10 Years of Blogging

Ten years ago today, I posted for the first time on this blog. At the time, I had given my resignation in my job and had some free time while working my notice. So instead of working for my employer, I decided to do something for myself, and this blog was born.

My first article was on Turing machines. My second was about my new job. The third detailed why I was blogging and what I hoped to blog about - which was really about my side projects and anything technical that jumped out at me. I then started a weekly round-up of links useful to developers, focusing on the .NET space, but also including local developer events and job postings. The weekly roundup died after 4 months, but while posting that, I was also blogging about TV, random technical topics. I blogged a few times on scripting on PowerShell (my most popular post is from 2012, and is on calling other programs from PowerShell).

Over the past few years, I have been blogging less frequently (job and family life have been eating up all my time), but I managed to write a long series on SharePoint Development that I'm quite proud of. Though looking back and reading it now, I should have edited ruthlessly down to just 2-3 articles. I have also written a few personal posts over the past 10 years. Altogether, I have posted 106 times. Amazingly, there are people out there who take the time to read my nonsense.

This blog started because I had some free time and wanted to do something for myself. Ten years later, as I write this at home with my family, we are self-isolating in the middle of a global pandemic. I have some time again for myself, in a way I haven't in a long time. I want to do something for myself - I want to write again, and learn with some side projects. I already have a few draft posts ready to publish. But more importantly, I'm looking at my blog, and realising that I need to invest in it. It is looking tired - I need to move it off Blogger, and onto a new platform that will allow me to do more with it. Here's looking to another 10 years of blogging. And thank you for reading.

PowerShell - Writing to the same line with Write-Host

This is a PowerShell tip that I’m posting for future use. If you want to write information to the same line using the Write-Host cmdlet, you use the –NoNewLine switch:

Write-Host "Countdown - $index seconds remaining" –NoNewline

If you want to overwrite the previous content written, you can use the carriage return character (courtesy of this StackOverflow answer by Dullson):

Write-Host "`rCountdown - $index seconds remaining" –NoNewline

Note, you may need to use spaces to blank out previous content if the previous string is longer than the new content string:

Write-Host "`rCompleted $seconds second countdown.     "

Note, the line above doesn’t use the –NoNewLine switch, so new further content can be written to that line in the console. I’ve used this PowerShell snippet for a simple sleep timer with a visual countdown, when I didn’t want to use the default progress indicator (the Write-Progress cmdlet).

A Year without Social Media

Over a year ago, I finally gave up on Twitter, the last social networking platform I had been using. I thought now would be a good time to reflect on giving up on social media.

For the first few weeks, I found myself repeatedly going back to check on various Twitter feeds. I didn’t tweet at all, but was compulsively following stories and comments about the forthcoming Brexit referendum. After the referendum, I then managed to avoid checking Twitter for several months, until the end of 2016, when I was pulled back to Twitter by the unfolding RHI scandal in Northern Ireland (I blame the Stephen Nolan show for igniting my interest in that topic).

Since the start of 2017, I have managed to avoid using Twitter at all, except for very occasional tweets about poor service or delivery complaints to get attention from customer service. It turns out this is the only way to get the likes of Amazon and other companies to actually respond to you, and is now the only reason I’ve keep my Twitter account. I rarely visit the site, I don’t follow anyone on my new twitter account, and I now automatically delete the rare tweets I do make after a few days. In short, Twitter is simply a tool that I use very infrequently.

Of course, it isn’t that easy to give up on social media. After giving up on Twitter, I found myself getting drawn into following Hacker News, the social news website from Y Combinator focusing on technology and start-up culture. Like Twitter with its followers count and likes, it uses gamification techniques (user karma and comment upvoting) to encourage members to participate. However, after spending some time on the site, you realise that there is a real problem with ‘group think’. There is a definite bias towards to US and Silicon Valley points of view, and any alternative views are effectively down voted into oblivion. I managed to wean myself off the comments by focusing on the top links submitted (using alternate sites like Hacker News Top Links, and the excellent Hacker Newsletter from Kale Davis) and avoiding the associated comments by blocking access to the site on my personal laptop and on my work PC. As an alternative to/reminder of the Hacker News comments, I also follow the satirical site, n-gate.com.

