Tag Archives: Update

Personal

Stag done

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Amazing stag do. I really do lived a charmed life. Huge thanks gradually going out to everyone. It involved…

LOTSA nice wine
2 races to the sea at night
1 batch of throwing rocks and rocks
2x 5k runs to East Wittering & back (from WW)
1x 13th place ‘Special Award’ in Go-Kart tourney
1x Aston Martin drive
1x Boat drive
1x rubber ring tow behind said boat
1x Morris Minor drive
2x swims in sea (in September, in England)
1x session of dance music in a barn in the middle of nowhere (Thursdays, people)
2x absinthe and some other unspecified alcoholic beverages
12x candles & flame torches welcoming us home at 4am on Saturday
17x superhero t-shirts
LOTSA BACON
Some marmite

And crucially:
18x amazing friends and friend’s parents hosting us.

I may supplement this list as other bits of awesomeness I experienced this weekend resurface in memory…

Gradually getting back to normal today…

Update

Surrender? Never!?

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There are times when subscribers to this blog start to think that I’m an exemplar of the typical blogger – checking in every few months to post, apologising for not posting, or just logging into upgrade WordPress.

Sorry…

At the moment, I feel I have good excuses, and it is unusually busy, so when normality ensues it’ll bring blogging with it. I’m not hanging up the bloghat just yet…

My excuses (this time):

Planning wedding parties (one here, one in KL)

Losing weight (down 15kg so far, target is 21, although I may extend that to 27kg longer term)

Learning Danish – many of Amanda’s family are Danish and am (reasonably) determined to at least have a few phrases for the speech

Learning to drive (again) – Passed my Malaysian license in 2002, working on the UK one now that I have more need to drive. Test on 18th September. I’m not optimistic but am working hard on it nonetheless.

Trying to do 100 push-ups in a single set. Up to 52. Also starting the analogous 200 sit-up programme and am two weeks into the couch to 5k programme.

Busy at work. As ever. Also editing and slowly evangelising a blogging project I got going a few months ago.

I’m sure there’s more, but that’ll do as a starter for 10. What’s your excuse?

Personal, Update

I’m back, baby

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It’s a much noted truth that personal blogs go for months without updates, and when the update comes its usually an apology for not posting. And then months pass…

Truth be told, whilst life has been busy, I have been blogging… just not here. I’m currently writing on another blog, named for my agency’s first office, with a bunch of colleagues on a selection of topics – it is not a work blog as such, more an external thought space for us and good practice for my colleagues and I at diving into the world of social media we spend so much time talking to our clients about.

The subject material (from me, at least) is not vastly dissimilar to what I write about here, so you should find me there, although I’ll probably end up cross posting some of the posts at least over here. Especially now I’ve upgraded to the shiny WordPress 2.8 and installed this luscious new theme for you all (what do you mean, you read me on RSS? Look how pretty it all is!)

Anyway, I’m over on Chivalry House every now and then. Check it out.

Personal

Christmas Holiday Craziness

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Christmas has been amazingly busy so apologies for the lack of posting and hope you all had wonderful seasons and enjoyable new years. Some of the things filling my time:

1) Flights to and from Malaysia

2) Introducing Amanda to about 30 people in my extended family, another 20 in my extended extended family, about 20 additional family friends and a number of randoms and associates. She did amazingly well in overwhelming circumstances and I think mostly had a good time!

3) Visiting Taman Negara in Pahang, where we jungle walked, I spoke Malay to Orang Asli, and we stayed in the delightful Traveller’s Home.

4) Visiting Malacca for a dim-sum fest, travelling on a ferris wheel at the Malacca River Pirate Entertainment Park (consisting of four rides), an interrupted swimming session on the 9th floor of the Ramada Renaissance caused by a brief monsoon shower.

5) Reading: The Reluctant Fundamentalist, finishing the brilliant Bad Science and diving into the Inkheart trilogy, as well as devouring the brilliant ‘Invincible’ Ultimate Collection 1&2 which Arvind bought me for Christmas.

6) Saying “I’m Batman” a few times following Sheila and Dave’s purchase of a full Bat-costume for me for Christmas.

7) Shopping with Amanda for the ‘ring’ and learning from my Aunty Ann about the four Cs of diamond shopping.

8) Three days in the ‘honeymoon’ suite of a less good hotel in Pangkor, including a scenic tour of the Island, some slightly grotty beach, and the most awesome clamshell poolside showers. Flickr will soon have photos. Despite grottiness, was a lovely escape and involved driving down some wonderful plantation road and all the adrenaline that entails (overtaking the lorries involves finding a window and then accelerating into oncoming traffic).

