Life-&-Living

Day 12 of the Better Man in 30 days challenge - Create Your Bucket List --- Currently working through my bucket list - aptly (if I say so myself) tagged 40 things by 40 seeing the 40th birthday is the next major birthday on the horizon - and no I am not 35 yet.. Closed out a few things already some of which include making CEng, losing 20kg and taking a boat ride down the Chicago river. A few stand out as sore points on which I have made zero progress whatsoever on - visiting the children I sponsor via WorldVision and reading every book that has been awarded the Man Booker prize being prime examples. ...

Day 3 of the Better Man in 30 days Challenge - Find a Mentor — In thinking through today’s challenge, I realised there is a shed load of historical mentors I had to acknowledge - the Artful dodger (so nicknamed by his own father no less) whose MO always seemed to be to stay just on the right side of the law at all times (he was the inspiration to go into engineering), OO, the social studies teacher who intervened when yours truly was nabbed trying to pilfer a book from the secondary school library, Dr K at the Steel plant where I interned in 2000 who sowed the seeds of an appreciation for materials in me and DEL and MMK who held my hand as I took my first shaky steps as a rust geek back between 2003 and 2008. All that is part of why mentoring and mentorship are core values I intend to hold on to dearly both as a giver and a recipient. ...

Time and time again one finds himself back here, searching for what, one knows not. Between life, work and the issues inherent in them, my big resolve to do life in 30 day chunks limped along before dying in March. What little time to breathe I had was spent swotting for a couple of exams, critical components of the personal development plan for the year. Coming into June, I thought the Better Man in 30 days challenge from the Art of Manliness represented a good, meaty challenge to get my teeth into, a potential keystone habit if you like. For one, manliness and man-making represent a key strand that runs through and undergirds the Life Plan. In addition, blogging for an entire month was also one of the ideas for a thirty day challenge at the beginning of the year. Thanks to the two twitter BFFs - OluSimeon and SingleNigerian, any doubts I might have had about going through with the plan have been nuked thanks to public accountability. ...

Wide awake, with not even a lingering hint of sleep to becloud my eyes, I pause to ponder the day that lies ahead of me. Difficult as it may be to wrap my head around them, the facts are what they are. It is very nearly six months since I last made the journey that lies ahead of me. Back then, LK was the developing conundrum, one that those days spent in the middle of nowhere ended up resolving, ultimately to my pain - not that I knew that at the time. My alarm snaps me out of my little reverie - I have a 6.00am check-in at the other end of town to contend with, and a 15 minute walk to catch the bus that will haul me across town - small margins for error given it is already 4.05am. ...

Down South, the overwhelming narrative is one of a spring in full flow, cue a flood of selfies on Instagram and Facebook, complete with the obligatory sunglasses, sleeveless tops and sandals. Up here, in my North Eastern corner of Ruralshire, the best that we have had is six degree weather and intermittent sunshine - not quite spring, but very nearly as good as it gets up here, being thankful that we are not having snow in March like we did last year. ...

Still slightly depressed from all that’s happened to rock my world over the last few weeks, I drag myself down to Union Square having left work thirty minutes early. I am hoping that a little window shopping – and fresh air – will do my foul mood some good. Thirty minutes later, having made a pit stop at TK Maxx, mooched around Sole Trader and JD Sports I find myself at the Jones shop, pondering the wisdom or otherwise of splurging on a gorgeous pair of Timberland boat shoes I have found. ...

When I first came here, it was not love at first sight. There was no instant click, no immediate sense of belonging; only a sense of tentativeness.The call that set it all off had come out of the blue one Tuesday afternoon, from a Manager I didn’t work for directly. My first response was to email the guy I actually did work for - he took a day and a half to get back to me - by which time the moving train had gathered speed. After less than three months back at the mother lode, following a six month stint sequestered in a client office, I was on the move again. ...

It is a cold, crisp morning; the sort that draws an involuntary wince when the twin comforts of a snuggie, and the remnants of warm tea are withdrawn somewhat suddenly. Having not visited the gym in two weeks and a few days - blame my trip to the middle of nowhere, not my laziness - the plan is to drag myself there at some stage over the course of the day. The dry, sunny vista that greets my eyes looking out onto Pittodrie beguiles me into kitting myself out in my gym get-up; which is how at the ungodly hour of 9am on a Saturday I am high tailing the 700 yards or so from my house to the gym. The forty-five minute amble on the treadmill passes by uneventfully enough - today there are neither svelte, graceful does nor brawny, over-fit ones to terrorise me, or show me up for the lazy bum I am.. ...

Feeling chilly in the westerly breeze is how BBC weather describes the start to the day, and walking briskly from my house to the bus station, I ponder just how right that prediction is in spite of how well I think I am wrapped up - thermal undershirt, long sleeves, a fleece and a wind breaker notwithstanding. I have always thought it interesting just how well predictions of lousy well work as opposed to ones which promise warm, dry spells, or not. Confirmation bias maybe? ...

Sinking… and feeling for rock bottom is the sense of where I feel I am at the moment; very much like the proverbial lead sinking in water. The thing with Tee rather than being the primary cause of this latest bout of malaise helped precipitate it, not least being the most recent of a string of setbacks in the girl department running through the year. There’s work, and the fact that the guys I currently work for recently lost a major service contract they had held for the better part of 8+ years. With that has come the potential for staff moves, down-sizing and all the other fun and games associated with trying to bring overhead down. Even though my own role seems safe amidst this sea of change, there is the additional complication of the particular client I support shuttering activity on the plant I work for. My UK visa is tied to my employer so the uncertainty associated with work, or not working does leave the mind in jitters. Another layer of complexity is the fact that I want to do something different. Having spent the greater part of the last 10 years - since December 2003 - in topside pressure system asset integrity, I do want to get my teeth into subsea materials and corrosion a lot more than my current role might allow… ...