arup’s blog

It’s been more than the usual April showers; I would call it a monsoon. An Italian friend said that they have a saying in Italy that April is a month for sleeping and I certainly have slept more than my usual amount this month. I had noticed that the amount of sleep that I had was getting lower and lower but then suddenly it went up again even interspersed with a few naps.

It seems that the things that have been given the greatest focus this month have been the hackintosh project and the process of de-cluttering. Simmering away in the background has also been what to do about my studies. I wasn’t really sure at which point in the year I was going to do the hackintosh project and whether I was going to do it at all given the initial costings but once I had discovered that I could do it for much cheaper than I had anticipated my enthusiasm just took over. It’s all done now and I’m using it as my main computer, which was always the plan. But what then happens to the other computers?

I’ve been getting rid of many items through Freecycle this month. One item a week sort of thing. It’s brought a real sense of relief each time. It’s made me believe that this goal of de-cluttering is actually possible. As well as Freecycling items I’ve also been selling some things on Ebay. More space physically and mentally. And the more I discard the more I can see that could be discarded.

Cycling 120 miles per week

April showers. They’ve been quite heavy interspersed with hail and sunny periods. Not the best weather for riding a bicycle so I’ve been getting a bit soaked. In spite of the change in the week which meant a reduction in the amount of commuting mileage the average weekly mileage is still around the 80 mile mark. Due to the rain cycling has been quite hard going and less enjoyable than usual. More cars and less energy. Not nice.

Yoga

I can recall only one session using the Pomodoro technique but other than that I don’t think that I did any yoga this month outside of teaching. I’m slightly disappointed at this because I did fare a lot better last month but I’m sure that I will find that urge again.

Friends

This week a friend that I hadn’t seen in a long while was in town and got in touch. We met for a coffee and took a walk around central London. Got caught in the April showers. I also caught up with a couple of other friends on Skype.

During the 2nd week of the month from the 15th onwards there was a good deal of social activity with four meetings with friends in a row. Quite a contrast to my usual week and rather enjoyable.

De-clutter

It’s just the start of the month and I’ve got rid of a couple of things using Freecycle. It’s a scheme that I haven’t used in a long time but how nice to be able to look at something that you want to chuck but that could still be used. You post a message in the Freecycle group and someone comes to collect it the very next day. You know that it’s not worth trying to sell it but you don’t want to just chuck it out either. End result: I’ve de-cluttered a bit more.

End of the 2nd week and I’ve got rid of a couple more things via Freecycle and have listed a few items on ebay. More stuff is coming in though. Yes indeed, especially with the new hackintosh project. I’m planning to get shot of the other computers once the hackintosh is complete and I feel that I can trust it.

This week, the week ending the 21st of April I saw an ad in Freecycle Lewisham for someone wanting a bass guitar and amp. They said that they were very interested in playing the bass and wondered if anyone could help. They said that they were in their twenties. It took me back to when I was that age and all I really cared about was playing the bass. I thought that perhaps they might be of the same mind. I decided to give it to them along with the gig bag, a strap, a lead and a selection of tutor books. Now that is some major decluttering and my stuff going where it might actually get used. Did feel weird at first but now it feels good.

I got shot of a chest of drawers that I’ve been wanting to discard for more than a year along with my old xbox which no longer works. I also managed to get shot of an old Dell PC that had been knocking around for a while with a faulty power supply. As I’ve mentioned above, the more that I discard or sell the more I notice that could be or should be discarded or sold. There is so much that never gets used. I’m keen to take this goal to its logical conclusion: to a point where I only own items that I love or use.

Java programming

The SaaS course that I was doing online with Berkeley university has now finished but I didn’t manage to cover all the material. But during one of the lectures I got onto the idea of learning the fundamentals of programming as opposed to learning a language per se. Learning a programming language tends to lock you into its own syntax and makes you think that it is the only way of doing things so I think that by learning other languages even on a cursory level give you a bigger perspective and show you that the language is just another tool rather than an end in itself. As a beginner it is hard to see beyond the language and its syntax. So I’m going back to Java programming after a brief stint with Ruby and will try my hand at Scheme to work my way through CS61A which is more about programming itself rather than any particular language.

Both the CS61A and CS61B courses are availble online from Berkeley with a full set of lectures on YouTube. They also provide extensive course notes. No excuse really for someone who is interested in this material.

