Had a very strange experience this week: A 2-mile run without any hills. The most significant incline was the street up from the riverbank in Inverness to my hotel. Of course, the lack of hills was compensated for by the howling wind and driving rain. But still, it was flat! Most unusual. My body was prepared to meet the usual array of ridiculous terrain it's used to and, after the 2 miles was done, felt somewhat let down. Turns out it likes running up hills! Go figure. Still, running now extended to 6 miles, so the preps for the half-marathon in June are progressing nicely.
Not a lot of writing done this week. Spent a good chunk of time away from the Rock in Inverness learning about the project I appear to be leading for work: the Carbon Management Project. Apparently, the Project Sponsor (liaison to the Senior Partners and securer of corporate funding and backing) has shifted to the gentleman who was the lead, so the role of Project Lead has fallen to me. That PRINCE2 training will come in handy after all! Instead of writing urban fantasy, I'm now writing the Carbon Management Plan instead. Some cynical types out there might say that the two are actually quite similar, but I'd have to disagree. The CMP will contain far more graphs, bullet points and cross-references to tables in spreadsheets than the Magnificent Octopus will. (That's not the title of the book, by the way, I'm just a huge Blackadder fan).
So, I'm now Mister Carbon Reduction. Never saw that one coming. At last I've got justification for my "Stop Printing Out Every Damn Email" campaign! I can legitimately shut down people's computers when I reckon they're not using them, enforce draconian power management schemes on their Desktops… Next stop, world domination! I knew the goatee would come in handy. Wonder if VillainSupply.com still sell volcano lairs. This is also an excuse for education. I'm almost never happier than when I'm learning, be it which areas of SharePoint don't work the way they should (excuse for rant at Microsoft's incompetence here – if I've got 15 identical meetings, with the same agenda, why the hell shouldn't I be able to have the same people attending automatically? That's done on purpose? I've got to add them all manually to each meeting? Well, I can see that being used real heavily now. Muppets.) or about good practice in project management or IT service provision. I like training courses that make me work. Hell, if I'm going to be away from home I need something to do during the evenings. There's only so many times I'm prepared to go to the cinema alone, only so much time I can eek out a dinner for one in a busy restaurant. So I'm PRINCE2 certified, have my ITIL Foundation and Service Design certs and will, by the end of next month, have my ISEB Green IT cert. And I'm being very green about going on the course – minimum flying, taking the train and bus, walking as well.
Anyway, that's a crying baby to deal with. I now return you to your regularly scheduled internet. If there was a point to this post, I can't see it. Hopefully do better next time.