In addition, I’ve blocked all use of Safari on my iPhone, and have removed all apps from it that give real time information/updates. In effect, I’ve reduced use of my smart phone to just Gmail and Pocket now.

In short, it isn’t quite as easy to give up social media as it first seems. Going cold turkey can work, but you have to work hard to prevent yourself being drawn back to the same old sites. You also have to be careful about giving up Twitter or Facebook, and replacing them with other sites that consume just as much of your time with the same gamification techniques. As a result, I’m careful to avoid such sites (Hacker News, StackOverflow) where possible. Giving up Twitter has given me more time, but I need to remind myself to do something useful with it, and not to waste it all over again.

My Son

My son, Matthew Oiyan Parkhill, was born on Monday 26th September at 04:18, at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital, Belfast. He weighed in at 5 lbs 9 oz. Mum and baby are doing well.

Mei and I would like to pass on our thanks to everyone at the Royal Jubilee Maternity Hospital for all their help during Mei’s & Matthew’s stay, especially the midwives Patricia, Deirdre and Heidi. We won’t forget their many kindnesses to our little family.

Matthew comes from the Hebrew name Matityahu, meaning ‘Gift of God’, and Oiyan comes from the Cantonese for ‘Love and Grace’.

Goals for 2015

2014 was a pretty miserable year for me. I lost my mother due to illness. I spent a large part of the year not working, and I was quite unfit, as I wasn’t running due to a recurring Achilles injury.  I well aware that there are far too many people who are lot worse off, and that I am actually very privileged, but I can’t help but look back at last year with a lot of regret.

2015 will be a much better year.  I am planning to marry my beautiful girlfriend, Mei, in September.  I’ve just started a new role that I’m very excited about, and I’m now starting to run seriously again, after a lot of physiotherapy and exercise to rehabilitate my ankle. 

These are my goals for the year ahead:

1. To start running again!! Specifically, I want to:
   1. Run 80 miles per month by June.  I’m currently running around 25-30 miles per month, a very low mileage.
   2. Run every Parkrun in NI by the end of the year,  There are currently 19 Parkruns setup in Northern Ireland; I’ll be amazed if there isn’t 20+ by the end of the year.
2. Get physically fit again!!  Starting to run again is one thing, but I also want to improve my overall fitness.  This will mean:
   1. Achieve a score of 250+ in the Five Minute Fitness Challenge (blog post to come)
   2. To weigh 70Kg at under 15% body fat by December 2015
3. To develop a non-trivial side project using JavaScript. 
4. Marry my girlfriend Mei. The most important thing for the year ahead will be my marriage to Mei in September. 

Podcasts

A few weeks ago, Toby Osbourn and Chris Laughlin blogged about the podcasts that they were currently listening to. I thought I better do the same, so here are my current podcasts:

Programming

Hanselminutes – A weekly podcast hosted by Scott Hanselman that covers web development and technology, with a particular emphasis on Microsoft and .NET development (Scott being a web developer working as part of the Web Platform Team at Microsoft).  Always worth a listen, it covers the major new technologies from the point of view of a developer.  A good mix of guests, and a good length (around 30 minutes) makes it very easily digestible.

Herding Code – This podcast comes out every few weeks, and is hosted by K. Scott Allen (OdeToCode), Kevin Dente, Scott Koon (Lazycoder) and Jon Galloway.  The podcast format will typically have a guest being interviewed in depth on one or more programming topics, such as a new library or service, and the conversation will typically expand to include general programming topics and tech news.  Always entertaining and occasionally off the wall.

This Developer’s Life – This is another podcast from Scott Hanselman, along with Rob Connery.  This is more about challenges faced by developers (and many others) in their everyday lives.  The podcast titles give you a flavour – Cancer, Competition, Pressure, Management. Quirky, but interesting. Sadly, it looks like this podcast has come to an end. 

If you’re interested in more .NET podcasts, check out http://thesoundof.net/, an aggregator of a number of different .NET podcasts. 

CodingBlocks.NET – A podcast I’ve recently discovered, it is a programmers podcast, hosted by programmers for programmers.  The recent topics have included design Patterns, ASP.NET vNext, the static analysis tool, NDepends, choosing your technology stack, and SQL databases.

