…its a Peach
You know what, I love [Blender](https://www.blender.org/), I really do. For those of you who have been living under a rock for the last 10 years, Blender is a free cross-platform 3D modelling application. You may be wondering why someone with the artistic talent of a rubber hammer is so interested in Blender, well its because it provides so much opportunity to produce really professional results.
A case in point is [Elephants Dream](https://www.elephantsdream.org/). Funded by DVD pre-orders and the Blender Foundation, Project Orange produced Elephants Dream; an animated short that looked nothing short of amazing. I was hugely interested in this project at the time as it was (a) producing completely free media (the resulting movie and all of the production files, textures and audio was all released under a free Creative Commons license) but also (b) the production of the movie really stress-tested Blender, and this resulted in a bunch of new features landing in Blender. *An ambitious creative project and developers who can fix and extend the tools so they are suitable for similar work* – this is an excellent combination to ramp up the quality of our software. Luckily the man behind the code is the lead developer himself, Ton Roosendaal, a friend of mine and Hugh Laurie lookalike. He is an incredible guy – driven, talented, focused and with a wicked sense of humour, and the extremely healthy Blender community owes a lot to Ton’s seemingly unbounded energy.
Well, the Amsterdam-bound dutch brigade are at it again with [Peach](https://peach.blender.org/); the second effort at producing an open movie. This time the emphasis is on cuddly creatures and not the strange avant-garde world of Elephants Dream, and they have assembled another stunning group of artists and engineers to take on the project. When Elephants Dream was in production I swung by their studio to say hi, and it was great to see them doing what they do – I am hoping I get to do the same before the production of the new flick finishes.
This is what I love about Open Source – talented people having their talent shine due to free software that enables them to do what they do. All hail Peach, all hail Blender, and all hail Free Software. 🙂
On the new episode of LugRadio, [Season 5 Episode 9](https://www.lugradio.org/episodes/#episode92), we interview the Director of the new Peach movie, Sacha Goedegebure.
In Your Head vs. On Your Fingers
When I started work on my new album, I had an idea in my head about what it should sound like. I wanted to write something brutally heavy, very death metal inspired, and taking influence from Cannibal Corpse, Anata, Decapitated, Pantera and Fear Factory. What is unfolding as I write is really quite different.
I always find this interesting with music. Although most people know of my metal interests, I listen to a hugely diverse range of music within the rock and metal genre, from rock such as AC/DC, Rolling Stones, Free, Kiss through to heavy rock like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, Dio, onto thrash such as Metallica, Megadeth, Testament, Slayer, Overkill to power metal like Hammerfall, Kamelot, Primal Fear, Manowar and then of course death metal like Cannibal Corpse, Decapited, Nile, Suffocation etc.
What has resulted is a strange mix of styles. The most recent song sounds like a Motley Crue type riff, but with a real death metal background – thundering double bass drums, growly vocals and a catchy guitar riff. Very odd. I think listening to Debauchery is having an impact on me. 🙂
The moral of this story is to never expect what you plan in your head – it is working out quite different for me, but pleasantly surprising. 🙂
LugRadio Live USA 2008 Dates Confirmed!
LugRadio Live USA 2008 is now confirmed to be happening on the **12th and 13th April 2008** at **The Metreon, 101 4th St, San Francisco**.
More details about the event will be announced soon, but I just wanted to get the dates out so people can book plane tickets. We *are* looking for speakers and exhibitors. Feel free to get in touch with us at show AT lugradio DOT org – we will be announcing a formal Call For Papers soon when we launch the website.
All of us are hugely excited about LugRadio Live USA 2008, and it is going to rock a very, very, large one. Our American friends don’t know what is coming… 🙂
The Writing
Time for a quick update on the album.
Work is progressing pretty well, and I now have four final core *song concepts*. A song concept is what I refer to as the core seedling of a song, and is typically in the form of a verse and chorus and few other bits and pieces. The song concept has to get me going for it to be considered to put more work into it. In a typical album you might develop 15 or 20 song concepts, and you need to whittle them down to the number of songs you want to produce on the album, and in this case I am aiming at 11 songs, depending on the length of the songs. So these four concepts are very likely to be used on the final record.
