I’m feeling quite lazy today, so Part C is going to be a brief instalment.  Hey – at least I’m making an effort.  I should have a bit of time over the weekend, so expect long-winded essays then…  As with yesterday, I’m going to cheat a little…

Positive Fact C

I’m extremely immature and good (if somewhat dirty) humoured.  I don’t tend to take things very seriously at all.

I’d like to think that this fosters some kind of enjoyable work environment – I’ve yet to be hauled in front of the courts for helping to create an expletive-ridden, dirt-mongering office environment.  Only today, I was encouraging work colleagues to search the Internet for reviews on Aberdeen whores.  The scary thing is, we (or rather, I – I don’t wish to taint anyone else in the office here) managed to find some cursory reviews, including one girl who is “alleged to be the dirtiest cock sucker in the world – advance booking recommended”! (the totally work-unfriendly link is here).

Maybe not a well-known fact, but I do enjoy reverting into extremely childish moods at times.  I enjoy the whole universe of Pokémon – in fact I have a number of these plush toys adoring my office and at home.  The Animaniacs are my other passion – my first company was named after the location they lived in, and all of the PCs I’ve owned since starting business has invariably been named after one of the characters on the show.  I have pretty much all their soundtracks, and am occasionally prone to singing aloud to them in the car (which must be a completely mad sight – a chubby oriental-type sitting in an obscenely expensive Audi RS 6, singing along to the kiddie-oriented Be Careful What you Eat song as sung by the Warner Brothers (and Warner sister)).

The net effect is that I probably spend half my time acting like a 10 year old, and really enjoying it.  Life’s too short to take seriously all the time – kick back, and have laid-back and innocently-humoured fun!

Negative Fact C

Alas – my utter immaturity and childishness rubs some people the wrong way.  I suspect that there may be a few people within the IT industry who might view me as being totally insane, especially given my entirely retarded behaviour at parts of the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference earlier this year.  I am also perhaps not the most professional representative of our company, as evidenced by what I get up to at professional training courses – that was no random freebie junket, but a £3,500 course paid for with company money…!

Yes – I know that my colleagues sometimes despair at the utter lack of self-control I have, and I have no doubt are sometimes faintly embarrassed on my behalf.  I know that my childish antics have certainly knocked back my professional credibility a bit.

It’s all about getting a decent balance between having fun and enjoying work, and remaining professional enough to perform the work and to instil confidence within work colleagues, clients and partners.  Although I’m having a ton of irreverent fun, I’ve obviously not got this balance right, and I suspect the business suffers because of this… :(

So – part 2, er “Part B” of my 30-part epic.  Sweepstakes already abound as to how many posts I manage to make before I get bored and give up!

I’ll cheat a little today…

Positive Fact B

I have a very organised, very methodical and logical mind.  Every major decision I make comes down to hours of logical thinking and fine-tuning.  It’s why I’m such a great fit in the IT industry (although, strangely, no idea why I’m such a terrible coder).  I can very carefully visualise how entire networks and functionality is built, and how they all inter-depend or inter-relate with each other.

It also means that I rarely make decisions I regret.  That’s not to say that I don’t screw up – I do, and I sometimes do spectacularly.  But – the risk has always been considered, and I’m never really bitten in the ass by any decision that I have thought through.  Even some recent business-related issues – although unpleasant and inconvenient – was not a surprise, and the risk was considered beforehand (I could have handled it better, in hindsight, but again – no real regret with how things have gone).

So – no rash decisions, then, and very few regrets on business and work-related decisions that I make.  Happy days.

Negative Fact B

As I said, I’m cheating today.  So – today’s negative fact about my life is the fact that I have a very organised, very methodical and logical mind.  Déjà vu?

Alas – all that planning, forethought and preparation means I have very little time to actually spend committing to a task that I have spent ages planning.  Sometimes, the opportunity has flown right by before I’ve made up my mind.