I’ve started working through the “How to Program” book by Deitel and Deitel. I’m just at the end of Chapter 2 and have been working through the exercises at the end. All I can say is that I wish that I had started on this book earlier, so I’m going to keep going with it. I’m also going to stay with CS61B which is the Java programming course but oriented around data structures. As I said, I may not make a career out of this but I am enjoying it so I’ll keep going.

The studying has been the topic of much reflection and also guilt about wasted time that could have been spent studying. Lots of doubts arising as to whether it’s worth doing. But as I’ve stated already, the goal is more about following my passion and the career path is a secondary one.

Reading a book a month

Just finished another Lee Child novel from the Jack Reacher series called “Bad Luck and Trouble”. Very easy reading and fast paced. Sometimes I try to be a bit too high brow and find it all a bit hard going. It’s even hard to admit that but that’s just how it is. I had to give up on the Idiot by Dostoyevsky for that reason. About halfway through the book all the characters take a trip to their country residence and essentially get together and have long conversations which seem to make the story stagnate. Perhaps I’ll get back to it at some point.

I’ve started Madame Bovary on the Kindle and I’ve been reading War or the Worlds on the iPad as part of my speed reading exercises. I have also been reading plenty of technical material with regard to programming and building a Hackintosh but I wouldn’t call these novels.

Reading day

Had my reading day on Wednesday 11th and it went really well I thought. First off I didn’t make a big deal out of it as I’ve done in the past which meant that I was overly scrutinising how each minute of the day was progressing.I didn’t put any pressure upon myself to do any actual reading but did actually feel an attraction to reading. I did my speed reading exercises and I read in the garden while the sunshine lasted. I also did a bit of studying and enjoyed that very much too. I also took a long bath where I fell asleep briefly to the sounds of a lecture from the CS61B lectures. I also watched a movie in the evening. So all in all a good day off feeling engaged with everything that I did and got a lot of relaxed reading done. Roll on the next Reading Day.

Regular cycle rides

Haven’t been on any cycle rides this month aside from commuting. I can blame the weather and leave it at that for now.

Healthy nutrition

The porridge soup diet as I’ve been calling it. Every evening (well, most evenings) I make a vegetable soup with a dash of porridge. This started just before xmas and I’ve continued ever since. I’ve lost about 6kg in weight and have had a few lapses but in general I’ve been sticking to it and enjoying it too. This month I’ve been particularly good. I’ve eaten out with friends a couple of times but that’s all.

Speed reading

I’m still doing the exercises with QuickReader on the iPad and get the impression that my reading speed is improving, but when I doing speed test it doesn’t look as though I have improved much. It is getting me to read though and that is the main thing for now.

Blogging

Using svn and vim have allowed me to gradually build blog ideas and access them from any computer. As well as helping me to build on my svn and vim skills I can get to work on ideas and keep track of things that I’d like to article and recall at a later date. It’s still not quite as active as I’d like but certainly a lot more active that it has been in previous years.

Blog revamp

I kept rescheduling the reminder about this project till I got to the end of the month and then it was too late to do anything about it. A bit like procrastinating till the end of the day.

Build a Hackintosh

The hackintosh build is under way. Bought a 2nd hand Dell Optiplex 755 which has Intel Core 2 duo which should work with Lion. No point being stuck with Snow Leopard even though it’s more advanced than the one that I have right now. But now that I have a fairly stable system where everything works I don’t really want to risk breaking anything by going to Lion. I do have a clone of my system though so may give it a shot at some point. I’m in the process of writing a fuller account of my experience of building my first hackintosh and perhaps will install Lion when it comes to building a more custom one.

It’s now the 24th of April and my hackintosh is more or less done. I’m writing a separate post to cover the full details of the project but it’s up and running and I can work on it. I’ll continue to use it for a short while longer till I feel confident that it will remain stable and then get rid of my G5.

Start straight shaving

I’ve been reading about honing and stropping straight razors and don’t want to just jump into this without a good overview.

Go for a proper bike fitting

I’m finally booked in with the Bike Whisperer for the end of May. I’m really looking forward to it and I’m so glad that I took the plunge and just did it. I asked if I should get new cycling shoes before my fitting session and they said that I should but not so for the saddle. That should wait. I don’t think that I will get new shoes as I do like the (Sidi Dominator) ones that I have. So I’ll just look into getting them repaired such as getting new velcro fitted by a shoe repair shop and probably getting some new insoles.

Get divorced

Haven’t even thought about this one this month.

It’s the first of March and I’ve starting setting up the report template for this month. That makes me feel on top of things.

