This week has been a busy one in the faygate household and at work. Mrs faygate has started her Sing and Sign teaching again for the term, my new team leader started at work and the small boy’s after school clubs restarted. Top that off with the Bristol 10k which I ran this Sunday.
The highlight of the week though was heading into town to Spike Island to attend my, well our, first Ignite Bristol event. Now I have to admit I’m what you might class a ‘safe’ person. I’d love to take more risks and be a bit more spontaneous but I think about things too much! So anyway to avoid become boring to my wife of 9 years I bagged us some free tickets for this event and headed down after work on Thursday.
First off you have to be mighty impressed with the venue. What looks like an old warehouse and offices from the 1960’s they have transformed the place into fantastic contemporary space, there was even a nice cafe/bar.
When we arrived the place was already buzzing. For those who have not heard about Ignite then all I need to tell you is the tag line from their web site:
enlighten us, but make it quick
Basically, they get together about 10 presenters who have volunteered themselves and then give them only five minutes to talk about their chosen subject and with the use of only 20 slides which automatically change every 15 seconds.
This Pecha Kucha concept makes things quite interesting! Mrs faygate and I weren’t sure what to expect. Was it going to be geeky? Or was it going to be a bit arty fartsy?
Actually neither! It was a great mix of science, art and social interaction. We had a great time and enjoyed some really interesting talks, from the circle of life to dancing with robots, from being happy because we laugh to wondering if we are all an illusion! All the talks are recorded and then posted on YouTube when editing is complete. So watch out for the one about cycle paths and also the mini laughter workshop when they are available.
So if you get the chance I’d thoroughly recommend the next Bristol Ignite event if you can, or if you live somewhere else in the world, see if you can find an city near you. I learned some new interesting facts from the evening and somehow came away felt ignited (if you pardon the pun!) and inspired.
“Hello fellow nerds everywhere! May the 2²th be with you! ;)” — twitter
It’s been a funny few weeks. I’ve been thinking and preparing hard for a job interview at work and I’ve celebrated another birthday. This has led to me thinking about friendship and the bonds we make with people. Now I confess I’m probably not the best of friends to have, I’ve got a bit of a dark aura and I guess I’ve always been a bit of loner. However that doesn’t stop me enjoying other people’s company and maybe it’s time I made more effort.
Now you have to understand I moved around a lot as a teenager, so I didn’t really have a place I call home, and I don’t have any of those friendships that so many have from school days. It always puzzles me though that many of the people I’ve known in the past do not appear on places like facebook. Am I the only one who learned to use a computer in the early 90’s?
Now I’m not so naive to believe that any of the friends I had a school are the same as they were then. People change and I’ve changed, I’m definitely not the awkward boy I was twenty odd years ago, so maybe those friendships of yesteryear were doomed anyway.
Of course, I’ve got flickr contacts, facebook acquaintances and twitter followers. They are all lovely people I’m sure, but they are just people that appear on a computer and they have their own lives and their own ‘real’ friends and most of them live half way across the world! In some jealousy beautiful places, but still, half way across the planet!
So, my wife is my best friend. I spend more time in her company than anyone else. I probably drive her up the wall ;), but I don’t really have any greater bond than the one I have with her.
Recently though I believe I’ve made progress. I’ve spent some time lately with people I’ve known for various lengths of time, but maybe not that I’ve thought of as friends for one reason or another (define friend?), but I think it’s been really good for me. I hope they have enjoyed my company too! I’ve never been a blokley bloke, so maybe now that I’m older I’m finally finding the friendships I never had.
Still, now I have hopefully have some ‘real’ friends of me own. The next bit I need to work out, is how to hang on to those friendships. Any tips?
Top of this place on Flickr.
Thought I’d see how the new sharing features work in Flickr. This is from a recent trip to the Brecon Beacons in Wales where I climbed up Pen-y-fan twice in one weekend. This was from the first day, when you could see quiet well!
Last summer I took the opportunity to supplement my running with some cycling, which in turn was part of 52 weeks of feeling fit photography project. After the struggle of the first week, using the other set of muscles in my legs, I actually quite enjoyed it.
So last week the opportunity rose again in the form of half-term. No kids to take to school and an understanding boss meant that I could get back in the saddle again. I’m not going to lie though, it has been tough, particularly the monster hill I have to climb up to the University. After cycling at a steady pace for 19km, that final 2km feels like Kilimanjaro! However, it’s been good for my motivation. Even though the weather hasn’t been great and did get a bit of soaking on the last day I haven’t had any trouble putting on my long shorts and peddling up a sweat.
I did have an ulterior motive though. The price of diesel! Currently at about £1.30 a litre (that’s $2.09 US dollars) it costs about £70 ($112) to fill up my car and if I’m lucky it’ll last me two weeks. So this week I actually saved myself about £30 (I still had to go out to do some shopping) and in return I burnt something like 8000 calories and progressively got faster over the total 105 miles.
So my next challenge? Well once it starts getting lighter in the evenings (and I can work a little later to fit in my seven and a half hour working day) I want to start making this a regular thing. I may not have a flashy bike with the best gears, or brakes for that matter, but that just means I have to work my muscles harder and one of the biggest lessons I learnt this week? It’s only a bit of water! ;)
I just need to do a bit more swimming now and I could become a tri-athlete! Maybe…
“Running…not better than sex. Just more often! ;)” — Facebook
I’m really pleased that my little one has got the reading bug. I like reading but I don’t know how I passed the bug on to him. I’ve got a pile of books so big to read, they nearly reach up to my thigh!
It seemed easier a few years ago, or maybe that was just when I was holiday. Do you need to have a comfy chair and the warmth of the sun to get you in the mood for a good story? I’ve read all the Harry Potter books from start the finish pretty much as soon as they were available. I’ve not been able to put down the Dan Brown books, but I seem to have lost the knack lately to sit down and have a good read.
I really want to read Tess of the d’Urbervilles and I’ve started to read Yes Man, Accidental Empires and Murray Walker’s autobiography, but all seem to end back on the pile of books I want to read.
As with most stuff it boils down to motivation. Does anyone know where I can buy a jar of that? That would be really useful for so many things that at the moment. What’s wrong with me, I just can’t be arsed!! Meh!
For the past three years I have been very narcissistic, become very narcissistic! Okay, I’ve only taken 156 official pictures of myself for the project, when I guess it could have been 1095, but still that’s very vain of me! However, it is now at an end, for now.
Last January I’d already made the decision to get fitter. Something that most people do every January. I tried to document it in pictures too. On reflection I probably failed on that front as well as as achieving fitness goal. Well put it this way, I haven’t lost as much weight as I’d planned too. I do feel fitter though, so that’s a positive thing to reflect on. I took part in three half-marathons and I beat my 13.1 mile personal best time!
So as is tradition at this time of year, it’s time to look forward and to set goals for the year ahead. At this point it would be easy to roll off a list of things I’d like to achieve before the year is out but it’s probably better to set smaller targets first. That way you’re more likely to succeed, right?
So, what do I want to achieve first? Well actually I would like to be more confident. Then if I’m more confident then I’ll be more motivated. If I’m more motivated then I’ll get out running more. If I get out running more, then I’ll get fitter. If I get fitter…well, you get the idea. There’s probably whole lot of positive side effects to those things as well. 2011 is going to see a lot of changes at my work, so some extra confidence might come in handy.
I also want to be more confident with words, so I intend to come and try and write something here once a week.
I am here: 51 50.414 N 3 2.542 W http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:51.84025,-3.04237
