My Life

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8 Things You Don’t Know About Me

Saturday, June 23rd, 2007 Who Are You?Lisa Sabin-Wilson was kind enough to hit me with a tag for the "8 Things You Don't Know About Me" meme, and in my usual fashion I have failed to get it done when I said I would. Sorry. Now, in rectification:
  1. Family. I am a middle child, but my younger brother was killed in a road accident when he was 6 (I was 9). My older sister has 4 children (1 boy, 3 girls). Parents divorced, Father deceased. 1 surviving Grandparent.
  2. Alcohol. I like Guinness. It's an acquired taste, I know, but one worth acquiring. It took me to the age of 3 to really get a taste for it. Real Ales, Whisk(e)y and Wine are also acceptable forms of imbibing.
  3. Food. I am generally Vegetarian, but not based on any principle, I just never really liked meats. I like to eat Italian, garlic is one of the greatest tastes to exist. Indian food is fine too. I will eat some white meats on occasion for the convenience of others.
  4. Work. I am self-employed working mainly as a commercial window cleaner, though I do some domestic work on occasion. Though never my own, of course! ;-)
  5. Fun. I love movies, mostly on DVD these days since vandals burnt down the local cinema. I don't watch TV, though I do watch some shows on video/DVD that catch my attention. Or the wife makes me watch. I also love reading, Jane Austen being my favourite. I like Fyodor Dostoevsky too, but I am not all 'high-brow', Sci-Fi and Detective novels are my staple. I am not much of an outdoor person, I have enough of that while working.
  6. Pets. We have Joey Cat, which is my wifes first pet as she never had one while growing up. I have had all the usual suspects: canary, Guinea Pigs, tortoise, goldfish, dogs and another cat.
  7. Religion/Politics. Yes/No. I find religion fascinating and politics boring, except wherein the two interact throughout history in forming each other.
  8. General Life Philosophy. To try and leave things better than when I found them. Success and ambition play no real part in my life or desires, which is probably why I am usually very happy and content and have very little stress in my life.
In the time honoured tradition of the meme I am now required to tag some others, so I will nominate Darren Cronian of Blogged Out.

Getting To Know You

Friday, May 11th, 2007 facebehindtheblogDavid Airey has started a picture meme to help us bloggers get to know one another a little better and scare off give our readers an opportunity to see who is talking to them. I was tagged by Paul Enderson over at Reflections to participate in this, so if anyone wants to sue for mental and or emotional trauma over these images he is the guy to contact. ;-)

StevieB at 5 months

StevieB at 5 months of age. Ahh, bless!

StevieB, big sis' Sally and little bruv' Edward

Me with my big sister Sally and little brother Edward (deceased).

StevieB at 11

StevieB at school, age 11.

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Laura and myself on our wedding day 27th April 2002

StevieB and Joey Cat

StevieB and our Parrot Cat, Joey (Kitchen being rewired 2003).

StevieB Summer 2006

StevieB May 2006 in Milton Keynes

Obviously some of these images have been scanned, in fact I am pretty sure that only the last one was taken with a digital camera, so sorry for the lack of quality. Also participating in this meme are: Gayla at Mom Gadget Char at Essential Keystrokes Paul at Reflections Rob at 2Dolphins Zep at The In-Sect Stixster Sorry if I have missed off any of the other participants, and I tag Lisa Sabin-Wilson (Revenge!) and Carolyn Manning .

100 Ways To Be More Productive

Sunday, May 6th, 2007 Productivity Challenge Do you ever wish you could be more productive? Do you find that no matter what you do, you seem to fall further and further behind schedule? If that is the case, then I am sure you would find a free e-book with 100+ tips on productivity to be very handy, so keep an eye on Ben Yoskovitz and his Instigator Blog. He is compiling a list of tips from around the Blogosphere so that he can produce a free e-book to help us all out of slacker hell. One of the contributors is Lisa Sabin-Wilson, the author of WordPress for Dummies, who has been kind enough (?) to tag me to try and provide a tip or four.
  1. Just start
  2. Get organized
  3. Prime Time/Best Time
  4. Slack off

Just Start Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy and over think things when what we really need to do is just get on and do them. Seemingly impossible tasks can seem surprisingly easy once we get into them.

Get Organized Clutter can be your worst enemy, especially if the job in hand requires a lot of information/paperwork. Try to stay on top of this, for example it is a nightmare to try and sort out all your insurance details if you have several policies on the go and have never put any of the information in one central place. It becomes even more impossibler when you can't even remember how many policies you have and which companies they are with. Yikes!

Prime Time/Best Time All of us have a natural bio-rhythm, find out what yours is. Are you at your best early morning? Lat at night? Midday? Once you know this try and optimize your efforts accordingly. Slack Off Sometimes you are beating a dead horse, it isn't the best time for you to tackle a job. When something urgent needs to be done it may be that the best course is not to do it, take some time away from the project and relax. But be on a timer. Half an hour of reading a book, TV, reading your RSS feeds, napping, sometimes these are the things you need to do to increase your productivity, get yourself back in the groove. Just make sure you don't use this tip too much. :wink: I'm sure there are plenty of other excellent tips in this series, I am now off to read some of them, which is in itself an extra bonus tip, if I had taken the time to read everyone else's ideas first I probably would never of got around to writing this article at all! So, sorry for any repetitions, and I will edit in a few links to some of my favourite tips at the bottom of this post. Then all that will remain to do will be to decide who to tag to carry this on. :twisted: Recommended links: Gia Combs-Ramirez, overcoming procrastination. Don The Idea Guy, he Ultimate Guide To Productivity. Randa Clay, Secrets To Productivity. Dave Olson, Becoming A Productivity Guru. And I tag . . . Aaron at miLienzo.com

Twitter While You “Drive”

Sunday, April 15th, 2007 TwitterI had been resisting the urge to sign up for the latest web phenomenon, "Twitter", but no longer! Tonight Greg Yaitanes, the Director and executive producer of the new TV series "Drive", will be Twittering during the premiere of the show, basically a live commentary, and as I am a big fan of the star of this series, Nathan Fillion, and of the co-creator Tim Minear, I could no longer resist! This seems to me to be by far one of the best ways this new service has been utilized so far, and I wonder what other new uses people will find for this. For more information about "Drive" check out my Joss Whedon blog. Do you Twitter? What is the best use you have found for this service so far?