Tech News

Tech Weekly from the Guardian Technology team.  Great for keeping abreast of all the current Tech gossip. 

Miscellaneous

Get Up and Code – A podcast aimed at developers discussing fitness and nutrition, originally hosted by Iris Classon and John Sonmez. 

Kermode Film Reviews - Mark Kermode rants about the latest film releases, while Simon Mayo heroically puts up with his Trotskyite nonsense. Lively, controversial and un-missable movie discussion.

We’re Alive – The best Zombie serial podcast that you’ve never heard.  Absolutely addictive listening.

Race Calendar - 2013

Update - June 2016

You can now find a list of all my road racing results at http://www.andyparkhill.co.uk/p/race-results.html.

Just to post a list of the races I plan on running this year.  As you can see, I’m concentrating on 10K races (not surprising given my goals for the year), and a monthly attendance at my local Parkrun.  I’m also hoping to run a few slightly longer runs.
The races below marked in bold are races I have already signed up for:

Date	Race	Distance	Result (Minutes)	Pace (MPM)
February
Saturday 16th	Portrush Parkrun 5K	5K	20:13	6:30
April
Sunday 21st	Titanic Quarter 10K	10K	42:53	6:54
May
Saturday 4th	Portrush Parkrun 5K	5K	20:55	6:44
Monday 6th	Belfast City Marathon	Team Relay C – 7.1 miles	54:00 (approx.)	7:36
Friday 17th	Les Jones Memorial 10K	10K (actually about 9.5K)	39:42	6:44
June
Saturday 8th	Larne Half Marathon	13.1 miles	96:56	7:24
Friday 14th	Active Antrim 5 Mile Road Race	5 Miles	33:34	6:43
Sunday 23rd	Great North 10K	10K	43:38	7:01
Thursday 27th	Jude Gallagher Memorial Round The Bridges 10 Mile Road Run	10 Mile Road Run	70:00	7:00
July
Saturday 6th	Portrush Parkrun 5K	5K
Saturday 20th	Kennedy Kane McArthur Festival of Running	10K
Friday 26th	NFU Mutual 5 Mile
August
Sunday 4th	The World Police & Fire Games Half Marathon	13.1
Saturday 17th	Portrush Parkrun 5K	5K
TBC	Dessie’s Run	10K
September
Sunday 22nd	Belfast City Half Marathon
December
TBC	Seeley Cup 10K

So far, the Athletics NI race calendar doesn’t go further than the end of August, but I would expect that the biggest race of the year will be the Seeley Cup 10K , which is normally held in November or December.  As well as being the Northern Ireland championship event, it will be the race in which I hope to break the 40 minutes barrier.

Two other races of note – the Newcaste Parkrun in June. and the World Police & Fire Games Half Marathon in August.  The first race will be when I visit Gateshead to be a spectator at the European Athletics Team Championships.  I was lucky enough to be in London last year for the Olympics, and I am hoping that the Championships in Gateshead can be just as exciting.

I’ll continue to update this post with my planned races, and the times of the races I actually run. You can also check out my athlete profile on the Power of 10 and Run Britain sites.

Classical Music Starter Pack

A few people have asked about the classical music I plan on listening to this year.  Which composers?  What symphonies? 

I’ve put together this list of essential classical pieces after reading Discovering Classical Music by Ian Christians.  The book gives a concise introduction to classical music, and then takes ten of the greatest composers and gives a pen portrait of each, before examining their most accessible music. These are the pieces of music that stood out for me:

• Mozart
  1. Piano Concerto No. 22
  2. The Jupiter Symphony
  3. The Jupiter Symphony
  4. The Magic Flute
  5. The String Quintet in C
  6. Requiem
• Beethoven
  6. The Fifth Symphony
  7. The Fifth Piano Concerto (Emperor)
  8. The Violin Concerto
  9. The Moonlight Sonata
  10. The Archduke Trio
• Bach
  11. The Brandenburg Concertos
  12. The Concerto for Two Violins
  13. Toccata and Fugue in D minor
  14. Magnificat
  15. B Minor Mass
  16. St. Matthew Passion
  17. The Goldberg Variations
  18. The Well Tempered Clavier (performed by Glenn Gould)
• Schubert
  19. The Unfinished Symphony
  20. The Trout Qunitet
  21. Impromptu
• Berlioz
  22. Grande Messe des Morts Requiem
  23. Symphonie Fantastique
  24. Witches Sabbath
  25. Nuits d'Ete
  26. Te Deum
  27. Roman Carnival
  28. Dramatic Symphony, Romeo and Juliet
• Verdi
  29. Rigoletto
  30. La traviata
  31. Otello
  32. Requiem
  33. Aida
• Bruckner
  34. Third Mass
  35. Te Deum
  36. Seventh Symphony
  37. Fourth Symphony
  38. Fifth, Eight and Ninth Symphony
  39. The Third Mass
• Tchaikovsky
  40. Swan Lake
  41. Pathetique Symphony
  42. Violin Concerto
  43. First Piano Concerto
  44. Fantasy Overture, Romeo & Juliet
  45. Sleeping Beauty
  46. The Nutcracker
  47. Serenade for Strings
  48. Symphony No. 4
• Dvorak
  49. Slavonic Dances
  50. Serenade for Strings & Serenades for Wind
  51. Eight Symphony
  52. Cello Concerto
  53. American Quartert
  54. Symphony from the New World
  55. Seventh Symphony
  56. Sixth Symphony
  57. Piano Quintet
  58. String Quintet
• Mahler
  59. Second Symphony, The Resurrection
  60. Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth's Magic Horn)
  61. Symphony No. 1
  62. Symphony No. 4
  63. Symphony No. 8
• Holst
  64. The Planets

If you are a classical buff, and want to suggest any other composers or pieces of music I should listen to, please add a comment below. 

Goals for 2013

"Be at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbours, and let every new year find you a better man."  - Benjamin Franklin

As usual, I'm late posting my goals for the new year ahead. I don't see this as being a bad thing. You should take time to consider how & what you are going to spend your limited free time on. This is particularly relevant to me as I have just started a new job with quite a long commute time.

Having looked at how I got on with 2012 goals (blog post to come), I decided to change tack completely, and to limit myself to just three goals for the coming year.

1. Break 40 minutes in a 10 kilometre road race.  My last 10K race time was 43:20 (Dessie’s Run, Derry 2012), so to get it below 40 minutes will take sustained, consistent training.  But I doubt if I’ll equal my PB of 35:15 minutes at the Seeley Cup, Belfast, some 8 years ago and when I was over a stone lighter.
2. This year, I will be making a big push to learn several new technologies in my free time. As part of this, I will post 40 articles on this blog, with the majority of the posts being technical articles.
3. To listen to 40 pieces of classical music.  I have always wanted to educate myself about great music, and I think it is about time I started.  I’ll blog soon about the various pieces I plan on listening to.

Making the Weight…

At the start of this year, I spent a lot of time analysing how I had met my goals for 2011, and setting my goals for this year.  One of those new goals was to get my weight below 70kg.

A quick look at my bodyweight log shows that my progress at the start of the year was slow but steady… Until April, when my weight jumped back up to 75Kg and it has remained consistently there ever since. 

It is pretty obvious I need some more motivation to get my weight done.  So if I get my weight below 70 kg by 1st December of this year, I’ll be taking a holiday in USA in 2013.  If I don’t make the weight, I’ll be spending a wet weekend in Portrush.  If that doesn’t motivate me to get into shape, I don’t know what will. 

You can continue to monitor my bodyweight log, and I’ll let you all at the end of the year whether I’ve achieved my weight goal.

My Personal Goals for 2012

After reviewing my goals for last year, it is time to reveal my goals for 2012:

1. Reduce my weight to under 70 kg.

Over the past few years, my weight has gradually crept up. With a tagline like “will code for cake”, how could my weight not increase?  As a software developer, my job is sedentary, and due to a chronic knee injury, my running days are over.  But this year, I’m going to lose the middle age paunch, and get back in shape.  I’m currently weighing in at 75 kg; back in my University days, when I was running and climbing daily, I weighted 68-69 kg.  I’ve already starting looking seriously at my diet, and I am exercising daily.  You can follow my progress by checking my bodyweight log – I update it daily.