Even though I say that I feel on top of things it has taken a lot of hard work and clear thinking to reach that state. I’ve had lots of orders coming in both from my wheel building business and from my web building business. On top of that I’ve been trying to study Software as a Service from Berkeley University. Obviously the study had to be a little bit sidelined due to the work deadlines as the customer must always come first. I also mustn’t complain that I have a lot of work coming in during this global recession. But I have had to change a few things. See my post about rescheduling my week for a more thorough working of what I did. It really has been quite juggling act but I am continuing to keep moving forward and it is the evidence of that fact which makes me feel on top.

Now at the end of the month even though I didn’t or wasn’t able to immerse myself in my course as much as I would have liked I have thought a lot about how I can make progress and have decided to continue with the material even though the course has now finished. In the final week of March the sun has come out at long last after a weary winter and I’ve also got a cold. It was bad for a first couple of days which allowed me to put everything to one side and rest. Life is starting to feel good again.

Cycling 120 miles per week

The end of the last week of feb and the first of March and my total mileage is 118. How infuriating. I will have to go for a spin around the block tomorrow just to get to that 120 mile target. The weather is just starting to get nice so I need to book that ride or it’s not going to happen.

On the week ending the 17th of March I have completed 110 miles. That’s not bad considering that I haven’t had a trip up to Walthamstow. But as my week is about to change from next week my regular mileage is about to drop severely. It’s a sacrifice that I have to make if I want to give this programming thing a real shot.

Yoga

I keep setting a reminder to have a personal yoga session on the days that I don’t teach but it has rarely happened. Last month it did happen but not this month. I’ve discovered yet another time management technique called Time Boxing and one called the Pomodoro technique both of which involve the use of a countdown timer. The idea is that you focus on a given task inside that time window so when my next scheduled personal yoga slot comes up which will be the very last day of March I will give it a shot.

Friends

Although I haven’t specifically focused on friends I have been engaged in friend oriented activities. I have been chatting to friends on Skype, meeting friends for drinks and have been working on a plan to see who should stay and who should go. It’s something that I was planning to do last year but never did. I’ve got a big list of people I with whom I would like to stay in contact. I then go through this list and see which ones are really meaningful connections. I’ve been feeling as though I’ve been making all of the effort so stepping back from chasing people up has shown which of my friends will chase back when I don’t do it. It’s been in interesting to say the least. My plan is to make more of an effort with those that matter and less of an effort (or even no effort at all) with those that don’t.

I’ve decided to quit Facebook. Having been off the site for a few weeks I noticed that one or two people did get in touch by other means wondering why I hadn’t been on as I had been so active previously. I have been busy working and studying but I also wanted to see what would happen. Would the world collapse? Would there be earthquakes in London and hurricanes? Out of my so called ‘friends’ only a handful showed any concern. OK, so I’m not under any illusions here, I know that the bulk of those ‘friends’ aren’t real friends but some of them I do consider real friends and wondered why they hadn’t got in touch. Perhaps it was the same for them too. But it made me realise that if I’m not going to be active then I need to quit so that people don’t think that I’m or will be around. Some friends did suggest just being on infrequently but I don’t think that would work for me in practice. I’ve put a notice saying that in two weeks from the date of the notice I will be deleting my account – no, not simply being a de-activated account but completely deleting all of my data. Again, only a handful of people responded to this, so I know who should go on my list but to the rest it’s goodbye or hello again on Skype, Twitter or G+.

De-clutter

In the room where I spend most of the time in my flat is what I call the sitting room which is designed as a dining as it’s right next to the kitchen. I chose to use this one as my main room because of the proximity to the kitchen, its view onto the garden and it being South facing. The actual living room is larger but faces North. This one is smaller but has a much nicer feel about it. I have been focusing on this space in particular as a starting point for de-cluttering. Yesterday, with the help of a friend I fitted a new wooden venetian blind in a light wood colour. It really enhances the look of the room but is also very practical as the sun (when it’s sunny) comes directly through the window. With the previous roller blind it was either open or closed but I will be able to tilt and have it bright without being blinded. I took this opportunity to clear stuff out of the room. I unplugged my Focusrite Twin Trak Pro voice channel which was in a path between the source and the speakers. It was becoming rather crackly and generally quite annoying. Now the signal goes directly from the input selector to the (powered) monitors. But cleaner and louder. The sound isn’t being monitored for mixing or recording purposes so whether the cable is balanced or unbalanced, consumer or professional doesn’t matter in the least. One less item on the desk.

