Ermmm Ok....

I appear to have joined the Wallace Society.
First thing I did was buy the book For Freedom: The Last Days of William Wallace. Sat down to read a chapter, and when I put it down I was halfway through it.  Great read.

The thing that makes this whole episode remarkable is that I was never one for history when I was at school.  This is possibly down to the fact that despite being Scottish and living in Scotland, all the history lessons were based on English history - battle of Hastings, The Great Plague, Fire of London etc.

So, here's to reading some non-fiction for a change.

Joe Satriani must be shitting himself by now.

Because I've had three (count em, three) guitar lessons.

Seriously though, nice (ok awesome) as it would be to be a fraction as good as Joe (guitar God in my eyes), I'll be happy just to be able to play some pub rock type stuff.  Anything more than that is an absolute bonus.

I'm liking the group lessons, which is weird, as I thought I'd hate them.  Let's face it, who want's to show how crap they are at something in front of a group of total strangers?  But it's not like that at all.  Everyone is in the same boat, and it's a pretty laid back atmosphere.  No-one is stressing yet.

The last of this group of lessons is this Saturday, so it's time to man up and book another block.  Not exactly a chore though, as I'm really enjoying it.

Still messing up my head

So we're onto week four of the philosophy course, and it's still enjoyable.  If week one was a bit brain melting, then weeks two and three picked up the sludge from week one and whisked it in a blender.
Saying that, I got 100% for the week two assessment, and 60 for week two.  You get to take them a maximum of three times, and your score is the highest from the three attempts.  Pass mark is 50%.  Well, 60% was fine for me, as the week three stuff was seriously out there.  Makes me wonder what the hell week four has is store!

I've also had my second guitar lesson, and that is loads of fun.  It's a group lesson, and the first week there were only four of us, but this week there was seven, including a teenager who can play a bit, and was being a typical "look at me" teenager.  When the teacher was talking, he was doing what he obviously thought was cool wee flashy riffs, but he got pulled up by one of the others who said he couldn't hear the teacher, and then the teacher commented on the fact that his technique wasn't as good as he obviously thought it was, and that he should stop trying to be flash by playing fast, and concentrate on playing properly.
He doesn't seem to be a bad kid, just a typical teenager trying to show off a bit.

Other than that, not a lot happening that's worthy of comment here.

What is philosophy?

If I ever find out, I'll let you know.

I've just started an online introduction to philosophy, from Edinburgh University.  Real life had got in the way, and as a result, I ended up watching the whole of the first week's video lectures in one sitting.  Not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, and by the time I finished, I felt like I was tripping!

So, two videos have been posted for week two - I don't know if that's all there's going to be - so I'll make a start tonight, and try to keep up.  I've also been having a nosey on the forums, but as yet, there's nothing that I feel compelled to comment on, so I'll have to wait and see.

Other than that, I recovered from week one's video-thon by playing my first game of Zombie Dice.  Loads of fun, and got me grounded again.

Life, the Universe and Rock n Roll

Things are looking up.  Work-wise it's getting more varied, and more interesting.
The other day I was doing some electronics for the first time in about 20 years.  OK it was a very basic digital circuit, but do you know, I really enjoyed it.

Yesterday I started working through a tutorial for a bit of software that simulates instruments, that you can then connect to circuits/devices, and either get inputs from the devices or output to the devices, as it acts as an instrument simulation.  Today I've spent most of the day installing it on my desktop, so I don't have to be in the lab to work through the tutorials. (Yes, it took a couple of hours to instal!!)

Apparently there's also going to be the chance to do some C++ programming, so I'll get to learn that.  This is pretty cool.  I did some programming during my degree (TurboPascal, BASIC and C) and really enjoyed it, so this should be pretty good.  Challenging, but good.

In non-work news, I've booked a block of 4 beginners guitar lessons.  This will apparently lead on to a block of 10, once they get organised better.  It starts a week on Saturday (9th).  The only problem with that is that there's an all day karate course on that day, so it means I'll only be able to attend in the morning.  I was kind of hoping there was a chance to get graded, but I guess that won't happen if I'm only there for half the day.  Swings and roundabouts.