Minor case in point – today, while at the gym, I was incredibly desperate for a pee whilst on the X-Trainer.  My dilemma was – should I interrupt my training program on the X-Trainer, head down for a pee, then come back and try to resume my exercise?  Or should I risk holding it in, with an escape plan on standby should I have an “accident”?  I spent a good 11-12 minutes debating it either way, and also formulating the best, most discrete way of quickly wandering away should I momentarily lose bladder control.  In just under a quarter-of-an-hour, my routine on the X-Trainer was pretty much complete anyway, making my whole thought process moot, as I had to hang on for another couple of minutes before leaving.  Yes – it actually took me so long to come to a decision that I ran the high risk of public humiliation, as well as rendering my dilemma moot through the passage of time.

On a professional basis, I have possibly one of the most complex task-management systems ever.  I have a whole notebook in Microsoft Office OneNote dedicated to managing my business goals.  My current professional tasks span 5 tabs, each holding anywhere up to 30 pages, and each page containing up to 50 tasks (although, on average, anywhere between 10-25 task).  Yes – I’m not exaggerating when I say that I have planned for myself, an overall to-do list of over 5,000 tasks.

My greatly logical mind creates big overarching goals (say, renew Microsoft Partner registration for 2009), which is broken down into smaller tasks (say, renew Information Worker competency), which is then broken down into yet another sub-task (complete 3 client references), which is still yet broken down into a smaller task (complete client reference for XYZ Limited).  This huge task “book” takes a couple of hours every day to tend and update.

All of this is linked to Microsoft Office Outlook, which I use to manage the atomic tasks (that is, tasks that cannot be broken down any further and are my “next step” items).  These are the tasks that I sync to my phone, and which I try to perform on a daily basis.  In order to ensure that I do tasks, I then link each task item as a calendar item in my diary, thus (in my mind), scheduling an item to be done at a particular time.

Excellent – my mind says.  However, I’ve just burned through pretty much a whole morning managing my business tasks, and any unforeseen interruption (say, a quick 20 minute chat with one of the guys in the office, or an unplanned phone call), and my elaborate plan all falls to pieces and I spend ages rescheduling and re-prioritising.

Yes – it’s shit, and  I need to find a way to be more effectual.  The other thing that galls me around this?  I also have an equivalent for my personal life and personal interests, but rarely visit that due to lack of time.  It is somewhat disheartening to look at my personal life, and see how stagnant it has become both in terms of self-development/self-improvement, and how totally unbalanced my business/personal life is.

Rather than numbering things, I’m going to use letters.  It’ll be interesting to see what happens when I reach the end of the alphabet as, last time I checked, there weren’t 30 of the blasted things (letters, that is).

Anyway – this is the first blast at my self-imposed introspection…  30 positive and 30 negative things about my life, eh…?  Let’s get the ball rolling with some fairly frank open statements:

Positive Fact A

I’m a very frank and open person.  I say, and blog, about a lot of things.  Usually highly inappropriate things.  I don’t really care what other people think about my statements or opinions (which is either a shining example of being truly open-minded, or is sheer bloody-minded selfishness – I like to think of it as the former).

Despite appearances to the contrary – there are a number of things I still keep private (a topic for another day), and that I only discuss with my very close inner circle (yet another topic – but to keep you guessing – my inner circle isn’t composed of people).

However, for the most, I’m quite happy to express my opinion – be they welcome or otherwise.  There is no topic I won’t broach – and I’m quite happy to offend people with my thoughts (again, another blog post for the future).

So yes – it’s not that I have no shame.  It’s just that, well, I see very little point in keeping secrets.  People either like you, and your opinions, or they don’t.  There’s no point hiding or, even worse, lying about who you are in order to gain more “friends” – what a pointless exercise.  I am who I am (a topic of a previous post), and I don’t see any point in pretending otherwise, or inhibiting yourself just because society says so (although, yet again, another topic for another day).

Being so open…?  Positive, in my book.

Negative Fact A

Well, if I’m such an open-minded individual, able to speak about any topic, let’s open with a belter.  Or maybe not, as I’m sure most people have suspicions anyway, if I haven’t already outright confirmed it.  I am, or will shortly be, a 30-year old virgin.

