My life diary

2009-09-10T01:13:00.001+01:00

test

Just testing

2009-08-09T16:40:00.000+01:00

Just testing to see if this works
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

A musing on writing

2009-08-09T02:26:00.001+01:00

Often I want to write but don't really know what to write about. Well, the answer to that is easy. Why don't I write about the fact I can't think of anything to write?

Writing can be both the easiest and the hardest thing to do. The actual act of writing is often the easy part of the job. Choosing a subject can be difficult to say the least. You may be lucky and have a commission to write about a subject in a certain style and from a specific point of view. Often, though, all you have is a blank sheet of paper and no idea of a subject. this is the situation I find myself in at this moment in time. I have decided to actually write about this.

If you find yourself in this same situation, why not write about it? Who knows, you may get an article out of it!

Another method I use is so-called "free form" writing. This is where I simply start writing with no idea what you are going to write about. Often all you get is pure nonsense but sometimes this may gel into the beginnings of something more substantial. I haven't actually used this method for many years now, but I have had short stories, the odd poem and even an essay for my English o-level course!!

Whatever method you choose, the key is to relax and free your mind from the self-imposed restrictions of spelling, grammar and the need to actually make sense. All this can be put in later on in a re-write. For the 1st draft simply allow your imagination to run riot and see what you get.

Alll these thoughts are my own thoughts on the subject of writing, you may have your own methods. However you choose to write, enjoy what you do and don't worry too much about your output, just jam and improvise, you can always polish it up later.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless device

Success!!

2009-04-07T02:28:00.003+01:00

My best shot so far

A busy year ahead

2009-04-07T01:55:00.003+01:00

It is the chinese year of the Ox. This means that hard work and honesty will pay off in the end. It won't be an easy year but if you keep your nose to the grindstone and don't try to cheat then you will benefit in the long run!!

I have a few unfinished projects I wish to complete this year. The first is to get my comptia A+ certificate and complete my microsoft mcp exams. I'm not sure that I will acheive all this before the end of thecourse in September but I will have a damn good try!

After that I have decided to finish something I began in 1982 and promptly abandoned a year later, namely to gain my amateur radio licence. A lot has changed since I first attempted this and I am bringing myself up to speed slowly but surely in this subject.

I also wish to regain the fitness level I seem to have lost in the 15 months since I returned to lorry driving. Lorry driving is not a very healthy profession in which to work. A long time each shift is spent motionless in the driving seat hunched over a steering wheel. Even loading and unloadng is often nowadays performed by warehouse staff and involves little or no involvement by myself. Normally I spend this time sitting in my cab "twittering" on my mobile phone. so, long dog walks are the order of the day.

Now the summer is fast approaching, I hope to be able to get out and about with my new camera. I will post the results on my Flickr page, just click here to see the page or click on the links to the right of this column

My Illustrous golf career so far!!

2009-03-27T06:45:00.005Z

On nokia n gage pro series golf

It can only get better!!

A ramble

2009-03-21T14:49:00.003Z

Do I really have to write meaningful posts for this blog? Can't I just write a stream of drivel and get away with it. I mean, I don't think in a coordinated, organised manner so why should my blog be any different. Twitter works on this level. How many times have you logged on to twitter and wondered what on earth people are rambling on about?

Perhaps I should just publish some of my diary rants on here for the world to see. Wonder If that would work.

Mothers day

2009-03-19T23:18:00.002Z

Hey everyone. Don't forget it's Mother's day this coming Sunday!! I've just ordered my Mum some flowers to be delivered as I am working this Sunday so won't be able to go see her.

QR code

2009-02-24T04:54:00.003Z

Got a barcode reader on your mobile phone?

If you have scan this is. I've made a little message for you :-)

Who do I choose to be?

2009-02-18T10:29:00.002Z

Akemi Gaines asks on her blog "if you could start your life anew today, who do you choose to be?"

After the initial reaction to this along the lines of "multi millionaire" or "successful businessman". I’ve started to actually think about this question and I realise just how deep a question it is!
Well, for a start, I would like to free of all the bills and financial commitments that life in this society burdens us all with. I would like to be free. Free to do what I please and free to live my life in a manner that benefits people and society as a whole. I would like to go around teaching people how to live fuller lives.

I guess I need to start living a fuller life myself. The million-dollar question is how to begin. How do I free myself from the shackles of this world without making myself dependent on others for my survival? This is the hurdle that most people fall on. It’s one thing to quit your job and drop out of society but eventually you will need to eat and find shelter, this means needing money which, in turn means having to work to earn money.

