So much for the January blues…

Wow. It’s been a busy (but good) month. After a really good Christmas break, January started off getting back into the swing all things OuterArc. We launched Telewatts about two weeks ago, our web-based renewable energy display, aimed at the promotion of energy generated from solar panels and wind turbines. A big thanks to everyone that helped critique the site once it went live.

I also did a video interview (see below) with Nottingham based social media guru Phil Campbell. We talked about Telewatts and the background of OuterArc. Phil is a cool guy who’s involved in lots of different things including fibrecamp and his one year, live-in social media experiment, the living ark. Check them both out, you can also follow Phil on Twitter here.

What else have I been up to? Well, I’m continuing with my Spanish lessons and I’m really enjoying it as something different to challenge myself with. I’ve found a little bit of practice/study between the lessons has really helped as well as listening to the Rocket Spanish audio lessons.

I also went to the Escape the City Winter Party in London. It was a really entertaining night, all the speakers relayed the difficulties they had faced during their journeys and underlined the importance of persistence and never giving up. You can seem a summary of the points they made in this post on the Escape the City blog.

I took another trip down to London to catch up with my fellow first footers from Tribewanted Sierra Leone. It was great to see everyone again and catch up with Susan before she ventured back out to the shores of John Obey. Unfortunately Susan wasn’t able to take the football kit I lugged down on the train to donate to the village boys but, I’m assured it will be heading out there with Cally and Mike in April.

After a day with the TribeWanted guys, I caught up with some old university friends who I hadn’t seen in ages. We had a good laugh and a catch up, it’s was interesting to hear how the guys are getting on in the big corporates while I’m beavering away in a small start up.

Homeward Bound

Club Escape, Rembrandtplein, Amsterdam

A visit to Amsterdam wouldn't be complete without a visit to the amazing Club Escape - great soundsystem and visuals

After spending last weekend in Amsterdam with some friends and a busy week working on things at OuterArc, I’m heading home, back to Stanbridge, to see my parents, friends and to chill out for a couple of days.

I like going home. Everything feels familiar, quiet and just as I left it. It’s also a chance to get out of the city, with it’s throngs of people and wailing police sirens. Don’t get me wrong, I love living right in the centre of Nottingham but, every now and then I welcome a break to the leisurely pace of village life.

As well as catching up with everyone, I’m looking forward to doing some reading (I’m currently reading ‘Shantaram‘ and it’s fantastic – some of the best fiction writing I’ve read) and maybe, finally, to start watching Mad Men.

Here’s to a good weekend and a bit of downtime.

– PS. OuterArc won an innovation award last week which I got to collect, read more about it on the OuterArc blog