The One Thing

Such a good Christmas present.  And just at the right time.

Sleep in 2015

I am going to aim to sleep for 7 hours a night.  I'm around the 5 to 6 per night at the moment and normally much less if in a hotel.

I will monitor sleep with a fitbit which I'll only wear in bed.

Morning Rituals

This is how my first hour in the morning looks like.

Pint of water
Aeropress Coffee with fresh beans
Basic Yoga stretches whilst water is cooling
Coffee and 30 minutes of non fiction reading
Walk the dog
Go for a run.

Normally from 6am to 7am. Every morning.

Photon - a post about Travelling Light

Over the past 25 years I've accumulated a lot of things. 

I moved out of my parents house when I was 21 and moved into a 2 bedroom maisonette. All I had was a TV, a stereo, some CDs, a load of records and a single bed. My mum bought me a couple of handmade 2 seater sofas as a moving in present. My little maisonette was very empty and sparce.

However it didn't stay like that for long. A series of girlfriends and improvements in my income soon had an effect on the contents of my life. I lived in that little maisonette for almost 10 years, it was my bachelor pad. I drank a lot in it, I smoked a lot in it and I shagged a lot in it. When I moved into my first proper house I needed to hire a truck and rope in 4 friends to help me move out.

My first proper house was a 3 bedroomed Edwardian Semi and huge compared to the maisionette. Knocked through lounge/diner, master bedroom, lodger's room and then my 'mancave' room. Huge garden too. It was an inappropriately sized house for my new wife and I but we soon filled it up with stuff.

We stayed there for nearly 10 years. The lodgers came and went, the house got renovated, garden remodelled, 2 young children came along and my 'mancave' room became a nursery. You know the rest. I started to earn a better than average income and spent all of it and then some.

3 years ago we moved to a bigger house. This time we actually hired a team of removal men to fill a lorry to drive less than half a mile to move us into our new house. We did no lifting or carrying. The lorry was jammed to the max and we even had pieces of hand made furniture that wouldn't fit in the new house.

When we started to decorate each room of this house we realised that we had so much stuff. We had moved things from house to house and hadn't even opened the boxes. My brother recommended a book called the '100 Thing Challenge' by Dave Bruno and my interest in simplifying my life and possessions started.

This is my journey, not my wife's or my childrens. I'm the Photon who's trying to shed his baggage and wanting to travel light. I'm setting the example for my family.

This blog will chart the journey and record the progress. I've already started but there's a long way to go. It's not easy flirting seriously with Minimalism with a wife and 2 children.

It's not easy when my profession is in the Advertising Industry where my main brief is to get people spending more money buying more stuff.

I hope you enjoy my journey as it unfolds.

Hello...

It's been a while eh?

So much has happened in my world since I last blogged here. I started my own business, left the rat race,  spent more time with my kids and have been around the house more.

2015 will be the year I start to simplify my life and this is where I'll document it. I toyed with the idea of setting up a new blog however I'm quite attached to this one so I'll carry on using it.

I'm not sure how to manage the adverts that appear on the page so please bear with me. I started a blog on SETT called photon however the platform is closing so I've decided not to faff about with smaller blogging sites. So... Back to blogger.

I'll cut and paste the entries here.

Another idea is to be able to blog entirely from my phone and not use a computer. I started this blog many years back with a brand new MacBook, I still have it but it's running very slow now.

Anyhow, it's good to be back. If you read this, do leave me a comment and say hi.

