Dinosaurs – the source of geeky pleasure for a great many children and my sons are no exception. Eldest has unwaveringly wanted to be a paleontologist ever since he first watched Walking With Dinosaurs five years ago, and dinosaurs are youngest’s topic at school this term. Plus, if I’m honest, I never really grew out of my own dino-nerdery.

So to celebrate the first day of half term, we hunted down a dinosaur exhibition at Bristol City Museum – the only source of dinosaurs I could find with bank holiday opening hours and not cripplingly expensive. In fact, it was free entry – result!

There were also lots of other exciting things to see, including an Egyptian life and death exhibition (which eldest and me loved, but youngest was a bit spooked by) and lots of taxidermy animals (which both boys loved but creeped me out a lot).

Sadly, most of my photos didn’t come out well – the perils of low light photography where the flash is prohibited. But what I did get, you can see in the slideshow below:

It’s been an odd week. Half the household has been abroad and with the resulting extra chores, life stuff and apathy most of my projects have been severely neglected as a result.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Discussed in more detail in yesterday’s post. I’ve done very little editing this week.

Reading “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Verbal Self-defense” by Lillian Glass

This has turned out to be a huge disappointment and doesn’t live up to the promise of the blurb or the opening chapters at all.

The writing style often becomes hectoring and assumes that you are completely incompetent in every conversational scenario, not just coming across a couple of difficult people you need help to manage. There are some good tips, but you have to wade through an awful lot of fluff to find them.

The advice given in the majority of sections is vague enough to unhelpful at best and downright dangerous at worst, particularly in the scenarios where you could put yourself physically at risk – many of the tips here are contrary to the advice I’ve seen elsewhere and may make the situation much worse.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg

I am continuing to focus on the beginner routines. They must be doing something, because I’ve felt really stiff this week, particularly in neck, shoulders, knees and ankles. Still taking extreme care and keeping reps low.

Geek

Current obsession: old episodes of Grey’s Anatomy.

Also have been sharing funny YouTube clips with my ten-year-old. His current favourite:

My current favourite:

I hope you had a great week!

As most of you probably already know, today is Towel Day and in honour of the great Douglas Adams, I have selflessly wandered the web to find you some suitably time-wasting links.

I’ve always thought that the iPad is clearly the forerunner of a true Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy and this Don’t Panic wallpaper is just what you need to help defend yourself from Vogon demolition.

Of course, as a proper hoopy frood, you’ll know that Towel Day is incomplete without an actual towel. There are loads of HHGTTG themed towels out there, but I feel that’s a little too obvious. How about this super Space Invaders bath towel instead? I’m sure Ford Prefect would have approved.

And if you’re killing time squelching in the mud in front of a bulldozer, you can do a lot worse than play one of the two illustrated versions of the classic adventure game courtesy of the BBC.

Happy now? Good. We’ll move on now and completely avoid mentioning that god-awful film.

… like you’ve never heard them before:

It’s been a much better week. I’m feeling much more well-rested and interested in projects again, which is a great sign.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

It’s been a difficult writing week. I’m struggling with the current scene – it was originally part of the previous scene and needed heavy structural reshaping. Then my characters wouldn’t play ball and each little part I fixed seemed to break something. However, in the last couple of days I seem to have made a breakthrough and it’s all coming together now.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

Still reading this! The underlying story is good, but I find him a very dense writer and I have to pay lots of attention to follow the plot. Not always good for bedtime reading when feeling a little sleepy!

“The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Verbal Self-defense” by Lillian Glass

I’ve chosen a non-fiction book to alternate with “Accelerando” and this was a great choice. It takes a look at speech patterns/situational awareness/body language to give you cues on when you’re ‘under attack’ and how to most effectively defend yourself in those situations. It blends quite nicely with the situational awareness I’m learning for Krav – being able to use verbal early warning signs is an essential skill and good to have in the self-defense tool-kit.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg

I’ve been looking at the final move in my arsenal of basic kettlebell exercises, the military press:

I’m now focusing on three different beginner routines with different emphases: cardio fitness, body shaping and power/strength. I’m keeping the reps small (only half the recommended, this week) to make sure my form is correct while I’m learning the routine and not going to do myself any damage.

