Hi everybody.
Once again, apologies at how long since the last update. There's been some things going on the last few weeks, realisations and self-reflections and such that I'm not ready to speak about in an open forum, so it's been rather quiet here.
However, this place should see plenty more activity in the next few weeks because we are temporarily transforming into a Travel Blog! The other things that's been taking up plenty of time recently is planning our group trip to New Zealand, starting tomorrow.
So my plan is to keep this updated with occurrences and happenings and photos and those kinds of fun things. So it'll be a change of pace, but there will be frequent activity again.
So yes, just thought I'd let people know. Fingers crossed the first travel blog part should be up tomorrow evening sometime (assuming getting up early for the plane doesn't cause me to just crash tomorrow night that is ;) ).
Darren
PS: The other recent discovery: Radio Controlled Helicopters are fantastic fun, but it's really annoying when one little bit breaks that just doesn't seem to want to stay fixed. I'm so getting a good quality one when I get back from NZ
Saturday, 23 February 2013
Tuesday, 15 January 2013
New Year
Hi everyone.
I really haven't been doing a good job at keeping up with this, but oh well, I'm trying :)
There isn't a huge amount to report actually, or I guess there are things that I could report but I'd rather not talk about the stuff that was going on over Christmas with Family in a public forum (if you really want to know, you'll need to ask me).
Discounting Christmas antics.. yeah, not a lot really to say, since it's mostly been the year winding down and then winding back up again. I've made a couple of changes in my regular weekly events to try and stop myself from burning out again (that wasn't fun!) and having a bit more "Me" time.
So, the bits of news that I do have:
The Hobbit: Went and saw this with my parents at Melbourne Central Hoyts (Director's Suite). Never doing that again. Pathetic service, vastly overpriced pub-inferior food, had to stand around at the entrance while two staff chattered and occasionally looked at us, and when one did serve us she gabbled so fast you could barely understand her. I can honestly say that standard class is better. Oh, and we still had to sit through half an hour (we timed it) of adds and the occasional preview.
The movie wasn't so crash hot either. What is it with this director and his inordinate love of three hour movies? He could have cut an hour out of the movie (mostly the long, drawn out, so called "Suspense" and "Action" scenes) without losing anything from it.
New Zealand!: Half a dozen of us are heading to New Zealand in a little over a month. Can't wait :D. It's going to be awesome to have a nice big break, with my friends, off exploring a place I've never been to. It should be three weeks of awesome.
I'm as yet uncertain if I'll be blogging everything here or at my old UK travel blog, but I'll keep people posted.
Silk Painting: Last but not least, I've started doing some more with my silk painting, and I'm definitely getting the hang of it. Here's a few examples to end on a high note :) [sorry for them being side on, can't be bothered immediately finding out why google is rotating them ;) ]
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I really haven't been doing a good job at keeping up with this, but oh well, I'm trying :)
There isn't a huge amount to report actually, or I guess there are things that I could report but I'd rather not talk about the stuff that was going on over Christmas with Family in a public forum (if you really want to know, you'll need to ask me).
Discounting Christmas antics.. yeah, not a lot really to say, since it's mostly been the year winding down and then winding back up again. I've made a couple of changes in my regular weekly events to try and stop myself from burning out again (that wasn't fun!) and having a bit more "Me" time.
So, the bits of news that I do have:
The Hobbit: Went and saw this with my parents at Melbourne Central Hoyts (Director's Suite). Never doing that again. Pathetic service, vastly overpriced pub-inferior food, had to stand around at the entrance while two staff chattered and occasionally looked at us, and when one did serve us she gabbled so fast you could barely understand her. I can honestly say that standard class is better. Oh, and we still had to sit through half an hour (we timed it) of adds and the occasional preview.
The movie wasn't so crash hot either. What is it with this director and his inordinate love of three hour movies? He could have cut an hour out of the movie (mostly the long, drawn out, so called "Suspense" and "Action" scenes) without losing anything from it.
New Zealand!: Half a dozen of us are heading to New Zealand in a little over a month. Can't wait :D. It's going to be awesome to have a nice big break, with my friends, off exploring a place I've never been to. It should be three weeks of awesome.
I'm as yet uncertain if I'll be blogging everything here or at my old UK travel blog, but I'll keep people posted.
Silk Painting: Last but not least, I've started doing some more with my silk painting, and I'm definitely getting the hang of it. Here's a few examples to end on a high note :) [sorry for them being side on, can't be bothered immediately finding out why google is rotating them ;) ]
Wednesday, 21 November 2012
Six Months In
Well, I started this blog a little over six months ago, and I posted a bunch of benchmarks then as to some goals that I wanted to work towards.
Lets see how I'm going measuring up to those goals :)
Health & Fitness
Lets see how I'm going measuring up to those goals :)
Health & Fitness
- Weight: 81.5kg
- Goal: 70kg
- Current: 80kg. This one doesn't seem to be going too well actually, I seem to be losing very little to no weight. I ran with a calorie counter app for several months at the start of the year (so pre-blog), and by its calculations of my intake & exercise, I should have dropped around two kilos a month. - Girth: 40"
- Goal: 36"
- Current: 38-39". This varies quite a bit between days, evidently some of what I'm eating is bloating me a bit. Still, while it's not the speed of progress that I'd like, it's still progress - Situps*: 19 (yes, I couldn't manage #20)
- Goal: 50
- Current: 30. Well, that's certainly better. And that's without actually doing regular situps too, that's just the workout that my abs get from other exercise. I really should be trying to do situps at least every couple of days. - Riding Distance: Unknown, but somewhere over 10kms
- Goal: 30+kms
- Current: Well, I did the 50km leg of Around the Bay with no issues at all. True we had a large stop for lunch, but even without that I would have been fine. We're planning to do 100kms next year! - Running Distance: Unknown, but not much
- Goal: 5kms (Couch to 5K Program)
- Current: Honestly, still don't know. I haven't done the C25K thing yet, though I did just pick up Zombies! Run!, so I should get some more running exercise soon. Not an easy one to benchmark unfortunately. I do know that I can out-sprint quite a few people at Swordcraft, so that helps :) - Eating Habits:
- Need to increase my Fruit & Veg intake by quite a bit. Going to kick off a new eating plan when I get back from Tasmania next week
- This one I'm confident to say I have vastly improved at. Most of my dinner meals include 3-4 serves of veggies nowadays, rather than the 1-2 that they used to. Still don't tend to eat fruit regularly, but my general Fruit & Veg is vastyly better than it was.
