Property Investments, Landlording, CrossFit, Nutrition & Safety

Oh my, this is the funniest thing I’ve seen all year (lol):

I really can’t make up my mind if I think that New Year’s Resolutions are: A) A load of old cobblers, or B) A useful annual reminder for self improvement. Some years I don’t bother and some I do, like this year for example. However I do know that written goals can be a powerful thing, and I also know that sharing your goals brings culpability, so thanks for reading this as your participation will help me to achieve my aims.  In fact, if you feel so inclined, you can do be a huge favour, I want you to hold me to account an what I’ve written below and challenge me if I don’t do it.  Feel free to let me know you will to.  😉

Without further preamble, I’m going to dive straight in and list this year’s resolutions, in no particular order:

1. Give up booze for the whole of 2010, no exceptions.
2. Give up sugar in all its forms.  Yes that means chocolate, for all of 2010!
3. Earn enough money online to be able to give up paid office work by the end of 2010.

Taking these in turn then:

1) Give Up Booze

I drink too much, simple as.  If I realistically think about what might kill me first, I’d put some kind of liver issue top of the list.  I’m not going to say how much I drink, partly because it varies from week to week, but also actually I think I’m probably rather ashamed of the truth. It is something of a middle aged man’s disease and there have been times when I’ve wondered if I’ve got a problem.  I don’t think I have by the way, but the thought has occurred to me and that in itself is warning enough.

Indeed December has not been a good month at all on the booze front.  Hangovers over Christmas are one thing but when you’ve had a bad day at work, buying a bottle of wine on the way home is never a good idea.  Whilst it may take your mind of things in the short term, alcohol is a depressant I’ve not felt good this last month and the booze has contributed, not helped that.

Now giving up completely sounds rather drastic and maybe it is, but it’s also a reaction to knowing myself.  I know I can have an obsessive compulsive personality and I struggle to do things by halves.  I know that if I have a glass of wine, I’ll drink the rest of the bottle for example.  Or that if I have a drink today, I’m more likely to want one tomorrow.  As a result, I can control myself better with abstinence than with moderation.

So that is what I’ll do, no more wine, cider, beer, spirits, or any other form of alcohol for a year.  Then I’ll see what I will do in a years time.

2) Give Up Sugar

This is in some ways both more and less controversial.  As I’ve posted previously about paleo eating, my diet is 90% sugar free anyway, but it’s that 10% that has got out of hand.   Ironically going hand in hand with the all too frequent trips to the off license for a bottle of wine, first there was one chocolate bar, but that soon became 2, then 3, then 1 of the big ones, then more!  It’s not just chocolate either, I can easily dispose of a litre (2 pints) of ice cream all to myself of an evening.

The really sad reality is, that the sugar never satisfies me.  I am satisfied only whilst I’m physically chewing it.  The moment I even thing about swallowing, I’m already reaching for the next bite, and I’ll do that till whatever I’m eating is gone, usually in less than 5 minutes from start to finish.

Nicole Carroll wrote a great article entitled Getting off the Crack in which she equates sugar to crack, and I really think it is that addictive.  And you know what?  It’s ok to be addicted to sugar! In fact, we have a million years of evolution that has highly specialised your body and taste buds to seek out and crave the stuff, so it should come as no surprise to anyone who finds themselves binging on sugar occasionally, or *cough* more regularly.

As with my reasons for going cold turkey with the sauce above, I have similar issues with sugar.  Not only does it not satisfy me, it doesn’t make be feel good about myself.  Also that’s the whole putting on weight issue that comes with the empty calories with alcohol and chocolate etc brings.  I can tell you know, I weigh more today, on the 1st Jan 2010 than I have for over 2 years, and that’s not good.  I certainly don’t have the abs that Nicole had, but I’ll find those suckers!

3) Give Up Work

I honestly think dealing with (1) and (2) will drastically improve my state of mind and feeling of well being… but why does it need improving?  The honest answer is I’m not currently happy with the way life is panning out.  Yes I have marketable skills and earn a very good salary selling my soul, but there are 2 major problems: 1) It’s desperately dull work and 2) In order to get the best freelance rates for my skills, I have to work away from home, and I miss my family terribly.

