Well what a quick year it has been. I simply can’t believe that a year ago I was becoming a Dad, and the year itself has flown by so fast. At the end of every year I tend to write a post on here that looks back at the years events, so here goes.
Of course the year started in chaos with the birth of my son, and actually has been chaos ever since, mostly in a good way though. Just before Christmas we decided to buy ourselves a Ninetendo Wii and in between looking after Harry, I became addicted to Wii tennis. To this day my record on the wall still stands at 70, although I just have not had the time to try and beat that in recent months. Also in January we had the Rowland Homes saga with then opening up the bottom of our road to build a new housing estate. I remember the health and safety risks posed by their wagons at the time and the chaos that they caused. It seems to have settled down a little now although residents still feel an injustice for the fact that the development has gone ahead.
February started with me having a go with Twitter. This didn’t develop really until after WordCampUK later in the year but still the seed was sown. I also distinctly remember going out one day to buy what is now know as the “Bear Chair” for Harry. We were having a touch time getting him to settle for any length of time, with this being worse at night and therefore a neighbour had a swinging baby chair that played sounds etc that they recommended. My trek took me to Bolton in order to pick one up but I managed it in the end!
March seemed to be a techy month, mainly for two reasons. Firstly the Equal Design website finally got its relaunch that it has been waiting for, for so long and also I had delivered my 15inch MacBook Pro that was to replace the Mac Mini that I had sold the year before. In fact I had been without a Mac for just over 3 months, too long! Harry also met his second cousin, something that I remember us debating about for some time when they met. Where they second cousins or half cousins etc.
I suppose the main thing that happened in the April was Harry’s Christening. We had a really nice day with the family and I think that Harry enjoyed all the input. On the computer front I finally purchased my Apple Time Capsule and managed to get it set up after lots of online chats to sales about how my current setup would work.
Into May and the budgies were breeding again. We had several more arrivals in the aviary, the lovely Inga being one of them. In fact the budgies had a very successful breeding year with several batches of budgies. In fact they bred so well that we have now started taking some of the offspring to the pet shop so that aviary does not get too crowded. May was also another month in which we made home improvements. We enlarged the kitchen by removing the utility wall which has given us much more space. Really worth while doing.
After May is were this blog took a little break really. July had some entries but after that it went quiet whilst I concentrated on other projects and really didn’t seem to have any time to work on posting here. In July I attended the annual meeting of the WordPress community here in the UK called WordCampUK. It involved a trip down to Cardiff where we attended lots of talks and me t some people that were very interesting and inspiring. Looking forward to the 2010 event which is in Manchester.
In July my wife and I also went to Edinburgh for a few days to get away and have a little break from taking care of Harry. We missed him like crazy when we were down their but it was nice to have some downtime. Edinburgh is a beautiful city and has some stunning buildings. We also went up on the train which was a bit of a novelty and something different.
Then Christmas came by which I won’t bore you with again as I have only just posted about that, and that leaves us here, waiting for the New Year (and new decade) to begin. I wonder what it will bring, and will it go as fast as 2009?
I have taken many photographs this year and this has inspired me to take on a photograph experiment in 2010. The idea is to take, and blog about 365 photographs, one for each day of the year.
My thoughts were to present them in some sort of collage, were you could click on each photo and then enlarge it to read more about the image. Obviously each would have a blog post already on the blog, posted each day of the year. I think I am going to give this a go, I just worry that I will not have enough photos to blog about. However with the acquisition of my iPhone it will make taking the photos a lot easier.
So watch out in the new year for Photo365 on this blog and wish me luck!
Christmas Day 2009 was a special day as it was our first Christmas with my son Harry. Although not yet of the age to get very exited he certainly new that it was a ‘different’ day with all the people that were coming and going.
The started like any other I suppose. The only difference was that I felt terrible in the morning. I have had a cold and bunged up nose for about 3 – 4 weeks now and it is really starting to annoy me now. I think this is the longest that I have had a cold for and it really is a touch little virus. Anyway after a Hot Lemsip (well Asda’s version!) I was feeling a little better and got up to.
Then it was time for Harry to start opening some of the presents that friends and family had given. We started with the Winnie the Pooh ride on truck that Helen and I bought him. It took ages to get into it as you can see from the below:
The annoying thing about this video is that I ended up sat in front of Harry and between him and the camera so although you get glimpses of the excitement he showed you can’t really appreciate it. Still I will learn for next year! After opening a number of presents we thought that we would leave some for when his grandparents arrived later on. Harry then feel asleep and had a good long nap.
Next to arrive where my parents, armed with a bag of presents, some for Harry and some for Helen and I which was nice. Helen’s parents then arrived with a similar sack full of goodies and then it was time to exchange presents and watch Harry open more and more of the gifts he received.
It was then down to me to get the Christmas Lunch on the go. Not a massive Turkey fan I decided that we would have a nice roast leg of lamb instead. This was accompanied by roast potatoes, carrots, brussels sprouts, and gravy. The gravy ended up a little on the thin side as we seemed to all out of Cornflour, something which we always have, but not when you really needed it. Still the meal was really good, and having not cooked a ‘proper’ meal for a while I was pleased that it worked out well. The meal was started with a Pear and Roquefort Salad with croutons and finished with a Morrisons Chocolate Cheesecake.
After some Trivia games in the afternoon and Harry playing with all his new toys, it was soon time for Harry’s bedtime. He was a tired boy after all the goings on. Once in bed Helen and I watched a little TV (Coronation Street, Mr and Mrs and The Royale Family) and then went to bed, still with my headache and sore nose.
It was a really pleasant day and one that I will always remember as Harry’s first Christmas Day. I sure that they will only get more chaotic from here!