The key is not to drop out totally but to find ways of maintaining an income by doing things you love rather than slaving away in a job you hate.

I am currently in a job I can just about tolerate, but the hours are brutal to me. I find that most people at work don’t understand what I am moaning about, but working nights and most weekends, time I would rather be spending with my family, is wearing me down. Still, I have to be strong. Another 12 to 18 months of this and I will be completely debt free and able to actively seek a lifestyle more in keeping with my life purpose. In the meantime I can work on strategies and ideas that will help me achieve this goal. I am studying for some I.T. qualifications, I won’t finish the course in the allotted time but that is not really as important to me as the knowledge I will learn from the course materials.

I am also trying to find my writing voice. This is a voice I lost in my teens when I stopped being creative and started on my journey in the material, adult world. It has taken me nearly 30 years, but I have realised that the material world is not a world I am happy to live in. At the moment my writing voice feels awkward and stuttery. I know that I need to write my way out of this mental block so this blog is sort of like my testing ground for finding my writing voice. I have even started writing fiction!! This is something I haven’t done in any serious way since I was 15!! (1980 if you are curious). I am very excited by what is forming in my imagination and am only frustrated by my lack of ability to get it out and onto paper before it disappears into the ether!!.

Anyway I have strayed from the original focus to this blog post which is the question Akemi Gaines set. Who would I choose to be? Well I would choose to be a better, stronger version of ME I guess. A version who is not afraid of taking risks. A version who doesn’t worry what other people think about me. A version who will spread love and kindness in the world and show people that it is possible to live an honest, caring life and still be a strong, ambitious person.

Change is coming

2009-02-09T22:43:00.001Z

Why do I get the feeling that something important is about to happen to me in my life? I can’t explain it any better than that. I feel that all the things I have been thinking about and researching over the last 6 or 7 months are about to happen.

All this self-analysis may be beginning to bear fruit. I have started writing after a gap of roughly 25 years. Ok so this isn’t going to land me a multi-million pound writing deal, but hey, it’s a start!!

I am beginning to define my other passions in my life. Aside from my family, they are mostly to do with computers and the Internet. I also have a long held ambition to be a radio ham and to learn to design and construct my own electronic projects. This is something I have wanted to do since I was a teenager but have never known how to go about learning the skills necessary to do this. Until now.

A recurring dream in my life has been to be able to work from home. I remember when I first encountered the internet that I thought "one day I will be making money off this" it’s taken a long time but now I am beginning to get ideas on how to do this.

Perhaps I can make my money from writing about my interests, I need to get really knowledgeable about them.

First of all I need to define what exactly my interests are!!

Ok, writing is one interest. I want to create original stories and articles.
PC building, upgrading and repair. I am working towards qualifications to help me do this. I need to pull my finger out and get them done. Also I need to set up a workbench in the house where I can practice my skills and create new projects.
Amateur radio. As soon as I have completed the computer courses I will work towards this qualification.

Now how do I go from working my guts out as a truck driver to working from home as a writer and PC tech guy?

That is the next step on my journey that I now need to focus on. I must remember that I won’t get it all overnight. Solid foundations take a long time to construct, only once they are securely built can work start on the main structure.

On writing

2009-02-08T23:53:00.001Z

I know I’m meant to write. From an early age I’ve always had what other people called "an active imagination". I always used to get gold stars for my stories at school and I remember one of my teachers telling me I should consider being a journalist or an author!!

All that was 30 odd years ago though and adulthood has crept in and destroyed my imagination. Here I am now, at 44 years of age, and worrying about all the adult things in life such as paying bills and getting enough sleep and not enough about creating new worlds and stories.

The other night, while I was at work, I was a bit bored and found myself thinking about how I would really like to be spending my days. I asked, in my head, "what am I meant to be doing with my life" and the reply I got, I guess from my spirit guides, but I can’t be sure, was "writing". I then asked "but what do I write and how should I go about it?" to which the reply was "just start writing" or " just do it" I can’t remember exactly which it was now.
So, my idea is to start a diary, or journal, as our American friends call it. I can use this to gain some writing experience and to log my thoughts, musings and ideas as they occure to me before they are forgotten forever.