I have also been taking chunks of video while I am working on it, and will be making that into a documentary that will be included on a DVD with the CD edition of the album. Even just a week in, its been fascinating reviewing the footage and where things have developed.
So writing is ongoing, and I am just trying to find some time to spend on it. The added complexity of [Guitar Hero III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_Hero_III:_Legends_of_Rock) arriving has muddied the availability time for a few days too.
KDE Four Oh
Congratulations to all of my old and new friends in the KDE team for shipping 4.0. They have made one hell of an achievement in that release, and I was testing the Kubuntu RC2 with KDE 4.0 the other day for a segment on LugRadio, and was mucho impressed. 🙂
It all reminds me of the days when I was involved in the project, and back then (the KDE 2.0 days) I really enjoyed working with the team, and it seems much of the new blood in the project has the same ethos and drive. There is nothing as cool as a healthy Open Source project producing a new, exciting and innovate release. Get in! 🙂
Mind you, I only want one change – [Celeste](https://weblog.obso1337.org/2008/happy-kde4-release/) needs to have blue hair again. Can we make that a 4.1 release requirement?
2008, Year Of The MOTU
A bunch of people have been asking me since I got back to work what I would like to see in the Ubuntu community in 2008. As you can imagine, I have a big list of things I would like to achieve, but there is one major desire that I have – **make it easy, fun and rewarding to get involved as a developer**.
Our developer community is incredible. All of that juicy software that delicately slides into your Ubuntu system so seamlessly is the result of the good work of this group of angels. They go by the name of [MOTU](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU) and core-dev, and they kick arse finer than Herman Derriere, the gold-medal winner who set the world record for arse kicking in the International Arse Kicking Games of 1948.
…as you can see…they kick arse. 🙂
To make this happen, we have been working to get lots of bits and pieces in place. This includes:
* Re-organising and improving the [MOTU wiki](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU) pages. They are now leaner, meaner, and filled with more content.
* Better [Packaging Guide](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PackagingGuide/Complete) – Daniel has worked his very small German backside off to update the Packaging Guide, and to also modularise it so we can easily make more customised guides for specific people – I can imagine additional content being added for derivatives, specific packaging tasks and more. *The guide is easier and more expansive than ever*!
* We also have lots of events happening in the MOTU world. You can find all the details [here](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Events) and we have MOTU meetings in which the community can meet together and discuss the project, monthly Packaging 101 sessions which teach how to get started with packaging, weekly Q+A sessions to answer your problems and special events. There is plenty of help out there, and plenty of opportunities to hang with other MOTU fans.
* Speaking of help, there are bags of people to help you when you get stuck – there is `#ubuntu-motu` on Freenode, the [ubuntu-motu mailing list](https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-motu) and the [Packaging Forum](https://ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=44) on the Ubuntu Forums.
* Not only that but there are lots of local events going on to. I spent some time getting the [Packaging Jams](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/Events#head-0b587b8dcae65e8f16b8ff7d15690989bbb658c6) framework up and running, and [this guide](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/RunningPackagingJam) explains how to run one. More and more LoCo teams and LUGs are running packaging jams.
So, with better documentation, packaging guides, more events than ever, plenty of help resources and even local events teaching how to get involved, there has never been a better time to [Get Started](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/GettingStarted).
Thats right, click on the [Getting Started](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/GettingStarted) link.
Not done it?
[Getting Started](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/GettingStarted) <------ click on that. Go on, its good for you. You won't be alone, people across the world and the community are getting involved and making a difference to Ubuntu; an Operating System and ethos that is changing lives and making technology accessible, easy to use and within the ethos of being human to each other. Be a part of the revolution, and [become a MOTU](https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MOTU/GettingStarted). 🙂 Oh, and do keep me updated with how you get on. 🙂
Pimp My LugRadio and win an EEEPC
Everyone is banging on about the [EEEPC](https://eeepc.asus.com/global/), and rightly so; it rocks a big ‘un. On [Season 5 Episode 7](https://www.lugradio.org/episodes/#episode90) of LugRadio we reviewed it and gave it a unanimous thumbs-up. Thankfully, the review model we got from Dale at [EfficientPC](https://efficientpc.co.uk/) was not just for review, but to give away in our [Pimp My LugRadio](https://www.lugradio.org/pimpmylugradio/) competition. So far we have had some excellent entries, and some *very amusing*, to boot.
