Pages on A Geek's Life

Year in Review

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 09:24:07 +0000

A collection of my annual plans and reviews going forward

The Life Plan

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 09:20:23 +0000

Background

Over the past few years, I have taken several stabs at building a Life Plan, inspired primarily by The Art of Manliness and the precursor to Michael Hyatt’s book, Living Forward. With the milestone age of 40 just over the horizon, it feels like a good time to reflect on where I am and refresh my plan for the next 10+ years. To do this, I am asking myself three questions:

Who am I?
Where do I want to be?
What does success look like?

In addition to the two above, each year I will be asking myself two additional questions:

Codex Vitae

Mon, 09 Dec 2019 09:04:55 +0000

My Codex Vitae. Inspired by Buster Benson, amongst others. I expect to update this annually at or around the end of the year following which a theme, objectives and metrics to track for the following year will be identified. My Life Plan document is linked here.

Beliefs

Beliefs about Origins

Life was placed on earth by an intelligent designer. This does not preclude the existence of life on other planets/ star systems
A young earth is not congruous with the scientific evidence, the Genesis account is best understood as a parable about origins not scientific fact.

Beliefs about Faith & Religion

Calvinism Vs Arminianism,
About Jesus: a real person,
Actions and motives trump beliefs up to a certain extent. Inclusion in the in-group is contingent upon holding to a relatively small number of core/essential beliefs (the apostles creed?)

Beliefs about Reality

Beliefs about the Future

Reading

Thu, 14 Nov 2019 05:06:40 +0000

Links to my Year in Reading Posts over the years

Pula in Pictures

Tue, 12 Jun 2018 06:05:09 +0000

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Marrakesh Pictures

Tue, 23 Jan 2018 13:12:55 +0000

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Paphos in Pictures

Sat, 18 Nov 2017 10:41:43 +0000

91. Lanarca Beach

92. Semi Sub -Lanarca

93. Church of St Lazarus

94. Paphos Castle

95. More Boats

96. Paphos Castle Ruins

97.Modified

98.Shore Line

99. Boats At The Harbour

100. Acrobat Dancers Aboard the Wave Dancer

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2014 Reading

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 06:00:50 +0000

Teaching My Mother How To Give Birth - Warsan Shire
The Outsider - Albert Camus
Merry Christmas, Alex Cross - James Patterson
The Map of Love - Ahdaf Soueif
Finally Free: Fighting For Purity with the Power of Grace - Heath Lambert
The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do and How To Change - Charles Duhigg
On Writing - Steven King
Love At First Click - Laurie Davis
The Fault in Our Stars - John Green
Everyday is for the thief- Teju Cole
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
Don’t Tell Mum I work on the Oil Rigs - Paul Carter
The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai
Frank Sinatra Has A Cold: And Other Essays - Gay Talese
Another Man’s War - Barnaby Phillips
A Delicate Truth - John le Carré

2013 Reading

Thu, 15 Dec 2016 05:59:33 +0000

And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini
The Sound of Things Falling - Juan Gabriel Vasquez
Fine Boys - Eghosa Imasuen
The One: A Realistic Guide to Choosing Your Soul Mate - Ben Young & Sam Adams
Jesus, My Father, The CIA and Me: A Memoir of sorts - Ian Morgan Cron
Networking for people who hate networking - Devora Zack.
The Practice of the Presence of God - Brother Lawrence
Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a world that can’t stop talking - Susan Cain
The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

On Being and Becoming: The Life Plan

Wed, 23 Nov 2016 21:10:14 +0000

Introduction Several times over the last couple of years, different pieces of my life plan have been documented; seven priorities, three life goals and five core values to name a few. A milestone birthday and the looming end to the year felt like triggers for a thorough review of these various bits and pieces, the objective being to meld these somewhat disparate attempts at building a roadmap for my life into a coherent whole.

Start Here

Tue, 04 Aug 2015 18:04:20 +0000

New here? Here are a few of the pieces I have come back to time and time again, typically because they captured something about the time and place I was when I first wrote them. Dive in, and thanks for stopping by.

