1st of ‘08 – sorry its late (2 of 2, non-work bits)

Okay, the non-work update would include the fitness thing …  Its going well – I’m trying to work up slowly and sensibly.  My taxi driver observed the other day that he had no need to loose weight as he grew older because most “old people” seemed to stay thin easily.  I suggested that maybe they didn’t become thin as they grew older –but possibly the people who were very large didn’t often get to become very old.  Sobering for us both.   Anyway, I’m up to 5 x 30min runs per week at 5.50am (yea, it is baaad!) – target is 6 x 45min runs.  This week sees it going up to 40 mins and a decrease in speed.  Why the latter?  Well, I smelled ammonia in the shower this week – which apparently means one of two things. Either I should not have had that cup of tea before going to bed, or else, I am running at a speed that is burning muscle as well as fat.  Burning fat is about increasing time not intensity (given the 65% max heart rate rule – see earlier post). 

Oh, meant to say, if you want something good to follow for reducing body fat and improving your overall figure – including food advice, get Bill Philips book “Body for Life” – follow it religiously for 12 weeks and you’ll love it!

See: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Body-Life-Mental-Physical-Strength/dp/0007149670  though there are always loads cheaper on eBay …

I did this quite a few years ago now – a bit American and it takes a while to find the UK version of the foods he refers to but well worth while (avoid the blatant adverts for his own products like protein powder.)  Though if you do want the latter, go to www.wehyconsortium.com – much much cheaper – get the unflavoured and just add a drop of fruit cordial or milkshake syrup – gives a large chicken breast’s worth of protein for about 10p.   He makes the good point that if you don’t combine resistance training (weights) with diet and exercise then you’ll just move from being a large bell shaped thing to being a small bell shaped thing …

Yes, sounds mad – but I used to be in to this when I used to go to the gym!  Until about 2.5 years ago, I was lifting 110kg for 5×5 reps on the bench.   Then I pulled my shoulder and thought I could work through it – d’oh!  Haven’t been in the gym since really but intend to get back to it at some point.

Being a fan of the non sequitur, let me say I also installed Vista on my home PC last weekend – not only installed, but upgraded from XP – against everyone’s advice!  But I’m delighted to say that it went really well (though the install plus download of 500MB of patches took some 5 hours!).  No real probs to report and I love the graphics plus the fact that I can alt-tab to the desktop.  Not so happy with Office 2007 though – I find it very unintuitive to use and have yet to discover a real personal benefit over 2003.

Another lack of disappointment – I’d also been told that the Bourne Ultimatum wasn’t that good – but having waited for ages unsuccessfully for Tesco DVD rental (via Lovefilm) to send me a copy, I borrowed it from a friend – only to receive one from Tesco the next day J.  Anyway, I thought it was fab – it was the only film I can ever remember being tempted to watch a second time (resisted).  However, I can’t make out whether it picked up where the last one left off – or whether it picked up way before the last one left off …

Birthdays:  My son Aaron was 9 but already, his class mates appear to be having a competition to organise the most wild Birthday parties – speed boats around the bay, dry slope skiing, quad biking – what on earth will they be doing when they are 19?!  Well, I think a de-escalation is needed here so we had a party in the Hall where I’d organised some activities and invited a bloke who owns too many reptiles, tarantulas, scorpions, 12 ft long snakes and similar disgusting things.  It was the best – and it only cost £60 all in!  However, now he wants a leopard gecko – but there’s no way I’m into getting a weekly supply of crickets to feed it – ick!

Penultimately, I hate low energy light bulbs.  Of course I think its sensible to avoid needless wasting of valuable energy resources but is it just me – or is anyone else annoyed at having to wait for about 3 minutes before you can see your clothes in the morning – and when you can, they seem to have a green tinge?  Am I just buying the wrong make or what? (hmmm, maybe my clothes actually are all a shade of green …)

That last bit is in there especially for Paul Folan, our incredible University Secretary.  A man who has a brain the size of a planet (like Marvin the Paranoid Android) and who could write emails for Wales!  But he thinks I’m a pathological optimist so there Paul – how d’ya like dem apples?

And more for you Paul – the Samsung Q1 Ultra …  Perfect evidence as to why one should NEVER let your marketing manager and product manager be on holiday at the same time – something like this might make happen.  I’m sorry guys but I am so incredibly gutted with this piece of “tech-noway-logy”.  I can’t even be bothered to spend the time writing why I’m so disappointed (partly cos its late admittedly) – but my vote is for the HTC Shift.  If you’d like to see a very good (yet oh so bad!) review of the latter, go here: http://media.libsyn.com/media/gottabemobile/The_HTC_Shift_Hugo_Ortega_GBM.wmv

You gotta love Hugo Ortega!

1st of ‘08 – sorry its late (1 of 2, work bits)

It wasn’t – but one of my New Year resolutions should have been to write more frequent and shorter blog entries.  However, as it wasn’t a NY resolution, maybe there’s some chance I’ll keep to it, lol.

Anyway, some work highlights from this new year so far include the following…  After the writing of a student criminal convictions (self declaration + CRB) policy, I attended my first panel meeting with a student who had been involved in a very difficult life tragedy resulting in a custodial sentence that will never be regarded as spent for the career the person wanted to pursue.  This however does not preclude enrolment on a course – but the outlook for professional progression was bleak.  Very difficult and emotionally fraught case but the Dean who I was with on the Panel is just such a sound and experienced chap!

The routine round of committee meetings (including Management Board) have been busy but perhaps not as much as usual, largely due to the Christmas period – though Academic Board was riveting for wider environmental issues and a couple of interesting facts I had not realised about our School Quality Assurance and Enhancement Committees (not least of which is that I am a member!) …

An interesting meeting about various issues surrounding Distance Learning within the University raised more questions for me than it answered – but it is the beginning of a process; and a similar meeting with RISE colleagues placed within IT working on pan-Wales learning environments was similar in its outcomes – though I have some ideas on linking this work with the recommendations of the recent Webb review of FE in Wales…

As part of the ongoing City Centre Campus work (please don’t think that because I don’t mention it that it isn’t still taking up a lot of time!), I Chaired a meeting of the Learning Environment Group to look at minimum specifications of teaching rooms to feed into Learning and Teaching Committee.

One more draft of the Under 18s / vulnerable adults paper and its now ready for submission to the next Management Board – thanks Lawrence.

Administrative meetings including a session with the external consultant who is leading us through the KPI (key performance indicators) case study method – we’re one of the six institutions in the UK who are developing Governor centred KPIs as part of a national initiative … more to follow (wow, I finally find a benefit from reading all those Kaplan books, lol).

Then, a meeting with our simply excellent Director of Quality Assurance and Enhancement (Brent Stephens) to look at how we can improve processes to streamline/avoid so many curriculum changes coming through the system late in the year – very worthwhile.

Finance, Deans Forum and and trying to tackle Wide format printing (I get all the fun!) completes the list of Admin related meetings.

Finally, we had a day last Friday with senior managers and the Leadership Foundation looking at the future – this was so much more positive (in terms of the people mix) than it would have been even a year ago.  We have some great people here – and the more their sails become set towards the same wind, the faster and further we will go!

Its a great time to be working here.