The competition is simple – send us a piece of promotional material that we can use when promoting the show. It can be in any medium (e.g. audio, video, poster, article), and it should promote the concept of the LugRadio show, and not any specific season and not LugRadio Live. Examples could include audio and video adverts/promos, posters, dummies guide to LugRadio articles, LugRadio stats, and they should focus on the different aspects of the show – Linux/Open Source, discussions, rants, amusing banter, etc. One important note – we are not looking for people to actually promote the show themselves – writing a blog entry about how cool LugRadio is…is nice and all that…but will not qualify as entry – we are specifically looking for material we can use when promoting the show. 🙂
Another few examples you may want to see are the promo videos we did for LugRadio Live UK 2006 – like I say, the competition isnot for LugRadio Live, but the show in general, but it gives you some ideas:
* [The Freedom March](https://www.lugradio.org/freedommarch/)
* [Don’t Listen Alone](https://www.lugradio.org/listenalone/)
* Roger Light’s *excellent* [The Freedom March Spoof](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4rccTJs8UI)
We have been working to re-license the entire back-catalog (getting on for 100 shows) under a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license, and this has mean’t contacting previous presenters and all interviewees to see if they are happy with the license change. So far we have got through about half of the interviewees, and all apart from a few, are happy with the license change – all of the non-interview content with all of the presenters apart from Sparkes is approved for the license change – we just have not heard from Sparkes yet.
So, there is bags of content out there which you can mash-up and play with. Have some fun, and send us your entries to *show AT lugradio DOT org*, and you could win yourself an EEEPC. 🙂
[See the competition page](https://www.lugradio.org/pimpmylugradio/).
Back in black
Tomorrow (Tues 8th Jan) I start back at work, and I will be chewing through the email mountain. If you have emailed me in the last three weeks or so, I hope to get to it over the next few days.
In other news, I am now confirmed as the opening keynote for [SCALE](https://socallinuxexpo.org/) over in Los Angeles in February – it will be the first performance of my brand spanking new talk, and I am rather excited about it. From the [website](https://socallinuxexpo.org/scale6x/conference-info/speakers/Jono-Bacon/):
> Standing On The Shoulders Of Giants: The Coming Of The Linux Desktop
>
> In this brand-new presentation, Jono Bacon, Ubuntu Community Manager at Canonical shares his vision of the future of the Linux desktop community, and talks about how the desktop is growing and dealing with the incredible focus and growth that has happened to it in recent years. The talk covers the history of the Linux desktop so far, where it has broadened, what challenges it faces, how it is dealing with its sudden popularity and what the future holds, all bundled up into an amusing, anecdotal presentation that you won’t want to miss.
I am also confirmed as the so called Tech Guest Of Hour at [Penguicon 6.0](https://www.penguicon.org/) in April in Troy, Michigan. That sounds like an interesting conference. 🙂
Oh, and I just bought [Guitar Hero III](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guitar_Hero_III:_Legends_of_Rock) for my Playstation. Rock on Tommy. Bring it on, although I can’t imagine spending enough time in front of it to get as good as [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9ao_vOsZkg). Dweeb.
Album Writing, One Approach
I wanted to take a nice extended leave over the Christmas period, and while much of it was zipping up and down the country visiting people, I have also had the opportunity to spend some time at home. Now, this may conjour up the image of hours spent in front of the telly, watching DVDs, sipping a drink, with one hand in a box of biscuits. Well, this has happened for a few hours here and there, but I have spent the majority of time on something altogether different – my new project.
Some months back I recorded an album in 24 hours. It was fun and challenging, but for a while I have dreamed of writing, recording and releasing a full solo metal album. It has always been on the cards, but I have never got around to starting the project – writing all of the guitar, bass, drums, vocals, lyrics and arrangements for 11 songs is a pretty daunting task, let alone making it a full metal album with the associated technicality and complexity of playing involved. With a few weeks off, I figured I should roll up my sleeves and get started, and so far I am pleased with the results.