Creative
- iPhone/Android App: Currently have one with a bunch of friends partway between planning and Alpha stages.
- Needs a whole bunch of one-liners written up
- Needs art done (This will be done by someone else)
- Needs programming tidied up and tailored (This will be done by someone else)
- Need to organise a team meeting to see where everyone is up to. Hopefully this weekend - Writing: Going to leave this one on the back burner for the moment to relook at later on. May well do this for NANO this year
- Well, unfortunately the App plan fell apart, and I didn't take part in NANO, the whole 'big writing piece' thing is still proving too big of a stumbling block for me to have even started looking at.
On the other hand I'm now learning Silk Painting, and am currently assembling my own kit so that I can start making my own pieces without Janet's assistance.
So creativity has gone in a completely different direction to what I'd planned, but I think it's still valid progress. Sure it's not the "Woohoo, novel" thing that would have been nice to have done, but we take what we can get. - Oh, and I Really need to start learning how to use my camera better. Only a few months until New Zealand!!
Big & Scary
- Career:
- Goal: Intellectually stimulating job that still pays well
- Current to dos: A friend of mine runs a Recruitment agency. Must polish up my resume and send it to her - Place to live:
- Goal: Have my own place rather than renting, in a spot that is near work and appreciates in value so that if I decide I want to pack up and head overseas, I can sell it and cover my debts.
- This one is also getting to sit on the back burner for a while. This will be looked at after Career is more organised I think - Fully willing to admit, no movement here. I find trawling through job sites like Seek to damned hard to differentiate between, since most jobs don't give the exact location ("Inner City" could simply mean that the job agency itself is in the inner city, and the job is two hours out), or payscale (not even a broad range), and tend to just be a collection of buzzwords rather than an actual description of the job (tip for job agencies, saying that your job is "To be part of a hip, dynamic IT crew of go-getters and like minded people" tells me exactly NOTHING about what the job is about)
Intellectual
- Haven't done anything about courses or anything here either. On the other hand.. I haven't really felt the need to further my education either, so maybe it's safe to say that I think I have enough on my plate here.
In general.. things have actually been quite busy. I went from barely ever seeing people and spending most of my evenings doing nothing, to having four nights a week taken up by activities, and normally at least one day a weekend as well.
My sleep has been.. fluctuating. I had been fine for most of the last six months, but started having some sleeping trouble the last few weeks, and I'm taking some steps to try and figure out why (cutting a couple of specific things out of my diet and trying to eat dinner at a more normal hour for eg). Hopefully it's just an adjustment to the changing weather or something.
The other idea, which is quite possible, is that I've just been doing too much and I'm burning out from cramming so much into each week. The next couple of weeks have 1-2 things that I normally do each week having been cancelled, so we'll see if that makes any difference also. I'm also dialing back my Monday night swordfighting to learn the silk painting, so there's a bit less physical activity.
Mentally/emotionally I think I'm improving too. I've done a bunch of things that I'd never done before (and several that I wouldn't have even considered), I think I'm giving things a go a lot more than I used to. Looking back at past behaviours I think I've grown a lot as well. This is good :)
The two big bugbears of "Work" and "New place to live" are still hanging over me (Work especially), but other than that... I think life is actually going pretty well at the moment. Yes being thinner & fitter would be nice, but I'm.. not discontented with my life.
One thing that's been bugging me though. It's been a long time since I had a noticeable adrenaline hit. You'd think doing swordfighting three nights a week would mean I'd be pretty familiar with adrenaline, and certainly earlier on that was true, but nowadays it's just not happening. I nearly got cleaned up by a ute a couple of weeks ago and while I had a spike of fear before the guy opened his eyes and hit the brakes (moron decided that looking before entering a roundabout was for suckers), there was no corresponding adrenaline, and no shakes or similar afterwards.
Not losing the weight that I think I should be, not getting as much rest as I want, and adrenaline just not happening? Is there some kind of metabolism issue or something that could be causing/contributing to this?
Probably worth me doing some research into.
Anyway, I think I'll wrap this up here.
What I would like, is anyone reading this, please let me know if *you* think you've seen a difference in how I've been acting/behaving verses six months or more ago. I can think internally all I want about what I think has been happening, but I can't see myself from the outside and know if other people are noticing anything :)
PS: I can't let any "Halfway there" comment go by without referencing this somehow. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk
PS: I can't let any "Halfway there" comment go by without referencing this somehow. Enjoy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDK9QqIzhwk
Sunday, 11 November 2012
Another one of those "Stuff" updates
So, time for another one of those semi-rambing "what's been going on" updates :)
First up, apologies for the delays for the planned post on gender stuff, haven't been finding a chance to sit down and write it all out, hopefully it shall come soon.
It won't be the next one however, since I've just passed the Six Months point of this blog, and plan to do a writeup there. I'll need to compare myself to my benchmarks from the start before I can do so though.