2. Release a mobile application and a web application.

Over the past few months, I’ve been pretty disheartened about my career in general, and about programming in particular.  After taking some time to reflect on this, I realised it was for a very simple reason – I wasn’t doing any serious coding.  At work, I’ve spent the last 3 years working with SharePoint.  This isn’t the place for a Zed Shaw-esque rant on SharePoint development – suffice to say that the SharePoint isn’t the most stimulating platform to work with, and could definitely count as one of the most frustrating.  In particular, I’ve spent the past two months configuring SharePoint demos, as opposed to actually coding.  At home, I’ve haven’t done in serious coding on personal projects in far too long.

To get my passion for programming back again, I am going to start following Scott Hanselman’s advice and start doing more.  In particular, I will stop watching TV in the weekday evenings, and start work coding my personal projects.  As well more coding, I will be learning a new language – at the minute I'm still deciding whether to learn Python or Ruby. But my first project will be a Android application.  More news to follow soon!

3. Save 30% of my net income (in addition to pension contributions).

This follows on from my goal to increase my saving to 20% last year.  In the event, I saved 18.76% of my salary in 2011.  To increase my savings to 30% will be a major challenge, but one that will be useful to attempt, even if I fall short of the actual target.

The three goals above definitely reflect the lessons I learnt from last year’s goals.  The new goals are:

• Limited in number and scope – I’ve only got limited time and attention to focus in specific problems. So I need to focus on a small number of goals that can give the most benefit.  That is the main lesson form one of the best books I read last year – The Power of Less
  
• SMART.  I (and for goals 1 and 2, you!) will be able to track my progress.

Hopefully, I will successfully achieve all of my goals – but even if I don’t, I intend to have fun trying!

Review of My Personal Goals for 2011– Part 3

This is the third and final part of my review of last year’s goals.  In my previous posts, I covered the first three goals.  My fourth goal was:

4. Career - Become Microsoft Certified in SharePoint 2010.

I actually met this goal fairly easily, passing exam 70-573 (Application Development in Microsoft SharePoint 2010), and in addition becoming a MCITP in Business Intelligence Development (exams 70-448 and 70-452), as all 3 exams were required for work.  Of course the fact that Microsoft certifications for developers are effectively worthless is neither here or there. 

5. Financial – Save 20% of my net salary (in addition to pension contributions)

I feel slightly short on this goal, with a total savings of 18.76%.  Given that this was from a base saving rate of just under 10%, I’m counting this as a pass!

 

 

Overall, I‘m actually happy enough with how I progressed my goals, but there were definitely a number of issues with the goals I set for 2011:

• Too many general aims, with too many specific goals.
  
• The various goals were too disparate, with no underlying theme.
  
• Several of the goals weren't of any true benefit to me.

All of which I will take into account in my next post, when I’ll finally spell out what my goals are for 2012.

Review of My Personal Goals for 2011– Part 2

This is the second in an impromptu series of posts reviewing my progress in meeting my 2011 resolutions.  In the first post, I covered my goal of getting fit.  In this post, I look at the second and third goals:

2. Friends and Family
   • Spend some time each week staying in touch with friends and family.

There are so many things wrong with this goal that I really don’t know where to begin.  I met this goal; but then everyone who isn’t a hermit could have met this goal!

What went wrong?  It certainly isn’t a SMART goal, as it is not specific.  A better goal would have been to say that I would phone a friend or relative weekly. But the worst thing about it is that it such a blatant piece of  “motherhood and apple pie” that it is worthless to state as a goal.  Apologies!

What can I improve on? I need to consider if a goal is worthwhile pursuing – will it help improve me?  Will it improve the lives of those around me?  And is the goal a SMART goal?

3. Personal Interests
   • Read 100 new books.
     
   • Watch 50 films.
     
   • Release an open-source project.
     
   • Write a new blog post weekly.
   
   

Again, I repeated the mistake I explained in the earlier post – too many sub-goals.