Toby the Patterjack

Argos have Rejected my Truthful Review

Hello Customer Thank you for taking the time to write a review on Classic High Sleeper Bed with Fuchsia Sofa/Sprung Matt-White. We've noticed a potential customer service issue in the review that you submitted. A member of customer services will investigate and respond where required within 24 hours. Alternatively please call 0845 640 3030 for an immediate response. As a result unfortunately your review has not been shown on the site.  Your review: Very Poor Communication Do not ever bother using Argos home delivery. I waited nearly 2 months for this product, they took the money when I ordered in October and I didn't hear from them again. Then I called after 6 weeks to find out what was going on. They then told me that the Mattress company had gone bust. So after some toing and froing we decided to still have the bed delivered and we would get a mattress elsewhere. Finally the bed was delivered last week but WITH a Mattress but without the Futon!!! I called Argos and they then said it was the Futon manufacturer NOT the Mattress manufacturer that had gone bust. And THEN we had to wait a week for the item to be collected. This has been an exercise in frustration. To add insult to injury they are still advertising the product online and apparently you can still buy it in certain parts of the UK. My money has still not been refunded yet! We encourage you to resubmit your review on Classic High Sleeper Bed with Fuchsia Sofa/Sprung Matt-White keeping the content product specific. Please view our guidelines on review submission for further clarification. Thanks for your help, The Argos Team

The Paps on Clipstone Street outside Radio 1

It was Fearne Cotton they wanted, not me.

Glenn

Shouldn't have gone to Specsavers!

http://www.blipfoto.com/view.php?id=881124

The link for the picture of my broken glasses is above.

I've be tweeting Angry Tweets all afternoon and have uploaded the above to Blipfoto, I need to write down what happened today and leave the emotion out of it. I won't be slagging anyone off, however I will be using names of all involved.

I went into town with a list of little post Christmas things to do 'sans' family. One of those jobs was to get my Black Jaspers adjusted because over time they have become a little loose to wear. So I went into Specsavers in Colchester and Arron (young lad, wearing glasses and a Mr Men T shirt) greeted me. I told him I needed my glasses adjusted so he took me over to sit down. Colin (Hope) manager and franchise owner of the branch came over and shook my hand and said 'welcome to our new shop' I've been a customer of Specsavers Colchester for well over 15 years so Colin and I know each other a little.

Colin and I had a little small talk whilst Arron checked my glasses and then got up to go over to a machine to heat up the frames. Colin was stood next to him. Colin saw that Arron had broken the frame and after a brief discussion he offered by way of compensation 50% off a new pair.

Call me 'churlish' if you like but I thought that I would be offered full repair or a full replacement 'no questions asked' because a member of Specsavers staff had broken my glasses. Colin made it quite clear that the deal he was offering was actually quite a good deal because my glasses were more than 2 years old and actually he was being very generous. I am a daily contact lens wearer and these glasses are worn a few hours in the evening so not 'old' and 'out of warranty' as he suggested. Whilst I understand that Arron did not deliberately set out to  break my glasses I find it hard to accept that I need to 'buy' a new pair because Specsavers broke them.

Colin then mentioned that Arron should have given me the 'Specsavers will adjust at your own risk' warning before touching my glasses. I've been a glasses wearer for 30 years and I've never heard an optician say this to me.  By Arron's own admission and agreed by Colin, Arron didn't issue the 'warning' before attempting to adjust my glasses.

I left the branch when we were no longer making any progress with the argument and I visited DandA and also Vision Express. Both of them said that if it had happened in their stores they would have either repaired or replaced, but certainly not offered to 'sell' me another pair. I went back to Specsavers to speak to Colin Hope again about this. He was still holding his ground on the 50% discount on a new pair and stated that the other 2 opticians were liars. (bit unprofessional)

So this is where we are. I went into Specsavers to get my glasses adjusted. They broke them and I have to buy a new pair from them at my cost. The 'compensation' offered of 50% off a new pair is no different to the advertised 2 for 1 offer so how is that actually compensation?

The Specsavers website has no section about complaints or customer service issues. All it has is a 'Contact Your Branch'. This is a problem when the branch is the problem. I have requested a 'contact' from the website so hopefully in the next 48 hours someone apart from the owner of the Colchester Specsavers will get in touch.

This is far from over.

Artful Dodger 'It's all about the Stragglers'

I'm back again, after taking some time off and being a bit lazy. I've been inspired by reading some wonderful blogs so here I am again. I suppose blogging is a bit like Twitter. It can take a while to 'find ones voice' and 'sometimes one can't be arsed' with it all. I'm not going to think of this as blogging, I'll pretend I'm writing a column for a really cool magazine that no one reads...

