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Self-indulgently skipping along with the review of year gone is "what I want to do next year". Again, who am I to argue with blogosphere folklore

A few aims for 2009:

1. Have a great time on the remaining bit of my round the world trip. Catch up with people across America and Canada. Go boarding again if snow permits.
2. Weigh up career and lifestyle things and decide where I want to be for the next few years. Get there
3. Travel more. See that Europe thing I missed out, especially if I number 2 means I'm moving away
4. Keep up with the fitness. Get better at freestyle swimming, running and cycling. Do a triathlon with these new found skills.
5. Do an open mic spot somewhere every month
6. Do things outside the office, the laptop or the gym. Ideally with other people existing and new.

It's the time of year that people start posting awful end of year summaries, and who am I to break the trend...

Wordy version: This year was easily the biggest in my life. After years of being too scared, skint, or disinclined to travel - I did. I left my comfortable but plateauing job. I went to places I didn't speak the language. I went to places they didn't stand on the left on escalators. I tried stuff I didn't try back in London. I made progress in things I'd never have thought I'd care about. I moved away from everyone I knew, I met some new people. I jobhunted in a foreign land.

In the end, as long as there's bandwidth, all is well.

In summary: this was the year I learned to excel in being average. Learned to appreciate that just because I wasn't great at something didn't mean it wasn't fun. Or useful. Or both.

Super-summary: 2008 was the year of controlled Fail.

Anyway, I've taken one tweet, and one photo from each month.

January

'can i argue that i'm allowed to forget my mum's birthday as it didn't flash up on facebook? No, thought not'

I got into Portal and made my friend buy Rez HD on his xbox 360. I ran about in work trying to get stuff deployed before I left my old job. I was on the phone to Australia to try and get a job sorted out there also.

This month's photo is from the Science Museum's Launchpad Adults Only night. The bubble lady demonstrator was awesome.

February

'noticing alarming correlation between not seeing people in an office and IM-stream-of-counsciousness-flooding during conversations.'

Camden was on fire. I was working weekends. I did manage to deploy my system eventually. I finished my job of 3 years and an overall BBC(ish) tenure of 6.5 years. The initial shock of being unemployed was strange. I started answering "how are you?" questions in shops truthfully, which you're not really meant to do.

Waiting for Eddie Izzard to perform at the Arts Theatre

March

'they can fix Terminal5 by next Tuesday, right?'

Found out the planned Australian job had fallen through after they didn't get the contract that I would have been working on. This was just before I headed to New York and South by Southwest (SXSW). This was my first trip out of Europe at the tender age of 28. I loved New York, SXSW was also awesome. I met lots of people, old and new. I hung around with Apple a lot, iTunes seems to open doors for Music after-parties. Terminal Five opened with limited success.

Revel in Simon Batistoni's awesome slide on Internationalisation and Localisation.

April

'i have never been this scared/wired/apprehensive/excited as now. On the hex. Goodbye london.'

I went via Tokyo, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpar, Singapore, Sydney

Terminal Five worked just fine. I loved Tokyo, and more surprisingly loved Hong Kong. I wandered through the Kowloon night markets, and avoided over zealous street tailors. Got ripped off by a taxi driver in Malaysia, and Singapore was just oppressively sterile. Arrived in Sydney jet-lagged as hell and staying in a shitty hostel. Turns out that trying to jobhunt, househunting and be a tourist at the same time was a bad idea. 

Despite being a veggie I took a trip to the Tokyo Fish Market one morning

May

'My new contract has a porn clause. Awesome.'

I turned 29 towards the end of the month. Not really a big do, but I had the best present in waking up on my Birthday with both a job and a place to move into. Started to get bored of taking shots of blue skies, autumn in Sydney really is quite nice. Started work just before the end of the month, and took the mandatory new flat trip to Ikea. My tweet was wrong, my contract had two porn clauses: I wasn't to look at it, but was to help customer access it.

Flat White from Single Origin coffee. Americans do coffee with too many options. Aussies just do it well.

June

'offsetting annoying housemateness in saying "the washing machine keeps me awake" with "i recorded you favourite show on the PVR"'

I basically worked, and exercised. Met some flickr people. I missed being with Chris & Mirona at Mashed08. I walked through the casino and remembered how much I love the sound of chips clinking. Everyone played with wordle.

The shrine arrived in Sydney.

July

'back from buying a 0.1 cheathco of t-shirts'

I avoided Catholics. Hoards of Catholics. And the pope. But the legislation was repealed so that you could at least annoy them. In the end the only annoyance was them standing in front of you on the pavement. I found out I was nearly 20% body fat. And I started swimming lessons to be immediately levelled up to advanced. I didn't get an iPhone despite queuing a bit. That was a good thing, I only wanted to have one before everyone else through time-zone advantages.

Cockatoo Island. I went to a former military base and saw art.

August

'Just walked past someone in an 'i <3 sap' tshirt. That must be another sap. Nobody loves sap'

The Olympics appeared, and after the opening ceremony which put to shame whatever tat the in London 2012 will do, I settled into a pattern of trying not to care while this immensely sporting nation pounded the UK in the medal table. Only then we started to win. Lots. And it was on their equivalent of "Today". Quite a lot. Then I went Snowboarding in Queenstown, New Zealand. Which was immensely pretty. I had my first helicopter ride. I was distinctly average at boarding, but I could connect my turns eventually. It was the most fun I'd had bruising/breaking a rib in ages.