Anyways, main things that have been happening:
Entertainment:
I've been reading through the Dresden Files books recently, up to book nine at the moment. Urban-fantasy detective books with a noir feel. I won't go into too much detail for fear of spoilers, but they're definitely worth a look if you're interested. There's quite a few books but they're self-contained and relatively small, so you don't need to worry about "Arg, I'll need to read a dozen books to get the whole story" type of thing.
Food:
Well, as people have been continually poking and prodding me about, the 'vegetable of the week' plan fell by the wayside as something that I just didn't have the time to keep up with, but I've been trying a few new things with food.
Most recently I've been having a go at roasts. Sounds simple, right? But not something I'd done before (other than one of those ready-to-roast splayed chickens that you just throw in the oven for X minutes), because growing up I'd ended up with the impression that Roasts were some huge arcane ritual taking hours of prep and half a day of cooking time, so I'd never attempted one.
Laura disabused me of this notion while chatting online one night, so I've been having a go at a few of them recently.
Here's one of my first attempts:
First up, apologies for the delays for the planned post on gender stuff, haven't been finding a chance to sit down and write it all out, hopefully it shall come soon.
It won't be the next one however, since I've just passed the Six Months point of this blog, and plan to do a writeup there. I'll need to compare myself to my benchmarks from the start before I can do so though.
Anyways, main things that have been happening:
Entertainment:
I've been reading through the Dresden Files books recently, up to book nine at the moment. Urban-fantasy detective books with a noir feel. I won't go into too much detail for fear of spoilers, but they're definitely worth a look if you're interested. There's quite a few books but they're self-contained and relatively small, so you don't need to worry about "Arg, I'll need to read a dozen books to get the whole story" type of thing.
Food:
Well, as people have been continually poking and prodding me about, the 'vegetable of the week' plan fell by the wayside as something that I just didn't have the time to keep up with, but I've been trying a few new things with food.
Most recently I've been having a go at roasts. Sounds simple, right? But not something I'd done before (other than one of those ready-to-roast splayed chickens that you just throw in the oven for X minutes), because growing up I'd ended up with the impression that Roasts were some huge arcane ritual taking hours of prep and half a day of cooking time, so I'd never attempted one.
Laura disabused me of this notion while chatting online one night, so I've been having a go at a few of them recently.
Here's one of my first attempts:
It was tasty :)
I'm still failing at managing to do a decent roast potato though, they're just not coming out crispy...
I roasted a Girello last night (from what I can gather it's a similar cut to Silverside) in foil, mustard on the top and covered in red wine. It came out tasty, but a bit dry somehow :(. I've made up a few containers with meat, potatoes, steamed veggies and gravy that I can heat up for lunch the next few days.
Oh yes, my plans to start making my lunch rather than buying it each day? Have been up and down. Some weeks I'll manage it but more often I won't. Hopefully as Summer approaches and non-warm sandwiches look more appealing I'll get back into the swing of things.
I've also been doing more experiments with my shortbread, mixing in new and different things. People seem to be enjoying it :). I've been asked for the recipe, and a couple of people have asked me to bring some along to the next Swordcraft camping weekend.
Alas I'm.. having issues eating it a the moment due to mental association (while I was sick with gastro the thought of shortbread made me ill, so those associations are still there, even though I know it won't make me ill), but that should pass in time.
Hair:
A couple of weeks ago I went into a new hairdressers (also discovered through Laura) that should hopefully be able to finally kill off the pink hair that my 'do had turned into after Shave for a Cure.
For reference, the pink hair had had temporary auburn and dark brown colours put over it (by me), and a dark red (professionally) and yet the pink still kept coming through.
So I went into this place, which has received awards for its colours, and figured that they should be able to do something with it, plus I was ready for a new style.
So we agree on a dark brown, the hairdresser says there will probably still be some reddish bits to it in the sunlight, but I didn't think that'd be a problem. Then while washing out the dye, she takes one look at my (still wet) hair and goes "Hrm.. let me get some toner to try and get rid of the pink that's still showing..." so even after having a permanent dark brown done over it, the pink was *still* visible. Talk about hard to kill!
After the toner was put in as well, the pink is finally gone, but rather than dark brown I have black hair in anything other than direct sunlight.
I also had it cut into a new style with some layers (moreso than they'd normally do) and such, and for shits and giggles I had it curled before I left (hairdresser's idea, though I went for rather smaller curls than she'd thought), I was only having a weekend at home catching up on tidying and stuff so no big issues if it looked horrible.
I think it came out pretty darned well though.
New Thing (TM):
Another new thing for the month, a couple of Thursdays ago I went along to a Burlesque outing with a few friends. It was an.. interesting.. show. Lots of audience.. if not participation, at least banter, very strong kinky themes, probably quite confronting to a lot of people since there was no sugar coating of anything.
It was quite funny watching the reactions of some people who were there. Some evidently were quite into it and having fun, others were very obviously going "Ohgods what have I gotten into, pleasedonttalktome!"
The group of girls I'd gone with were very much in the former category, several of them having been to the show before (and were recognised as such by the performers).
I dressed up for it as well, ending up rather more... feminine than I'd planned, but it worked. I learned two things: 1) Silk shirts offer NO wind protection, and are freezing cold even with a woolen jacket on over it. 2) Corsets aren't nearly as hard to ride in as I'd suspected.
Patient Zero:
This one hasn't happened yet, but it's booked for a few weeks time and I thought I'd mention it :D
There's a place running what is basically a laser-tag Zombie outbreak in Melbourne. You and a bunch of friends (half a dozen total) form a squad, make a booking, and have to go through a building full of people dressed as zombies, presumably find survivors and the source of the outbreak, and get out again.
