We are decorating, and therefore deciding what to do with the house. The only decision of merit, is to give more of our old hoarded trinkets away and live simply.

We realised we were very happy with our lot, and so it begins. Charity shops and freecycle groups be warned, we are about to unload!

                          

Whilst at University, I meditated daily. In fact, for six straight years, I went through a ritual every night, of clearing my mind and meditating for about 40 minutes to an hour. It helped, it really did. Even if I got home at 1am after a night out, I spent 40 mins in deep meditation.

Then came the middle period of my career. And for the next 8 years I went through the motions of ladders, knowledge grab, long long hours and no exercise. Many times I worked six days a week. Many times I worked over 24 hours non stop!

And now I am suffering for the lack of mental clarity. For the past 12-14 months I have undergone more physical injury and trauma than ever before in my life. Yet here I am, more affluent and loved than ever. So what’s wrong?

I conclude, rightly or wrongly, it starts in my mind. I am not clearing the madness, the noise, the stress, the fear away from my thought process. As a result I lose balance, strength, thinking and end up in/out of the doctors due to years of neglect.

Trying to break the cycle, I went for a run on my birthday. Then for a few days thereafter – with January doing really well. A woeful 9 minute mile though. Not great for a first time half-marathoner that did it in 1.47 – solid 8 mins per mile without fail. Since then – I’ve scraped my skin off in a football accident, I’ve gained concussion in a freak bang of my head, and now I’ve a torn calf. I’ve missed my Ninjutsu training for about 9 months now.

So in a desparate attempt to get back in control – I turn against my own mind. Its me against the voices in my head. So from now, this wise owl is turning back the clock. Forty minutes every night – without fail. Let us see what benefit that brings.

                          

The usual dilemma of how to get things done when there is chaos around, both at work and home. Many systems exist, and at present am getting back to using the simple GTD system. However that relies on blocks of ‘doing’ time, when @computer, @desk, @phone etc.

My issue remains the fact that work is entirely unstructured, and people, well frankly people these days are not willing to commit to anything that has even an iota of risk. Due to the current economic climate we are living in a risk-averse world, and yet there are persons like me that are insisting that greatness comes from the edge-of-chaos, where risk must be calculated and taken.

Fail fast, is a motto I learnt at a firm I worked at – notably it was a West Coast firm. The question is, how do the West Cost professionals, get things done these days? Inbox Zero? Use of Alpine? Love to hear your thoughts…

PS yes I know the valley is built on boom-and-bust, but thats where the edge-of-chaos is, variety and the chance of survival increases.

                          

Being a serial long-series addict, am constantly on the look out for great entertainment that lasts longer than an hour or so. Having gone through The West Wing, Stargate SG-1, Stargate Atlantis, Murder One, I am now on Boston Legal. Just started series 2 infact, and am loving it. Being a Grisham fan, and an addict of courtroom dramas, Boston Legal is quite refreshing.

Interesting props too. Everyone seems to own a Montblanc MEISTERSTÜCK, silver in fact. But they dont seem to share a Crane, Poole & Schmidt folio. The office coffee area seems rather small for such a large firm, and I’ve yet to see the firm Library. Nevertheless, its a great waste of an hour per episode, and the in-jokes are hilarious over time.

Other than enjoying Boston Legal, am slowly getting to grips with my time management. However I continue to dislike iTunes and wish netflix or popcorn hour come to the UK. Hurry!

                          

I love it, yes 3D cinema is on my fave list. Most importantly, I love that it is becoming more embedded into the art, and not there for glory shots of daggers coming right atchya. The list of movies being released in 2010 is very tantalising indeed. Here are some highlights:

• Iron Man 2
• Predators
• Eclipse (though the 2nd film was booooring)
• Prince of Persia
• The Last Airbender
• Bitch Slap
• Tron Legacy
• Narnia 3
• The Green Hornet
• Salt
• Date Night
• The Sorcerers Apprentice

Even if a fraction of them are in 3D, and done so stylishly, I will be more than delighted. Then of course, 3D tv will arrive, but I don’t think 2010 is the year for that. 2010 is the year for 3D cinema for sure!

All we need now in the UK is more Showcase cinemas to be updated to Deluxe with great 3D offerings. Bring it!

