Wheel of Time
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It’s all R’s fault. She made me start reading these damn books again. At least this time I seem to have a higher tolerance, and the rather heavily stereotyped “infuriating women” used as some of the characters don’t drive me quite as crazy.
Heh, I’m off to read for a bit.
Snot – er, Short note
I like the word Snot. It sounds like a made up word, but somehow manages to convey the idea of something not quite as unbelievably disgusting as gibblets or raw sewage, but still pretty yucky. And it kind of fits into that whole category of words along with “yucky” – it’s like a kid’s word for something. Snot. Snot SNOT!
Perhaps it’s the schoolboy culture I grew up in in the UK I don’t know. But it’s still a good word.
Those crazy, snot filled days…
Hrm. I was just about to begin this entry with “Well, ” when I realised I do that far too often. I’ll try again.
This week sees more fun and games in the topsy turvy world of Nate’s Health – I have a cold again. Damnit I am so over snot. The interesting news however is while I seem to be getting the whole runny nose, lots of nose blowing, headaches and chest filling up as per usual – it seems a bit lighter than normal. Now this could be because it’s a less severe bug, but since it is the year of the shiny Nate I have decided to fall on the side of optimism (partly because the other side is just getting too bruised) and attribute it to better health. I’m still a looooooong way from being anything remotely describable as fit and healthy, but my metabolism seems to have increased enough to lessen the impact of this kind of thing, which is very cool.
The nasty thing about this kind of bug (apart from the snot…) is the lethargy. I had gotten some good routines going over the previous week, but now I’m a bit mixed up, so hopefully I’ll be back on track after the weekend.
Oh, and in case anyone missed it – there’s a lot of snot involved.
Writers group
A fellow at work sent around an email the other day inquiring about starting a writers group. Apparently he has been in some before, or in one particular one recently which didn’t go anywhere so he is starting something up among Lonely Planet staff. There’s a fair bit of interest, and he says wannabes (IE me) are welcome – the first meeting is this coming wednesday evening. He is also organising some publisher or other to come in and chat to us, so it looks like a pretty good opportunity to get myself some extra motivation to really begin doing something.
Oh, it’s directed too – genre fiction is what the group is all about, which is exactly what I want. Best of all these meetings will happen at work directly after I knock off, which is perfect! I love working at LP…
language critique, etc
I have decided I use the abbreviation “etc” far too much when I commit things to writing. Must find alternatives.
Dinner with the Masons
Monday night I went to dinner with the Masons. I got all dressed up etc. Polished my shoes while showing B how to polish shoes properly, and rolled in at about 20 to nine. As it turned out they didn’t come down from the lodge work until about half past nine, so I sat about for a while, trying not to sweat too much 
It was really nice once I got in there though – they’re all extremely welcoming and very friendly. I seem to be a bit of a feature, being as young as I am compared to the majority of members that were there, but everyone was great – people made sure they came and said hello and welcome etc during the evening, I was announced and taken around to meet everyone, and even the visitors from the other lodge had some nice things to say. I got a lot of encouragement etc, and by the end of the evening I was looking forward to my initiation even more, if that’s possible. There are some great fellows in the lodge, and a number of them are interested in masonic history and the associated bits and pieces, so I’ve had plenty of invites to go through people’s collections etc, which I’m very much looking forward to. It will probably take until the end of the year – perhaps a bit longer – until I manage to pass the third degree, but it will be worth waiting for. Once I am a master mason I can go join the SRIA which is an esoteric research group within freemasonry. I’ve contacted one of the senior adepts in the organisation and he’s quite friendly – has offered me help with my research etc and invited me to come along once I’m raised to the third.
One of the guys gave me a lift home, and another pressed the flowers from the table on me to take home to my wife, (heheh) to “explain my first night out on the town” nice bunch of carnations (I think!) so I brought them home for R and put them on her desk. I’m definitely going to love being a mason – just spending a couple of hours with these guys was brilliant. All in all the next year should be a very interesting one…
Blogaversary
Wow, a year of blogging! I’ve reached my blogaversary, yay for me. One of these days I’ll have to go back and read all the rubbish I’ve written. But not today.
That’s the great thing about blogging – I just write this crap, other people read it
Return of the gym
Well I’m back in the gym again, although a bit haphazardly this week. I can finally make it through my full circuit again, although sometimes I cut some of the cardio short – another week and I should be back to full health (for me) and back into it.
It’s been good to be getting the exercise, although for some reason the arches in my feet have “dropped” and the right one particularly is causing me a huge amount of pain. Add to that the pulled muscle in my left calf, and you can imagine how oddly I walk – thing is I can’t figure out how it keeps happening. The calf in particular – I only noticed it after I’d been sitting somewhere for a bit and got up to go do something. Hopefully the treadmill will work it out.
Death to TV
I have finally broken the hold of evening television over my life! I have for a long time come home from work, had dinner and watched a couple of hours of TV – by which time I need to go to bed. I enjoy a lot of the programmes on television, CSI, detective shows etc but I was just spending way too much time watching it. Plus I’d watch stargate which was on too late when I’m going to the gym in the morning….
For the last fornight I’ve been reading in the evenings, and cleaning up etc instead of watching tv, and it’s been really good. I still want to find out what’s happening to my favourite characters in certain plots, but I’m not that fussed any more. Most of the things I like watching come out on DVD anyways, so I’ll eventually buy them and watch them when I have time to indulge – but in the meantime it means I’m now getting a lot more time to read and study, as well as clean up around the house and generally get things done. The evenings seem longer as well, which is nice.
Right now, I watch one thing on fridays – Wire in the Blood on ABC which is a great detective / profiler programme. Hrm. I suppose this means I should be blogging more often…
Acting like I know what I’m doing…
I’m now officially the Acting GA Manager. Which doesn’t change anything at all except more people know about it 
I’ve been doing the job for a while now, but lately I’ve managed to start off a number of things which are really helping both me and the team. We have a new Technical Architect as well who comes from a background of very large development teams, so he’s been giving me some good advice as well.
Right now I’m preparing for when we get the new IT manager, so that I can demonstrate on paper what our skillsets are, where we’re heading and how we’re relevant to the new systems and directions being brought into LP. Everyone seems on board with that too, and so far everything’s going well. I’ve had a number of meetings sorting out problems between some of the business units, and finally getting things organised now that I have the authority to make some changes.
I also had the practise peer review session the other day – this is a session where we work through the end of year staff ratings with other manager’s of our level, and get their feedback on people and advice. I was nervous going into the session but it was immensely helpful, and I’m now a lot more confident about doing the end of year reviews. Since we didn’t have any realy objectives before, I’m now setting up some for the next few months with everyone so we can use them as a yardstick so to speak.
I’m really enjoying the management role, and the new challenges it’s forcing me to face. My time management has improved simply by way of keeping better checklists and doing purely what’s on those lists – it’s come almost as a survival mechanism because there’s so much going on, but it helps a lot. Now to work on HR to get Higher Duties pay, and then apply for the Applications Development Manager role when the new IT manager is in. Onward…etc