Ramblings

I joined a new club about six weeks ago and the affect of being able to luxuriate in a wet spa that’s very very nice is absolutely wonderful. The one I go to is a David Lloyd place and their steam/sauna and 4 pool jacuzzi ha become an important part of starting my day. Getting an early start is crucial, the club opens from 6.30 so I can be in the swimming pool by seven am, a cool 40 minute swim and off for 20 minutes in the wet spa and I am Zen, and raring to get on with my day. ...

Working in corporate or agency based development teams, we all know there is a right way and a right way to get through the piles of issues and request for new features on any big site. Most times as developers, we want to write code that is elegant, streamlined and re-useable, however we also know there are times when that is not possible. Deadlines are too tight, there is an emergency fix needed yesterday and the client is screaming down the phone at us because their online money-maker is down and they are losing money by the bucket load each minute it’s not available. ...

Well, the day came and went, Barack Obama has indeed become America’s 44th President and what a day it was. The crowds were enormous, the biggest I have ever seen in my life, and I didn’t even understand the magnitude of it all until I came home and watched it on CNN. My friends and I were sandwiched somewhere just below the Washington Monument on a day that started around 5am and finished (as far as being outside) some 12 hours later. ...

’ Like pilgrims, we trod from the metro station to the Lincoln Memorial, our goal, to get our first glimpse of the new president elect Barack Obama. We were excited, we had high expectations, did he disappoint? ‘

Boris Johnson is the new Mayor for London. Are you kidding me Londoners, you indeed voted for this guy to be Mayor of one of the best cities in the World. Forgive me, American cousins, I don’t mean to pry into your business, but I feel like we Londoners had done this week what you did when you elected George W. Bush as President. Say what you want about Ken Livingston, but he has pedigree when it comes to doing things for London and Londoners. ...

The US party nominations race is fascinating. It’s been years since we’ve been captivated by the presidential nominations on this side of the pond. Usually we wait until US voters have decided who’s actually running for the job of president before throwing a gaze across from time to time, ruminating on which nominee is going to be best for us (the rest of the world), but this time, the USA has two brilliant competitive races that are captivating our attention. ...

As a creative writing strategy, I took a look at NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month. It is a Creative Writing project, started way back in 1999 with 21 participants. Held in November every year, participants in NaNoWriMo aim to write 50,000 words in 30 days. According to the NaNoWriMo website, last years event had over 100,000 participants with over 15,000 people reaching the finish line. If you want to stay true to your dreams and write a book, then the strategy of writing with all abandon for 30 days may be one way of achieving it especially if you’re a procrastinating type. ...

Monday mornings are sometimes painful, coming off the weekend, back to the daily grind. Although I have no boss, as Neil Shearing quotes, without a boss it’s up to me to self motivate and get that writing habit started for another week. So how do I get motivated to write? Well some things I try are: Read news feeds and see what’s going on in the blogosphere Check out the national and regional news sites to see if anything interesting sparks a creative thought Get some early morning exercise (this helps to boost the energy levels) Check some social networks to see what’s cooking with my pals Read the newspaper Read over some old journals to see if a topic I’ve written on in the past could do with updating I find photographs a good prompt for writing juice. ...

I have just realised that my blog is 2 years old and like a very errant parent, I forgot the anniversary. Doh! The first post is dated 3rd Nov 2005 and is here. I remember, now that I have glanced at that post, the blog started as a way to keep a daily journal of my thoughts and research for my studies. What’s happened since then ? Well, I have posted a total of 93 posts in 25 categories over the period. ...

I looked at my last post on this blog and it was dated June 1st. Thats two weeks ago. It’s not that I haven’t been writing anything, I have a couple of posts in draft state at the moment waiting to get finished, it’s just that I have been feeling a little reflective over the past two weeks. You see, I’ve been re-evaluating some of the goals that I set for myself for this year, and it would seem a major one is going to be relegated to a secondary one, you know what I mean. ...