The main problem I have is the bottleneck created by my writing and typing speeds that are never able to keep up with the speed of the ideas that are in my brain. Often I have a good idea but by the time my writing or typing has caught up then that idea has dissolved, never to be thought again. When I am away from my computer I can put up with parchment and quill or the clumsy predictive text on my mobile. None of these are ideal, but better than nothing. When I am at my computer I can type into a word document like I am doing now. However, I feel the way to go is some form of speech recognition software, or, away from computer, a bluetooth Dictaphone device that is completely hands free.

Writing is the way for me to go I believe. The idea of creating. Bringing into this world something new, never before seen that I can create from nothing. That is an idea that really appeals to me.
I have always wanted to create something that will outlive me. Something that will be read and remembered by generations of readers to come, long after I have left this existence and ceased to exist as Andy Bedford!!

Original fiction is my ultimate goal. Maybe I have to find my voice by writing drivel such as this diary entry. If that is the case then so be it. So, from this day forth, I intend to start a diary. In this diary I shall document my life both long since lived and currently being lived by me. Also, I will record my present feelings and thoughts. Sometimes I will make elements of this public on my blog. Often much of what I write will stay private. Either way it will serve as a way to get my ideas and opinions out of my head and onto paper before I forget them. In this way I will re-learn the craft and art of writing.

Ok, my next few entries in this diary will be about my life so far and my passions and plans for the here and now and my future.

History repeats itself?

2009-02-08T23:02:00.001Z

Hmm, sound familiar?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panic_of_1837

Snow!!

2009-02-05T12:31:00.004Z

It's been a long time since we have had snow like this in Northampton!!

I've uploaded loads more photos of the snow to my flickr page here.

my objectives for next week

2009-01-03T22:42:00.001Z

Next week, being the 1st full week of 2009, is the week i have decided to start my new year resolutions.
My objectives for next week are;
To take dogs out for a walk every day.
To go for a swim on 2 days and for that to become a regular thing.
To join the gym at work. I can go for a session after work 2 or 3 times a week.
Lastly, to keep a regular diary.

thought about work

2009-01-01T13:53:00.001Z

I've often puzzled as to why work creates such a strong reaction of anger in me. After all, the job i do isn't exactly a tough one. Driving a lorry is quite an easy job for me and comes pretty naturally. So why do i hate the job so much?
I think it is because it keeps me away from my family for such a long time each day. I also don't like the shifts and having to work when my family are not. I.e. Weekends and bank holidays.
Understanding all this is important to working out what i want to do for a living. I think i need to be working for myself, so that i can have a degree of control over the hours i work and to be working from home so that i am available for my family when they need me.
Ok, now to work out if i have any talents that people may be prepared to pay me for.

New year resolutions

2009-01-01T12:21:00.001Z

January 1st. time to think about what I want to achieve in the new year. To be honest, I don’t have a very good track record in sticking to my new year resolutions. I start off full of good intentions but, after a month or so, I fall off the wagon. Sometimes I return to my resolutions later in the year, often I don’t.

This year I only really have two areas of my life I want to make improvements in. My work and my fitness.

My fitness is the easy one to make a start on. All I really have to do is commit to exercise on a daily basis and watch my diet. So, my plan for this is to take the dogs out for a half hour walk every day and go for a swim twice a week. I don’t see any problems with this plan and I may be able to expand on it after a few weeks. I plan to start this resolution this coming Monday. I’ll write about my progress on this blog.

Work is a bit more difficult. The problem is that I need the income I get from this job in order to meet my monthly bills. This means I can’t just give up my job and trust to the universe to provide for me. I need to formulate a plan to enable me to change careers without losing vital income. I have a few initial thoughts about this which I may make up into another blog post at a later date.

Another resolution I have made is to keep a daily diary. This entry also forms my 1st diary entry. I’m not sure what I will be putting into my diary, or whether to make it public on this blog or to keep it private. I think I will just let it go with the flow.

Enough for now. Time for bed as I have to go to work later.

Happy new year.

Genius quote from an irc chatroom

2008-12-10T23:33:00.006Z

This one made me laugh out loud (literally!!)

" The problem with America is stupidity. I'm not saying there should be a capital punishment for stupidity, but why don't we just take the safety labels off of everything and let the problem solve itself?"

wahnsinn: $4000 for a couch?
griff : you could feed some kid in africa for TEN YEARS for that couch
Mo: but could you sit on him afterward?

I've always loved irc chatrooms for their anarchy, for more of this stuff go to http://www.bash.org/

or better still, download mirc and have some fun!!

