Personal Reading goal for 2023 I didn't do too badly in 2022 for reading, at least when it comes to comics. I had a steady flow of reading material throughout the year but I wasn't really paying any attention to logging what I'd read and when so aside from
Reading 20 in 2020 In the years prior to 2020, my reading habit had taken a bit of a nose-dive. I'd pick up a book every so often and work through it, but I wasn't reading nearly as much as I wanted to. With 2020 being a nice round number,
Personal All alone I've had this on my "to write" list for a while. I honestly don't know why I feel compelled to write this, I just do. My late father-in-law's ashes are buried in a cemetery in my wife's hometown. He passed
Music Re-discovering Nirvana Yesterday, I was looking through Spotify for something to listen to and decided to stop on Nirvana. As I posted to Twitter [https://twitter.com/nocturnalmonkey/status/1282761099838992386], I was excited to discover Nirvana's Live and Loud set is now available as an album. When I was a
Social Media Facebook free I opened my Facebook account in 2007. At the time, I was deemed a bit of a late-comer to the system and for a long time I resisted. I had Twitter for friends far away, I saw my local friends every few days back then. I think I even still
Reading The Count of Monte Cristo Last year, I planned to read more [https://blog.nocturnalmonkey.com/2018-reading-list/] and failed miserably. I used to read a lot and the last few years it's tailed off a bit so this year, I wanted to try again and not fail. This time is helped by Lu
Personal Re-thinking my podcast habit I'd like to start by stating this is a very personal revelation. You're probably going to read this and think "Duh, you've only just got here?" so don't say I didn't warn you. I've been listening
Personal Couch to 5K: about half way Since we found out we were having a baby, fitness kind of fell of the radar a bit. When the baby came a long and we were sleep deprived zombies, doing exercise wasn't an attractive prospect when compared to a few quiet hours of rest. Fast-foward 4 years
Personal Back to blogging It's been a while since I last tried to define what this blog is about. Going back through the archives, it's moved around in it's focus as my own focus and interests have shifted over the years. It's even fallen into neglect
Self-improvement Challenge for August I'm very happy with the progress I've made in the last year, going from reading next to nothing at all to reading something, be it articles or part of a book, every day. As I'm a glutton for punishment and feel I need to
Self-improvement Making some changes Back in December I wrote a resolution blog [https://blog.nocturnalmonkey.com/resolutions-for-2012/] post with some intentions for the year. So far they've not really come to fruition aside from learning a little more French than I thought I would while in Paris and I really want to
Personal Living the good life Some friends has kindly allowed Lu and I to use a patch of their land to grow some veggies. We've been wanting to do so for a while but our garden isn't really equipped so we jumped at the chance when offered. Before any planting could
Personal Leaving DC It's been a fun 9 months working for Digital Consortium (DC) but as of today I am leaving the team. To psuedo-quote The Godfather, I've been made an offer I couldn't refuse. I've been invited by an old friend and colleague to
Personal Final day Our final day in Paris and we had nothing planned other than a river tour. We headed out of the hotel around 11 and made our way to Pont de l'Alma where the boat tour casts off. The tour took us from the Eiffel Tower down river, passing
Personal Headstones, scammers and artists By some amazing gift of foresight, our plans for Thursday involved less amounts of strenuous walking. We left the hotel between 10 and 11, heading towards the East end of Paris where Père Lachaise is situated. It's the largest cemetery in Paris and is the resting place of
Personal Wet Wednesday Yesterday morning started much like the previous day. We got up, got ready and went for breakfast then headed out for the day. First on our list was the Louvre. We first tried to enter through what appeared to be a gate on the Eastern end of the building but
Personal Le deuxieme jour We're just about done with day two. Right now we're relaxing for a while before we go out to get some sushi from up the street. Before we do I'm going to write up our day... After a busy first day, we rested a
Personal First day in Paris It's 8:24 local time here in Paris and I've just woken up. I'm pretty much sore everywhere after our afternoon walking around but just wanted to jot a few things here, mainly as a reminder to myself because I have a memory like
Photography Honeymoon begins First leg of the honeymoon sees us heading to Kent to stay with Luisa's Mum for a few days then Monday morning we'll be heading to St. Pancras, then Paris!
Personal Ready for Paris We've pretty much packed all our stuff, save a few final items. We've got our tickets, passports and all that jazz and now... we have a travel journal. I figured this is our first holiday as a married couple so it'd be cool to
Health & Fitness Dry 2012 I'm not much of a drinker these days. I sometimes have a few pints on a Friday and occasionally go on a night out but despite having a laugh going out drinking with friends, I've recently been finding drinking less and less enjoyable. Also over the
Self-improvement Resolutions for 2012 I very rarely write posts involving New Years resolutions because I never really head into a new year with any in mind. I had a few for 2011 but some fell by the wayside slightly cough gym. Having looked back on the last year I don't feel I&
Photography Wedding day plus one The day after our wedding we had some family and friends at our house to carry on the celebration with some food and drink. I took many shots of guests but want to keep most of them offline.
Web Fleeing the nest Back in 2003, I knew next to nothing about the web except where to find movie trailers and do research for the occasional essay at college. I knew a lot about sinking beer at the local and that's where I met Martin, the CEO of Connected [http://www.
Web Epic Fail Okay, so Epic Fail is a rather over zealous title but it's how I feel about my lame attempt at Ideas of March [http://www.nocturnalmonkey.com/2011/03/ideas-of-march/]. I've been bubbling with ideas and things to write about but just haven't had