Java programming

This month so far has been all about Ruby. Rails is also on the table. I’ve been doing a online course with Berkeley called Software as a Service. It covers three areas which are Cloud Computing, Agile programming and SaaS. Most of it is kind of revision as I’ve done the whole Rails thing before. But I didn’t really understand it much then and only understand it a little bit better now that I’ve done some Java. There is a lot of material and I think that when the course is over which is only another 2 weeks or so I will continue with the material and then go back to Java.

What I’m coming to realise is that I need to understand programming itself rather than focusing on a language per se. In one of the lectures there was a mention of a course called CS61A also from Berkeley which covers just that. I’ve found that the course materials and lectures are available online perhaps that is what I really need to really get underneath all of these things.

Reading a book a month

I started reading the Idiot by Dostoyevsky in January and got quite far into it and then stopped. I found it hard to get back in and felt that I had to finish that book before I could get into another one so I have just stopped reading essentially. Work has been taking up a lot of time as well but that’s not really the reason. To get myself to read something rather than nothing I’ve started another Lee Child novel. I converted it to ePub format using Calibre so that I can use it with the speed reading app Quickreader on the iPad. Having said that I haven’t been reading I have actually read a couple of short books as part of my speed reading exercises.

Reading day

It’s already the 21th of March and I haven’t yet scheduled a reading day.I don’t think that I will somehow as there is so much to do what with the course and the website work that I’m not sure that I can justify a whole day off. But then the question arises that if I’m busy then perhaps I need one? So I can’t realistically see a clear day over the next 10 days or so when I can put everything to one side and just read. Guess I’ll just have to plan ahead to April then.

Regular cycle rides

The sun has just come out and it’s great to be out there riding but I really wish that it wasn’t commuting but in order to experience that freedom I need to go quite far away and that means time. With the changes in my weekly schedule my regular mileage has more than halved. Well, having said that it is perhaps two thirds of what it was because I hardly ever reached my quota anyway so I need that trip down to Kent or Richmond Park or whatever. I know I’ve joined Audax but I can’t really see that happening without some major planning.

Healthy nutrition

I’ve sort of been sticking to my pre-christmas diet of very low saturated fat and with porridge for snacks and vegetable soups for dinner, but the junk has been creeping back in. The rationale has been that the level of cholesterol should have gone down by now and that I’m allowed a certain amount each day (20g I think) so I should live a little as well. I love junk food, I can’t deny that but I was on a roll here it would be a real shame to go back to eating whole packs of biscuits with a cup of tea etc. I still plan to sign up with the Food Doctor at some point but who knows when.

Speed reading

So far I’ve been making good progress with the speed reading just by making a schedule. I’ve also managed to read a few short books just as reading exercises. The instructions suggest that it would be better to have more short sessions rather than to have fewer longer ones. Now that I’ve got a regular weekly session going I think that I’ll stick with that for this month and then look at building it further next month.

Blogging

I’m blogging again so pat on the back for me. Yes, more than the monthly report. I write about stuff that matters and I don’t care if anyone reads it or not. It’s for me. Writing the post helps me to focus and whether someone else reads it or whether I read it again doesn’t matter too much.

Blog revamp

I have thought about this one on and off and there is a reminder set (to remind me) that I will need to work on this at some point but at the moment it’s not a priority.

Build a Hackintosh

The Hackintosh is back on the cards again. While I was updating another part of this file and also after reading through the year plan for 2012 I noticed the part about building a Hackintosh. I did a few searches and suddenly I was into it again. What put me off initially was the cost because I was trying to get the equivalent of the current Mac Pro that is available at the Apple Store. But for my requirements something of a much lower spec would do just fine. I’ve been using my PC more than I PPC mac lately mainly due to the SSD. It has shown me how speed is an important factor. I’ve even taken some of the ram that I bought specifically for the Mac and put it into the PC. The plan was that this would be an experimental machine and one for doing Android development because the tools required an Intel processor. But as it’s faster and quiter than the my Mac G5 I tend to use it more often. The Mac still has all of the main files so I need it for admin and actual work but for general day to day stuff I use the PC. The screen and colours are not quite as nice and some of the features are of OSX are definitely lacking so I’m earning for a Mac that would be as fast as this PC.