Challenge Completed

Wednesday, February 28th, 2007 The challenge that I set myself at the beginning of February, to blog a post a day for the month, has been successfully completed. In fact, including this post I will have put 30 articles out there this month. So what have I gained by this? I have almost doubled the content of my Blog, learnt a lot about my own writing habits and have found a lot more blogs that I want to keep reading via my research. Hopefully my technique has improved, though due to time constraints on certain days I was not too happy about the quality of some of the articles I put out there. I think I have found my personal rhythm of posting, which I think will be more like two or three times a week rather than every day, allowing myself more time to put my posts together in a way that I can be happy with. My challenge to myself for March will be to try and post a comment on at least one blog per day, something that will add to the conversation rather than just "I agree". Any other challenges you would like to recommend for April?

Finding the words

Monday, February 26th, 2007 I am having a little trouble finding something to blog about today. I was planning on writing about the divShare WordPress plug-in, but having set up an account with them and installing it I then found that I couldn't get it to work. Every time I uploaded an image and tried to add it to my post it was rejected and the plug-in interface disappeared, so I guess I will have to try and work out what I am doing wrong before I get to do a post on that feature. So I thought as I couldn't think what else to write about, I would write about writing, looking at finding a subject, how to get your post underway, what it should include and how to wind it up.
  • Finding something to blog about
I start off with my Google Alerts in my e-mails, flagging anything of particular interest in Outlook and clicking through to the links that I feel may be of some interest. Some of these get "flecked" by me to look at again later. Then I go to my Google Reader to see if there is anything going on in the news, in the real world or cyber world, that I might want to blog, "starring" those items of particular interest so that I can find them more easily later on. Having done this I can now usually decide what I am going to use as my subject for the day, leaving me to do a bit of "googling" around the interweb to see what anyone else has to say on the subject, saving some links that might be useful later when I start to write.
  • Beginnings
Now when it comes to actually writing my post I always find that the best thing to do is to begin, which may sound pretty obvious but can sometimes be the hardest step. Have you ever found yourself just sitting there, staring at the blank screen with the cursor blinking? Don't. Just start typing, get something down and go back and change it later if you need to.
  • Content 
Every post should have a beginning, middle and end. Once again, very obvious, but having begun it can sometimes be hard to work out where you are going with an article, where you want to end up. A basic guide should be somewhat like this:
  1. Tell your readers what you are going to blog about
  2. Blog about it
  3. Tell them what you have blogged
In other words, make sure that you let your readers know early on, preferably in your title/first few sentences what the subject matter is. Then tell them about the subject. Then in conclusion do a recap, but sum it all up in one or two sentences, don't labour your point, just make sure you have made it. Sometimes when I come to write my ending I realise that I haven't really explained the subject clearly enough, leading me to do a re-write, so I find that technique quite handy. Also, when writing the body of your post try to have a clear idea in your own mind as to why the subject should be of importance to your readers, explain how they will be benefited, how you benefited. If you find you can't do this, maybe it would be a good idea to scrap the post altogether, because if you can't find a good reason to write it nobody will find a good reason to read it. As to length, that will be determined by your subject, but always bear in mind that your introduction should be fairly brief, no more than a paragraph or two, and that your conclusion should not really need to be any longer than one or two sentences, leaving the body of your post to do most of your talking for you.
  • Continuing the Conversation 
And as a final thought, with a blog post always try to leave a question at the end, allowing your readers to be more than just spectators. Putting my own advice into practice, how do you go about finding your subjects, what techniques do you use to overcome "writers block", and are there any particular techniques you use to compose your posts?

Setting Blog Goals

Sunday, February 25th, 2007 Well I am almost done with my Blogging Challenge of a post every day for the month of February, I think I have learned and gained from the experience, and I hope my blog has too. Already I am trying to think of some new projects to set myself for the next month or so, there are some good ideas that I saw in an article posted over on Glenn Wolsey's blog that may help me set some long term goals. Of the six ideas that Glenn posted in his article I think I may concentrate on "New Relationships Made" for the immediate future, set myself a "Blogging Challenge" of leaving a comment on at least one blog per-day for the month of March. Go take a look at the article yourselves and remember to check back to see what ideas other bloggers add to the list. Thanks to Daily Blog Tips for pointing me in Glenn's direction. :-)

Weekly(?) life

Saturday, February 24th, 2007 I haven't got around to doing a "week in my life" post for a while now so I thought I would try and correct matters today, and also give the "wp-amazon" plug-in another run out.
  • Watching: "Rescue Me" Season One              Rescue Me - Series 1
  • Listening: Nora Jones CD "Not Too Late" Not Too Late [Deluxe Edition]
  • Reading: Linda Barnes "Heart Of The World" Heart of the World (Carlotta Carlyle Mystery)
All links to Amazon.co.uk are affiliate links, earning me a few pennies if you choose to purchase any of these products and costing you not a penny more. :-)

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