Very much looking forward to it, I think it's going to be awesome :D
Anyways, I think I'll finish up this post there. Next one should be up in a day or so once I've compared myself to my starting benchmarks and can give a "Six Months In" update.
Tuesday, 23 October 2012
Activities!
Ahoy!
So, apparently I'm continuing my trend of posting large globs of stuff infrequently rather than small bites as they happen.
Unsure that I like this trend since it makes it easy to put off posts to 'add them to another one later', but considering how I keep managing to fill up my regular time, posting more regularly is a little tricky on the schedule.
I'll see what I can do to find a happy medium, but in the meantime, updates! Disclaimer: As usual this is being written in bits and pieces over several hours, sorry if it reads a bit disjointedly.
There's really been two major pieces up update since my last post, and really, two big pieces of news in a month? That's actually not a half bad ratio I'd say!
Major News
Great Southern Gathering
So, this was actually on the weekend after my last update. Big.. well, bigger than monthly bash, SCA weekend event. This one was mostly classes on the Saturday (everything from forging and knife making to rapier and heavy fighting advice and such) and then a tournament and the Rapier prize fights on the Sunday. I attended a few Heavy classes on things like advanced power generation and footwork, which I think will be helpful, but I won't go into detail on since I don't think most of my readers are heavy fighters :)
Laura went for and succeeded at getting her Free Scholar prize in Rapier, which is the first "rank" you can achieve.
She was quite obviously nervous, but acquitted herself quite well. Would have been nice to see more offense from her examiners, but it was fun to see her get fed up with someone's defense and just swoop in, trap their sword out of the way and stab them a few times.
Oh yes, and she did it wearing this. This is the favour that I made for her under Janet's tutelage. It's watercolour painted silk, and the yellow background is the silk sash Laura got for winning her prize:
I'm planning on getting Janet to give me some more lessons on silk painting, and getting my own gear to start doing this at home. Silk painting is *fun!*, and for pretty much the first time in my life I can look at something artistic that I've created and honestly say that I did a good job, which is a kind of awesome feeling. Definitely something I want to do more of :)
Around the Bay in a Day
Myself and a bunch of others took part in the 50km leg of Around the Bay in a Day last weekend. Our team name was "Cyclists of Penzance", so most of us were either dressed as pirates or had pirate hats attached to our helmets (though I can't help but notice the one person NOT in costume of some kind is the person who named our team...)
Was quite amusing actually, the guy doing announcing and general chatter over a microphone at the start line said that it "it's a proper race without pirates", and we hat large numbers of people commenting throughough the race (including a couple of "Aaarrrrrr!"s from the police helping direct traffic near the start.
I think the furthest I've ridden in a day before this was about 30, 35ks, but at the pace we went I had no issue with the 50ks.
We took it nice and easy because, well, one member of our team was still on the tail end of a bout of gastro, one had the flu, and one had stomach cramps. Yay riding wounded!
We got through it all, those of us in front paused to regroup before riding over the finish line together (to a rather thunderous round of "Arrrrrr!!" from all the people on the sidelines), so all in all it was a fun day.
... except for my arms getting quite badly sunburned.
It was perfectly logical, I figured we'd be done by 12:30ish, meaning I'd get some sun but would avoid the UV danger time of the day, and should get some sun without burning. But due to our pace and taking a nice long lunch break we left lunch at 1ish, meaning the return leg was done in full blazing sun, and I didn't think to apply sunscreen at lunch.
Yay for lobster coloured arms ><. Slowly getting better at least.
I also ended up with an increadibly sore rear end by the end of the ride since I just had my standard non-padded bike seat. Definitely need to get myself a padded seat cover.
Incidentally, riding over the Westgate Bridge was an interesting experience, though the way back we had a big tail wind so it was vastly easier (heck, part of the ride back on the flat there was enough wind for me to just freewheel without pedaling and still keep up with everyone).
Here's a picture of us :) (yes, my hat made an absurd windsail, felt like I was going to get blown over)
Health Stuff
On the good side of things, my back is pretty well back to normal nowadays. Occasional twinge when I have a violent sneeze or similar, but that's about it. Huzzah for working spine!
On the bad side of things I got gastro last weekend. On the same day as Laura's birthday picnic. I still went along (I just thought I had food poisoning until mid afternoon).
I won't go into the details but suffice to say I wasn't back at work until Thursday and I had the worst stomach pain I've had in my life.
The silver lining was a reminder about how awesome my friends are. Lara brought me medication so I could still go to the picnic Sunday, Hespa & Laura dropped by Monday morning with DVDs and juice and broth and such, and Hespa hung around for most of the day to make sure I was ok.
Huge thanks guys, I was really touched :)
Roleplaying
I've finally started my new roleplaying game that I'm running, in the Mistborn world (books by Brandon Sanderson). The first session ended with the players each being handed an encoded poem, and having to decode the hidden message to advance the plot.
Two have now completed this (though one cheated, but she's forgiven since she found typos in my code), so next session we can advance.
It's been quite some time since I got into player's heads like this. Great fun :D
Hrm.. I think that's about it really for this entry. Another one should be forthcoming soon(tm) with the gender topic I mentioned last post. If it's not up in the next few days, someone poke me.
So, apparently I'm continuing my trend of posting large globs of stuff infrequently rather than small bites as they happen.
Unsure that I like this trend since it makes it easy to put off posts to 'add them to another one later', but considering how I keep managing to fill up my regular time, posting more regularly is a little tricky on the schedule.
I'll see what I can do to find a happy medium, but in the meantime, updates! Disclaimer: As usual this is being written in bits and pieces over several hours, sorry if it reads a bit disjointedly.
There's really been two major pieces up update since my last post, and really, two big pieces of news in a month? That's actually not a half bad ratio I'd say!
