Blovember

Suggestions On A Postcard

/ Dominic

I was talking to a friend today, a professional writer who writes for the Good Food Guide and does restaurant reviews for Time Out. I reflected on Blovember and explained that it was my first real attempt at writing daily. I told him how I appreciated how hard it actually is to say something engaging, witty or erudite day in and day out and also how a month had helped me start to tighten-up and develop a style. He replied – this is a full time writer remember – that he found it harder to write after even a week off the keyboard.

Yikes. I want to be a better writer. I guess I have to write more. Suggestions on a postcard please.

Keep Staring Humor Postcards (Package of 8)

Blovember #29 – Follow Your Heart

/ Dominic

Yes, I know it is a trite and overused thing to say. Nonetheless, there is far too much analysing to the ‘nth degree that people feel they need to do and, more importantly, be seen to be doing.

Why? I think thinking things through repeatedly is rarely a sign of intelligence and wisdom. I think it’s a sign that you are a bit hard of thinking. You either know the answer deep down or you don’t. Either make the decision or take steps to find out what you need to know. Or as I once heard it put so very delicately, “Shit or get off the pot“. (how cool – the expression has it’s own Wiki entry!)

The Thinking Man sculpture at Musée Rodin in Paris

Thoughtfulness, on the other hand, is not thinking the same thing over and over and over and…you get the idea. It is thinking though often complex possible outcomes with many different and variable factors. Kasparov is thoughtful. You are procrastinating.

Most people are just stalling behind the façade of thoughtfulness because their heart is screaming the answer and it’s not something they want to hear, so they try to obfuscate the noise by “thinking it through”.

You’ll make bad choices from time to time. You’re human so get over it. In the meantime be liberated by acting on what you feel is right and enjoy the release that comes with it.

Now, where did I leave my wallet?

Blovember #28 – Patience

/ Dominic

It comes and goes.

As seasoned and dedicated readers of this blog will know, I had a bit of a messy crash on my bicycle on the 27th May of this year. I snapped the right femur just below the ball – of ball and socket fame – and smacked up my right clavicle. This has lead to a permanent metal addition to my right leg and temporary metal in the right shoulder. Call me Metal Mickey. The airport will be fun at Christmas. Previously I have bounced back quickly from my knocks, but this time…oh boy it is sloooow. And I’m frustrated. Really, massively frustrated.

    The hip & the shoulder   

I have just changed my physio as the nice guy I have now has resisted all my appeals to put together a plan. I want a PLAN. I need something to measure myself against so I have short, medium and long term goals. I need to know how I am progressing and I need to know what the consequences of shirking are. I will happily shirk my exercises etc if I am just dumped with a pile of print-outs from the Internet and a suggestion is made that I sort of try to maybe follow them. I require structure and joint participation.

I am very fortunate to have both a great surgeon and private healthcare – thank you Mrs S, it means alot – so getting the necessary physio and choosing when and where I’ll have the shoulder re-filleted are things I can have a say in.

No pressure on the new physio but I intend to get back on my shiny new bike and do more riding. I plan on walking without my “Well helllloooo, Sailor” roll. I’d like to take a few steps at jogging pace  and I want to know I can swim and climb.

https://i0.wp.com/www.spincycleworks.com/media/01/a20791d1359bf6a976bd58_l.jpg

Not much really, just back to the old me.

Blovember #2

/ Dominic

Day 2 and I feel like a kid being made to write the “what I did on my holidays” post half-term standard fodder.

Today I applied to Sophos for a v interesting looking role as the Sales Enablement Program Manager – Learning & Development. Looks v interesting, plays v well to my strengths and is relatively local. I don’t mind business travel but at this stage in life am not looking to relocate as that is for peeps without kids at a non-boarding  school.

The interesting thing to see is whether I am even spoken to, as my CV is coming to the UK HR Dept via a friend of a friend in Vancouver. I have never ever ever received a reply to an application via Linkedin as my CV isn’t a nice boilerplate example of I did this and then this and then this where the respective “thises” have been a steady progression along an A-B-C-D sort of obvious line. I like to think I have had an interesting and informative life but  we’ll see what Sophos think.

Blovember

/ Dominic / 2 Comments

So it’s a cheap an easy title? I am sitting in bed when I remembered that I was talked into once a day blogging in November by Musings From the Sofa. This is for NaBloPoMo – stupid sounding name imho. Blovember, much better.

Day 1 and there is project slippage. Hi ho. We’ll see what gives in a week. Nothing of note today apart from staying in touch with friends and recovering from yesterday. I bought a pair of orange and blue trainers for £25.The orange is so bright I can find them in the dark as they seem to emit their own energy. Most odd. They didn’t have a Chernobyl glow in daylight.

Yesterday was pretty cool. I stepped into something I hadn’t done for 10 years and it came back more naturally then I had hoped. My old boss from 14y year ago is the CEO of a firm with one of those – picked from the air, sounds kinda tecchie and most importantly the domain name is available – names. Flexiant. I really enjoyed it as it was especially challenging as it was a seasoned and experienced audience. If you don’t get credibility in the first 5 minutes the next 10 hours are hellish. I did, they weren’t.

Off to bed. More tomorrow.