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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. On Leaving The Way The World Ends Three Ideas for Life On Loving and (Not) Marrying On Praying and Changing Right Girl, Right Time, Wrong Context? On the inherent inefficiencies in eating pounded yam Always Returning A Passing Fancy The Dalglish Conjecture How He Met My Mother Why I Write Of Rust and Metaphors of Work What Not To Say To My Nigerian Father Strictly (Not) Dancing

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

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

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

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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. ...