Writing a solo album means a *lot* of work. You can’t just think “*I just need to write a bunch of songs*” – keeping that much music in your head is next to impossible. As an example, a typical song I write will probably have around 6 riffs in it on the main rhythm guitar, and 4 arrangement changes in the songs. But then there are the bass playing and fills, guitar harmonies, drumming (which is a complex art in itself for the style of metal I am playing – lots of little fills and double-bass drumming), and then of course all of the lyrics, melodies and guitar solos. And, thats for one song! Multiply that by 11, and you have a lot of material – 66 guitar riffs alone, let alone all the rest of the things I mentioned. In addition to that, there is all of the recording elements – set-ups, effects, time changes, atmosphere etc, and then of course the album art, and other release elements.
So, writing an album requires a lot of work. Before approaching the project I was thinking how I could manage this workload, and importantly, how to manage it effectively. As I have rambled on in the past, I find my *creative process* (yes, I sound like an orange-sunglasses wearing web 2.0 arsehole, but I can’t think of a better way of describing it) to be far more on the *creative* side than the *process* side. I like to feel free in how I write, and don’t like to be constrained by things like technology and computers. Some would suggest I have a wiki, or a project management tool to manage the project, but that is just not how my creative juices flow. When I am in my studio I don’t want to think about technology, I don’t want to think about processes – I just want to write music, and ensure that I can take the raw material and make good songs out of it.
So, I have been thinking about all of this, and I have hit on my solution. Paper.
…you know…that stuff we used before computers came along…
In my studio I have 11 pieces of paper on the wall in front of my workstation:
Each of these pieces of paper represent a song – you can’t see the writing in the photo above, as I write on them with pen. When I started work on the album, I created a project on my computer and record riffs that I write to it – I permenantly have a mic in front of my guitar amp, so I can load of the project and hit record and I am ready to roll. Likewise, I have a Bass Pod always plugged to work on the bass guitar elements (although this is rarer this early in the writing process) and my drums are plugged in to I can record them by just pressing the lovely big red recording button.
As I continue to write, some riffs fit together well and the kernel of songs begin to emerge. When I think a song is showing potential, I give it a nickname, as I have not written any lyrics yet and cannot give it a meaningful name. This nickname is something I can associate with that song kernel, and is invariably what the song sounds like to me – so as an example I have a song called “Pantera”, which sounds quite like Dimebag on the guitar, and a song called “Paradise Fat” – a song which my friend says sounds like Paradise Lost in the intro and then gets quite fat and chuggy.
When I have the core song structures in the works, I write on the paper the arrangement, like this:
I V C V CC B PB C O
This would be *Intro Verse Chorus Verse Chorus Chorus Bridge Post-Bridge Chorus Outro*. For some of the songs, with lots of strange arrangements, this can get quite complex. In addition to this, I write little ideas on the paper – song concepts, lyrical ideas when I sing along to the early recordings, potential topics for the song, atmospheric effect ideas etc. I can easily scribe these ideas on the paper and don’t need to switch out of my multi-tracker and load up another piece of software or something – I grab a pen and write it down. I can also draw little diagrams for song structures and other more pictorial notes.
As the song kernels form, I record each bit of the song as it solidifies and move it into its own space in the project – this makes it easier for me to find the completed song parts. When I have written most of the song parts, I leave the song in the main project and move onto other songs. So if you look my project, you will see a big collection of random riffs near the start (the modern equivalent of the classic riff tape), and a bunch of more complete song structures as they are completed.
Right now I am very much at the early stages of the writing process with a bunch of song kernel ideas forming, and one song completed. I am really keen for this album to capture my musical interests effectively – I want it to be diverse, crushingly heavy, melodic in parts, aggressive in parts, with real light and shade and vivid, thought provoking lyrics. I am pretty pleased with many of the initial song ideas, and I am pleased with where it is heading. We will see… 🙂
2007 in Review, 2008 on the Drawing Board
So here we are, drawing 2007 to a close, and what a year it has been! Understatement of the century.
I think 2007 has possibly been the most turbulent year of my life, filled with its share of good and bad times, and a year in which I have felt a great degree of personal growth. Around this time of mince pies and glorious overeating, I think its always important to evaluate the past year, and flesh out some core plans and changes. I [did this last year](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/?p=854), and found it pretty useful – I would love to see other people’s year in review, and have seen a few already.
