So what does this year have in store for me?

So far I have not thought of one bad thing coming up this year.So far we have:-

• We have a new addition to the family coming some time around May
• A trip to Sweden for a few days for the two of us in place of the honeymoon we never went on last year.#
• A change in jobs for myself. Whether that’s a new job within DFID or not I don’t know.
• The last instalment of Battlestar Galactica.

What’s not to look forward to?

Overall the year’s been good but I don’t think I’ve ever had such a rollercoaster of a ride in my life.

February seen the mother of my children & I say ‘I do’ in front of our family and friends in a church. The Old Parish Church in East Kilbride was the only church I would agree to be married in and we managed to have a fun day. Many folk didn’t know quite what to think when the pink hummer turned up with the bridal party in it, but it fitted the day perfectly. And beside we couldn’t fit the bridal party into anything else without breaking the bank for 3-4 cars for them. The night ended with our babysitters backing out at the last minute and my parents taking #2 son for the night leaving us with #1 daughter sharing the bridal suite with us as well as the 8-9 folk that came back for more drinks after the bar shut and everyone else went home. It was a good day.

In April I started my new job at work. With the civil service headcount cuts hitting the service sectors pretty hard we were hit bad. It was something like a 33% job cut across departments from the service staff. So effectively we ended up with something like a 40% cut from our division. After reapplying for my own job as well as several other posts I ended up with nothing. Not even a temporary post to see me through until I could find something else with DFID. Eventually after my line manager pushed for me to be reconsidered I ended up with a 12 month temp post which is almost up and yet again I have nowhere to go.

At the end of May I struggled through a chest infection which wasn’t killed off by the antibiotics I was put on. It eventually spread to the lining of my heart and on the evening of the 3rd June I spent the night in pain. It felt as though someone was sitting on my chest and I struggled to breath. After painkillers I eventually got some sleep but it came back during the bus trip to work. Thankfully/unfortunately the hospital is directly across the road from my workplace so a quick call to my office saying I may be late as i was getting it checked out in A&E was the order of the day. Two hours later I was still in the hospital high on morphine with my ECG results showing a possible minor heart attack. Turns out I had a dose of pericarditis and spent the night in the hospital. It was another 4 months before I was back at work and I’m still feeling the pain at times even now. In fact my echocardiograms and ECG’s have still been coming back with abnormalities.

Apart from a few days last December to London we have never been on holiday as a family. In July we finally managed it when we went to France on a camping trip. Health problems seen us return home a few days early but it was well needed and very much enjoyed by everyone.

In October I got a dose of the flu. you might not think that as being notable but as I had never had my bloods checked after all my problems they ran a full panel of blood tests on me. The results came back with elevated bilirubin levels which couldn’t be explained and so I was off painkillers and alcohol until very recently. Three blood tests later and the results are still elevated but dropping, and all the specific tests and ultrasound haven’t found out what’s wrong. I’m a medical conundrum.

It sounds like I’ve had a bad year but I’d disagree. I’ve enjoyed my year. 

I said it at the beginning of 2008 that I was going to seriously get my head into blogging. I meant it and despite only posting half as many entries in 2008 as I did in 2007 I’ve learned far more than I ever have on the subject.

So with that in mind 2009 is lining up to be a far more productive year. My colleagues at work have finally caught on to what I do during my lunchtimes and whilst some have been really interested others have questioned the point. It’s not as if I’m going to end up with an audience the size of say Perez Hilton or Darren Rowse over at Problogger. That’s not why I do it though. I write because I enjoy writing. I’m completely inept when it comes to written English though despite it technically being my first language. I am gradually getting better though thanks to things like this.

During my years at school I was never encouraged to write. I was told to write but thats an entirely different thing. We had the usual book reviews and structured critiques of plays but we were never encouraged to write for the sake of writing. Actually that’s a complete lie as we had a supply teacher for 3 months that did exactly that but that’s a story for another post. Other than that one teacher the only time we were allowed to just write was when it was short story time and even then we had limitations put on us. No less than 500 words and no more than 800 words put a huge limitation on anyone that wanted to just keep going with a story in their head and no matter what your chosen subject was you had to have a twist. It could be the robber getting away like Robin Hood or the unlucky gambler finally hitting big but you had to have that in. You couldn’t have more than one twist though as that wasn’t allowed and if your story didn’t have any and actually worked without it you were forced to include one or pick another subject to write about.