Major News
Great Southern Gathering
So, this was actually on the weekend after my last update. Big.. well, bigger than monthly bash, SCA weekend event. This one was mostly classes on the Saturday (everything from forging and knife making to rapier and heavy fighting advice and such) and then a tournament and the Rapier prize fights on the Sunday. I attended a few Heavy classes on things like advanced power generation and footwork, which I think will be helpful, but I won't go into detail on since I don't think most of my readers are heavy fighters :)
Laura went for and succeeded at getting her Free Scholar prize in Rapier, which is the first "rank" you can achieve.
She was quite obviously nervous, but acquitted herself quite well. Would have been nice to see more offense from her examiners, but it was fun to see her get fed up with someone's defense and just swoop in, trap their sword out of the way and stab them a few times.
Oh yes, and she did it wearing this. This is the favour that I made for her under Janet's tutelage. It's watercolour painted silk, and the yellow background is the silk sash Laura got for winning her prize:
Around the Bay in a Day
Myself and a bunch of others took part in the 50km leg of Around the Bay in a Day last weekend. Our team name was "Cyclists of Penzance", so most of us were either dressed as pirates or had pirate hats attached to our helmets (though I can't help but notice the one person NOT in costume of some kind is the person who named our team...)
Was quite amusing actually, the guy doing announcing and general chatter over a microphone at the start line said that it "it's a proper race without pirates", and we hat large numbers of people commenting throughough the race (including a couple of "Aaarrrrrr!"s from the police helping direct traffic near the start.
I think the furthest I've ridden in a day before this was about 30, 35ks, but at the pace we went I had no issue with the 50ks.
We took it nice and easy because, well, one member of our team was still on the tail end of a bout of gastro, one had the flu, and one had stomach cramps. Yay riding wounded!
We got through it all, those of us in front paused to regroup before riding over the finish line together (to a rather thunderous round of "Arrrrrr!!" from all the people on the sidelines), so all in all it was a fun day.
... except for my arms getting quite badly sunburned.
It was perfectly logical, I figured we'd be done by 12:30ish, meaning I'd get some sun but would avoid the UV danger time of the day, and should get some sun without burning. But due to our pace and taking a nice long lunch break we left lunch at 1ish, meaning the return leg was done in full blazing sun, and I didn't think to apply sunscreen at lunch.
Yay for lobster coloured arms ><. Slowly getting better at least.
I also ended up with an increadibly sore rear end by the end of the ride since I just had my standard non-padded bike seat. Definitely need to get myself a padded seat cover.
Incidentally, riding over the Westgate Bridge was an interesting experience, though the way back we had a big tail wind so it was vastly easier (heck, part of the ride back on the flat there was enough wind for me to just freewheel without pedaling and still keep up with everyone).
Here's a picture of us :) (yes, my hat made an absurd windsail, felt like I was going to get blown over)
Health Stuff
On the good side of things, my back is pretty well back to normal nowadays. Occasional twinge when I have a violent sneeze or similar, but that's about it. Huzzah for working spine!
On the bad side of things I got gastro last weekend. On the same day as Laura's birthday picnic. I still went along (I just thought I had food poisoning until mid afternoon).
I won't go into the details but suffice to say I wasn't back at work until Thursday and I had the worst stomach pain I've had in my life.
The silver lining was a reminder about how awesome my friends are. Lara brought me medication so I could still go to the picnic Sunday, Hespa & Laura dropped by Monday morning with DVDs and juice and broth and such, and Hespa hung around for most of the day to make sure I was ok.
Huge thanks guys, I was really touched :)
Roleplaying
I've finally started my new roleplaying game that I'm running, in the Mistborn world (books by Brandon Sanderson). The first session ended with the players each being handed an encoded poem, and having to decode the hidden message to advance the plot.
Two have now completed this (though one cheated, but she's forgiven since she found typos in my code), so next session we can advance.
It's been quite some time since I got into player's heads like this. Great fun :D
Hrm.. I think that's about it really for this entry. Another one should be forthcoming soon(tm) with the gender topic I mentioned last post. If it's not up in the next few days, someone poke me.
Sunday, 23 September 2012
Random mass update!!
Yes, I know, I'm sorry. My posting regularity is utterly terrible these days, I'm just never managing to sit down and write anything.
Having a go at that again now. I do apologise if this ends up sounding a little disjointed, I'll be slowly writing bits of it through the day.
So.. last post was just over five weeks ago. There's a couple of things that have happened since then, but honestly it hasn't been all that busy (other than my usual weekly stuff anyway).
Wedding:
The big standout one no doubt was Ashley & Rebecca's wedding. Nothing quite like rocking up to the wedding and having the groom hand you a tablet and ask you to record the wedding for him. That was rather unexpected! Since when do people think I'm good with electronics gear?... hang on...
The wedding was small, and very, very geeky, from Star Wars awards music while walking down the aisle, to vows involving "Till Ragnarok comes", and Adrian giving an "Ode to Pi", with slight rewording which had the whole room either in hysterics or wondering what on earth was going on.
It was a good ceremony all in all, it's nice to see people taking something that important and then making it fit them, rather than going "Well we have to do it the traditional way" and going with the usual solemn ceremony.
Something involving history, geekiness and everyone laughing fit them far better.
Clubbing:
Honestly, this one was rather funny.
A friend invited me to go along clubbing a while back at a place she goes to. I've been clubbing once before when I was at uni and didn't think much of it, but in the spirit of trying new things I figured I'd go along.
Now, earlier that day I was at a friend's place planning the group trip to NZ that we're having, and after the planning was done I was slumped half asleep in a beanbag while the others broke out a boardgame.
