Personal

Photo by Deleece Cook on Unsplash – Remember you will die…. Death puts everything into perspective, you can’t take anything away with you and once you’re dead you’re lost to everyone on this side of the divide. This begs the question of what I am living my life for, whose approval am I bending over backwards to please, against my principles. And perhaps most importantly, am I living my life in a way that makes sense in light of what I think is a non-physical reality on the other side?

My distractions in no particular order: My phone with what it drags in (Twitter, Instagram) TV, particularly media consumption (Chicago PD, NCIS in all its guises and Chicago Med being a few of the things I burn hours watching) My (paper) notebook, a source of distraction for all the times I rewrite my to do list and obsess over the perfect productivity system instead of just getting things done To manage these I am trying to control access, by setting up my phone to automatically turn itself off at night and restart in the morning, only watching TV at weekends and not fussing over the quality of my to do list. One more on the watch list over the next few days/ weeks I guess…

Playing football manager doesn’t count I suspect so I’ll have to go with the next thing which I am finding is playing around with data in Jupyter. This is something I am enjoying so much that I am seriously wondering if Corrosion & Materials remain a strong force in my future. Unfortunately I haven’t learned enough of the data science domain for it to be my main stay going forward, but if money were no object, that would be where I would go. That much is not uncertain.

Image Source: AskMen A recurring theme on my yearly lists is to lose weight. Save for a big push in 2012/13 when I went from just under 100 kg to 82 kg, performance has been topsy-turvy. Things are decidedly far form ideal at the moment, seeing as I currently come in just under 94 kg at the moment. This all feeds the one small thing I want to focus on over the next few weeks, adding one push up a day to my morning routine. If all goes well, by the end of the year I should be up to 39 push ups each morning.

The Young and the Eager, for the Day 20 prompt --- The most recent time of my life I feel nostalgia for has to be my formative years in Eket, Nigeria. Hired fresh following a year of national service, with a starting salary that almost eclipsed my father’s; 30 plus years of teaching in a University notwithstanding. Prior to applying, interviewing and getting hired, getting into the software industry had been my realistic focus, driven by my interest and a sense that it was perhaps the most realistic option for me. The perception at the time was that to get a good job in Nigeria, one needed to be connected.; which I was not being from a minority ethnic group in a minority state. ...

Photo by Glenn Carstens-Peters on Unsplash – For Day 13 of the AoM 31 Days of Journaling Challenge; A Brain Dump using the GTD Trigger List. Work Projects Started Not Completed DL Management Strategy OFC Transition CCMTs & CCMT Action Management UKCS TAR Work Programs T T-A Communication File Note Area Reviews S Area PW Failures RCFA Work Projects That Need To Be Started CMS Year End Review T CCMT Preparation 2019 PoB Requirements for UKCS Projects 2018 Spend Reconciliation 2017/18 Appraisal Personal Projects Started Not Completed archive.rustgeek.me relaunch News31 EoY Video Preparation News31 EoY Review for magazine Personal Projects Yet To Start archive.rustgeek.me theme modifications 2019 objectives and planning Alicante Trip with S

Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash --- For Day 11, the question is “Do you have a gang of friends who push and support you? If not, how could you make some good friends?” As with all the questions so far which have related to friends, I’ll have to hold my hand up again and say this is an area where significant improvement is required. That being said, I have a number of acquaintances in this city with whom I could be better engaged. A number of them are in the same season of life as I am which bodes well I suspect for our being able to band together for mutual support. First things first then, I’ll look to schedule a catchup with a couple of the guys, particularly D and R.

Photo by Brett Patzke on Unsplash --- The Hero’s Journey makes for interesting reading, showing how in 12 stages the boy becomes a man as he journeys through a life. Although based on myths, the underlying idea behind this framework is that these myths work because they represent how we understand how life happens to us. Vogler’s model, which the folk at AoM espouse, is an abridged version of the original in the Joseph Campbell book (The Hero with a Thousand Faces) and identifies 12 steps (from the Wikipedia page) as below: ...

Day 9: My Day – Up at 4.42 AM and unable to go back to sleep. Meetings with senior leadership at work on my mind. Played around with some CSS for some modifications I have been mulling over for this blog Finally out of bed at 6.00 AM to start prepping for work. Off to work at 7.00 AM, glad for some respite from what has been terrible weather. Relief ends up short lived because it opens up again half way through. Arrive at work wet and cold at about 7.30 AM. Arrival routine kicks in; cup of coffee, read and respond to emails, catch up quickly with office mates. First hour spent reading up on latest version of slide deck for meeting, then attending final dry run In between, I sort out delivery of equipment required for a mobilisation offshore in two weeks. Spend rest of the morning in chasing final bits of data for meeting. Lunch @ 12 NOON, quick walk to Boots at Union Square for a sandwich, pepsi max, protein pot and two snack bars (meal deal) Back at 12.30 PM for final check of meeting requirements and then into meeting. Meeting from 1 to 3, a bit of a grilling but I feel like we do ok. A number of things to follow up on even though the consensus seems to be that it has been yet more talking shop. Hopefully real behavioural change kicks off after this. After the high of the meeting, rest of the day is an anti-climax of sorts. catch up with R for the first time this week now that I can catch my breath. Eventually it is 4.30 PM and home time. Walk home and arrive at 5.00PM Dinner, more CSS modifications and then soon it is sleep time.

Psalm 120:1 I call on the Lord in my distress, and he answers me. For the first of these 100 Days of Ascent, it is perhaps fitting that the starting point is a place of certitude, a statement of fact: I call on the Lord and he answers me. No ifs, no buts, no maybes; just a clear statement of what is. The word translated call is the Old Hebrew qara, which carries the connotation of a loud, expressive sound, not a quiet muttering. The Lord is referred to by his name YHWH here, the independent, self existing proper name which I suppose speaks to his power, majesty and essence. This then is an interesting juxtaposition, a cry in a season of distress to the all powerful God, who in His answering deigns to respond to the cry of one puny human. ...