2008 #30 - Three Zero.

30 looms. Dreaded by men and women alike. Can't say I really think about it. 27 seems to have lasted ages. Time seems to move more slowly, age-wise. My twenties are not yet 4/5ths gone, but I have a hard time recalling much before being 20. I won't even be 28 for another four months.

30 27 twenties 4 5 20 28 four... Weird how sometimes people are more inclined to include numbers in a sentence and other times a numeric word. Technically it's supposed to be the words, but really in this modern age the numbers accentuate points and break up sentences. Probably best not to mix them.

So, it's Thursday afternoon and I'm very late posting my weekly "me" post because, as I mentioned, I went away for a few days. Good time although a bit too similar to last time. Next time I think the time has come to branch out to different destinations. Screw convenience.

Travel throws off all best intentions no doubt. Let's see...

1. I ate a lot on the road, but a lot of that was fruit, which is fine. I ate two takeaways, which was one more than intended. I ate different lunches so it didn't just feel like a work day. All in all not a strong week for healthy eating.

2. Very little poker for obvious reasons. Facebook's upgrade to their new interface over the past 24 hours or so seems to have killed the application, at least temporarily, so I can't even play now I'm back. Itching for a game in honesty. I'm sure I've said before, it seems much better to want to expend time playing poker than playing first person shooters.

3. Camera came to Cornwall and shot some very nice scenery. As usual the photos are less impressive once blown up on a screen, but I managed to get a new desktop backdrop out of one of them.

4. Went out prior to leaving on Saturday night. Good night with a few unknowns. I took a once expected but now unusual move of leaving the group and heading to a different club alone. Mainly because it's a club night I've become quite attached to and it was a big night, and I had tried and failed to steer the group in that direction. Up side, I really enjoyed it. Down side, pretty anti-social to have the option of being with friends and not taking it. Not too worrying - this was a one time thing. Didn't really get talking to many people in Cornwall even in a hostel. I always find myself faced with free wheeling travelling types that I wish I was more like, and realise I have nothing much of interest to say to them. Obligatory conversations about the local area were about as far as I got. Interestingly on the last night a band were staying in the hostel and decided to play covers in the landing outside about six dorm rooms between before 2am to some time after 3am. It was impossible to sleep but I couldn't help but enjoy it - they were good musicians. Hard to tell how many. I can't imagine it went down that well with everyone trying to sleep. Unfortunately the hostel owner asked me what I thought was a leading question in the morning and I ended up unintentionally complaining anyway. Too bad - much as I enjoyed it, if you're going to park yourself right beside potentially tens of sleeping people in the middle of the night and make noise, you can't expect everyone to be cool with it. It would though be ironic if they ended up being banned and I was the only person that said anything. I'll never know.

5. I made some progress with my two acoustic numbers before leaving for Cornwall, and I'll be picking them up this week. I think I probably managed to put in between one and two hours.

6. Work goals coming in a few weeks, allegedly.

7. However I cut it I come back to the same reality. I'm addicted to my wages, which make increasingly less sense due to the now enforced 80 mile commute and the diesel price. I find my bank balance looking a little low, but it's hard to tell if it's my recent spending (which has been unquestionably immense - laptop, TV, Dublin, Service, Bike Carrier, Cornwall, amongst others) causing this or whether the overall economic drag is hitting me. I haven't been in financial trouble since late 2005, and for me that means passing zero, not actually building any debt, so many people would likely tell me to go fuck myself... Less sensible people who don't live within their means, that is. I watch people buy shit constantly and wonder how the hell everyone gets so much money together when it comes time to really use it. I have never in my life got the sum total of my bank accounts to top £6000. I had £3500 of savings before I had to replace my car early last year and about 18 months on I only have £2000 saved. I did get my student loan statement yesterday which informs me I have £6200 to go. This is now dropping by about £1200 a year and gaining about £250 in interest. Weird to think that in about 6 years I automatically get an effective raise when I kill that off. Annual progression and RPI stuff means that come August I'll be earning just over £29k. But, it didn't feel like £27k, so I doubt that will feel like £29k. The people that were earning £30k when I looked on it as a long term target now earn much closer to £40k. No wonder the public at large can't figure this stuff out. Too many variables. What's the point of this, to come back around..? I can't find jobs that will pay me anywhere near what I now earn. I feel I need to keep this job but I STILL need to be doing something useful with the rest of my time, which perhaps, maybe one day will let me move on. Then again, maybe eventually they'll force me. I feel a little less invincible than perhaps I once did. Short answer, yes, I've been thinking.

8. Great week for exercise. This is the great thing about an activity based trip. Unintentional exercise. Fighting waves when bodyboarding is definitely exercise. My muscles know it. Coughing currently hurts my stomach. Walking up and down cliffs looking for the best views is exercise. My legs know it. Taking a bike to Cornwall was a good idea that didn't really work out, but I did use it once. It was extremely hard. I biked on the road for what Google now tells me was a depressing 3 miles only, then walked my bike back along the coast path after recovering for about half an hour. The three miles probably took about half an hour. This was definitely good exercise, but I didn't enjoy it. I took the bike as an alternative way to get around. Feeling like death was not part of the plan. I will stick to cycling around the flats of the Midlands, thanks.

Did the trip accomplish anything? Yes. Recharged, if not motivated then at least less demotivated. Due to some luck on landing certain work just before taking off last Friday, which really wasn't that long ago, I don't even dread the next few weeks of work, which might be quite enjoyable. Whenever I have work that allows me to be creative I enjoy it more. Jonathan Coulton slams this in "Code Monkey" - "This job fulfilling in creative way. Such a load of crap", but I don't think it's entirely true. However, constantly having to recode what amounts to the same thing - that gets soul destroying, and that I *have* identified as the main problem with my job just recently.

All in all feeling pretty good. Even caught some sun.