Over the last few days in the UK we have had some snowfall. To people in the UK this is a massive event where everyone goes crazy for some reason, however I have to admit that it is rather nice, and a few days before Christmas as well!
It had snowed the day earlier but where we lived it was not very good snow and did not stick very well at all really. Today, the snow was what I would call proper snow, Large snow flakes falling to the ground at a rate of knots and then sticking to the surface like glue. Beautiful! I took a quick video to prove it, after all it was one of those Lazy Sundays!
I have taken many photos of 2009, not as many as I would like, but non the less I thought that I would share some of my favourites memories and photographs of the year.
I am hoping that now that Harry is almost 1 year old I will have a little more time to take more photographs, and also my iPhone should also enable me to take more photos. My favourite photo (excluding the photos of Harry of course) has to be the Edinburgh photo of the Scotsman hotel sign. Not sure why really but it just looks really good I think.
Every year I watch the BBC Sports Personality of the Year (SPOTY). In fact I have been watching it all the way back to when Gazza won it in 1990. Watching last night edition was all the more memorable as it was won by someone that really deserved it – Ryan Giggs.
Before I continue I would like to just say that I am in no way a Manchester United fan or indeed a fan of any club. I have my favourites I suppose like anyone watching football matches but a true fan of any club I am not.
Watching the BBC Sports Personality of Year really does bring back childhood memories each year that it is on the TV. I always remember as a youngster looking forward, to looking back at the sporting year, and I would always watch SPOTY in the lounge with my dad. Strangely I also have the recollection that it was always the same night that SPOTY was on which was when my mum would erect the family Christmas tree in the corner of the room. Whilst she was doing this the cat (and then cats!) would be wrestling with the decorations that mum was trying to put on while me and dad were watching the TV. What my brother was doing at this time I can’t really remember.
Anyway enough family history and back to the point of this post. Sports men and women are paid phenomenal amounts of money these days. High salaries maybe but that high? Well that is probably another post for this blog, but my point being is that it seems the more a lot (not all I might add) of these young stars get paid then the more that we will see them on the back (and more often these days the front) cover of Britain’s newspapers indulging in some yobbish behaviour. It seems there is always something about someone in the papers doing something that shouldn’t be. In fact the behaviour of some is terrible.
Ryan Giggs however is the opposite. How many times do we see him falling out of a club at 0300 in the morning drunk and causing a scene? How many times do we see his Mrs plastered all over the pages of the papers in little clothing? Never is the answer. Giggsy is a thoroughly decent, family bloke that deserves all the credit that he receives. Not only he is a nice chap but an outstanding footballer and a great ambassador for the game in terms of his skill, the way in which he goes about his professional career and his loyalty to his employer, Manchester United. Well done Ryan, you deserve every bit of the limelight that you received last night. It is just such as shame that the rest of the premier league stars are not like you.
We are now coming to the end of the decade which people often term the ‘naughties’ and it seems clear to me that this has been the decade of technology and personal gadgets. Things have progressed so quickly, that it makes me wonder what technology will be like at the end of the next decade. This post takes a look through the technology timeline of the naughties.
Back in the year 2000 I had yet to have my first job and the Internet was only really just getting going (hard to believe I know!). It is strange to look back now at the type of websites that we were viewing back then. Take a look at the screenshot below of the BBC News website on an article about the Sydney Olympics.
I can’t believe how old this site design looks now as well as thinking about the functionality that the site didn’t have.
I suppose we could also say that this has been the decade of the operating system. How many of you remember battling with Windows 3.1 and then its successors Windows 95 and 98. They have primitive graphics and very little in terms of graphical interface. At the start of the decade saw the release of Windows 2000 in February of that year. It didn’t take long for the next version, and perhaps the most famous version of Windows yet to be released, Windows XP. XP was released in 2001 and is still the most used operating system today. Windows then took a long time to get a refresh. In fact all the way to 2007 before the much criticised Windows Vista was released and then of course this year (2009) we have had the much improved Windows 7.
But we cannot move away from the computer operating system without mentioning one (or two) others. Mac OS X first hit the shelves in March 2001, with the first big cat edition. This development of this operating system has paved the way for Apple to produce a number of successful products, and the latest version of Mac OS X, Snow Leopard is and outstanding edition to any computer, providing everything that you want from the operating system of your computer.
2001 was also a very significant year for perhaps the biggest and most desirable gadget of the naughties. On the 23rd October 2001 the original iPod was launched. Perhaps little did the world know what a profound impact this product and the music technologies behind it would have on the world today. Of course the iPod has continued to develop over the course of the decade to provide us with different versions, sizes and functionality. Eventually this lead to the release of the iPhone. Another revolutionary product that is changing the way people live their lives. Many other phones are now using the core ideas behind the iPhone but this product did truly change the way in which people work, communicate and entertain. Not only that, but it will continue to do so for the coming future at least as the product develops further.
We can’t talk about this decade with remembering storage. When I first got my first PC back in the mid 1990′s it came with a 100mb hard disc drive. I then got a newer machine to take to university around 1997/1998 and that machine has a massive 500mb of storage. To think that these days we are using machines that can hold in excess of 1000gb (or 1Tb) is amazing. I walk round with my MacBook in my bag, a couple of pen drives and a portable hard drive and I have nearly 600Gb on my person, including my iPhone of course. If in ten years storage has increased this much, what on earth are our computers going to contain in ten years time. One thing is for sure is that with our hunger for digital media our storage needs are only going to grow and grow.
We have just come through a decade of technology were communication was through talk and text at the start and now we can have the Internet in our pockets and send digital media around the world at the touch of a button. The changes that have taken place are rapid and it is going to be exiting to think what changes will take place through the next 10 years in the world of technology.
