally that meant I couldn't do it at all.

That and certain work issues just make me feel like I'm kind of stuck, or blocked, and it's generally quite disagreeable feeling that way.

Oh well, we have a nice weekend to look forward to - it's the new Doctor Who tomorrow, which L is very excited about, and on Sunday we're going to visit some friends. Plus Monday off as well... what's not to like?

Pre-Easter

Various stuff happening lately:

• finally finished the dining room - H did the painting, I did the lifting and carrying, and building the new Besta units, which I'm very happy with. So we now both have desks downstairs + enough storage for our stuff. The new colour is much better too.
• I'm still learning to swim - I have another lesson tomorrow, and I'm hoping to finally get over some of my hang-ups about the water. I've narrowed it down to quite a small thing: I have a mental block about going forward into the water without something to hold onto. With a token float to hold I'm quite happy, but without it I tend to freeze up, which then means I sink! Getting close though I think.
• We've now got a Wii + balance board and Wii Fit. Mainly for H, but I'm enjoying having a go on it too. I like the Wii Sports Golf, and the skiing on the Wii Fit. H has progressed to a snowboarding game, but I haven't logged enough time yet.