A quick check shows that I read at least 73 books last year.  I’m not sure how many of these books were in the original list of 100 books I created at the start of 2011 – I’m guessing under 20. A lot of my reading is spurred by investigating random topics (for example, Judo, WWII, bodyweight workouts, Linux, productivity and self help books).  The list is evenly split between fiction and non-fiction.  The fiction selection is a mixed bag even by my standards.  Some were classics (Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, A Dance With Dragons by George R.R. Martin).  Others were simply dire (A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness – I threw it away from me after 20 pages).  You can view the full list on my Shelfari Profile.

I definitely didn’t watch 50 films during last year. At a guess, I watched around 25-30.  Which I’m very glad about.  Given the number of TV series that I follow, I certainly don’t have time to watch a film a week as well.

I haven’t released an open source project, which I’m very disappointed about.  Indeed, I managed to do very little coding in my personal time.  Likewise, I only wrote 7 blog posts last year, compared to 45 articles in the year before.  This is definitely something I’m looking to change with this year’s goals.

What went wrong? Again, too many goals.  Also again, goals that weren’t relevant – what was the point in trying to watch a film a week?  The book list is very useful, but the original list has changed from a list of 100 books to read in a year, to a list of books that I will read at some point.  In fact, I plan on deleting the original list and migrating the list to Google Tasks.  Trying to read all these books and films was part of the reason why I didn’t spend enough time coding and blogging.  the various sub-goals were in fact contradictory.

What can I improve on? Again, I need to focus on what is the true goal I want to achieve.  The goals to read a certain number of books or watch a certain number of films were irrelevant; I needed to focus on spending time on my personal projects, on actually creating something.  It is pretty clear that I’m spending 90% of my time consuming, and only 10% of the time producing, when it should be the other way round.

Review of My Personal Goals for 2011– Part 1

At the start of this year, I compiled a list of goals for 2011.  I thought it would be useful to look again at the 5 general aims that I set out then, to see if there were any lessons I could learn for the year ahead.

To recap, I had 5 main goals for 2011:

1. Get fit!
   • Reduce weight to 68kg.
   • Eat no chocolate, and work to reduce the amount of sugar in my diet.
   • Exercise daily for at least 45 minutes.
   • Get at least 7 hours sleep every night.
   • Start a martial art by April.
2. Friends and Family
   • Spend some time each week staying in touch with friends and family.
3. Personal Interests
   • Read 100 new books.
   • Watch 50 films.
   • Release an open-source project.
   • Write a new blog post weekly.
4. Career
   • Become Microsoft Certified in SharePoint 2010.
5. Financial
   • To save 20% of my net salary (separate from pension contributions).

I had hoped to do this review in a single post – it turns out, I’ll need to do a series of post to cover everything.  In this post, I’ll look at the first goal – getting fit. 

Overall, I missed this goal by a mile – I’m definitely not fitter than I was at the start of 2011.  Considering each of the sub-goals in turn:

My current weight is 76.4kg, higher than the start of last year.  A check of my online bodyweight log shows the following graph for my weigh over the 2011:

Part of the initial weight loss in the graph above was due to changes in my diet; I didn’t eat any chocolate in the first half of the year.  Unfortunately, I simply displaced my chocolate craving with other sugary treats.  In the second half of the year, my diet started to decline, and I started eating chocolate occasionally, which led to the weight gain.  I experimented at various times with keeping a photo food diary, but found it difficult to keep this going.  In the future, I’m planning on maintaining a written food diary, and looking at the use of portion control.

For the goal of exercising daily, it was partial success.  A quick check of my diary shows that I exercised on 312 days, or approximately 85% of the time.  There were two main periods when I couldn’t exercise – two weeks in April, due to injury, and a further two weeks in November, when due to major  deadline for a work project I couldn’t exercise as planned.  A major improvement in my exercise plan was to start each day with some light circuit training and stretching.  This only take 25-30 minutes, and is a great way to wake yourself up.  It also means that if I miss a scheduled exercise session in the evening, I only need to add a brisk walk for 20-30 minutes to meet my daily exercise quota.  This is something I plan on keeping on in future.

I definitely didn’t get 7 hours sleep every night. I also noticed that a lack of sleep definitely hindered my diet, as I tend to binge late at night. 