Yep – currently, I’ve done it with ladies, gents, dogs, sheep, dolphins or anything else as often as I’ve done it with Her Majesty the Queen.  That is to say, I have not yet done the deed.  Not even come close.

I have (what I think) are principled reasons as to why my life has been void of any sexual activity.  However, reasons aside (and yes, they are also forthcoming topics on my 30-day blog epic), I have to admit that, now that I’m well over the peak of sexual prowess, I wonder if perhaps I’ve left things quite (too?) late.

I’m at the stage now where, with hindsight, I’m of the opinion that I should have been engaging in the hanky-panky quite some time ago.

So yes.  For the record – I do regret not having tried hard enough (or tried at all, if I’m brutally honest).  It’s not as if it appears that difficult – given what I see goes on in town on a Friday or Saturday evening.

Having said that, I’m still principled enough to not go out and just pay for some action.  Heck – I imagine what I spend on petrol a month on my car could more than buy some, er, other form of entertainment.  But, well, that’s not just me.

You never know, though.  After 30 days of introspection, perhaps I’ll throw caution to the wind and go all-out on a mad whore-guzzling binge with fistfuls of cash.  However, I suspect not.

Wow.  Has it been nearly a month since I last blogged?

Well – I’ve been busy.  It’s probably a few blog posts in itself, but it’s been a messy few months, and I’m just trying to get organised.  Needless to say, I stuffed up and am now running about like a headless chicken, trying to get everything on an even keel again.

Which neatly leads into the main topic of this particular posting.

I’m near to hitting the ripe old age of 30, and people have been asking why I haven’t organised a birthday bash of some sort…  It’s because, long-term, I think I’ve stuffed up, and really need to get things in shape.

Not to piss all over everyone else’s 30th birthdays (there’s been a spate of these this year due to all my similarly-aged university acquaintances), but I personally don’t feel that birthdays are major events.  Now don’t get me wrong – there are folk out there who enjoy having a bash, and it’s a nice excuse to get some far-flung friends together for a party.  However, a birthday – to me – is about celebrating achievements.  Let’s face it – unless you’re particularly stupid, careless or horrendously unfortunate, then getting to 30 years of age is hardly a difficult achievement.  We should be striving to achieve great things (within our means), not sitting back in satisfaction at the mere passage of time.

So – achievements, then.  Alas – looking at the last 30 years, I’d give myself a C grade in terms of what I hoped to achieve by this stage.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not bitter, or complaining, about the standard of my life.  Overall, it’s very nice – and I’m certainly very fortunate to be in the tiny percentile of folk around the world who do not need to worry about basics such as food or shelter.

However, given the environment, opportunities and education I have been fortunate enough to receive – well, I’ve done a pretty piss-poor job of building upon all of this.  I’m not talking specifically about any financial goals (although they are fairly important), but – at this particular moment, I can’t single out any particular thing that I’ve done in recent times that I’m really proud of as an achievement.  It’s fairly, well, disappointing.

All due to a lack of effort on my part, though – it’s not like I’ve been really pushing to do something charitable, or have made any great effort to earn a fortune.  I’ve been coasting along so far, which has been enjoyably relaxed and entertaining.  But with some hindsight, I wonder if perhaps I’ve squandered 30 years of opportunity…?

I’m sure everyone gets this feeling when they hit the “middle-age” band, and I’m certainly going through this now.

But as I said – this isn’t really a rant.  More of a chance for some in-depth introspection.  I had an idea around the blog that I’ll try over the next period…

Given that I’m nearly 30 years of age, I thought it might be an interesting exercise over the next 30 days to post what I feel are 30 positive, and 30 negative, aspects of my life – one of each per day.  This takes me nicely into the New Year, which is quite well-timed.

Other than the first couple of thoughts – I have no idea what I’m going to write.  I’ll make it up as I go along…  It’ll be a long process but, at the end of this, I’ll hopefully have a better idea of what I’ve achieved in life, and what can be improved.  If you have the patience/boredom to read all of it, you might get to know me a little better as well.

So… here goes…