Weird dream I had last night

2008-11-12T10:23:00.001Z

Weird dream I had last night.

It’s my first day at my new job. I am back to work at the royal mail depot. Nobody knows me so they are all puzzled as to how I know the job inside out.

However the job is different…

We are working in a swimming pool. Yep, actually sorting the mail in the pool itself!!

At some point everyone gets out of the pool to have a meeting. I hang around looking at the pool and see Claire and Beetle (one of out pet staffies) swimming in the pool. Claire is holding on to Beetle’s legs, the arthritic one at the back as if she is making Beetle do swimming exercises for her poorly leg.

I jump back in the pool wondering if I will get in trouble for not attending the meeting but no one notices.

Now I’m swimming with Beetle who is happy to see me and Claire is in the background smiling at me.

Now there is a pool full of dogs identical to beetle. I don’t know which one is Beetle but after a few moments I find her and we swim happily together.

I can’t remember how the dream ends. I think I just go back to work but I’m not sure.

I don’t often have dreams as vivid as this one and rarely remember them after I wake up, let alone several hours after I wake up!!

I wonder what it all means?

My new personal development plan

2008-11-06T15:29:00.001Z

Putting in place a plan to get things done.

One of the reasons most of my personal development plans have failed in the past is because I have not made them flexible enough.

What I mean is that I would set a plan that involved me, say, swimming 3 days a week between 13.00 and 14.00 and studying on the other days during this same time period. The problem with this plan would be the morning I get home from work late and thus not wake up till, say, 15.00 in order to get my 5 ½ hours sleep in. This would then make me feel I have already failed for that day and thus I would give up on my plan.

This time I intend to set my plan so that the hours of each element are not fixed. I.e. I will devote one hour a day to exercise and/or studying with the option to increase or decrease according to how I feel that particular day. Now, I don’t want that last statement to become an opt out clause, I want it to be a condition that if I attempt to exercise or study and I really can’t do it that day after making an effort to then I won’t feel a failure if I then just go and watch telly.

The key is to make an effort each day. The more often I discipline myself to make an effort, the easier it should eventually become to actually start achieving something.

The aim of my plan is to do one constructive thing every day. Whether that be taking the dogs for a walk, going for a swim, doing some studying or updating my blog.

I have already started this plan today. So far I have taken the dogs for a walk and looked at my study books to see what I need to do next. I have also done some research on my next Pc build and have subscribed to some modding and overclocking forums that will indirectly inspire my i.t studies.

I will keep blogging on my progress as I go on. Perhaps once or twice a week and this blog will enable me to look back and actually see what progress I have made :-)

Happy Hallowe'en

2008-10-31T15:21:00.003Z

"double, double toil and trouble;
fire burn and cauldron bubble

fillet of a fenny snake
in the cauldron boil and bake;
eye of newt and toe of frog,
wool of bat and tongue of dog,
adders fork, and blind-worm's sting
lizard's leg and howlet's wing
for a charm of powerful trouble,
like a hell-broth boil and bubble." (Macbeth, some guy called Shakespeare)

And so is canteen food created!!

Happy Hallowe'en everyone!!

A boring blog entry

2008-10-30T10:19:00.001Z

The art of successful blogging is to post regularly. This is the reason why I will never have a successful blog!

It’s not that nothing ever happens in my life it’s just that I’m not really convinced that anyone else will be really interested in reading about it.

For instance, this week I have worked 2 shifts at work. Both 12 hours shifts had nothing unusual to report about either of them unless you are interested to know where I drove in my lorry and any hold ups I encountered. Oh, I did have an encounter with a ghost at the Oxford city centre store!! I was on my own on the back of my trailer while the loader had gone off to fetch more empty cages to put on me. I watched as the cage I had just put on the trailer rolled into the middle of the trailer. Nothing unusual there, there is a slight slope in most of these trailers. It is what happened next that I can’t explain, the cage stopped in the middle of the trailer and what it should have done next is follow the line of the slope and roll down to the back of the trailer but it stopped and then rolled back to where it had come from as if being pushed!! Totally against the slope and when I went up to check if it was tight up against the other cages which it wouldn’t have been had it rolled under it’s own gravity!!

What else happened this week? I had Tues and Wed as my rest nights from work so I picked up Jake on Tues lunch and we went for a swim. This is something I haven’t done at all this year and we both thoroughly enjoyed it. We came home with a vow to go swimming more often.

