Seeing as my last monthly update was so long I thought I’d do another mini update about a couple of random bits, along with a links round up of what I found interesting in the last month or so.

me me me

First of all let’s talk about what I got up to in March?

Running – I ran the Eastbourne half marathon in 1:35 which I was very happy with considering I didn’t get to do any running in between that and the TW Half 2 weeks earlier due to all of the snow! It is a really tough run with a huge hill between 2 and 3.5 miles, you basically run up towards the Seven Sisters cliffs, and the rest of the run you are pretty much slogging out as you’re already knackered. There are also lot’s of switchbacks on small paths and bridges towards the end which really kills any momentum you might have going. Definitely not a PB track that’s for sure, but an interesting run and the scenery is nice although was very grey on the actual day (see pic above!)

Mother’s Day – It was Mother’s day. Rather than buy the bog standard presents I decided to gather up all of our videos we’ve made on our phones/cameras over the last 2 years of TFS Jr (and other stuff but mainly they’re of the baby) and merge them all into one file to burn onto a DVD. I don’t know if anyone else has ever tried this but it is quite a monumental task! Google photos is a godsend in that at least they pretty much were all in one place, but the varying file formats and just the sheer volume of them meant it took ages to organise them into one place and the right order.

I ended up buying a piece of software that converted all the different files and merging them into one handy file so I could burn that straight to DVD. It wasn’t the most professional finish (i.e. no nice intro screen and no scene selection) but it seemed to do the job. The software cost about £35 and obviously I can reuse it for future projects so didn’t see too bad, although if anyone knows of any freeware/open source software that can do this kind of thing, please do let me know? Thanks!

Work outing – We had a paid for night out on the town (well, bowling) with work. Work isn’t really all that bad when all is said and done, and this sort of thing will definitely be missed if/when I depart from an office style employee job.

40 is looming – It was my Bro-in-laws 40th and we all celebrated with a party round their house. Very enjoyable! But it is a bit of a slap round the face that I’m 37 this year and 40 isn’t that far off. Not that I’m dreading it or anything like that per se, and as everyone always says, still feel like I’m 25 so no big deal, but the march of time is relentless and these things tend to crop up sooner than we think or we’d like. It also makes me think about this blog, and that the original 5 year plan time limit is coming up. Obviously I will write up a post about it when that time comes (around July) but I certainly won’t be wrapping the blog up just because of that so don’t worry about that 1 So much has changed in those 5 years, and there is still plenty left to write about in my little noggin, so you are stuck with me for quite a well yet before I get bored I reckon 😉

FI Meetup – Unfortunately the FI London meetup in March was the same week as the work outing mentioned above, and my body cannot handle two nights out in the same week any more, so I had to miss out on it! However there is another one already in the pipeline which, barring any disasters between now and then, I will be attending! Details are as follows:

Facebook Event Link
Friday, June 15 at 6 PM – 11:30 PM

Rose and Crown
47, Colombo Street, SE1 8DP London, United Kingdom

Hope to see some of you there!

 

Reading round up

Here are a few things that piqued my interest on t’internet recently.

  • How much do you spend drunk shopping? – This link admittedly came to me via an email which I normally ignore 2 but I the subject made me kinda laugh, and it rings true with my previous experiences with alcohol in life,  🙂 so thought it was worth highlighting.
  • Jet Engine Powered Beer Cooler – I don’t think this one needs much more explanation. Not going to win any Sustainability invention of the year awards but it’s a really funny read.
  • Gamblers Ruin – I’d heard of this before but never really read properly about this and internelised how important it is. Done by Forty has given it his usual interesting write up. Very important for those of us doing the “No Lay” style of matched betting (either Acca’s or Each Way betting). To summarise the conclusions of the research quoted, when the odds are not in your favour you are better of just going in for one or two huge bets, hoping it wins then walking away (still rather stupid, but mathematically better than playing lot’s of small hands/stakes). However if the odds are in our favour as they are with the two matched betting strategies, then we are better off playing many smaller stakes. I guess it just reinforces that bank roll management is key 3, which I guess I already knew but again have not been practicing very well until recently.
  • More internet dramz – It seems us PF bloggers can’t stop putting our foot in it, and Mr 1500 got in a bit of hot water for being “Really not funny” when he “‘pretends’ to be a jerk” to his wife. The original post in question is “an ask the readers” style one about How many loads of laundry do you do each week. The objection from blogger(s) Nicole and Maggie was a comment accusing him of being a “Darth Vader boyfriend” and they also put up a short post on it here. It’s all been *kind of* sorted by the looks as Mr 1500 wrote a pretty fair email of apology (included at the bottom of N&M’s post in the comments), and took down his subsequent post which was apparently mocking the Darth Vader comment. I don’t want to drag any more mud up that’s already been settled so won’t comment any further on it, but thought it was quite interesting yet again to see the differing opinions. I will say I think Mr 1500 handled the aftermath really quite well, especially the email apology. Actually screw it I can’t resist…. I don’t really see the issue with the original attempt at humour if the woman is quite clearly in on the gag, and the author is knowingly making himself look stupid, well that’s the way I view those kind of posts from Mr 1500 anyway. It’s an attempt at a kind of satire, which admittedly does not always work in the way intended 4 – see Revisionist History Podcast episode The Satire Paradox for more on that one – but I think his intentions are clear to send himself and that kind of attitude up, all in my own humble opinion of course 😉
  • Financial and life lessons from parents – I really liked both weenie’s and Done By Forty’s slightly related posts about lessons they learned from their parents while growing up (or rather when they were fully grown adults in weenie’s case 🙂 ):

 

Roads? Where we’re going we don’t need roads

Finally, the Economist had a great article on Flying cars which had links to the following mental looking beasts of the road/sky, which excited me greatly:

Terrafugia T-FX – Obviously wins bonus swag points for being very nearly named “TFS”

Kitty Hawk – Have a secretive video of the “Flyer” and a picture of a rather clunky looking air taxi called “Cora”:

 

Joby Aviation – Couldn’t find a proper pic of this one but here is a link to a decent article about their “air taxi” which has a podcast at the end of it profiling some dude who has been trying to make flying cars for about 50 years, definitely worth a listen!

 

Volocopter – Basically looks like a human sized drone. Rotat-awesome!

 

EHang 184 – Another huge drone this time from a Chinese drone maker EHang. Slightly less curvaceous as the one above but still… cool as f@ck!

 

Lilium – Vertical take off jet!

 

AeroMobil – It literally is a flying car!

All images are copyright of the respective companies/websites

 

That’s yer lot for today, sorry for the complete mish mash of subjects but hopefully there was at least something of interest for most people in there 🙂

Next post up… the No Lay Acca guide… finally! 🙂

Notes:

  1. Or unlucky to those who don’t like it! Although why are you still reading this if so haha?!
  2. So don’t think about sending me a barrage of promotional links, douches!
  3. E.g. “Bets should be 1% of your total bank or less allowing you to survive a very long string of losers”
  4. In other words there might just be plenty of blokes out there going “Hell yea Mr 1500, you tell that wife of yours what’s what dude!!!” – which is clearly not his intention at all.