Blog: A Day In The Life
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Tuesday, 6 January 2009
Happy New Year 2009
People say there's no point making resolutions because only 2% of them happen, but if you're doomed to failure and willing to accept it like that then you're not going to get very far. I never set amyself any of those silly spontaneous resolutions people think of in ten seconds like 'I'm going to go running every day' or 'I'm going to lose weight', but I tend just to have a good hard think about the previous year; take stock of my life, where I'm going and where I want to be, and make a decision about how I can get there, and set a goal to take a certain angle on life in order to do so. It's not a measureable way of doing things, like I'll know when I've acheieved it and can sit back and relax when it's over, but more of a kaizen philosophy (continuous improvement).It's always easy to look at each avenue of my life and think 'I want to work harder at this' for each one - because of all the things I do, I know I can do better at them, but how do I work harder at everything I do? Surely putting more pressure one one will put less pressure on another? It depends. What needs to be done is an analysis of the things that take up time and are not useful, and maybe reduce or eliminate them, which is always a tough call.
I've decided I don't like this site template anymore. I'm going to write a new one from scratch in the next month or so. I've recently been doing quite a bit of web design for various things; I've made a website for the university canoe club, of which I am on the committee, this was the first website I have made form scratch since I started learning HTML - I just opened up Notepad++ and started typing and I'm really pleased with it because the code is so clean; I've redesigned the Woodseats Venture Unit website which I think is a great improvement; and I've also taken up my first paid web design job - my friend's Bouncy Castle business, and he's really pleased with what I've done for him so far because the guy he had to do it before took months and he wasn't interested in the content, just what it looked like and he spent ages making pointless flash animations.
- MMU Canoe Club
- Woodseats Venture Unit
- Bonkers Bouncy Castles (EDIT: Now completed and launched)
I'm looking to do more web design this year; I've seen what some people pay for crap websites, and I know I can do better and won't charge anywhere near as much.
I had an awesome week in Wales with The Unit between Christmas and New Year; unfortuately there was no water (the water levels in the rivers was really low) so couldn't do much in the way of canoeing, but went biking which was great (I haven't been on a bike for years and we did a pretty hardcore mountain bike track) and led a scramble up Tryfan, which is a mountain in Snowdonia, not quite as high as Snowdon but much more exciting to do, as it's rocky as opposed to hilly, and it's not as touristy.
See more photos here
One of the Scout leaders at my group - John Hall, who was with us in Wales - was in the Queen's new year's honours list and has been made an MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) which is a great achievement and wonderful recognition for all his work. He is 70 years old now and has been volunteering as a Scout leader since he was 18, giving young people opportunities to go mountaineering, kayaking, to travel, to do things they never dreamed of, and make the most of their lives, and it's all down to the time John has given up to do it all. He's still doing it today, he was with us in Wales this week, he was with us in the Pyrenees in the summer, and the last few years he's taken the group to Slovakia and Slovenia.
Labels: Computers, Featured, Internet, Kayaking, Scouting, Web Design
Posted by Ben Nuttall at 15:13 
