So I was chilling and working through my Google Analytics account, neatening up and clearing the account.
Within the account I found that I had a long forgotten blogger account!
So, following it through brought me here and BOOM, I find myself here!
Now that I've found my long lost blog, I'll be posting more frequently. My current focus is on getting stronger and you can see my most recent work on the subject over at http://banishthatbelly.com.
So until next time ...
... stay tuned!
Thursday, 11 December 2014
Wednesday, 31 August 2011
Wednesday, 26 May 2010
First comment!
Yippee! A milestone for an amateur blogger. So far I have had zero interaction on my blog but today, 26/05/2010, I received my very first comment.
The comment was on my 'making money from the internet' article. It came from Nicole from Rent-A-Coder which offers an alternative to Elance.
I've had a quick browse through and this is definitely a site I'm adding to my arsenal. Most of my programming skill has depreciated due to lack of use and this was partly due to not being able to get any full term work in the area. This pushed computer programming into the 'hobby' arena and eventually into the 'graveyard'. Had I come across the site earlier I could have sourced jobs that could have maintained my interest and helped me improve my coding skills.
One thing is certain, I'll definitely be getting back into programming. As soon as I complete one of my 'top 3' goals, brushing up on programming will be the next goal added to replace it!
Tuesday, 25 May 2010
Learning Through Blogging
Learning Through Blogging
photo by dbdbrobot
The above post (follow the heading) from Freestyle Mind is a very good one on the reasons for blogging.
In just the few months that I've started blogging I've felt the difference in both the way I think through issues and the way I feel. It's like when I read the article, normally I'd read it and move on to the next thing, however, because I have a blog, I read it, thought about it and blogged it. In the process of blogging it I thought about it some more and subsequently retained more of it in my long term memory.
I like the way the issue of making your thoughts and goals public was covered. On of the most difficult issues with blogging is what you do in the event of failure. You've just gone public and said you'd do A,B and C and fail publicly. Failing in public is much more pronounced and embarrasing than failing in private, hence choosing to go public is difficult.
At the end of the day however, knowing your thoughts and goals are public is a good motivator to spur you on and push you into giving that extra effort to accomplish your goals. I have been a bit sneaky in that although I do blog publicly, I have not made any efforts to make my blog public. It is open for those who stumble on it, but is not optimised to get a huge readship as I'm still feeling my way around.
At the end of the day, blogging is a good medium for actively thinking through your ideas and aiding in putting theory to practise. I also feel it is a good stress reliever as you get to air out your views and indirectly learn to deal with stress in the process. Most of all however, it enables you to learn more about yourself!
The above post (follow the heading) from Freestyle Mind is a very good one on the reasons for blogging.
In just the few months that I've started blogging I've felt the difference in both the way I think through issues and the way I feel. It's like when I read the article, normally I'd read it and move on to the next thing, however, because I have a blog, I read it, thought about it and blogged it. In the process of blogging it I thought about it some more and subsequently retained more of it in my long term memory.
I like the way the issue of making your thoughts and goals public was covered. On of the most difficult issues with blogging is what you do in the event of failure. You've just gone public and said you'd do A,B and C and fail publicly. Failing in public is much more pronounced and embarrasing than failing in private, hence choosing to go public is difficult.
At the end of the day however, knowing your thoughts and goals are public is a good motivator to spur you on and push you into giving that extra effort to accomplish your goals. I have been a bit sneaky in that although I do blog publicly, I have not made any efforts to make my blog public. It is open for those who stumble on it, but is not optimised to get a huge readship as I'm still feeling my way around.
At the end of the day, blogging is a good medium for actively thinking through your ideas and aiding in putting theory to practise. I also feel it is a good stress reliever as you get to air out your views and indirectly learn to deal with stress in the process. Most of all however, it enables you to learn more about yourself!
Saturday, 22 May 2010
Making money from the internet
Phew, my little tiger has finally dozed off giving me a small window to put in an article.
It is really amazing how demanding little babies can be. The challenges I've faced being home alone with little Ethan actually had me toying with the idea of blogging on parenting, it's trial and tribulations, but I've thought better of it! I might pursue it as a future project ;-).
But honestly, I had so much planned to do (link to a sketch by Lev Yilmaz, I really enjoy his work) and got none of it done! The lil' critter was up at 5am and remained relatively active for most of the day. Everytime I thought I had a chance to do some work (primarily concentrating on college assignments) the lil' critter always found a way to grab my attention.
photo by daveynin
Anyway, on to the subject of this post. I have been assessing my goals and 'debt reduction' is currently at the top of the list. I feel the plans put in place are achievable and that I will attain my goal of being totally debt free (with the exception of a mortgage, should I chose to take one) within the timeframe set out. I however got to thinking on the subject of money and a conversation with an acquaintance came to mind. He spoke about how a regular job was a disadvantage in that you had to turn up and do the work in order to make money whereas owning your own business did not necessarily require you to be present to make money. The current approach I've taken on debt reduction is based on saving and reducing costs.
photo by photos8.com
In addition to reducing expenses and saving , debt reduction can also achieved by increasing revenue streams. This got me to thinking about the internet and how it must be possible to earn an honest income. When I first started writing this blog I subscribed to AdSense and amazon associates (and now infolinks) which I'd hoped might make money from the clicks generated. Unfortunately, I've only just started blogging hence do not have much of a reader base. Also, the ads from Google AdSense tended to clutter up the blog so I've unsubscribed.
