Happy New Year! ( content note: weight loss )

Happy New Year! You're all no doubt itching to learn how I got on with my 2016 New Year's Resolutions.

[Content note: weight loss/gain]
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!markdown ( Read more... )

[Wherein we review an academic conference in the High/Low/Crush/Goal/Bane format used for reviewing juggling conventions on rec.juggling.]

High: My old Codeplay colleague Ally Donaldson's FAT-GPU workshop. He was talking about his GPUVerify system, which takes CUDA or OpenCL programs and either proves them free of data races and synchronisation- ( Read more... )

It was often uncomfortable, often painful, particularly for the first month, but other days were pure joy, a revelling in the sensation of movement, of strength and wellbeing. My regular headaches stopped. For the first time ever, I got through winter without even a cold. I felt incredibly well, began to walk and hold myself differently. When ( Read more... )

The Ball Game

This game is a particular favourite of Josie, but Haggis finds it boring. The kitten takes a ball (usually one made of silver foil), and bats it around with its paws and carries it around in its mouth. The game has a very complicated scoring scheme which we haven't worked out yet, and ends when the kitten gets bored.

This game has a ( Read more... )

"Would you like some money towards another Glenmore Lodge course for Christmas?" said my Dad, some time in December. I thought about last year's course for about half a second and said "Yes please!". This time I signed up for the five-day winter lead climbing course, and had five fantastic days climbing: Wednesday in particular was one of the best ( Read more... )

This has been an unexpectedly good week on the climbing front. On Tuesday, I got up my first F7a route, and today I climbed my first V4 boulder problem ( Read more... )

Last week I went on a two-day Introduction to Winter Climbing course at the National Outdoor Training Centre at Glenmore Lodge, at the foot of the Cairngorms. I'd done a few winter routes before, but I wanted to fill in my knowledge of the basics: I had a few specific questions I wanted answered, but I was mostly worried about the unknown unknowns ( Read more... )

0500 Dreams part briefly into wakefulness. Note that still cold, despite putting on all my jumpers last night.
0501 Notice that I am not in fact wearing any jumpers. Must have forgotten to put them on.
0502 Put on jumpers. Go back to sleep.
0600 Alarm goes off.
0602 Get out of sleeping bag, put on trousers and jacket. Roll up sleeping bag and ( Read more... )