::Griffblog::

It’s January and that can only mean one thing, dieting. Last year I vowed to lose all the excess flab and start running again and it was a great success…..until Summer.

I stuck to a decent diet, took up running and managed to lose over 2st. I felt great and looked OK in a T-Shirt for the first time since my army days.

I’d seen all the TV shows and magazine stories about yo-yo dieting but was determined not to fall foul of that mistake. With the summer holiday to Turkey booked I even packed running gear.

And that’s where it all started to fall apart. Despite all the best intentions, the diet went out of the window and whilst I did exercise whilst I was on hols, I also ate far too much and when I came home I went to the gym less and in the end the diet went out of the window completely and the running stopped.

So here I am, one year on. I am still 1st lighter than this time last year so it’s not all bad news but I’m going to try again. Hopefully I can get back up to speed with the running faster this time, and I started the diet today. Starting weight is 15st 2lbs, there, I’ve committed it to the blog, no turning back now.

My ideal weight, if you believe the various calculations, should be 11st 11lbs, but, at a smidgeon over 6ft I’d look ridiculously scrawny were I ever to achieve that. So I’m aiming for a more realistic 13st.

The plan is to run three times per week and alternate with visits to the gym on another three and one day off.

Wish me luck and I’ll post back to let you know how it goes.

My last post on the subject of my ilizarov op was last November. At the time I wrote that I had begun attending a gym and was well on the way to full recovery.

So what’s happened in the 8 months since then? I’m still a very keen gym user, I go three days per week whenever possible. I’ve even got into ‘spinning’ which is the high intensity bike exercise class. I went on a diet after New Year and have, so far, lost more than 2st.

I’ve also started running. I had to wait 12mths after the frame was removed to be sure that the new bone was strong enough before impact sports such as running. Because it has been so long since I did any form of running (other than dashing across a busy road) it was suggested that the ‘Couch to 5k’ programme may be worth a go.

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I’ve been following the progress of Adonit ever since they launched their Writer project on Kickstarter. Although I already have a ZAGGMate keyboard it’s not perfect, it doesn’t protect the iPad fully and is a little cumbersome to deploy.

When I first saw Adonit’s solution it seemed to be much closer to my ideal. A folding BlueTooth Keyboard combined into a clever folio style design that allows for screen angle adjustment , easy removal and full protection when closed. But, by the time Adonit had launched Writer for iPad, I had upgraded to an iPad 2 and so I was forced to wait a little longer whilst they re-tooled.

And so I was delighted to hear that they were pulling out all the stops and to get the iPad2 version into production in as quickly as possible. It launched last week, I placed my order and 4-days later I received it. Not bad considering it was shipped from Taiwan and our beloved Royal Mail struggle to deliver my first class post in the same time frame. Another very pleasant surprise was that Adonit charged a flat $35.00 for UK shipping with no extra fees and no nasty customs bill.

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I’ve long been a hobby photographer. Aside from the need to take photographs for the day job, I enjoy photography as a hobby.

My first ever ‘proper’ camera was a Zenit E, which gives my age away. Built like a Russian tank, large, heavy, basic but reliable and perfectly capable of capturing great images when in the right hands.

Fast forward to the digital age and my camera collection more recently included a Nikon D70, one of the first affordable consumer DSLRs, and two Canon compacts, an iXUS 65 which pulls duty as the holiday camera and a TX1 which was bought as a camcorder replacement.

But none are ideal. The D70 is too big and heavy. You can’t use it without looking like a paparazzi. It also has a small, low-res LCD and a, now meagre, 6MP resolution.

The TX1 was bought in Hong Kong and promised 1080i HD video in a compact camera that was equally capable in snapshot mode. Despite its superb optical zoom, it wasn’t great, the from factor was too small for video and not ideal for stills.

That leaves the iXUS 65. That has always been a great camera. It was one of the first to eschew an optical viewfinder in favour of a large rear mounted LCD and despite only having 6MP, the images stand the test of time. I bought a waterproof case for it and it’s our default holiday camera. We have some superb pictures taken snorkelling off a boat in Turkey and in the pool in various places.

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I’vc been lucky enough to see the International Space Station (ISS) pass over the UK a few times.  Once you know where to look and when it’s quite easy.

But until now I have never photographed it.  I recently upgraded to a Panasonic GF1 Micro 4/3rds camera (more on that later) and so, armed with some advice about the best exposure settings I planned to try a photo.

I follow @twisst on Twitter. They send you a Tweet each time the ISS is scheduled to pass overhead of the location you have set in your Twitter profile and so this evening I was forewarned that it would be visible at 17:33.

So I grabbed my camera and tripod and set up.  Typically I had forgotten to switch off Auto Focus and so, by the time I had the settings correct it was already half way across the skies.  Even so, it turned out OK and I’ll set up earlier and make sure I’m better prepared when it passes over again tomorrow.

In the image below, using a 40s exposure you can just about see the trail of the ISS as it passes behind the tree.