Collections

Tue, 31 Mar 2015 18:38:28 +0000

2015 Reading

Fri, 23 Jan 2015 17:52:14 +0000

Moonwalking with Einstein - Joshua Foer
The Pioneer Detectives -Konstantin Kakaes
The Best American Essays 2014 - JJ Sullivan (ed)
The Land of Steady Habits - Ted Thompson
Sexual Detox - Tim Challies
NW - Zadie Smith
Crafting the Personal Essay - Dinty W Moore
What’s so Amazing About Grace - Phillip Yancey
How To Be Alone - Jonathan Franzen
The Best American Essays 2013 - Cheryl Strayed (ed)
The Seven Good Years - Etgar Keret
Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez - Richard Rodriguez
The Children Act - Ian McEwan
The Things They Carried- Tim O’Brien
Something to Answer For - P.H. Newby

Resources

Sun, 02 Feb 2014 22:39:21 +0000

Al Mohler on The Marks of Real Manhood
Andy Stanley - The New Rules for Love, Sex and Dating
eHarmony - 10 Things That Make You Perfect Boyfriend Material
Francis Chan - God is Faithful (@ Passion 2013)
How to Pick Your Life Partner - Part 1, Part 2

40 things by 40

Wed, 10 Jul 2013 17:15:54 +0000

There is the wider life plan ( updated here), and then this, an attempt to build a bucket list as my life marches inexorably on to the 40th birthday in 2020. In no particular order then, here goes:

Meet, fall in love with, actively chase and marry the woman of my dreams (who loves me back in the same way).
Visit with sponsored children and their families for two weeks.
Save one year’s living expenses (~30k) in an (untouched) ISA
Start or complete a PhD
Publish a book (currently considering a book of poems or essays around the ambivalence of ageing, and turning 40 with the working title - The Crux of The Matter: Occasional Essays on Everything)
Save 30% of my net earnings over the decade from 2009 to 2019.
Learn a second language.
Properly articulate my world view (in a series of blog posts, what I believe?)
Read every book that has been awarded the Man Booker Prize (currently read 9).
Acquire a second nationality
Take the significant other on a two week boat cruise
Complete a 10k race for charity
Take a two week holiday and document the visit in a travelogue.
Sleep in the outdoors.
Write a blog for 365 consecutive days (aim for 2016?)
Launch ‘The Integrity Business’ - my Corrosion, Materials, Welding and Inspection consultancy - or become Corrosion and Materials Technical Authority at an Oil Major ( currently TA at a small Oil & Gas company as at YE 2015).
Watch the Ball drop in New York’s Time Square live.
Visit Brazil - complete a ‘pilgrimage’ to the Statue of Christ the Redeemer in Rio.
Watch a Champions League final live
Tour Anfield
See one of Third Day, Delirious, Hillsong United or Rebecca St James live in concert.
Get a private pilot licence.
Learn to play the guitar
Learn to swim
Visit the New Seven Wonders of Nature.
Walk the Edinburgh Royal Mile/Attend the Fringe Festival
Travel the route of the Orient Express by train ( Paris to Istanbul)
Visit the sites of the Seven Churches referenced in Revelations 3
Travel by train from London to Athens.
Visit the Detroit Institute of Art
Drive down Route 66 in America
See the pyramids in Egypt
Take a ride in a hot air balloon
Climb the Eiffel tower

Contact

Wed, 29 May 2013 20:30:38 +0000

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About

Wed, 29 May 2013 16:56:24 +0000

Hi, I’m AJ, a Materials & Corrosion Engineer (hence TheRustGeek), Recovering (Spiritual) Prodigal, Enneagram 5/ INTJ and Liverpool FC fan, in no particular order. For worth its worth, I find myself increasingly drawn to to the Parable of the Prodigal Son, my connection being in two dimensions; one of faith and a continuing struggle in that aspect and that of being in a far country, twice removed.

RustGeeking apart, I find myself increasingly fascinated by Complex Systems, particularly the adaptive sort, risk/ risk management and how data science and analytics tools can be deployed successfully in the physical asset integrity management space which most of my work to date has been in. Knowledge Representation and Reasoning is also an area I am keenly interested in, particularly from the perspectives of future proofing myself as a knowledge economist from the “scourge” of Large Language Models. I firmly believe that Graph Theory and its Network Science sub-domain is a fundamental paradigm through which to understand the world. Since falling into the used Thinkpad rabbit hole in 2019, I have primarily run Linux (currently Fedora) on Thinkpads rescued from eBay.