Geek

I’m feeling decidedly (and shockingly) ungeeky recently. Probably because I’m between games and I’ve been too tired/busy to find anything else that holds my interest.

So what are you playing? Anything you’d recommend?

Apparently, today is the 150th anniversary of colour photography:

It’s just a picture of a tartan ribbon and may seem unremarkable, yet it marks a crucial moment in the development of colour photography and forms the basis of the photographs we take today.

The photograph was first seen at King’s College London during a Royal Institution lecture on colour theory by the Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell on the 17 May 1861 and the college is marking the 150th anniversary of that demonstration with an evening of talks celebrating his scientific discoveries.

The first permanent colour photograph was taken by Thomas Sutton who was working with Clerk Maxwell and is a composite of three black and white pictures, each one taken through a red, green or blue filter. The resulting slides were then projected through three similarly filtered lenses resulting in a colour photograph

The technology has come on a little way since then. Perhaps we should all dig our cameras out this evening in commemoration. I wonder if I have any tartan ribbon knocking about…

These weekly posts are always so much easier to write when the week has gone well. Unlike this one. I’m still battling low energy and apathy, although I’ve felt a bit brighter in the last couple of days.

Writer

Writing 23 (out of 66) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Managed to put in some good effort on the latest scene, but annoyingly found that it needed to be split into two separate ones – the goalposts have moved back a little further.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

Have neglected reading along with everything else.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg
Deadlifts: 10
Two-arm swings: 15
Left-arm swings: 15
Right-arm swings: 15
Alternating swings: 10
Turkish Get Up: 1
Squats: 10
Clean: 10

Same place as I was last week. Maintaining rather than progressing.

Geek

The high point in the week was meeting up with the Worcester Flickr Group at menickstephensorg‘s garage studio. I’m very rusty with my camera (I’ve got into point/shoot/fix later bad habits) but it was great to experiment with different lighting and have fun in the process.

I’m posting this in particular for my audioboo friends – we’ve been having a discussion about kids, the internet and how much supervision/freedom is appropriate for their age.

This talk by Cory Doctorow regarding social media and privacy is very relevant to that conversation and is also bloody good. Highly recommended!

Merlin Mann’s talk from Webstock 2011. It’s a long video, but worth investing the time to watch it.

It particularly resonates with me, as fear and anxiety seem to be a near constant theme in my life recently. It’s a good reminder that a lot of excellent people who have achieved amazing things also get scared shitless.

So, feel the fear and watch it anyway:

It’s been a busy week, not helped by server outages, power cuts, 10-year-old birthday parties, and my own lack of willpower.

Writer

Writing 22 (out of 65) scenes complete – structural/continuity revision

Now over a third of the way through the first round of edits. Depressingly, it was a year ago today that I finished the first draft and it feels like I should be further along by now. I’m also suffering a crisis of confidence that I don’t really have the skill to pull this story off. Meh.

It hasn’t helped that I’ve been very bad at getting started this week, to the extent I’m now actively looking for ways of banning myself from the more addictive areas of the internet during working hours.

Reading “Accelerando” by Charles Stross

I’m sure I’m missing half the references in this book – and I thought I was quite technologically aware and geeky. Still, the world building and description is fabulous.

Fighter

Kettlebell: 8kg
Deadlifts: 10
Two-arm swings: 15
Left-arm swings: 15
Right-arm swings: 15
Alternating swings: 10
Turkish Get Up: 1
Squats: 10
Clean: 10

Ticking over. Again, procrastination has badly hit the amount of training I’ve done this week. Hopefully, I’ll get back on track next week.

Geek

LeechBlock – a handy little Firefox plugin that blocks websites you specify either by specific time period, time spent per hour, or both. There are also multiple ways you can ban yourself from accessing the plugin to avoid cheating, too. Guess what I’ll be using next week.

I know it’s not been long since we’ve moved house, but am rather won-over by the first zombie-proof house. Do you think they’d accept part-exchange?