She has stolen from me, treated me like she doesn’t even know me and left me with a legacy of self hate.  It’s partly her fault that I’m hurt like this.  Is that why I can’t let go?

I want her back.  More than anything, I want to sail through life with her, experiencing everything there is.  I built my life to be free.  I spent three years oppressed, working myself out of a hole.  Now I can be free only now it seems too late.

I miss her smile, I miss the time we had.  I miss the theatre.

Every drink I have reminds me.  Every free moment reminds me.  Every fucking day reminds me.  This house, these walls, my camera.

Haven’t I paid a thousand times over for what we had?  I was so fucking stupid.  Why did I believe her.

I’m going to be a millionaire.

Something caught my eye a few minutes ago: Meet the New Young Millionaires.  These “young” millionaires have an average age of 31.  I’m 24 which is seven years younger.  There’s still plenty of fucking time!  Seven years ago I was in college, a quiet kind of guy, studious but not to the extreme.  I’d had a year at sixth-form to make friends and experience some more of the outside world than my ‘boys only’ high schooling allowed.  It was exciting, fresh and fun.  But lets not romanticise.  It was also fucking scary and a risky move.  I gave up a school which I didn’t like and didn’t like me, but would guarantee me high grades at A-Level for a more down-market college which allowed me to take a subject like Media Studies and ultimately didn’t care if I failed or not.  So what?

Ok, so 7 years ago I was in a risky situation and I didn’t know where my life would lead.  Look at me now ma.  I have a first-class honours degree, I own property, I have a business, I fly aeroplanes, I have a job, I even held down a relationship.  I’m also becoming less skilled as time passes, have huge depreciation on my property, have to survive in a broken economy, balance time and weather to fly, battle politics at work, and am recently single with a very slim chance at love Mk. II.

How obvious does it have to be?  Risk is always there, bad things are always there, good things are also always there.

So how do I become a millionaire?

The same way I became comparatively rich.  I do what I did in the previous seven years.  Just fucking do something.  Anything good, anything that might work out.  It really doesn’t matter what because the balance is always there.  There will always be shit, there will always be good and you simply can’t plan for the future.  Any plan you make will be wildly wrong.  Do you think in 2003 that kid sitting in McDonalds with his friends teaching him how to pick locks because the lecturer didn’t turn up again could really have predicted where he is now?  Do you think that he could even tell you how his life would turn out in a month’s time with any degree of certainty?

Your answers should be ‘No’ and ‘Yes’.  I’ll leave you to figure out why.

I’m going to become a millionaire because I can.  There is absolutely no reason why I can’t and there’s absolutely no way that I can predict that I will succeed.  I will do it because there’s plenty of time.  I will do it because I believe I can and there is opportunity.  I will do it because it’s simple:

1. Make something people want
2. Set a price
3. Profit

Am I likely to have a million (or billion dollar idea) like the people in that article?  No.  Am I likely to have a £40 idea?  Probably.  Can I sell that idea at £40/mo to 2000 people?  Maybe.  That’s a million.  Seven years to make something worth £40 and sell it to 2000 people?  Doesn’t seem too hard when you look at it like that now does it.

It’s time for something completely different and this is it.  I’m becoming my own boss and I’m going to make a million.  Then maybe I’ll do it again.  Or maybe I’ll fail but that’s half the fun; you just have to try.

I and most people need 8 hours.  I rarely get this, often surviving on 6 hours sleep and occasional naps jolting awake suddenly on the train in the morning.  I guess I’m still functional enough, but if I could work off the sleep deficit and get a little more, I would be able to perform better.

2. What’s your favourite sleeping position?

Diagonal and rolled up in the cover.

3. What was the cause of your most recent difficulty sleeping?

Work, life, relationships, all of them worries that keep my brain active.

4. When you can’t seem to drift off to sleep right away, what are some things you do to bring about sleep?

Wait.  My head is never quiet, it’s always doing something – calculating a plan or thinking about how something works or building something.

There are only a few times where it’s quiet and I don’t get to experience them very often.  One way to quieten it is when pleasant physical sensation overpowers the mental background noise like an interrupt; so hugs and massage work.  Pain does not work as this focuses the mind more, so please don’t come and ‘hit me to help me’.

So to get to sleep, I just wait.  Sometimes I lie awake for hours.

5. When did you last doze off at an inappropriate time or in an inappropriate place?

I was at a conference yesterday, it was an exhausting day and I started drifting off in the audience.  I was sat at the front and was quite visible to the presenter.  It was about 5pm.

The first few days of my holiday have been pretty crazy and as a result I’m starting to get ill for Christmas.  No matter, there’s time off to recover and if I can just relax a bit, maybe I’ll get better.

So last year I wrote “For the new year: 2009 roadmap” and I guess a similar one for 2010 is due soon.  Looking back on things makes me a little sad, and from the crap I’ve had to endure recently, I’m somewhere between wanting to punch something and curl up in a ball.  While there is much to be said for the curl-into-a-ball approach, I don’t have the necessary support (if you want to come hug me and tell me it’s all fine, then I’ll gladly retract) to foster such an apathetic cry for attention.

Alas then, I must consider how to proceed in 2010 and the Christmas break will be an opportunity to do that.

I now realise that the choices you make now affect the rest of your life.  A lesson learned for 2009.  Choose wisely, for good or bad, make the best of what you have.

1. What colour is your parachute?

Fluorescent orange so aircraft and rescuers can see it.

2. Who moved your cheese?

Did you move my cheese?  You put it back!  Did you say please?

3. Where’s Waldo?

Here.

4. Are you my mother?

Nope.

5. What’s happening to your body?

It’s getting older and fatter.  I need to stop being ill so I can go exercise again.

It’s all working :)

Being as geeky as I can get, I had my callsign validated for EchoLink right away and this evening tried Clive’s EchoLink node MB7IAD-L (265297). After installing under Wine (Ubuntu), I tested the link and found I could easily transmit a well readable signal the 20 miles at 1W. Alas, no one answered my call.

Made another call on the 2m repeater GB3DA, complete with ACK, however again, no replies. Booo!

Likewise, calls on 145.500 were un-answered.

A little disappointing, but it’s only day 1 and I did call rather late. There’s always tomorrow!

1. What does it take to get you to grab the mic and sing in a karaoke room?

Alcohol

2. What does it take to get you to give up a whole Saturday to hang out with people you don’t like?

Love

3. What does it take to get you out of bed without your hitting the snooze button?

Fun

4. What does it take to get you to take someone else’s turn at a really unpleasant task at work or home?

Anger

5. What does it take to get you to eat something you really dislike?

Health