Something was mentioned about plans for the evening, and Laura mentioned that I was off clubbing that evening. She sheer amount of incredulity in Lena's "Darren, clubbing??" response was hilarious :D
The clubbing itself ended up being more fun than I thought it'd be. The music (at least in the area we spent the night) was quiet enough that you could actually talk, and honestly I spent most of the night watching people and chatting about random stuff with a few friends-of-friends that I met while there.
New thing tried for month of September: Tick
Back:
My back is.. fluctuating... most days I've got some kind of twinge in it, but it's exactly that, a twinge rather than "Oh gods I shouldn't do that again". A bit like muscle pain from doing a lot of exercise, but without the 'nice' edge those tend to have.
Been to the physio a couple more times, but basically it boils down to: I'm spending huge amounts of time in an office chair for eight to fourteen hours a day, five to seven days a week, and its catching up with me.
I'm doing stretches and exercises every half hour or so at my desk (when I pay attention to the RSI timer thing I've setup), but really I need to get myself a new job that involves moving around for at least part of a day. Walking to other buildings to setup computers and stuff. Or maybe just changing careers entirely and becoming a professional travel writer. Hah!
Health:
Thankfully am finally over the latest bout of the flu. Not much need be said here, but fever & hallucinations really suck
Weight:
Unfortunately due to a couple of emotional rough patches and some comfort eating I've put back on most of the weight that I'd lost, which annoys me to no end.
It seems to have redistributed slightly since my waistline remains the same, but I'm under no illusions that I've put on enough muscle to make up the difference.
I somehow think my hope of losing 8-10 kg in the twelve months of this blog isn't likely to happen thanks to this setback. I'll just keep my fingers crossed I come out with a net loss of something at the end.
Personal Stuff:
I won't go into specifics, but I've had a few very 'down' spots personally/emotionally recently. I've mostly dug myself back out of it again, and talking to people has helped, but.. yeah, not fun times, and I know I hurt at least one person during it, but I think we're better with it now.
Also, gods I hate it when something that's.. important but not overwhelming, suddenly gets stuck in your mind and all that you can do is chase that one thing, to the exclusion of everything else.
I do NOT like that degree of obsession randomly cropping up in my life.
Food:
I'm a little up and down about bringing lunch in with me to work, I'm managing it.. every second or third week at the moment, typically spag bol or butter chicken or chili con carne or similarly easily 'made in bulk' foods.
Now that the weather's warming back up again I may give sandwiches another go
I think the 'veggie of the week' idea is well and truly dead. Being out 3-4 nights a week isn't leaving me with enough time to use something like that.
Maybe I should do a "try new recipe once a week" or such, that I can do on a weekend.
But hey, I'm getting decent at making pie at least :)
SCA:
Going to an SCA camping event this weekend (Great Southern Gathering) which will be interesting. There will be classes on various things, fighting training and such. Will be a new experience.
Laura is also going for her "Free Scholar" prize in Rapier at GSG, think of it as like a martial arts grading. It's not completely analogous but its close. I've been informed that I'm allowed quiet, reserved encouragement from the sidelines. Waving pompoms is strictly prohibited.
I did manage to get her fighter's favour completed last week at Crafthall thanks to the awesome tutelage of Janet, I'll post a picture up here after the event.
Silk painting is a lot of fun, and surprisingly therapeutic, I most definitely need to learn more from her and perhaps try my hand at some solo.
Also need to look at getting more garb made (since while I have rudimentary sewing skills, I don't really have the time required to become good enough to make things I'm happy with, not right now at least.
Similarly I need to finally get my own armour, have been speaking to Rodriego about having him make me a set, need to follow that one up...
Leisure Time:
I've been finding myself spending a LOT less time playing computer games than I did a few months ago. Well, with the exception of the weekend just gone, when I was playing Borderlands 2 a lot, but in general computer game time has gone down, reading time and time watching tv shows has gone up.
Unsure what, if anything, this says about my tastes, maybe I was just getting bored with the games right as interesting new shows and books cropped up.
Tidying:
I also had another big go through my wardrobe and cupboard, tidying things up and throwing out a pile of stuff that I no longer need/is busted.
I'm also trying a technique suggested by my friend Rachel. Put all my clothes on hangers in backwards, then when I use them, put the hanger forwards again. Then after X amount of time I can go through and I'll know exactly what I have and haven't used, and anything with a backwards hanger can be stored or donated or packed away or similar.
Hrm. I think that'll about do it for now. I do have a discussion on gender and such that I plan to put up, but I think that'll deserve a post in itself.
Also, Laura has suggested that I ask people what they'd like to see/read about in the next post. Feel free to weigh in!
Having a go at that again now. I do apologise if this ends up sounding a little disjointed, I'll be slowly writing bits of it through the day.
So.. last post was just over five weeks ago. There's a couple of things that have happened since then, but honestly it hasn't been all that busy (other than my usual weekly stuff anyway).
Wedding:
The big standout one no doubt was Ashley & Rebecca's wedding. Nothing quite like rocking up to the wedding and having the groom hand you a tablet and ask you to record the wedding for him. That was rather unexpected! Since when do people think I'm good with electronics gear?... hang on...
The wedding was small, and very, very geeky, from Star Wars awards music while walking down the aisle, to vows involving "Till Ragnarok comes", and Adrian giving an "Ode to Pi", with slight rewording which had the whole room either in hysterics or wondering what on earth was going on.
It was a good ceremony all in all, it's nice to see people taking something that important and then making it fit them, rather than going "Well we have to do it the traditional way" and going with the usual solemn ceremony.
Something involving history, geekiness and everyone laughing fit them far better.
Clubbing:
Honestly, this one was rather funny.
A friend invited me to go along clubbing a while back at a place she goes to. I've been clubbing once before when I was at uni and didn't think much of it, but in the spirit of trying new things I figured I'd go along.
