This is the review of April. One third of the year gone already, all those goals I set aren't looking so good now.
I spent some time early in the month trying to plan a short
Easter holiday. I ended up settling on Sydney which probably sounds simple, but it still turned out to be a fair amount of effort to research and plan out enough activities to keep me busy for four days. The hardest part is usually working out how to come up with an effective timeline that will fit in all of the activities, and then the transport required to get around is a close second.
I've gotten into a regular
running routine during the week at work, which usually consists of a day off on Monday and then another day off on either Thursday or Friday depending on how I'm feeling. I added in a day of sprint training one week which I know is good for my long term improvement, but it is just so punishing trying to push myself at the absolute limit for 500 metres at a time. I should try and do it every week but I'm usually dealing with various injuries so often I just don't want to risk it. The new office makes it much easier to get to Princes Park and although it's a bit closer to The Tan as well I have to run down Swanston Street to get there. I'm able to make use of the bike lane and tram "super stops" to avoid most of the pedestrians, but it's still a bit of a task to get down there and back - and when you're struggling a bit for motivation it's the last thing you want.
I finally got to watch the new paranormal movie,
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones. I've enjoyed all of the previous movies, even when they started to get a bit repetitive and predictable, but this one was just a disaster. The story was terrible and it was barely watchable, I give it a 2 out of 10.
The NCAA finally reached it's conclusion, beginning with the final four on the first weekend. I only managed to catch the last quarter of Connecticut vs. Florida and even less of Kentucky vs. Wisconsin. I can't really get excited watching non-professional sports, and not knowing any of the players doesn't help either. I also downloaded the
NCAA final which was played early the following week, the start was exciting and actually well played, before it became more like a typical NCAA final - lots of bad possessions and bad shooting. I was happy that Connecticut won at least.
I attended a two day
training course which focuses on Agile and Kanban. I thought it might be a bit boring and I would know most of the stuff already, but it managed to easily exceed my very low expectations - and the free food was a great bonus! Some of the group activities were fun, in particular this pretty cool Kanban board game we played for a couple of hours which required a lot of communication and teamwork.
I went to my first AFL game for the year,
Carlton vs. Melbourne. Both teams didn't have a win, but I figured if there was one team Carlton could beat it was Melbourne. The start of the match was really clumsy, both teams had a lot of turnovers and failed to score many goals. In the second half Melbourne started to pull away as it became clear Carlton do not have anything close to a functional forward line, the ball hardly got in there and it came out just as quickly. Sadly then, it was another loss for Carlton to start the year with 0 wins and 4 losses. Maybe next week...
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| Not a good day to be a Blues fan. |
The next day was the
Run For The Kids race through the city. I wasn't happy with my race, but I've covered that in a lot more detail
here.
After a stressful week at work when I continue to have too much to do and not enough time to do it, I got away to
Sydney for the extra long Easter weekend. All of the days of the holiday report are linked from
here.
Getting back from the holiday I only had two days back at work, which was fantastic! I think I'd go crazy within the first month of having no job and being stuck in the house all day, but shorter works week I'd definitely be in favour of, sadly I'll be working until I'm 70 now - which is a scary proposition.
My
ANZAC long weekend was a lot less dramatic that my Easter weekend, I spent a lot of time watching the start of the NBA playoffs - although it makes me wish I lived in the USA so I could match sports during the evening
every day of the year. I usually just tune in or download the fourth quarters of games, just to mention a few:
- 25th
- Memphis vs. Oklahoma City (game three) (overtime)
- 26th
- Brooklyn vs. Toronto
- Washington vs. Chicago
- 27th
- Dallas vs. San Antonio (game three)
- Memphis vs. Oklahoma City (game four) (overtime again)
I also got to watch a few more movies:
- 30 For 30: Bad Boys - A pretty good timeline of the Detroit Pistons from the early 1980's through to the early 1990's when they won two championships in a row. Unlike many of these documentaries there was a good amount of actual footage of the events, and most of the players from the team participated in interviews. 7 out of 10.
- 30 For 30: This Is What They Want - A review of Jimmy Connors run in the 1991 US Open when he was 39 years old and made the semi finals. It was just one tournament but the pace of the documentary was still alright, too bad that Connors still seems like a bit of a jerk. 6 out of 10, but you probably need to like tennis at least a bit.
- From Up On Poppy Hill - Another Studio Ghibli animated movie, this one set in 1960's Japan so the animation was a little simpler but still well done. The storyline was a little bit simplistic, only two main topics, but it was quite entertaining and a had a terrific theme song which suited it perfectly. 7 out of 10.
Having overcome my latest batch of running injuries I was finally able to get in a good long run over the weekend, a 19km loop around Ringwood and Heathmont which was a bit of a grind at the finish but it was good to get through it well. The next day we went down to the Nunawading aquatic centre where I ran into an old high school friend Tim. I hadn't seen him for years so it was good to be able to catch up for a half hour. My ratings of the facilities at an aquatic centre:
- Steam Room - Easily the best, the hotter the better
- Sauna - Much drier than the steam room and not as hot
- Pool
- Spa - I don't really enjoy just sitting in warm water with bubbles
During the last week of April I was totally overload with work again as we were finishing a three week iteration of work. I usually try to find a few minutes here and there at work to take a break and read a good sports article, usually something from Grantland, but I've been so busy I'm about a month behind in bookmarked pages to read. I think I'm finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel now though.
In the sad, few short hours between one work day and the next I've also been trying to avoid the NBA scores and download the fourth quarters to watch in the evening. The first round of the playoffs has been easily the most exciting I can remember for some time now.
A few other quick highlights to finish:
- I finally finished my 40th bakery article, see 21-40 here
- I finally finished another book - Stephen King's "Insomnia"
- According to my book reader I spent 16 hours reading it, over at least two months!
- I really enjoyed the story, 8 out of 10
- I played about 2 hours of Grid 2 for the month on XBox 360, that was all the time I spent playing video games
Until next month...