## Open Source and Projects
2007 has been a stunning year for Open Source – the machine continues to get sleeker, smoother, and is rampaging on in its mission to kick arse and take names. Irrespective of competition, distributions, companies and brands, I think 2007 has been an excellent year for the core ideal and ethos of Open Source and Free Software. We have seen growth, acceptance, successes and a continuation of form that sees our world blur into the wider world, while retaining our core principles and ideals.
It has also been a great year for [Ubuntu](https://www.ubuntu.com/). This is my first full year working at Canonical, and it has been a joy to not only see the growth in the community but a growth in the business impact of Ubuntu and the technology continue to grow, mature and refine. I am really pleased to see more and more OEMs shipping with Ubuntu, and I have been chuffed to bits to see the community evolve, and our processes scale when the crunch is on. We still have lots of work to do, but we are getting there, and boy do we have a great community to help us all get there together. There has not been a day pass by when I haven’t felt privileged to work with such an inspiring group of contributors.
What a year for a [LugRadio](https://www.lugradio.org/) too! Two new presenters was enough of an upheaval in the LugRadio camp, but we also realised that Season 5 was going to be make or break for the show and fundamental to its future. Four years in, we knew that we need to constantly move and change to keep the show fun, interesting, educational and irreverent – four years of the same approximate formula can get old, and we never want this to happen. Season 5 has involved a *lot* more work, but it seems the LugRadio fans are enjoying it, and this makes us happy, so much so that we regularly celebrate with beer and kebabs. 😛 This year has also seen [LugRadio Live](https://www.lugradio.org/live) grow – we held the 2007 event which was was a great success, and plans are afoot for LugRadio Live 2008 UK, and the new addition to the LugRadio Live family, LugRadio Live 2008 USA which will take place in San Francisco. We are looking forward to both events, and are all prepared for the oodles amount of work that they will entail.
## Music
2007 has been a difficult year music wise. Seraphidian has been a slow moving machine with the departure of our drummer, and I have taken over the reigns of drummer and we have sourced a new singer, Chris. We have written a stack of new material, which we are hugely proud of, but this has taken time to write, and we are looking forward to getting out gigging in January with the new line-up. I have personally found the new role of drummer in the band to be a pretty taxing and physically demanding goal – Jon set a high bar to match. This has mean’t lots of rehearsals, working out to get my legs and arms fit enough, and working hard to get the speed, stability and finesse of my playing up to scratch. I am getting there, but I am not at the end of the road yet.
The [Big Red Recording](https://www.recreantview.org/blog/?p=117) was another key musical event this year, and was a fun but hugely exhausting challenge to meet, far more exhausting than I expected. I remember when I was mixing the tracks, I had been awake for two days solid and was falling asleep at the desk. It was however, an incredibly worthwhile experience, and I am proud of the end result. I am also proud of everyone who donated and contributed to the £1200+ final wad of cash for charity.
[Recreant View](https://www.recreantview.org/), my solo music project has seen a stack of tunes added, but in the tail end of this year I have not added so many songs. This is largely because I am the process of writing my first solo metal album, and it is taking time, I want this one to really impress – I don’t expect to start recording until February or March in 2008.
## Work
2007 has been an insane year (good insane, like Keith Richards, not bad insane like Fred West) for work at [Canonical](https://www.canonical.com/) and with the Ubuntu community. I am still really enjoying my role, and I get up every day and look forward to going to work, which I feel is a real privilege.
This year saw a lot of travel – over to Sydney, Porto Alegre, Los Angeles, Portugal, Boston, Oregon, Limerick, Berlin, Hannover, London, Seville, San Francisco and various other places. It has been great fun travelling and meeting so many people, and I am really pleased with the success of [How To Herd Cats And Influence People](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hljFWuN3lFI). Looking forward to getting back out on the road in 2008 to meet a bunch of people, talk about Ubuntu, make connections and of course, quaff some local brews in the evenings.
This year also saw me more formally become a manager and have two people working for me – Daniel Holbach and Jorge Castro. I couldn’t wish for a better team, and it has been a change for us all – Daniel moving to the community team, Jorge starting a new role and me becoming a manager for the first time. Becoming a manager is a pretty ominous prospect and there are a great many ways of approaching management – different styles, techniques, methods of application and other theories. Bombarded with so many options, I figured it is best to just be myself, and the team has found a comfortable balance in working together. I have also been more deeply embedded in the engineering side of Canonical with the developers who work on Ubuntu; this has helped my team become better clued into the development aspects of Ubuntu as well as the pure community processes.