There is a solution though and the annoying thing is, I’ve known about it for some time: this wonderful thing called the internet.  Sure everyone things about making money online, but the annoying thing is, I know how to, I just don’t do it.  Let me give you one example: I had an idea 12 months ago, on which I spent 1/2 a day researching it, I paid someone £50 ($75 USD) to do a bit of work for me and spent another 1/2 day getting it up online.  I then left it untouched for 12 months.  To day, that one small and insignificant idea, has made me £250 (about $400 USD).  That’s a 500% return which is completely zero touch and I have no reason to believe that same idea won’t make the same money next year.

Ok that’s small fry, so here’s another example.  2 years ago I setup an eCommerce store selling drop ship items.  My site took the order and some other company delivered that to my client.  In the first month I turned over £15,000 (about $22,000 USD)!  My profit margin was about 20% and I was quite pleased, but for several issues, the most serious of which was a new UK law that made it illegal for most of my target market to buy what I was offering… doh!  And no, it was nothing dodgy, but a fall out of the climate change Kyoto agreement on green house gasses.  Bummer.

My point is, I know how to make money online and I have a list of ideas as long as your arm, ideas are easy to come by.  Even this insignificant blog makes 3 figures a year off the adsense (the Google adverts) from people who are kind enough to click them.  What I lack though is the motivation to implement them.  OR more specifically, when I come home from a job that bores me, with a bottle of wine and a fist full of sugar… motivation is very low to spend more hours sat in front of my laptop on my own in my small room in my digs.  And at the weekend, I want to spend time with my family, not shut up in my study.

So…. I’m giving myself a year to be earning enough online cash to be able to give up work.  Note, I’m not going to try to match my current income from consulting in 12 months, I think that’s unreasonable, but I should be able to get to the point where I’m making a take home profit enough to justify quitting work.  I’m going to define that as £100 per day and because we’re talking about the net, that’s 7 days a week not 5 for an office job, i.e. £36,500 (about $50,000 USD).  Again, I’m not saying I have to have earned that in 12 months, but be earning at that rate per day by 31st Dec.

Now to the hard part, what am I going to do to make this happen?

I’m going to be mean and say: I’ll tell you later!  Due to the length of this post (and the fact it’s nearly midnight), I’m going to split this post into 2.  I will give a detailed explanation of how I’m going to give up work in 12 months in my next post in a few days time.

I hope that 2010 is going to be as exciting for you as it is for me. Don’t forget, if you want to help me out then do so by letting me know that you will hold me to account on these commitments.  Feel free to ask me how I’m doing, on a regular basis.  I will as ever, answer honestly.

I’ve ummed and ahhed about posting this up, but this is my personal blog and somewhere along the line it feels right to use it to get my thoughts in order. Last Friday, I had some very bad news that brought home the fragility of life and made me question everything that I’m doing. To adequately explain it, it needs just a little background:

A couple of years ago, we noticed a lump on my daughters side. It was small, about the size of a pea. After having it checked out by a couple of doctors and getting an ultrasound scan at the hospital, it was diagnosed as a simple fatty lump or cyst and advised to leave it, as it would probably disappear on it’s own.

Fast forward to a few months ago and it had grown to the size of a grape and was caused our daughter some discomfort. She couldn’t sleep on that side and it was catching on things, e.g. her karate belt. So off to the Docs again and with his agreement, we were referred to the hospital for a surgical consult, where it was quickly agreed to remove it. Having my daughter go in for an operation was one of the most traumatic moments of my life, but thankfully, everything turned out fine.

However, when we saw the consultant afterwards, he mentioned that he didn’t really know what the lump was and so had sent it off to the lab. I wasn’t too concerned. Some weeks later however, we got the results: they weren’t sure know what it was either, and it had been sent off to a second lab.

