Month completed: February 2010

The common phrase about wine is that it gets better with age.

I think the same thinking applies to wine appreciation. Only with age have I started to appreciate wine properly. Growing up, it was all about beer or spirits (Bundy and coke was a popular combination), but I am starting to enjoy a bottle of wine instead when the occasion arises.

I am a fan of all varieties, but wanted to know a little more. So last weekend, Nat and I, and two of our friends (Mark and Christina) popped along to a free wine appreciation course run by Majestic Wines in London.

We tried a range of wines, mostly from France and Chile, learnt how to inspect the wine for quality, smell the wine properly, taste the wine properly, and tried the wines with a range of different foods to see which foods complement which wines.

We also had to guess the retail price of each wine we were drinking, which we all failed miserably.

All in all, it was a good session, with all of us leaving a little inebriated but a little more learned in the fine art of wine-tasting.

p.s. Pinot noir is my favourite, followed closely by a nice fruity riesling.

Month completed: February 2010

One of the accessories we sell at work is a microphone adaptor that works with the iPod touch.

Just plug one end into the iPod, and plug the other end into your iPod headphones, and hey presto, you now have an iPod touch with a microphone, which means you can start making calls (using our iPod calling application!). Read more about it here.

To help sell a few of these, I have just done a trial using eBay. Here’s a snippet of the listing.

In the past I have used eBay only to buy things (books mainly) so I was keen to see how it would go.

I was quite amazed by the results.

Within a few weeks all the adaptors I put up were sold, and people were still asking for more. All this with very little effort from me, apart from setting it up.

One thing that surprised me was the keenness of buyers to get feedback from me. Almost as soon as they had paid, many of the buyers contacted me wanting feedback. Which is fine, and given they were all good buyers I was happy to give them all positive feedback.

When I move back home from London in a few years, I will definitely use eBay to  sell (get rid of) my valuable household items (useless junk) that I have lovingly accumulated (hoarded for way too long)!.

A lot has changed since I started my list (living in London, having a British driver’s license and being engaged to the long-suffering Nat are just a few of them).

I wrote my list back in 2007, which seems like a lifetime ago.

And looking at the list now, some of the goals that I wanted to achieve back then, no longer hold an interest for me now.

So with spring just around the corner, I felt it was time for a bit of a Project 183 Spring Clean.

Here is what I have decided to remove:

- Goal 5: Get into the ‘excellent’ fitness range at the gym (I am not longer obsessed with being extremely fit – a healthy level of fitness will suffice)

- Goal 40: See the new seven wonders of the world (Right now, my interest is more in the delights that Europe has to offer than places like Jordan)

- Goal 51: Go to at least 20 bars from the Melbourne Bar Secrets card pack (Being in London, this one is now a bit un-realistic, plus I am someone who is happier in pubs than bars anyway)

- Goal 52: See 50 of the bottom 100 IMDB movies (Why would I want to waste my time watching bad movies!)

- Goal 53: Read every Jeffrey Deaver novel (As much as I love Deaver, I want to find new authors that might be just as terrific)

- Goal 59: Stay at a B&B in Daylesford (Bit out of reach given my current location, and there are plenty of great B&Bs that Nat and I have been to in Aus and England already, so it wouldn’t be anything very new)

- Goal 77: Win a hand of poker at the Crown Casino in Melbourne (I already have the same goal, at Las Vegas, so no point doubling up)

- Goal 83: Take more photos and store them online (Since setting this goal, the invent of Facebook has made this goal redundant. Certainly Nat and I have taken many photos of our trips so far though, but I won’t count it)

- Goal 91: Go to the Yarra Glen races (I did do this many years ago, and wanted to go again, but I figure that I should remove this goal in place of something that I haven’t done before)

- Goal 111: Dye my hair for World’s Greatest Shave (This doesn’t seem to be done in London)

- Goal 124: Go to 30 Melbourne restaurants I have never been to before (Could change Melbourne to London, and Nat and I are trying new restaurants here each month, but I am not keeping a tally)

- Goal 152: Do a short course in Latin (Why did I put this on the list? I am not going to Latinia!)

- Goal 173: Watch every Rocky movie (I will still do this at some stage, but there are much better things to have on the list)

So that is 13 goals struck off the list, and I needed 13 new goals to replace them with. Based on suggestions that readers of this blog have suggested, and taking a few more of my own, here are 12 replacements:

- Do a bike maintenance course (I am having really problems changing my Brompton’s tyre)

- Fly in a jet fighter

- Successfully land a backflip

- Go to Iceland and soak in the thermal springs

- See the Northern Lights

- Play in a tennis tournament

- Get dirty at La Tomatina

- Read books by five authors I have never read before

- Complete a marathon

- Go to the London Olympics

- Learn how to use Photoshop properly

- Go bungee jumping

The last one is not yet decided – if you have a suggestion, let me know.

Month completed: February 2010

One of the main reasons I started Project 183 was to try out a whole bunch of new activities and see if I discovered any that could become great hobbies for me to keep enjoying for many years.

So far, I have found a few that were OK, but that I have no real interest in continuing (such as ninjutsu).

Last weekend, I discovered one that I will definitely be continuing with – bridge.

I took a two day course over Saturday and Sunday called ‘Learn to play bridge in a weekend’. Seven hours both days, including a three hour tournament at the end of the second day, was enough for me to realise that bridge is something I want to keep going with.

It is a great thinking game with tactics galore and with a constant risk/reward tightrope to be walked. Plus, it is a really social game that can be enjoyed by all ages (our course had 21 people, who aged from 20 to 70, and everything in between).

I am now planning to join the Canary Wharf Bridge Club, which plays each Wednesday night. And I can’t wait to get started.

For any bridge player out there who is interested, I played a weak one no trumps. If you want to play a game with me and you are in London, let me know.