What I need to do then is to combine these two worlds. I want to have a Mac OSX machine that is as fast as this PC running Windows XP. I don’t do any serious photo editing, video or music so highly specced machines are not really required. What I found to my surprise was that people were running Mac OSX Snow Leopard using the very same hardware that I’ve been using to run my XP setup! It doesn’t have a core 2 or duo processor which is required for Lion and as the Mac OS’s move so fast I don’t want to be stuck with Snow Leopard as the one after that, Mountain Lion is coming out any minute now. If I get a year or two out if it that’s fine. There will be some costs incurred such as a 2nd hand computer, the retail OSX install software and some hard disks and ram, but it will be only about a third of what I had originally calculated for building a Mac Pro clone from scratch using top notch parts. I can recoup some of the money by selling my G5 but not before my new Hackintosh has been tried and tested. Oh yeah, we’re on. I’ve already bought the computer – a Dell Optiplex 755. Fingers crossed.

Start straight shaving

I did think about this one a lot but didn’t get round to doing much research. The main reason is that I think it’s all a bit expensive. I know that I will have to learn the technique and that will take time but the holy grail of the BBS shave awaits. I have been shaving only once or twice a week with a combination of shavette and DE razor. It’s acceptable and can be fairly smooth at times but the fact that I’m only doing it once a week most weeks shows that the value of shaving has lessened in importance in my life and what did develop into a male pampering session has become a chore again. I want to get back to where I left off when I initially bought all the DE shaving kit by getting the straight shaving kit but don’t want to just end up here again. Actually, come to think of it, compared to what I’ve been spending on the hackintosh project I could easily get everything I need to start straight shaving. Just procrastination and indecision on my part really.

Go for a proper bike fitting

I was recently giving someone some advice about cycling shoes and suggested that if they had the time and the money that they should go for a shoe fitting first. I need new shoes myself as the velcro is getting a bit worn and wondering if I should get the same model and brand again. I had a look at the website for the bike fitters that I’m considering and the price for a fitting session was quite a bit higher than the one that I had in mind, which of course makes me want to think about it some more and just wait a bit.

But how long should I wait? I need to get a new saddle, I need to get new shoes at some point and generally get the bike tweaked so that I know that it is set up as well as it can be and then I’m ready to ride longer distances. The weather is getting warmer and even though I’ve set up my week for studying, at some point I will just get out there and ride. Hopefully I’ll make an appointment for next month then.

Get divorced

Didn’t really think much about this one during March.

I’ve rescheduled my week. I’ve grouped together the days that I teach yoga and moved my day of building wheels at Racer Rosa from Wednesday to Sunday. It may seem like a small change but it has made me relax and will actually be a significant change to the way that I do things in general.

So far this year (2012) I have had my week much the same as it has been during the past year and that was fine as I was used to it but since my course began with Berkeley I suddenly found that I had hardly any time. I wanted to give as much time as I could to it but having taken on lots of wheel orders and a couple of website projects I just couldn’t see how I could go on without having to drop something.

I had been vaguely thinking about certain changes but hadn’t really thought about my week as a whole until I explained my situation to a friend who immediately saw where the time was getting eaten up. It was the wheels. I love to do the wheel work and fail to see that it is quite a lot of work for very little money. This doesn’t bother me too much. But for someone who doesn’t understand that love of the craft it was easy to see that I was wasting my time especially when I needed to direct it toward a new love. I was telling her that I was planning to go to Racer Rosa to build wheels for a whole day with 3 hours commuting time and in the same breath I was complaining about having little time to study. It was obvious when she reflected it back to me.

It also occurred to me how to go about re-arranging my week so that I can group my activities together and have longer periods or even whole days doing the same thing.

What I’ve changed

I’ve put a notice on my wheel site that I’m no longer doing repairs to damaged wheels and have told Diego (at Racer Rosa Bicycles) that I will go there on Sundays. I’m already in town on Sundays so I can go up to Walthamstow in the afternoon and then have the Wednesday free. I’ve also asked Alice (my Monday evening private yoga client) to move to Tuesday, which she can do so that I have two classes on the same day rather than split up. It will mean a big gap of 3 and a half hours on Tuesday afternoons but that I will mean that I have the whole day on Monday. It means that I will have only three days a week when I need to commute into town. I can go for proper cycle rides rather than getting mileage by commuting.

The main changes will be that the week will be less scattered. My initial idea was to drop a yoga class in order to gain the extra time but that would have meant a big loss in income. But instead I have lost some mileage. If I use only commuting mileage then it will be halved but at least I will keep my regular income. I have become very fed up with teaching yoga but it pays the most for the least amount of work as opposed to building wheels. Now, rather than doing a bit of everything each day I will do one or perhaps two main things and hopefully stay focused on that thing.