Tues night was spent at Taekwondo which had a small turnout due to the unseasonably wintry weather (Snow, in October!!)

On Wed morning we went to play a round of golf which is something I really enjoy doing with Jake and I know he enjoys it too. We had a good round even though we are only at the "hack and slash" level. We came away from that with a vow to practice more and buy some winter clothing suitable for playing golf in.

We then met Claire for lunch with subway sammiges all round.

After lunch Jake and I were tasked to find some space dust for Friday’s Halloween TKD party. There is a fantastic shop in gold street in Northampton which is like an old fashioned sweet shop selling all the old sweets that are still made but you can’t find in any of the main high-street shops. We spent longer in there than is healthy!! And after 30 mins or so we left clutching half the shop’s stock of space dust and some winter mixtures!!

Dropped Jake off to his mum’s later wed afternoon then spent rest of night at home.
Today I have to get a puncture repair kit for Claire’s bike so that is where I am off to in a minute!! Then back to bed this afternoon ready to go back to work at 8.00pm tonight. Next night off next Mon which seems a long way off at the moment.

You see, if I just blogged about my life it would rapidly become very boring!! Or is this the type of stuff you want me to post? Let me know via a comment to this post please.

Inspiring

2008-10-22T23:32:00.000+01:00

www.enlightennext.org

A dream of a slower life

2008-10-13T01:07:00.006+01:00

Oh for the age of simplicity. A long country walk followed by a pint and a bite to eat in a quiet, rural pub and then the long, slow stroll home watching the sun slowly set across the valley. All this followed by a cosy armchair, a good book and a stiff brandy before retiring to a soft bed for the night.

I often wish for a return to a time when life was led at a slower pace and ambitions were much easier to achieve. Often I feel I was born 200 years too late.

Maybe I just have such a romantic view of life in olden days and perhaps the reality of it all is that modern life, for all it’s faults, is much easier than life in centuries past. After all, we do have it easy nowadays what with insulated houses, central heating, computers etc. But I often feel that life in the 21st century is led at a pace much faster than I can cope with. I would love to be able to retire from the rat race, take up residence in a smallholding somewhere in the country and become as self sufficient as it is possible for anyone to be in this day and age.

What I am trying to achieve in my life is to be able to retreat, with my family, from modern life and lead a slower pace of life. Last year we courted the idea of buying a narrowboat to live on full time and I guess that we had a rather romantic idea of life on the canals. However, this is still something I would love to do, perhaps coupled with my small holding in the country. I have always dreamed of a large, farmhouse type kitchen with an aga style stove in one corner and the dogs wandering in and out from the farmyard. Visitors stopping by to taste our latest cooking and my homebrewed wines and beers and ending up staying the night in one of our spare bedrooms.

Perhaps this dream is just that, an unachievable dream, or maybe, just maybe, I can make it a reality. After all I am only 43 years old. That means I have 20 odd years to achieve this dream in and then another 20 odd years in which to enjoy it.

Here is a picture of my dream kitchen in my dream farmhouse. Just for inspiration, of course…

Update on dilemma

2008-10-10T07:09:00.003+01:00

Well, you know how I asked in my last blog post for my spirit guides to send me a sign. Well I think they may have...

I got paid today and included in the pay packet was a pay rise of 3.5% plus back pay to the beginning of August. Now that made me stop to think that if I am ever to get out of debt then I really need a job like my present one. Ok, so I don't particularly like the job, but I can live with it for another year or so until I get all my debts paid off. Plus it will buy me enough time to get my studies completed and to get my ebay business off the ground.

Also, with the credit crunch looming, redundancy is on the cards. Now it might just be worth my while to hang on in just in case there are redundancies and I can get the redundancy payments since I will have been at this company 12 months on 6th Nov this year. I know that sounds horrible and not very lightworker in ethics but such is life. After all I am only doing this job for the money, not for the love of lorry driving!!

Another sign was a conversation I had with one of the agency drivers at our work tonight and the things he said made me have second thoughts about agency work. Unpaid breaks, last minute placements, expecting you to work on days you have not made yourself available to work on or face blacklisting for future job placements. Mind you, he gets a good hourly rate from the acency, much better than my £10.80 an hour!!

So my revised masterplan is to stay in my current job for another 12 months, pay off all my debts and arrears, complete my I.T courses and get my ebay business up and running.

Here we go then.........