baldysblog.co.uk

So here we are again, the end of another year and decade, the start of a new one and what an odd year 2009 has been. At a personal level I am frankly amazed that my Mother is still with us, bits fall off and yet she still struggles on ! My own year has been dogged with repeating ingrowing nail problems and as a consequence, repeating infections and my immense frustration with Doctors ! But having said that, I close 2009 with the best photographic kit I’ve ever had and a very clear mind.

On the political front, Gordon Brown has stumbled from one crisis to another, all Members of Parliament have been bought low by the “Expenses Scandal” which I have always thought rather overblown but the public have used it as a stick to beat with in terms of “payback time” and a General Election must be held within 5 months… good fun all round.

New Year’s Eve

As for New Year, I have never been a great fan, no matter what you planned and however much you invested in it, disappointment seemed the inevitable and guaranteed result due to over high expectations, I’m sure. In fact this as with most things in life, only seems to work out well when you leave it to the unexpected, I have had three very enjoyable New Year’s Eves in a row in the late 80s and early 90s when I was working as a doorman in the West End.

I was just doing my job, keeping the peace, keeping the good humour going, couldn’t drink much, obviously but because of the people around me, fellow workers and regular customers, it was a lot of fun. On such a night in a venue adjacent to Trafalgar Square, not what I was expecting as a Doorman.

New Year’s Resolutions ?

None really as such, I gave up smoking 5 years ago also, increasing the amount of physical exercise I take although desirable and a personal objective, is not possible in the immediate because of the state of health of my Mother, I cannot leave her for extended periods of time.

As for the rest, less a matter of “Resolutions” more a case of a gradual “Evolution” in my own thinking about where I am going to concentrate my energies in the future. The problem with someone like me is that I have a lot of curiosity and ability to explore many, rather too many possibilities, ultimately one has to focus in tightly on one area and even then there will be other related areas that still leave you with lots to explore and master.

The Way Forward

Although perhaps a fairly obvious thing to say, at the age of 64, it is highly unlikely that I will ever again earn a living in the IT Industry. Just saying that relieves me of keeping all kind of technical skills up to date plus maintaining “Industry Standard” hardware and software to practice on. Clearly I will use my knowledge from that to help me as a “User of IT” rather than as a “Supporter” of people who use IT.

This then leaves me focused (no pun intended), on my photography and producing printed images which may be photographs in the accepted sense or heavily worked images using a variety of software tools and techniques. This means concentrating on Adobe Lightroom and Photoshop, Xara and Corel Painter.

I will continue with this blog and my other web sites and that will be enough I think. I have decided not to delve heavily into web design because I won’t be making a living from doing that either. I know enough technically to use Adobe Dreamweaver which the industry standard web authoring tool but am also quite happy to use Xara Web Designer or Artisteer for very quick to produce web designs. Artisteer is a particular favourite of mine because it allows rapid WordPress site development and neatly sidesteps what otherwise is a pretty complex PHP, MySQL, CSS combination that requires mastering and frankly, life’s far too short for that !

Over the years I’ve seen many “Instant Web Site” products and most were crap on closer examination but both Artiseer and Xara Web Designer are pretty good, certainly good enough for doing my own web sites but I suppose it does help to have done some XHTML and CSS coding to decide that is so. There is a difference between doing your own web site and doing them for other people on a commercial basis, in the latter case you should be starting from basics because full control is what the client is paying for.

And So to 2010

I’m looking forward to it, not for any great reason or expectation, simply because I hope it will be a year of personal progress, nothing dynamic, just moving forward.

A Happy, Healthy and Prosperous New Year to you All.