The Eric Wroolie Blog

Overpass Experiences

Ready for 2011, whatever it brings.

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The last day of 2010. It’s been a good year.

On the work front, I didn’t work too much. The work I did do was pretty cool to work on. In previous years, the majority of the year was spent working, but not this year.

I also went to Paris this year. That was very cool. I wanted to go somewhere a bit farther away, but that would have meant working more . . .

I started meditating this year, and I think I’m really feeling the benefits. I’m very calm and tend the focus less on the past. When my mind does take me away into self-doubt or agitation, I’m conscious of it happening and can try to stop it. I try to meditate every day, but it’s not easy always finding a quiet place. During the week, when I get up early, it’s perfect.

This year I ran another half-marathon. My time wasn’t great, but it wasn’t terrible either.

I’m looking forward to 2011, although I have no idea what it will bring. My current contract runs out at the end of January, so it’s kind of an unknown after then. I’m running the Reading Half Marathon and the London Marathon this year. Hopefully, I’ll get back to the States for a while. But aside from this, the future is wide open.

As always, I’ve been thinking about some resolutions for this year. I think the biggest one I make is to write more. Not necessarily on this blog, but just to write more often. I have so many anecdotes or ideas that I’ve started writing, but get distracted by other things and never finish them. I also think of loads of things to write about here, but never get around to it when I sit down. So that’s what I’m going to try to work on this year.

I hope you’ve had a great 2010 and will have an even better 2011.

More snow

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We had about 3 or 4 inches of snow on Saturday.  This is very exciting in England.  It causes chaos all over the place.  On Monday, the airports were still closed.  If you listen to the radio, you’d think there was a natural disaster outside –don’t go out unless you absolutely need to.

It seems silly when you think of places where they really get snow, but England doesn’t have the infrastructure for this type of weather. 

On Saturday morning, we woke up to a Winter Wonderland outside.  I was going to do a 10-mile run as I’ve done the last few Saturdays.  Instead, I ran about a half a mile until I came to a road with cars trying to drive up a snowy road and getting nowhere.  So, I spent a while helping people by pushing their cars uphill.  Then, I ran the short distance back home and got into a snowball fight with my kids.

Every night since Saturday, the news has had one story—“Why can’t England handle snow?”  Why is there such chaos on the roads?  Why is transportation so affected?  We got the same story last year when we had a surprising amount of snow—and the year before that.

Actually, I think England is perfect for snowy weather.  Although I grew up in San Diego, where we never got snow, I have lived for a few years in Missouri where it snowed a lot.  On the first snowfall day, I made a snowman (I was like 24, but it was a novelty to me), but then the snow stayed for months.  Toward the end, you get so sick of snow and ice and cold.  In England, you have to take advantage and enjoy it because it will be gone in a few days.

I’m sitting here in the early morning getting ready for my last day of work for the year an it’s snowing again outside.  That means more weather warnings and traffic chaos.  But all in all, I love these snowy days.

Looking forward to Silverlight 5

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So, I watched the Silverlight Firestarter keynote where some of the Silverlight 5 features were revealed and have to say that it all looks really good. 

There were some pretty impressive interfaces demo’d. 

I’m so tired of hearing how Microsoft is dumping Silverlight.  The keynote alleviated some of those fears, I hope.

The biggest benefit, I think, will be the ability to put breakpoints in xaml databinding.  Most of the Silverlight problems I have are trying to figure out if the INotifyPropertyChanged event was fired for an element in my gui. 

So, life will be easier . . . by the end of next year.