Ralph Cooper

So the end of 2010 is upon us. People the world over are preparing to welcome 2011 with cheer and gusto, or if you live in the UK, with a cough and a splutter it seems.

There are many things 2010 could be remembered for - the general election, spending cuts, the commonwealth games, the world cup... ok maybe not the world cup - but for me, what's fresh in my mind at the moment is simply that everyone seems to be celebrating Christmas and the end of the year with cold, flu or sickness of some kind!

Family, friends, colleagues, I can't think of a single household not affected by it in some way. The news may be telling us that the flu cases aren't at the highs we've seen in the past, but I can't say I believe it. Maybe reported cases are - and maybe that's because we've been better at vaccinating 'at risk' groups this year - but most people will just stay at home and stick it out if they're ill. There's nothing your GP can do unless you're dying, so why put yourself through the pain of getting out of bed to go and see them? If we could count up all the unreported cases too, I think we'd see a different picture.

So what does this leave us for 2011 then? Well hopefully not too much more of the same. More cold weather is on the way, which won't help, but eventually the viruses will back off and leave us to make up for lost time. On the plus side I guess we won't all be carrying an extra half a stone from Christmas over-indulgence!

Resolutions for the next year? I'm sure we'll all have a few, some we might even keep. I think my main one is probably to just "go after it". More a change in attitude than anything else, but the last few weeks have felt a bit flat with not a lot going on. That's partly due to the weather (stopping us getting out), but partly down to laziness and not really pushing myself to get on and do the things I want to. Time to put that right and go after the things I want - I'll be 27 soon afterall! :-S

So whatever 2011 has in store for you, I hope it brings all that you hope for and you welcome it in style tonight. Happy New Year!

How do you define yourself? What do you do? What are you?

This evening I sat down and asked myself these very questions. I probably think of myself as a web developer, software consultant, climber and amateur sportsman. But can I be all of these things? What about my other interests? I like to cook, does that make me a chef too?

Many people might say that your job is what defines you and lets face it, what you do for a living becomes a large part of who you are. My job title is "Senior Developer", but what does that mean? In reality, I probably spend about half my time at work "developing" i.e. writing code, while the rest of my time is spent problem solving, communicating within the team, mentoring, managing expectations,  investigating things that go wrong, planning ahead and learning. Does that make me a developer? Well probably, but that only tells half the story doesn't it?

Maybe time for a different approach. Starting with a blank sheet of paper, I wrote down as many skills, qualities and personal attributes for myself as I could think of, doing my best to group things together where possible. I ended up with 4 distinct sections on the page: development, collaboration, consulting and personal. Working with this I could say yes, I am a developer, but I could also be a technical consultant, facilitator, team player or any number of different things! The page defines my skill set, but does it define me? Not really.

So how do you define yourself? Maybe I'm simply a nice guy, who's passionate about what I do and likes to be challenged to better myself. Maybe it's as simple as that. That'll do for now I suppose, until tomorrow... then maybe I'll be a developer for a bit.

Is it just me, or is anyone else really not bothered this season? Too much money, cheating, arrogance and playing the media going on, and you can't watch a game without forking out for sky anyway.

To be honest, there are far more important things I'd rather be doing with my time and hard earned cash.

Table Tennis, Badminton, Squash and Tennis all in one tournament: http://www.englishracketlon.org/

After a day in Swindon on Saturday visiting my Mum and trying to help out with what I can, Sunday was time for a return to climbing.

A day at Curbar:

Cioch Wall (S 4a) - Lead
Wall End (VS 4c) - Second
Heather Wall (VS 4c) - Second
Mastiff Wall (VS 4c) - Lead
Gladiator Buttress (VS 4c) - Lead
Sorrell's Sorrow (HVS 5a) - 10 minutes of faffing around on the initial "fist jams" (arm bars) before backing off in pain to let Ali second the route instead

Today I'm in pain pretty much everywhere. Got a squash match tomorrow night, hope I've recovered a bit before then!

It's an oddly satisfying feeling to know that the food you're eating came from your own garden. I imagine if the ingredient in question was even slightly more substantial than a few herb leaves then the feeling of satisfaction would be even greater.

Right now we've got Basil and Mint in the kitchen window, then Sage, Parsley and Thyme outside. Hoping to expand these with some Rosemary and Oregano soon too.

When we come to buy a house, there'll have to be space to grow some actual vegetables in the garden. Aside from the obvious satisfaction and sense of achievement in growing our own potatoes, we'll keep ourselves busy planting and harvesting, and save literally pence per week in the process.

Rock on, can't wait! ;-)

This morning, I finally ditched my hosting agreement with HostRocket. Whilst the deal they were giving me was fairly decent at about £40/year for nigh unlimited space, I just wasn't using it, so I wasn't up for fronting £80 for the next 2 years right now.

I've still got my domain though, just need to decide where to point it.

Sometimes, Google's predictive search throws up a gem. This morning was one such time, when searching for "Average size waist"

In the last few days or so the Opera iPhone application was approved into the app store and almost instantly shot to the #1 free app spot. Not wanting to miss a trick, I thought I'd give it a try.

Prof. Lovelock, I couldn't have said it better myself.

Lovelock: 'We can't save the planet' (BBC News)