Goggled up.

September

'Scaring myself by impersonating a morning person.'

The world financial meltdown appeared, I mean, we all knew it was there, but various things started going boom and share prices weren't a happy thing. I healed from the previous months excursion. I went down to Wollongong to see some flickr people exhibit. I bought a new iPod nano. I enjoyed Wall-e about 2 months after the rest of you.

Newtown after the rain.

October

'things that are the same the world over: the light blue train line will be closed when you need it.'

Saw the Blackseeds live, who I'd discovered in Queentown. Watched a few presidential debates in work. Started Advanced swimming classes. Saw those big rocks in the middle of Australia. Felt like a complete tourist. Noticed I was watching sunset with McKinsey people after their strange use of the word "Study". 

Awesome sunset in Uluru

November

'thinking it's never a good sign when your housemate, goes out, comes back, and you're still on the sofa in the same place'

Obama. Handover. More handover. More meetings. Documents, etc. Was a bit more controlled this time, unlike February's rushed omnigrafflefest. Friend from the UK appeared just as I was jobless, so we did tourism. And I did some rehearsal for Comedy, having signed up to do Stand up for some reason. Got a bit messed around by Apple, politely pointed this out and got free stuff. Said goodbye to @MarsPhoenix. Got amused that Ferroro Rocher are apparently posh here.

Sometimes you see nice things on the way to work.

December

'Taking quite a geek approach to writing stand up - checking the transcript from castingwords.com into SVN so i can track it.'

Merrily let all action plans to do stuff go out the window and just chilled in Sydney. Did a comedy gig. Bored everyone senseless with panicky tweets beforehand. Signed up for another. Was told my swimming was Squad standard. Got pleasantly surprised by tax calculations. Unboxed lego advent things. Started packing. Had my first Christmas away from my folks and in a warm climate.

Well it was the biggest thing I did this month

Having been in Sydney for 6 months now, I've got a reasonable feel for the place. Having spent a decade in London, I've been wondering where I will spend the next 10 years. Or at least the next few years of the next 10 years.

I was snowboarding NZ. I fell down a reasonable amount, kind of bruised myself (ribs were the worst) - but it was fun. In fact most fun I've had injuring myself in a long time.

Hello,

I hate birthdays. I'm Scottish and we seem to love things like new years and birthdays as an excuse for self flagellation.

I'm 29 this year, which feels like the on-ramp to 30. I've not really got established here, so it's going to be a skype-fest of well-wishes as opposed to heading down the pub with mates. Not the best start, but as I will write about, with the tools of modern life travelling alone is anything but...

Anyway, back to the birthday, as per usual, I started listing the standing points of woe....

1. I've not travelled
2. I'm stuck in a rut in London
3. I still don't feel grown up, and I'm 30 soon

Boo hoo, whiny middle class guy complaining again. I'm bloody lucky to be able to do what I'm doing right now and I know that. The flip-side was when I thought through the points:

1. I'm in Sydney for 7 months having seen some bits of Asia.
2. I've a job for 6 months starting Monday. It's going to be a challenge, in an entirely good way.
3. Why should I feel grown up? Sure I do lots of grown up stuff, but it's not like you get a certificate. Frankly do I even want one.

So yes, while I'm a little sad I've not found housing and some friends sooner, the last 3 months have been some of the most adventurous of my life. I've not gone mental, but I'm merrily doing things that "I don't do".

If that's not the best present you can give yourself I don't know what is.

Update: After I wrote this offline and before I posted I found somewhere. w00t.

Sorry, this is a rant containing some vague user experience stuff behind a thick veneer of bile.

Banking is always fun when you're abroad. I'll leave the more general rants about how banks aren't really global to my friends Laurie and Simon who have covered this far better than I. I'll give some vague praise to the UK banking system, because compared to the Australian system, they don't seem to want to charge you for everything - and I mean everything. Praise where it's due however, and I should give Citibank Australia some since I applied on Tuesday, and on Thursday my account is up and running.

Trying to explain to banks that you're not going to be where they think you are is challenging. A few months ago I tried to get a replacement card, as my card was due to expire when I was away. I figured I'd go through the pain of the cardswap while I was in the UK so I knew that I wasn't going to be left high and dry abroad. The operator didn't seem to understand that I could possibly want my card early, "we'll be automatically dispatching all cards due for replacement sometime in April". He also failed to place the order correctly so that it wasn't until a week later that I go a meek customer services call to inform me that the order wasn't placed. My old card was cancelled and eventually I got a new one.

Anyway, turns out the my beloved Citibank UK will sometimes accept my old card number, I'm guessing because it's "helpful". It was very helpful last week when I had a pointless 5 minute chat with an operator (at international roaming rates) only to be told I'd typed my old card number in (damn muscle memory) and that I would have to call back and re-enter it. Had the automated system rejected me that at the front of the call, I could have checked it and typed it in again. That is a apparently inconvenient for customers though, dragging them towards the transaction then declining them is a better experience.

