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 !

Bands from far away - come to the UK !

The world of the internet has opened up may newer resources for discovering bands. Simply google a few of your favourites and following links can often lead to new band ideas (not via the amazon.co.uk recommendations though, which whilst interesting to one or two degrees generally ends up recommending everyone would like "the killers" and whatever is in the charts that week).

But now I've followed the links, surfed some "MP3 blogs" - blogs like mine that track free download tracks of new bands, such as www.thecatbirdseat.com, read some indie review sites like www.pitchforkrecords.com, seen what others are listening to via their last.Fm profiles and maybe even played with some web2.0 music players such as the computer game like theSixtyOne. And from all this I now have a selection of bands I want to hear more from... but without the required level of fame, they don't want to play in the UK yet... because they are still fairly small bands.

This makes me more aware than usual of the gulf between bands who "have made it" and "are trying to make it". There doesn't appear to be a smooth curve, or gentle steps up those rungs. People have herd mentalities as my girlfriend's father often tells me, and with musical taste it is true. Not that this is a band thing, it helps define our "tribe" when we are young and gives us common interests at work and means we can go to cheap nightclubs and gleefully dance to shameful music, because we all know the songs and can dance to them together. But freeing yourself from the cycle really offers rewards - only then are you really into "music" for music alone, and it's a shocking world of discovering what quality works of music are relatively unheard outside of a few towns, despite the music being wildly more fun, accessible and tuneful than more famous artists of there genre.

But I digress from what was to be a "list post" - bands that should come to the UK, and until then, deserve your support :)

Belguim - Hooverphonic, dEUS
Australia - Howling Bells, Little Birdy
USA - Jonathan Coulton, Over the Rhine

Well, that's all I can think of. But anyone spotting UK gigs by these bands should contract me at the usual address !

Second xmas

Xmas comes but one a year... unless you bugger off around the planet for that special day, and come back a few days afterwards. In which case you get... Second Xmas !!! This joyous occasion was special for Mimi and I as we got to show off our little flat to my family as well as exchange presents for a second time of the year. And of course it's all about what we got other people or what they got us, as all the other pressies had been swapped already.

Let me catch myself there and assure all readers that the joy is definitely in the GIVING and not the receiving. The picture taken here was we full of joy at all the giving I had done, and certainly not just in the receiving of my new awesome Wii game.

Back from the future (+11 GMT)

I'm back from Australia, but must admit the "wonderment" of being on the other side of the world didn't come through as it did with the round the world travels. Mostly this is probably due to us not actually leaving the city of Melbourne - most of the trip was devoted to seeing friends and Mimi's family, and where it wasn't, it was devoted to sitting about doing blissful, sweet nothing (well, playing games on my new PSP, which pretty much equates to the same thing).

It was great meeting the aunts, uncles and cousins who up until know had been merely a character in a couple of anecdotes. It was also particularly nice to meet up with old workmates and friends from my last time over there. And finally it was great to play a lot of Guitar Hero and drink plenty of Aussie beer. I also got a chance to play through all of Half-life : Portal, which I now declare to be the best game made for the PC since, I dunno, Doom ?

So now back at work and pushing through some new years resolutions type stuff. Trying to push back hard on the weight and fitness again - last year got me almost two stone lighter, but those were the two easy stones I think ! Really hoping to battle my way down to 17 stone the start of this year. Fortunatley, my exercise regime has evolved now, such that I have cycling to work (2-3 times a week), the gym (trying for twice a week, but...), yoga on Tuesdays and practice runs at the weekend when Jon and I are both available. Hopefully by the time the 10K run in May comes around, I'll be in a good place.

Along with the yoga, I signed up for a brief creative writing course. Hopefully out of this I can develop a few writing ideas I've had rattling around for a while, and at least "give it a go". The only failure is not trying ;) Simliarly, a stand-up comedy course I finally took is beckoning me to trying out a stand up gig just the once. Not sure I'm advertising that one just yet though.