Other interesting potential sources of online revenue I've found include Elance (you can be a freelancer, in a variety of jobs), Freelance switch, Mechanical turk (which pays for doing HIT tasks). There are also a number of other avenues revolving around selling advertising space on your site, subscribing to an affiliate program such as Amazon e.t.c. Having looked at these alternatives I felt it best to lay them aside for now. I plan on building a web server in the near future and such ventures I feel will be better explored on sites I host myself.
So for now, I think I'll focus on freelancing (Elance), in particular writing jobs and human intelligence tasks (Mechanical turk) and see how that goes. Elance is also particularly interesting in that I could look into programming jobs (Java and Python), but I'll have to see whether I have the time to invest.
Anyway the lil' critter has just woken and is fighting for my attention.
Catch you later!
It is really amazing how demanding little babies can be. The challenges I've faced being home alone with little Ethan actually had me toying with the idea of blogging on parenting, it's trial and tribulations, but I've thought better of it! I might pursue it as a future project ;-).
But honestly, I had so much planned to do (link to a sketch by Lev Yilmaz, I really enjoy his work) and got none of it done! The lil' critter was up at 5am and remained relatively active for most of the day. Everytime I thought I had a chance to do some work (primarily concentrating on college assignments) the lil' critter always found a way to grab my attention.
photo by daveynin
Anyway, on to the subject of this post. I have been assessing my goals and 'debt reduction' is currently at the top of the list. I feel the plans put in place are achievable and that I will attain my goal of being totally debt free (with the exception of a mortgage, should I chose to take one) within the timeframe set out. I however got to thinking on the subject of money and a conversation with an acquaintance came to mind. He spoke about how a regular job was a disadvantage in that you had to turn up and do the work in order to make money whereas owning your own business did not necessarily require you to be present to make money. The current approach I've taken on debt reduction is based on saving and reducing costs.
In addition to reducing expenses and saving , debt reduction can also achieved by increasing revenue streams. This got me to thinking about the internet and how it must be possible to earn an honest income. When I first started writing this blog I subscribed to AdSense and amazon associates (and now infolinks) which I'd hoped might make money from the clicks generated. Unfortunately, I've only just started blogging hence do not have much of a reader base. Also, the ads from Google AdSense tended to clutter up the blog so I've unsubscribed.
Other interesting potential sources of online revenue I've found include Elance (you can be a freelancer, in a variety of jobs), Freelance switch, Mechanical turk (which pays for doing HIT tasks). There are also a number of other avenues revolving around selling advertising space on your site, subscribing to an affiliate program such as Amazon e.t.c. Having looked at these alternatives I felt it best to lay them aside for now. I plan on building a web server in the near future and such ventures I feel will be better explored on sites I host myself.
So for now, I think I'll focus on freelancing (Elance), in particular writing jobs and human intelligence tasks (Mechanical turk) and see how that goes. Elance is also particularly interesting in that I could look into programming jobs (Java and Python), but I'll have to see whether I have the time to invest.
Anyway the lil' critter has just woken and is fighting for my attention.
Catch you later!
Friday, 14 May 2010
Monday, 10 May 2010
First obstacle to fitness plan
I recently blogged about my first obstacle to my well laid financial plan, well I now have my first obstacle to my fitness plan.
To be honest, it's not really my first obstacle as I had a prior hiccup. This time, I had a planned session for Thursday but upon returning from college I was simply too tired and did not feel up to it. To compensate I'd planned on visiting the gym on the Friday, but little Ethan was just so demanding I just did not get an open window! So, as you can imagine I moved the session to Saturday, but then the weather was so gloomy and the gin and tonics I'd had the previous night (Friday) left me feeling somewhat lethargic and depressed so once again I moved my session to Sunday. Unfortunately due to working the Saturday night, I was totally shattered Sunday morning and slept through the early part of Sunday.
Good news is I've finally managed to get my session in today (Monday). The session wasn't too bad though I must admit I was not too happy with my squat. I added 5kg in weight, but after starting felt the weight might be a bit too much unaided. To compensate, I ended up doing 1/2 squats instead of going through the full range (the strong lifts program does not allow regression, and advocates sticking to a weight until it's mastered).
Learnings and Corrective actions
I am proud of the fact that I have forced myself to get back on track (really didn't feel like going today), but this doesn't negate the fact that I did not follow the plan. Going forward I need to ensure I get to the gym on my scheduled days regardless of weather or mood even if I just sit out or do light work.
I also need to be careful on the rate of weight increments as I want to ensure steady continual improvement. Often after the first set I'm tempted to load on the weight (a consequence of a previous training regime that consisted almost entirely of pyramiding i.e light weight for warm up followed by progressively increasing weight at reduced reps).
Another reason for careful increments is a previous knee injury (karate, affects squat), lower back injury (diving, affects squat) and bum shoulder (don't know where this one came from, affects bench press). None of them have presented any problems thus far and I attribute it to maintaining good form and not loading too much weight.
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