Anyway, today I picked up my Citibank Australia card, not a totally useful Visa Debit card, that's gone back to Scotland and is lost in space. That card, which I will never see is cancelled and DOA. As and when I have an Australian address I can get a real card. But today I do have a bank account and they did issue me with a cashcard on the spot. And they even gave me the account number. Regarding this as progress, I sat down to log on to my internet banking for Citibank UK to transfer the money to the new account. This is free and instantaneous online. This financial umbilical was pretty much the reason I chose Citi, there's little else integration in the banks, and little real difference in the charging, just in how they are dressed up. (Mobile phone tarriffs anyone?)

I couldn't log onto Citibank UK internet banking. "Please enter you new card number" My first thought was "they've cancelled the wrong card, somehow they've cancelled the UK card". Got a balance from a cash machine. The card was still alive, so why couldn't I connect to the internet banking.

After calling and getting irritated at call centre, far more than I want to as I know they can't really help - I figured it out. Although you log into the internet banking with a username and password and personal data, that is just a front for your card number your Electronic PIN, which is of course not your Telephone PIN or the bog standard PIN. Once you've registered you're never asked for the ePin ever again.

What's happened is that, unbeknown to me, I've still been logging on with my old card into internet banking. It wasn't until today when the card (that was cancelled when I got the new one) actually expired that it stopped being valid. Which is very useful. I'm in a foreign country needing to enter a 6 digit number that I've not had to use in about 2 years since they introduced the new logon process which gave you a username and password.

There was no warning displayed on screen. No handy little "This is an expired card, please revalidate with your card and ePin" type messages. Do they not realise that asking people to enter a security number that you've not used in 2 years is a little hopeful. I don't keep PINs stored anywhere, because of you know security.

It's ok though, as on the first call, having had an ePIN dispatched to Scotland, I was told that "you can do anything you could do online over the phone as you still have your telephone-PIN." That's alright then, so i call back to add a payment to Australia.

As said before, if I do it online it's quick and free. Turns out if I do it over the telephone it becomes a bog-standard international transfer rather than an inter-citi, so will cost me 20 quid and take about 3-5 business days. As I was locked out I could have the transaction fee waved. But the time thing was still stuck. I walked to a cash machine, took some cash out, walked to a Post Office, paid the money in. I now have an Australian bank account with some balance.

While I'm glad that there is some grace with the card & online access (when they issue a new card they have to cancel the old), a couple of weeks would be more realistic than "until the card expires". And give me a damn warning on the interface, if you're going to hide a long forgotten ID from me, prod me that I might need to look it out/get issued with a reminder.

Apparently HSBC was founded by a Scotsman, one Thomas Sutherland. I'd heard this years ago, and the nickname Home to Scottish Banking Clerks. See, I'm Scottish, and my thoughts upon arriving in Hong Kong were not, "you know what, I'll form a banking empire that will eventually grow to be huge, only to undo itself slightly with a misplaced acquisition of a US sub-prime lender shortly before sub-prime goes really wrong." No, my thoughts have been "it's too hot I'm melting". Which I think is the correct response a Scotsman arriving here would have. Shorts have been bought, jackets have been ditched.

The presumed default now appears to be that as a tech-savvy person, if you're doing something big then you'll be blogging about it. And I assumed that I'd do similar on my grand trip around the world. But I don't think I will. In a boring bullet point style here's why:

a) Subject Matter: Middle class white-boy does at almost 30 what other people do the year before uni.

I think it kind of falls at the first hurdle. What exactly can I say that's new and inspiring. My thoughts on America were "oooh, everything really is big" and "skyscrapers are tall". Hardly inspiring sticky content. I can't help thinking that most other travel commentators have done that before and better.

b) I missed my window of opportunity

If i was going to do it, I should have started prior to America and SXSW. Starting now seems jarring, and as of Tuesday I've already left Japan for Hong Kong.

I'd have to install Wordpress, set up the blog, etc - and pride dictates I couldn't live with a default theme. Alas, my slightly rusty CSS and HTML skills mean it would take too long to set that up properly.

As an ongoing operational thing, most of my effort at the moment is about doing fun tourist things, essential things (like finding food that I can eat) and boring back-home things like juggling money. I'm not convinced I've the time to devote to this.

Also, when I arrive in Sydney I'm going to be working again, and that reduces my drive to write a lot.

c) Anything interesting is too personal to plaster over the internets.

"The emotions I felt sat on the Heathrow Express were the first time I realised that I was actually doing what I was doing..."

It's whiny EMO stuff. The internet already has enough of that. And I'd rather that I was associated too heavily with it either.

d) I don't actually write that well

My copy is full of flowery phrases and generally needs subbing with an axe. Until there's an online subbing service I can submit my work to for a reasonable fee, I'm stuck with that. Annoyingly I'm aware that my copy isn't that sharp, were I in blissful ignorance I could just publish and be damned.

e) I'm putting up photos on flickr

I'm a visual person, (I'm happiest explaining stuff with a bit of a3 paper and a pencil) and I take far better photos than I write words.