I did start a martial art during the year.  In fact, I started two, attending both Judo and kickboxing during the year.  Unfortunately, in my first Judo session, I tore my pectoral muscle (an extremely painful injury – I initially thought I had cracked a rib), which led to two weeks unable to exercise completely, followed by  6 weeks of light exercise.  I started kickboxing in June, and stuck at for 4 months, at which point I ditched it – I found it very boring.  Strangely, I could see myself going back to Judo.

What went wrong?  The overall aim of getting fit was a worthwhile one.  But I attempted to do too much, with too many sub-goals; I should have focused on losing weight.  I was already exercising regularly, but I was still slowly gaining weight.  I didn’t focus on the reasons for the weight gain – my poor diet.  Until this happens, I’m not going to get fitter.  I also wasn’t flexible enough in my goals – I didn’t plan on injury or work commitments stopping me training.

What can I improve on?  Concentrate on the core issue – my diet in this case.  Everything else will fall into place when this is dealt with.  Also, I need to be more flexible in planning to meet the goal.

TV Viewing for the Year Ahead

I love watching TV.  I used to be a massive film buff (and I’m trying to get back to watching films regularly), but I got drawn into watching TV by BattleStar Galactica.  Then I caught up in Lost, watched the much under-rated Invasion, Farscape (classic Sci-Fi!), and then True Blood… Before I knew it, I was watching 45 minutes of TV every night.  And I don’t intend to stop!!

I am not one of these people who deride TV. I find watching TV a great way to relax.  And there are some simply great TV series today.  Recent classics include Brotherhood and Deadwood, both of which I enjoyed immensely.  I strongly recommend that you watch them if you haven’t seen them yet.

Given this, I was really interested in an article on i09 on the Sci-Fi and Fantasy TV series coming this year.  In particular, I intend to catch up on the following:

• Camelot.  This looks to be a grown-up version of Merlin, with a simply amazing cast (Joseph Fiennes, Eva Green, Sinead Cusack and James Purefoy).
• Terra Nova.  Steven Spielberg’s first TV series this year.  Worth a look if only for Spielberg’s involvement.
• Falling Skies.  Spielberg’s second TV series, and for my money, the more interesting of the two.  I’ll look forward to seeing Noah Wyle again.

• Fringe.  I’ve been following Fringe for a while.  It is has been constantly under-rated by critics, though it hasn’t helped itself with 1-2 slow episodes at the start of each series.  I’m looking forward to seeing how Olivia, Peter and Walter  battle to save us from ourselves in the parallel universe.
• Game of Thrones. I’ve been looking forward to this series for a while now, and I’ve posted about it previously. The books by George R. R. Martin are simply fantastic, and the TV series looks to be shaping up to be a classic as well. The website Making Game of Thrones is well worth a visit – the production looks to be incredibly detailed, and true to the books.

• True Blood.  A great TV series, with so many laugh out loud moments in each episode.  And so much better than the books on which the series is based!
• BSG Blood and Chrome.  I’m still bitter about the demise of Caprica, but I’'ll give this a watch. So say we all!
• The Walking Dead.  An excellent first series (yet to be aired in the UK), and I’m looking forward to catching the new series later this year.  I’m even considering getting hold of the comics on which is based. Just one piece of advice – don’t get too attached to any of the characters.  The zombies aren’t just there for decoration…

My Personal Goals for 2011

I have finally gotten around to compiling my year resolutions for 2011, and thought I would share them with you. The list consists of a number of general aims, with a number of specific and quantifiable goals associated with each.

1. Get fit!
   • Reduce weight to 68kg (I’m currently weighing in at 74.1 Kg).
     
   • Eat no chocolate, and work to reduce the amount of sugar in my diet.
     
   • Exercise daily for at least 45 minutes.
     
   • Get at least 7 hours sleep every night.
     
   • Start a martial art by April.
2. Friends and Family
   • Spend some time each week staying in touch with friends and family.
3. Personal Interests
   • Read 100 new books. Some people on Twitter were kind enough to suggest a number of books to read. I’m also getting inspiration from the BBC’s Big Read, and the list of Penguin Classics.  The list of books (currently incomplete) can be found here. Update: You can check out my reading list here, or in full on my Shelfari profile.
     
   • Watch 50 films.  Half of these are to be classic films, and the rest are to be new releases in 2011. The list of films (currently incomplete) can be found here. Update: This list is no more!
     
