Tim’s stag weekend was great fun, although when it came to go home I felt strangely depressed. The poker, which I had been greatly looking forward to, went very badly. I enjoyed being at the poker table with friends but I was knocked out very early. I’d like to say it was of the bad cards I was dealt but I think I was (and am) impatient and the alcohol probably didn’t help. Lessons to be learnt I’m sure. The problem is that while I like the idea of poker I just don’t get much chance to play and without experience I’m just not going to get any better.
I got to play golf for the first time ever and sucked fairly badly, although I managed six on two consecutive par three holes, so perhaps all is not lost. Most of the times things went badly wrong I just wasn’t concentrating and I think that came from expecting to do badly in the first place. On the few occasions I concentrated and relaxed at the same time I got a lot better. The rest of the time I got play the jolly loser, something I’ve had a degree of practice at. Turns out I’m quite competitive, which isn’t much fun for someone lacking in natural aptitude.
Anyway, enough moaning — it was fun but just over too soon. Perhaps the brevity coupled with too high expectations was where the sadness came from. Now looking forward to the wedding a whole lot. Hmm… must adjust expectations!
I had a couple of interesting conversations. Richard has joined the world of death-by-email. One technique I’m experimenting with to deal with the email fire-hose at work is to use the automatic formatting rules in Outlook to colour grey all emails I’m only copied on. This has an amazing effect, as my brain now regularly skips over all the grey emails. It’s as if they’re not there! The second step is to colour green (red is a bit too alarming, blue too close to black) all emails sent only to me. These have a much higher likelihood of requiring action from me. Together these let me monitor for important emails during the day and I can then deal with the chaff in bulk during a quiet moment when I first get in. Seems to be working so far.
Tags: friends