A whole new year.

So here we are and it’s already 2015. People are making Back to the Future 2 jokes but not much else feels that different. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things over the last few nights while I’ve been lying there trying to sleep. This is the time of year when you have loads of great ideas and feel filled with motivation to actually see them through to fruition. Deep down you know it’s probably not going to happen but maybe having some spare time over the festive period, combined with the impending sense of dread that it’s almost time to go back to work blinds you to the harsh realities of life.

Anyway what am I planning then? Well the short answer is that by this time next year I plan to be in a position where I get paid for doing nothing. The slightly longer answer is that I plan to spend more time creating things and less time working hard in the freezing cold (or baking hot) to make other people rich. Some things are more important than money.

First up then I intend to start writing short updates about what I’ve been up to. This seems like as good a place as any to do that. I anticipate some very short posts that are barely longer than a tweet. I’m not aiming to have loads of people following my posts but it will be nice to be able to look back in the future and remember what I was thinking and doing.

I don’t believe in god and I don’t celebrate Christmas but I really love this time of year. It usually amounts to two and a bit weeks of late nights, heavy drinking and very few responsibilities. The way Christmas and new year fell this year meant that I took 16 days off work so it was no exception. For once I was actually able to be productive with the time and that has made me think back to previous new years. I honestly don’t remember very many of them and that’s why I thought it would be a good idea to start documenting my life. No one else will probably care or read this but I think I will really appreciate my own efforts one day when I look back and have some documentary evidence to fill the memory void left by all the drink and drugs that I have done over the years. I mention drugs but only in a historical sense. It must be nearly a decade since I did any illegal drugs, coincidentally around the same period of time since I became extremely fond of the second most socially acceptable drink based drug. I occasionally reap the benefits of caffeine but of course I am talking about alcohol. It’s really nice to be able to walk into a shop and buy my drugs legally, safe in the knowledge that they are regulated, strictly controlled and contain exactly what is printed on the bottle or can.

This new year’s eve was the quietest that I can remember. My soon to be wife had a cold and wasn’t in the mood for a party so we watched some strongman and 2014 Wipe before she got ready and got in bed shortly before the stroke of midnight. After wishing each other a happy new year she dropped off to sleep at about 12.30. Being in no mood to go to sleep myself I went for a short walk to experience the unbelievable number of fireworks that were still echoing around the sky half an hour into the new year before returning to take part in the HPR new year podcast marathon. I only lasted about an hour before I started flagging and called it a night. Good fun nonetheless and it was really cool that some people knew who I was. Just over a year of hard work doing Linux Luddites is starting to pay off.

I managed to take part in 5 podcasts during this festive break. First I recorded and produced Linux Luddites 31, starting the night I finished work for the year. Next was mintCast 215 followed by a surprise return of the Mind Tech Podcast – a show I used to do every week with an Apple fanboy until the 8 hour time difference and work got in the way. I’ve mentioned the HPR new year podcast marathon and I have just finished the initial edit of Linux Luddites 32. I’ve still got a bit of work left to do to it but it will be up by the time I go back to work. It’s nice that my holiday was bookended by two episodes of Linux Luddites because it’s the show I work the hardest to produce. It takes a lot of effort to produce it but it seems to be popular enough to justify that effort. For now.

I also managed to do most of the hard work of mixing The Knievel Dead‘s new album. There’s a fair bit still to do but I’ll write more about it when I can.

Hopefully my next update will come soon and hopefully it will be a lot shorter.

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