   • Release an open-source project.
     
   • Write a new blog post weekly.
4. Career
   • Become Microsoft Certified in SharePoint 2010.
5. Financial
   • To save 20% of my net salary (separate from pension contributions).

I plan on tracking my goals using a number of tools.  Joe’s Goals is an online goal tracking application that I will be using to track a number of the specific goals detailed above.  I am using Tada List to record the books and films I plan to read and watch. I’ll also update you throughout the year on my progress, and I am aiming to have an end of year review to see exactly how strong my willpower has been.
If you have any thoughts on my resolutions, or want to suggest a book or film to me, please get in touch (or tweet @magicandi).  Thanks.

Graduating…

My younger brother John graduated today from the University of Ulster, at the Magee campus.  It felt very strange to be at the graduation ceremony with my folks; the last graduation I was at was my own, back in 2005.  Actually, the  two ceremonies were separated by exactly 5 years; it feels considerably longer.

The ceremony was graced with the presence of James Nesbitt, the UUC’s new Chancellor, who had the right mix of gravitas and humour.  An honorary doctorate was awarded to Colin Bateman, a local crime fiction author.  I’ve never been a fan of his books, but his acceptance speech was quite humorous.  There was a lovely moment when a degree was awarded to the parents of a student who sadly passed away before graduating, and the entire assembly rose to give them a standing ovation.  I actually really enjoyed being there, and I’m very glad my brother invited me.

Today’s ceremony in Derry was in direct contrast to my own graduation at QUB.  The ceremony there came across as very smug, and was incredibly tedious.  Some nobody from industry I had had never heard off before, and have never heard of since, was awarded an honorary degree, and he preceded to bore us to death in his acceptance speech (think Father Ted acceptance’s speech on winning the Golden Cleric…).  People who graduate from QUB have the nasty habit of looking down on anyone who went to to UU; after speaking to some of my brother’s friends today, and hearing about some of the work going on at the UU, I can’t see why.

Goodbye Last.fm, Hello Jango

No doubt I coming late to this party, but a colleague shared Jango, the advertising-supported Internet radio website.  I immediately feel in love with it.   A nice clean website, easy to navigate, and a great selection of artists and tunes.  I’ve just finished uninstalling the Last.fm dektop client; it is history.  If I need some tunes now, I just have to click on the Jango bookmark.  Which I have just done, and I’m now enjoying some Stone Temple Pilots.

Absolutely Lost…

I was late comer to the Lost TV series.  In fact, it wasn’t until some time in September 2007 that I actually watched my first episode.  It was while I was working in Dublin, and staying at a hotel in Dublin.  It was a miserable night, and I only watched it while waiting for Battlestar Galactica to come on. As this particular episode (The Brig) was a climatic one in Season 3, I hadn’t a clue what was going on.  But I was impressed enough to go back and watch Season 1. 

 

From the first 5 minutes of the pilot episode, I was hooked.  Over 6 seasons, we have been treated to the most compelling TV.  And now it is all over.  I thought the last episode was bit long, and could have benefited from some editing. But I still cried at a beautiful and elegant end sequence.  And now I’m absolutely lost for some stimulating TV to watch.  Glee and Sons of Anarchy are decent– but Lost they’re not.

Helen Bamber

I normally have a lie-in on a Saturday morning. It is a highlight in my week, with no work or church to force me to get up early. This weekend, I awoke at 09:30 (early!), and lay in bed listening to Radio 4.  What a slacker I am.

As I lay there, I heard one of the most moving and inspiring stories that I have ever came across.  It was the story of Helen Bamber, a psychotherapist who worked with survivors in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.  She was later involved at the start of Amnesty International, becoming chairwoman of the first UK group.  She later set up the charity Medical Foundation for Care of Victims of Torture in 1985 to provide long-term care to those who have suffered torture. She has since setup the Helen Bamber Foundation to offer support to people who had suffered human rights violations.

This is a woman who in her 80s who is still determined to make a difference, who continues to fight injustice and human rights abuse.  I think she is an incredibly inspiring figure.  She may not be a household name – but she should be.

To listen to the segment in the Saturday Live show on Helen Bamber, it starts at 08:05, and ends at 15:18 minutes.