Week 57 – 06/10/2019

It has been a very good week. My brain feels erm….awake, for the first time in a long time. Not sure what has caused this but I think it is the challenge of a new industry, a supportive company that is looking for me to bring positive change and good people encouraging learning and change. I have loads of things fizzing around in my head and just need to get some structure around it all.

Useful brain food was consumed at the 8th edition of the Northern User Experience conference on Friday in Manchester. It was brilliant. Such a great line up of speakers and three of the talks were exactly what I needed to help me sort out those previously mentioned things fizzing round my head.

The other good thing about NUX was that it also gave me some inspiration for our little Product event in Sheffield. We confirmed the date for our second Product Tank Sheffield. The event is on the 21st of November which gives us a few weeks to confirm some speakers. Looking forward to all that comes with organising and running these things.

Ran to work for the first time. A semi successful attempt on Monday, I had to stop and walk for five mins after over 7k, then a full run of the route on Thursday. 9.2km in total. Managed to not record it correctly on Strava but thankfully the surveillance capitalism masters at Google had me covered with Google Fit. 59 minutes it took which is pretty slow but still very happy I have done it. To keep me on the running path I also signed up for the Percy Pud again this year. A famed 10k run in Sheffield that gifts the runners a Xmas Pud, complete with a packet of custard. I ran it in 59 mins last year. I would like to go a bit faster this year. I think 58 mins should be achievable. Marginal gains and all that.

Our cancelled holiday to Morocco and subsequent refund (thankfully) meant we had a bit of spare cash and a decision to make about what to spend it on. Kids were not that fussed about going on holiday and the prices had all sky rocketed anyway. So we bought a small car instead. A 7 year old Kia Piccanto to have as our second car. It is a pretty nice little thing and should make our lives a little easier as the ferrying round of two children gets ever more complicated as they get older.

Watched You were never really here starring Joaquin Phoenix. Best film I have seen in a quite a while. Has a dirty oppressive feel to it and is very sparse both in dialogue and detail with lots of scenes only showing the bare minimum needed. I then watched Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy straight after which had a very similar feel and it made me remember how much I loved that first time round at the cinema. It seems I like feeling oppressed…maybe it wakes my brain up.

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