9) A lot of food, including Roti Canai, Dim Sum, Cantonese & hokkien mee, peanut-free Satay, Bhatura, Dhosai, Appom (sp?), and even fish and chips and lamb chops for good measure.

10) Tourist visits to KL Tower, Central Market

11) Shopping visits to 1 Utama, KLCC

12) A lot of jetlag

13) A fantastic Christmas eve featuring the increasingly infamous hat game and the family’s first Secret Santa, a resounding success (I got a Superman Belt Buckle which I failed to work out was from Geets, but she didn’t clock that I’d given her Michael Jackson’s Moonwalker DVD either, so we were even)…

14) New Year’s Eve on Asian Heritage Row in Central KL

…and a great deal more. The first couple of days back have been characterised by jetlag, kitchen construction, a cold, and initial attempts to improve healthiness through swimming and resisting completely unhealthy food. This will be helped by the completion of the kitchen…

Anyway, if you want to know more on any of the above points, let me know and I’ll find some time to write further.

Post holiday email count: 960 in my work inbox, down to 560 after initial pass on Sunday and down to a mere 368 after a second pass early this morning. Fingers crossed for a sane January, but it seems doubtful!

Personal

The good side of jetlag

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This morning I’ve…
1) written to some possible wedding venues
2) signed up for a wedding planning website
3) spoken to my brother as he travels back from Sri Lanka (via Google Talk)
4) played a poker tournament with Matt in London (4th place, damn)
5) fixed my dad’s email problems, which required a call to technical support
6) established why the interwebs to Europe is slow (deep sea cable cut)
7) obtained information from Amanda’s parish church for the wedding
8) woken Amanda up

I’ll wager my productivity goes down as the day goes forward.

Personal

Travelling

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I’ll be between London, Hampshire, Kuala Lumpur, Petaling Jaya, Jeruntung, Pangkor and International Airspace for a bit, but as it’s holiday time posting might actually get a bit more regular. Keep your ‘ask Armands’ coming at me, I’m sure I have a few in a backlog to write up and will make efforts to keep y’all entertained.

Personal, Update

…we’re engaged!

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Is the excited email/phone call we’ve been making (on my part, in a haphazard and therefore probably ineffectual manner) as we share the good news of our betrothal. Am happy beyond sense, and will probably stop grinning at some point, but I wouldn’t bet on it happening soon.

Everyone’s been asking how it happened. Here’s the story:

In the lead-up to our second anniversary, having long decided that Amanda was the girl for me, I went ring shopping. When my spirit was crushed by my own utter cluelessness, the crowds and then the price-tags on New Bond Street, I asked Sarah to help me shop and, with her help, the following Saturday I managed to track down the appropriate token (the ‘rock’, as it were, is yet to be purchased and I knew in advance that Amanda wanted to be involved).

On the evening of our anniversary, I asked Amanda to get home early as she could and to dress up warm. We dashed out and I got us a cab to an undisclosed location. (Well, obviously I disclosed it to the cabbie or it would have been an expensive and frustrating taxi ride!)… which was Primrose Hill, the location of our first ever date. We strolled up the hill, shivering with cold and delight at the amazing view of the city the summit affords, thankful for clear skies and dry weather.

“I think my feet are getting a little wet,” I said, romantically, knowing that at some point I would be dropping to one knee. Amanda threw some appropriately dismissive insult in my direction but nonetheless we moved to the tarmac-clad viewing point. There, after some further moments admiring the view, each others’ eyes (awww…) and fumbling in my pocket for the Georg Jensen ring case, I reminisced about the fact that two years previously I’d lacked the courage to ask her for a kiss, but this time I had a more important question…

And the rest, as they say, is history. Oh, she said yes, obviously (after a pause for shock – I’ve finally managed to catch the girl who identifies her birthday present by the folds in the wrapping paper by surprise!). I’m looking forward to keep trying to surprise her for the rest of our lives together.

For the curious; I didn’t ask her family for permission — I’d thought to but had guessed (correctly) that Amanda would want to be the one to relay the news.

Update

Silence…

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…caused by broken router in additional to the usual busy-ness. Now reconnected (on everything but my brother’s irritating MacBook, which is having Wifi issues), but normal activity will not resume for a little while as have even more busy-ness this weekend, and have started with the new gym membership, so life is more than usually hectic… Sorry. Be back soon.