Month: December 2022

Weeknotes #21

Week commencing Monday, 5 December 2022

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 6/7; Exercise 5/7 and Move 4/7. (71%, disappointing). Morning walks: 1/5. Total steps: 65,002

Life

  • I do enjoy the so-called ‘social chit-chat’ group of ex-colleagues. A few of us met in town on Monday. It shocks me how quickly four hours can pass in good company.
  • Finally, I gave blood on Thursday. I registered about 18 months ago but the local sessions I had booked in for kept getting cancelled due to staff shortages. As the hour approached, I kept thinking about putting it off but I am very glad I didn’t. Everybody was lovely. The whole process took about an hour. I felt a bit woozy as I started to head home but I think that was all in my head. PY came with me to offer support which was lovely.
  • Friday to The Island. Furniture was delivered – mainly a sofa and some desks – which meant a lot of work to put it together. IKEA furniture can get a bit frustrating. All done and lovely but way too much cardboard to be disposed of.
  • Saturday night freezing cold on top of a Southern Vectis bus for a Christmas Lights tour of the island. There was a stop for mulled wine and PY and I were, probably, the only people who braved the outside of the bus for the whole journey. It’s feeling like Christmas.

Media

  • Interesting comment in The Rebooting newsletter reminded me of an earlier time. It’s not often that the early AdTech businesses I worked for get mentioned anymore.

… The exception was aQuantive, which managed to build out an ad server called Atlas from its agency business. That ended up an amazing bet, with aQuantive getting bought by Microsoft in 2007 for $6.3 billion, a purchase that was mostly, if not entirely, driven by Google’s purchase of DoubleClick. In the end, Microsoft ended up writing off most of the value of the assets.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the original source above no longer works, these should.

Weeknotes #20

Week commencing Monday, 28 November 2022

Peter Pan’s Labyrinth

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 7/7; Exercise 6/7 and Move 6/7. (90%, a good week). Morning walks: 4/5. Total steps: 74,257

Life

  • So pleased that I managed to get out for my morning walk a couple of days this week. Another thing I am staring to track in these notes.
  • Friday night drinks at Smiths of Smithfield was a lot of fun even if the bar was a little loud with a couple of Christmas Party groups. The truffle burger is 100% recommended.
  • Sign of our times: Merriam-Webster has chosen ‘gaslighting’ as its word of the year for 2022 and in another sign of our working times, The Guardian is reporting that a hundred UK companies sign up for four-day week with no loss of pay which is quite an interesting trend given the state of the economy.
  • If you’re looking for some festive entertainment, the production of Peter Pan’s Labyrinth, a kind of panto or Christmas fairytale mashups, at The Vaults theatre near Waterloo is a joy. The Guardian sums it up as what happens “when JM Barrie meets the David Bowie fantasy movie, with a dash of Guillermo del Toro thrown in”.
  • Sunday was a frustrating rail-replacement bus service to Hampton Court Palace for the Festive Fayre. It was a bit smaller than the summer’s food festival but very enjoyable and I managed to get a couple of presents. We walked back to Kingston to catch the regular bus home which was much more pleasant.
  • And the Christmas tree went up this weekend.

Media

  • We started to watch Spirited with Ryan Reynolds and Will Ferrell. We got about half way through before calling it a night. It was entertaining, although not all the musical numbers grabbed me, and I am sure we will complete it in a couple of days.

Archive

To save the links getting lost in the future I checked the Internet Archive to see what they had saved for the posts linked here. If the original source above no longer works, these should.