Cheese me

Seven days in the alps a couple of weeks ago were fantastic for my new board and awful for any concept of weight loss I may of been entertaining ! Cheese and beer a plenty kept me fueled for days of piste carving and nights of liver pickling, along with lots of other food things in the category of "not vegetable". Actually the dinners weren't too bad, our catered chalet had some good balanced meals, it was more the lunches of potato, pasta and bread - often all three - that were somewhat nutritionally void.

But the slope conditions for the holiday were unlike more recent holidays - we had powder ! Piles of it ! This came with some nasty winds and hail on a couple of days, but there was some phat, deep snow to play in that made up for it. Being a Euro resort, much of that powder vanished quickly as it got tracked out, but actually I was enjoying the on-piste almost as much, so didn't mind.

Anyhow, lots of photos are online now (hence the delay to this post) and it's been a very good boarding season overall. My boots and bindings are looking a bit shabby though... might be time for some new ones ;)

Gary Gygax R.I.P

I blame today's sick day from work for me missing this news from yesterday until, well, just now.

Gary Gygax, father of dungeons and dragons and all things dice / geek related has passed away.

Pretty much most of the gaming and geekery I'm into is somehow tied to this man, so it felt wrong not to mark his passing away with a brief post, and a quote from the man himself:

"I would like the world to remember me as the guy who really enjoyed playing games and sharing his knowledge and his fun pastimes with everybody else."

Le Fat Bob est mort, vive le Titan !

Alas on my last holiday, my beloved Fat Bob passed away. Fat bob was, of course, the snowboard I picked up in 2002. Manufactured by K2, he had to endure my full bulk for six years, going from novice to advanced-intermediate, carving terrible turns to popping terrible jumps, and generally taking a nasty beating off several rocks and snow park features.

All of this finally cracked the metal edge around the edge of the board, which combined with a couple of gouges into the base caused water and air to get into the board-core. Being stored between seasons probably allowed this gap to expand, and so on the first day of boarding, Fat Bob broke down. Many drink were consumed in his honour, and I look forward to mounting him on the wall "trophy-style" in the future.

So as we say a collective goodbye to Fat Bob, we can now welcome the K2 Titan ! Having just waited long enough for the end of season sales, I can safely say I picked up this board for not a lot more than the original full price Fat Bob cost me. However, this is a higher level intermediate board, 2 cm shorter than Bob (166cm long), a little lighter but plenty more "pop and gnarlyness" integrated into it's honeycomb multi-core blah blah blah... actually I have no idea how good it is yet, but with snowboards, price is often the indicator, and this board is around the right price range for someone of my abilities. The slightly shorter length may cause me to curse it's lesser stability, but equally it may cause me to praise it's smaller form as I attempt to pull-off 180 jumps and ride switch.

Next week sees our group trip to Tignes, where I get to try the Titan out on hopefully some good conditions - well looks like it's sunny for the next few days, but on our first day of boarding, it's set to dump fresh sweet powder...

My brand new nieces

At the weekend, Mimi and I headed into hospital to see my brothers new born baby girls. Two of 'em ! And they look identical ! Mind you, to me all babies do look identical, but I'm assured this will continue for quite some time to come.

As with most identical twins, they babies were born prematurely, before they got too big and caused problems. But this means they are currently living in the critical care ward of Wexham park hospital. They are still quite poorly, but no more than is to be expected with premature babies, and when I went to visit they both took turns in kicking around a bit and wondering who the strange spotty hands and ginger haired face belonged too. In the picture below is Olivia, the eldest (by a couple of minutes !), sporting a nice woolly hat and some tube giving her food and so forth. Isabel was just next to her in another incubator and doing very well - she had a sunlamp on her and a tiny eye mask ! Sheer luxury, I have to pay for diamond membership of my gym for that privilege...

