Alternatively, it’s entirely possible that I’m just lazy and/or easily distracted.
I started this blog intending to record all the various things I was studying, due to a lack of technical challenge at work. Things didn’t really go as planned. A lot has happened in the almost 3 years(!) since I’ve last published a post here; however two things in particular stand out.
Firstly: new job. In May 2010, I joined Google Dublin as a network engineer. The first couple of months were equal parts exhilarating:
“Wow, that’s cool!”
and terrifying:
“Wait, what? I’m on-call for that?!”
Both of those reactions still occur on a semi-regular basis.
A vastly more stimulating work environment meant that I was spending more time at work, and I was learning enough that I didn’t feel the need to push my self study as hard, and hence didn’t have a reason to be writing blog posts. The last 3 years at Google have been an absolutely fantastic experience.
The second thing… well. The second thing essentially involves me taking leave of my senses.
Before being hired by Google I was pondering taking a couple of months of leave from the old job to do something different, having never done the gap year/travelling thing. One of the things that I looked at was sailing, since after spending time in the Royal Naval Reserve while at university, I missed spending time at sea. During my pondering, I found out about the Clipper Round the World yacht race; those of you in London have probably seen posters in tube/train stations at some point. I sent out for an application form, thinking about doing a leg or two in the 2011-2012 race. Then Google came along, and I promptly forgot all about it.
Fast forward to two years later, and Clipper sent me an email about the 2013-2014 race. Fair enough, says I. After a bit of thinking, I applied and was interviewed (more on that in another post hopefully), and after setting foot on one of the Clipper 68s, I decided to go all in and do the full circumnavigation in 2013-2014.
As I said. Taking leave of my senses.
A lot more has happened since then; there has been training, theory courses, recreational sailing in Dublin, finally meeting my crew last month, preparing to move back to the UK… those will all (hopefully) be covered separately.
I’ve been incredibly lax about journalling what’s been going on, which I’m sure I’ll regret later. Better late than never, I suppose. The plan is to record everything that’s going on in the run up to the race here. I’ll try and intersperse some stuff about the earlier stages of this adventure, but my memory being what it is, those posts will probably be somewhat lacking on detail. Bah.
85 days and counting…