Month completed: April 2012

For some odd reason, I like flags.

Partly because of the importance a flag holds to the citizens of that country, and partly because I like how a seemingly simple design can mean so much once you learn a bit more about it.

Despite liking flags, and having several favourites, I never actually got round to learning some of the more obscure ones.

Recently, I received a set of flag flashcards from my sister so decided now was the time to start learning the flags of every country by heart.

After a few weeks of practice, going through the deck over and over, I now have them pretty much mastered.

Here is my video running through them as quickly as possible as proof. Did I get any wrong? You’ll have to watch to find out.

After properly going through the flags now, here are my three favourites.

1. ALBANIA: It is more like a coat of arms than a flag. You could imagine it on a shield in battle. The eagle on the flag comes from an old Albanian folk tale, where it watches faithfully over the king.

2. NAMIBIA: Mainly because it is just so colourful and vibrant, and all the pieces hold different meanings. For example, the red represents what Namibia considers its most important resource – its people.

3. BELARUS: The ornamental pattern on the left is so unique and intricate, it seems like a magnificent rug rather than a flag.

If you also have an interest in flags, I would suggest checking out World Flags 101 for more information.

Month completed: April 2012

Many years ago, I watched Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

For anyone who has seen it, you will probably remember the scene where Indi and his female companion are served up a meal of monkey brains. This, for me, is about the most extreme food you could eat.

So that is why trying brain was put on the list.

Recently, it was mentioned to me that eating brain might not be such a healthy idea.

Further research on Wikipedia reveals the following:

“Brain consumption can result in contracting fatal transmissible spongiform encephalopathies such as Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other prion diseases in humans.”

Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease is a degenerative brain neurological disorder that leads to rapidly progressive dimentia, speech impairements and a range of other issues. It is incurable, and often fatal.

In other words – not a great outcome of eating brain.

So, I quickly decided that this might not be the best goal to attempt. Until I came up with another way to literally try brain.

Here is the receipt to prove it – see the second item down (click for the bigger version).

While in Cardiff, I sampled one of their local brews, known as Brains, thus achieving the goal of trying brains.

So yes, although you may cringe and say I cheated, I say that I simply found a non-fatal way to technically achieve a goal.

And with quite a few to go, and just 11 months, I need all the help I can get!

Month completed: March 2012

I am fortunate to work at a company that prides itself on giving back to society, and employees regular give up time to help out at one of a number of different charities.

One of these charities is Ronald McDonald House Charities, which was started in the late 1980s and is established in many countries, including Australia. The basic premise of the charity is that they have big houses set up very close to hospitals (particularly children’s hospitals) to allow family members to stay close to their loved ones during treatment.

To sum up – a very, very worthy charity that makes life a little easier during one of the toughest times in a family’s life.

One thing the charity finds is that most families stop eating properly, because they don’t have the time or energy to cook a meal.

So last week, about ten people from our team spent the afternoon at the Ronald McDonald House near London Bridge, with the job of cooking a three-course meal for the guests of the house.

We were split in three groups (starters, mains and desserts – I was on dessert duty), and told to make two different dishes for each course that could feed an army. We cooked up a delicious chocolate brownie and apple and blackberry crumble, and there were chicken pies, lasagne, and more bruschetta than you could poke a spatula at.

All the ingredients were paid for by our company, and after about five hours of slaving we had a feast fit for a king. We left before everyone started to come and eat, but really hope they enjoyed their meals.

Hearing the stories from the staff about the difficulties faced by families was really heart-breaking, and this charity has a personal meaning to me as it was a charity that my parents used when my little sister was in hospital in Melbourne several years ago.

It felt really good to do something for someone else, and it was also good to work on something outside of work with work colleagues too. All in all, a really nice goal to complete.

Month completed: March 2012

Sometimes in order to achieve something, you have to be willing to change the way you planned to achieve it.

This goal is a good example.

As you can tell from the title, the goal was to fly in a jet fighter, but as you will see below that is not exactly what happened.

When I left my previous employment, everyone pitched in and bought me a 30 minute flying lesson in a light aircraft as a leaving gift, and declared that it would count for this goal.

And I thought ‘Why not?’ – I will still experience the thrill of flying in a small plane, and this way I actually get to fly it too.

So last weekend Nat and I went down to Bournemouth, and on a brilliantly sunny England day we went to Bournemouth airfield.

Here I am, shortly before takeoff. I was a little nervous, but excited too.

And now in front of the Cessna 150, ready to get going. Steve, the co-pilot for the flight, was a 20-year-old, which didn’t fill me with too much confidence (he proved to be a natural though). I feel old, thinking about someone of 20 years of age being so young!

This is the view from up above. We were really lucky with the weather, and had the opportunity to fly over water as well, which was brilliant (there was even some slight turbulence at one point too, just to make the flight even more interesting).

Once we were up in the air, I got to take full control of the plane, try out steering, drifting, and generally getting a good feel for how sensitive the plane was. I was surprised at how little you need to shift the main control to make the plane shift direction.