I really felt quite proud of my brother and his partner through the whole event. They have been so good at looking after the babies before the birth and now seem quite in control during what must have been (and still, to some degree, be) a stressful event. I'm sure they are going to be great parents, and Mimi and I look forward to spoiling the babies at any available opportunity !

I hope to see Olivia and Isabel (my little nieces !!!) again soon, maybe next time I'll get more pictures of them and less of me. Then again, if they want more photos of them, they can write their own blogs... this one's about me ;)

Reaffirmations

As a man who frequently dreams of reinvention, but rarely comes close to doing much about it, I think it might be time to abuse my blog to help reaffirm my goals. Things have slipped a little admittedly part due to my glut of holidays this winter season, one snowboard trip to Les Arcs during which my beloved snowboard, Fat Bob, gave up on being trodden on and busted, making me realise how hard it actually is to find a decent sized wide snowboard for hire (or even purchase) in a French alpine resort. And more recently, a trip to Romania with Mimi to hunt vampires, overtake horse and carts in our rental car and eat lots of meat and pickled things. Oh yeah, and I'm off boarding again in a couple of weeks - poor me :)

So having burnt out all my holiday in winter 2008, I need to reaffirm what to do with the rest of my time. Back in June 2007 I wrote this post which listed five major projects. Firstly was to lose weight, which to a degree I have done. But anyone who clicks through or watches the Traineo image on the right will have noted a static number. I assure you I am still updating this, but cannot seem so shift weight at my currently lifestyle. So it's time to refine that project with two more affirmations:

#1: I will go to the gym twice a week during a normal working week. No exceptions. This is on top of any third activity I do (currently Yoga)

#2: Cut down drinking and unhealthy food by drinking more pints of water when out (half of the "addiction" is having a pint in hand, you see) and trying harder to plan more meals / making more homemade lunches (which is something Mimi and I are both focusing on)

I also stated back in June that I would write more. Well, blogging is always a good background practice for that. I've just completed a creative writing course that didn't teach much technique but did get me writing. So hopefully I can keep some velocity up with that - I started writing up my travels in Romania, so hopefully I can blog some of that later on. So let's try an affirmation of:

#3: I will write more, either about Romania, or another short topic, and blog it. Before the end of April, ideally.

Also, a new affirmation from a comedy course I finally took last December

#4: Perform one stand up comedy gig this year

What else from June ? Coding... well that isn't happening out of hours, but that's not a bad thing with everything else I'd rather focus on. Instead I will make an affirmation to apply it within work - but that will come up as part of my work objectives (currently under review) so I'll leave that off this list. Another thing was finances... well, I am making steady progress in tracking finances, but may of signed up for one too many accounts and cards on the way, and forgotten a few too many passwords for the online accounts. So one extra affirmation to get myself ready for a new financial year and ISA allowance is:

#5: Ensure I have a full picture of all accounts, ISAs and general savings by the end of the financial year.

oh yeah, and...

#6: Sort out final bills from my old house share within the next two weeks (sorry Jon :)

And finally there was talk of learning. My basic German came in some use in Romania when the English let me down, and Mimi and I's French helped support what gaps the German had. So it would be nice to bolster these language skills where required, but in truth without a specific holiday destination requiring them, language learning can be fast forgotten. So I can replace learning with just a resolution to keep in control of things, get on the front foot and take control of things.

But... hold on... what about FUN !?!?!! One more affirmation for me then:

#7: I will find time to play computer games and / or read books at least one hour a week.

oh go on, one more:

#8: I will try and organise at least one board gaming session with friends every month.

Much better !!! Hopefully all this self assurance hasn't been too dull for the reader. Some far more exciting news coming for the next post...

Glastonbury cometh

Once again I have registered for the legendary festival of Glastonbury - last year saw 3 tired, frustrated hours refreshing browser pages and speed redialling phone lines before admitting defeat in April, but strangely I feel compelled to pre-register so I can try again come April 6th !

Anyone out there fancy joining me in this endeavour ? Get your pre-registration in by March 14th and together we can refresh browser screens in vain hope !