Happy New Year!

Well, that’s another year been and gone. 2009. End of a decade. It has gone so quickly.

What’s happened this year? A lot. It’s been busy.

  • I have been involved in some huge projects at work.
  • I sang in some St Martin Singers concerts.
  • I joined a theatre group and was in a pantomime.
  • I started playing the .
  • I’ve met some really great people.
  • I’ve met some not so great people.
  • Phil and I almost bought a flat. It didnt quite work out but we’re still looking!
  • I went skiing.
  • I went to a festival.
  • I became a member of Ronnie Scotts Jazz Club.
  • I turned 25! That’s quarter of a century. Wow.

And lots of other things.

It’s been a good year, and there is very little in it that I regret. 2010 though… I think a lot of great things will happen in 2010. I have a good feeling about it already.

I dont normally do New Years Resolutions but I have a few fairly non-specific ones.

  1. Get better at the . This will happen anyway. I know it.
  2. Play the trumpet more!
  3. Maybe start a band and start writing some again?
  4. Finish some of the personal projects I started last year.
  5. Take more photos! I have a great camera, some great lenses and great ideas. I just need to get on with it!
  6. Meet even more wonderful people. I made some great friends last year. You can never have too many.
  7. Blog more. I know hardly anyone reads it, but it’s good to keep a record of thoughts and musings for myself.
  8. Read more. There are some great books I havent read yet and I used to read a lot. Life has got in the way, but i have about an hour a day of commute time when I could read something.
  9. Cook more. I can cook, and generally it tastes pretty good! But there is never enough time and so many easier options. This year I want to try more interesting recipies and cook more often.
  10. The most general one of all – just ‘be better’. At life, at everything I do, at everything I am. 2010 is about self-improvement!

So that’s it for this post.

Happy New Year everyone, and best wishes for 2010.

Steve

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Oh wow. So much to say. Lets condense.

 

I wrote this a few days ago and meant to publish it before the new year but… well. more fun things got in the way :)

ok. so. 2.5 months since the last post. I’ve done a lot in those 10 weeks! how to fit it in to one post? lets see how it goes. Lets skim.

!

The has now been and gone. if you didn’t go, you missed out. it was actually really pretty good! I’m looking forward to little shop of horrors in the summer. Rehearsals start soon. auditions feb i think?

Work stuff

Work has been crazy busy. I have been involved in all three of the really big projects of the year, from the datacenter move, going on to the hardware upgrade project and finally the DR test. Add to that the the ‘usual stuff’. Software releases, other smaller projects and keeping all the developer tools i manage going, and things have been pretty hectic. It’s all gone ok though, and 2010 looks like it could be equally exciting. I will be heading up a project to improve our continuous integration systems by making it more reliable, more scaleable and generally work better. And a lot more of the usual stuff. But I should also be getting someone soon to help out with that :) Enough of work…

Holidays

I had an obscene amount of annual leave to use up before the end of the year so i decided to use it in one huge block from December 15th to the new year. The first week was one of christmas parties.

On the Monday, a group of us went to Hyde Parks Winter Wonderland to take some photos. Many of the ones I thought were worth keeping were fairly… experimental, but they are on Flickr anyway. Have a look, leave a comment!

Tuesday was the Quay Players christmas meal. Very nice food and good to see everyone for a final time of the year.

Wednesday was the warehouse team christmas meal! Again, delicious food. i had steak tartare for the first time. Fantastic. i would have it again.

I had a night off on thursday. Very much needed for a bit of R&R.

Then Friday was Poker at Shahabs new flat in Canary Wharf. It didn’t go well for . Dale cleaned out with a couple of full houses. Bastard. Fun night none the less. I’ll get him next time.

Saturday I was up fairly early. I went up to Hampstead Parish Church (my aunts church) to give them a hand putting up their gigantic christmas tree. In the afternoon I headed out to Victoria Coach Station to go skiing. It didn’t quite go to plan… snow had broken the channel tunnel. Annoying. So we didn’t go that night. They did ring the next day to say that the hold ups on the shuttle had cleared though, so Steve and I headed off on the sunday, a day later than intended. We still got three good days of skiing in though, and the snow was great. With both legs stills intact, we arrived back in the UK on Christmas Eve morning at 7:30am. just in time for to head home, have a shower, dump my ski kit and get on a train to Halifax for christmas with Tim (B) and Tim (S) and The Suttons.

Christmas Eve and Day were basically just awesome. Tim and I had an amazing time in Yorkshire, and the food, drink and company was amazing. The Tims and Katie and I all went out on christmas morning for a snowy walk. We then had one of the longest meals in history, all of it delicious.