I wasn’t in control of the plane at this point, of course. You can see that behind me, there is pretty much nothing but a bit of room for a suitcase or two.

As one final piece of excitement before we landed, we had to abort our first landing because a bigger plane wanted to land too. Nevertheless, Steve managed to get us down safely (ably supervised by me of course!).

It was a great experience, and one I would love to do again, but at £100-£150 for an hour session, that is just a bit too steep to take up as a hobby.

But feel free to call me Maverick next time you see me anyway.

Month completed: March 2012

I thought I would get the last 12 months off to a quick start, and in the spirit of focusing on tasks that have the most importance and meaning, I thought writing a will would be a perfect one to do first.

Here’s what I did:

- Found a reputable online do-it-yourself will maker

- Completed all the relevant steps (only took about half an hour, and was really quite straightforward)

- Paid the £35 legal fees (which made me feel like it was legitimate)

- Received an email with the final will attached

- Got the signatures on the will from two non-family members

Now I have a legal last will and testament, and all I need to do is find a good spot to store it. I guess this is where I need a real lawyer perhaps.

It feels good to have my wishes written down, and it was an interesting process to think about too. Well worth doing.

Month completed: January 2012

Despite having grown up riding push bikes (and riding to work for the past two years), I have never learnt how to properly maintain my bike.

Even for basics like fixing a puncture I would have to take it down to the repair shop to get fixed.

That is really ridiculous, and fortunately for Christmas I received from my sister a voucher to do an all-day bike maintenance course, which I completed yesterday.

On the course I learnt:

• How to get both the back and front wheels off my bike (not easy with the Brompton bike I own)
• How to fix a puncture
• How to adjust the seat and what the rule of thumbs are for adjusting the seat
• What the brake pads and cables and gear cables are and how to replace them
• What parts of the bike need to be cleaned regularly (the moving parts basically), and how to clean them
• What I need in my bike toolkit

We all got our hands very dirty, and the course involved basically pulling our own bikes apart and putting them back together.

I was surprised at how straightforward most of the tasks were (particularly replacing brake pads, as anyone who knows how to do it will agree), and now feel a new sense of appreciation for how my bike has been put together.

And a new sense of confidence that when I go for a ride, I can now fend for myself if something goes wrong.

For anyone in London interested in doing the same course as me (I would recommend it) head to the Cycle Training UK website.

Image via

Month completed: January 2012

This is the penultimate year of the project, and although with 90-odd goals to go it looks unlikely I will complete everything (that trip to Antarctica is looking less and less likely), I am going to keep trying to knock off as many as I can.

This goal is the first of the year to be achieved, and one that I have been meaning to cross off for ages.

Before you ask, no I didn’t complete a cryptic crossword. They are just impossible (and I am always shocked if I can even get one answer when I try doing one of them).

What I completed was the General Knowledge crossword at the back of today’s Independent newspaper. Here’s the proof (click for the full-size version).

I will admit to using the Internet to try and find some of the answers, but I don’t see a problem with that. Unless you are some kind of super genius, are you really going to know the 3-letter word for an aromatic Eurasian shrub with small yellow flowers and evergreen leaves which yield an acrid volatile oil, formerly used medicinally?

I sure didn’t, but by researching to find the answers to the clues, I now know that it is rue, and my brain is full of many other pieces of general knowledge I wouldn’t have otherwise known.

Not sure I will be converting from sudoku anytime soon though.

Month completed: December 2011

We Are What We Do is a not-for-profit organisation whose main purpose is encouraging people to make behavioural changes that benefit the wider community.

One of their initiatives is a book called ‘Change the world for a fiver‘, which is a collection of simple things that anyone can do to make a positive difference.

A great initiative indeed, and so I thought it would be great to do five things from the book (there are 50 things in total).

Here’s what I did:

1. I donated my spare change

I took all my copper coins down to a Coinstar machine at Sainsbury’s. It was quite a heavy bag. The receipt tells the story. 631 coins for a grand total of £14.49 (might not sound a lot, but imagine if everyone donated that much).

After you put in all the coins, and the final tally is calculated, you have the option to take the money as bigger denominations or donate to one of several different charities. I went for the latter option. My reward was just getting rid of those 600+ pesky coins!

2. I recycled my old clothing

I am a hoarder by nature. Old clothes, even ones that I haven’t worn for years, and don’t fit anymore, I tend to hold on to (you never know when they might be needed!).

So I decided this would be a very useful one to do (albeit a bit painful). Two garbage bags worth of clothes were taken down to our local charity shop, hopefully to find a nice second home.

3. I became an organ donor

One of the good things about the book is that it doesn’t suggest what you could do, but how you should do it too. If you want to become an organ donor too, here’s the UK link and here’s the Australian link.

4. I wrote to two people who have inspired me

In fact, I not only wrote to them, I also interviewed them this blog. Kyle MacDonald (aka the One Red Paperclip guy) and Sean Ogle are two people that have created something from nothing, and anyone who has the drive to do that is inspiring in my book.