Friday we got the result: rather than the benign cyst we were expecting, they have identified Spindle Cells, which put it into the non-benign tumour category. Now whilst they have rated it as a low malignancy, low metastasis tumour, it’s hard not to use the big C word (though the consultant didn’t). If it’s not benign then it’s malignant, and a “malignant tumour” is the definition of cancer, and that is a word that is going to ruin your day every time.

If you don’t know, malignancy is how virulent it is in terms of it’s tendency to grow and invade neighbouring tissue. It grew from pea size to grape size in 2 years and the consultant said it was “like shelling a pea” in that it was completely self contained and showed no signs of spreading further. Metastasis means how likely it is to have bits break off and travel through the body to appear in other sites, which is usually what kills people.

So, the upshot of all this, is that they want to repeat the excision operation and cut out a bigger chunk of tissue. The purpose of this is to make sure they got it all and it will be rechecked for evidence of more spindle cells. This is happening in a couple of weeks. Having said this, the consultant really wasn’t too worried and said the risks were so low, if we didn’t want to go through with a repeat of the operation, he wouldn’t try to change our mind, as the likelihood was everything was sorted and this was the end of it.

So on the one hand, it’s certainly is pretty bad news. On the other hand, the lump has already been removed and has the lowest risk rating the hospital could give. Hence my title, is this the best, bad news? It’s a tough position to be in, as every operation carries a risk, and I wasn’t planning on repeating the trauma of the last one too soon, if ever! The kid of course is mostly oblivious to all this worry, which I’m trying hard to maintain, but the worst thing of all is the feeling of complete helplessness. It’s the curse of parenthood for sure.

Fingers crossed…

Got some good pictures this week, rather than videos. This first actually happened to me, this week. This is a completely legit and un-doctored screenshot of an email I received. It’s a daily job alert I get, as I like to keep my eye on the market. The keyword for the job search was “Analyst“, here’s what I got:

Oops!! Here a few more classic FAIL pictures:

Obviously, the word they were hoping for was “Angus” there.

Admit it, it’s your worst nightmare.

And in front of the Queen too. He’ll never live it down.

But I’ve saved my favourite for last. This is evolution in action:

As we approach the end of 2009 I’m taken to pondering how I’ve spent this year and whether it’s been a good use of the reducing number of years I have left of life. As my daughter pointed out to me whilst out walking recently, at 37 I’ve most likely lived about half my life already! That’s a sobering thought.

Working away from home and on my own a lot, I get the opportunity to mull over life, the universe and everything. What’s the point? Why am I here? You know, just the trivial stuff! 😉 I have come to the conclusion that there are many potential answers to that question, which are right or wrong for different people, depending on their viewpoint, outlook on life, upbringing, religious beliefs, geographical location, economic position etc. For a career research physicist for example, their life long goal would be to extend the boundaries of human knowledge, and of course become immortal by inventing an anti-gravity car.

For me, I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m probably not going to change the world. I’m not going to be the first astronaut to Mars for example (lol), nor invent something earth shattering, nor create some marvellous work of art or piece of engineering. History will most likely forget pretty quickly that Colin McNulty from Stockport ever existed. As depressing as it sounds, that realisation is fairly liberating in its own way. Many people go through life desperately looking for the great meaning behind it all. Acceptance that there is none, breaks you free from the shackles of needing to satisfy some future purpose, allowing you more brain time to devote to the now. The point is, contrary to Ludwig Wittgenstein (20th Century philosopher) opinion when he said:

“I don’t know why we are here, but I’m pretty sure that it is not in order to enjoy ourselves.”

For my fairly mundane existence, my main goal *is* to enjoy my life. I’m mindful of another quote, this time by Alice Morse Earle in the 1902 book, Sun Dials and Roses of Yesterday:

“The clock is running. Make the most of today. Time waits for no man. Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That’s why it is called the present.”