I've pulled out a couple of CDs from my stash. Artful Dodger is playing at the moment. It's been on repeat since 9.30am. Here's a little recap as to why I'm doing this little exercise. I've been listening to and buying music nearly all my life and I love love love music. However, I stopped strongly connecting new music to events and memories a few years back. The old stuff's fine, but nothing new. I'm certain that this coincided with the purchase of my first iPod. Too much music on tap, too much choice and not spending enough time listening to 1 thing. Sure, there's still the odd piece of music that I can hear that transports me straight back somewhere however I feel this is getting rarer and rarer these days with current music.

I'm revisiting every CD I own and writing about the feelings and memories it evokes. Sometimes it does nothing.

'It's All About the Stragglers' is one of those albums for me. I've had it playing now for nearly 4 hours now and I don't really get a sense of time or place from it. I know I didn't buy this, I'm sure it was from the insurance company after we were burgled. It's the only album of this genre I own. It's good though. Richly produced, clean, bright and bassy. I'm listening to it on my proper hifi in my office and it sounds quite fat and organic... Do you know what I mean?

My mate Ben called me earlier and I told him what I was listening to. He actually booked Artful Dodger a couple times to gig at his Uni a few years back.

I'm glad I pulled this out. It's definitely a HIFI cd. You need space to appreciate this kind of sound. The really annoying thing about this CD is that it has 99 tracks. 12 real ones, followed by 86 silent ones and then 1 last hidden track. What's the point? It's just annoying.

2 things you must know about this CD

1. Craig David's on it (not too annoying either)
2. It's where 're re wind when the crowd say Bo Selecta' came from

It's 10 years old you know?! Blimey, that surprised me...

Hello and Welcome Again!

I've been really really lazy re my blogging this year.

My last proper entry was my London Marathon 2010 entry in April and then I've totally stopped. I had a little looky at my blog and I'm going to make some time and start the music blogging again. I suppose I just don't want this blog to end up a 'dormant' blog.

One thing I have been doing everyday is blipfoto. This has given me the discipline to 'blog' everyday. So, I'll be giving it a go again.

Currently listening to the Beatles Red Album.

Friday Woods Colchester

Blackberry picking at Friday Woods September 2010

Another Rainy BBQ

Entertainment on a long train journey

Came back from a work do with 3 girls from my team who LOVE their celebrity mags.

It was an interesting 3hr journey back. I've never read them before.


Notice the lack of work Blackberries, diaries etc...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A few Pictures from a bike ride today.

www.blipfoto.com

Just over a month ago my twitter friend @lincolngreen tweeted a picture from a website called blipfoto.


I had a little look and joined on May 3. It also coincided with my new camera and spending more time taking pictures again. If you haven't seen the site, do go and have a look. The idea is very simple. Upload 1 picture taken that day, everyday to the website. You can tag it and write a little text and add hyperlinks.


I've been addicted to this website ever since. The interesting thing is that there are all sorts of people posting here. Some are proficient photographers, some are just posting using iphone apps, some are sad and some are happy. The one major thing I have noticed is how polite and grammatically correct everyone is here.


I have posted everyday since May 3 2010 and hope to continue doing so. I'll post the odd picture here too and link up.

It's a really cool community and has disciplined me to think about and take some proper photos everyday. I'm looking at every day through fresh eyes. I've also noticed I'm spending much less time on Twitter too.


If you haven't seen the site, click the link


http://www.blipfoto.com/jayman888

Big Bertha canon

Borrowed this Canon 70-300mm telezoom from a mate today. To 'evaluate'





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Bocking Windmill Some Pictures

Pictures of 2 places my family lived in in the 70's and 80's

I was out on business and had to do a site survey for a client this week and remembered I actually lived the town 30 years ago. I lived in this town from the early 70's to the mid 80s and we lived in 4 different places. I got all nostalgic and went to see a couple of the places my family used to live. I took a couple of sneaky pictures.

This is the first one, a takeaway we owned in the early 70's.

This is the other one, late 70's to early 80's. I was scared of this house because it had a basement with tunnels. Also when we lived there there was no conservatory, just a carport with parking for only 1 car. The current owners have 3!

Next time I'm in the town again I'll go and find the other 2 properties and get pictures of them. It was really weird seeing these 2 places again after over 30 years.