5. I fill up the kettle less

In the past, I was a bit tap-happy when filling up the kettle, meaning I boiled way more water than necessary. I now much much more of a conscious effort to just fill it to the level required and no more.

As you can see, the tasks aren’t particular difficult, and you have probably done several of the 50 in the book already.

A few others included paying extra at a charity shop, learning basic first aid, and spending a day with the elderly.

My suggestion to you – grab a copy of the book and see if you can do them all.

Month completed: December 2011

This is a goal I have been looking forward to for a while, but just hadn’t gotten around to it.

Fortunately for me Buyruk from Istanbul got in touch, said that it was on his bucket list too, and suggested we do it together next time he was in London.

What is geocaching?

Around the world, unbeknownst to most people (known in the geocaching world as muggles), there are millions of caches (little treasures, which could be as small as a film cannister or as big as a 5 gallon drum) hidden. The aim is to find them using clues and a GPS device.

Here’s a short video that explains the activity perfectly.

Getting started

I downloaded the official Geocaching Android app, which is really all that was needed to get started as it used my phone’s in-built GPS.

Then it is just a simple case of going through the list of caches nearby and deciding which one to try and find. Fortunately around my area in London (Islington) there are plenty of caches available.

Each cache has a difficulty, from 1 to 5, based on how small it is, how difficult it is to reach, how good the GPS coverage is in the area and a few other factors. The first one we went for was 3 out of 5 in difficulty, which was probably a bit of a leap for a first cache.

The hunt begins with success

After navigating to within a couple of metres of where the compass was saying the cache was hiding, and using the hint (each cache description includes a hint, to make life a little easier), we had a reasonable clue of where the cache was. But alas, it was nowhere to be found.

15 minutes of searching through leaves, gardens and under rocks, we finally found it! The cache was very cleverly hidden, and the feeling of finding it was very exciting.

It was a medium sized cache, and contained a range of random items. The rule is that you put a small item in, and take another out ready to put into the next cache you find.

Each cache also contains a log, for you to leave your name as a record of being amongst those to have discovered the cache. You can also log your find within the app too, which is good as it shows everyone else that the cache is still in play and hasn’t been displaced or stolen.

After finding and logging, it is important to put it back as you found it, for the next person to enjoy. Also important is to do the whole process with as much stealth as possible, to prevent the muggles from snooping and potentially messing with the cache.

Looking for more

After tasting our first success, Buyruk and I wanted more.

With lots of caches nearby, we ended up finding 6 more caches in the following few hours. The cache locations took us to a 500 year old church, the Islington Electricity Department, a quiet little river path, and even a shopfront where a nano cache (about the size of a fingernail) was hidden.

Here we are after a 10 minute search through some thick ivy to find a cache (I can only wonder what people walking past us must have been thinking).

4 of the 7 caches we found were in 35mm film cannisters, which seem to be the most common type. Generally they are magnetised to something metallic (like a gate), and contain just a log book to sign. Here I am with one of them.

Apart from discovering the caches, one of the great things about geocaching is exploring parts of the world that you might not otherwise have. Here I am in front of the 500 year old church that I never knew about, but is literally a 10 minute walk from my house. It is amazing what there is right on your doorstep.

Final verdict

The whole point of Project 183 is to identify new hobbies that I would like to pursue in the long-term. Surfing has become one of them, and I will definitely add geocaching to that list now too.

It is the perfect low-commitment, low-investment activity that you can play anywhere, with others or on your own. In fact, just today I went out at lunch time with a few colleagues and find two cheeky caches no more than 5 minutes from our office.

A world full of little hidden treasures – what an amazing concept. Definitely one to add to your list.

Month completed: October 2011

You may think that rock paper scissors (RPS) is just a game of luck. But for some, it is more than that. It is an ultimate battle of nerves and a game of trying to out-think your opponent.

Each year around the world, national RPS championships are held to determine the nation’s best player. I was out of the country last year, so missed my opportunity, but was determined to compete this year.

Last night in London the competition was held, a knockout competition that started with 128 competitors, and 7 rounds later finished with one champion. Games are played as first to two wins for the first few rounds, and then more wins in the later rounds.

I spent the week studying different gambits (three move combinations), read the stats on which move gets played most and least (scissors is the least common), and decided on my opening move – scissor sandwich.

In the first round, I went up to play my opponent, and they never turned up (they were no doubt intimidated). I won the match by default.

In the second round, I had the unfortunate position of playing the referee. I stuck with Scissor sandwich (and then planned to follow it if need be with Crescendo – paper, then scissors, then rock).

My opponent was evidently a big fan of scissors though. He played scissors, scissors, rock, scissors and all of a sudden I was out 2-1, my dreams of being UK champion dashed for another 12 months.

Strangely, it was actually kind of a nerve-wracking experience.

You can see me trying to keep myself cool just prior to battle.

Here I am in battle, just before my close defeat.

Nat came along to watch, and was giving me psych-out vibes because she wanted to go home. Nothing like having your own cheer squad cheering for you to lose!

It was definitely a fun thing to do though, and I will be back in 2012 to try and claim the title. Probably not with the Scissor sandwich though!