Who ISN'T Penelope Trunk?

If you've read my first 2012 post you'll know that one of my New Year's Revolutions is to get seriously connected.  Ok its not that revolutionary, but in particular I've been working on my online presence.  So, I've pretty much done everything you're supposed to - set up twitter, sort-out my linkedin profile, follow the good and the great of the blogosphere yada yada.

And this is where Penelope Trunk comes in.  She is like blogger royalty, and you know how I love the Royals (long live Kate and Wills!)  So in the last few weeks I subscribed to her blog and feeds etc (still don't really understand RSS or feeds!).  Then comes today's post
 http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2012/01/01/zero-tolerance-for-domestic-violence-is-wrong/

Happy New Year anyone!!??  I'm not even going to get into the rights and wrongs of domestic violence and whether the partner should stick around, but it did make me question whether you should take relationship advice, heck any advice, from someone who thinks its ok to stay in a violent relationship.

The accountant (former auditor) in me then thought, who is this Penelope Trunk anyway? What are her credentials?  Is she at the top of the blog tree just because she is controversial and over-dramatic, with very little actual or informed conent - a bit like reality TV? And then after a bit of googling I spotted the miscarriage post - oooooooohhhhhhhhhh!!!! the penny dropped.  I think I blogged about that too!
http://millermuses.blogspot.com/2009_11_01_archive.html

When all is said and done, we all lead crazy lives, and no-one knows what goes on behind closed doors, unless that closed door is Penelope Trunk, of course.  My point is this - we all make judgements in aspects of our lives that others wouldn't agree with.  That does not necessarily invalidate every single opinion, or piece of advice that we dole out does it?  In reality, who isn't Penelope Trunk?

Happy New Year!

Phew... Survived another year! I don't know about you but I have enjoyed a lovely two week break over the Christmas hols and it has been simply marvellous.

2011 seems to have whizzed by in a blur and we're on the precipice of another year already.

Last year I resolved to not make certain types of resolutions eg. ones that involve stopping one thing or giving up another. And I'm sticking to the same tack, as it seems to have worked pretty well last year. So I'm focusing on what new things I can do, or continue.

This year I am sorting out my online presence - all part of getting connected, properly. And this time It means more than just clicking on the 'people you may know' buttons on LinkedIn.

I'm also going public with my image on the web. This means my mug on LinkedIn and twitter etc. This picture sums up how I feel about that. To be honest it's a bit daunting and I have usually kept photos to my facebook profile, which is and will always be private.

Anyway, my challenge will be finding the time to keep all of these plates spinning as well as building up my real world network through Stilettos & SOS. Wish me luck guys, it's gonna be a busy year!

Do you have wifi?

Is it just me, or is there now an innate expectation that most pubs, restaurants, hotels and anywhere else you have to spend a fair amount of time, will have wifi? Even my hairdresser has wifi.

And yet there are still those quaint businesses who are determined not to buy into this new-fangled technology of the twenty-first century. When you ask the owners of such establishments whether they have wifi they almost seem proud of the fact that they don't. However, approach the staff, who are probably asked several times a day, and they are somewhat more contrite at this obvious oversight.

Don't get me wrong, I am not a big fan of being 'on' at all times. By this I mean the inability to ever switch off, be still and be out of touch once in a while. However, this has very little to do with wifi or not to wifi. Wifi is now the ubiquitous medium for us to access our 'stuff' be that newspapers, magazines, books, music, film, ideas and notes. Increasingly, as more of our 'stuff' is stored in fluffy clouds, we will need wifi to access it. Businesses that don't get this will simply be left behind.

I was in the pub today at a 'business-cum-christmas-catch-up' meeting and there was no wifi! I guarantee you we will not be meeting there again, nor would we consider it to be a viable venue for future events, because without wifi it is simply sub par and most definitely behind the curve.

Unless BT Openzone fills in the gap, I predict that businesses that do not get with the programme will simply be left behind. Love it or loathe it, Wifi is going to be more important than having a telephone.

Slow and Steady

It's a bit late but this is just a quick note to say, I did it!

The Great Birmingham Run of course, or the 'Birmingham Half marathon', pre-rebrand. And this year, although it was bigger than better I was slower than ever. At 2.15 I finished in my slowest ever half marathon time, a good 10 mintues slower than last year. The frustrating thing is I'm not really sure why, although I had done far less training than last year so that may have had something to do it.

But when all's said and done, I still finished, in a fairly respectable time, to most people. Just not for me. Once you have set your standards and your goals - a 4.30 NYC marathon next year in case you were wondering - it's quite difficult to accept anything less than progress. I did thoroughly enjoy it, even bumping into an old family friend on the way round. There is nothing better than running round familiar streets, when you are pushing your body to it's limit.

The lesson from this run? Sheryl needs to run faster (first ever third person self-reference, what is that a sign of?) I think I see the first of my 2012 resolutions already - to join a running club!

Finding my own calm

After two weeks of doing nothing on a beach I returned to work as chilled out as I could possibly be. I had left the blackberry at home and forgotten my mobile phone in the car at Gatwick, so all in all I was pretty much uncontactable, apart from via iPad of course. For books, you understand!

This semi-comatose state was great, until I to got back to work. It has taken me two weeks to properly engage brain. On returning to the midst of a flurry of last-minute budget changes and general head-scratching, I felt somewhat distant from it all, and even felt a tad 'left out' of all of the chaos, which I obviously thrive on as well as loathe.

And then there's the economy, which has generally gone from bad to worse to diabolical. It would be easy to feel a sense of uneasiness, anxiety, panic even. Thanks to the genuine r and r I enjoyed whilst away I still have a strong sense of inner calm. Hopefully they effects will longer than the golden tan!

As Good As It Gets

Yes, I am on holiday.

I haven't had a proper holiday for a couple of years now, so this latest break has been carefully planned out to present the maximum opportunity for total destressing, chilling out and doing pretty much nothing. Hence, I decided to swap the running shoes that normally accompany me, for me yoga mat.

Sticking true to my new year's resolutions I strolled through LGW with guitar in hand and had no problems carrying it on to the Virgin flight.  This too was a good omen to the rest of the holiday.

This isn't trip advisor so I'll spare the amateur reviews.  Suffice to say, this latest trip has just gone from 'great' to 'nirvana' when for our second week we now have a free upgrade to the cottage which is closest to the beach - spitting distance in fact.  And so I practiced my Yoga on the beach this morning, with the sounds of the waves lapping the shore.  If this is as good as it gets, I'm happy.

Wired for Sound

OMG! Napster has finally gone apple here in the UK.

I do believe it was way back in September last year that napster announced it's iPhone app was coming to the UK. Blogs went crazy, tech magazines went into overdrive - the granddaddy of music downloading was back in the game. OK, so I'm exaggerating slightly but I think you catch my drift.

Unfortunately there was then a pregnant pause, of about 9 months, until the thing finally went live last month. The fanfare seems to have been scaled back so much this time around that I actually heard nothing, nada. I just happened to be telling my sister how I couldn't wait to get rid of my spotify subscription when the napster app finally arrived, and managed to stumble on it. I guess the napster marketing team were scared of another disappointment so muffled the fanfare.

Anyway, no use crying over spilt milk it's here now and that's all that matters. Now people will see how second-rate spotify really is. Napster wins hands down in terms of back catalogue, user interface and functionality. And all this just in time for my latest favourite purchase, my ipad2. Whoop whoop!!!!