As the years went on I stuck to my maths, tech drawing and computing and lost almost every skill I ever gained in the English classes. So much so in fact that I had to rely on a girl in class to help me through my final round of English modules before I left school. I did the video production, editing and graphics whilst she did everything else. As it was a group mark we all passed but only just. These days though I have stories running through my heads from all the roleplay campaigns I’ve played in the past as well as those I want to play in the future. I also have the need to write on topics that interest me other than storytelling. Again it’s not my forte but I enjoy it. My wife encourages me and has gave me a huge boost by telling me exactly why she enjoys reading my writing when I put my mind to it. She says it’s like having a conversation with me as I lay things out in exactly the same way as I would when going on at length about something I care about when I talk to her. If just on person other than myself thinks that about something I’ve written then I’ve won a watch.

I don’t write for anyone but myself but I will admit to being a stat junkie but that’s more down to my years of playing computer games and having to get a higher points total than your mate. My wife has a few blogs herself so there’s a constant battle with that side of things. She has more subscribers but I get far more daily viewers… usually.

The only other piece of advice is taken from Wil Wheaton. Don’t be afraid to suck. It’s going to happen and if it does and noone reads what I have to say than so be it. As I’ve said it doesn’t get written for anyone other than myself anyway so if I get it right and people do like it then it’s something to learn from and to try and replicate in future. For every post that I get a new reader from I’ll have ten that will only ever be read by close friends and family so it’s no use it effecting my writing.

That was a bit of an aimless ramble though so I’ll leave it at that and get stuck back into tidying and coming up with a new tructure for my blogs for 2009.

I’ve neglected you for a while but I’ll be back and give you a spring clean soon enough

The reason why I’m here is that I noticed something last night that depressed me slightly. My son is no longer a baby. It’s quite obvious to see that when you look at him but you know what I mean. He’s the biggest in his nursery class despite being the youngest but he’s always been a baby. that was until last night. He’s came on in leaps and bounds since starting nursery but last night was the first time I looked at him and seen a wee boy staring back at me. You could see the intelligence working overtime behind those eyes of his.

I’ve finally got a computer I can turn off and not have to worry about it maybe not turning back on again!

Thanks to my lovely wife I bought one of these a couple of weeks ago.

And it was finally delivered yesterday. No longer do I need to use an old 14″ CRT after my flatscreen blewup. No longer do I need to fight with the on switch to get it to boot up. No longer do I have to fit all my computer time into the space of breakfast and dinner.

The thing is a beast though. Its a mid range version of a mid range model so whilst its got a few bells and whistles they are very basic. Nothing as fancy as Vonnies XPS laptop at any rate despite it having similar specs. What makes it a beast however is that I’ve went from being used to a 13″ laptop to a 17″ widescreen laptop. The keyboards got a bloody number pad its that wide! I don’t actually think it will fit in any of my laptop bags.

Anyway it runs games at higher resolutions and at higher frame rates than my desktop which I’m surprised by but its certainly not something I’m going to complain about. It won’t be running the latest games but anything I have to throw at it just now it will handle with ease.

Now to get a decent mouse for it.

So I’ve been ill. Turns out my fatigue at the weekend wasn’t just the dark mornings messing with my sleep patterns. Going on the doctors views I’ve been hit with a virus as well as my migraines playing up and because of my heart problems I’ve had to give several vails of blood so they can run a full battery of tests just in case theres anything that might act up later on.

Add to this my doc has changed my migraine medication. Part of the symptoms of my normal run of the mill migraine is that I get nausous and lose my appetite and the pills I’ve been on doing well with getting rid of the pain but they’ve been making my stomach problems worse. I’m now on Maxalt which is a gel form pill that melts in your mouth and actually works better if your stomachs empty. As with all these kinds of medication you get the drowsy warning and usually they do make me sleepy. I took one of the new pills this morning and it felt like the world was closing in. It got rid of the migraine almost straight away and everything else seems normal but 30  minutes after taking the pill I started getting tunnel vision. I also started to lose coordination. I’m not the least clumsy person normally but this morning i’ve been misjuging distances left right and centre.

Im sore and tired and I’m going to sleep.

I’m feeling really anxious today and I don’t know why. Over the weekend the dark mornings meant the kids slept longer which in turn meant i got to sleep longer. I think that extra sleep has totally messed with my bodies routine.

So we’ve finally managed to track down my echo results. Apparently they were returned on the 9th September and they’ve been kicking about the system since then. My doc asked for the cardiologist to see me and finish things off which was nice. What wasn’t so nice was that whilst my echo came back as clear for the symptoms of pericardiatis it also showed abnormal septal movement which my doc wasn’t sure he should tell me.

So now I’ve got to wait until the hospital get back with an appointment. This wouldn’t be so bad but the doctor also said that I shouldn’t go anywhere near a gym or do anything more that a brisk walk or swim for exercise. All those nights dancing or playing with the kids in the street apparently weren’t good for me. Who’d have thunk it?