We’ve been looking at houses this weekend, with a view to moving to Swansea. I think we saw 7 houses yesterday. Eurgh. Hard work, especially carrying around a little boy who loves exploring & climbing stairs.
We got a good feel for some suitable areas and even saw some suitable houses (gosh). These things take a while, but it all looks promising.
Cut
Buying Houses
Halloween
It’s Halloween. I’m playing Doom III. I’m pretty scared. ‘Nuff said.
Brain in a Dish Flies Plane
OK, I’m getting a little scared now…
Link
Cycle Paths
Hey, here are some photos of my current cycle route to work, and how I might get up to Gowerton if I move!
iPod Photo
We heard the rumours of a colour screen iPod, but why would we want one? Oh, iPod Photo.
It would be more useful if you could connect your digital camera to the iPod Photo to immediately transfer your photos in the field though, when your memory cards fill up. But you still have to buy the Belkin Media Reader to do that, which isn’t cheap. Nice toy, but the screen on my PDA is bigger and it carries all the photos I’ll need.
Surely it’s going to have to compete with the upcoming handheld media players right? And it doesn’t do video (yet)?
Lockergnome
I have just unsubscribed from Lockergnome. I’ve been reading the weekly tech emails from this site for probably a decade. Recently the format has changed, and the emails have just become a list of links – not particularly useful to me. I can use Google myself. Thanks Chris, but no more.
So there’s a big change. No more Lockergnome emails in my inbox. That’ll be strange.
Changes
My blogging is getting weaker and weaker. I don’t really understand it, but I seem to have less and less blogworthy comment these days (although some of you probably question the merits of much of my content anyway). Is this a reflection of my life becoming more and more boring? I wouldn’t say boring, but mundane maybe.
With the medicine course in full swing (week 7 this week) my weekly work activities have settled into something of a mundane routine. I teach human anatomy on a Monday morning, so much of the remainder of the week is spent preparing for this with Jo: creating and editing substantial handouts, organising teaching and teaching materials, planning future teaching, organising the lecturers themselves (surgeons, physicians, pathologists and radiologists all help us teach), and then of course revising and planning what exactly we will be teaching the next Monday morning. In addition to all this I am managing a *little* research, but not as much as I’d like. These tasks are all becoming repetitive, and subsequently I have less to blog about. The commute between Cardiff and Swansea is taking up a lot of time, and I’m not even thinking about sports stuff any more. Weekends are spent recovering/taking it easy, so again, not much to blog there then. Hmph. Even this post is getting long-winded: I’m blogging about weak blogging. Oh dear.
Am I in a rut? What can I do to get out? Is weak blogging really a reflection of my life becoming more dull? Probably not.
Firstly, we’ll move to Swansea. Cut out the commute and I’ll have more time with Kim and Jack. We’ll also have more cash (it’s about £200/month to commute by train).
Secondly, get the research side of my job kick-started. This will give me the interest and enthusiasm needed to kick the mundane. It’s something I must commit to and make time for. In fact, I have a PhD student (not mine, a collaborator’s) starting in the lab today….
Phoenix
After swapping the motherboard for a decent one, my PC is now properly up and running again. After much sweating I even managed to start playing Doom III again. Thank crap for that. Now I just have to resetup all my applications and stuff, which will probably take weeks.