Now, earlier that day I was at a friend's place planning the group trip to NZ that we're having, and after the planning was done I was slumped half asleep in a beanbag while the others broke out a boardgame.
Something was mentioned about plans for the evening, and Laura mentioned that I was off clubbing that evening. She sheer amount of incredulity in Lena's "Darren, clubbing??" response was hilarious :D
The clubbing itself ended up being more fun than I thought it'd be. The music (at least in the area we spent the night) was quiet enough that you could actually talk, and honestly I spent most of the night watching people and chatting about random stuff with a few friends-of-friends that I met while there.
New thing tried for month of September: Tick
Back:
My back is.. fluctuating... most days I've got some kind of twinge in it, but it's exactly that, a twinge rather than "Oh gods I shouldn't do that again". A bit like muscle pain from doing a lot of exercise, but without the 'nice' edge those tend to have.
Been to the physio a couple more times, but basically it boils down to: I'm spending huge amounts of time in an office chair for eight to fourteen hours a day, five to seven days a week, and its catching up with me.
I'm doing stretches and exercises every half hour or so at my desk (when I pay attention to the RSI timer thing I've setup), but really I need to get myself a new job that involves moving around for at least part of a day. Walking to other buildings to setup computers and stuff. Or maybe just changing careers entirely and becoming a professional travel writer. Hah!
Health:
Thankfully am finally over the latest bout of the flu. Not much need be said here, but fever & hallucinations really suck
Weight:
Unfortunately due to a couple of emotional rough patches and some comfort eating I've put back on most of the weight that I'd lost, which annoys me to no end.
It seems to have redistributed slightly since my waistline remains the same, but I'm under no illusions that I've put on enough muscle to make up the difference.
I somehow think my hope of losing 8-10 kg in the twelve months of this blog isn't likely to happen thanks to this setback. I'll just keep my fingers crossed I come out with a net loss of something at the end.
Personal Stuff:
I won't go into specifics, but I've had a few very 'down' spots personally/emotionally recently. I've mostly dug myself back out of it again, and talking to people has helped, but.. yeah, not fun times, and I know I hurt at least one person during it, but I think we're better with it now.
Also, gods I hate it when something that's.. important but not overwhelming, suddenly gets stuck in your mind and all that you can do is chase that one thing, to the exclusion of everything else.
I do NOT like that degree of obsession randomly cropping up in my life.
Food:
I'm a little up and down about bringing lunch in with me to work, I'm managing it.. every second or third week at the moment, typically spag bol or butter chicken or chili con carne or similarly easily 'made in bulk' foods.
Now that the weather's warming back up again I may give sandwiches another go
I think the 'veggie of the week' idea is well and truly dead. Being out 3-4 nights a week isn't leaving me with enough time to use something like that.
Maybe I should do a "try new recipe once a week" or such, that I can do on a weekend.
But hey, I'm getting decent at making pie at least :)
SCA:
Going to an SCA camping event this weekend (Great Southern Gathering) which will be interesting. There will be classes on various things, fighting training and such. Will be a new experience.
Laura is also going for her "Free Scholar" prize in Rapier at GSG, think of it as like a martial arts grading. It's not completely analogous but its close. I've been informed that I'm allowed quiet, reserved encouragement from the sidelines. Waving pompoms is strictly prohibited.
I did manage to get her fighter's favour completed last week at Crafthall thanks to the awesome tutelage of Janet, I'll post a picture up here after the event.
Silk painting is a lot of fun, and surprisingly therapeutic, I most definitely need to learn more from her and perhaps try my hand at some solo.
Also need to look at getting more garb made (since while I have rudimentary sewing skills, I don't really have the time required to become good enough to make things I'm happy with, not right now at least.
Similarly I need to finally get my own armour, have been speaking to Rodriego about having him make me a set, need to follow that one up...
Leisure Time:
I've been finding myself spending a LOT less time playing computer games than I did a few months ago. Well, with the exception of the weekend just gone, when I was playing Borderlands 2 a lot, but in general computer game time has gone down, reading time and time watching tv shows has gone up.
Unsure what, if anything, this says about my tastes, maybe I was just getting bored with the games right as interesting new shows and books cropped up.
Tidying:
I also had another big go through my wardrobe and cupboard, tidying things up and throwing out a pile of stuff that I no longer need/is busted.
I'm also trying a technique suggested by my friend Rachel. Put all my clothes on hangers in backwards, then when I use them, put the hanger forwards again. Then after X amount of time I can go through and I'll know exactly what I have and haven't used, and anything with a backwards hanger can be stored or donated or packed away or similar.
Hrm. I think that'll about do it for now. I do have a discussion on gender and such that I plan to put up, but I think that'll deserve a post in itself.
Also, Laura has suggested that I ask people what they'd like to see/read about in the next post. Feel free to weigh in!
Tuesday, 14 August 2012
Introspections
Not a huge amount to mention here events-wise at the moment, but there's been a couple of introspections and realisations that I thought I'd write down.
Winning & Losing
I'm not sure how long this one has been in play (wow, what an amazing pun. Laura, I blame you!) but it finally hit me while talking to Laura after a Swordcraft game a couple of weeks ago.
When it comes to games and matches and such, I no longer care about losing.
Considering what I used to be like, that's pretty big. I've always been competitive (and I'm pretty sure that at this moment, both of my parents are adding "And you were a little shit when you lost too" to that statement) and no matter what the match/game/challenge was like I always hated it when I lost.
Now though... I just don't care.
Don't get me wrong, getting taken out of the match early/getting easily clobbered/being outmatched still frustrate me, but not because I've lost, because it's boring. Crushing someone else with no challenge is nearly as bad.
