And so it begins

As with 99% of the population of Europe, its time to make fresh starts in the new year.
I don't hold much with resolutions as such, but the start of a new year does indeed mark a point where you can start to record changes in your life and follow the progress

For me...that has to be;

• Losing some weight...
• Getting better organised.
• Making more effort to enjoy the time that getting better organised will give me.
• Improve my coding skills
• Improve my guitar playing

The weight thing 1st though, its time I dealt with this properly, my half hearted attempts to lose weight last year only dropped a few kilo's which has come back easy enough. 

In this. my 50th year I have to be more aware of my upcoming and inevitable frailty....my mind is already on the way out so better start making an effort to save the bod. I'm currently around 92Kilos....maybe 94...ermm I 'll check later. But I need to drop down to at least 70 which is about right for my frame and build.. Thats a pretty massive  drop and frankly not likely..so I'm going to aim for 75Kilos as a target weight, I'll give myself 6 months.. So June 1st! I will put  not in my calander that I have to report on my progress.

Of course how I do this is the issue? Diet? Hmm probably. I can cook, so of course I can eat better so I'll have to do that but it needs to be combined with.....
Excercise...gaahh I hate gyms, but I am still paying for the membership of my local place and not using it, and annoyingly paying for it does not actually make me thinner...who knew???
So I suppose once a week is not going to kill me...2 times a week might be better..But jogging isn't going to happn till I lose at least 10k my knees will never take it.
More cycling I think, so I will invest in  better bike.

Getting better organised....this is kinda a no brainer..I have all my work courses laid out from previous years, but not in any great order, and I tend to update them as I use them, partly to alter the flow as I determine the speed of the students. But that has to stop..
I am going to pull them all into 1 collected folder, update them and add more links to research material.
From now on I plan to make use of our study/exam/retake weeks to get these properly in order, so that every single class is laid out and ready, with a Friday re-working to make sure I am up todate and flexible.


Enjoying the time....I have to cut out the drinking...so need to exclude popping to the pub more often, But I am going to socialise a bit more..Do some cultural stuff and see more movies... A Pathe monthly card will have to be arranged this month so I can see more pics more often. (btw..watched Hobbit...in 3d and HF, liked it but..it was different...don't like having to wait for the next one)

A few more trips to the theatre and some culture might be on the cards too. Brenda is a dancer and wants me to experience some dance theatre so lets see how that goes...She also wants me to take up Ballroom dancing.....hmmm well I'll give it a go, but no promises there..

Improving my coding..ok this might seem an odd one, after all I'm a highly experienced programmer,but there are things I need to improve. I've never been much of a 3D coder, it's always been a bit of a black art for me.. I know the maths involved and have used it in several project, but its never come naturually to me to think in 3D terms, I just use libs and let the magic happen...So I'm going to make an effort to do at least 1 build from the ground 3D project this year, on PSM, so that if it comes out halfway decent I can sell it.
I also need to be a better OOP coder, if systems like IOS and PSM are to be embraced I have to be better at it, even though I really don't like it, there's no point trying to hold back the tide.

I also need to make more effort to be more formal in my coding style...I generally am not very strict with my students coding methods, since to me its more important that thay try to do something clever rather than they way they do it. But my 3rd year students don't seem to be seeing the best of me when it comes to more advanced coding on consoles...So as well as my PSM project I'm going to see about starting up a PS3 project.

Improving the guitar playing...we'll it is getting better there's no doubt that I am considerably better than I was last year.. playing with the bands helps, I'm starting to feel confident in my overall ability to express myself..but I need to focus my practice more...So henceforce...I must try to do some proper regimented practice, scales, chords and riffs.....hmmm this might be harder than anything else....have to focus.


And thats it...2013 here we go.




Ahthankyew