Canonical is an excellent place to work, filled with smart, inspiring, clueful people, and our growth has been huge in the last year. It is a tough working environment at times with so much going on at one time, and everyone has developed a pretty high bandwidth for managing so much at any one time, but it is a satisfying and engaging place to work, and I look forward to riding into 2008 with Canonical paying my salary that funds my exuberant life of over-indulgence and excess. 🙂
## Personal
2007 has been a tough year in my personal life. As some of you will know, back in March I split up with my girlfriend of 11 years, and this brought about many different changes. Fortunately, Sooz and I have a very amicable relationship, we are still very good friends, and we share our two little miniature sausage dogs, Frankie and Pepper. It has been an interesting time becoming single again, considering I was last single when I was 16. This brings about all kinds of things – getting used to living by yourself, doing your own chores, getting into the swing of a new social life, meeting new people etc. It has been tough, I am not going to deny it, and there has been many dark moments in 2007. Luckily, I have an incredible family, and stunning friends and colleagues who have helped me over the obstacles, and this is where I have felt the personal growth I mentioned at the start of this post – stepping through your fears and coming out the other side with your head held high does wonders for thickening your skin and solidifying your philosophy of life.
## 2008
With 2007 pretty much out of the door, it is time to look forward to 2008. I am generally not one for new years resolutions, but I do have a few things I want to focus on:
* **Oil the Ubuntu machine** – I am pleased with the progress of the Ubuntu community in 2007, but I am keen to make 2008 a year in which the community really notches up a gear in every area, making the Ubuntu community more fun, enjoyable, inspiring and engaging than ever. I have many plans and ideas for how to do this, and 2008 is going to be a hugely busy year for firmly putting the Ubuntu community in the *kicking arse and taking even more names* category; there is nothing finer than a spectacular arse-kicking, and we are going to see it in 2008.
* **Spend more time with friends** – this was my goal for last year, and I want to continue with this. This year I took very little holiday to visit friends and relax, and this is going to change in 2008. I have a bunch of friends who live in different parts of the UK and abroad, and I want to get out to visit them more in 2008. I also plan on organising a few big house parties.
* **Focus on my music and get back out performing** – I want to get Seraphidian back on the tracks, get my solo album released and build more into my solo work. I want to make 2008 a big year for my music, and I am itching to get going.
* **Take LugRadio to the next level** – I am so intensely proud of LugRadio, I can’t begin to tell you how much it makes me smile. The show continues to do its thing, but there is so much potential available there, and I am keen to help make 2008 the year in which we crank up the heat, get out on the road with LugRadio on tour, produce the best LugRadio Live events yet, and continue to grow our incredible community of listeners. Season 5 has been incredibly exciting and planted much of the seeds for this, and I am looking forward to pushing things forward.
* **Hammer through my 101 list** – in my life I have lots of things I want to do, so I wrote [this 101 list](https://archivedblog.jonobacon.com/?page_id=1064) of things I want to do in the next three years. This year I want to make some serious inroads into this list and knock a bunch of things off it.
* **More charity fund-raising** – I have really enjoyed doing fund-raising for charity, and I would like to continue with this and do a few more stunts, or as a bare minimum, factor in fund-raising into my other activities.
* **New book** – I have the seeds of a new book growing in my head. I want to start thinking about this in detail – I may not write it or finish it in 2008, this one is going to take a lot of preparation.
So there we have it, 2007 covered and 2008 planned. Much of the reasoning behind these thoughts and overt ramblings is basically to avoid possibly my biggest fear in life; when I am an old man, sat in a large chair in front of the staring window, possibly having lost the control of my bladder, the one thing I want to comfort me through my final years is the thought that I gave life a pretty good crack of the whip and that I experienced it and did it right. The last thing I want to feel is that I wished I had done this and that. Regrets about bad decisions are fine, but I don’t want to feel I wasted my time on this earth, and this does not just apply to career ambitions, but the whole gamut – career, different experiences, love, family, friends, ambitions, fun etc. I think much of this can be evaluated by stories – each amusing and interesting little story you have to tell is an experience and a memory, and it is this patchwork of stories that signifies to me that things are going to plan. So, onto 2008 and lets see where the road takes us all…