On Boxing day Tim and I got up really early (6am! after all that eating and drinking!) and got a coach back to london for Christmas Dinner no 2. Again – delicious. Two days of turkey. Amazing.
Tim and I went out shopping on the 27th to buy a new TV. It’s pretty fantastic. 37 inches of 1080p goodness. The one small mistake we made was carrying it back from the west end to the flat. We managed, but it was… interesting.

We saw Avatar the next night, and then he was off back to Southampton. I met up with Zippy + various other friends of hers over the next couple of days before we both went down to Southampton, with her flatmate in portugal, Heather, on New Years Eve.

I probably shouldn’t go in to too much detail about the party… But there was delicious food made by Tim S, a LOT of drinks of various sorts, and some really fun people. We had fireworks at midnight and lit chinese lanterns to see in the new year. then off to mangos over the road for a few more drinks!

That’s it for now though. A better ‘New Years’ post later.

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Movember, Ukulele Wednesdays and Falkor

September, October, No! Yes, next month I will be growing a for . I will be starting the month clean shaven, and (probably fairly slowly) growing out the Mo over the following weeks. Assuming they don’t drop out, I will be doing this as part of a team with some guys from work. Things I will need from all 3 of you blog readers:

  1. Money! It is for after all. I shall put details on how to sponsor up in due course.
  2. Ideas on what sort of Mo to grow. I’m thinking handle bars. I’m not doing a Charlie Chaplin.
  3. Also, team name! I am lackingbin inspiration for a name. “The Moscateers” has been banded around, but I feel like it’s a bit obvious.

Anyway, that’s that. I shall be doing a daily (mostly) photo of the progress. More info about the event at movember uk.

Wednesdays

In other news I have discovered a night that happens weekly on a Wednesday at the Royal George on charing cross road. It is aptly named Wednesdays. I went last night for what will certainly not be the last time. Lots of people with ukuleles, singing and playing a huge range of songs and drinking beer. You can’t go far wrong with that in my opinion. Its a winning combination if ever I heard of one. I shall be there next week.

While I’m on the subject of ukuleles, I bought a new one. It’s a Laka concert uke, with pickup. The difference in sound between it and my other one is incredible. Just goes to show that with instruments you really do get what you pay for (I did notice the same thing when I moved from my £150 trumpet to the rather more expensive Bach Strad all those years ago). Anyway, uke no. 1 was named Murray (after the infamous Murray Parker, world renowned musician, composer, confectioner, muse and all manner of other professions), uke no. 2 is . I don’t think I will be buying another for a while (if you want to buy one though, I would not say no!). I just need an amp next… Anyone have one spare?

Falkor - Laka Koa Concert Uke

No other massively exciting news. Busy as ever on various projects, both work and non-work related

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Sand animation, Bestival, Coldplay.

This ‘Ukraine’s Got Talent’ entry is absolutely amazing.

In other news, last weekend I went to on the Isle of Wight with Tim, Phil, Ali and Kev. It was a fantastic festival, and I will get my photos from it on flickr soon. Sunny every day, and some really good acts on. Definitely planning on going again next year. I hope the weather will be just as good!

Last night we all went to see at Wembly Stadium. The ‘Friends and Family’ area was right next to the players tunnel, so we all took the oppertunity to walk down that. Supporting were White Lies (who were very good), (who were ok, but you couldnt really hear any of the words), and (who im sure was very good if you like ). put on a good show, and did his collab bit with them as well during Lost. The Royal Box was very comfortable. Nice cushioned seats, and helpfully undercover for when the heavens opened and the rest of the crowd got soaked. I could get used to haveing seating like that every time! Great show anyway. One of the best i’ve seen. The aftershow party at Wembly Arena was awesome too, with nice food, although the only spirit they had at the bar though was vodka! Still, I guess you cant really complain about free drinks. I had drunk a bit too much beer by that time, so vodka it was!

Things should be a bit quieter from now on. I need a while to recover.

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“Can’t” & “He’s behind you!”

I loved this . Not a bad song either.

In other news, I will be in a pantomime in December. I joined a group called ‘The Quay Players’ as they are based not far from work and seem like a fairly friendly bunch. I’ve managed to wangle myself the part of Prince 1. Yes, there are two Prince Charmings. Both of us are Steve’s as well. Things might get confusing…

First week of December anyway. I expect you all to be there. Copious alchohol is advised, and audience participation encouraged.

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