I don’t have a lot of hobbies or personal goals. Crossfit is making me fitter and stronger; and the Zone Diet is making me healthier; but they are both a means to an end. There are some transient personal goals that can be achieved, trinkets of success if you will, to be collected along the way: weightlifting is one of them. Coming 2nd in the British Masters weightlifting this year was fun and I hope to improve on that next year. The go karting in Cardiff last month was fun too, and my team and I have been invited back to an invitational only “Best of the Best” race in January. A small nugget of imagined (insignificant) success I’m sure. I’ve also started to take up rock climbing, which one day I hope will be a hobby I can share with my daughter. And I’ve read more books this year than I think I have in any other year of my life so far, which can only be a good thing, right?

I do wonder too about our genetic predilection for procreation. I have one marvellous daughter and it occurs to me whether I should have had more offspring? There is indeed some guttural part of my psyche that demands it, in order to further duplicate my genes. The pull of all my ancestors going back a million years, demanding the continuation of our combined genetic line, is a strong biological force.

However this is countered by my belief that the world is already over populated and the human race needs to be breeding less, not more. The world and the resources on it are finite, and yet the world’s population is growing at an ever faster rate. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that this can’t continue. I could pontificate about this ad nauseam, but maybe another day.

Getting back to the point, I’ve had 100% gainful work for all of 2009, something many people would be envious of in these tumultuous times, and I’ve earned a tidy sum by most people’s standards, however I’ve not enjoyed my work. Whilst the project I’m working on had a lot of potential, I’ve been a very small cog in a monstrous government IT machine, that has slowly lurched from… [REDACTED for preservation of income reasons]. It’s ultimately soul destroying, paper pushing work, which does absolutely nothing to further my sense of personal satisfaction or well being. Furthermore, it’s kept me away from my family and my gym for most of the year, which is always a poor outcome.

So I come to the conclusion that 2009 has been a mixed bag. On the one hand I’ve had some new experiences, learnt new skills and have been financially secure. On the other, I’ve missed home and family, and achieved little growth professionally. I have high hopes for 2010 however, and intend on making some significant personal changes in order to facilitate them. Wait for announcements in the traditional form of New Year’s resolutions. This time next Rodney, we’ll be millionaires! 😉

This is very cute:

This is very clever:

And this is very odd, but compelling nevertheless:

I had a great time last week with a team of 4 guys from work, at a team race at Team Sport Karting in Cardiff. It was a 2.5 hour team endurance race, with 10 teams in total and about 50 drivers.

Of course my team won, which is because we were awesome and cos I chose good team mates (I organised my team), but of course that’s not important, it’s the taking part that counts, the fun isn’t in the winning, yada yada yada. 😉 Here’s a photo of the finishing positions, we’re first with the team name “Appeal Pending”! We are 3 laps up on 2nd place, and 16 laps up on 3rd place. Very sweet:

Watch this short video of what happens when some karts come 3 abreast over the bridge and one stacks it into the wall at the top of the ramp. *Ouch* When he comes round the hairpin, you can see him rubbing his side. That’s going to bruise in the morning!

Found some great videos this week you’re really going to like.

You don’t see this in fighting very often, in fact I think I’ve only ever seen something like this once before:

This video I had to watch 3 times, I just couldn’t believe the other 2 presenters in the studio. The woman doesn’t react at all. The guy *thinks* about going to help, then… nah, a quick check his jacket button is done up and down he sits. Unbelievable!

The best video last. In keeping with the TV entertainment theme, keep your eye on the black presenter on the left. The snake expert just cracks up, hilarious:

I hate waking up at 4am! It’s early enough to be too early to get up, but late enough to have provided enough sleep to not be tired enough to get back to sleep. I am quite sure most people think that statement is barking mad, but waking up this early is not uncommon for me, sadly.

I have bought the book “Lights Out” at the weekend, which hopefully will help get more sleep, when I get round to reading it.

I do think my hip is a contributory factor today though. I picked up a niggle at last week’s competition and going indoor rock climbing last night, whilst manageable, hasn’t helped the situation.

Speaking of which, I took a picture of the trophy I got for 3rd place in the comp, let’s see if I can manage to upload it direct from my iPhone (from which I’m writing this post, whilst tucked up in bed!).