But in terms of actual outcome? As long as I enjoyed myself, it's all good.
Knockout tournaments still present a bit of a problem, since you have to win in order to be allowed to keep playing, but for things like Swordcraft, where when one side wins you just reset and keep going? Don't care anymore!
I know, seems like the kind of thing that's drilled into kids all their life, but the whole "It's not that you won or lost, but how you played the game" thing is something I've always struggled with.
Limits
This one isn't quite so nice, and could be considered a backslide in some ways.
In the past, whenever I've copped a hit or clobbering of some kind I've never really had a.. mental reaction, for want of a better term, to it. Or when I have, I've been able to shove it aside and ignore it.
This.. seems to have slipped a bit.
Ok, specifics.
Last week at Swordcraft (isn't it amazing how many of my posts, ideas and realisations start with "After the last time I ran around an oval beating people with foam weaponry and shouting at the top of my lungs while one or two hundred others try and kill me" ?) I copped a sword thrust directly into the left eye, shoving my contact lense off my eye and seriously ruining my night (didn't help that the guy who did it briefly said "are you ok", and when I said "no" and walked off the fielding clutching my face he just ignored me and went back to fighting. He's now been.. spoken to.. by three players and a ref about both his unsafe fighting and pathetic sportsmanship).
I could easily recognise the.. kind of disconnected apathy that I had afterwards that meant I just couldn't not get into the rest of the night, and very nearly just walked off and didn't come back, but whereas before I'd normally be able to shove that feeling aside and get back into the game, this time I just.. couldn't.
I'm not sure if it's because it was an *eye* shot (head and face shots haven't bothered me much) and therefore something more severe than I'd normally taken, or if maybe the whole lowering/breaking of emotional/mental barriers that happened a few months ago means that I'm just no longer as good at blocking things out.
Not really anything with much of a resolution there, but I figured it was worth mentioning nonetheless.
Back & Neck Pain
Thought I'd give an update on this one. I'm going my physio-mandated exercises at work, and keeping up with my usual activities. My back is now perfectly fine.. probably four days out of a week, slight twinges one day, and moderate ones the other two.
Haven't yet figured out a reason for when it's more painful than other times, but it's a massive step better than it was, and getting better.
My shoulder on the other hand is still having a few issues, though I'm not 100% sure if it's because my neck muscles especially are still tight, or if I've just had a bit of atrophy happen due to using it less. I suspect a combination.
Either way, things definitely on the improve in that area :)
Anyways, I think that's about it for this entry :)
Hope everyone is keeping well!!
Winning & Losing
I'm not sure how long this one has been in play (wow, what an amazing pun. Laura, I blame you!) but it finally hit me while talking to Laura after a Swordcraft game a couple of weeks ago.
When it comes to games and matches and such, I no longer care about losing.
Considering what I used to be like, that's pretty big. I've always been competitive (and I'm pretty sure that at this moment, both of my parents are adding "And you were a little shit when you lost too" to that statement) and no matter what the match/game/challenge was like I always hated it when I lost.
Now though... I just don't care.
Don't get me wrong, getting taken out of the match early/getting easily clobbered/being outmatched still frustrate me, but not because I've lost, because it's boring. Crushing someone else with no challenge is nearly as bad.
But in terms of actual outcome? As long as I enjoyed myself, it's all good.
Knockout tournaments still present a bit of a problem, since you have to win in order to be allowed to keep playing, but for things like Swordcraft, where when one side wins you just reset and keep going? Don't care anymore!
I know, seems like the kind of thing that's drilled into kids all their life, but the whole "It's not that you won or lost, but how you played the game" thing is something I've always struggled with.
Limits
This one isn't quite so nice, and could be considered a backslide in some ways.
In the past, whenever I've copped a hit or clobbering of some kind I've never really had a.. mental reaction, for want of a better term, to it. Or when I have, I've been able to shove it aside and ignore it.
This.. seems to have slipped a bit.
Ok, specifics.
Last week at Swordcraft (isn't it amazing how many of my posts, ideas and realisations start with "After the last time I ran around an oval beating people with foam weaponry and shouting at the top of my lungs while one or two hundred others try and kill me" ?) I copped a sword thrust directly into the left eye, shoving my contact lense off my eye and seriously ruining my night (didn't help that the guy who did it briefly said "are you ok", and when I said "no" and walked off the fielding clutching my face he just ignored me and went back to fighting. He's now been.. spoken to.. by three players and a ref about both his unsafe fighting and pathetic sportsmanship).
I could easily recognise the.. kind of disconnected apathy that I had afterwards that meant I just couldn't not get into the rest of the night, and very nearly just walked off and didn't come back, but whereas before I'd normally be able to shove that feeling aside and get back into the game, this time I just.. couldn't.
I'm not sure if it's because it was an *eye* shot (head and face shots haven't bothered me much) and therefore something more severe than I'd normally taken, or if maybe the whole lowering/breaking of emotional/mental barriers that happened a few months ago means that I'm just no longer as good at blocking things out.
Not really anything with much of a resolution there, but I figured it was worth mentioning nonetheless.
Back & Neck Pain
Thought I'd give an update on this one. I'm going my physio-mandated exercises at work, and keeping up with my usual activities. My back is now perfectly fine.. probably four days out of a week, slight twinges one day, and moderate ones the other two.
Haven't yet figured out a reason for when it's more painful than other times, but it's a massive step better than it was, and getting better.
My shoulder on the other hand is still having a few issues, though I'm not 100% sure if it's because my neck muscles especially are still tight, or if I've just had a bit of atrophy happen due to using it less. I suspect a combination.
Either way, things definitely on the improve in that area :)
Anyways, I think that's about it for this entry :)
Hope everyone is keeping well!!
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