Earth Hour

I've just been reading about earth hour. It's basically where you turn all your electric lights off, to prove to the world that you are serious about saving the planet.

I like the idea. And there seems to be a lot of people joining in. The first example being the Sydney Harbour bridge going dark at 20:30 (Australia time).

I am worried though. I saw a documentary on television not so long ago, detailing the precision required to keep a constant power supply to any given area, taking into account when people wake up, go to sleep, turn their kettles on during Coronation street, mowing the lawn etc. And they have to match the output to the demand, otherwise the result, on both extremes could be 'Blackout', if the demand exceeds the supply, or electricity being wasted, for the opposite reason. And if electricity is being wasted, then this means that the planet is being abused, with no benefit to it's inhabitants (us).

In other words, I hope that us turning of our lights doesn't trigger the most inefficient day in the history of electricity production!!!

Problems aside, I have been practising for my big switch off, at 2030 (GMT). I am currently in my spare room, at my computer. The only light on in the house is my desk light. Please see the pictures (above), to show how I will be working during my Earth Hour.

(Please note: I have been unable to switch off my camera's flash, and therefore the red haze which can be seen on the wall, is the light from the flash passing through my finger, which is covering the flash)

I'm an uncle now!!!

As posted earlier, my thoughts were a little unclear about how I felt about becoming an uncle.

The results are to the right:

Am I an Old Dog?

Following my recent surge into extreme Internet use, I have become very interested in building a website, writing code, and other such things that would be common place in the land of Geek!

As explained earlier, I am comfortable now with becoming a geek, and feel like I should embrace it, but in the background of my mind all I can think is, 'You can't teach an old dog new tricks'. Am I an old dog?

I am 29 years old, 30 in October. I graduated with a third class degree in chemistry 7 years ago, and since then have been restaurant manager for 5 years, and Technical Manager (Quality control etc) for the last 2. Am I too late to be jumping on the information technology 'Band Wagon'? Should I spend my evenings learning how to build websites and how to write code in C++?

On one hand I figure that even if it turns out that any new computing skills will never be used productively, then at least I could say that I'm learning. Growing!!
I foolishly bought a domain on Friday, richthemexican.co.uk, and now I have no idea what the hell I'm going to put on it. It seems that I jumped in, with my eyes closed, as now it seems that although I have the domain name, and simple email for that domain, I will have to pay to host it somewhere.

And this is my point! If I don't know these things already, am I too old to learn? Will I keep making decisions that will then back fire on me? I see the likes of Robert Scoble, (a man who I knew nothing about before I started tweeting) and his new job starting 'Building 43', and I just think, 'Why can't I do something like that?' There's such a great variety of ways of making money, on the Internet, but of course you need the right product. Can I supply the right product for the masses, and market it from richthemexican.co.uk?

I'm not sure! I guess I'll find out though, cos I find myself playing on the Internet now when my other half has gone to bed, and it seems to be website building that I'm searching, and not porn!

I guess all I can do is give it a go. Who knows? I might just get it right and make some money.