Keeping Busy

Ages since the last really long update. I think I’ve just got out of the habit of sitting down and writing long posts. Conversely I do a lot of status updates on Facebook or even Twitter because it’s easier to write a single sentence or even just a fragment of one. Written English is not like spoken English and I refrain from using chavvy txtspk in the updates, even if there are limits on how long they can be. “Y” is the 25th letter of the alphabet, not an interrogative word. “Day” is a period of 24 hours, not the third person personal pronoun. Of course language changes and it’s possible to be too prescriptive about how it’s used. However, standard (written) English is a completely different dialect to the spoken sort and you don’t spell things in the way that you would like people to read them out. Similarly, txtspk was invented with the specific purpose of getting as much into the 160 character limitation of an SMS. Twitter is limited to 140 characters for sure, but you can always post another tweet or just use shorter words. I go for the principle of being strict about what you send and lenient about what you receive, so if someone else wants to use that type of language I don’t mind as long as I can understand it.

Anyway, life continues as normal. I’m still training 5 times a week, with the usual mixture of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Thai boxing and cycling. With it getting darker in the evenings I’m probably going to switch the midweek evening bike ride for a run. To get any kind of distance on the bike I need a reasonable proportion on of my route to be along the canal, but being unlit and somewhat isolated means I need to think about personal safety. Not everyone who goes along an urban canal towpath in the dark is there for entirely legit reasons, and also in the dark it can be harder to tell where the towpath isn’t. I got back into running last year as a way of keeping fit while bike and arm were out of action and gradually built up to doing a mile in about 9 – 10 minutes and 6 miles in less than an hour.

On the Thai boxing front, I should hear in the next day or so whether or not I’ll be fighting on the 18th of October. This will be in Harrogate and will be my first full contact fight, which means that I could win (or lose) by a knockout. It’s 3 weeks tomorrow so I do need to know so I’ve got enough time to prepare. I’ve been put forward to fight at 86 kg which is the top end of Thai boxing cruiserweight class so I also need to find out what my weight is and how much I’ll need to lose. Someone has nicked the scales from the gym so we’ll need to get them back.

These days I don’t have (or need) the relentless weight loss I had in the past. While I’m technically overweight, judging by the state of me in my profile pic there’s absolutely nothing to worry about. I have a 34″ waist, 42″ chest, 25″ thighs, and a resting blood pressure of 120/60 and resting pulse of 58. Not bad from where I was a few years ago. Friday will be my 31st birthday. Probably safe to say I’ve got a lot more ahead of me than I did 5 years ago.

I also seem to have got a new job at work. I was redeployed in May because of a short term budget shortage, got a project using Oracle and Linux to keep me occupied for a few months which is now coming to an end, and now I’ve got a new one which will involve C# and SQL Server development. This is a separate one from the one I mentioned on Facebook which is for a senior Windows developer working in a different bit of the company. It’s supposed to be based in Wolverhampton and is a higher grade than my current one. On that one I’ll just have to wait and see.

I’ve also been having a go at a bit of photography. Couple of shots here (On LJ) or the full set is on Flickr. I haven’t taken many so far but it’s a start.