Ant's 2008
Whilst I'm a regular LJ lurker, I'll admit that I'm not the most prolific updater. So in an attempt to keep in touch, I thought I'd put up what I've been up to this year.
Obviously the major event for me was my brother's death. The cliché would be to say that it has overshadowed everything else, but looking back on the year, that's not quite true. Whilst I think that I've learnt a lot from the grieving process and it has been a major part of the last six months, I think its important to recognise that I've also had some really good times this year, even following his death. So perhaps it is more accurate to say that his death has contrasted everything else in my life. I've decided to write two posts; one about my thoughts on Nick and this one detailing all the good stuff that's been going on with me.
Domestic life continues to be calm and happy. Anastasia and I had our second wedding anniversary back in March, and we spent a quiet and relaxing week in Bude together a little bit later to celebrate. Vassya (the cat) is also doing fine, and has now learnt to run outside if I catch him with a mouse, although he still ignores Anastasia which clearly demonstrates the current house pecking order.
I've now been in my house for three years, and am still impressed on how much time and effort it constitutes. We had the roof replaced which has stopped the large leak, managed to put a bike shed together so we don't have to keep any of our six bikes in the house, and successful conclusions to an end of year drain saga. Due to time constraints I had to abandon running a Lower Carbon Lifestyles campaign for the local Friends of the Earth group. But it did graphically highlight how draughty and inefficient the house is, even with double glazing and roof insulation, and one aim this year will be to try and do all the simple jobs to improve that.
I have continued with triathlon this year, and completed several races including Bath Olympic distance (1500m swim, 40k bike, 10k run). Anastasia and I have joined a local club, Bristol and District Tri, and going to their sessions has helped a lot. My swimming technique improved a lot this year, mostly due to advice from the club coaches in our weekly swim. And although I'm still not a brilliant cyclist, biking the ten miles to and from work most days certainly helped with the vicious hills on the Bath course. In August I went to Matt's flat in Tignes with Andy, Ben and Anastasia for a 'Tri Training Camp', which mostly involved running round the lake once, complaining about the altitude, and then lots of cafe of lait and pain au chocolat whilst admiring the Alps. The lake also had various wooden exercise equipment around the running track, and I think that while attempting the parallel bars for our Rocky training montage I damaged a muscle in my right arm. This has meant no swimming for four months, and it still hasn't healed despite physio.
This November was the second anniversary of me moving from BT to Northgate. I'm still working as a Java / web programmer, and was promoted to a team leader earlier on in the year, although didn't actually get a team until September. Its been quite a hard year, with a fairly relentless pace of projects, and poor estimating has meant too much stress and no time for sorting out all the irritating background problems which slow us up. On a more positive note, we have produced several software releases which are actually being used by customers. I've got a really good working relationship with my manager, and a lot of my ideas around agile development process have been adopted and have made a significant improvement. I travelled to Mumbai to see our Indian team in February, which I also really enjoyed; the streets and crazy driving reminded me a lot of China. The project I am currently working on has let us move up to latest versions of web and Java technology, and has really impressed the board and the rest of the business at the sales meeting. Its great to involved both with the new tech but also seeing the commercial benefits that it could potentially bring.
I've also been continuing with roleplaying. I'm taking part in a live action fantasy game based on Warhammer, which runs every month in the crypt of a church. This was its second year, and it has really gone from strength to strength. We've got about 30-40 people, all of whom are decent roleplayers, and going down the pub after each game and an active email list has meant the group has come together really well. I was surprised and pleased to see my character's background expanded to become major plot this year, and Dan and the other referees work really hard on throwing interesting and morally challenging plot at us (I agonised for a day over one particular character decision). I've even started writing short stories for my character. This is defiantly the best roleplaying I've been involved in, and hopefully it will run for at least all of next year.
I'm also refereeing my Star Wars jedi campaign. This has been running since 2000 (albeit with a 4 year break in the middle) but should be coming to a close this year. Despite me suffering writers block a few times, we've had some really good sessions, and its been nice to reveal the big plot secrets I've had planned for eight years. The players seem to enjoy themselves, and I've really improved as a referee, although I still procrastinate on preparation too much.
Other good bits were several surf trips (or more correctly, "Sitting on sofa drinking tea and complaining how the surf isn't perfect trips") to Croyde, robot lego for my birthday, and a sunny Glastonbury where I saw Leonard Cohen on perfect form.