                          

This year, we’d like to visit Switzerland, and are deliberating between Zurich or Geneva. Its quite interesting, the web is a great resource, but there are very few ‘quick hits’ that outline things in short bursts and bullets for the MTV Generation.

Anyway, at the moment, Zurich is in the lead – on price and food friendliness (for veggies )

Once the research is complete, I’ll update this post with the simple bullets we all need!

Zurich – being the capital of finance in Switzerland, has more localised sites to see than Geneva. More day trips are offered out of Zurich to mountain towns and the Rhine falls, for example, than in Geneva. Geneva is very touristy, and the prices there are very high for all things including food. Zurich is more business led, but the tourist sites do well, the prices are not as high as Geneva, but are generally high anyway.

In short, Zurich offers the casual tourist more to see than Geneva.

                          

After much enjoyment, our Stargate period ended last week with the last episode of Stargate Atlantis. Currently looking at the first few episodes of SGUniverse, and wondering, what else can keep us occupied on DVD. As much as I like Boxee, a DVD set of hundreds of episodes is much more fun n’est pas?

Will keep hunting…

                          

Am seriously thinking that 2010 should be a year of simplification for me. Am trying really hard to slim down on a lot of things (including the waistline ) and am beginning with a serious amount of discarding of things that I’ve kept but have no real re-use of.

Following unclutterer is quite inspirational. Here are some funky study spaces from there, though I do admit they don’t look ‘lived in’.

Simple.

                          

Back from a valentine getaway in Rome, and oh were we LUCKY!

It started with the fact that this was our first non-direct flight with a transfer, at Frankfurt. All seemed well until we noticed a sign on the boards at LHR – ‘Delayed’. Hmm, we thought, usually this wouldn’t bother us, but we had a transfer to catch. So off we went, to stand in the Lufthansa queues in T1 – a MARE! Between conflicting messages of ‘go to the gate’ to ‘return to the lounge’ we finally got airborne and towards Frankfurt about 2 hours later than scheduled.

Once there, we had a bit of a shock. They’ve had snow at Frankfurt for four days, so they are backlogged. They are also not very good at organizing passengers in this scenario. We eventually got to a person at a desk, after much queuing, and Icy was ‘booked’ onto a flight the next morning, whilst I was put on standby for the next flight. Hmmm I thought. Off we ran towards my gate, in the hope both of us could get on, or both of us could be put on the next flight back to LHR!

Luckily at the gate, a lady of good fortune was manning the counter. A wonderful lady. She put Icy on standby and told me that I was #16 on standby, but since I was fully checked in all the way to Rome, I would be higher on the list than those who were not. And lo and behold 5 names were called, for 5 seats, and mine was one. But not Icy! I went to the desk, willing to give it up and not leave her alone, when the lady at the desk asked a man ‘would you take this ticket?’ – the chap was with a group of 5. He didn’t take the ticket as he didn’t want to leave them, so she immediately pointed at another on the desk to her colleague. He was not sure, but I saw her mouth it. Yes, she picked Icy!

I got to the desk, and she handed me two tickets – I told her I could hug her. I ran and hugged Icy – frankly we’d been up since 4am, it was now 3pm and we were finally about to leave Frankfurt towards Rome! I rang the hotel, told them we were on route but late, and then we thought ‘the bag?’ Luckily it made it too, and all was saved. Rome was fabulous, and a great weekend in all.

Rule is – we’re not transferring again – the hassle was too much.

Another new for us this time was a ‘one bag’ philosophy. We tried to pack light. Alas, I’m not known to pack light, in fact I am the perpetual worrier who packs far more than needed for any trip. However, I am trying to go lean this year. So how to start? I decided to figure out what I do from a morning to evening basis and here’s my pack list for the trips this year, just in case anyone cares or has better options for me to consider:

Toiletries

• toothbrush, toothpaste
• disposable razor, shave stick
• Instead of the usual headlube moisturiser I decided to use Icy’s Aveda stuff.
• small pair of scissors
• Issey travel EDT

Layers

• Just simple long sleeve layer tops, and an extra pair of jeans

It worked – we managed to sneak both our toiletries into a single hanging bag and everything into a standard duffle. Though I am now considering standard ‘luggage trackers‘ for the suitcases, especially after this trip.

As for Rome – it was a great Valentine weekend. More on that later – a ‘magnificent’ city imho.

                          

Nothing to see, please move on.

Thank you.

TNN